You would think winter has hit the entire east coast early! Granted for us, that means it’s a cool 50 degrees here in Charlotte. Up north, that means the 30’s! So as I’m writing this, I am in sweaters and under a blanket.
Cassie (Jeremy’s sister) is officially our new neighbor! She moved to Charlotte a few weeks ago and is loving it. It’s nice to have her here. 
September was extremely busy! Jeremy flew up to NJ to play at a festival for Mindy Daleo, then flew to Milwaukee to do live sound for Jason Upton, and the both of us flew back up to NJ to shoot a wedding. My first official wedding!
You can look at some of the pictures on my photography blog – http://amysnyderphotography.wordpress.com/. This link is updated, for those of you who are following my photography! It was a lot of fun and I was so happy that Jeremy was able to come and shoot with me. I really couldn’t have done it without him.
The month of September also brought us our 3rd year anniversary. We’ve taken pictures for each anniversary, (do you think we’ll be able to keep up with this every year…?) so here’s a few shots…
We ended the day with playing some cards in the park!
That’s about it for us. I can’t believe we’re going into the holiday season soon… time flies! Enjoy the holidays!
You would think with a lot going on that there would be a lot of blogging going on, but alas, it’s the opposite!
Believe it or not, this week marks the first week that Jeremy and I both have steady jobs since we have moved to Charlotte. Now that’s worth celebrating! So we went out to celebrate last night and ate some fabulous salmon, herb roasted chicken and crème brulée. Here’s one of our celebration pictures. Okay, so my eyes looks slightly freakish, but it’s true bliss beaming out of my eyes, people!
Jeremy….
is now busy! He’s working at Acura, teaching drums at Charlotte Music School a few nights a week and either playing drums or doing live sound once a week. Thank God for JOBS!!
Me…
I finally bit the bullet and made myself a photography website. Yes, I did it all by myself!! It’s a free site so it has its limitations and all that, but I really love it. The link to my site is www.amysnyderphotography.com. I would love it if you would stop by! I also have a photography blog. You can just click on “blog” from my site and if you’d like, you can subscribe via email so that you’ll get updates right in your inbox!
Us…
for September!
September 5th – Jeremy will be in NJ to play for Mindy for Rev Gen. (Congratulations Mindy!!)
September 9th – Our 3 year wedding anniversary! Time flies, huh??
September 26th – Shooting my first wedding! Jeremy and I will be back to NJ once again for this!
This isn’t in September, but my 30th birthday (that’s right, 30!!) is coming up in November. I’m very excited about a new decade! As a side note, someone thought I was 24 years old yesterday. People are starting to think I’m not a teenager anymore, woo!
Enough about us, let us know what’s going on with YOU! Email, call or comment. All are welcome.
Love to you.
Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well… my parents recently invited us to Myrtle Beach for a few days to visit and hang out at the beach. It was the first time we had seen them since we moved!
This was our view from the balcony of our room…
Out to eat at a great seafood/steak restaurant…(and wow, am I officially not a blond anymore??)
After dinner we went to feed the fish over the dock. It was the grossest and also most intriguing thing I’ve seen in awhile. They were hopping over each other to get to the food with their mouths wide open!
The next morning Jeremy and I got up at 5:45am to catch the sun rise over the water. There are few things that will get me out of bed this early. It was well worth it.
We played a few games of poker. My mom actually had some beginner’s luck (unless she was hustling us…) with the first game and my dad won the second game with Jeremy close behind. I think I fell asleep an hour before the game was over.
We had a great trip! Also, our on again off again trip NJ is back ON (thanks, Rich) so we’ll see everyone in NJ on Sunday, June 14th!
My last bit of news is that I have officially booked my first wedding to shoot in September. I honestly didn’t want to get into weddings, but the opportunity came up and I jumped on it so that I can grow as a photographer. I’m now very excited about it! Jeremy is coming too and will be my second shooter.
Other than that, we’re busy with jobs, music, photography and just regular life. We’ve recently been meditating on what the glory of God is and have found it in our “regular” life more and more. Find it in yours! It hopefully won’t seem so regular anymore.
New Jersey, we’ll see you soon!
snyder trip!
April 19, 2009
Gee and Cassie Snyder came to visit us last week and we had a blast! They ended up spoiling us so much it felt like we were the ones on vacation.
Our trip included thunder storms, ice cream, Paul Blart, singing loudly, lots of sugar, egg rolls, a fierce food shopping trip, Blockbuster, egg decorating, Morningstar, lots of yummy food made by Gee, pedicures, uptown, and lots of laughs.
Here are some pictures. Click on thumbnails to enlarge.
Thanks for the fun trip!
Hi everyone, this will be a quick “hello” and just a few thoughts, as Gee and Cassie Snyder are visiting us for a few days – hooray! I’m sure our next blog will be about the adventures we had while they were visiting. Gee makes good egg rolls. That’s all I’ll say for now.
A few quick things with my photos, if I haven’t bugged you yet through email or facebook or some other form of communication… I’m finally posting my photos on flickr…. www.flickr.com/poetryandhums if you have a chance to take a gander. Also I’m selling some of my photos on Etsy (thank you Kerri) and you can see those photos here… www.poetryandhums.etsy.com.
Okay, enough plugging my photos. I have two quick thoughts. And then back to eating leftover egg rolls at one in the morning.
I was recently looking at our engagement photos and came across this picture.
Now, I am a person that needs to laugh. Daily. My mom often tells me a story about when I was little, I came home from school one day looking rather sad. She said, “Amy, what’s wrong?” and I replied, “I only laughed 15 times today.” (As a side note, I guess I counted the amount of times I laughed during my day – ??)
Anyway, my point is… this picture is basically us every day. We choose to laugh no matter what. Good days. Bad days. We laugh and make each other laugh. Maybe we should all take note of how many times we laugh per day and make sure we’re doing it enough. (After all, it burns calories and makes us live longer.)
And my last thought for the day… (literally – I’m going to bed after this). We were at our Bible Study on Tuesday night and long story short… Al was talking about the phrase “behold the cross”. He said that one of the definitions for “behold” is “to look at, as though for the first time.” I hope that this Easter we can do just that. Behold the cross… our Savior… our Friend, as for the first time and fall in love all over again.
Happy Easter!
It’s been far too long. So long I don’t know where to begin. Bullet points? Scores of run-on sentences? Or I could just kick a ton of stuff out. Which I hate doing. I mean, there’s plenty of time for you sit there and read the details. It’s not like you need to read this for an assignment or something.
Back in December, I drove to Athens, Georgia. There is something strange about return to the land from which you have come. It’s strange to consider that I might have been on I-85 south in the very spot I am right now except 25 years ago. It’s quite contemplative to consider where you have come from. More recently I drove to Atlanta and it was something special; something I don’t feel like trying to express in words. At least not in a blog.
I usually can’t afford to go to shows but my friend’s band was opening for one of my favorite bands, Polvo, who was playing their last reunion show. I’m usually extremely skeptical of reunion shows for one reason; when a band is new, they are excited about enjoying themselves, they are playing just to play and they are so excited about the interaction with the other musicians. When a reunion tour comes around, it’s usually because they either think they can squeeze more money out of it or some other outside entity has influenced them to play again. Reunion shows are typically not very genuine (re: Slint in 2005). But not Polvo. They picked up where they left off.
Polvo went on at midnight. I left at 3:30am and drove home to Charlotte, arriving at about 6:15am. The only catch was that I had to do live sound in North Charlotte at 7am for Andy Squyres. The only thing I remember is talking to Andy about Sonic Youth, a volunteer sound person being really mad that I was mixing so loud, and free dinner from the pastor.
My reputation as an engineer spread pretty quickly after I did that Grids record (which I believe I mentioned in a previous post). They were a pretty strategic band to work with; they play a lot of shows and a lot of people like them. Some people have insinuated that it’s impossible to make a career out of the underground music in Charlotte but I think I’m about to prove them wrong. The scene is thriving and taking care of itself here finally. Between work garnished on my own and my employment at Threshingfloor Audio, we’re staying out of jail.
Recently, I was working on Sean Feucht’s new record and I found myself getting anxious about the repetitive nature of bigger records like this. What do I want to be when I’m 40? Do I want to be defined by my work? Do I want to be “Jeremythedrummerengineerwriterawesomepants”? (Well, I’d go for just ‘awesome pants’.) What good is all this hustle if you look back and the fruit of your life is that you’re a hustler? (I mean that in a ‘gym class’ sorta way. Not a ‘balla/playa’ sorta way). What good is it if you worked through all that you should have been enjoying.
So I’ve decided that I will care less. Not be careless. But try and keep things in perspective. There are things I want to do. I want to drive to California. We’re gonna. I want to sleep in the back of my truck on the beach. We’re gonna. I want to play a punk rock show and not care if I hurt myself. Amy isn’t gonna do that. But I’m gonna.
When Jesus said “Consider the lilies’, I always wanted to just do that. I know that scripture is about not worrying, which is applicable, but sometimes I just want to stop right there; ‘Consider the lilies’. Or just stop at ‘Consider…’.
How often do you consider?
our winter wonderland.
March 6, 2009
Hello New Jersey friends (and beyond!) Not too much new going on down here (well, a new IKEA did just open up, and that was very exciting…) except for our recent snow storm. It was an actual snow storm this time!
It started coming down hard this past Sunday night, and we took a midnight stroll around our block. It was beautiful and very peaceful.
Branches outside our window…
Jeremy walking down our street…
Granted, all it all melted the next day and it’s supposed to be 75 degrees this Saturday (which I’m not complaining about!) but it was fun while it lasted.
I’ve been able to talk to keep in touch with a lot of friends and fam in NJ, and it’s been great about hearing what’s happening up north. We appreciate your prayers and continued support, New Jersey!
Jeremy has been picking up with work, and I have been slowing down with work, (hee hee) so prayers would be appreciated that my work picks up!
Not much else new, just a big HELLO and big HUG from us down here!
an old truth we never get.
January 31, 2009
I was thinking today about the “trust exercise” that we did as kids. Our teacher made us stand in front of someone with our backs towards them and trust them to catch us when we fall back into their arms. No one ever wanted to do this. You don’t know what the person behind you is going to do. You stand there, palms sweating, wondering if they will stand to the side so that you fall as everyone laughs and mocks. (Not to mention that this will go down as one of your most embarrassing moments.) Or they may chicken out, thinking they can’t hold your weight, and fail at their one responsibility of catching you. It’s a scary place to be. You don’t know which option they will choose. I still get nervous thinking about it…
I realized that trust really comes alive the moment you decide to fall. When you decide to “jump”. When you’re in the place of not knowing. After all, if you knew 100% that they would catch you, if you knew that they wouldn’t chicken out, or want to make a fool of you… if they somehow didn’t have that choice… you wouldn’t have a problem falling.
I am learning to trust… and I’m doing badly at it. But that’s okay. Because I’m learning that when I close my eyes and fall back into Him, that He won’t move. He won’t chicken out. He won’t make a fool of me. Because He doesn’t have a choice.. or He would be a liar.
Let It Snow!
January 20, 2009
On the list of things we miss from up north, snow is near the top of the list! (A good NJ pizza might be my number one). So you can imagine how excited I was when my television show was interrupted with “Winter Storm Advisory for Charlotte!” and “Urgent – Winter Weather Watch” followed with warnings for plenty of snow to come.
We excitedly watched big flakes come down Monday night with anticipation of our big snow storm. Tuesday morning came. The schools were closed, people were off of work staying inside to stay safe. I opened the vertical blinds waiting to behold my winter wonderland.
Now, granted, plenty of snow in Charlotte is a whopping 2 – 4″. And granted… I did take this picture a few hours after it was done snowing, so it did actually snow 2″! The last time it snowed in Charlotte was a year ago, with one inch. The last time it snowed with 2 or more inches was in 2004. So this truly was the weather watch they were warning us about!
This isn’t what I’m used to calling a winter storm. But this “winter storm” meant anticipating snow, watching the big flakes come down, and a day home with my husband…. so I will happily call this the blizzard of the year.
Happy snow days to you!
