gwyneth colleen photography » portsmouth, nh wedding photographer

as i’m sure you remember, because clearly everything i write on here is a lifechanging event for you, my faithful readers, my little cat was killed not very long ago.

when i got mao, i got a brown tabby, because what i REALLY wanted was a bengal.  bengals are awesome, but i wasn’t in a position financially to invest in a pet like that.  fast forward two years, and i’m no longer subsisting on ramen, and a bengal is not out of reach.

enter stacey of niema bengals in chicopee, mass…i visited today, and picked out the little man who will come warm my heart when i return from new zealand.

meet the malaysian prime minister.

i am weird about pet names; i want it to be culturally relevant and also funny.  (the same sort of applies to car names, but you can ask me about that later.)  mao was named mao zedong, which was sort of funny and shocking because he was horrible and killed lots of people, but also, mao in a different tone means ‘cat’ in chinese.  so…bengals are bred from domestic tabbies and wild asian leopard cats–indigenous to china and malaysia.  and zoolander was supposed to kill the malaysian prime minister.  culturally/geographically relevant?  check.  funny?  check.

i got home from meeting this lil fella, and i googled “malaysian prime minister” (incidentally, the one in zoolander was mpm hassan.  hassan just doesn’t roll off the tongue like i’d like.  “here hassan!  c’mere hassancat!”  it’s not TERRIBLE, but it wasn’t perfect.  i had to find a different mpm name.)  wikipedia told me that the incoming mpm in 2009 is named najib tun razak.  najib.  i like it.  it’s also similar to ‘habeeb’, which was my cat in high school.

so expect come march to see many more photos here of little najib (and maybe a few more of his bros and sisters)

see that round belly?  najib’s a good eater just like his future mommy…i just hope *i* don’t get so fat and round i can’t walk.  it’s cute on him, i don’t think it would work for me.

yes, i do feel a bit funny arranging to adopt another cat so soon after mao died, but with bengals you have to plan ahead 2-3 mos as they are in such high demand. najib is only 3 weeks old right now, and he won’t leave until he’s at least 12 weeks old.

i found these old timey photos of me whilst i was packing.  and i thought to myself, “self, those loyal blog readers deserve a present, and what better present is there than looking at the gwyn as a wee, tiny girl w/ fluffy white blonde ringletted hairs?”  and i couldn’t think of one, so i made it happen.  these are posted in no particular order, so…chronology was kind of ignored.  (in case you were all, “whoah, she had hair, and then she didn’t, and then she DID again!”)

first off, the christmas one.  i would have guessed this was a horrible olan mills type photo, but i kind of remember my mom saying something about having ugly olive carpeting in that house, so…she could have taken it.  who knows.  but the point is…wasn’t i adorable?

1.  my mom is STILL obsessed with green.
2.  i STILL cannot concentrate w/o doing the “michael jordan face”.  (i got teased for it a LOT in 2nd grade.  mean abe singer and his sidekick whose name i cannot remember.)

i think i look like i’m about to sneeze.  this grandpa lives in arizona now, but he used to live in nevada when i was little.  bek-the-sister and i used to go exploring in the mountains/desert behind his house.  once we found this abandoned talcum mine and decided we were going to make homemade baby powder.  yeah, we were awesome.  (i don’t think it really worked out that well for us, though.)

coochee-coochee-coo!

omg…the…something-babies-are-afraid-of is coming!

i think this is my great grandpa.  i don’t really know.

anyway, merry christmas!  i am hard at work getting print orders ready to mail out on monday and finalising everything before my big trip.  (oh, and packing all of my earthly possessions into boxes so i can put them in a 10×10 concrete/corrugated tin closet.  awesome.)

1.  i just looked and saw that the last SEVERAL posts have been…not really photography related.  and they haven’t contained pictures.  i’m sorry for that.  i’ve got a half dozen REALLY GOOD excuses.  but i’ll save them.  i might need them even MORE in a week or two.

2.  i have a few wedding and engagement posts started…i am going to try to find time today to sit down and finish cranking one out.  they take me upwards of an hour each, because i try really hard to pick images that tell the story…while remembering the things i saw and felt and what set that celebration apart.  so, please be patient!

3.  i have about 2 hours before it’s supposed to start snowing (and at which time i am supposed to be at the salon for a haircut) to get some more boxes packed up and into storage.  so…i’d better dash.

4.  (please forgive the blatant search engine whoring…if you google portsmouth nh wedding photographer…i don’t even show up.  i kind of suck at SEO.  i’m working on it.)

i should be packing. i am moving in fewer than 7 days…but instead i am browsing etsy shops. and thinking about how i will decorate the home i have not yet secured.

yesterday i bought this bed:

a few months back i made myself a duvet cover and pillow shams from this fabric:

(the store i bought it from doesnt seem to sell it anymore.  jerks.)
(but if you’re into that sort of thing…www.fabrictales.com has super cool japanese import fabrics.)

and i think i might get this cool thing to go behind my bed…in black and red, of course.  (my wardrobe is becoming increasingly dual-chromatic.  am i getting boring?  what would clinton and stacy say to me?)

i think it’s gonna look pretty freakin’ sweet!