I feel it only appropriate to remember what happened 8 years ago – and I’m joining in with other bloggers to remember 9/11.

I remember that morning like it was last week. I was sitting in my manager’s office (which happens to be my office now) and someone came in and told us that a plane just hit the World Trade Center. We didn’t think it was something major (we obviously weren’t in the newsroom) and started talking about an upcoming trip I was taking to Texas. A few minutes later, someone told us a second plane had hit and we started working to get the story on the Web site.

We weren’t using an automated system at the time, so all photo galleries and stories and special sections on our site were being built by hand. There were 4 of us working to keep the website updated, and our manager made sure we were well fed. It was such a long day and I didn’t really process what had happened for a while.

That night, I went for a late dinner with a guy I was seeing at the time. We ate at Chili’s and I remember seeing the televisions, but still not thinking about it. The photos I had seen earlier in the day were pretty graphic – some weren’t usable for a newspaper site. After dinner, I bought two painted tetra fish for my apartment. I needed something happy and these two fish (they were pink and purple) could keep me company, and take my mind off of the events of that day, at least for a little bit of time.

It was weeks before I finally allowed myself to really process everything. (And I’m still like that with pretty major and tragic events.)

I went to NYC in 2006 with my grandmother. These are some of the photos I shot during that trip: