I've moved

So after a long time of trying to find my "blog home" I decided to start fresh! 

Hello Lovely Blog 

that's my new home, and after a few months this will be completely deleted, thanks for following. 

Oh Blog

Looks like you and I will be spending a lot of time together over the next 5 1/2 -  6 months.. A is deploying very, very soon. Which means that blogging may actually take a spot back in my life, maybe my heart? I know I've pulled away and been busy, but when you're faced with a full time job, side business and the prospect of a deployment you sorta say bye bye to the interwebs! 

On another random note.. I may need a new blog design, maybe? I need something.. I'm kinda off my "a game" for designing and working in general.. I'm blaming the November weather we have in May and maybe the whole I'm going nuts over life. This next year will be a lot of separation for A and myself.. after this deployment he starts training with his new job which is across the country.. then a PCS that I'm not 100% sure I'll be joining him on. You could pray for us, pray for a good location (not Washington) and a decent economy to find a job in. I can't just not work.... I feel useless and Lord knows I am not useless! Seriously, I wonder how people feel/get around knowing that they aren't living up the their full potential, it would bother me. But any ways if its west coast, I'll go with him :) but that's not until at least next summer.. maybe longer who knows! But I've gotta run, work is calling, not literally.. I just have to leave! 

-Acacia 

Happy feeling gone

Similar to Finding Nemo, when Marlin sees that creepy fish, last Wednesday was my "happy feeling gone" moment. See A was on the phone with someone he works with (because they all look the same, we'll refer to them as dude(s) so Dude was all "you have to deploy" and we're all :( sad face... you have no idea how much a of a freaking bummer that was! We had literally just started our vacation, only to be told that in a matter of weeks he'll be leaving out little "family" for the third time. Poop heads/bag of dicks.  

I'm mad at this new career field (yes, I can be mad at inanimate objects/jobs) because they said "don't worry about that thing, you're not deploying" so there I am, cloud 9, only to be shot down and set on fire by A's current job. Stupid. Bag. Of. Dicks.

I'm not happy, my heart is heavy and sad... I love A and don't like it when he has to leave so often, but through it all I will stand by his side... even if he's five thousand + miles away. 

So now what? 

Well blogging will probably become more relevant in my life and I will more than likely keep updating as time goes on. 

I guess that's all I can write about now, so .. thanks for reading. 

-Acacia

Washington

Life is something spectacular when you take the time to notice. Seriously. I love my drives home, especially during the spring/summer. I get to open my windows and blast some country music to rock out for 30-40 minutes of pure solitude.  

I've always loved driving. Its an escape and a luxury I can afford right now. I take the moments in, smell that sweet smell -I'm thinking its the flowers, but it could easily be a drainage system - and look at the clouds (super multi-tasker FTW) and just enjoy the fact that I am alive and I am here. 

I get to see Mt. Rainier on a beautiful day.. but also live so close to the water that seagulls play in our neighborhood and I can go swimming in "ocean water" whenever its warm. 

I'm lucky, but I hate the NW with a passion when it rains! 

So yeah.. random blog post, but enjoy it. 

Color Run

Whose all going? I know I am! 

I'm going with some amazing friends I've met in Washington, seriously, these ladies (and gents) have been there from the beginning or are recent buddies. I've been lucky for the last two years to have a group of friends who have been there for the rough stuff, the fun stuff and the down right weird stuff. I'll post pictures (hopefully) the day or so after, but then A & I are going on a little vacation to Oregon to relax and  enjoy each others company. We will find out for sure if he deploys next week too..  I am hoping for good news, cause they have people they could send and he has a far better opportunity if he doesn't. Plus with deployments always come fears of injury, so I say let him leave your stupid field! If you can't tell, I don't exactly like his career field, its not the safest and they deploy too much. 

-adios  

little updates

So if read my last blog you know my BIL (brother in law) has non-hodkins and hodkins lymphoma, the man is a freaking weirdo, and that he's been battling it for about eight years. My sister (his wife) and their two kiddos have been through seven rounds of chemo and just recently a stem cell therapy that will hopefully "reboot" his system and be all "eff you, cancer!" 

Last month after about 3 weeks in a nice clean (read scary clean) environment, two infections and massive amounts of hatred for needles and life, he came home! Though we don't know if the treatment has/will work, we're extremely hopeful, this is his "last chance" and he's even made it clear that if it doesn't work he doesn't want to continue treatment.. which I can understand.. from what I've heard chemo sucks. So this is the little update for those who were riveted by my BIL's ability to get two cancers in a few years.. I'm still impressed, the man just you know.. he saw what he didn't want and got it! -sarcasm- 

Other than that, A might still deploy.. thanks to his dick jobs of a squadron.. I'm just over the constant deployments, of watching my friends go through them too.. the supposed dwell time and deployment "promises" that never happen.. I sincerely think they suck. So at least you're all caught up.

Prayers would be greatly appreciated on all levels and I thank you for it.. it takes a village, right? 

-acacia

What I've been up to

Its a highly known fact that over the last year I've been establishing myself in the photography world. In fact I've shot seven weddings and numerous family sessions.. but now am trying to figure out where my "true calling" is for portraiture. 

which is really hard

This would be Lilly, I am stunned with the amount of eye contact that little girl made with my camera.. though getting her to smile was a challenge! Sister was such a great help, though. 

Meet the Willamette Valley Vineyard.. its breathtakingly beautiful with awesome staircases! Obviously a slightly more thought-out and artist shot..

 and last but not least (at the vineyard) Ms. Meghan and her boyfriend Tyler who hired me to do their "before prom" session so that they could have a HUGE family picture done.

very odd, but I was so down and so love that they were willing to be dorks and mess around :) 

So now that you know what I've been up to, tell me what you've been up to! 

PS: Washington (Western) I'm currently offering free prints with MAY sessions! 

Fill in the Blank Friday

Its been awhile since I've done any sort of link up, and frankly, Lauren's over at the little things we do has always been a personal favorite. 

1.  My bedtime routine includes,   Washing my face/brushing my teeth.. taking Bru out and then snuggling up with A to either play with his new iPad or watch a family guy on it. 

2.   I am   A little happy to hopefully be done with this one field of work for A and moving on to something new.. maybe just a little to happy about this.. in a throw up my middle fingers and say "DUCES BITCHES" but I wont.. yet. 

3.  I can't stand     Washington       because     it hasn't received the "ITS MAY" memo and has been freezing my lady balls off.  .

4. My idea of relaxation would be    Not going to work, staying home in the middle of the week and catching up on editing. .

5. If I had an extra $50, I would    go get my mom some flowers, she deserves them after raisin my siblings and myself. .

6. The best thing about a bloggy friend is     Normally they "get it" but frankly.. I don't feel like I have many bloggy friends. I've grown apart and created a distance for a reason. 

7.  A recipe I've been dying to try is   I don't have one.. darn! 

HECK YES!

A got the best news yesterday... along with getting something he's been working towards we were also informed he may not be deploying again!!! 

Its like this week has a silver lining continuously attached to it now :) 

T-Shirts

That moment when sleeping in a deployment ridden t-shirt is the closest you can get 

to him.. and that smell (you know, the musty icky but all too familiar one) is the one you're so used to ... anything else kinda smells weird. 

How you adopt (read steal) a particular shirt from him because he never wears it since he's gone so often... 

When you find a t-shirt in your dogs kennel underneath his bed that no one remembers how it got there.. Bru just likes sleeping with daddy too.. 

Its insane how we hold so much to one very simple item, and how smelly it gets. 

:)

Blogger who...

Its weird to think that before this little slice of random that I had a semi-decent blog.. that I was extremely involved and all that fun stuff. It just seems like its gotten away from me over the last few months/year, that its not as important.. probably because I just don't care. I used to say my blogging friends were some of my best -which still holds true, in most cases- but now that I'm working a more than full time job and over at my photography I'm just beat down to the point of not caring as much. I keep thinking "man, I could blog this" but then I get caught up in hanging out with A or Bru and spending our short time together before he goes off for a long time, so obviously my priorities are straight. 

I love all my blog buddies, you guys kept me sane, and probably when the big D happens I'll have more time to be apart of the community again.. right now I'm just looking forward to family pictures, a little get away and a little something special I'm putting together for A. I hope you all understand the sporadic posts and though there are only three followers I still felt obligated to let you know where I was at. Especially since you are the ones who've really been with me for the longest time :) thank you! 

-Acacia

PS: I'll be offering special blogger discounts for summer sessions so keep on the look out! 

Wont give up

So, if you read this -hi to the two followers!- you know that there is a deployment coming up, you know I'm burnt out.. but the other day (two weeks ago or even a year ago is "the other day" to me) I was listening to my old friend NPR (National Public Radio) and Jason Mraz was on there and he sang his new single from the album Love is a four letter word which made me kinda sad, happy and a decent dose of encouragement and faith. 

So you should give it a listen, enjoy it and fall in love.

http://youtu.be/O1-4u9W-bns

What the heck?!

So this week I discovered some amazing things.. like that Top Foods (Washington store) is a freaking gold mine of cheapness, and they have chocolate milk.. in a glass jar, obviously far superior to plastic jar chocolate milks. But in all seriousness it really is. 

I have a love of bacon that needs to be fed, aka, I should eat it more.. but I don't for the sake of my heart -and that's a huge sacrifice- so I've come to eating kraft's version of "shake and bake" bacon thing.. chicken.. it was good. 

Ralph Lauren candles are the freaking shit. I have a candle that smells like a freaking sunrise, or lemonade if you ask Janna, but yeah its amazing. Which really just brings me to that lovely store called Marshall's. I could walk in there and drop a good trillion dollars on things I do not need, but have to buy because it will make me a better cook, girlfriend, friend, artist or anything else that I could possibly think of to justify buying a Ralph Lauren candle -it was $3 in my defense. Seriously I walk in and bee line it for the shoes, seeing no Sperry's I then bee line it to the back where magical "home goods" await my gleaming childlike eyes. I've stumbled upon a glorious dog bed that would look great for newborns, yes I said that and I mean it, but at $60 I'm not willing to buy it.. but posing in it for a picture? Not a freaking problem. That will probably be on instagram later (riannphoto) so after not buying that I peruse the frames, art and candles.. also mugs, dishes and dog accessories because Bru obviously needs a fluffy something or a hot pink other thing that A would murder me for buying so I behaved myself. I find on the clearance rack, the recipe box I'd been all "BUY ME" to A earlier this year, he said no, it was on sale for $5 so now its literally sitting about 5 ft behind me IN YOUR FACE! What other treasures did I find? A mug, do I need another? No, but these mugs were about $25 at Barns & Noble so I kinda stuck it to the man for $3 -its a trend- and theeeeeen I go to check out because Janna has to work in the AM (3 AM, see TREND!) and I find a philosophy bar and a Ralph Lauren candle.. in all I walked away without spending more than $30.... I'd say I was successful. 

I'm seriously questioning your sanity of reading ANY of this.. but on a lighter note, A is a freaking sexy beast and I am a pretty lucky lady. I'm looking at this picture I took where he's giving me his best "blue steal" to which I swoon *swoon* see told you. 

-Acacia 

My week..so far

So.. my week aka the week without A or Bru (FREEEEDOOOOOM *ala Brave Heart) 

 Sunday was a train ride, in which interesting things happened, what? Oh just some girl telling me that train rides are always assigned seating.. bitch puhlease, this was the one and only time they were assigned, I am now assuming this is because its Oregon and a bunch of reckless hippies don't know how to pick their own seats? But yeah, she glared at me on the train the entire time. And then a teenage (read college student) started bawling after reading a text, I couldn't help but think her boyfriend broke up with her.. but I giggled. *going to hell* 

Monday I tie dyed shirts with B & O.. freaking fantastic, I can't wait to share "spring break" pictures with ya'll, it'll be a hoot! Plus I got my workout with the kinect on and it was all hot and sweaty. 

Today? Oh today was just about as awesome as awesome can be, why? Because it was supposed to rain and it DIDN'T! But I also found out about some upcoming time off... A and I might actually be able to take a mini vacation! Plus its always fun seeing 11 year olds with iPads and fake clouds on their ceiling ... not really though. I'm getting pumped up for the summer -possible change in my hours- and some awesome crap in general. For instance, I turn 24, and I'm excited. I like growing up a little.. and being able to not be so serious like 99% of you. 

ps: Jason Mraz in September, anyone interested? 

pps: Bru killed one of A's parents chickens.. I giggled at this too.. why? Because the freaking dog is a bad ass.

Happy Easter

Lucky for me I got to spend a whole 36 hours in Oregon with A and his family. 

Now back to editing and the "real world" of work.

PS: take a look over here and if you know any seniors let me know! 

Words

Words fall short, constantly. 

How the heck do I tell you that I'm oh so over deployments, or that its not fair how often he and his other buddies deploy. Its ridiculous. 

three in three

Bah-humbug

coming to terms

A couple of weeks ago would've been a friend (almost brother's) 22nd birthday.. a couple of weeks ago I broke down in my kitchen after realizing what that date meant, and that I was pissed and sad and had never truly learned to grieve a death until that very minute. 

I was raised to be "strong" and I dealt with death from a young age, in fact starting at age 10 to 12 I lost four people, two friends and two family members.. so I mean hey it was normal to me. My mom had told me to be strong for others, that sometimes its better to not cry. I love my mom, and her advice, had she not told me that she never cried at her own dad's funeral... I would've thought she was nuts, but she's the strongest person I know. Since then.. its been a whirlwind of losing friends either to dumb circumstances or murder.. which never makes you feel okay... to suicide. 

I found out M had killed himself in July, a vibrant kid, full of life.. I'd dated his big brother for almost four years and we were going to get married.. till I wised up and remembered I had much more important things to do (like be awesome) for four years of M's life, I was basically a constant person. I saw the ups and the downs and by the time I broke up with his brother and called off our wedding M & I were not on good terms. This is the first time I've really written about this situation, and the things I've learned because of and since have shaped me into the person I am.. so I don't regret anything except one thing. In February of 2011 I was sitting on my computer when M added me on facebook, at first I thought "great, here is someone else to come bitch at me for something that happened years ago" but instead he messaged me saying the following: "I'm sorry for how I treated you and hope that you forgive me" I casually chatted with him, asking about life and all that.. he said he was glad I'm happy without his brother, and that it hurt their family that I decided not to go through with the wedding.. but I couldn't take back any of the hurt. I said I was sorry, that I hope everyone forgives me.. that everything is going well.. the last time I talked to him directly was in April.. only two months later he was dead. 

When I saw a family picture, sans M, I figured I'd better message his sister and say "hey, what's goin on" and she told me he'd killed himself.. 

a kid, whose faith in God was greater than one I'd ever seen (aside from a pastor or his own mom's) killed himself... and the crappy part is that I can never know why, I'm not that close with his family and I sure as hell don't want to pry.. but I hope they know how his life affected me and others. When A asked why I was crying, I let him know, and I said I wanted to just shut off this feeling of hurt, betrayal and total sadness/fear... he said that would be dumb. I needed to feel these things, I needed to know I could grieve how you're supposed to. 

All I can ever think is.. I should've messaged him more, gotten his number to call and talk to him.. someone should've been there, someone should've seen the signs or something and then he'd be here and probably be the biggest pain in the butt ever, but he'd be here. Suicide is a cowardly way out.. it shatters everything, everyone around it.. leaving unanswered questions and truly pisses me off. I think he was rude and thoughtless in doing that, even if he was in pain.. living is so much more beautiful than dying alone and depressed. 

I want to know why, I want to have his life back and I would like to never experience this pain again. 

Boudoir

Classy, sassy and sexy.

Fabulous, glamorous and amazing.

I could go on for ages about how much I love boudoir aka "boudie" sessions. They give a girl the chance to primped and made to feel fabulous by an amazing team! I have some sweet hair/makeup ladies and then of course moi, your photographer du jour. 

I'll be shooting this weekend for two fabulously beautiful ladies and I cannot wait! I've got music, food and just about anything else you could think about having. As well as poses and of course you'll be hearing about it over at my photography blog, so you should definitely stay tuned! 

I really hope if you're in the Tacoma/Olympia area that you look into local photographers, such as myself, and others who aren't "big names" because you usually get so much more bang for your buck! So stay tuned, stay beautiful and I hope to see your comments in the next few days over at my photography page! 

uh.. hey there interwebs

I'm not sure if you know me, but I used to blog under another name/site... but I felt the need for a change, a complete renovation to speak, but instead of renovating, I decided to delete and start anew! I wanted to branch off from who I was and make sure you could be apart of who I am, which you can read more about here. 

I suppose I could start blogging about how I'm a nanny, or that I am a photographer in the Tacoma area and am looking for people with bridal gowns who are willing to get all glamed the eff up and take pictures for FREE.. but I will start off with how much I love bagels. I do, they are amazing. I could eat a bagel everyday and not get tired of them... I also love coffee - a bit too much - and I seriously dislike static electricity. I'm not happy with my appearance, so I'm working on it. I have a limited amount of friends and I'm slowly becoming okay with that, I don't need a million people to like me or any of that crap.. I really just need somewhere to vent and talk about the random things in my brain. So here I am, ridiculous and full of random stuff. I don't know where this blog will go, where I'll go.. and hopefully it'll just be a fun -read drama free- experience! 

PS

you rock.