Happy Place: Dodgers Stadium

I was on the elliptical the other day and as my legs were trying to push through that resistance, sweat was pouring down my face, and my arms were pumping, I started to laugh to myself.  When I’m working out it is amazing where my mind wanders, and for some reason it wandered right into one of my happy places.  This may sound incredibly silly to you, but my happy place is Dodgers Stadium.

I grew up a Dodgers fan, thanks to my mom.  I liked the Dodgers as a kid and even when I stopped following baseball I still wanted my Dodgers to win.  Amazingly enough my first real Dodgers game was only 6 years ago and I remember it well.  It was the Dodgers vs. Rockies and the game went into extra innings, I witnessed a Grand Slam, and I got to see Eric Gagne pitch.  Since I had such a memorable first game, I wanted Chris (a total Yankees fan) to experience what I did.  So last season, with our good friend Katee, we ventured to the ravine and watched as the Dodgers worked over the Cardinals.   Ever since then we’ve been hooked.

There’s something about baseball and the Dodgers that makes me sentimental.  I love hearing the voice of Vin Scully on my TV, spotting Tommy Lasorda  watching the game,  singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the 7th inning stretch, and watching as the starting lineup is introduced and runs out on the field.   There’s no better feeling than watching your team hit a home run to get in the lead (and shut up the annoying Giants fans in front of you) and give high fives to complete strangers who are for a brief moment your friends because you share in each others joy.  I love standing up in solidarity as we wait for one more out to close out the game and singing I Love LA as “Dodgers WIN!” flashes on the boards.

So in my stressful world where I have very little time to myself, I workout and laugh as I think of one of my happy places.  I think of how excited and happy I get when they play “Ironman” and Jonathan Broxton comes running out of the Bullpen and they show an amazing reel of how awesome he really is.  Although, you should hear my Jonathan Broxton version of Iron Man, I think it’s better.    So I laugh because it’s probably one of the most random thoughts, but hey whatever makes you happy!

Ironman Jonathan Broxton!

When the Dodgers win, check out Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier (with Reed Johnson).

Probably the hottest thing in baseball.

It worked, turned this Yankees fan into a Dodgers fan.

This is my Blue Crew!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s that work so hard to give their children a good life and simply just give us all their love.

Thanks mom for giving me one of my happy places.

❤ Kimberly

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Stacy and Sean

I met Stacy last year when she started working in the classroom across the way from mine. She’s wonderful at what she does and as stressful as her job is, she always does it with a smile. In the last year Stacy and I have become good friends as we spend our breaks together and text each other with little bits of news in our day. We share the same guilty pleasure in wedding magazines and makeup. We both share our silly fears of birds (hers) and rabbits(mine). I am incredibly grateful that I have made such a good friend at work, someone that I can vent to when it’s a particularly hard day, and someone to just chat with.

It’s Stacy’s easy going attitude and love for fun that makes her a perfect match for Sean. The two of them met in high school and shared a little spark. But as things tend to do so in high school, that spark fizzled. It was fate that brought these two together, well fate disguised as Myspace. With small conversations here and there the spark that fizzled came back. Between late night rendezvous at the park and the ultimate friend test at the desert, the two of them found themselves falling in love. Four years later the two of them are still in love and have become the perfect match. I feel very lucky to be able to spend time with both of them and capture some of their love and share it with others.

Here’s the slideshow.
Music: Bubbly by Colbie Caillat

Slumping

I have a major a confession to make. I am slumping. If they had senioritis for real life, this would be it. I haven’t been to work for three days, granted I have been sick, but I probably could have made it to work today. My body and brain would have hated me, but I could have struggled through it. As it is I am sitting in Chris’ calculus class and my brain hurts. I just had my calc midterm right in this class…so maybe I don’t have to feel guilty for feeling sick. I hate that I feel guilty for not working because I was sick. Guilt gets the best of me, even when there’s nothing to be guilty about.
My body, mind, and camera cannot wait until summer. The idea that I will be free to do what I want is exhilarating, but the whole unemployed thing scares me to death. I haven’t been unemployed since 2006 and even then I had a job lined up within a month of leaving. I know that it is best for me to leave, if I want to graduate I need to get out of there, if I want my body to stop hating me, I need to leave. The only thing that is getting me through the slumpiness is that I can finally work on me and the million things I love to do.
My mind has been churning and all these ideas are all coming out and I think that there is major potential in the success of these projects. I just need to come up with a reliable and talented support team. I am hoping that I find the right people.
So let’s hope the slump ends and I can push through the difficult school work and the tiring work work.

<3Kimberly

*What’s a blog without a photo? I’m not the only one that is slumping, so are my Dodgers. Andre Ethier is still cute despite the slump.*

Keeping It Real

On Thursday, I had one of those moments, a click.   It was like you could feel yourself approaching a turning point.  That’s what I had.  It was quick and felt impulsive, but as I called Chris on my way home from work I said, “I don’t think I want to work there next year, in fact I’m pretty sure.”  It just came out of my mouth, I didn’t really think about it, it just came out and I didn’t feel like shoving it back in, trapping it into my brain and saying “Whoa there, wait a minute.”

For the past four years I have been working at a school, being a teacher’s assistant for pre-school.  I’ll be completely honest, my first year I loved it.  It was fun, it touched my heart, and I felt like I was making a difference.  As the years have passed I still like it, I had a few moments that touched my heart, but less and less I feel like I am making a difference.  I love kids, no doubt about it, but working there for four years has taken a toll on me.  This year has been especially difficult.

This last school year was my first at Cal Poly Pomona and it sure was different from Cypress College.  A huge campus (hello hills, hello nice legs),  the quarter system (Physics in 10 weeks, YIKES!), and a whole 20.7 miles vs.  4.1 miles commute from home (605 and 10 = TRAFFIC).  Because school was so far, class times are so limited, and things go so fast, I have struggled.  Yeah, I admit it, working full time(ish) and going to school full time and trying to do things that I love has become difficult.  So I have been forced to cut out things that I love, which I hate.  My schedule currently has worked out like this:

8 – Work

3/4 -School

9ish (pending traffic) – Gym

10:30 ish -Home

Add into that equation tutoring, studying, homework, and I find myself a very busy stressed out girl.  I wanted to fit some of the things that I love back into the equation.

When I found out that there would be a Photo Expo at Cypress College with very fabulous speakers, I knew I had to go.  In the last couple years I have felt like I had been at a standstill with my photography and there was something about this event, this opportunity, that I knew could change things for me.  With a little hassle from my “boss” she reluctantly let me have the day off, but it was that moment that I knew things needed to change.  I understood where my “boss” was coming from, but I felt so restricted in my life, especially with this job.  It was my intention to go part-time for the purposes of school, and it was something I had been mulling over for months now.

That small exchange with my “boss” was what led me to my conversation with Chris.  It was time to get up and move forward.  Night Spot Photography was created in 2006 and it was now 2010 and we were not much further than we were then.  In the last year I had made strides towards a different style and left behind the night life.  This was my opportunity to make things happen, to make things work, to pursue what I loved.

At the photo expo I had the amazing opportunity to listen to the fabulous Jasmine Star speak.  She had so many wonderful, inspiring things to say.  Let me just tell you, I have been following Jasmine Star’s blog for a little over a year and I absolutely adore her work and most of all her personality, which she uses in every way to market herself.  When I saw online that she would be a speaker at the Photo Expo, I knew I needed to be there.

One of my favorite messages of the day was “KEEP IT REAL.”

This is exactly what I am doing now, I’m blogging and I’m keeping it real.  Chris and I aren’t perfect, far from it, we have flaws, some major some minor, but they make us unique in who we are.  We are unique individually and as a team.  I have the pleasure of doing what I love with the person that I love and that is amazing.  So this first blog is about keeping it real, being who I am, which in the last couple of years I have avoiding putting out there on the internet.

But here I am, giving it out for everyone to see.  Here I am, here we are, and here is what we do.

I have challenged myself to take my camera with me more.  Here are some pictures I took yesterday:

Jasmine Star’s Ghetto Fabulous Marketing

Ruckus, our silly ol’ dog.

❤ Kimberly