Thursday, brought with it, some big plans. I got up at 8am, read some email, had a bath and got ready to go. Today, I was gonna drive in Iowa – eek!

While on the phone to Col, he explained the gear system in Amber’s Taurus (the gear stick isn’t in the same place as other cars) and I headed in to the ‘big city’. En route, I discovered that the GPS was trying to take me down a road that was closed and I had to improvise my diversion but I made it in one piece.

When I arrived in C.R, I went straight to the Factory Card Outlet and picked up a few essential party supplies for the party. I took a quick dander around Michaels (and came out empty handed no less!) before heading over to Capri College to hit up hair and make-up.

Although it was fun, and dirt, dirt cheap. The student doing my hair wasn’t so hot at making the curls stick. She had to call her supervisor over to try and ‘fix’ my hair a little as even she wasn’t happy with it! Anyways, under $30 for hair and make up (inc tip!) definitely trumps the $80 something odd bucks I paid for my Engagement shoot glamming-up!

Ok, for those of you unaware, I’d arranged to do a ‘Trash the dress’ photoshoot with my photographer Sarah, while I was in town. Yes, I’m aware that most people don’t tend to have their very own photographer, I, however, do. I’ve loved Sarah since I first saw her work a few years ago, we’ve used her for our Engagement pictures, our wedding pictures and now, my first – yes, first (of hopefully at least 2) trash the dress shoots with my wonderful photographer.

I was nervous, I love Sarah to bits and I’ve always loved her pictures, but I wasn’t sure I’d fit in my dress (I’ve gained around 10lbs since my operation in January – which I’m not very happy about), I wasn’t sure if her daughter would like me (yes, Abby, I was nervous about meeting you too!) and I was just very self conscious about having a photoshoot done on my own.

I should have known better, as soon as they picked me up at the college (and drove through McDonalds cause I was STARVING by this stage!) and we set off on our hour (+) drive to Sarah’s parents farm, I knew it was going to be a good day.

And a good day it was! I swear, it was such a fun time – I often forgot we were shooting pictures. I tend to have one face in photos – I know what works, so I tilt my head, smile and hope that my double chin doesn’t make an appearance, staying out of sight. So, for Sarah, it’s probably mucho boring to shoot someone like me.

I don’t do serious facial expressions well in photos, (I should probably practice) and some of the time, as much as we both wanted me to have ‘serious face’, it really was tricky. Sarah just snapped away, and by the time we were done, 3 hours had passed, we’d covered just about every inch of the farm and Sarah had filled her memory card with around 300 pictures! It was crazy fun!

I lay on the ground, I rolled around in the grass (in fact sometimes I just plopped on the grass cause my dress was so stinkin’ heavy!), I climbed through knee high tall grass (hoping with each step to avoid poison oak, poison ivory, nettles and critters!), climbed on walls, sat on walls (though not very comfortably!), we almost got eaten by a monster ‘coon, squealed and laughed and ran.

I was supprised at a number of things –

1. That I, for probably the first time ever, made a smart footwear choice!

2. That I fitted into my wedding dress – in fact, better than I did back in October for the wedding!

3. Mostly, though, I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed the countryside. Being in Texas, we don’t have much of it – or, at least much that is openly accessible to the regular folk. Being out on the O’Toole farm made me realise just how much I love and miss the Emerald Isle countryside at home. It was so peaceful and serene. There’s a picture she has of me in these yellow flower-type things, where I have my eyes closed, the sun is on my face and I’m not sure you can tell from the picture, but I’m taking a big deep breath.

The picture invokes emotion in me for some reason. It looks tranquil, like all of the family crap and the every day mundane is gone. It’s just me in my wedding dress, soaking in nature and loving every minute of it.

It’s one of the things I love most about Sarah Jane as a photographer. She captures magic in her pictures…

By the end of the shoot, I resembled Amy Winehouse…but I felt better than I’ve done in so very long. I felt good inside, relaxed and chilled out. It was a nice feeling. On the way home, the Sat Nav insisted on trying to take me down a closed road – no matter how far along the roads I went to try and make it ‘recalculate’, it wouldn’t. So, I called Amber and had to get directions home in the dark (after Sarah made sure I knew how to work the lights!), where at home, I reheated left over curry (YUM) chatted to Col and passed out cold – I guess the country air got to me, eh?