i ♥ faces – We Heart Kisses!

The girls over at i ♥ faces have a new competition this week – “We Heart Kisses” – in honor of Valentine’s Day.  I thought I’d post one of my favorite candid moments from my friends Jenny & Aaron.  Aaron was totally anti-”formal” pictures for the whole shoot, which was okay by me because I tend towards the candid shots anyway.  But sometimes you just need a guy to smile without having to trick him into it!  By the way, this is completely genetic when you consider that their 5-year-old son flat out refused to wear his shirt until I was poised to press the shutter button! 

Jenny was relentless, and just messed with him until she could get a smile out of him.   I happened to catch this while she was trying to convince him.. and it ended up working   Thanks, Jenny!

Thursday…

Thursday, a day usually reserved for nothing but thoughts of Burn Notice and The Office (with a special space reserved for Community) has become a day of thought.  Well, not lots of thought… just more thought than usual. 

I’m already bored.  You still here? 

First, I harbor extreme amounts of jealousy over people with amazing creative talents.  Yeah, I can sing alright and play a couple of instruments (at least in rhythm).  I take about 425 pictures to get 25 good ones.  I can finish 29 out of 33 of these word puzzles before resorting to Google.

But I can’t do this.  What?!  Seriously, my favorite is X, which stands for “X-ray Wolf”.  (Be sure you’re checking out the flash version for all the best fun.)

Or this.  I mean, shut up.

Or this.  I am going home immediately to collaborate with the brothers. We’ll make a list of quotes and put one together for our family!  ‘Cause I know HOW to do this stuff, just don’t come up with it myself.

Or this.  Because it would involve patience.  Ahem…moving on.

Second, I’ve been thinking about how much I like music.  I mean, really really really like music.  So I thought up today’s list of can’t-stop-listening-to ditties:

“Everywhere That I Go” by Israel Houghton
“Need You Now” & “American Honey” by Lady Antebellum
“Fugitive” by David Gray
“Typical” by Mutemath
“Smoke of a Distant Fire” by Sanford Townsend Band
“Breathe” by Taylor Swift & Colbie Caillat
“Uprising” by Mutemath
“Highway 20 Ride” by Zac Brown Band
“Hold Me Now” by Hillsong United
“New York State of Mind” by Jay-Z & Alicia Keys
“TiK ToK” by Ke$ha  (oh, I’m ashamed enough for the both of us)
“Only Love” by Wynona Judd
“Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” by Bob Seger
“Never Be Shaken” by Jared Anderson
“Death and All His Friends” by Coldplay

Third, aviator sunglasses are particularly rad.

Fourth, why doesn’t everyone work out? Oh, yes. That would be because of the searing pain that accompanies every action from stretching to breathing.  And typing.  And moving.

I’ve been working out on a fairly regular schedule for about a month (for the first time since 2003… seriously). My friend Sarah and her husband Mike have been meeting me at the gym every morning at 5:30 am (balls!) and we were all content to just do cardio and call it a day. Well, General Mike decided that we would all be going through bootcamp and he’s been kicking the crap out of us every day this week. I literally couldn’t straighten my legs on Tuesday. 

Sarah and I have been pushing through, aided by our newfound joy at changing Mike’s nickname from General Mike to General Tso (Sarah’s) and Spicy Chicken (mine). 

My ultimate goal is to come out lookin’ more fresh-to-death than a Jersey Shore cast member. 

Gym. Tanning. Laundry.

Last, I’ve been thinking about my budding photography business a lot lately.  How to grow, where to spend money, the pratfalls & lessons learned (website, blog, online proofing, etc.), and the realizations I’ve had about myself and my expectations.  There are LOTS of them.  Most involve taxes. 

So I think I am going to try and post a few things about my experience and maybe help someone else just getting started not fall into the same traps I did.  Trust me, I am a business simpleton, but if I can keep you from a couple of the things I did wrong, you might have a chance!

Every party has a pooper… – i ♥ face “Places I Love” contest

You know what, I’m single. 

I’m habitually single, in fact. 

Does that mean I should be excluded from entering contests that ask about your most favorite romantic places?  I submit that I should not.  

Ok, then.  Moving on. 

On to the i ♥ faces weekly contest, which I’ve decided to party crash even though I’m not technically invited.  Um, hello… the story of the perpetual 5th wheel!  Being out of place is like home turf for me, so move over married nerds and dating geeks ’cause I’m about to shut this mother down.

Sorry about all that… I get feisty when I talk smack to married people. Back to the task at hand.

Seattle is romantic. I can only assume. I spent my last trip there with my brother, so…

However, I’ve often dreamed of spending my honeymoon there, soaking up the sights and eating at wonderful places, hiking, going to shows. There are an infinite number of excursions to be had there, a few of which I posted about here, here, here, here and here.  I told you!

But anyway, here’s my submission. The view from the Duck Tour Boat on Lake Union.  I love this place!

i ♥ faces – “Best Face Photo” contest

The girls over at i ♥ faces celebrated their blog birthday, and as a way of saying thanks to their readers they are giving away a slew of great stuff!  They are also starting the year off with great contests, the first of which celebrates their very favorite thing… faces (obvs!) 

Here is my entry, the face of my handsome little friend Tino.  This beautiful boy has Autism, and he is the reason behind the non-profit organization “Santino’s Voice”, which I blogged about here.  His family has a beautiful and tragic story, but can’t you just imagine the joy this little face brings when they are feeling sad?! He is such a sweet little monkey and I love him!

Little Blonde Monkeys

With three kids, a pregnant mommy and a dad going to school full-time, this family is busier than ever!  They wanted to make sure they got a great set of pictures before the baby came along, and then we’ll do another shoot sometime in March once the little one gets here. 

Mom and dad didn’t really care to be in any of the pictures, so it was just me and the kids.  After a little coaxing and then a full-on grab-then-throw-over-my-shoulder-and-run-away-from-mom-at-top-speed maneuver with a very hesitant youngest child, I ran off into the park to try and catch pictures before the weather turned cold.  These kids were such fun, and I love when parents just let me take the kids and do my thing.  Mom and dad sat on a bench across the park and waited patiently for us to return.   We took an adventure around the waterfront and playground, with each kid saying at one point, “Hey, take a picture of me here!”  It was really cute.

Here are some of my personal faves:

Look at this sweet face!

Chubby Bunnies

Remember that game?  Anyone?  In elementary school we used to put marshmallows in our mouths, one at a time, and with each additional marshmallow trying to pronounce the words “chubby bunnies” clearly to the audience.  I had a friend that was amazing at that game, due in large part to her squirrel-esque cheeks.  I still feel a twinge of jealousy.

I did a photo shoot before Christmas to get some good Christmas card shots for some friends.  Their kid gives my friend’s cheeks a run for her money any day. 

Seriously, how cute is he??

Just a quick reminder that children’s photography isn’t always sweet smiles and fun… 73 versions of “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” later, he was no longer amused. Poor buddy. We definitely woke him up from a good nap to endure all this torture.

Holiday Traditions

Our holiday traditions are few, and kind of boring in comparison to those of some other families we know, but they are ours and we love them!

The most spectacular and beloved tradition of our Christmas holiday is also our newest tradition, which I mentioned previously.  The giant tree.  Every year, Big Papa and The Bros go hunting on a friend’s property Up North.  (SIDE NOTE: If you don’t live in Michigan, anything north of  the middle of the “mitten” is referred to as “Up North.”  We also ”Say Yah to Da U.P.”  It’s best to know the colloquialisms, lest thou come to visit and make a fool of yourself wearing close-toed shoes and a jacket before November 1st.)

Anyhoo… when all the boys are up huntin’ and the womenfolk are home cleanin’, cookin’ and pinin’ for the return of our menfolk (i.e.: “Deer Widows Weekend” at the outlet mall or a shoe sale at Macy’s) the fellas are also searching for the perfect tree.  They actually chop the top off of a giant pine now because the first year, they brought the bottom half home and it was a bit like the scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation where Clark snips the rope and tree branches bust through windows and poke holes in the walls.  Just a bit too much tree for our taste. 

I take ownership of the tree each year, and it’s one of my favorite things to do each year. I get out the 12-foot ladder and spend 5 or 6 hours stringing lights, garland and ribbon, then adding ornaments in their proper ratio. All the while, my mom walks around under the ladder handing me ornaments, telling me where to fix gaps in the lights, and vacuuming up needles as they fall. We’ve got a very good system.

Here is this year’s 15-foot tree again:

On Christmas eve, we usually watch one installment of a favorite movie trilogy. This year was no exception, and included a family classic tradition:

It was followed by endless discussion of the Star Wars backstory (my nerd-alert brothers have like 60 of the Star Wars books and they walk around talking about the Yousenvong and Darth Sidious) and a lot of quoting (“That’s not impossible. I used to bullseye Womprats with my T-16 back home, and they’re no bigger than 2 meters.”)

I love our dorky family.

On Christmas morning, we have never ever been allowed to start opening presents until everyone is accounted for and ready to go. But, mom always had our stockings laid out and we were allowed to dig through those to figure out which one belonged to whom, then play around with whatever we got in the stocking.

This year’s stockings looked like this:

Another cute thing my mom does to make the holiday special is spend lots of time wrapping gifts and putting random clues about the contents on the tag. She’s the queen of puns, so she puts silly things on the tag and then waits for you to open the gift and realize what the clue actually meant. It’s pretty cute and she loves doing it. And my brothers have actually taken to doing the same thing with the gifts they give. I just never got the hang of it and I can’t come up with anything good. I have very boring tags.

She also spends lots of time making interesting ribbon creations on each box. This year she and I tag teamed a TON of boxes in one night, with me wrapping and her adding ribbons and tags. She didn’t get inspired to do many good ribbons this year because I went too fast and we were watching a movie while we wrapped (distractions!) But she did a couple cool ones…

Looks like one didn’t make it this year…

Then one person is picked to be Santa that year. They go to the tree and pick one gift for each person, distribute them, and we each open them in turn. Then we lather, rinse, repeat until all the presents are open. It’s a good system, but it also makes it painfully clear each year who got the most presents. Usually my youngest brother. He’s completely spoiled.

I made a delicious breakfast, then we proceeded to waste an hour watching a very disgusting and crass Star Wars themed episode of Family Guy. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing “Something, Something, Dark Side” unless you’re prepared for a preponderence of f-bombs and a lot of disgusting humor. But I can’t lie… I did laugh really hard at a few parts.

A couple of the other traditions we’ve abandoned in our old age/new house:

• The 3 siblings sleeping together on Christmas Eve so we can all wake up together and pounce on Mom & Dad at 6:00 am (might be a scoche inappropriate now that we’re all adults).
• Climbing in bed with Mom and Dad to read the Christmas story before heading down to open presents.
• The two trees we used to have in our old house. We had a beautiful tree decorated in all white for the front room window, and the family tree in the back room covered in our old handmade ornaments and colored lights. I miss that tree every year.

How to remove a cork without a corkscrew. Or, how to ruin a perfectly good corn skewer.

To say the least, the holidays held some interesting mishaps. 

MISHAP #1:
I tried a new craft this year, inspired by one my all-time favorite bloggers, Katie Bower of All Bower Power.  She posted her ornament inspiration crafts, and I really wanted to try the one she refers to as the “bubble” ornament.  I had purchased some really great vase filler from Pier 1 earlier in the season, and it seemed perfect for the occasion.  The filler I got has three different types of glass beads (clear, frosted, and matte silver) as well as tiny little jingle bells.  Cutest stuff ever.  So I went to town on a set of dark green ornaments I grabbed from Meijer for $2.

I think they turned out really well! Can you see the little jingle bells?

Now let’s use evil, useless mathematics to calculate the mishap. Glue gun + finger = boooooo!!

I dropped one of the little beads onto my finger, then flung it off quickly only to realize that it was sticking to the carpet, which made me panic and pick it up with my other hand. Luckily it was already cool by then. It really didn’t hurt that bad and I thought I could finish up the project, but after about 3 minutes, I started to really feel the pain, so I quit and came back to it another day. Got a cute little decoration out of it, although much too heavy to hang on a tree. This is a tabletop item only!

Disclaimer: My fingers do not look that gross and purple in real life.

MISHAP #2

I was a part of the cast for the Christmas performance we do at our church each year, and as a way to pass the time sitting in the green room, I thought I would learn to knit.  I’m nothing if not impulsive.

So I bought some junky yarn to use for practice, then upgraded to some really nice yarn and an actual pattern a few days before Christmas.  I’m off of work for the week between Christmas Eve and New Year, so I spent a lot of time plugging away at my little scarf project. 

Again, it turned out pretty well, with just a little booger.  Not a real booger.  I made a booger.  Never mind.

Here is the proof that I did a good job:

Ok, so I missed something and picked up a stitch somewhere.  I made it for me, and I don’t require perfection.  But it drives my mom crazy!

MISHAP #3
I made Burgundy Chicken for Christmas dinner.  Obviously, this leads us to a tutorial on removing a cork without a corkscrew/ruining a perfectly good corn skewer.  Let’s start with a basic overview of the  major factors working against me in this situation. 

First, I do not drink.  Like, at all.  Ever.  No one in my immediate family does, and 98% of my friends do not. 

Second, I am not a wine connoisseur.  I know nothing about it and it smells like a butt.   I’m so classy.

Third, their powers combine to create a supreme and utter lack of a corkscrew in my life.  Except for the roller coaster at Cedar Point, I don’t come around corkscrews very often.  I don’t know how to use one.  I don’t know where to find one.  I have no one from whom to borrow a corkscrew.  Totally screwed.  (Oh, even I’m appalled at that joke).

Fourth, I do not own a sabre or scabbard, so I can’t do that nifty trick where the guy holds the bottle in one hand and swipes upward and away from him to slice the top off the bottle.  And no one wants my freshly severed finger/hand/arm in their wine.

Recap:  I’m completely useless when a recipe calls for wine. 

I decide not to use the standard cooking wine for some reason, and head out to my favorite market, Nino Salvaggio’s, so peruse their wine section.  Dumb.  Dumb.  Dumb.  I wandered around the aisles for 10 minutes looking for Burgundy wine and never found it.  I ended up asking the lady stocking wine on an endcap, and she said that basically meant a cheap, crappy red wine.  Good news, because spending $25 on a bottle that will ultimately have 65% poured down the drain did not excite me.

So I ended up finding a $3.99 bottle of red wine and scooped that puppy up without bothering to check if it was corked.  This is why I should stick with cooking wine… the convenient little top that screws on and off!

The next day I pulled out all the groceries and got the chicken cooking, got the mushrooms going, went to open the wine and realized my dilemma.  Luckily I had a little time until it was necessary to the cooking process, so I didn’t try to hurriedly chop the top off with a swiss army knife. 

Here are all of the attempted tools:  cheese skewers, turkey lacing skewers, grapefruit knife, drill, corn skewer, screwdriver.

Ultimately I found that the drill with a pilot hole bit work best.  I used graduated sizes and finally just twisted the bit all around until it kind of kicked the crap out of the cork.  Then I used a flat head screwdriver to get the large pieces out.

Of course, that caused the next problem.  I don’t know much, but I don’t think “chunky” is something you look for in a wine.

I used a paper towl layered over a thin strainer, suspended above a liquid measuring cup to get the bits out, and after straining it twice to be sure, I was feeling good about it. Of course we lost a good corn skewer in the process. For future reference, they lack the tensile strength to dislodge a corkscrew of their own volition.

Ultimately, the wine made it to the mushrooms and turned into a lovely sauce that tasted delicious!

We had a sweet, quiet dinner for Christmas and enjoyed every bit of it.  Without the bits.

I know it doesn’t look like much, but it was tasty!

Christmas Decor Extravaganza

I know it’s a little late to be posting about our Christmas decor, but the tree is still up.  That means it’s still the holidays.  That means it’s okay to post about the holidays on January 5.  So there. 

Actually, we had a few friends drop by yesterday and they were commenting at how great the tree looked (although, I sensed their silent admonition about not taking the tree down on New Year’s Day) and I told them I wasn’t taking it down until February.  It’s just so dang pretty… and so dang big.

We moved into this house in September of 2004, and since that time we’ve been putting up larger-than-life live trees in our 22-foot-tall great room.  The slope of the roof makes it so we can’t go any higher than around 17 feet with a tree, but last year’s tree scratched the ceiling in multiple spots.  We think it was close to 18 feet.  But it was also a nasty tree with horribly stiff needles that actually drew blood on my arms as I put the lights on.  I did NOT like that tree.

This year’s tree is different.  It’s special.  It has tons of personality.  And the needles are soft!  So, here it is.  The 15-foot live tree, chopped down from a friend’s secluded forest land in Mio, Michigan in late November and given new life as a beautiful Christmas tree. 

(Let me apologize in advance… for some reason I took ALL of my holiday pictures on 3200 ISO, which means I have tons of grainy, noisy pictures.  Oh well.)

Consider that the mantel is over my head, and I’m 5′10″.   This tree is gimungous, to say the least.

But isn’t it great, with it’s little branches sticking out all over?  I really loved this tree.

Some of my favorite ornaments…

Little stocking cap

Grape bunches made of jingle bells and thick metal wire curls.  We have 5 or 6 in lime green and a second set in gold. 

The grape bunches tie for my favorite ornaments with these great little beaded numbers.  I feel like the tree is wearing 15 dangly, chandelier earrings!  We have them in cream and also in a deep green.  They are really elegant touches on a fairly rustic tree.

We have some great wooden, copper, and dark metal ornaments that have the handmade look.  A TON of dark green, bright green, gold, and burgundy round ornaments (in a mix of matte and shiny) mix with three types of ribbon and a wooden cranberry garland. 

A better shot of the grape bunches.  Although for some reason another little guy was stuck to this one when the picture was taken?  I don’t condone this sort of behavior in my decorations.  Little glittery twisty stick has since been instructed to straighten up and fly right.  (Oh, yeah, my mom picked up a million of those little glittery twisty sticks at Walmart for so cheap and they made a great addition to the ends of branches.  They were really light and didn’t weigh them down at all.)

These little alpine trees and a stuffed moose go on top of the window on the other side of the fireplace.  We still haven’t figured out a good system for hiding the cord that doesn’t involve installing a new plug above the soffit.  Good thing we aren’t real concerned…

This is a new vase I found for my mom at Pier 1 on clearance (I think $27) and it’s HUGE!  Maybe two-and-a-half feet tall and it weighs about 10 pounds. 

The new vase fits our 6-foot-long glittery ting just right.  I usually stick the giant ting into the tree, but this year’s tree was rather skinny so most of the ends of the ting would have been sticking out the other side of the tree.  We liked it this way even better!

These are our cute little stockings and stocking holders.  I love them!   Also, the willow branch tree on top of the mantle usually holds all of our christmas cards that we receive throughout the season, but we never got around to taking it down and putting the cards on.  Maybe next year.  Or tomorrow, since it’s still Christmas at our house.

Clearly the cable knit stocking is new!  My mom didn’t like her old stocking, so she replaced it… she’s funny like that.

I plan to have another post about our Christmas traditions, but for now I’m going to stick to the decor theme!  So, in the spirit of decorating and keeping things beautiful, here is a giveaway I saw on Completely Coastal today.  Make sure to head over to their latest post and you might win one of these:

Or this.  I don’t drink, but some people dig this sort of thing… although I could use it for Mountain Dew…hmmm

Christmas hilarity

Dave Barnes is not only a great singer/songwriter, he’s a downright hilarious guy.  I saw him in concert a few weeks ago… laughed a lot, even cried a little.  Trust me when I say, he’s good people.

My friend Melissa and I had volunteered to run the merchandise table so we could get into the show for free.  (NOTE: This show also featured a really great opening act, Ben Rector.)  After the show, Dave and the band kind of hang out and meet the fans, so we got to see how they interact with people.  Actually, we got to see how insanely stupid girls are when face-to-face with cute musicians, no matter how married these said musicians are.  As an incurable people-watcher, this was pure bliss to me. 

We weren’t really participating in all the silliness (I’m not the starstruck type) but once we had all the merchandise back in the containers and were ready to walk out the door, Dave took a moment to thank us for our help. Through sheer happenstance, we ended up discussing the possibility of me running his 2012 Presidential Campaign.  I’m really looking forward to the challenge.

So anyway, enjoy this little bit of entertainment.  These literally make me cry with laughter every single time I watch them.  And believe me, I’ve watched them a LOT.

Another note… this isn’t really the way he talks

Christmas Extravaganza Part Uno

Christmas Extravaganza Part Dos

Christmas Extravaganza Part Tres

Christmas Extravaganza Part Quatro