Worth a thousand words

Our blog project group has once again changed by one member, but I'm still calling it Blog Project 3.0. The newest member is Darwin Shrugged, a friend of Froggie's. I recently got to know her better through "52 Stories" and I look forward to what she has to say on the upcoming topics.

This week Moma Rock chose the topic: Share with us various photos from your life and give us brief descriptions of why they are so valuable to you. It can be personal photos, or otherwise (like professional/artist photos, etc.)


First, read what everyone else had to share on this topic:
Darwin Shrugged
Froggie
Moma Rock

My selection of photos is pretty random. I'll start with celebrities though. This first one is one of my favorites. It's Jess Harnell, who was the voice of Wakko Warner on Animaniacs. The voice actors were at the Warner Brothers Store at Woodfield Mall (Schaumburg, IL) back in 1994. (Yes, this photo is almost 20 years old!!!) When we got there, they decided not to let anyone else in line to meet the actors. I was livid, especially since they were letting some people get in twice! However, they would give us tours of the artwork in the area where the actors were sitting. My friend distracted the person giving us a tour and I snuck over to take a photo. Jess saw me doing it and gave me the peace sign. That was the highlight of my day! Don't you love his hair, by the way?!?

Next is Adam Pascal, who played Roger in the original Broadway cast of Rent. My sister and I were crushing on him at the time. When we went to NYC in 2001, we found out that he would be at the stage door of Aida at a certain time, so we raced over there and caught up to him just in time to get pictures. We were on a natural high the rest of the day!

And of course, no celebrity photo collection would be complete without a pic of Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block. He was playing Fiyero in Wicked back in 2004, when we finally got to meet him. Even though Idina wasn't in the show that day, it was still cool to get to meet Joey Joe!

Moving away from celebrities now...this is my favorite photo of my favorite dog, Buddy. I caught him at just the right time when he was licking his nose. It always makes me smile to see this picture. You can also get a glimpse of the family room from the house I grew up in.

This was taken on my 22nd birthday in 1998. It's one of the rare photos of my grandparents when everyone was still doing well, before my maternal grandma (on the left) started on her path toward Alzheimer's. She passed away almost 10 years ago. My paternal grandpa passed away almost five years ago. My paternal grandma is still alive, but my mom told me that she's not doing that well.

This is me and my BFF at overnight camp in 1988. Even though I have a Jew-Fro mullet, I still think it's a cute picture of us and it symbolizes how we "cemented" our friendship.

This is a picture of my mom that was taken in the 70s. We had it hanging in our family room when I was growing up and I always thought she looked really pretty in it. She was probably in her late 20s or early 30s when it was taken.

This was me at 17, when I took my senior photos in 1993. I had my hair and makeup professionally done that day and I loved the vest I was wearing in this picture. In the past, I've had some horrible yearbook photos, so this was nice to have for a change. A different picture of me was in the yearbook, but that one was nice too.

Finally, this is my favorite photo from our wedding. With our 10-year anniversary just a few weeks away, it's hard not to be nostalgic about our wedding day. Having it in black and white gives it an old school feel.

I've decided not to post any pictures of my children here because I have a hard time choosing favorites from the zillions of pictures I have of them. And if you're friends with me on Facebook, you've seen most of them already.