Today has been the most relaxing day I’ve had in a while.  Spent cuddled and huddled next to my Aunt in my pajamas watching movies all day.  I love days like today.  Love, love, love.  I got home last night from Medicine Hat, but I’ll write a post about that later once I’ve got some pictures downloaded.  It involves an epic car ride and two of us cousins jammed in my Hyundai music blaring.

I know I’m cutting it close on time, but I’m just so glad that I’ve been able to so far this month keep up coming on here and jotting something down, even if it’s a little.  I’ve got some pictures hanging around from the opening July long weekend out at Pine Lake, they put on a spectacular fireworks show, the first we’d ever seen from my Uncle’s new boat.

Oh, and my title is a reference to the soundtrack from Slumdog Millionaire, the movie I’ve had going for the past couple hours while cleaning my room.  It’s a repeater.  Beautiful, wonderful, and no matter how many times I watch it I always end up with tears.  If you haven’t seen it, hit up a blockbuster, even better hit up an HMV and purchase it for multiple viewing enjoyment!

Every time I shoot a wedding I fall more and more in love with this job, every pore in my body gasping in exuberant happiness.  I can’t get enough, not of the flowers, or the parents proud speeches, the best man’s funny jokes, the small children dancing, the hands clasped at the altar, family ties so tangible on this one day you feel like you can reach out and touch them.  The romantic part of my heart overflows with complete contentment, it becomes so full it’s hard not to cry when the Father of the groom chokes up, or when they dance their first dance, or kiss after the first ‘I Do’ of their new lives together.

Their wedding was beautiful, simple, understated, perfect.  I was so happy to be a part of the day with Jenn, so grateful at having a friendship with someone in this industry, tales of the trade passed across ribs and mashed potatoes.  I cannot wait to see all of Jenn’s images, and can’t wait to draft through all of mine, all this happiness, and I get to do it again next weekend.  Here’s to life, in all it’s fabulousness, hope everyones long weekend was as totally awesome as mine.

So I pre-wrote a blog for this morning, but my internet connection is extreme dodge-time, so I can’t load my email where it’s saved.  Though, I’m not going to complain cause internet is internet, and I very much appreciate my Grandma’s 69 year old neighbour having an un-encrypted network!

Today I’m off to shoot a wedding with Jenn Galloway, I’ll write more about her awesomeness tomorrow when this connection firms up, or when I have a chance to hit a Starbucks, hope everyone is having a fantastic long weekend, I know I am, Medicine Hats forecast for today is +35 dear God let my anti-perspirant work over time!

Everyone has a code, some are easier to read than others.  I’d like to think I’m a pretty open-ended gal, easy to read, nearly all of the time.  Knowing me, means knowing that after time, my tenuous moods, aren’t so tenuous, but rather boringly predictable. 

• When I’m sad I watch White Christmas (Bing Crosby cures all)
• When I’m anxious I scrapbook (Two-way tape cures all)
• When I’m stressed I take a bubble bath (Radox Muscle Soak cures all)
• When I’m mad, I write letters (Merriam Webster Thesauraus cures all)
• When I’m happy, I say so (Honesty cures all)

And then, there’s one thing I do throughout it all, when I’m happy it makes me giddier, when I’m sad it cheers me up, when I’m anxious it calms me down, when I’m mad, well usually I just measure things wrong and something turns out wonky, but Damn if I don’t feel less like Cruella Devill and more like Martha Stewart (Pre-jail era) once I’m done. 

Baking. 

I know, I know, it’s a bit dorky, but I just love getting my bake on.  Wow, I could’ve made a comeback before that last sentence, but now I think I’m a real goner.  A goner with sugar cookies mind you.  I’m feeling extraordinarily rambly today in case you can’t tell… I love to bake, any excuse and I’m all over it.  Usually every couple weeks or so I’ll bring in cookies, tarts or  brownies for all the men at my work but every so often we have a birthday and I like to go all out.  

Betty Crocker mixes begone, I stood Monday night in +24 kitchen (Unusually hot for Calgary this time of year) switching my oven on to 350.  Good god in heave, that Amanda didn’t kill me and actually helped me with her artistry skills in cutting parchment paper was a miracle on 34st.  So pulling out all stops for one of my favorites at the shop I brought out the 12 layer cake recipe.  Yes, I just said 12 layers.  12.  Layers.  Actually here’s the part where I fess up and admit that I left two layers off accidentally and they actually are still sitting outside ‘cooling’ on top of the BBQ.  (Camille code: I AM THE MOST FORGETFUL PERSON EVER!)

This time I actually remembered to get my camera for pictures of my kitchen debacle:

I’m a bit of a, shall we say, all-over-the-place baker…

I had an intense measuring system for making sure each baked cake would be the same amount of batter….I later showered to find beige batter in places beige batter ought not to go.

Almost done, this looks like an ad for Denny’s Pancakes, with a potentially diabetic coma inducing amount of syrup draped over them.

Excuse our mess of a fridge, and by our mess, I mean mostly my mess, because, well, look at that first picture.  I’m kind of an all-over-the-place kind of person.

Look! Dishes!  I can be helpful some of the time!

She’s Morgan.  My best friend forever.  The one I’ll probably grow old beside, and argue over prune juice and wheel of fortune.  To know her, is to love her, and that’s really all there is to say.  No fancy thesauraus terms, just love.  The kind that lasts forever, and through anything, the kind that lots of people don’t find in their entire lives.  Sometimes, when the wind blows softly I can’t help but thank whatever force of nature brought Morgan into my life, gratefulness whispered off chapped lips time and time again.

Thank you for loving me despite the fact that I cut cheese crooked, talk too loudly, and swear a bit too much.  Thank you for holding our childhood sentiments faithfully in your hands, for never forgetting Colby Moments or that time Mack fell in that pond, for the Chandler List and always thinking Jason and Liz should be together.  For the times when you remind me my Mum would be proud of me, that compliment from you means more than I could describe in this decade.

Thank you for it all.

It’s hard to say the kind of friend Morgan is, I’ve been sitting here for the entire afternoon editing through photos, trying to think of the right words, perfect words to describe not just her, but who she is to me.  But I think it’s a two poster.

I think its something that’s hard to be spoken, hard to be written.  Something that is just there, like how we can finish the end threads of each others thoughts, or how our history is so tightly intertwined, how we can make each other laugh, or feel better when the other cries.  Small things, big things, everything.

I took her out on the town, formerly known as Bowness Park and shot some photographs that I’m really proud of, here’s a sneak shot of my screen for the past two  hours, I’ll be back tomorrow with all the shots, and maybe some more eloquence that is the brilliance of Morgan Rae Burke.