It Came Upon an Afternoon Not So Clear

I woke up this morning feeling like a seven year old on Christmas.  After months and months of saving my money, today it would be here!  Of course, this day would have happened much sooner if not for the Great Electronic Deaths of 2009- when both my TV and my laptop had to be replaced.  (The TV lived a long happy life, unfortunately, a Great Force of Destruction...Spencer... armed with orange juice killed my laptop two weeks before Christmas. 

Since I'm about six months removed from those incidents, I can now think about them without having my blood pressure sky rocket into the stratosphere.  In fact, I can even see the bright side.  If I hadn't been saving my money for this large expenditure, I wouldn't have had the funds to replace the TV and the laptop, which, to be quite honest with you, might have been the death of me.

So these were pretty large set backs that brought me to tears more than once, but I never lost hope.  It's been 11 months since I've had a hair cut by someone other than myself, eight months since I've left the greater Richmond area to see any of my friends, eight months since I've eaten at a restaurant with anyone other than family, seven months since I've purchased a magazine, and six months since I've bought myself anything without a gift card (thank goodness for my Swagbucks and those Amazon gift cards!)

Basically, this self-deprivation has been going on too, too, too long. And just when I thought I would never have enough money, The Fates took pity on me and felt bad for all they had put me through.  I received an unexpected gift in the mail on the same day that Amazon sent me an email alert telling me that the object of my affection was going to be available at a discounted price for the next week.  The combination of those two events gave me just enough money!  Not being one to ignore "the signs," I acted with all due haste and the order was made.

These past few days I've felt just like I used to when I was a little girl counting down the days to until Santa would deliver a plethora of elfin-made toys under my tree.  I compulsively used the tracking number to check the status and location of my order and then last night "it" told me she had arrived in Richmond- which meant today would be The Day.  In true Katie Fashion, luck was not exactly on my side, and the UPS Man did not ring the doorbell until 5:05pm, just as the clouds began to darken and the rain started to gently fall. (Even though it got to Richmond LAST NIGHT!)  I signed for it, shut the door, sat my butt down right there on the floor and opened her up.

I am now the proud owner of a brand new Canon 50D, body only.  I wanted to take pictures right away, but that was not to be; I had to charge the battery. UGH!  And then life things/obligations happened- dinner and bath time for Spencer, etc., followed by the previous sprinkling of rain turning into a large thunderstorm that had to start just as the life things/obligations were over.  So I haven't had much time to learn and play around yet- in fact,  I only took 14 pictures!  But from what I have done/seen/read, I have a lot to learn and then some. While a few of the features are the same as on my Rebel Xti, there's a bunch that's new and different.  It's going to take me awhile to really get to know all of the ins and outs, but I am A-OK with that!

Now it's dark and Spencer is sleeping, okay, that's not true, she's fighting sleep with all of the strength she possess, and I'm realizing that I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow morning to really take any good pictures.  I've waited this long, I think I can make it another 10 hours, haha!  Here are a few of the pictures that I took this evening. They are SOOTC (straight out of the camera), which means there's not post-edit work.