Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Your Prayers Please



My grandmother (Mema) has been sick in the hospital with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. Dad seemed to think she was doing better yesterday afternoon, but last night my dad called and said that he thought I needed to come home after all. She told my aunt Julie yesterday that she knew she didn't have much time left and she wanted to see her grandbabies.
So I am off to North Carolina on Saturday morning and coming back home on Sunday night. It's a quick trip, but I definitely want to see her while I can still talk to her. Please pray for her.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Green Eggs and Ham

I've been getting organic, free-range eggs recently from a woman that used to work at the News-Press. The flavor is unbelievable -- way better that salmonella grocery store eggs. I also like the size and color variation in the fresh eggs. So imagine my surprise when I pulled my eggs she delivered out of the refrigerator at work and saw these -- GREEN EGGS!
We ate some this morning, and they were so good. The yolks were still yellow and the same color as the brown eggs. I was prepared to take a photo if they were green. I guess the green shells are because the chickens were eating grass or something. cool, huh? I really do want some chickens.

Friday, September 24, 2010

I'm a winner!!!!!

So my obsession with wedding blogs has finally paid off! I just won a $250 gift certificate to Williams Sonoma from Ruffled! I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I can't wait to have a mini shopping spree!

Here is an excerpt from their post........

"And the winner of the fabulous $250 giftcard to Williams-Sonoma is….

Amanda I!, comment #31, who said: “I knew he was the one when I told him I had a couple of days off right after we started dating, and he suggested we take a trip to Key West. A trip was exactly what I had in mind, and we’ve been traveling together as often as possible since.”

Congratulations! We will be in touch with you shortly."

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Baby photography

I just saw this blog post by MCP Actions. They have some good information for photographers,and so I thought I'd share their tips for successful baby photography. Mostly I just wanted to save this post for my own reference, but I thought my 3-4 readers would all find it handy also.

I also wanted to showcase two of my favorite babies: Emme and Evan. Sadly they are really no longer babies, they are toddlers. But it's fun to go back and see how small they really were. Ok, so Evan wasn't really that small....
I'm excited to use the new tips to photograph baby MJ, who should be making her world debut in the next few weeks..Yay!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Fun with magnetic photo paper

A few weeks ago, I bought some magnetic photo inkjet paper to go with our snazzy new printer. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, but I thought it was cool.

At the same time, I've been seeing all these design blogs with framed posters saying "Keep Calm and Carry On." They're literally everywhere (just see the comments on this apartment therapy post), but I dig it. I framed a similar saying from The Bright Side Project, and it now sits on my desk at work. It reminds me to breathe in difficult situations when Scott is not around to remind me.

According to wikipedia, the "Keep Calm" poster was "a poster produced by theBritish government in 1939during the beginning of World War II, to raise the morale of the British public in the case of invasion. It was little known and never used. The poster was rediscovered in 2000 and has been re-issued by a number of private sector companies, and used as the decorative theme for a range of other products."

I read the comments from the Apartment Therapy article after googling the saying to find an image I could print. Someone linked to this gem on etsy, an antidote to "Keep Calm and Carry On."
I think the second poster is a good commentary on the way some politicians would have us feel. But I'm not trying to go all political. I just wanted to make some cool refrigerator magnets out of the sayings. So that's what I did.....what do you think?



Here's the magnetic paper I used....I think I got it from A.C. Moore/Michaels/Jo-Anns.



Saturday, September 11, 2010

Ring photos


Lately I've been looking at a lot of wedding blogs and "real wedding" photos just trying to get ideas for the wedding. It seems everybody is photographing the details of their wedding now. The rings, the centerpieces, the cake, the invitations, the programs, etc. So since I'm not going to be behind the camera at my own wedding, I decided to photograph some of the details along the way.
As you know I just finished the Save the Dates. I haven't sent my dad's yet because he was moving, so I decided to photograph the ones I'm sending to Dad and Judy and to my grandmother. I was also inspired by some awesome ring photos I've seen on the blogs. These are from Tag7 photography via Merci. I love this shoe photo. I just wish I could afford some shoes like that. I'm not sure that Nine West shoes are quite as photographable if you know what I mean.


And here's my own version with our Save the Dates! I'm going to do more photos later to try to get the ring to really sparkle, but for a first run, I don't think this is too bad.

Friday, September 10, 2010

My first videos for the News-Press


S o, today I googled myself and stumbled upon some old videos from when I went to Andros Island in the Bahamas in May 2008 with reporter Kevin Lollar. The rotary club of Cape Coral was building a playground for the children of Red Bays, a very poor community on the north end of the island. We tagged along to document the weekend. It was a beautiful place, and I met some amazing people including a little boy who I will never forget.....



Here are some videos that were edited by Jackie Winchester of our online department, because I did not know how to edit then. I know that probably nobody will watch these. I just wanted to have them here so they wouldn't get lost in cyberspace. It is such a magical place. I hope to return someday. The children are all polite and well dressed even though they may live in a house with no running water or electricity.



This is a demo of how to make their famous baskets. And, yes, I bought one.



This guy is great!


and here's Hank of Hank's place.


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Home again



The trip to the Keys for Molly's bachelorette party was a success! We all stayed together at the bars in Key West and all got in the cab to go back to Big Pine Key on time. This is an amazing feat considering there were 16 of us. Only one west home early with a headache.

We had a great time celebrating Molly's upcoming wedding on 10/10/10 in St. Lucia. The weekend confirmed what a great friend Molly is to everyone. Each girl said that Molly had gone out of her way to make her feel welcome when they met, and she did the same for me when I got to the News-Press seven years ago. I don't know what I would do without her. Anytime I need anything Molly is there. And her motto throughout the trip was "I love you all equally."

So, thank you Molly, for including me in the weekend and for being a great friend. I had an amazing time! I love you and congratulations. I know you and Chris will have a wonderful life together.

Here are a few pics. I didn't take many because I only took the point and shoot camera and the video camera. I shot more than an hour of video of our night in Key West. And while we were out in Key West, I left the camera at the house. The less to keep up with, the better.


This was the crazy upside down rainbow over Key West when I arrived on the boat on Saturday.



And here's two pics of the view from the house where we stayed on Big Pine Key.




This is looking back toward our house from the boat. Every time I go to the Keys I marvel at how blue it really is. Just beautiful!



These are the crafty vests the girls made with vintage stencils and paint for Chris's huntin' bachelor party next weekend. I think most of their significant others were going. So cute.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Key West bound!

I set sail for Key West on the Key West Express boat early this morning, and now we're almost there. I'm going for Molly's bachelorette party. The rest of the group left yesterday, but I had to stay to shoot high school football last night. So here I am on the boat by myself. I must say, it's pretty nice and comfortable. Although there is a gaggle of children all screaming and video-gaming around me.

I also decided to include some photos of Matanzas Pass just after sunrise, since I'm rarely up that early.