It is Tuesday, the day before my big weekly deadline and a little less than 20 hours before I have a 5-day weekend. And this would typically mean I’m trying to finishing my stories before the morning of production day. Tonight, however, I’m blogging before I get to that because my mom wants an update.

The short version? I’ve been working. And stressing myself out over a freakin’ Meet the Candidates section that eventually figured itself out (before I had to open the vodka, but it was very close). And procrastinating laundry and dishes. Visiting with friends. Stressing over my business. Raising silly little children. Reading. That kind of thing.

The long version?

Work. Trying to practice the “if you don’t have anything nice to say” rule here, but it’s going. And today I learned how to do something new at work (dummying out the layout sheets) and learned about a lot of alleged corruption. It’s been an interesting day. Last week my favorite two co-workers were out of town and things were a little hairy between the hellacious Meet the Candidates section, vacations and deadlines not being met because of the aforementioned factors. It was, quite simply, ridiculous.

A few weeks ago I covered the discovery of a probable Trilophodon (dinosaur) jaw in someone’s backyard (above). Pretty awesome! This discovery may rewrite the history of these animals because of where in the dirt it was found (depth, I mean). The story went global, my people. GLOBAL. (Not my story, but the story in general.) Also? The Pink Palace Museum in Memphis asked for my photos. I haven’t seen them on their site yet, though.

I miss my old gig, where I just wrote stories. Now I have more responsibilities and they’re wearing down my resolve, my patience, me. I am finding I need an outlet for the stress, so I’ve been running and walking a little bit.

Tomatoes. Tonight I sliced some tomatoes for dinner (BLTs) and ate a chunk. Delish! There’s nothing better than fresh-from-the-farm tomatoes, right?

Books, books, books. Over the weekend I stopped into Books-A-Million and bought Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café and To Kill a Mockingbird. Fried Green Tomatoes was AWESOME! I always had some unanswered questions about the movie and the book answered them. Actually, as much as I loved the movie, I love the book even more because the writing is wonderful and hello, the movie left out a lot. Bad, bad 1992 Hollywood! Ruth and Idgie are lesbians, people. (That had to be changed in the movie.)

I finished that book in about 8 hours or so. And BAWLED so much when I finished. You HAVE to read it. And if you do/have, the Dot Weems column? We have those (not Dot, other community correspondents) in our paper every single week. I like them more now after reading Dot Weems. And like Dot, many of our correspondents talk a lot about their better halves.

I started To Kill a Mockingbird yesterday. I wanted to read it again just to do it, but it is also the first pick for our book club (three members: me, Dara, Christa!). I told Darin it was no wonder I just picked up the Cliff’s Notes in high school because, dude, BIG WORDS! And I’m a writer. Also, I had the word taciturn. It’s awkward to pronounce. Can we just say shy? I mean, really, Harper Lee.

I am at the part where Dill is daring Jem to knock on the door or something like that.

The other night Darin and I had a conversation that went like this:

I sit on the bed, with a snack and To Kill a Mockingbird. Darin was watching Monster Fish or something equally boring on TV.

“Wait, you’re reading two books?”

“Um, no,” I say nonchalantly as I flex my muscle (okay, brain), smile and crack open the cover, creasing the binding. “I am not reading two books. I finished Fried Green Tomatoes yesterday. I’m only reading Eat, Pray, Love, the Laura Bush bio and this book, so three books.”

“THREE BOOKS? What? How do you keep them straight?”

Oh, Darin, Darin, Darin. “Just the same way you keep all of your sports straight – I just do.”

And yes, I was being snobby. (So mean, Echo Day! So mean.)

I have to point out how funny it would be if they were confused. Laura Bush traveling to Italy, Indonesia and India to release her true passion, spirituality and have gelato with Georgie Boy as he attempts to lure Boo Radley from his home. Just wonderful.

Anyway.

I’m close to halfway on my goal of reading two dozen books by the end of the year (yay!). You can check out my list here. I am loving the Southern lit (always have) – and these books fit in my 30 Things goals, too (#12 and #17).

I am having a hard time (again!) getting into Eat, Pray, Love. I really want to read it, because of the praise (and now movie), but please tell me it gets better. It does, right?

Visiting. On Friday night we headed to Jackson (Tenn.) to watch our friends’ son and his team play in the state tournament. The Friday night game had a rain delay and wasn’t over until 10 p.m. or so and after we visited with our friends for a bit, we decided to just get a room and stay the night in Jackson, then watch the next day’s games. This, of course, meant a midnight trip to Walmart so I could buy some shirts and toothbrushes and deodorant.

We had a ton of fun and I shot 460-something photos (whew) of the games. The boys, bless their hearts, were eliminated after the most intense game ever. They’d score, then the other team would tie it up, then they’d score again and the other team would tie it up. It was pretty crazy. After 10 innings, the other team put them out, 11-10. Our boys ended up third in the state, though! Pretty fab for 5- and 6-year-olds.

I’ve updated my business site – and I’m still running the giveaway! Hop on over and check those out: www.echodayphotography.com. Oh, and ENTER if you live in West Tennessee!

As for Darin and the children, they’re doing just fine, thank you. We’re going on a mini-vacation this weekend and they’re terribly excited about that. Darin’s been running lately and the kids have enjoyed running on the nature trails near our house. I’ve gone running a few times and have enjoyed it, but sometimes it’s really the last thing I have time for (my waistline is evidence).

Last weekend was a busy one: fireworks on Friday night; Karate Kid with Jaiden and Jaylen Saturday afternoon, dinner and Eclipse with friends Saturday evening, a UFC fight after the movie; church, a trip to the zoo (photos forthcoming) and a BBQ on Sunday; and cleaning and swimming on Monday.

I really hated it when Tuesday showed up and I had to return to work. I wasn’t ready.

This weekend we’re going to try to work in another trip the library and Darin has a couple of softball games. I think this will likely be a low-key weekend because my dad’s having back surgery in a few hours and my mom’s going on travel in a few days, so my brother and I will have to take turns checking on Dad.

Then, the following week I have taken a couple of vacation days and we’re planning on going to a cabin in Paris, Tenn. (I think?) too. The next weekend we’ll be gearing up for school to begin (Aug. 5). Such a bummer. Here we are, just trying to enjoy ourselves, and school’s almost back in session. Sigh.

Sharing a content I’m running through my business! Please enter if you’re local!

… Baby, just say yes!

Now that I have that song stuck in your head, let me tell you about a fabulous new thing I’m working on: your love story!

It’s a contest! Send me the best snapshot of you and your significant other – your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend – and a brief history of the two of you as a couple. I’ll post the photos and histories here on the blog and the couple with the most votes wins a free session, $50 print credit, 10 web-sized photos for social networking and best of all, a soft-bound photo book containing 10-15 images AND your detailed love story! This is a prize valued at more than $200.

The catch? No catch, really, except you have to live in West Tennessee (from the Tennessee River to the Mississippi River, Newbern down to Memphis) and be willing to be photographed. Easy, peasy!

But I’m not engaged … It doesn’t matter if you’re a new couple or one who’s been married for 40 years, every couple needs a photo! You can make “Facebook Official” look even better, have photos for the newspaper engagement announcement, make up for not having wedding photos, mark an anniversary, announce an impending arrival or just celebrate couple-dom. You don’t need a reason to capture the love you share!

Ready? Set? Go! Send a snapshot of you and your love to echodayphotography@gmail.com – and don’t forget to tell me a little bit about you! Or, you can surprise your favorite couple by nominating them (and who doesn’t love surprises?)!

Contest rules (aw, man!): You must be 18 years or older to submit an entry; one entry per couple. Entries must be made by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, July 31, 2010. Voting will begin on Monday, Aug. 2 and end at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 8. Winners will be announced by Aug. 12. Entrants must live in West Tennessee and must use their session by Oct. 31, 2010. This is also an anti-discriminatory zone; couples of any age, race or sexual orientation are welcomed to enter.

Four years ago today we squeezed a triple christening in between family and fireworks, then came home and joined a church. This – religion, faith, spirituality – was important to me in my life post-marriage.

As parents, and as witnesses, when our children are baptized we make promises to be responsible for seeing to it that they are brought up in the Christian faith and life. I’ve tried to keep that promise as best I can, going to church as often as we possibly can (though sometimes we take breaks and there were several months when we stopped for personal reasons) and being as involved as my schedule allows.

Luckily for me, my children really, really enjoy going to church. And so does my husband. I’m so thankfuly God answered my prayers and sent me Darin, who has always been active in church.

When I met him, we started our journey in fatih together. He and Emma started coming to church with the kids and me near Easter 2008 and he’s been in the pew next to me ever since. In Sept. 2009, we had Emma baptized and he and I were confirmed as Episcopalians (I was Lutheran, he was Presbyterian).

This morning in church I was thinking about this, about the kids’ baptisms four years ago and how truly lucky we all are to have one another. It’s such a nice feeling.

Photo by Jasin Boland/Columbia Pictures

What do cows do for fun? They go to the moooo-vies! (This is one of the kids’ favorite jokes. lol.)

This afternoon Darin and I loaded up the older two kids (the younger two were at his mom’s house) and headed towards the dump. Except that we stopped off at the movies; we told them we were picking up trash and they reluctantly got out of the truck. But, well, we tricked them. Darin dropped the three of us off to watch the remake of The Karate Kid.

We loved it.

It’s not the Karate Kid I grew up watching. There’s no wax on, wax off. There are no Cobras or Jersey accents (was that Jersey?) or Pat Morita. There’s a move to a new place, a bully, a girl, a Kung-Fu teacher, a hurt leg and a huge win. Of course there’s also a chore/life lesson used as the basis of the Kung-Fu lesson. The bones of the story are the same, the details different.

We really enjoyed it. From a parent’s perspective, it was a great movie that I didn’t mind my children watching because the language was mostly safe (Jaden Smith’s character cusses and is reprimanded for it) and there were no mature scenes or situations.

I felt Jaden Smith did an excellent job acting and could teach some Hollywood pop icons a thing or two; he has all of the best parts of his parents (actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith). I would be really surprised if he didn’t win something during awards season because he really did a fantastic job (if Kristen Stewart wins something and he doesn’t I’m really going to be surprised).

Jackie Chan is typical Jackie Chan, minus the comedic antics (he actually has a really great dramatic scene), Chris Tucker and Edwin Starr. And Taraji P. Henson rocks; you might remember her as Shug from Hustle & Flow (one of my faves) or Aunt April in I Can Do Bad All By Myself.

We were discussing our rating of the movie while we waited on Darin and the little girls to pick us up; Jaiden said she didn’t want to give it two thumbs up, she wanted to give it a “million billion” thumbs up.

And I cried a little in a few places.

Jaylen has already asked to buy it on DVD and I’m pretty sure we will be adding it to our collection. I can’t wait to see it again.

Photo by Kimberly French/Summit Entertainment

Tonight was also our Eclipse meet-up! In November I met up with my co-worker Sara and our boss’s daughters to see New Moon and after that we vowed to see Eclipse together too. Tonight we had a big dinner: Darin, me and the kids; Sara, her brother and her friend; our boss’s daughters; and Gwen and her children. Then? Time for the movie! Darin and our kids and Gwen and her kids had dinner, but didn’t go to the movie.

Anyhoo.

This movie was better than the first two. I liked Edward more, but I’m still Team Jacob (have been since I read New Moon in December ’08). I’m just over the whole controlling boyfriend thing, so Edward doesn’t really appeal to me too much. But I digress.

Movie adaptations of books can never encompass the entire thing. By now, we all know this, don’t we? But it still seems like so much was left out.

What I liked? Edward’s proposal and Bella’s engagement ring. Jacob’s one-liners (“Let’s face it, I’m hotter than you are!”). Bella’s hair and makeup. Charlie’s one-liners. The t-shirt quilt Bella’s mom gave her during her visit. The flashbacks. Jasper as a soldier. The field of wildflowers.

What I didn’t like? Kristen Stewart’s awkward acting. Bree Tanner. Rosalee (a personal problem – I’ve seen her in too many things and can’t get past her other roles). Jasper in present day (he’s just weird). Bree Tanner (what is up with her?). The new Victoria’s hair (it’s weird up front). The way Bella chooses Edward over Jacob (blah!).

When the movie was over, I went to a local restaurant to pick up the kids and see my husband for a few minutes (I love having a husband, by the way, especially the one I have because he is wonderful). He wanted to watch the UFC fight and took the children with him because our times overlapped by about 15 minutes or so. I know he was really ready for me to pick them up, especially since it was after bedtime and they couldn’t sit still or stop whining.

Save for Jaylen, they didn’t protest bedtime too much. Especially Emma who was in her jammies and already tucked into bed when I went upstairs for our nightly hugs and kisses.

Photo by Jonathan Wenk/Sony Pictures

Once they were in bed, I indulged in yet another movie: Julie & Julia (it finally hit my movie channels!). I am my dad’s child in that I adore watching movies and when The Mister is not here or otherwise engaged, I love watching them. Having a cooking blog myself, and having read parts of Julie & Julia when it was just a blog (back in ’02), I’ve wanted to watch the movie for quite awhile. I’ve heard mixed reviews and, well, mine is mixed too.

I think the general consensus in the blogosphere is that Julie Powell (the blogger) is self-absorbed (aren’t we all?) and that came through in the movie. I didn’t like her. But I adored Meryl Streep/Julia Child. I’m not sure if I liked Amy Adams in this role, but Meryl Streep, as always, rocked it.

When it was over I thought, “Well, okay … I can scratch that one off of my list.” I honestly don’t know if I liked it or not. And did Julia Child really not like her? That’s interesting …

Overall? Loved Karate Kid, am so-so on Eclipse and Julie & Julia. And the veggie pizza I had for dinner? Freakin’ fabulous!

New-to-you homes can be kind of a pain, don’t you think? You finally find The House, only to have to dump a ton of money into painting it because the previous owners decided to Subway gold was a hot color for the entire house. Oh, and dark green ceilings. Bleh.

Darin spent A TON of time painting. TONS. First primer, then a color called sandstorm.

Oh how nice, our eyes are no longer bleeding. This is typically what our house looks like close to Christmas. Football is the only channel we get when it’s cold.

I subscribe to a lot of DIY and decorating blogs and hate my house a little because it doesn’t feel like a home. It’s not really decorated. Why? Too many decisions. And also the little expense of feeding, clothing and housing four kids. Plus daycare. I rarely get to make home decor purchases.

Last summer we splurged on a roll of fabric for curtains in our living room. Over Thanksgiving my mom and grandmother sewed them and when we tried to hang them, well let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. The back half of our house is crooked and trying to situate the curtains just so, so the crooked-ness was less obvious, was stressful. And I had the wrong size rods. And our curtains were extraordinarily long, or so we thought.

On Sunday my parents came over and gave hanging them a shot. Obviously, it went a lot smoother because we finally have curtains! They definitely change the room, I think. And they definitely make me happier. We have this perpetually summer theme going in our house, I think. Beach-inspired, but not ridiculously so. It’s casual and airy with beachy things.

We’re still not finished, of course. (I would love to have an endless supply of money so I could afford all kinds of things.) We are looking at coffee tables and end tables, because we literally only have one table in this room. And I want a jute area rug, but first we have to remedy our puppy pee-pee problem (sigh).

But there you have it: curtains!

Sometimes I really enjoy what I do. Days like today, notsomuch, but at least tomorrow’s paper will feature two of my favorite ladies in the world, Dara and Christa.

I wrote about Dara shaking things up in the library, bringing them out of the Victorian era and into the 1950s. It’s 2010 and they’re finally going automated. I KNOW. And just to prove how bold she REALLY is, she’s trying to extend the library’s hours; they’re currently open 1-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday. I’ll share the PDF, I promise. The above photo didn’t make the cut – too pretentious. lol.

My column this week is about Christa and her family and how they made lemonade after being dealt lemons. Even though their home flooded two months ago, they’ve experience more gains than losses, which is truly inspirational.

But today was hellacious. Really, really horrible. I spent 14 hours at work today. I got the children up and dressed and to school by 7 a.m. or so. I drove to work and ate my breakfast, complained about being interrupted, then got to work. It’s hard to explain production day. We’re busy non-stop, trying to meet our deadline with a skeleton crew. It’s stressful and ridiculous and today was over the top.

I was complaining about CONSTANTLY being interrupted, especially for the most mundane of reasons, and almost screamed when I had been interrupted THREE TIMES by 8:19. THREE TIMES! I can’t get my work done if I have to constantly STOP.

I had to leave to pick the children up by 5 p.m. Darin and my mom were out of town, so I didn’t have a choice but to bring them back to the office with me. And they were HORRIBLE! In public they pretty much behave themselves, but OH.MY.GOODNESS were they acting UP today! My mom happened to drive by (she’d just flown in and was on her way home) and took the kids to her house. An hour and a half later, at 9:30 p.m., I finally got off! By the time we got home and I got the children in bed, it was 11 p.m.

This is why I’m late with my blog. And I’ve been writing all day, which is the reason this blog is so lame. I’m sorry. I just don’t have the motivation today; getting the paper out on Wednesdays drains me (especially the writer in me).

Can you believe it’s already June 30? I realized this weekend that the blogging challenge is already nearly over (and will be here in about 45 minutes) and I couldn’t believe how quickly it passed. Doesn’t seem like it’s been a month, but according to the calendar it has.

I had every intention of posting this before midnight, but tonight I failed. I tried, but being a good friend came first. My co-worker got off even later than I did – just before midnight – and because she lives an hour away I offered her my couch. She was at work before I was today and gets up before dawn, so I knew was was ridiculously tired and not in the mood to drive all the way home, get in bed for a handful of hours or less, then drive another hour back down.

We rarely have guests, especially overnight guests, so it was fun to sit up and chit-chat about work through our delirium.

We’re having a meeting with the boss in the morning and I’m thinking I might take a few shots before we leave. After being really, really late with the paper, it’s not gonna be pretty. But oh well, at least I was able to share a little bit of two people I hold dear!

Holla. See you in July (oh, wait).