Wedding photos are up!!!

Check out www.JoshandShelby.com to FINALLY see our wedding photos!  Just click on the "Pictures" link to access them.  Make sure to read the little blurb to understand how to download and order prints!
Photo by Duck Duck Collective.

Mega-life change post!

I know it has been about a LONG time since I have updated but there is good reason!

1) Josh and I got married! It was wonderful! It was at the Loch Haven Center in Orlando, Florida. All of our friends and family came from far and wide! We had a great time! We went on a mini-honeymoon to Saint Augustine, Florida. It is so beautiful there. In May, after Josh's foot is 100%, we are going to London. Once we receive all of our pictures from Matt (the photographer) they will all be available on www.JoshandShelby.com.

2) I spent a week and a half with my in-laws and new siblings in Traverse City, Michigan. It was really fun! I had a chance to bond with my mother-in-law, Maureen. She is such an amazingly sweet and kind woman. They threw a birthday party for me and Maureen took me thrifting! :) I got a chance to hang out with Josh's best man and his awesome girlfriend, Brandon and Kristina. We went to dinner, bowling and I went to church with Kristina. I also got to hang out with my FREAKING awesome sister-in-law Maggie. Check out her blog here: SuperSavvyMommy.com.

3) I officially moved to Portland, Oregon to live with my hubby! I've been applying for jobs, bought a car (since my car was totaled right before the wedding) and now I am waiting on our new mattress to be delivered. It has been a blast! It's hanging out with your best friend all of the time.

4) I am almost done with season 3 of Dexter. Haha!

Check out some pictures of life recently, in chronological order! If pictures are cut off, click on them for full view!

Photo of friends from my Big-Hat-Tea-Shower!

My new car was totaled after having it for a month! The other guy got the ticket. I walked away nearly unscathed. Praise God.This is a picture of some of my friends out for my bachelorette party in Orlando!

After THAT bachelorette party some of the ladies and myself went down to Pompano beach/Miami for a few days. This is a picture of us at a cafe.

Sunny came from Germany to celebrate with Josh and I!

then was the BIGGEST DAY!!!!! I am so happy!!!!!

This is Josh and I's backyard in Portland. Portland is so GORGEOUS!

This is my new, new car to replace my new, smashed car. :)

OH MY GOSH!!!!! 18 days!!!!!

There is only 18 days until the wedding. My dress went from being too small to being too big but it's going to work. Has to.

Sunday we had a centerpiece-making-party and we banged it out! Thanks ladies! However, I cannot feel the tip of my pointer finger from spray painting... STILL! Weird, right? Sensation in my fingertip is irrelevant because the centerpieces look so AMAZING!

I've been eating only veggies and fruits, no carbs, no dairy with the exception of organic salad dressing and coffee for nearly a week. It is crazy what that amount of vitamins does for you. About 95% of the time I feel invincible but I did cheat and have a piece of birthday cake for my Grandpa's 80th birthday last night and I felt as if I would die! My stomach decided it wanted to kill me! So I am starting to really realize how bad high fructose corn syrup is for you, which was present in the icing apparently. That is the only thing that I could think of that would have effected me like that! Or maybe it was just that amount of sugar after being withdrawn from it for a good while.

I cannot wait to see my husband-to-be in 13 days in Orlando because we are GETTING MARRIED!!! AHHHHH!!!! I am so excited!!!! YAYYY!!!!

-Shelby

New salon, new hours, new way of paying!

I recently moved to Salon Elysee in the Plaza building downtown (165 S Orange Ave, Orlando). This salon is really nice! Like, REALLY nice! I am working in the salon three days a week (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) but I am still available for special events (weddings, photoshoots) seven days a week! Unfortunately, because of this particular salon I am only able to take cash or check, made payable to me.
ALL of my prices have remained the same and I am still doing all of my own booking so give me a call at 321-276-1407!!

I will be available starting on the 6th from 10-6!

This made me chuckle.

Personal stuff I accidentally posted on my hair blog!

Tons of stuff I like from weddingbeepro.com

Iran: I tried to find words.

I can't describe my emotions in relation to the happenings in Iran other than to say that I sat on my couch and wept this morning. It is just a reality as I sit on my comfortable couch in a land that has raised me in comfort, fed me comfort and now sells me comfort that we are living in an age, in every part of the world, that is apart from how we were created to be. The Iranian people were not created by God to struggle like this, to be shot down in the streets as they peacefully protest. I was not created to be apathetic and buy all the commercialism that I am fed on a day-to-day basis. We were not created to eat garbage. We were not created to know hate. We were not created to know death. We were not created to know an unloving ruler. We were not created to be a nameless number in a sea of nameless numbers. We were created to live in harmony, eternally with a Father-King who knew us personally.
Maybe this is hitting me so heavily because I have been thinking on Heaven a lot lately. I have been longing for Heaven A LOT lately.
It is Father's day and my father's side of the family is Assyrian Persian which translates to Iranian these days. We have family in Iran that I do not know and will probably never know but when I see women being shot in the face it makes me realize that I don't have to be a blood relation to someone to know that she is my sister and she should not be pulverized by a fascist regime's militia as she PEACEFULLY protests with peace signs and tape over her mouth. She was created by the same Father that I was created by and because of that she has more value than humanity likes to allot her.

This girl's name was Neda Salehi.



People are being shot in the streets. These people don't have guns or knives. They defend themselves by running or by throwing rocks while police shoot them down.

Art and anxiety attacks...

I started a new Bible study book about Heaven. Within the first chapter it floored me. Awesome.

Earlier tonight I had a really frightening experience. My heart felt like it was racing, to the point I thought I would faint. My friend Katee was over and she immediately called her boyfriend, who is an EMT and is in school to be an RN. He instructed me to take my pulse. It was really low but my heart beat kept switching from going extremely fast to frighteningly slow. He asked me about what I had been doing during the day and then told me he thought that I was having an anxiety attack, most likely due to stress. I still feel kind of wobbly but I am going to go to bed in a moment.

I began a painting tonight. I challenged myself to using one brush and one paint color. I almost succeeded. I used one brush and my finger and I used only blue except for ONE dot of red. I don't really love it but I did it. I will probably paint over it like I do with most of my work. I have realized that I haven't posted any of my work that I am actually proud of on here so I will post a couple (The photos were taken with my webcam so forgive the quality).

A portrait of my friend Kim:


A self-portrait for portfolio:

Tinted Windows

Today Katee and I went to the AT&T studio to see a stripped down performance by Tinted Windows. The band consists of Taylor Hanson on vocals (Hanson), James Iha on guitar (Smashing Pumpkins, A Perfect Circle), Adam Schlesinger on rhythm guitar (Fountains Of Wayne) and Bun E. Carlos on drums (Cheap Trick). There were no drums because it was supposed to be acoustic. The band insisted on playing electric though because apparently their songs don't translate acoustically. There were only 21 people at the performance and I was super tired so it was an extremely surreal experience. Afterward we got to talk to the band a little and take pictures. I felt like I was 15 but I got to talk to James Iha about his hair and the process he goes through to get it to that color and how painful it is. It was pretty rad. To watch the performance click HERE. So yeah. Here are a couple of low quality pictures from it.

A Christmas card.

I don't fully buy into the new-agey-ness of some of his paragraphs but I read this on Danni Kluge's Facebook and had to re-post it!

Kevin Kelly's 2007 Christmas Card

Kevin Kelly's This I Believe essay was adapted from a Christmas card he sent to family and friends in 2007. Below you can read his essay in full:


Dear Friends and Family,

Before the news of this year, a little personal story. When I was in my twenties I would hitchhike to work everyday. I'd walk down three blocks to Route 22 in New Jersey, stick out my thumb and wait for a ride to work. Someone always picked me up. I had to punch-in for my job as a packer at a warehouse at 8 o'clock sharp, and I can't remember ever being late. It never ceased to amaze me even then, that the kindness of strangers could be so dependable. Each morning I counted on the service of ordinary commuters who had lives full of their own worries, and yet without fail, at least one of them would do something kind, as if on schedule. As I stood there with my thumb outstretched, the only question in my mind was simply: "How will the miracle happen today?"

Shortly after that rare stint of a real job, I took my wages and split for Asia, where I roamed off and on for the next 8 years. I lost track of the number of acts of kindness aimed at me, but they arrived as dependably as my daily hitchhiking miracle. Random examples: In the Philippines a family opened their last can of tinned meat as a banquet for me, a stranger who needed a place to crash. Below a wintry pass north of Gilgit in the Pakistan Hindu Kush, a group of startled firewood harvesters shared their ash-baked bread with me when I bounded unannounced into their campfire circle one evening. We ended up sleeping like sardines under a single homewoven blanket. In Taiwan, a student I met on the street one day befriended me in that familiar way to most travelers, but surprised me by offering me a place at his family's apartment in Taipei. While he was away at school, I sat in on the family meals and had my own bedroom for two weeks.



One remembrance triggers another; I could easily list thousands of such gestures without much trouble, because – and this is important – not only did I readily accept such gifts, but I actually came to rely on them being offered. I could never guess who the messenger would be, but kindness never failed to materialize once I put myself in some position to receive it. As in my hitchhiking days, I began my days on the road in Asia and elsewhere with the recurring question: how will the miracle happen today?" After a lifetime of relying on such benevolence I have developed a theory of what happens in these moments and it goes like this. Kindness is like a breath. It can be squeezed out, or drawn in. You can wait for it, or you can summon it.

To solicit a gift from a stranger takes a certain state of openness. If you are lost or ill, this is easy, but most days you are neither, so embracing extreme generosity takes some preparation. I learned from hitchhiking to think of this as an exchange. During the moment the stranger offers his or her goodness, the person being aided offers degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement to the stranger. It takes some practice to enable this transfer when you don't feel desperate. Ironically, you are less inclined to be ready for the gift when you are feeling whole, full, complete, and independent!

One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded. One year I rode my bicycle across America, from San Francisco to New Jersey. I started out camping in state parks, but past the Rockies, parks became so scarce I switched to camping on people's lawns. I worked up a routine. As darkness fell, I began scouting the homes I passed for a likely candidate: neat house, big lawn in the back, easy access for my bike. When I selected the lucky home, I parked my bag-loaded bike in front of the door and rang the bell. "Hello," I'd say. "I'm riding my bike across America. I'd like to pitch my tent tonight where I have permission and where someone knows where I am. I've just eaten dinner, and I'll be gone first thing in the morning. Would you mind if I put up my tent in your backyard?

I was never turned away, not once. And there was always more. It was impossible for most folks to sit in their couch and watch TV while a guy who was riding his bicycle across America was camped in their backyard. What if he was famous? So I was usually invited into their home for desert and an interview. My job in this moment was clear: I was to relate my adventure. I was to help them enjoy a thrill they secretly desired, but would never do. My account would make an impossible dream seem real and possible, and thus part of them. Through me and my retelling of what happened so far, they would get to vicariously ride a bicycle across America. In exchange I would get a place to camp and a dish of ice cream. It was a sweet deal that benefited both of us. The weird thing is that I was, and still am, not sure whether I would have done what they did and let me sleep in the backyard. The "me" on the bicycle had a wild tangled beard, had not showered for weeks, and appeared destitute (my whole transcontinental trip cost me $500). I am not sure I would invite a casual tourist I met to take over my apartment, and cook for him. I definitely would not hand him the keys to my own car, as a hotel clerk in Dalarna, Sweden, did one mid-summer day when I asked her how I could reach the painter Carl Larsson's house 150 miles away away.

The many times I was down or dazed, and a stranger interrupted his life to assist me is a less perplexing mystery to me that when, for no reason I can comprehend, an impoverished legendary Chinese painter I had met only 20 minutes previously insists that I take one of his treasures. I'd like to think that I would, without hesitation, drive way out of my way to bring a sick traveler to the hospital, but I am having trouble seeing myself emptying my bank account to purchase a boat ticket for someone who has more money than I do. (Yep, that happened to me.) But this kind of kindness happens when you travel with an openness to the gift.

Yet while I rely on miracles, I don't believe in saints. There are no saints even among the gentle monks of Asia, or I should say, especially among the monks. Rather, generosity is rampant in everyday lives, but no more in one place, race, or creed than others. We expect altruism among kinfolk and neighbors, although the world would, as we all know, be a better place if neighborly and family kindness happened even more. Altruism among strangers, on the other hand, is simply strange. To the uninitiated its occurrence seems as random as cosmic rays. It seems like a hit or miss blessing that makes a good story. For that reason the kindness of strangers is gift we never forget.

But the strangeness of "kindees" is harder to explain. A kindee is what you turn into when you are kinded. Curiously, being a kindee is an unpracticed virtue. Hardly anyone hitchhikes any more, which is a shame because it encourages the habit of generosity from drivers and nurtures the grace of gratitude and patience of being kinded from hikers. But the stance of receiving a gift – of being kinded — is vital for everyone, not just travelers. Many people resist being kinded unless they are in dire need, or life-threatened. Since I have had so much practice as a kindee, I have some pointers on how it is unleashed.

I believe the generous gifts from strangers are actually summoned by a deliberate willingness to be helped. You start by surrendering to your need for help. That we cannot be helped until we embrace our need for help is a law of the universe. Receiving help on the road is a spiritual event triggered by a traveler who surrenders his or her fate to the eternal Greatness. It's a move from whether we will be helped to how: how will the miracle unfold today? In what novel manner will Good reveal itself? Who will the universe send today to carry away my gift of trust and helplessness?

When the miracle flows, it flows both ways. When an offered gift is accepted, then the threads of love are knotted, snaring both the stranger who is kind, and the stranger who is kinded. Every time a gift is tossed it lands differently – but knowing that it will arrive in some colorful, unexpected way is one of the certainties of life.

We are at the receiving end of a huge gift simply by being alive. It does not matter how you calculate it, our time here is unearned. Maybe you figure your existence is the result of a billion unlikely accidents, and nothing more; then certainly your life is an unexpected and undeserved surprise. That's the definition of a gift. Or maybe you figure there's something bigger behind this small human reality; your life is then a gift from the greater to the lesser. As far as I can tell none of us have brought about our own existence, nor done much to earn such a remarkable experience. The pleasures of colors, cinnamon rolls, bubbles, touchdowns, whispers, long conversations, sand on your bare feet – these are all undeserved rewards.

All of us begin in the same place. Whether purified or not, we are not owed our life. Our existence is an unnecessary extravagance, a wild gesture, an unearned gift. Not just at birth. The eternal surprise is being funneled to us daily, hourly, minute by minute, every second. Yet, we are terrible recipients. We are no good at being helpless, humble, or indebted. Being needy is not celebrated on day-time TV shows, or in self-help books. We make lousy kindees.

I've slowly changed my mind about spiritual faith. I once thought it was chiefly about believing in an unmeasurable reality; that it had a lot in common with hope. But after many years of examining the lives of the people whose spiritual character I most respect, I've come to see that their faith rests on gratitude, rather than hope. They exude a sense of being indebted, and a state of being thankful. When the truly faithful worry, it's not about doubt (which they have) but it's about how they might not maximize the tremendous gift given them. How they might be ungrateful. The faithful I admire are not certain about much except this: that this state of being embodied, inflated with life, brimming with possibilities, is so over-the-top unlikely, so extravagant, so unconditional, so far out beyond physical entropy, that is it indistinguishable from love. And most amazing of all, like my hitchhiking rides, this love-gift is an extravagant gesture you can count on. No matter how bad the weather, soiled the past, broken the heart, hellish the war – all that is behind the universe is conspiring to help you – if you will let it.

My new age friends call that pronoia, the opposite of paranoia. Instead of believing everyone is out to get you, you believe everyone is out to help you. The story of your life becomes one huge elaborate conspiracy to lift you up. But to be helped you have to join the conspiracy yourself. You have to accept the gift.

Of course in the daily grind giving is always more holy than getting. That's what a Christmas season celebrating the gift of redemption is all about. Please share your abundance, while you can.

But I've only slowly come to realize that good givers are those who learn to receive with grace as well. None of us deserve what we have; all of us need help. From my perspective, the origins of this Christmas season lie in this eternal offer: although we have done nothing to merit it, we have been offered a glorious ride that will transcend the ills, failures, hates and destruction of this existence, if only we accept it. To accept the gift requires we surrender to our need for the gift, and to the truth that we don't deserve it. The outreach to this charity begins in the same humble position a hitchhiker gets into when he stands shivering on the side of the empty highway, cardboard sign flapping in the cold wind, and says, "How will the miracle happen today?"



We had a lot to be grateful for this year. My brothers and sister and parents are all well. Gia-Miin's mother moved from Taiwan to a house near our neighborhood. To keep her mom company, another of Gia-Miin' sisters lives with her. There is now a critical mass of Fuh family in Pacficia. We all returned to China for second adventure into remote villages. There were 9 of us, including my mother-in-law (80) and my brother's son, Rhy, who came to keep Tywen (11) company. We ate a whole lot of strange food (even for Gia-Miin), got snowed in Tibet, climbed to a high-altitude Yi mountain village, and strolled along the canals beside the Grand Canal. Missing from this trip was Ting (16) who was visiting colleges on the East Coast accompanied and chauffeured by my sister Colleen, and Kaileen (18) who was at school at Pepperdine. This past autumn, Kaileen spent a semester abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She's reluctantly home for the holidays, wishing she was still in BA, as they call it.

I'm traveling a bit more this year, and writing more as well. I'm writing about what technology means, as in, what is the role of technology in our lives? There's more and more technology, but where does it fit in the cosmic scale of things? That philosophy sounds as airy-fairy to me as to you, which is why I am having trouble actually writing it. Just to keep my feet on the ground, I also continue to review tools for my web site, Cool Tools. To relax I made a few new photo books. I'm working on one about Burning Man, which I've been photographing since 1995.

And I am working on being more grateful. I'm aiming my thanks at the thousand of things we take for granted, things that would be a miracle if they only happened once. I noticed a pigeon the other day. It had fantastical colors, incredible bearing, and shimmering feathers. I feel sure that if there were only one of these specimens alive in the world, we would all agree it would be the most beautiful bird in the world. We'd push and shove to see it. Almost every moment in our lives is a pigeon overlooked. May we notice and be grateful. Sometime in the past, our lives intersected in real life (not on the computer!) and I wish we'd intersect again that way soon.

Peace,

Kevin Kelly

Rain, rain go away so Jess and I can spray paint.

I want this car. http://orlando.craigslist.org/cto/1148513180.html

It has been raining since Sunday. My poor dog needs puppy Percocet. My A/C in my car went out so it is really hard to drive in this weather because there is no defrost and it is down-pouring.

Last night Jessica and I stayed up into the weeeee hours of the morning working on wedding stuff and it looks awesome! I wish the rain would stop because we have some spray painting to do.

I miss Josh terribly BUT I get to see him mid-June! So so so so excited!!!

Downloaded some Firefall, Gerry Rafferty and Dave Barnes from iTunes. I love the internet. Going away to listen to that before work.

Have a beautiful day without rain!!!

Man Dave Barnes. Please don't even stop writing amazing music.
K thx.

I'm sad The Office is on break.

I get to see Josh again in like 3 weeks!

Engagement pictures!

Last week Jessica Bennett (www.JessicaBennettPhotography.com), who is my roommate and MAID OF HONOR, flew out to Portland to see my future-hub and take engagement pictures! It was such a FUN but tiring day! What a way to spend a weekend! I cannot get over how incredibly beautiful this man is and I get the priviledge of being his MRS! How did I get so blessed? Jess left on Monday and Joshy Josh and I had some alone time. I ALREADY miss him and I just saw him this morning! BAH!







THIS is where he proposed!

Pictures of PDX via Josh.

I am going to LIVE here in 5 months and be married to this hottie mchotster! Pretty excited. You can go ahead and be jealous. :-p (If you click on the pictures you can see them full-sized.)

I hope the trees are still in bloom in a couple of weeks when Jess and I go up there to shoot Josh and I's engagement pictures! I love them!



And THEN I am going to cuddle with that guy. I miss him.

Ah. Life is going to change a lot. I'm so excited and also sad to leave everyone in Orlando. So amazingly bittersweet but mostly sweet.

Night night,
Shelby