Alyse French Photography | Houston-Based Wedding and Lifestyle Photographer

I know I’ve been super bad at blogging this week. But (un)fortunately, today has been much too blog-worthy.

My sweet, sweet dog Sarah died today. She was a 10-year-old, gorgeously brown, adorably overweight, pure-bred chocolate lab with the absolute sweetest temperament in all the land. When we found out she had cancer a few years back, we had it surgically removed, and she’d been fine ever since. But apparently over the past few days, Sarah had been acting very sluggish, barely eating or drinking. Mom took her to the vet today. After X-rays, they found a large mass near her spleen, and another one in her chest. The vet thought it best to go ahead and put her down. My family agreed. And so, they did…

After sobbing for about an hour, I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed, as if anyone at the grocery store (where I found out over the phone from my Dad) might come up to me at any point and say, “Woah, Alyse, chill out! She was just an animal!” Well, she may have been just an animal to strangers, but she was pretty darn near human to me.

Thank You, God, for dogs. Dogs like Sarah.

For some reason I always feel like Tidbit Tuesday needs some sort of introduction. But hopefully by now you know what it’s all about. :)

Please note! From this point forward, alysefrenchphotography.com and alysefrench.com are one in the same. As are alysefrenchphotographyblog.com and alysefrenchblog.com. Go ahead, try it out. ;)

Poll: Is it socially acceptable to wear sunglasses in the winter? Or is that just lame? Here’s what I think.. Snow is really, really bright. Ergo, I should be able to wear any one of my new 15 pairs of sunglasses Dylan bought me, right? I was wearing them all last week, until I told my mom and she said, “Look around you. How many other people are wearing sunglasses in the dead of Syracuse winter? Exactly, Alyse..” Bah humbug, Mom!

I think I’ve become an addict. Dylan and I have finished off four two liters of diet Crush orange soda this past week. The first legit diet soda that isn’t altogether icky. And sometimes while writing Tidbit Tuesday, I think to myself, “Who wants to know that?!” But hey, it is MY Tidbit Tuesday right? So soda and sunglasses it is. :)

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the Olympics, watching people fulfill their wildest dreams of medaling, watching their parents’ reactions, ya know, all that mushy stuff that I happen to love. But seriously, people.. Ice dancing? I LOVE watching figure skating, so don’t hate. But ice dancing just makes me giggle a little every time I watch it. I think maybe curling and ice dancing should hold their own games, and not force us to sit through them to get to all the other awesomeness. Who’s with me?

How is it, that every time I lay me down to sleep, without fail, I have some sort of dream about our wedding day, and how TERRIBLE it ends up being? Let me quickly walk you through my last dream: 1) The wedding was at our house. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not what he had planned OR payed for. 2) My seamstress had added a halter top to my non-halter top dress and I didn’t know until the day of. 3) I looked awful. 4) Half of our guests started leaving before I even walked down the aisle because they thought I was taking too long. 5) Did I mention I looked absolutely awful? Nothing worse than that. Ugh.

I literally blogged my guts out last week. And it was so much fun! :) Does anyone have any technical and/or other type questions I could answer in a FAQ or tutorial post later this week? Leave some comment-love below!!

I will be a Mrs. in 110 days. I don’t even think it’s really hit me yet. One day, I’m going to wake up and it will be my wedding day. My initials will spell ARM rather than ARF, which is quite the upgrade, right? (I thought so!) And life as we know it will drastically change. Bring it on! I’m seriously thinking it’s about time to make one of those countdown paper-chain snakes!!! :)

And I shall leave you with the following tidbit: I know it might be a long while until Dylan and I know where we’ll be living and everything, but I simply can’t help it. I spent much of yesterday researching pretty things for my studio space. How AMAZING are these beautiful things?!

Happy Tuesday!! :)

A whirlwind. A furor. An absolute blur. In a word, this week has been.. NUTS.

I kid you not when I say that every single day this week has started off with some kind of crisis, be it scrambling like a lunatic to make a deadline for school, cramming as much social psychology into my head as humanly possibly, or almost dropping my phone in the toilet (just now). “Seriously Alyse, those aren’t so bad!” True. There were worse things, but who wants to read about those?!

My point in blogging this morning is this: My God is a provider. Without fail, He has turned every single day this week into one I am extremely thankful to have experienced. More than once this week, He has shut a door, only to open TWO windows. Legit, God, You are SO cool.

So thank You Jesus, for knowing me. For nurturing my dreams. And for the way You love to bless me. Forgive me for so often failing to realize Your hand at work in my life. I will remember Your love.