Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

Well….it’s official.

I’m divorced!

Is it bad that I put an exclamation point after that? I never wanted to get divorced in my life and my Catholic upbringing is trying it’s best to make it seem bad to use exclamation points.

But honestly, I don’t care. I’m divorced!!!

Anyway, I got the paperwork yesterday. I was initially scared of that moment when I would open my mailbox and find it waiting for me. But that was so not the case. I can’t tell you how truly free I feel. In a way, I’m glad that it took this long to complete because the emotions just aren’t there. Instead, I feel like it’s a big item checked off the to-do list.

Coincidentally, I talked to Brian last night on the phone because I’m helping him with a little web project. He hadn’t gotten his papers yet, and so I broke it to him. He was a little bit sad about it, but nothing major. We’re both happy that we can walk away and be friends.

Now that this weight is off my shoulders, I feel strangely less guilty. I feel no regrets. There’s no wonder about if I made the right decision. I know it was the right decision. And I think that’s all I was hoping for.

OH! And to anyone who is wondering, I am not changing my name just yet. It’s a long complicated story, but for the time being you can still call me Rochelle Scott.

I am so so so happy that football is back. I love nothing more than fall and football=fall. This year, I’ve decided to start liking the Broncos again. Basically, it goes like this. When I was with Brian, I hated the Broncos. Mostly because he showed me how easy it was to hate them. And truthfully, I had grown to hate Shanahan and I really hated Cutler from day one. The fans were annoying and the city’s overall attitude about how the Broncos were somehow entitled to win every single game made me really annoyed. So this year, everything breaks down, they get a new coach, they get rid of Cutler and they are terrible. It’s like starting from scratch. Everyone has the lowest expectations and I think it’s grounded the city. So I’m back to like the Broncos, and it’s fun! And now for the fourth or fifth year in a row I’m participating in a pick pool for each NFL game. Something I’ve been successful at in the past. So Sundays are football days. And on this particular Sunday, I watched football while I planned my trip. Later that night, I watched the Emmys. NPH was awesome!

The Broncos beat the Browns!

So I read in a scrapbooking magazine years ago that one should try and document even the rough times. When you hide your real life, the scrapbooks can lose their meaning. Life is rich and complicated. And so the same should apply to my Project 365. The most important part of my day is going to be that Brian came over to fill out the rest of our divorce paper work and petition. Then we went to find a notary and sign all the documents. I told him I wanted to take a picture, and he didn’t find it that strange.

As for the for the rest of my day, I’m just sticking around home, I plan on doing some scrapbooking and I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy. I just started from the beginning and so I’m in episodes from 2005.

So much paperwork, ugh! I can't even imagine how hard this would be if we actually had something to split.

It was a Labor Day I’m sure to never forget. First the bad good memorable news. Brian came over today so we could fill out our divorce paperwork. It was a pretty harmless visit for the most part, and the task wasn’t too challenging. We had nothing together. It did cross my mind that I should make him responsible for the debt I incurred for when he was laid off from his job and from the wedding. I only entertained that thought for a moment.

After divorce-o-rama, I scored 87,000 points on Bejeweled, which was awesome. Then I went to pick up my sister to see The Time Traveler’s Wife. I had read the book back in 2005/6, and it’s been stuck in my memory ever since. I didn’t overly enjoy the book, and at times struggled to get through it. But I like the concept and the story a lot. So once again in my life, I enjoyed the movie a lot more than the book. I think I’m the only person that happens to. My sister sobbed through the whole thing, but I knew what was coming and so I held back pretty well. As a result of holding back my tears, I got a massive headache though.

After the movie we went to the mall, and that leads to today’s picture. I have been saving up and planning on getting a whole bunch of new clothes. I haven’t bought clothes all year, and so I was definitely due. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I bought so much. It definitely turned into a shopping spree and I went with it. I got plenty of clothes for my trip to London that will also be great for work.

Lots of blacks and greys, and a few bits of color.

After a two year seperation, Brian and I have decided to go forward with the divorce. He wants to move on, and so do I. He’s operating under some urgency, and so it’s coming about it in a way that I wouldn’t have preferred. I’ve been saying on this blog all year that my goal this year was to get divorced. So that’s not surprising. But it still hurts and it still sucks. I was pretty depressed tonight, so I didn’t get a picture. But I did see this image on the Tumblr recently and I thought it was really comforting.

Good advice.

So the Photo Walk in Estes Park was totally awesome. I must admit that I’m not the greatest at getting out there and I mostly stick close to home. I’m also a bit shy. But I took the plunge and joined up with forty other photographers (amateur and professional) for an afternoon in Estes Park, Colorado. Estes Park is a cute little mountain town that sits at the foot of Rocky Mountain National Park, and is home to the famous Stanley Hotel, which was the used for Stephen King’s The Shining.

I love Estes Park. It’s near where I got married, and Brian and I loved to spend weekends up there. He has a long history of going to Estes Park. As a child, he spent a lot of time there with his extended family. They were from Evanston, Illinois, and Brian grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Together they descended upon the YMCA campground there and would always rent the biggest cabins at the very top of the camp. It’s a really cool place.

So anyway, we started at 2 p.m. at the old theater in town and then went on our ways to explore the downtown area and take pictures. I took a crash course in aperture and shutter speed, and how to work my camera in manual mode the night before. My whole goal was to master those concepts and I did pretty well. I was with a bunch of boys that I know from work, and we had a pretty good time together. I wasn’t picky, so I took pictures of everything. Others were really picky, and some weren’t satisfied with the town. I was just happy to be out and about taking pictures.

After a few hours, we all ended up at a cute restaurant. There had to have been thousands and thousands of dollars worth of camera gear there.

At the end of our time there, we picked up some pie and drove home. My friend Matt commented that it was hard not to see picture opportunities everywhere, even though we were done shooting for the day. I couldn’t agree more. I can’t wait for next year!

Here are some of my favorite photos from the day:

The third day of this three day weekend turned out nice. I actually slept in until 11, eek! Then I met up with Brian in his neck of the woods to go to the Atlanta Bread Company, which I lovingly call “The ATL-BC”. Everyone who reads my tweets and my blog knows that I love Panera. I do! But I think I actually might love the Atlanta Bread Company more. We had a nice lunch, and then I came home and did some stuff around the house until Marissa and Johnny came over. We’re trying to catch Marissa up on the Harry Potter movies in time for the new one.

I must say, this weekend has been great! I’m sad to see it end. Especially because I have such a busy week ahead.

Brian snapped this picture of me at the ATL-BC.

Today I hung out with Brian. We had a great time at the mall and at dinner. Here he is, really enjoying his soda at the food court. Man, he cracks me up.

Everyone should know him.

Ah, Brian.

I had the pleasure of hanging out with him today and of course it was a fun time.

We went to the mall and lunch in the food court, as we tend to do. So of course we had to act wacky. We thought it would be funny to act like we were really enjoying our beverages.

After lunch we went into Williams-Sonoma and Brian acted like he had his own talk show using their coffee cups. I’m surprised we didn’t get kicked out.

And then he posed in front of this photograph at a Mike David stand, because we thought it would be as if he actually climbed these mountains.

But we mostly stood around and looked at people while we talked about all kinds of stuff.

We went back to my place after the mall and I showed him my *nearly* finished Ireland scrapbook pages. I started them a few months after our honeymoon, which was three years ago. Yeah, I’m slow.

And after playing very competitively on the Wii and watching The Golden Girls we went out for Chinese food at my favorite place, Asian Fusion.

It was so delicious.

Have I ever mentioned that Brian is a great photographer? He has zero experience and doesn’t even own a camera. But he takes the greatest pictures. He sees angles way better than I do.

At the end of the meal we got our pineapple (!), and the best fortune cookie EVER!

Brian always jokes that his humor is just masking a lot of pain, and even though he can tend to take life very seriously at times, he almost always finds a way to make life fun.

When I realized that I really needed to wear shoes to use my EA Sports Active, I dug around for a pair that I could devote just to my EA-S-A workouts. I found an old pair. A pair that I loved so much when I bought them and wore them out big time. I was a lot lighter back then and much more active. They remind me of a good time in my life and so what better reminder, as I’m in the process of making new life changes, of a previous me that was healthier.

They may be beat up, but they feel great.