mexico!
as I posted on here almost too many times to tag, I went to Mexico at the end of February (the very end! my passport is actually stamped February 29th!!!) and came back some time in March. It was lovely!! I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t as ‘magical’ as last year, but who could have expected that? But it was fantastic for it’s own reasons – I spent 10days with Perdues+ and feel like I went home without them being completely annoyed of me, so I consider that a success!! 
below are a selection of photos from the trip …
let’s start with some good old fashioned beach frolicking … who can go wrong there!
This was a random photo shoot that we decided upon because Mur’s mom gave me some dresses to take to Mexico to fight over with Margee … Pretty sure we had a pretty huge audience for this!!! They all loved drinking their beer and watching the blond girls run around the beach
ha!
but the trip wasn’t all frolicking on the beach…
there was food…
there was beautiful rug weaving (more on that later) …
there were succulents …
and mules.
It was a really lovely trip! A lot of bitter with my sweet, but I made it and made it home
Probably more to come from this trip in coming weeks… but for now, I’ll leave you craving a beach
Besos!
Read Morethe weather …
It’s no secret that I live in Minnesota. And here, the weather is a constant topic of conversation…
“Can I go shovel the walk? You betcha, hun!”
“It’s not so much the heat, it’s the humidity.”
“Did you see those storm clouds move in last night, Sven? What a soaking we had! Boy, it sure is nice out today!”
And in true Minnesotan form, as much as I’d like to pretend I’m not guilty of it … I am. But seriously, have you SEEN this weather?? This week has been beautiful!!! Pretty much all week! So this, in combination with a lot of catch up from being gone in the depths of Mexico, a bunch of new and fantastic opportunities for Chocolate Moose, a heck of a lot of emotions as I take this week to really look at ‘me’ and what that means now and of course, oodles of time with the girls are all contributing factors to why my blog has been silent since I got back.
We’ve been doing a lot of this {see images below} around our house … time on the square and time with the shrimp. Oh boy, the shrimp. There has to be a post about that in the future. Anyone who has been to my house since the holidays knows that this little one here is obsessed {almost to the point of drooling} when I take out a shrimp. She fetches them like it’s what she was meant to do. And maybe that’s just it … Tarrazu was born to fetch shrimp. Ha Glad she found her calling in life!
**side note … I’m pretty sure that in the past I’ve defined a few terms for my blog readers that I throw out there all willy nilly, but just in case we have some new folks in town, here is another quick run down.
the square: an incredibly tiny patch of deck real estate that is outside our apartment’s back door. it is large enough to hold 2 cats, myself, a tomato plant and just a few herb plants. want to join me out here? then we should probably move the tomato plant inside.
the girls: my amazing kitties that have filled the last 2 years of my life with excitement, laughter, love, a little insanity and meat muffins. I don’t think I’m a crazy cat lady yet {proof? when they talk to me I’m still not sure what they say} but it’s possible that may be in my future. names of said kitties are Digi and Tarrazu (Tarra)
Just recently someone said “oh fun! what girls are you hanging out with and where is this square?? I want to come!!” So to help paint pictures in your minds that doesn’t involve lots of my girlfriends, martinis and some fancy restaurant patio somewhere {although that does sound AMAZING}, above are the definitions of what the hey I’m talking about.
Well, I’m super excited about everything that is ahead but it’s also quite bittersweet because of that big hole that remains in my heart. But today I’m going to focus on the good things … enjoying the sunshine, getting the girls as much out door time as possible, drinking some fancy new beer I just picked up and making something crafty. Have a great Saturday!
Read Moreright now
… I am enjoying one of these … here.
… and then I’m going to go play in this
well, that actually looks rather intense. I think I’ll find a more calmer section of water to wade around in. Take care, Minnesota!
Read Morea glimpse of winter?
… why not. I mean why not have threats for the only snow storm MPLS has had all year the day I’m supposed to leave for a trip to Mexico? I have my fingers crossed real hard there are not glitches in my travels!!! Hopefully things don’t turn out like this …
… this was just one of the 20some” blizzards we had last year. In fact, this was the day after we got back from Mexico.
Well as I’m getting ready for my trip, packing the last of my goodies, clearing the last of my memory cards and cuddling with my kitties before they go to Hotel-de-Dad, I’m reminiscing on last year’s trip. It was really great. Really really great! One of those trips that you want to do over again and again. I am really looking forward to this one but also know if won’t be the same – not even close – and while that’s making today hard, I know that we will make new memories and have as good of a ‘full-on-pina-colada-mode’ time as we possibly can have.
… and now don’t you want to be there too??
Read Moremmmm meat! :: minneapolis pet photographer
Most posts about my girls start with “I know I’ve said it before, but I’m cat crazy” … this one should be no different.
Sometime last year Murray and I were wandering around our little corner of the world checking out the little shops, most of which are of the antique variety. We stumbled upon an {amazing} non-antique store which also happens to be right at the end of our ally called Woody’s Pet Food Deli. When we went inside we knew immediately it was a place where mega animal lovers go to get their pet food. It is a shop that only sells meat. Raw meat. Of all varieties! At the time I assumed that it was only for dogs so after not seeing any new cat toys I needed, we moved along.
Now Mur was always the ‘strong’ pet parent in our family. I was the softy that would let the girls sleep with me & felt bad if they weren’t allowed to roam to the basement or bask in the sun on the square. Mur was the enforcer and used the word “no!” a lot more than I did. So when I got home in September, this all became far too evident as the cats started to rule the place even more than before. It started to drive me batty!! They were waking me up every morning like clockwork demanding breakfast, they were eating food and trash out of my garbage, they were eating LOAVES of bread along with bags of bagels, pitas and baguettes off of my counter. And I once had to wrestle a chicken breast out of Digi’s mouth. No joke. They were climbing on shelves and counters they knew they shouldn’t be on, up on the mantel, clawing at the plastic on my windows, eating all my plants and in general, becoming all around terrors! … And all of this seemed to revolve around food. They would act out in ways they knew bothered me so that I would give them attention and ultimately, feed them. It was their little game and it was running my life! You may think I am giving them too much credit or am just insane, but before you think that, read this next bit …
In November I was running low on food and found myself with a somewhat free afternoon to just do what I wanted. I had come to the realization that something had to change with the girls and I was going to start my investigation with their diet. I stopped into Woody’s to talk to them about food and met a fantastic woman who was incredibly knowledgeable! After I explained what was going on and the antics my cats were up to, she said “they are hungry. that’s why they keep doing this. they aren’t getting the nutrients they need from their current food…” WOW! It all made so much sense!! I had been buying what I thought was premium dry food but it just wasn’t what they needed. We talked for quite a while and in the end, she sent me home with a large selection of samples to try with the girls. It was amazing!! I was absolutely giddy as I walked home {just ask my dad!} and I had little containers of buffalo, duck, pheasant, Cornish game hen, rabbit and chicken lining a shelf in my freezer. They went through it very fast and even in the week or so it took to use up my samples, I could tell a difference in their mood and habits. It was phenomenal!
Before I knew it, I was buying several pounds of meat to have on hand for breakfast and dinner. For Christmas and New Years I even got them something special to have… Rabbit and Quail. I’m such a good kitty mama!! And while they are still anxious for their meals, they don’t wake me up anymore. They don’t eat my bread. They don’t act quite as crazy. And because of all of that, our lives are all a smidge better. Hooray for good food!!!
Meat is a lot different than dry food so how do I know how much to feed them, you ask? Well, I figured out a system.
And with all of my systems, there usually is a story behind it …
Mur was a huge fan of muffins. He was always so excited when I would get up early to make him chocolate chip muffins to take to work or brought him breakfast in bed. And I am a huge fan of things that are little … so I decided to get mini-muffin pans a few years ago because I knew I would make us more muffins if they were mini. It was really a win win purchase. So when I bought my first large container of meat I used Woody’s recommendations and the girls prior eating habits to figure out about how much to give them. After debating about making them meatballs, I decided I didn’t really want to roll duck around in my palm in order to shape them. I love you girls, but not enough to ‘play’ with meat. So after quite a bit of thought and container testing, I realized that the mini muffins fit the exact amount of meat I need for their meals. Alas, meat muffins were born.
I think Mur would be a bit disappointed that I have converted our mini muffin pans from chocolate chip to meat, but he would definitely love how excited I am and support it regardless!
… but we probably would have bought some new pans for only meat muffins.
The meat isn’t quite as expensive as I had imagined, which is nice. It definitely is a more expensive way of feeding the girls but really, it’s totally worth it. They are happier and I am happier so until the day I can’t buy myself food, I’ll be feeding them these tasty muffins. With every container of meat I get from Woody’s, I divvy it up into the pans and freeze them. Then once frozen, I pop them out and store them in a container and thaw as needed. They each get one muffin for breakfast and one for dinner {and as snacks during the day if they are really good or really cute} and it’s topped off with some dry food in part to keep them from inhaling their food like Roux and to help me keep the expense down a bit.
As soon as I was a converted meat-feeder, I knew I wanted to do a ton of photos and write a huge blog post about how amazing this all has been and how much I love the shop! The photo shoot was pretty hilarious because I was not only photographing meat {strange} but I was taking photos of my cat’s new favorite food … and they have great noses. I had to wait for the sun to come up and be shining into my apartment which was well after breakfast. So by the time I was ready to take photos they were ready to eat…
… it was tricky getting photos of just the meat muffins and not my cat’s heads And the photos of the containers went something like this…
So I let them lick the carton afterwards. I felt like I was giving my kids the spoon after we mixed up some brownies. Ha!
In the end, we are all in love with this diet. And the people at the shop are fantastic, super nice and incredibly knowledgeable. The only draw back is that I am now basically feeding my cats like a dog, so it’s hard for me to leave them. Well, their diet is not the only reason it’s hard for me to leave them but it’s a bigger factor now than before. But I won’t go back to just dry food. Nope. These girls will be eating quail, duck and rabbit for years to come. Mmmmm….
So if you can relate to any of the above nightmares, I’d suggest looking into your animal’s diet. That just might be the ticket to a longer night’s sleep and leaves on your plants!
…Besos!…
Read More2012 … the year of the gift
** note … this is a much longer post than I anticipated when I settled on the title and edited the photos included.
In a nut shell, it’s about making people happy in 2012 with {handmade} goodies but for more details, read on***
Well, the 2011 Holidays have come and gone. Anniversaries. Birthdays. Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Years. As the year wore on after September and October, I started thinking that it might be best if I just ‘skipped’ the holidays this year. Yes, I would experience the actual ‘dates’ but I wouldn’t necessarily do the same things that I had done in the past. I knew I wouldn’t be able to celebrate the same so what did it matter if I didn’t really celebrate at all. The Nelson family gatherings have always been more about spending time with each other, trying out new recipes or re-experiencing old favorites and playing some sort of game than it is about the celebration of a specific holiday. I’ve come to learn the Perdues are very similar. I figured I might be able to handle all that if I just pretended it was just an ordinary Thursday or Sunday. To some degree it worked … there weren’t quite as many crying fits as I expected, I got hugs when I needed hugs and space when I needed space and at times I was able to pretend I was still in August because the sun shone bright and the temps were unseasonably high. I thank Mur for that.
I went on little hikes on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years which I know he would have loved. I took photos of the animals around me and I enjoyed the outdoors. I ate a LOT of good food and drank my fair share of wine and champagne. I received amazing gifts and gave some that I was incredibly proud of, all of which made people smile.
And that is {one of} the points of my post… I decided that 2012 is going to be a year of gifts, mostly handmade, for people that I love more than anything else. I want to bring people joy on a random Tuesday. I want to send cards through the mail. I want to write down my thoughts, feelings, appreciations and congratulations. I want to be crafty.
After I got back from Iowa in September my dad brought over a stack of cards that came in the mail while I was away. While they were all nice and incredibly touching {and I honestly appreciated them all}, there were 2 different packages that really stood out to me. They both came from long {and to some degree, lost} family friends. As I have discussed on here in the past, my mom was an amazing woman who touched so many people’s lives. It’s absolutely incredible how many people still carry her with them. One of her close friends {Cindy} sent me a beautiful journal and a heart filled card that was originally gifted to her by my mom. Inside was a {rather cute} picture of me and Cindy from when I was quite a bit younger. It really touched me that she still had this card and photo but even more so, that she gave it back to me to be something I could treasure. It reads as if my mom is giving it to me in a time of need and no words can really explain how that feels.
Another of mom’s friends {Barb} had also saved cards and letters that my mom sent her back in the 80s and 90s with heartfelt messages and lots and lots of love and ‘sloppy kisses.’ Even just touching them made me feel closer to her. I absolutely love that handwritten and handmade things can mean so much to people for a life time. Those that are keep for years and years can evoke such emotion and memory at even just the sight of them. Sure, today we have digital photography and emails that easily live on computers and hard drives where they can be protected, but for someone to take the time to construct something that is meant for you alone and to take the time write out a card letting you know how important you are… that’s something beautiful. And I surely don’t think I’m alone with finding joy in the discovery of treasures in my mail box.
So alas, this all has given birth to ‘2012 – the year of the gift’ …
I kicked it off at New Years with goodies for my Iowa family.
Murray would love this. Man oh man. He would love this! But I think he’d want a star in place of a heart so it’s more dude like. The story about these starts back in late September. I stumbled upon a lovely artist at a craft show who had a pendant for sale in the shape of MN, with a fork and a knife cut out of it. Being the food lover and crazy-proud Minnesotan that I am, I had to have it. I gave her my business card as well and mentioned what I did and told her how much I loved this pendant! Soon after that she found me on Etsy and long story short, I asked if she ever did custom creations and she said “no problem!” I just had to provide her the location of Griswold, and that was that. I am so in love with these!! It’s a simple and totally special way to stay connected to that home for all of us, even if we aren’t always there. I know it means different things to me than the rest of the Perdue’s but I would still hands down call that one of my homes.
So, once I had the pendants I whipped up the chains and such and then made my new favorite thing to make … packaging.
goodness sakes … the sewing machine that I got for Christmas last year helped me make just a few projects in it’s first several months but in 2012? That baby is going to purr night and day!!! I’m so excited. SO excited.
Besides the necklaces, I made some {super!} cute onesies for my little niecey but shame on me, failed to take photos of them when they were done. I have my fingers crossed {quite tight} that I’ll be able to see her in my absolute favorite one but she is growing like a weed so I’m a bit worried. Again, fingers.crossed. While I don’t have photos of the completed onesie, I do have a few ‘in progress’ shots. Here you can see all the necessary ingredients for creating it as well as a partially complete version.
Well goodness… that turned into a long post!! … There will be far more crafty things on here over the course of the coming year. I have a new {homemade} sketch book of ideas I want to make and couldn’t be more excited to get started!!! Take care everyone!! And I encourage you to find something that sparks you as much as being creative and making people smile seems to be making me. I reach for any ray of sunshine I can these days and this is a huge one for me!
Besos!
… and don’t worry, more pups + kitties to come soon.
Read Moreamazing and leafy
I love this tree. I’ve loved it for a while. When I first went to ‘my Iowa vacation home,’ Mur showed off the land by way of a 4Wheeler trip. As we went past this tree he told me he had always loved it and that he thought if he ever had a job in Hollywood he would love to be the ‘tree finder’ for movies. He said this one always reminded him of the tree from Shawshank Redemption, one of his favorite movies. After he proposed he asked me if I knew it was coming. I said I had a feeling {which was a bit of an understatement} but that I expected it to happen under his favorite tree. He laughed a bit and hugged me tight. He said something along the lines of “wow you do know me well. I was planning that but they haven’t mowed the path recently and I didn’t want to make us walk all the way out there.”
Clearly, it’s a pretty amazing spot.
Dad and I hiked out there one evening at sunset when we were there in September and got some beautiful photos. It was great to go on a photo adventure with him and to take photos of this tree at the perfect time of night. I had envisioned having some photos taken under the tree at our wedding and Mur was really excited about that. Well, as excited as he got for photos of us
i’m not a jewelry kind of girl …
That is a very true statement in the blingy sense. Ask anyone that knows me and they will tell you that rarely am I seen without some big obnoxious necklace (often an owl, a turtle, the state of MN or some old locket). But ask those same people if I wear anything that sparkles and they will laugh. That is not me at all. But recently the few sparkly things I do have in my life have taken on a hell of a lot more meaning, which has led me here.
I want to share with you photos and stories of a few of the most important treasures I am honored to claim as mine…
This amazingly gorgeous necklace was my mom’s precious treasure and it was passed along to me after she was gone. The story goes that her dad gave her the beautiful pearl on a chain as a special present from a father to his daughter as she was to be married. She loved this necklace dearly and I really can not remember ever seeing her without it on. After she passed away my dad bestowed it upon me. Immediately, it was the most important ‘thing’ I had. It’s important to note that I put ‘thing’ in ‘’ because it was so much more to me than just that. Even at 11 years old it wasn’t just a necklace. It was so much more than that and felt like a piece of my mom I could carry with me every day… something that was so important to mom from her dad that someone dear to her would need to wear in her absence. It felt like such an honor to have it and be able to keep her so close. It was at that time my dad had the diamond added as a special gift to me, which makes this current piece complete. It’s so simple and so incredibly beautiful.
I love it. I wear it whenever I feel the urge to have family extra close. I feel like it gives me strength in tough times {a new job, an emotional battle, a big challenge} and it makes me even happier in times of happiness {weddings, photo shoots, family events}. I treasure it now and look forward to the time when I can pass it on to my own little one for her to treasure in her own little way.
The blingy blingy ring above is my gorgeous and treasured engagement ring. Murray asked me time and time again in our 2 months if I still loved it. He would say “now, are you still happy with it? do you still want to wear that forever?” I would always look at him and roll my eyes playfully but reply “of course! it’s amazing.” Even though we looked at it together he was still so worried about whether he had made the right decision. For a while he thought he would pick out the ring on his own until I showed him one I loved – it was miles away from what he had envisioned. He really had wanted a “wham!” surprise factor to the proposal but I can promise that if he acted the same way that day as he did the day of the real proposal, even a ‘secret’ ring wouldn’t have kept my suspicions at bay.
There is a song that had recently started to be played on ‘our’ station that Mur thought described us so well. He even sent me a text one day to say when he heard it on the radio it made him tear up. The song talks about a ‘pretty girl’ planning a wedding for next fall and her ‘man’ thinks she is doing too much. She reassures him that it’s exactly what she wants and he should focus on other things. She says that…
“I think love is so much easier than you realize. If you can give yourself to someone, then you should … It’s a little bit of everything. The way you joke the way you ache. It is getting up before you so I could watch you as you wake. So on that day in late September it’s not some stupid little ring. I’m getting a little bit of everything.”
We sometimes disagreed on music but I would have to agree with him on this one. That song does describe us well. He had made it known to many people he was worried I would do way, way too much for the wedding. I think he even confided in his brother that “She wants to make napkins. She really wants to make NAPKINS!” Ok – I’ll admit it’s probably true. I thought of baking my own pies the morning of the wedding until Mur suggested I pass that duty on to loved ones with ovens at their disposal. Smart man – that’s part of why I kept him around
This ring means the world to me – then and now. It signified that we had finally decided it was time. It represented the years of love behind and ahead of us. It promised many, many good times. And it meant he would have to put up with my cats and I would have to put up with his Wii games forever.
Now this ring? This is the first ring he gave me. It is wood and was hand crafted in our basement work shop. It took quite a few attempts to get one where the wood didn’t split so this was pretty special. He was so proud when he brought it upstairs and gave it to me. In some ways I’m surprised he didn’t propose with this one! The only thing about it is that it’s a smidge on the large side. Take a look …
The sparkly one fits, the wood one? Not so much. But really, that’s not what matters. It is an amazing piece of work and I adore the story and love behind it.
As I said, this is a batch of stories and photos of the a few of the most important treasures I have. I feel like this might give you a peek into my life not only right now but in general. You may understand more about what I love and why. You may understand more about who I am. And you may understand that if you ever plan to give me blingy jewelry you have some serious competition to make it into the top two.
I won’t lie and say that I’m back. I won’t promise that I’ll post often. I also won’t say that things are fine. None of that would be true because my life is still upside down and my heart is tied in a big huge painful knot. It is hard to come home sometimes and it is hard to wake up. It is hard to cook something delicious and it is hard to have a fire in the fire place. I am so thankful to have my girls because without them this place would be far too quiet and full of those silent memories. They are just cats but they help me fill this place with life. They fetch their glitter balls and they curl up in my lap. They are my little shadows as I move from room to room and they ask me to let them on the square day in and day out. On top of my love for the girls, I really can’t thank my close family and friends enough – Nelson & Perdue clans you are AMAZING and I really don’t know what I would do without you by my side!! And anyone who has texted me more than 2 times in the last 2 months falls into this list as well – thank you thank you! I really look forward to the day when I have a spring back in my step and when I can take photos of goofy things and giggle.
What will be surfacing from here in the future? Well goodness, I actually have quite a few pups and kitties that need some blog love which I plan to give in the coming weeks. And surprisingly enough, none are my own (at least at this point)! I have 8 pups I get to play with before the snow flies and as always, I have lots of things to tackle in the New Year. As I’ve said before this blog is so much more than just a face to my business… I feel it’s a place to talk about me and my life – the good and the bad. If I didn’t do that I’d just be a lady behind a camera that always smells like dog treats. I love when clients reference posts on my blog – it shows that people actually care about what I have to say. It makes me feel good inside Thank you to everyone who has been patient with me. Thank you to everyone who has stood by me. And thank you to everyone who has checked back in here from time to time to see if I have updated. I need that support!
If I can ask for a favor, I’d love for people to keep thinking about me during this hard time and I will pay you back in posts full of adorable pet photos. Deal?