As I sit down to write this post, it is Friday. Not just any Friday, oh no, but the last Friday — the last day — of my crazy overlapping class schedule. After today, I’ll only be teaching one summer class, three times a week. In the afternoon. As someone said to me the other day, my office will not even need to exist for me until noon. I am breathing a huge sigh of relief that this crazy-busy part of the summer has passed and I’ve survived.

I’ve got a lot of good things to look forward to in the next month and a half before fall semester begins. In addition to my one remaining class, I plan to do some work on an article I’m writing and continue training for the triathlon. On that front, workouts have been fewer and less intense than I would have wanted, due to a recurring, nagging, GDMFing hip-flexor issue I have. I am taking care of that and just hoping it resolves. The triathlon is coming up August 7th and then I’ve signed up for the Savannah Half Marathon on November 5th. I might also be doing a marathon relay in Atlanta the week before that, but we haven’t officially figured out the team(s) and signed up yet. I am looking forward to continuing the summer of tri training and a fall of running. Wheee!

This weekend, I’ve been saying, is like the turning point in my summer. It marks the end of the crazy schedule and the beginning of feeling like a normal human again. And, AND! This also the wedding weekend of my good friend Golightly and her guy, P. Their wedding is this Saturday, and guess what? I am photographing it! Yes, ME, a wedding photographer!

I am an amateur at photgraphy and have NEVER done anything of the kind before, so this is both exciting and a little daunting. Obviously, I love photography and I love the chance to take pictures of my friends (as opposed to just my food, drinks, and dog), but I’m also just hoping I do justice to the event, the couple, and all the guests. If the food or music at a wedding is bad, people will soon forget about it, but if the photos are bad? Those are sticking around for a while. Like, as in FOREVER. Ulp.

Anyway, I am just going to be there, with my camera, all up in people’s faces and snapping away the entire time. The more snaps, the better the chance there will be enough good snaps. This is a lesson I reluctantly learned from my dad (also a photographer) back in the days of expensive 35mm film, when to keep relentlessly snapping was a fairly pricey philosophy to espouse. He always says, “isn’t it worth it, to capture the best photos? Just take lots and lots of pictures.” This advice is a lot easier to follow in the digital age, where memory cards are huge and digital space is practically free.

So anyway, wish me luck on this one! I’m not sure if I’ll be sharing any of the pics publicly (it’s up to the couple’s approval of course), but I’ll definitely let you know how it goes.