Category Archives: Sweet Threads
Last month brought some amazing discoveries, as well as some difficult news. We found out {finally} that my son Kevin will be having a little brother! I have so many curiosities about this lovely little baby. Will he be a clone of Rocky the way Kevin is? Will he be shy or more outgoing? It’s been almost four years since Kevin was born, I can’t wait to have a tiny baby in my arms again. The anticipation of meeting him is often on my mind.
We also learned that my husband {probably, for sure} won’t be here when this little man makes his appearance in the world. He’ll miss it by about half a month. We’ve known this could be a possibility, but it was still hard to digest the actual announcement. I took some time to ponder this news and not so eloquently fall apart.
I wish I had the emotional capabilities of other military wives I’ve met & read about. Women who don’t flinch at the prospect of much more difficult scenarios, women who build empires as busy single moms, women who keep it all together & even thrive during deployments. I am envious of their strength.
I am {slowly} accepting the changes & preparing myself for what is ahead. The most valuable picture in my studio is from an ultrasound that I framed. At twelve weeks, this lovely baby held up his hand and showed us the tiniest five fingers I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been looking at his “high five” and feeling revived that he’s already melting my heart & inspiring courage. New life always brings joy.
I’ve begun a running list of everything that is going for me & what I can be thankful for:
- I live close to family & close friends. I will have support during my labor & assistance after Kevin’s brother gets here. This is huge & I realize it’s clearly an exception in the military world. I’m thankful.
- I have six months to lose this baby weight… I’m {almost} guaranteed to be smaller when he gets back.
- We can talk on Skype often. I still like sending some handwritten letters, but nothing beats seeing him on the screen {besides seeing him for real…}.
- As much as I hate the idea of Rocky missing summer, it’s easier to stay busy when we can leave the house and enjoy the weather.
- After I take some maternity leave, I have some gorgeous weddings lined up. I can look forward to capturing them & doing what I love.
- When I’m not working, I will be busy taking thousands and thousands of pictures of the boys. Rock will be thoroughly updated on our daily adventures.
- Rock will be at a stable location.
- Kevin will be a great big brother. He’s competent at following directions & helping me. When he chooses not to, bribing with peanut M&M’s works wonders.
- Rocky should be home sometime before Christmas. It will be amazing.
- Unnamed baby boy {who is really starting to need a name!} will be ready to roll, crawl, & start teething when he meets his Daddy. Rock can watch & applaud all the biggest milestones in person.
- When he returns, Rock will be on desert time for a while until he adjusts to our time zone. He’ll be up all night & want to go to bed early. He’ll have no problem hanging out with a teething baby while I blissfully catch up on some sleep.
- I’ll have plenty of time to rent all the chick flicks he doesn’t care for. {I must give the man credit, he did endure New Moon in its entirety at the theater}.
- Just like last time, we will learn a temporary normal. I’m thankful for the adjective “temporary.”
- Every lonely minute will be forgotten when we see him walk through the terminal. It will be pure euphoria when he meets his son, reunites with Kevin, and kisses me like it’s the first time. ♥
{The adorable brown envelope & its yummy contents is curtesy of Alli from Hooray Design…Â can’t wait until she restocks her Etsy shop!}
When my husband was deployed in 2008, I took my younger brother & sister to Chicago for the day. I love being in big cities, but I’m not so great with driving through them. Part of me just wanted to be able to say I was a big girl and drive there by myself. We roamed the streets for a little while enjoying all the usual sights, Millennium Park, the amazing Cloud Gate {large Jellybean sculpture}, & all the shops. Then something green & black caught my eye. I thought it was some kind of Halloween decoration, since it was October.
I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I liked it:
As the days grew colder and lonelier, I found that taking 2 1/2 year old Kevin to Barnes & Noble was an excellent idea. He would play with the wooden Thomas the Train tracks while I would indulge in a book. One evening, something green & black caught my eye. A huge table displayed the same artwork I saw in Chicago. Although it wasn’t a Halloween decoration.
It was Wicked.
I eagerly bought the book and was deliciously surprised by Gregory Maguire’s imagination. I fell in love with the real Elphaba & her unfortunate circumstances that lead others to misunderstand her. I was amazed at the intricacies in his fable, the motifs he carried into Son of A Witch so fluidly. I told Rock about my new obsession and he bought me the third book, A Lion Among Men, for Christmas when he came home. This year, he surprised me with tickets to see Wicked the Musical at the Schuster Center here in Dayton. I was swooning with enthusiasm by the time we sat down {in the third row!} Sunday evening. I was enchanted with the huge map curtain & the ticking dragon overhead. I felt as if someone took one of my favorite things and made it tangible.
Then the curtain rose & the music began…
There were some slight, then severe differences from the book.
I knew there would be, but I almost felt like it wasn’t even the same Animal {if you will}.
Once I stopped trying to figure out why they changed it and appreciate it as if I never read the book, I liked it for what it was. The whole point of the book is that the legend of Oz is different than what is portrayed in other books & movies. They still carried that theme rather well. I will also say that the ending was kinder to the characters than it had been in the book {that we know of}. Who doesn’t mind a nice happily ever after?
It’s like ordering cake & getting cheesecake. If you expect & enjoy cake, it could potentially be disappointing. However, if you are craving something sweet & you try cheesecake… even though it’s different you could definitely appreciate it for being a decadent dessert.
You just wouldn’t even bother to compare them as the exact same thing.
I know a lot of you have had the chance to see it, what do you think? The book or the musical? Both?
Our little man enjoyed it. We were seated near the orchestra pit and he danced throughout the entire musical. Rock was able to feel him moving and I won’t forget how his face lit up after one especially hard kick. As the next deployment draws nearer, I find myself wanting every beautiful moment to last forever.
My beautiful sister-in-law Suzanne, is having a baby this month and we threw her a baby shower this weekend. It happened to be on the same day as the super anticipated Wicked performance that we have had tickets for since last fall. I was crushed when I realized I wouldn’t be able to make it to the shower, but I was able to go up early & spend some time with my family in Findlay. I came out of cake baking “retirement” and baked the baby shower cake at my parents’ house. It was great cooking in my mom’s kitchen! I had help with Kevin, access to my mom’s stocked pantry for last minute substitutions {who has Trader Joe’s Lemon Curd unopened just laying around?}, all the extra KitchenAid mixing bowls I could ever ask for {thanks to my dad who has worked with them for years}, and it also meant transporting the delicate cake a minute up the road instead of driving cautiously for two hours!
I don’t plan on updating my other blog, Military Spice anymore. I have to admit I miss food photography. I love it.
I usually try to brainstorm ideas for cakes early in advance, but it’s been very busy. I only had 24 hours to sketch, gather supplies, bake, assemble, and decorate the cake {and cupcakes}. I was inspired by cakes I found on Flickr, it never fails to give me unique ideas.
The monkey, green pillow & tag were last minute additions. They helped bring some color to the cake that fit my color palette. I had tried to incorporate some yellow as the crib sheet color, but I added too much gel & it was almost fluorescent! I covered that layer with white fondant & I’m not sorry.
This is kind of what it’s like when you become a mama… your baby puts the world into focus.
It becomes easy to make decisions because you can see what matters & what can wait…
Best wishes to Sam & Suzanne as they welcome this baby boy soon!
Next I’ll talk about seeing Wicked at the Schuster Center in Dayton. I made the mistake of reading & falling in love with the books first…
{The “Subscribe by E-mail” option for getting notifiications when there are new posts is finally working!}
My portfolio website has finally received a tender, handmade make over!
If you haven’t had a chance, please take a peek over at andreadozier.com to see for yourself.
For a photographer {or anyone for that matter} in Ohio, Winter is a great time to be inside . This season has been valuable, because I have been able to take care of some design & organizational tasks that I hate doing when the weather is more pleasant. Slowing down has also given me time to reflect on last year & set new goals for this year… and the next five. If I only take on predictable projects, I will never mature as a photographer. I have decided that every month, I want to take on a shoot that is inspiring, artistic, collaborative, and makes me completely uncomfortable.
When I mentioned this to my friends, sisters, Ruby & Sarah, they were completely on board. Ruby Randall is a very gifted make up artist, model, and vintage lover, so she offered to do all the styling for our shoot {amazing}. You can check out more information about Ruby here, she is available for weddings!
Their lovely friend, Demi, looked incredible in one of Ruby’s vintage dresses:
I haven’t been baking very much lately, but made an exception for our Valentine shoot. It wouldn’t be the same without Red Velvet Cupcakes!
I’ve been close friends with Sarah for over thirteen years & she’s always been gorgeous, but she was perfection in this shoot.
Don’t you think she is from another time? This is one of my favorites.
Sarah brought some of her own treasures that completed her look. The sweater she is wearing is her husband’s Grandmother’s that she made herself!
It was so fun to hang out with my friends & stretch my photography muscles. We wrapped everything up by having coffee & red velvet cupcakes. Perfect.
Ruby, Sarah, & Demi, thank you so much for sharing your time, talent, & beauty!
I am hoping to squeeze in one more styled Valentine session with cookies & the lovely little Nataly!
This is hopefully my last small update before the new site is launched next week. That little cold has turned into an ugly beast. While it’s still hampering my ability to eat anything but soup, it has forced me to “be still.” Which translates to: work out all the boring technicalities in Flash that would typically make me squirm. I’ve had all the patience in the world this week, becaues I physically haven’t had the strength for anything else. Now I’m just adding final touches and I’m finally proud of my {handmade} site.
When I was in school, I was waiting on a class to finish and I just happened to overhear a professor tell a student that they should always hate their past work. It means that you are growing as an artist & have gained valuable perspective. At the moment, I didn’t quite understand because I was very proud of what I was doing. Now, well… take a look for yourself:
This was my first Flash designed website. The class was very overwhelming, but I loved the program. Our final assignment was to develop a flash site for a photography business {oh the irony}. I was so happy with my ideas that I gladly shared them to my friends, family, and internet friends. Now I feel almost embarrassed to even post this screen shot!
In reflection, I do realize that part of the reason we dislike our older work is because of limitations we had at the time. Did I understand the power of PNG files like I do now? Not entirely. Did I even know how to script my own keyframes & movies so that I could put my ideas into digital format? Not a clue. I copied and pasted “practice code” from my teacher and tried to fit my designs into the template from practice files. Finally, was I still trying to cultivate my personal design aesthetic? YES. Using a feminine color palette, birds, clean space… although the Web 2.0 look is very yesterday to me. I would have handrawn the birds and definitely changed the colors if I re-did this exact site today. I would have also worked on the grid, because it’s not really working out so well. Neither is the logo, even though I can see a small bit of “good” in it.
Designing a brand is no small undertaking. Converting that brand visually into other media formats, especially a website, is very challenging. I’ve maxed out my old sketch book over this site & used up my share of micron pens trying to solve the design problems. Here is a sneak peek:
I’ve added & taken away numerous objects… only to keep most of the existing site. I was more careful & paid attention to every detail. The purpose of this site is to showcase a digital portfolio, so I tried to focus on the best way to do that. In the second screen shot, you can see where you will finally be able to have greater navigational control on the slideshows {finally} when you mouse over the bottom of the image.
Whether it’s design or photography, I always want to grow. I always want to see progress & learn new techniques. Even when I feel like the past isn’t always very admirable, I want to critique it with clarity so I can become a stronger artist.
Thanks for keeping up with me during this transition, I will let you know when it’s ready!
My new twitter bird {above} is handdrawn. I wonder where that little birdy inspiration came from…
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First off, I love your new blog! Looks amazing. Second, I am sorry he won’t be here. As you know, I’m 5 months into our 2nd yearlong+ deployment in 2 years, so I know all too well what you’re going through right now. I too envy the strength of other women, but I have to remind myself that I am strong, too, no matter how many times a week (or day) I fall apart. It’s not an easy life we live, and one many people will never understand, but you’re strong in your own way and you’ll make it through! Looks like we’ll both have a great Christmas this year!……..Unless, of course, the Army decides to extend my husband =P
Andrea,
I love this post! You’ve got a rough road ahead of you, but I am so happy to see you note all of the things for which you are thankful. It’s good to not focus on just the negative in these types of situations. I too have met and read about some military wives with emotional capabilities I myself will never possess. I know it’s their (the hubbies’) job, and I know they’re fighting for our country, and I know that’s why we love them, but sometimes I would just want a pity party. I mean no married woman should have to be a single parent…for any amount of time! You’ll get through this…and come out stronger for having survived!!
p.s. I LOVE the ultrasound pic — how cute are those little fingers?!
Andrea, your new page looks amazing. I have said it before and will say it again, you are fantastic at what you do. Absolutley beautiful. 🙂
Thanks Mandy, so happy for you with your engagement!
Amy & Kerry, just wanted to thank you so much for your encouraging words! We are really blessed that we’ve had an idea of what to expect and that we have a lot of support. The more time I have to plan, the easier it is on me. I’ll be wrapping up some Fall weddings then he’ll be here soon after. Christmas is definitely going to be a very good time this year!
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