our collective digital self
Posted by Michelle on Oct 10, 2006 in Hayley, Michelle, More Family
I had to have Jeff snap a few photos before we left for the Broadway South production of Lion King, which was absolutely amazing!!! Me, Hayley and Jeff’s mom Sharen went and had a wonderful time.
(notice the puppy tugging on my skirt!)
Posted by Michelle on Oct 8, 2006 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
Last weekend, we headed over to Weaver Street Market in Carrboro because they were having a Dachshund Day Celebration on their front law. Hilarity abounded as Annabelle was the star of the day and even co-winner of the limbo contest!
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Posted by Michelle on Oct 5, 2006 in Michelle
My dear friend Bryan is a sports editor at the newspaper in Kinston. He writes a blog on the paper and a recent one entitled the The (slow & mostly painful) death of ihigh.com was about me and the company I used to work for before quitting to work for myself and parent Hayley.
I adore Bryan and regular readers might know him from several years of beach trip photos/stories and basketball tournament photos. I’ve known him since the days when I ran nchometeam.com.
There were some really nice comments on his blog too about the site, which really made me happy as well. My work there was something I was deeply passionate about for many years but leaving it was for the best in so many ways.
—
The (slow & mostly painful) death of ihigh.com
By Bryan C. Hanks
A few years ago, a good friend of mine — Michelle Donahue Hillison from Raleigh – started the northcarolina.ihigh.com site in our state. For several years, it was THE site to go to when you wanted to know what was going on statewide in prep sports. Every school was represented on the site with scores, schedules, news, etc., by local sports writers and writers from within each individual school.
Most of that — heck, all of that — was due to the hard work Michelle put into the site. I know for a fact that she worked sometimes 18-20 hours a day to make ihigh.com the premier prep sports site in N.C.
For a time, the ihigh folks supported her, too. She was able to hire writers from all over the state (myself, Chris Hobbs from Hickory, Langston Wertz from Charlotte, Charles Alston from Rocky Mount, among many others) to write for her.
When the Internet explosion started to die down a couple of years ago, the money dried up, too. She was unable to keep the writers and the site started to die.
But she kept working hard and procured agreements from newspapers all over the state to use their stories on the site. That worked for a while.
She finally decided she was ready to go in a different direction and now runs her own sports consulting business in the Triangle that is – by the way – going strong. But ihigh has continued to plug along, sometimes painfully.
Well, sound the death bells for ihigh.com. Today, the site has moved along to more of a teeny-bopper “entertainment-type” site that pretty much forgets sports altogether.
You know what? Good riddance. Arnold Solomon’s ncpreps.com took over the mantle as best prep site in N.C. after Michelle left ihigh and it is the place you have to go if you want to know what other fans and coaches are thinking throughout North Carolina.
The powers-that-be at ihigh.com should be ashamed of the way they ruined a great Web site.
Forget them. Support ncpreps.com
Bryan’s Blog on the Kinston Free Press website.
Posted by Michelle on Sep 26, 2006 in Hayley, Michelle
The end of the summer was nearing so we had to make one last trip to the beach – especially before the puppy arrived.
We didn’t even leave the hotel – thank you beachfront hotel with pool, room service, movie rentals and convenience store! Hayley made me watch some of the oddest shows – like The Contender and then Project Runway, back to back. Odd but I loved it because she is following her own beat despite what anyone thinks.
Photos from playing on the beach and at the aquarium. (These are from about 2 weeks ago).
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Posted by Michelle on Aug 8, 2006 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, pups & other pets
Today (08-08) is our 8th wedding anniversary. I know I know… all those eights (including the 8 year old sweetiepie Hayley), we need to go play the lottery with eights. Normally we like to buy a joint gift for the family. Imagine my surprise when there was a card from my adorable husband Jeff with a website address inside!
Inside the sweet card was a link to a powerpoint presentation that had photos of my (our) gift … a mini-dachshund puppy! She won’t be ready to come home until next week so Jeff made a cute little presentation with photos of her and funny quips (have I mentioned how much I love my silly sweet husband?). She is eight weeks old to boot – another eight!
She is so cute and tiny – she won’t get much bigger than 10 or 11 pounds full grown! She is red and smooth haired. We are going to visit her this week and then bring her home next week.
We haven’t picked out a name yet – Jeff wants to call her Petunia but that doesn’t really sit too well with me. Hayley wants Ivory after Ivory Latta or Matilda because she adores that movie. I like Betsy or Mia. Hayley and I like Annie as well also she likes Belle after one of the princesses. We’ll keep thinking until we can find something we all agree on.
UPDATE: Hayley has decide the puppy will be named Annabelle. We’ll decide when we meet her if she is an Annabelle, Annie or a Belle! She of course made me go to a pet store today and get a pink collar with rhinestones 
I turned the powerpoint presentation into a pdf to put it on our server. Here it is: The cute presentation of the newest Hillison.
Posted by Michelle on Apr 14, 2006 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
We just got back from Atlantic Beach, had a fun time staying at a local hotel called the Windjammer that had all oceanfront rooms with balconies, pool, big hot tub and a walkway right down to the beach.
Of course, it was too cold to be in the pool or beach for too long but the hot tub was fine and Hayley found some kids to play with quickly.
Of course, Hayley and I ended up sunburned anyway – the curse of ash white people who won’t leave the sun & sand!
We had fun feeding the birds from our deck and watching them go NUTS for it. And my complete (unintentional) somersault in the ocean was rather interesting… getting the sand out of my ears only took a few showers!
Lost treasure mini-golf where Michelle hit two hole-in-ones in the first five holes (1st and 5th) was fun too. You had to ride a mini-train up to the top of the ‘mountain’ to start the courses.
All in all we had a great time and really relaxed a lot. We enjoyed Atlantic Beach but still prefer Nags Head more.
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Posted by Michelle on Apr 13, 2006 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
Photos from the 2006 UNC women’s basketball banquet at the Dean Dome on April 12th. Hayley and the other ball kids were recognized and even got to stand on their chairs. We lucked out and sat across from Ivory Latta’s parents.
I posted my favorites here and the link to the rest of them is at the end.
Oh the funniest thing from last night – Hayley wrote Ivory Latta (the best player in women’s college basketball) a note on the back of a program during dinner and gave it to her dad to give to her (the Lattas were across from us at dinner). It said,
Dear Ivory,
I love you. You are a cool and great player.
Love,
Hayley
and she decorated it with hearts and basketballs (after I took the photo).
It cracked me up SO much – Hayley loves Ivory so much. And Hayley just has no fear – I mean this is the best player in women’s basketball this year and Hayley is passing her notes!
And yeah, Ivory loved it and told Hayley thanks – they made silly faces at each other too. Ivory rules, she is as funny and goofy in person as on the court. Her parents are very polite and quiet tho!
Hayley outside the Dean Dome about 9:30pm
Hayley and Ivory Latta, national player of the year
Hayley holding Ivory’s commemorative ball for her 1,500th point in a game against Duke
Playing with the center peice balloons
Hayley with La’Tangela Atkinson, 9th pick in the WNBA draft, and her commemorative jersey.
Hayley and Coach Hatchell, the national coach of the year.
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Posted by Michelle on Mar 11, 2006 in Michelle
tags, vertical, horizontal & circle, plus some grommets
-Twenty Photoshop 7 brushes (abr) plus image pack in the .zip file.
-comments make me warm and fuzzy.
-credits are nice but i won’t cry if you don’t.
Posted by Michelle on Mar 8, 2006 in Michelle
22 vintage ad brushes, Photoshop 7 ABR / image packs as individuals and full sheet (22 brushes / 2k).
Posted by Michelle on Mar 7, 2006 in Michelle, More Family
I spent hours and hours scanning in photos from my mom’s photo albums for a print project for her birthday – which is today (Happy Birthday Mom!). After I finished it, I uploaded them all here. Link to the full gallery on the bottom of the page.
Some of my favorites…
Photo from when I was born
School days
My Uncle Mike and Aunt Cathie
My grandparents, Jim & Jeannette, happy & in love
Grandma Jeannette
My Uncle Mike and my Grandpa Jim, at one of the many tournaments
my uncle won before his untimely death in 1982
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