Makes a good story.
I always try to remember this when in difficult situations.
My first two weddings on my own went well. I haven't gone through any of the footage yet, but I feel really good and know that the hard part is over. I have all the tape that I am going to get. The fun challenge is to make something wonderful out of what I have.
Wedding number one
went really well. Minor disasters occurred. None of which affected my taping. I think my biggest challenge is to get better at being ready for speeches, and getting my equipment really organized and keeping it that way through out the day.
Wedding number two
was also wonderful...for the most part. It was outdoors, which I have never done, even with Rachel. The bride & groom chose to not see each other before the ceremony, so there was lots of shuttling around, trying to make sure the groom was tucked away. Very exciting. The ceremony started in a clearing of a wooded area. A gentle slope providing a great view for everyone, including my cameras. The bride was beautiful, the groom was smiling, and the ceremony began. About 15 minutes in, the clouds started rumbling. About 30 minutes in, it started to sprinkle. By 40 minutes in we were in the middle of a downpour. Songs and readings were skipped, as the couple was quickly pronounced, everyone grabbed their chairs as cover, and took off running for the giant tent where the reception was to be held. I was amazed at how well the bride took the adventure. They truly seemed incredibly happy just to be married.
I, however, was worried about my equipment. Everything was fine, but I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. No matter how sunny it is, at an outdoor wedding always have rain gear ready. I left all of the rain stuff I had brought in the main building. As it stared to sprinkle, I had to grab a stack of programs to put over each of my cameras. Not terribly effective.
I'm pretty tired, but it's a good tired. I have yet to look at any of the tape from this weekend, but I feel good about being able to edit together some beautiful footage. Yaaaaay!
Tomorrow is the day, my first wedding on my own. Actually, it is like two days because my second wedding job starts at 7am the next day.
I am so excited. I went to the rehearsal tonight. I've been to the church before, it was for midnight mass and was pretty dark. I was a little nervous about how my baby cameras would fair. I brought one along to see how things would look, and it turns out the lighting is wonderful. The church coordinator was pretty accomadating. I can't wait to get started and see the whole thing come together.
With the local architecture complaints going around & around I'd like to add mine. I've always thought that the Wells Fargo building, when it is lit up, looks like an evil robot attacking the city. Now the new Waker Art Center looks like a Rock'em Sock'em Robot buried up to it's neck. I know those robots are just biding their time. 
Yes, I'm a Photoshop junky. (That's not my ©, by the way. The downtown pic is sooo stolen.)
This was my last weekend off for a while. On Monday summer tutoring starts, I was fortunate enough to get a full load (20 hrs/week) this year. It helps that I will teach almost anything they ask me to. Also I have two weddings on my own this weekend. When it rains, it pours!
On Saturday I worked on getting ready for my classes, by sorting through my mountain of classroom stuff in the garage. (I know I put my box of summer stuff here somewhere!) It is a true mess because when I left Cityview, I just piled it in the garage, not knowing if I'd ever want to teach again. When I left Sheridan, it was December and too cold to put anything away properly. So now it is June and I have to face my heap. Eventually, I managed to find my summer box and now I'm sorting through it.
Every year for the past five, I have panicked that I wasn't competent enough to teach summer classes. And every year my friend Stephanie calms me down, reminding me that I go through this every year and always do great. This is the first year I am completely calm and feel like I know exactly what I am doing. Maybe I have a few first day jitters but I am not worried. 
Saturday night, Peder and I went to my mother-in-law's to celebrate our anniversary. After that, we headed to "Le Bourget". 
Sounds fancy, right? It was very nice. We had a nice room, swam in the pool, had some cheap champange, got McDonald's and enjoyed sleeping in the very comfy bed.
I have been describing it to people as a "Trading Spaces" hotel. It used to be a Holiday Inn or some such. They made small, fairly cheap changes to give it a more modern, European feel.
They were successful.
But I kept thinking "Oh they just replaced the panel in fluorescent light, I could do something like that!" or, "Hmm, Curtains on the closet make such a big difference."
Who gets amateur decorating ideas from a hotel?! Me, apparently. I just need to add a ton of fleur-de-lis:
Sunday we had a nice breakfast at a French bakery and went home to feed our starving kitties. I mowed the lawn and later we went to my brother's to celebrate father's day with my family.
It's interesting to see a visual representation of where I have been.
Makes me want to expand this a bit.
I got a runner from mom and dad last fall and planted it on the south side of the house with only a small hope it would make it through the winter. Lo' and behold, it came up in the spring. Even though they aren't wild, I've kept them caged just to be safe. Now I have three beautiful strawberries! One did not survive to make it in the picture. Yum!
Actually, it was pretty sour, but I have faith that they will get better. I'm hoping I can have a whole strawberry bed next year.
Working on a video today. Sort of. There are too many other enticing things. Bill called to chat, Mom called to ask for help finding a roofer, My latest bid on ebay was up today (I won another 3-chip camera for only $350, by the way. Oh, how I love e-snipe!), and I finally figured out how to trim Ozzie's claws without getting bitten.
It feels like I keep taking two steps forward and one step back. I keep editing together something I think I like and then hate it the next day and start over. Not completely, but it feels that way. My goal is to have Sarah & Luke's video finished by tonight. Or at least eeeeearly tomorrow. Then Tiffany & Brent's highlights.
Next purchase is actually buying the software to work on my website. I love the software. I have been using a trial version (full version) and it's about to expire. It is really easy to use and hopefully I can take down our wedding video tomorrow and replace it with some of my actual work!
One year ago....................today
We saved none of our cake (who started that tradition anyway?), but we will be feasting on Heidi & Chad's freshly made one year cake next Saturday.
Last Summer the folks who put on the "Great Minnesota Get Together", also know as the MN State Fair, put together a wonderful string of radio commercials that I find endlessly amusing. They were kind enough to post them on the web, but when my laptop died I lost the bookmark :-(
This weekend I took to Google and Yahoo Search. I found yeoldmillmn.com, "2005 Minnesota State Fair FFA Lamb Carcass Show" (which I won't link to for obvious reasons), and numerous blogs, including myprontopup.com. After several attempts I finally found the right combination of key words: "minnesota state fair" 2005 radio
Here are my two favorites:
Did I mention how I hate sitting in traffic?
I had a wedding today out in Woodbury. I had been to the church before. It's a new building, but the sanctuary has an old feel to it. Great ceremony, priest sang a solo blessing beautifully, but I digress.
I had two choices for routes to take. Mapquest kept saying I-94 was the fastest and shortest route. Last time I went I took 494. I went with mapquest. While I agree that this would have been the shortest route, it certainly wasn't the fastest. Three lanes of 94 had been shut down. I pondered getting off and finding a way around the construction, but after last weekends's detour I am a little wary of them.
12 MPH was my top speed. 40 minutes later I had traveled from Dale Ave. to Mound Blvd. From this experience I learned two things:
1. When the sign says "right 3 lanes closed ahead", don't, under any circumstance, dash for the left lane. It is the slowest lane. There is science behind it, but I won't go into that now. I swear hundreds of cars passed me as I sat patiently (sort of) in the lane we were all supposed to be in.
2. This is why I have bumper stickers on my car. To entertain the people stuck behind me. For a large majority of my crawl down the highway, I was behind a dark green Chrysler New Yorker that had a De Colores bumper sticker with a rooster on the right of the sticker. Kind of like this but with no rainbow. 
I really don't know what it refers to. I have seen these before, but have never had this much time to ponder them. My Spanish is limited to that which I learned on Sesame Street (hola, adios, abierto, cerrado, & estoy), cartoons (Arriba! Arriba! Andale! Andale! & ay Caramba), and movies (hasta la vista, baby). Despite my lack of bilinguality, I am confident that it means "of colors." That is as far as I get. But why the rooster? I seem to remember Latino commedians referring to a song by that name, and I have this idea that it is related to christianity but can neither confirm or deny that. Wikipedia came up empty. Google had lots of pages in Spanish. Maybe I am destined to ponder this great mystery forever...
...Or maybe one of my many Christian friends will enlighten me.
Either way is okay.
Meeting with Anne has made it sink in that my first solo wedding is less than 2 weeks away. There is still a bunch of stuff I need to get. So I have been hitting ebay pretty hard.
I got another long life battery which I dicsovered I needed when mine ran out half way through the day of my first all day wedding. 
Next, I got a new camera case. I had been using my dad's old one that was meant for a large still camera. It was great sitting on the floor, but carrying it around was a pain because it wasn't balanced. The new case is cheap, but so much better than what I had.
My friend who was going to be my second camera person is nowhere to be found lately. This is partially my fault because I dropped off the map for a few months too. So now I wake up in the morning wondering how I am going to find someone who is interested in making a few bucks running a camera for an hour. Rachel says I can find people on Video University but I am intimidated by those people :-) I may just have to suck it up and post a request.
I got this fill-in-the-blank list from a forum I frequent:
I AM: The queen of imperfection
I WANT: A good teaching job
I WISH: People could trust each other more
I HATE: My yelling cursing neighbors
I MISS: Having a close knit group of friends
I HEAR: Movie music I'm weeding through
I WONDER: If I will ever find my dream job again.
I REGRET: Getting married the 1st time before I really knew who I was
I AM NOT: A risk taker
I DANCE: At weddings
I SING: Obscure children's songs
I CRY: when I feel overwhelmed
I AM NOT ALWAYS: As nice as I seem
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: Lots of things
I WRITE: For fun more now than I ever have
I CONFUSE: Kindness with commitment
I NEED: To stop worrying about what other people think of me
I SHOULD: Write up a real business plan
I START: Cleaning the house with the intention of keeping it that way
I FINISH: Lots and lots of crossword puzzles
I now have internet access in my office, and the pile of cables surrounding Peder's computer is gone. A quick lesson from Ry, and I pulled Cat 5 cable to the living room and the office, put connectors on the cables, moved the modem and router to the basement, and hooked up two phone lines (three more to go). I also figured out (I think) what was wrong with the cable wire I ran a few months ago.
I'm pretty darn proud.
I spent my weekend near Danbury, WI. Went up to a cabin on Big McGraw Lake on Saturday morning with a bunch of Sheridan folks. Spent 4 straight hours in the water going from giant floaty raft, to floaty noodles, to inner tube. I literally stayed in the water the whole time.
Later it was time for grilling and games. The cabin was gorgeous, a whole different building from the last time I was there. Three rooms with 6 bunk beds each, and a pole barn out back with a bar, pool, ping-pong, foos ball, and air hockey tables. There was also darts and a poker table. (I think this would be Ry's ideal living room)
It was blast. We stayed up until about 2am. I won and lost thousands of dollars playing black jack, learned to play pitty-pat, and lost my first ever game of "beer-pong", or in my case, "margarita-pong."(don't ask)
It was so nice to be on a lake with good friends. Made me long for the old Van Vac days.
There were all sorts of rumors about I-35 being closed or at least narrowed all weekend. Everyone experienced a different delay coming up from The Cities. I had none, but saw a major detour going the opposite direction. I can't stand sitting in traffic. Can-not stand it! So to avoid running into any thing that will send me over the edge, I decided on a longer, slower route through Osceola. BIG MISTAKE. A 60 mile detour through Wisconsin to actually progress 15 miles. No A/C, no radio, sun directly on me, and no idea how far this little side trip is going to take me. I was quite put out. Back on the road to the cities, and BAM! another detour. This time I said "screw it" and took the bridge to MN. It may be a while before I visit out neighbors to the east again.
Sometimes everyone needs a little bit of it.
So often lately I wonder if I still want to be a teacher at all. I am sure I wouldn't be any happier in a business related field, but still the grass always looks just a little bit greener over there.
Subbing is a lonely job. Nobody knows you and they really have no interest in you as a person. I understand. I've been there. This the reason I go back to work at Sheridan every once in a while. I went today and it is like coming home. Everybody knows me and respects me. They care about my life and they believe in my abilities. I get recharged with the knowledge that I am a damn good teacher and Minneapolis is poorer without me.
