Moving on Up...or Over...or Around...

Whatever. I'm moving.

Feels like a new phase of my life, so trying out a new blog to accompany it. You can find me here now - tueslife.tumblr.com

In Which She Returns in a Blaze of Brilliance

After you don’t blog for a while - say, 7 months and 18 days - it’s kinda hard to come back. I mean, I’ve got plenty to say. And some of it could be mildly entertaining. Since I play hermit, my friends and family ask me to blog so that they can know the babies are still alive. And yet, I demur.

I wonder, What warrants a return to the blogging after such a prolonged absence?

The answer: I got nothing. But here’s what passed through my mind today as bloggable.

• Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Awesome, right? I mean, they clean a stain BY DISAPPEARING THEMSELVES. I do wonder what kind of time-space continuum altering technology they have patented to make that happen, but that just increases my admiration. Not so fast with the love, though. I found out today that those duplicitous magic erasers - while still disappearing to the naked eye - actually create a dull, perhaps non-removable film on polished wood. I really wish I had known this before using it all over my new-ish dining room table. Turns out all work and no-reading instructions (which clearly say not to use on polished wood) make for a fugly dining room table. Ugh.

• Still haven’t gotten a facebook account. I can feel myself losing relevance daily.

• Last weekend, I single-handedly unloaded and dispersed upon my yard over 1,200 pounds of mulch. Wasn’t it me who was so sorely-injured 6 1/2 years ago that I could not walk 2 blocks without major back and hip pain? Remember when I had to plan my trips to the bathroom because I couldn’t feel anything below my waist resulting in several embarrassing puddles on my stairs as I waited too long? Ain’t I the woman who came home from the hospital with a new baby - and a walker? Indeed, yes that was me. I myself find this feat of mulching to be a triumph of one woman’s will to heal - and a ton of therapeutic massage and chiropractic adjustment. I’m back to fighting form, friends. (Well, perhaps not fighting form.)

• Which brings me to my latest pet peeve. Since when did it become okay to insult folks by referencing mothers? In the past two weeks, I’ve heard folks disparagingly reference mom jeans, mom bodies, mom-flavored haggis. (Okay, maybe not the haggis, but it is coming I imagine.) And don’t even get me started on MILF...there could not be a more back asswards compliment. Wait, I think this could be my next post. Never mind.

• I’ve come to a decision. I am done looking at comments on the internets. It makes me doubt my strong pro-humanity stance. So...don’t comment. I won’t read it. Okay, that’s not true, we all know I’ll read it. And I'll probably respond. But make it a decent we’re-all-doing-the-best-we-can-in-this-world kind of comment or I’m blocking you. You know, when I get back to this blog next year.

Awesome.

12 Things

About a month ago, SRH and I passed our 12th wedding anniversary. To honor the day, SRH did a “12 things” about our marriage post. He then went on to say how hard this post was for him to write. Being the hyper-competitive person I am - which is to say I’m not at all competitive, but it seems to fit here - I immediately said I’d also write a 12 things post. And mine would be better.

So here goes.

12 Things About Our Marriage

Thing 1

We travel well together. No pit stops on a road trip. (Because any decent person would have peed before we left.) No annoying pre-planning what we’re going to do and see. We decide when we get there, and we don’t have any regrets.

Of course this perfect perspective on traveling was all mucked up when little people entered the picture...

Thing 2

Opposites attract: He’s tall. I’m short. He has adequate depth perception. I 've hit the garage with the car more times than I can count. He’s laid back. I’m...not. He is enamored of the taste/effect of Mt. Dew. Caffeine makes me sick. He regularly loses things. I have a uterus.

What a wacky pair.

Thing 3

We are eerily similar: We are mountains/hiking people vs. beaches/sunbathing people. We’re both homebodies. We both hate peppers and strawberry ice cream. We both think I’m right most of the time (right?), and we both know that we’ve bitten off more than we can chew with this second kid of ours.

Thing 4

Wherever he grows, I’m growing, too. And vice versa. Good to be on this journey together, then.

Thing 5

We read out loud to each other. People think this is weird. I don’t get that. We’re going on year 4 of rocking a baby to sleep, we gotta have something to do.

Thing 6

In 12 years of marriage, we have never lived further than 3 blocks from a Dairy Queen. I appreciate a partner that respects my priorities.

Thing 7

We’re cat people. Of course we don’t have any cats because Zane is deathly allergic, but cat people are cat people whether there are cats around or not.

We’re cat people.

Thing 8

We recently went to Zane’s Open House at school without him. Zane was feeling a bit poorly, but we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see what’s happening in his classroom. I will admit it became a bit awkward when we had to start grabbing other kids to explain some of the stuff in the room, but it all worked out.

Thing 9

We will go on wild goose chases together.

The day I wanted 10 boxes of lime green dye? He went with me to 4 Jo-Ann Fabrics and 2 Michael’s craft stores.

Need Tomy trains for a four year old? You better believe we went to every train store in the city before buying them online from a Japanese company. (holy shipping and handling charges)

He went with me to the other school. The lottery school. The school Zane didn’t get into even though it’s only 3 blocks away from our house. And brand new. And goes all the way to 8th grade. Even though we both knew the visit was pointless. He still went with me and advocated for a spot for our child. And not because he wanted to. Because I needed to.

Thing 10

He keeps up better with my friends than I do. He facebooks. He occasionally emails my friends. He answers our phone and actually chats.

If not for him, I might be friendless and woefully unhip to the whole social media phenomenon.

Thing 11

We have been together for 14 of the 17 years of our adult life. Most of my dearest friends never even knew me without him.

Crazy, that.

Thing 12

Of course. The babies. The amazing, wonderful, awe-inspiring children that make us better people.

Happy Anniversary, love. Can’t wait to see what’s next!

Three Little Words

I love school! - Zane, after his first day of kindergarten today

Leaving the house...

Zane and Papa...

Zane, Mama, and Eily (that's her leg on my hip) going into the school building...

It could not have gone better today. Zane was thrilled. We - the family left behind - survived, and we're all ready to do it again tomorrow.

Cats, Haircuts, Bad Husbands, and Vacations

Lots to blog about today: one of our “marriage cats” died this morning, Eily got her first haircut and I cry foul on the stylists, betrayal from the one I love, and Zane goes on his first vacation sans mama and papa tomorrow.

So, let’s get to it, shall we?

RIP Marriage Cat

Scott and I got two kittens 5 days after we were married. The smaller one, Lenny, was very sick with an eye infection when we picked him out, but I couldn’t resist his Russian Blue fur and the sweet look in his eyes. Fast forward 6 years, Zane had visited the ER 3 times in 3 months for severe asthma attacks and the allergist said the cats had to go. So with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we gave our beloved “marriage cats” to SRH’s parents.

They said they would take good care of them. They said they were happy to help us out. They even said that our skittish Lenny (who was always that nervous kind of skinny cat that never let folks touch him) had become a fat lapcat. Whatever their story, here we are 6 years later, and our beloved Lenny is dead.

I’m sure it was something my mother-in-law did.

I jest. I jest.

Maybe.

So, we’re very sad here in CASA RH. Well, two of the four of us are sad. The little people have no recollection of cats in this house. But I do, and my heart is heavy today.

Eily’s Haircut

Crazy, curly-headed Eily got her hair cut for the first time yesterday. And it was fine - one of those kid-friendly places where they take a picture, make a certificate, and give a balloon for the first haircut.

I say it was fine, but the stylists (there were two because now I have two kids and we made simultaneous appointments) actually kind of honked me off during the hair cut. In what I’m sure was supposed to be helpful advice-giving, they said that I needed to start “doing” her hair up in ponytails and such. To get her used to it.

Oh, and I should leave on the conditioner after washing her hair. And I shouldn’t wash it more than 2 times per week so that it doesn’t get frizzy. And I should use some sort of moisturizing product to tame the frizzies as well. (And since we’re being ever so helpful, I should probably leave the conditioner on Zane’s hair, too.)

Exhibit A is below. Eily’s hair is about 3 inches long when you straighten out the curls. It is very rarely frizzy and never dry. She looked like she was sucking on a lemon the entire time they were putting their little rubber bands in it, and she kept trying to pull the pig tails out after they had them in.

She’s a baby for goodness sakes. Can we not - at 14 months - start with the “girls should look this way” bullshit?

Exhibit A - Eily in Pig Tails

That being said, those darn pigtails were so cute that Zane kept asking me to put her hair in the “tails” today. Oy vey.

Betrayal

In college, SRH and I were in an honor’s fraternity. (Perhaps I should have saved that information for my “Chronicles of the Uncool - Episode 2” post?) Anyhoo...we were in this fraternity. It’s where we met. We made lifelong friends, blah, blah, blah...

But I don’t really care about the fraternity anymore. I rarely think of it, truth be told.

But through the magic of Facebook, it’s popped its head back into our lives. Now, I’m not on Facebook, being a person who doesn’t care about people in general - and specifically those from my past. But SRH is on - and he totally sold me out today.

They wanted updated info, but since I have dropped off their email list, they only contacted SRH. Who promptly gave them my email and address! And not even my crappy, secondary gmail account, but my real-deal, work email.

First one of the marriage cats dies. Now my partner has sold me out. This relationship can’t last that much longer, I think.

(On the other hand, I don’t relish the idea of starting off my match.com ad with “must love kids”, so perhaps I’ll keep him around.)

Zane Vacation

As a last “hoorah” before school starts, Zane is leaving tomorrow with my mother for a three-day vacation. It will be his first time away from the two of us for that long of a time. I’ve been away that long. SRH has been away that long, but the kids have never been away from us that long.

He’s completely looking forward to it. I feel a little sick - and yes a little giddy, too - every time I think of it.

We’ll see how we all do...

Chronicles of the Uncool - Episode 1

In my lengthy absence from this here blog - but who are we kidding, I’ve been gone longer - I have spent time discovering new lows in my level of coolness. Hence I begin what promises to be an lengthy, episodic documentation of my lack of coolness.

Episode 1
I’ve been on the lookout for new music. I’m getting tired of my 1,347 iPod tunes, but I’m too pressed for time to spend it wading through radio drivel. We listened to the radio while on vacation and heard the same 5 songs over and over. And while I didn’t hate the the Nelly Furtado/James Morrison song the first 67 times, it doesn’t bear up well under repetition, and I wouldn’t consider buying it. And I hear that Rob Thomas has a new song as well.

I’ve become seasoned...mature..an npr listener...uncool...

But I’m prattling on to avoid my latest descent into uncoolness. I’ve been desperate, friends. I’m wanting new music but have avoided the radio, ignored my iTunes genius recommendations, and scoffed at Pandora’s pairings.

But I’ve done it. I’ve found a new set of tunes that keep my toes a-tappin’ and makes me look forward to being in the car. It’s...The Ting Tings.

And I know that they were kind of cool when they hit the scene on an iPod commercial well over a year ago. But I’m a bit slow to catch on. Truth be told, I never saw the commercial itself.

Nope, you know where I discovered The Ting Tings? On Yo Gabba Gabba.

Yep, that’s right. I heard my new, fun music on a preschooler’s show - looked up those fresh, hip, modern kids singing a catchy tune - and was hooked.

I have since bought the majority of their stuff on iTunes - including their live stuff, but my song of the moment is below.

But my real and true favorite, the one that started it all is Happy Birthday.

I’m such a dork.

The Strawberry that Broke the Camel’s Back

That’s right. Eily is allergic to strawberries.

Take away my soymilk, my pizza, my chinese food. Get rid of yogurt, bagels and tofutti cream cheese, and other delicious snacks! Begone fresh pasta and real butter! Get thee behind me Dairy Queen treats – or any other ice-cream for that matter. So long most crackers, breads, rolls, muffins, cakes, and pies.

Gladly I have done this. Gotten rid of dairy, egg, soy, and rice.

But what I had left was a nightly snack of strawberries and blueberries to satisfy a craving for the sweet and wholesome– and now it’s gone.

To explain: Eily had strawberries for a snack the other evening and stopped eating them after about three bites. She soon had hives on her chest and was “splotchy” (that’s a fancy allergy term) in the bathtub later.

Damn and double damn.

That’s why I don’t blog anymore, friends. Because I’m hungry. I’m hungry and tired – and now I gots no strawberries for comfort.

Feel free to send dairy-free, soy-free, egg-free, peanut-free, tree nut-free snacks in an effort to revive this blog.

Odds and Ends

I’m not even gonna apologize for the length of time between postings. Nope. Not going to give lengthy explanations about work, travel, or the incredible morass of navigating Two Kid Land. Not going to make false promises of increased posting.

Just going to fill you in on a few odds and ends.

The Odds

Eily has developed a love for these. And while that fact might cause you to judge her two inept parents, I will say in our defense that the doctor suggested that we feed her Doritos. (He quickly backpedaled when he remembered her dairy allergy – because fake Dorito cheese still has dairy.)

For explanation, Eily only weighed 14.5 pounds at her 9 month visit – dropping her below the growth charts. So the doctor suggested we get her onto table foods more quickly than typical and try to increase her fat intake as much as possible. So I’ve been feeding her avocadoes aplenty. And yes, I add dairy-free and soy-free margarine to all cereals and vegetables, but the high-calorie snack she can’t deny is the chips above. Sad, but true.

It’s working, though. By her visit last week she was up to 16.5 pounds, barely putting her back on the weight chart, but it was enough to make the doctor get off our back, so we’re cool.

And it’s all relative. Today I saw an 8 month old that could bench press Eily and then eat her for breakfast. (Which I wouldn’t recommend. She’s not fatty enough to taste good.)

Another Odd

One of my favorite people in the world sent me an email last night that said:

Your boyfriend is on American Idol – right now.

Now, I don’t watch American Idol, but this piqued my interest. So I made Scott figure out what channel Idol was on and we quickly flipped to it, only to tune into…KISS. Who are not “my boyfriends” in any sense of the word. So I called my delusional friend who then told me I’d just missed…LIONEL RICHIE!

Much gnashing of teeth ensued. You all know I love some Lionel Richie – see this post, and this one, and he even got a brief mention in this one.

But I did write her the following email in response:

Lionel Richie has never been my boyfriend. He's more like a well-loved uncle. Except I never had one of those.

So to clarify: KISS and any of its members are not my boyfriend. Nor is Lionel Richie. He’s more like a mythical relative that I’ve never experienced.

The Ends

Zane’s last day of preschool was today. So preschool graduation was yesterday. (Makes sense, right? One graduates before actually completing the coursework?)

Anyhoo, I know it’s hip to be cynical about preschool graduations, but friends, I TOTALLY dug Zane’s preschool graduation. I’m not sure what I loved best, really. Maybe it was the construction paper caps the little people were wearing. Or the fact that they all got to say what they’d miss about preschool – Zane will miss playing with plane, btw. Or the fact that I didn’t hear about preschool graduation until the morning it was happening, making it an almost a completely spontaneous celebration of my kid and his achievements.

It was so cool that I didn’t even get teary-eyed about my baby boy growing up - not during the graduation anyway. When his teachers told me what a pleasure it was watching him grow and change this year, sure I got a little misty. But overall, it was just a great, joy-filled, spectacular, unexpected event that totally made my week.

Ha ha! That cap is amazing - Zane at preschool graduation!

He’s a really amazing boy.

Split Ends

Yesterday I got about 6 inches cut off of my hair. In an attempt to be a more informed hair-styling consumer – instead of giving my regular, “do whatever you want” directive to my stylist – I actually browsed the internet for hair cut ideas.

About 20 minutes later, I was almost hyperventilating with anxiety – am I hair type 3B or 4A? Should I consider a texturizer instead of a relaxer? What about texlaxing? How do all these people know all this stuff about hair? Why don’t I? Shoot, did I miss a this-is-you-hair-and-it-proper-care memo at some point?

I shut off my computer, went to my hair salon and said, “This is freaking me out. I want a change. Do whatever you want.” Which - I think you’ll agree – is a considerable improvement over my past passivity.

Not the best pic, but self-portraits are hard, don't ya know? You get the idea.

I’m pretty happy with the results. Except that apparently, this style takes a flat iron to maintain…anyone know much about those? I’m scared to go traipsing about on the internets to find out more…

My Questions Now

One of my favorite quotes:

I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer...

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903

So, in the spirit of Rilke (ha ha!), here are the questions I’ve been asking myself recently – some profound some silly:

1. What should I boldly say “yes” – and courageously say “no” – to right now?

2. What do my children need from me at this moment?

3. How come Zane never has enough socks? We’re forever doing laundry…

4. Why is hemp milk so expensive? Why does oat milk suck when you heat it? When will I be able return to the joy ‘o soymilk?

5. How can I hold my family so that we move into this next chapter gracefully and with courage?

6. How do I parent two children gracefully?

7. What’s my preoccupation with being graceful? Life is messy.

8. How do I let others help me? What help do I need?

9. How can two children of the same parents be so different?

10. Has ZZ’s cancer returned? (Thankfully - the answer is “no” to this one.)

11. What will SRH’s next job be? What is his is Work?

12. Will it be in Columbus, Ohio?

13. Am I pulling my weight?

14. What can I have to eat?

15. How will I tell the story of this part of my life in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?

16. Which is the right school for Zane?

17. Okay, we’ve found it…the right school. Will Zane get into this school?

18. Who do Scott and/or I have to sleep with to get Zane into this school?

19. What’s next for us? (Besides sleeping with school administrators…)

20. How come having a water fight in the kitchen at the end of the night makes everything okay?

Okay, so there are some of my questions. I’d ask for the answers, but if I’m to believe the quote above, I must live my way into the answers. So that’s what I’m doing...living into the answers, y’all.

What are some of your questions?

The Same River Twice...

Zane’s (known) allergies at 4 months: Dairy, Egg, Soy

Eily’s (known) allergies at 4 months: Dairy, Egg, Soy

My reaction to Zane’s allergies at 4 months: Crying, gnashing of teeth, feelings of complete and abysmal failure as a mother

Physical State: skinny and hungry

My reaction to Eily’s allergies at 4 months: WTF?!! I’m a good mother, yo. This m%6$f%&in bites!

Physical State: not-so-skinny, oh-so-hungry

So…I guess it’s not exactly the same river… :)

Nursing Mother/Working Mother

Hoover and Nursey McNursesALot

With Zane I had a child who LOVED to eat. The boy was a hoover vacuum cleaner. A gourmand of the life’s nectar that is breast milk. He was a good, regular eater - predictable, even.

With Eily, I have a child who LOVES to nurse. She likes the breast milk, but more importantly, she likes to be snuggled up next to me eating directly from the Mama Tap. What is predictable about Eily is that she’ll want to nurse at any and all times and she is not discouraged by…say…a room full of colleagues…or having just eaten 10 minutes before…or her mother’s self-consciousness.

So I work with some pretty amazing people who are completely open to our nursing during meetings, phone calls, idle chit chat. But seriously, they must be thinking that I’m a bit of an exhibitionist – Eily nursed during two of my meetings last week. For the record, Eily attended exactly two of my meetings last week.

Now thankfully, I have someone coming in to provide childcare during the two days a week I work, - Memo to self: keep the working to two days a week!- but things happen. I utter things like, “I can come to the meeting if I can bring the baby.” People, say “yes”, and the next thing you know, there’s a meeting, a baby, and a partially exposed booby.

And don’t tell me that I can cover her up with a blanket. This is theoretically possible, but when you’re nursing for pleasure, your baby wants a view. And I suppose I could move her onto a schedule, but I feel like we’re already moving in that direction and I’m really comfortable (on the 5 days a week I’m not working) letting her lead the way on this. Call me child-centered.

Or a fool.

But I’m not actually looking for advice here. I know what I’m going to do: I’m going to keep nursing my child on demand. I’m going to feel a bit squirrelly about it when it happens in professional situations. I’m going to be discreet, and I’m not going to apologize. AND…I’m going to blog about it to receive affirmation and support.

(cue affirmations and support)

Zane is Five

In the ensuing madness of raising two – ee gads! - children and dipping my toes back into the work pool, I neglected to do a post for Zane’s 5^th birthday. (Actually, I haven’t done a post for anything since getting a shiny new blog design…so much for that as a motivator.)

Anyway, I knew exactly the blog post I wanted to do, and it wasn’t one of those beautifully written love letters to my child. Please see his 3^rd birthday post for my attempt at that. No, I’m still in the land of the chronically sleep-deprived and hormonal, so any attempt to write such a letter ended in my blubbering while I frantically thesaurus-ed synonyms for “overwhelming love”.

It wasn’t pretty friends.

So, how to coherently express my love for the boy, give him a snapshot of “who” he is at 5 years old, and entertain blog readers – all at the same time? Why, a meme of course!

So here it is, Zane…a “Zane is Five” meme inspired by and about you – our wonderful five year old boy.

5 Things You Are Awesome At:
1. Making Train Layouts – Seriously. I can’t keep up anymore. I rarely even try to help with your mathematically precise layouts.

2. Unintentionally Mocking Others – Why is that person walking so funny? (re: someone strutting down the street) Did she smell something bad? (re: a person with a permanent sneer on their face) “Ooooh…lots of colors…” (re: a hideously tasteless shirt)

3. Playing for Stars – Since we put the “good behavior” chart on the wall, you have eaten more broccoli, picked up more toys, and listened harder than any kid on the planet– all with the intent of getting enough stars to earn a root beer. You loves some root beer.

4. Helping with Eily – You get diapers. You push the button on the butterfly to make it play music. You kiss her little feet in an effort to make her smile. You are totally awesome at this big brother thing.

5. Eating – Never has a skinnier kid eaten so much food. It leaves other children envious (where did he put that 10^th chicken finger?!) and adults in awe.

5 Things You Are…Um…Not-So-Awesome At:
1. Putting Your Pants on Straight – Really, kid. Your bottoms are consistently catawampus.

2. Listening – Especially to things you don’t want to hear. Sure, if I mention going to see trains, you’ll hear me 9 times out of 10. Mention going upstairs to bed, not so much.

3. Sitting Still – You are still the wiggliest worm in your preschool class. That’s okay. The other kids are apparently lazy.

4. Letting Others Play with Your Trains – You have a plan. We’d all do best to stick with it.

5. Eating Candy – You have been overheard saying, “I’m not a candy person,” which is a bit ridiculous since you refuse to even try it. So you are not not a candy person, my love. You are a weirdo kid who won’t try candy.

5 Songs You Love:
1. SexyBack – Justin Timberlake

2. Who Can it Be Now? - Men at Work

3. Underdog – Butthole Surfers

4. Be Happy – Wow, Wow, Wubbzy

5. Fancy – Reba McEntire

6. Don’t judge us.

5 Places You’ve Professed a Desire to Visit:
1. Chicago – lots of trains there

2. Phoenix – You had such a good time when we were there in April.

3. Maine – mostly because your Mimma keeps harping on it

4. Nova Scotia – I’ve been there. You want to go, too.

5. The beach – any beach on any coast.

5 Things You Like to Eat:
1. Chicken Fingers – “chickies” still rule your heart

2. Cracklin Oat Bran – looks like dog food, tastes like heaven

3. Orange Rice – nasty stuff that it is

4. Cap’n Crunch with bananas – aka stealer of the first tooth

5. Pumpkin Muffins – that’s it. No story there.

And finally, child, one last thing you should know: you make my heart sing. Every day. With all you do.

Happy Birthday, Zane.

Check This Out...

Warning: The following post contains a great deal of hyperbole.

Commercial #1
Like my new blog design? Yeah, me too. I.love.it.

Seriously, the design itself could not be cooler, and the process could not have been easier. I worked with this fabulous woman from this fabulous company and got a cool new blog in about 7 weeks for a ridiculously low price.

And coolest of the cool, I will now be changing my blog title and tagline periodically. Folks gave me such great ideas, and I think it would be completely fun to change it up at will. So while it’s still called Zany Mothering today, the next time you come it will probably be called something else. I'm feeling so inspired by the new design that I may actually update my profile.

So if you are hankerin’ to change up your blog, you should give the ladies at ruby and roja a holler. (…and there I just proved that I am indeed from Southern Ohio…)

Commercial #2
Occasionally I know people. Not big people, like say Michael Keaton – he of the Batman/Mr. Mom fame. But smaller fry. Folks who work hard and are great at what they do.

For example, I happen to know one fabulously talented photographer, and said photographer gifted us with a free infant photo session when Eily was born.

He said he needed practice photographing infants. He said we’d be doing him a favor. What he didn’t say was that I’d cry when I saw the photos.

So if you are in the Columbus area and you want amazing photographs of your children (or yourself), you should totally do a photo session at Franz Photography. Again with the incredibly easy to work with and ridiculously low prices.

How lucky am I these days?