On Saturday, Chucklebutt headed over to our capitol to photograph the May Day demonstrations, where many people were protesting SB1070 and related immigration issues.  Somebody give my Chuck a full-time photography news job that pays lots of money! 

Select the preview photo below to see his own blog post with image gallery, or jump right to the flickr set and leave him some nice comments!

He took lots of video also, and will using much of this in his upcoming project titled Immigration…  shhhh — that’s still being put together and isn’t ready for the world to see just yet.

Also see my previous post about two other entries he entered for the current issue — Voting is on those is open until June 9.

Please nominate my photography business at Office Depot’s small business contest.

All you need to do is select this link, select my business name at the bottom-right of the screen (it will be automatically shown; you just need to select it), enter your email address (for tracking nominations) and hit “nominate business”. You’ll get a 14% coupon you can use at Office Depot for your time and trouble.

You can nominate me every day until May 31. There are daily prizes as well as several “big” prizes at the end, so as many nominations as you can generate from now until May 31 will really help. If I win, I’ll send you a cool print of Tempe Town Lake’s Light Rail Bridge or something.

Thanks for you time — Now back to your normal fix of Jiggly-Puff-n-Stuff-ness.

On Saturday, while Chucklebutt was working on the computer, I was busy outside sanding a shelf.  When I went to hose down our porch, I noticed a critter running furiously towards the spigot.  I knew it was a bunny and I had high hopes of catching it.  My past two attempts had been thwarted earlier this year.   As I tried sneaking up on it, I noticed a gigantic lizard hanging out nearby.  The lizard was gorgeous but gave me the willies.  Once he skittered away, I made my move.  The bunny wasn’t having any of it and proceeded to dig underneath a planter.  I grabbed her foot and she gave a loud “EEEEEEEP!  She’s got me!” and I stuffed her in my shirt.

I banged on the window to get Chuck to come out for the photo shoot.  We had a ball!  Bare with us.

Right after this shot, she leaped over my shoulder and gave out another “EEEEEP!”  This time I let Chuck get her.

Bunnies make me feel good!

I could have hung out with her all day.

“Please put me down.”

Now it’s Chuck’s turn.

“Put. Me. Down. Now.”

Chucklebutt loves bunnies as much as I do.

Don’t you just want to touch her ears?

“Please don’t touch my ears.”

Her feet are adorable!  “Oh the indignities.”

Cup ‘0 Bunny.

“I’m … feeling … sleepy….”

Afterwards, we set her down and off she went.  She hung around for a little while and I gave her some parsley and water.  I’m not sure whether she ate or drank anything — she was just happy to be out of our grubby little paws.

Sigh.  Life is good.  I’ve had my bunny fix for the year. 

So, that byline is a bit misleading.  It should read something like, “the best vampire movie to ever come out of Sweden,” or “the best ever artsy fartsy, avant garde vampire movie.”  Chuck has decided that it is the “suckiest vampire movie to ever grace the silver screen,” but he’s not one into lingering shots of dismal landscape or silent close-ups on really depressing characters.  The movie had its moments, and the ending rocked, but I’ve seen better.

I got home tonight, and Chuck surprised me with a mini adventure.  It made up for yesterday when I came home and took a three hour nap.  We went geocaching around Apache Junction and had a really nice eveing.  We found five caches and just enjoyed walking around our little desert town, sharing each other’s company.

Yeah I’m wearing my uniform — but it’s so comfortable!

Most all of the our major signs have this little miner/donkey logo.  I think it’s too cute.  Apache Junction is at the base of the Superstition Mountains and there are lots of stories about the Lost Dutchman Mine.  I fantasize about Chucklebutt and I finding the mother load on one of our hikes.

This is the sign leaving town.

Isn’t that saguaro cactus gorgeous?!  I think they are such majestic plants.  They are one of my favorite things about living in the desert — that and the smell of rain in the desert.

Thank you so much Chucklebutt for a great evening!  I love you and our adventures!

“It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed.  Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?”

As a seventeen year old, I couldn’t fully appreciate the meaning behind the words.  As I’ve grown older (and experienced the loss of my father), I try my darndest to enjoy the day to day.  Sometimes it’s super boring and I feel like a rat running the race, but other days I simply enjoy the routine.  I told Chucklebutt yesterday that while I love our adventures, I love our ordinary moments even more.  The waking up next to each other, the goofy goodbyes each morning, the mid-afternoon phone calls, the lazy nights watching trash tv.  Good times.

With that said, not too much has been going on at our household.  We’ve just been living the day to day and enjoying it.  We’ve seen some good movies (Ghost Town) and some not-so-good movies (Special).   We ate smothered fries at Denny’s this afternoon and we took a 45 minute nap which turned into three hours.  He had a production meeting for a show that opens next weekend and I went antiquing and didn’t buy a thing (shocking yes?!).  Oh, and last night we tormented our girls with crafty bits.  Witness:

Will we be able to do this with human babies?  FYI- Chuck and I are both only children and our animals have always been our playmates.  Mom says that we didn’t have brothers and sisters to aggravate so we take it out on the kitties. 

We wore them out.  Awwww…

Today was the first Saturday I have had off in three weeks.  I had plans to weed our yard and spray paint some pieces that I want to submit to Somerset.  We live in Arizona, and 99% of the time we have beautiful sunny weather.  The day that I wanted to work outdoors, I awoke to this:

The entrance to the Mines of Moria has got to be around here somewhere.

You can’t tell from the pic, but it was pouring rain!  So no weeding or painting was accomplished.

I love our flowers right now!  The yard is out of control, but the wildlife are loving it.

Yesterday was my first venture into the world of ribbon embroidery.  One of my residents is teaching me and I am loving it!  The ribbon is silk and a bit of a pain to work with.  Next week we’ll do the leaves and add some centers to the flowers.

Finally, I wanted to show everyone what I found at Goodwill yesterday.  Isn’t she amazing?!!?!?!?!?!  It’s a perfume bottle.  Guess how much I paid for it?  Oh yeah, a buck 99.  The thrift store gods were shining down on me that day.  Squeal!!  I’m still on cloud nine for the find.

Oh one more thing — Chuck has been getting quite a few texts lately.  Who are they from?  Work?  Friends?  Girlfriends?  Apparently he has discovered Twitter and has a bromance going on with quite a few fellows.  Dr. Drew, Kevin Smith, Brent Spiner and Weird Al Yankovich.  Everytime they update their account, he gets notification.  Chucklebutt is such a goof — but I love him!

 As you can imagine, I’ve had quite a few emotions running around in my mind.   I understand that I am a 35 year old woman, and the longer I wait to get pregnant, the harder it will be.  The truth is,  I’m just not ready to be a mommy.  I have every confidence that Chuck and I will be fantastic parents — we just might not be biological ones.  Mom gave me some good advice — take each day as it comes.  (Too bad she doesn’t follow her own advice.) 

While we were waiting in the room for the doctor to come back with some notes, Chuck and I had a conversation about my docs.  He too really likes my OB.  The conversation went something like this:

Chuck:  I really like Dr. Adams.  She knows her stuff.

Nicole:  Do you like her better than my internist?

Chuck:  The New-Agey one?

Nicole:  She’s not New-Agey, but yes.

Chuck:  She’s New-Agey.  If she found out you were having surgery, she would probably say all you need is some shark skin on your abdomen and those fibroids would be gone in no time.

Nicole: Shark skin?

Chuck:  Sure.  And then she’d sacrifice a chicken and use the blood to outline your body.  Yeah I like Dr. Adams better than the other one.

He really knew how to lighten the mood.  I laughed my butt off.  Incidentally, my internist is *not* New-Agey regardless of what Chucklebutt says — although I am running low on shark skin so I may need my doc to refill my prescription.

I snagged the following video from Hop Hop Jingle Boo’s blog.  It reminds me of Chuck and me.  Thanks baby for keeping me laughing!