Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Subtraction and addition...

November 16, 2008
Cincinnati, Ohio

For our shoot last week we did a little shuffling. You may recognize the little boys from the C&S family shoot, but this time we had the L-family and grandma with us. Even though it was freezing and snowing that Sunday morning, we were toasty inside with a lot of great light.



C-family: look at those cute matching sweaters...


L-family: this little one was not a fan of us or the cold weather...


But he was a fan of raisins...




Cue grandma...


THERE it is! We were able to catch the smile before it quickly turned to a frown...


Precious...


What a great time with awesome color - great choice on the location!

Check back soon because I want to post more of the C&S shoot - four pictures just wasn't enough. The photos were picked up last night, so they're no longer a surprise.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Canning & comparing...


Canning: back toward the beginning of November, I got an itch to can some pickles. These aren't just ANY pickles, mind you, they are bread & butter pickles that my great aunt (I think that's right) used to make. My dad and other family members grew up on these pickles and looked forward to them every year. As did I.

When the recipe was printed in a limited-edition family cookbook, my mouth started to water just thinking about these wonderful pickles. Lovely, yummy, bread & butter PICKLES. Okay, moving on...

Dan and I sliced up an ungodly amount of cucumbers and onions, cried a little in the meantime, and canned up seven jars of these babies. It was quite a process, but well worth it when my parents came to dinner the next night and dad tried a freshly canned jar of nostalgia... and they tasted the same as he remembered. YES! We have three jars left and plan to make more soon. Side note: growing up, I never realized there were onions involved. I always thought they were pickles cut up differently. (Hello blonde.)


The first picture currently resides above our living room couch with nine of its similarly-bordered friends. Since I had the picture of our main subdivision street in the Spring, I went out the other day after work and got one of Fall as well. I don't know if I'll have this new one printed to replace Spring, but it's a thought. I do plan to get a shot for each season.

Comparing: today while I was looking at Spring vs. Fall, I couldn't help but notice something was off. I knew one was taken on a drizzly day while the other was dry, so the colors are a bit different. I also realized I wasn't standing in the exact same spot. But for some reason a tree was either uprooted on me or moved to sunnier Florida. First picture = four trees. Second picture, even though zoomed out or standing farther back = three trees. What...? Don't think about it too hard to your brain will hurt.

I'll stop rambling about pickles and trees now.

Cool things: I'm a little slow on the delivery, but some good things I've seen lately or haven't mentioned in a while...

  • Martha's no-knit scarf. I'm still searching for the scarf I started crocheting years ago, so it doesn't look like I'll be completing it anytime soon. Martha's is something I could finish before it turns Spring again. See Lisa's here.
  • While you're looking at Lisa's no-knit scarf, go check out her awesome necklaces also. They would make great gifts.
  • Elise's handmade holiday. Elise is like a handmade celebrity. I first found her blog last year when I made the circle ornaments, and she's still turning cardboard and bottle caps into works of art.
  • I know there are more, but that's it for tonight.
I'm currently on laundry load four and I'm not done yet. Time to switch some loads and edit some photo sessions on this lovely Saturday night.

OH, and it's my little brother's 21st birthday today. Yikes! Let's all say a prayer - that he stays safe tonight and that I stop feeling so OLD.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Running around the playground...

November 4, 2008
Boone County Central Park

Last week Dan and I had the chance to run around with some adorable kids. Two brothers who are cousins to three sisters equaled one high-energy time. I picked a few favorite photos to give a glimpse, so let me introduce the C-family and the S-family...

How cute are these two?




These teeter-totter shots are so much fun. The girls...


...versus the boys...

That huge grin on the little boy is too much to handle. I think we need to find more teeter-totters around here because they guarantee laughs. Maybe Santa will bring me some...

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Blog away...

After work and some couch time enjoying Thai carry-out, Ugly Betty, and a little Grey's Anatomy, I fully expected to get back into client photos. Looking at the iMac in our showroom I thought, instead, that I would blog. BLOG - there's something I haven't done in a while! I told Dan of my grand plan, to which he said, "Blog away!"

So here I am...blogging away, catching up on laundry, and trying to remember what life has brought in the last few weeks. Oh, and in between all of those things I'm setting up my account on our new MacBook Pro just the way I want it, and learning the ways its touchpad likes to be touched. Ah, yes.

Taking a little trip back to my birthday, on the 22nd, here are some pictures...

Dan secretly took a half day off work to come home and get things ready. He's definitely a keeper. This is a box of goodies and more goodies - chocolates (including some Starbucks mocha and chai truffles) and little slips of things Dan will do when I redeem them. Things like massages, the dishes, laundry, and tasks of my choice. Oooooo-la-la! With Halloween and this box I think I'm stocked up on chocolate until my next birthday. Candy anyone?


The weekend before my birthday we got some corn stalks from Dan's family's farm, and I drove up to see them placed ever so nicely around our garage and front door. The stalks and one pumpkin were all we did outside - very simple.


We went shopping and I found some new outfits at the Gap, then to Red Lobster for dinner. Since it's not a place we go all the time, I really like going there for my birthday. It's become a little tradition, I guess. Since we were STUFFED FULL of endless shrimp, the dessert had to wait until the next day, but it was awwwwfully delicious - a Reese ice cream cake. I might have to make up an excuse to go buy another one.


That Saturday my parents took us to Outback to celebrate two birthdays - mine and an older brother's. This is me and the younger brother. If you are my Facebook friend then you've already seen this, but it's my favorite shot of us. Good dinner and good times.


A couple days before Halloween I was alone in the house and the doorbell rang. Our neighborhood is really safe as far as we've encountered, but it made me wish for a peep-hole in our front door. When I finally answered it, I saw that we had been BOO'd. Seriously, I had never heard of this booing thing until a couple weeks before Halloween, but what a fun idea. I whipped up a dozen cookies and a little sign so that Dan and I could BOO another neighbor.

We were such amateurs - we had to choose a house about five away because the closest ones had already been hit. We should have hid on the side on their house after ringing the doorbell, but instead we tried to run like maniacs, and then halfway back started to walk as if we were taking a nightly stroll. Next time we'll know the tricks.


Halloween - I'm not even going to rehash the whole thing. I will say that Dan's little brothers came to our neighborhood to trick-or-treat. The younger one went out and had a good time. Dan's friends were having a party that night, so we got ready while the kiddos were walking around. Dan's grandpa sat on the porch and gave out candy for us, but I sat outside in between getting ready and baking cookies for the party.

Dan dressed as McCain and I dressed as Palin, although he tried to put white paint on his face for a pale effect and ended up more like McCain from the grave. That lent much to the satire. Maybe I should've practiced my Alaskan accent while I was at it. Dan had a BIT TOO MUCH Tequila at the party and my fear of puke was tested that night...as was my car's interior. That's enough information. NEXT TIME I WILL KNOW BETTER. Or maybe I should say THERE WON'T BE A NEXT TIME.

Otherwise - let's make a list.

  • Lists are all the rage right now. I know this because Apple didn't put an application on their iPhone for making task lists, so everyone and their cousins have been looking for the next best thing.
  • I am one of those "everyone," and my to-do list is currently scattered among a handful of notebook pages. In case you're wondering, this method does NOT help productivity. I thought I had a good thing going, but the app I was using decided to crash all the time and lose random tasks. I guess I should have been happy about less tasks, huh?
  • Once I'm done with the client photos on deck, I will be doing some surveying and soul-searching to figure out what I want to roll out business-wise for the beginning of '09. There is so much I'd like to do, but I need to pick out a couple manageable things that can get done by the new year.
  • I spent a chunk of time tonight with an email organizing bug. I need to clean out my inbox at home the same way I do at work. The problem is Gmail (home) vs. Outlook (work), so I'm working some tweaks. I love Gmail too much to use Mac Mail or other things at home. Darn it, Dan - the love for all things Google is all your fault.
  • By Tuesday I will have my favorite photos posted from a recent shoot we did.
  • I've been drooling over kraft paper products online. I love that all the ones I've seen are made from some percentage of recycled material, some 100%. Makes me glad that I picked it for our packaging.
  • Holy cow, now it's time to switch some laundry and get to bed.
Goodnight Friday.

  © Brooklyn Template modified by Rye Designs

Back to TOP