Au Revoir

Today seemed like a good day to post this.  The sun is finally shining here in the desert and for once it's not going to rain this weekend.  It's also time for me to say goodbye to this blog.  Now before my two readers get all bend out of shape, know this...I am starting a new blog!  It's still in the construction phase, but I am hoping to have everything up and running in the next week or so.  I'll go ahead and give you the address now so you can add it to your favorites :)  Ready???  Its The Deutsch Girl.

You can go ahead and click to add, but as you can see, it's pretty much completely blank.  There will be a few recycled posts, so sorry for my two readers again for that.  BUT, I am hoping for some new photos and such to add so they will be a little bit new at least.  I'll probably leave this blog up for another month or so, but then it will be gone for good.  If you have any posts that you really want me to switch over before I close, let me know.  Thanks!       

Almost There.

We are now almost all the way out of the old house and into the storage units and my parents house.  It's been extremely hectic and tiring, but in 2 days we turn over the house and so it will be over.  I meant to take pictures of the whole moving event, but let's be honest, I was way too busy to be sitting around taking pictures.  I barely sat down all weekend as it was.  The house is being cleaned today, and Chris and my dad are finishing up taking odds and ends to the storage units.  And yes, that's units with an "s".  We have two - one for stuff that Chris needs immediately and the other is stuff that will go out east eventually.  Let's just say we have a lot of crap things.  And while most people say that the girl side of the duo has more stuff, I can safely say that Chris has way more things than I do! 

We also still have a lot of organizing to do at my parent's house.  Trying to fit all of our stuff is proving to be a challenge, but I am slowly but surely getting it done.  So in light of everything, I will be taking a break from blogging until that's done.  And then I'll have pictures to show everyone of my (our) new space.  Stay tuned to see my new little slice of life! 

*Hahaha I say all this like I have a ton of readers and my posts will be missed :)   
   

The Countdown Begins

So we are officially at one week until we are out of our house, and the renters take over.  I've been full of mixed emotions the past week or so, realizing that we are really moving out the house and home Chris and I have shared the past 3 1/2 years.  Ok, technically we only "shared" it for about 2 1/2 years, but you know what I mean.  I'm so happy that we found renters without even trying, and even though we were hoping to have a little more time in the house since we don't HAVE to lease, we know it's the right thing to do.  We are moving into my parent's house, and into my old room.  It should be interesting.  For one things, there's a full bed in there.  For anyone who hasn't met Chris, he's a big guy.  Not big fat, but he's 6ft tall and pretty muscular.  And the room isn't particulary large.  But we are hoping that he will find a job soon back east and he will only be there for a month or so. 

Here's a little pro-con list of our move.  Not that it changes anything of course, but don't they say that it helps to write things down?

PROS

• 4 mile roundtrip commute to work instead of a 50 mile roundtrip commute
• My mom's cooking!  This should probably be 2 or 3 pros b/c it's really good stuff
• No more utility payments
• No more yardwork and pool maintenance
• My grandparents 3 houses away with their gorgeous resortlike backyard
• Closer to downtown Phoenix which means more sporting events
• Beach cruiser rides to breakfast, coffee, and pretty much anywhere with my mom

CONS

• 3 cats and 2 dogs in one house.  And the cats aren't too keen on one of the dogs
• Very little space to ourselves
• Sharing a bathroom with one sink, and a very little counter
• No big screen TV :(
• Sharing a small walk in closet.  Great for one person, not so much for two

You can probably see that the pros outweight the cons for the most part.  We may feel a bit cramped, but it will just take some adjusting.  I've already started bringing my clothes to my parent's house, and the computers will be next.  That's pretty much all we are bringing with us besides the animals and their necessities. 

I'll conclude with some pictures I took last weekend when we worked for three straight days around the house.  So much for my President's Day Weekend!  Our biggest project was the pool.  We had to drain the pool, powerwash it, and refill it.  We had let it get really bad, and it looked like a pond.  The only way to fix it was to drain it, and then clean up everything.  I haven't taken an "after" photo yet, but let's just say that the after is beautiful!!!     

Getting the hang out this

*Note that I originally wrote this on February 1st, so I'm a little behind on actually posting.  Oh well!

This weekend I reached huge strides in my freezer project.  But before I tell you about those items, let me tell you about my meal creation from last week.  One of the items I had was Steak Umm.  When Chris bought this a while ago, I had no idea what it really was, but that it was used to make cheesesteak.  I thought it was thin slices of meat you cook.  Well I couldn't have been more wrong.  I mean it is meat you cook, but it comes in a super thin rectangle.  I guess you do the slicing yourself.  I have seven, yes seven, of these steaks to eat.  So far I've eaten two, simply because I've eaten this meal twice.  I went on their website for ideas, because I didn't want to make cheesesteak.  Chris makes way better cheesesteak and I didn't want to be disappointed.  So I decided to go with a gyro recipe.  Of course when the time came to make it, I ended up skipping a lot of steps.  I was tired and didn't feel like putting a lot of effort into my dinner.  It worked out well though.

The ingredients...sandwich thin, steak umm, tzatziki sauce, and cucumber.

First slice up the cucumber paper thin.  You can do it any way you like, but I'm a paper thin kind of gal.

Then I fried up the steak ummm.  Doesn't this look god awful?  It really tastes much better than it looks.

After that was done, I layers the tzatziki sauce, then the cucumber and then the meat.  This is final before the meat.  I guess I forgot to take an after.

I also made blueberry banana bread this weekend, which used up the frozen blueberries and bananas, and invited my parents to dinner which used up the filet mignon.  Slowly but surely I will do this!        

BIG Changes Coming...

It's official.  We are moving out of our house in two weeks and the house on canary will no longer be ours.  Well I guess that's not totally true since we own it still (at least half of us does) and we will be renting it out to a family.  Which leads me to another issue...this blog will no longer be relevant.  Part of me wants to keep the name for the sake of keeping it, and part of me wants to change it to something a little more relevant.  Not that anyone will really know the difference, but I feel like I could use a change.  Plus, once the move is complete I should have a lot more time to blog.  I keep saying that, but this time, it will really be true.  I won't have the yard work to do, the housework to do, and the commute. 

Oh and did I mention we are moving in with my parents???  It's a temporary gig until Chris can find a job back east and we find out if I got into grad school.  Once those two items are checked off the list, I will either stay with them during school, or head off to the east coast with Chris.  I will find out between March 1st and 15th and the wait is killing me.

So what does everyone think???  Should I keep the name and just do a site revamp, or do a name and site revamp all at the same time?  Let me know (if anyone is actually reading this.  but that's a whole other issue).    

First Item Gone!!!

I finally did it...one item is officially gone from my freezer.  And that first item is...naked chicken nuggets!  The final six made it into my lunch for today, and I was able to throw the bag away.  I must admit this has been a lot harder than expected.  First of all, b/c I keep forgetting to take things out the freezer to defrost.  Take today for example.  Last night I thought "oh I should take out a steak tonight and defrost it for tomorrow night".  Of course then I fell asleep and didn't do it, and didn't do it this morning either.  Now it looks like steak will have to wait until the weekend.  Secondly, because I'm really not home very much to eat.  I don't eat out, that's not the problem, but I really am not a huge eater most days.  When Chris is home, I will cook full meals every night.  But the minute he's gone, I am happy with eggs and sausage for dinner, or cereal.  My goal for this week is to make actual meals every day.  I still haven't blogged about my freezer meal from last week, but I promise I will do that this weekend.  I will have to see what I can come up with this week.  I'm anticipating some pasta, or maybe a quesadilla.  I need to have people over to help me finish off all this food!!!   

Starting the Cleanse

The pantry/fridge/freezer cleanse is under way, but not as productive as I'd like it to be.  It looks like we will be moving out sooner than later, so I feel like I really need to get a move on.  The biggest challenge, as most of you know, is that I'm a bit of a health nut.  Not the kind that eats only organic (although I try whenever possible) or shudders at the thought of chips or cookies (totally not me!), but more the kind that doesn't eat a lot of fat or bad carbs, and works out every day.  And a lot of the food that we have in the pantry is "junk food", or baking goods.  Most of the junk was bought for Chris, because let's be honest, he doesn't share the same sense of health that I do.   And I can't stop buying baking things.  I have a whole bin of various chips, sprinkles, and the like. 

I'm trying slowly but surely to get rid of a lot of the food.  Not all of it will travel well to it's new, yet unknown, destination, and I don't want to waste precious storage space with food.  My other problem:  I KEEP BUYING FOOD!!!  I really need to stop, I know there is more than enough food to last me the 40 days we expect to be in the house.  I haven't had a chance to make a recipe worth photographing, but I think that will change after tonight.  I also haven't completely rid myself of any one item.  In the meantime...here's a list of some freezer items I've managed to eat in the past few days.

Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage - Great breakfast food!
Texas Toast - One slice as "dessert".  Yes I have a warped view of dessert.
Frozen Corn - added it to a salad for a nice crunch and sweet flavor.

I'm hoping I can do much better soon, between baking cookies for the boys, and making some good recipes.  Wish me luck!

Let's start with the cast of characters...

Today I went through my freezers (both the inside and garage) and wrote down a list of every item in there.  All I can say is this is going to be quite the challenge!  At first I wanted to photograph every item, but once you see the list, you'll see why I opted not to.  Instead, I'm putting the complete list on the right side of my blog, so you can see the progress I've made.  Here are a few photos and descriptions of some of the things I found.

This is pineapple upside down cake.  I made it at one of those places where you make dinners ahead of time and then freeze them.  I am not eating sweets right now, but once I am, I think I will bake this and see how it turns out.  It's been in there a while, so I'm not too hopeful.

These are some of the fruits and veggies we keep.  I usually give these to Chris, because he's kind of a picky veggie eater.  The blueberries are usually used for pancakes, so I guess I'll be making some of those soon!

 

I'm not sure why I photographed these together, but here are two more items.  Chris bought the Steak-ummm, but I don't think it will be too hard to use up.  Same for the fettuccine, I'm hoping to make a fantastic pasta with it.

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooo Eggo!  I hear there's a shortage of these, but not in my freezer.  I actually bought these on a whim, and have only eaten two.  I highly recommend them though.  Add a little peanut butter and you have yourself a waffle PB&J. 

 

These are my secret problem.  Tastykake is only found on the east coast, so when I would go visit Chris I would bring a box home.  I will have no problem finishing these off, that's for sure.

And you can't forget the steak.  These are quality bacon wrapped filets from Omaha steaks.  I completely forgot about these until today.  Sorry Chris, I think you'll be missing out on these!

And then I will admit I threw a few things out that were so gross looking, I wasn't going to use them no matter what.  I managed to realize that this was gumbo, probably from a while ago.  Sorry gumbo, I will not be eating you again.  I also threw out some chilies, and some chorizo.  Oh and some incredibly freezer burned pineapple.  Oh well, can't eat everything.

Well folks, there you have it.  That's a recap of my freezer.  Take a look at the list on the side, and I'll let you know when I cross things off, and what meals I manage to make from all of this.  Hope you stay to follow along!

Operation Clean Freeze

We have a garage freezer.  I realize this isn't uncommon, but the common thing to do is to move it from house to house.  And we are not common.  That freezer is going straight to storage, which means one thing...we need to empty the darn thing!  And by we I mean me.  So I am embarking on a new project I have lovingly decided to refer to as Operation Clean Freeze.  Ok, the name needs some work, so suggestions are appreciated.

My goal:  1.  To use everything in the freezer in a quality meal by February 19th.  2.  Document those meals on this blog.  3.  Take some fun photos of said quality meals using my new photo lights.

I will be introducing the cast of characters this weekend, after a wonderfuly frozen food photo shot.  I did manage to use up a partial bag of frozen peas in my lunch today, so that's already one thing off the list!

Starting 2010 with a BANG!

Happy New Years everyone!  I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season and spent some quality time with family and friends.  Chris and I had a very busy holiday season, but I will blog about that once I have my photos ready. 

But a few other things have been going on since a few days before the New Year that have caused our world to be a bit topsy-turvy.  I've known about most of this for a few months now, but have been waiting to share everything until we had a few more solid details. 

I guess the biggest thing of all is...we are moving.  I wish I could say where, but honestly we don't know.  There are quite a few factors to deal with.  Chris is now based out of Maryland, USMC-wise, and has to report once per month.  It's too much to fly across the country every month, so we are looking into areas a few hours around Maryland, so he could easily drive every weekend.  He also must find a new job. He left for more training in California this morning, but is already starting to apply to some places back east.  Those are the Chris-based factors.  Now onto me.  I have applyed for a grad school program at ASU, which would start in the fall.  I will find out if I got in in the next few months, and if I get in, I will most likely stay here until school is finished.  I chose to apply here b/c the program is great, and the in-state tuition is hard to pass up.  If I don't get in, I will find a job wherever Chris does, and just move at the same time.

WHEW...wasn't that just daunting?  That's how I look at it.  Lots of unknowns and ifs, but I know that it will all work out in the end.  We've spent the last few days packing up the garage and books, and stuff we don't need right now.  Well Chris has, I don't touch all those tools for fear of his wrath:).  We've also done lots of decluttering, and I've been cleaning up the house all at the same time.   

Since Chris left this morning for 7 weeks at Camp Pendleton, I have time to pack up the house slowly and go through my stuff and try to weed out.  We are going to rent the house for now, and we have already had 1 person look.  But, this also gives me some more time to blog since Chris is usually ready for some human interaction by the time I get home at night.  I guess the animals don't make the best company day after day.  But speaking of them, here's a teaser picture about our Christmas vacation.  More to come soon!

Feeling Neglected

I'm sure that's how my blog is feeling right now. I have completely 100% ignored this baby of mine. But in all fairness, it's been a busy, and sometimes stressful last few month or so. Let's see if I can put this into a condensed version although I'm sure I'm leaving out a LOT!


1. Chris got layed off - This certainly isn't what you expect to happen when you return to your first day of work after a year of Military Leave. It's been very rough for him. I think he is getting pretty sick of sitting at home all day. Thank goodness he was given a generous amount of severance pay, so money-stress isn't really an issue yet. He's started looking, but he has to leave again in January for more training, so that's a major hurdle in trying to find a new job.

2. We have a new baby in the house - Chris brought home a new kitten with him when he came back. He rescued her from a flood after Hurricane Danny came through New Jersey. She's adorable and he named her BAMCIS. Yes, its bizarre, but it's an Marine Corps acronym and it fits her perfectly. I usually just call her Bam for short. It was an adjustment for the other animals in the house, especially Hawkins bc he was the only kitty, but now they are best friends. She makes me laugh all the time, and she makes the funniest noises. It's kind of fun to have a "baby" in the house.


3. I took the GRE and actually did well! - I had basically been studying like a madwoman every day after work. I was pretty worried about it, but since you get part of your results right away, I already know part of my score. I will post the results is a separate post!


4. I'm applying to graduate school - I'm only applying to 1 program right now, at ASU, because of the instate tuition. I'm applying to the Walter Kronkite School of Journalism program for a masters in Mass Communication. The main application is in, now I'm just working on getting in some supplemental materials.

I am really hoping to kick this back up again. I love blogging, and now that I have Photoshop on my desktop, I can edit photos much easier than on my 13" laptop. I'm hoping to do 2 quick posts of October and November as soon as possible. Stay tuned!

Playing Catch Up

It's funny how time off flies by. Chris and I spent some great time together, and he's actually on his way back to Maryland now for his monthly drill. He'll be back Monday afternoon, so I'll be doing some fun activities while he's gone with my mom.

In the meantime, I'm trying to play blog catch up. Before Chris came home, his older sister Jennifer had her first child. His name is Richard Jackson and will go by Jack. He was 10 days late, and they finally had to induce her, because he was in no hurry to enter the world. Chris was able to spend a few days on his cross country drive with them in Houston and see Baby Jack. As a gift, I "made" burp cloths out of cloth diapers. Now I saw "made" in parentheses, because I'll admit I did none of the actual sewing. I did pick the fabrics and borders, but my wonderfully talented mother did all of the sewing. Here's a few photos of the finished project. Jennifer and her husband chose not to know the sex of the baby beforehand, so we were working with a gender neutral palette. And she loves penguins, so I always try to include something that has penguins.

Here's the six that we made.

A closer view of the six.

A close up of my mom's handy work. Adorable.

Sorry for the bad photos. I was putting them in the box at that very moment and was trying to beat the mail deadline for the day!

I can finally breathe...a little

Well the day finally arrived...Chris is home! He drove in yesterday a little before 5pm. I left work early so that I could be home with he got there. I'll admit it was the best feeling in the world to have him home again. He hadn't actually set foot in our house since December 2008 and he had been on active duty since October 3, 2008. I also hadn't seen him since May, so there was a lot of rejoicing in the house last night.

Last night after he got home, I went to the gym while he napped. I came home and we had a "gourmet" dinner of defrosted baked spaghetti and french bread. We watched all the episodes of Modern Family and then I made homemade pizookie for dessert. My parents bought us our own individual cast iron skillets and I broke them out last night after a long hiatus in the cupboard. After that we crashed since I had to go to work today :( It was hard for me to leave, but I am taking all next week off from work, so I just have to get through the next day and a half.

We have some fun things planned for the next week or so, so I'm hoping to blog A LOT since I won't be working. Stay tuned!

Me + this + that...

*Note that today (Sept. 16th) I realized that I forgot something. I've added it. Please reread.

Obviously I haven't had time to do that blogging I was talking about. And this week is no exception. I was actually taking a much needed break from work and blog hopping and came across a cute idea of expressing exactly why I am going to have to take a break from blogging for the next few weeks. This pretty much explains why I've been so busy...

Me + work + two-a-day workouts + studying for the GRE + writing/editing a cookbook + finishing up painting the entire house + putting the newly painted rooms back in order + getting ready for Chris to come home (hopefully!!!) + taking care of a house and pool by myself + having a new "friend" around the house + all the regular weekend chores = One Exhausted Me!

I'm hoping to return to the blogging world the beginning of October so stay tuned!

The past few weeks

have been crazy busy! And of course, because of this, blogging has taken a back seat to everything else. I am hoping that this weekend I will have time to post an update of everything that's been going on around here lately, and of course post some photos. Between an array of new "activities" that I've taken on the past few weeks, I am exhausted on most days. Hopefully I can figure out a better schedule that will accompany the many tasks I'm trying to accomplish. I'll give much more detail this weekend, so stay tuned!

30 Days of Photography {Week 3} and then some

Well we are at week 3 now, almost 4. I'll admit I've slacked a lot, mostly due to being sick last week, and still working on gaining full strength back. Here are a few more photos I've taken and edited throughout the past week and a half.

August 15 - Elk Antlers. Edited in Gimp. This elk skull and antlers are sitting in my grandparents' backyard as a decoration piece. There's actually two sets of interlocking antlers. If this grosses you out, stop reading now. But my gramma and grandpa are both hunters, and these were their trophies from 2007. They are HUGE in person, this photos doesn't show them justice in that manner, but I loved the color I was able to achieve.

August 19 - Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. Edited in Gimp. Last Wednesday, when I wasn't feeling too hot, I made these out of desperation. I was craving a fall treat, even though it was at least 105 here. I also happened to have some leftover pumpkin in the freezer and so these were made. They might have been the best thing ever, at least for that moment. I'm pretty sure I ate at least 8 that night. No joke.

August 22 - Dessert Plates. Edited in Gimp. Saturday night I hosted a girl's night dessert party at my house. Since we only have Corelle dishes at our house (don't cringe please) I had wanted to buy some dessert type plates for the party. I ended up finding a great deal on a set of mismatched plates at Marshalls and they were only $1 a plate! I bought 12 total. I'm not sure it's really a set, but they are different patterns of off white and I love them. They are more like small dinner plate size, so I hope to get some good wear out of them.

August 26 - Desert Tortoise. Edited in Gimp. My parents' backyard has a few of these guys that call the place home. This is either Samantha or Goliath, I can't ever tell them apart. They are the biggest, and are probably 40 years old or so. They've had a bunch of babies over the years, much to my mom's dismay, which results in lots of baby tortoises. The backyard and laundry room are full of these guys. It's illegal in Arizona to sell them, but sometimes they give them away to family or friends.

********************************

Tonight will make for some good photos I hope. My mom is helping to host a party and she's hired me to make sure all the food and drinks stay replenished throughout the night. I'm happy to do it, and plan on taking lots of food photos before the guests arrive. I'll also be taking some guest shots and working on my "people" skills. Wish me luck!

30 Days of Photography {Week 2}

So here we are...week 2. While it's hard to take photos every day, basically due to lack of subjects, I'm still getting 5-6 quality photos per week. I'm still having a lot of fun with it, but if anyone has a subject idea, please let me know! It's so hot here that doing anything outside is pretty torturous, I wish it was cooler so I could take a field trip or two around town to get some good shots. But without further adieu, here's week 2!

August 10 - Peanut. Edited for color in Gimp. Peanut is my almost 5 year old Chihuahua. This photos captures his beautiful eyes perfectly. Those eyes get me every time. That and his ears. He positions his ears different ways and each time he resembles something different. My favorite is the Yoda look.

August 12 - Raw eggs. Unedited. I was looking for something other than my parent's animals to photography one morning and my mom was making breakfast. I love the color of the egg yolks, although according to my mom, nothing beats the color of fresh egg yolks. The blue bowl contrasts nicely with the yellow yolks.

August 13 - Failed cookies. Edited for color in Gimp. These cookies were from the first batch of a new recipe. As you can see here, they didn't turn out so well. Of course that doesn't mean they didn't get eaten anyway, they just didn't make it into the gift boxes I was making. The recipe is courtesy of Pioneer Woman if you are interested. Note that I meant to upload the cropped photo without the cord in the background, so picture it that way.

August 14 - Roxy. Unedited. I love this picture of my parent's cat. She was sitting on a bench in their living room. I love the contrast of the bench with her fur.

August 15 - Cherry Pie. Unedited. Oh cherry pie, how I love thee. This pie was from the weekend's birthday festivities. We did a multi-birthday celebration with my dad's family and my mom and I brought this pie along as her birthday desert. I will admit that we both messed it up a little, me with the crust and my mom with the filling. Didn't stop us from eating it though, or photographing it for that matter!

Sleepless (Weekend) in Seattle

Friday morning I headed to Seattle for a dear friend's wedding. Being that Chris couldn't attend, I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to fly in Friday morning, attend the wedding Friday night and return to Phoenix Saturday evening. Of course, as soon as I hit that 60 degree weather, I really wished I had sucked it up and stayed another day! Anyway, before I headed up there, I did a lot of food research, as always. Cakespy is a fantastic blog based in Seattle, so I managed to find a donut tour that she did a while back. I was extremely happy to find a donut shop that was close to where I'd be traveling. So as soon as I had landed and gotten my rental car, I was off to find Top Pot Doughnuts. After a minor issue with my GPS system (thank goodness I'm good with navigation) I found it. I kept telling myself that I was allowing myself ONE. However, the minute I stepped in there, I couldn't make up my mind. Thank goodness there was a line so I could take a while to figure it out. In the end though I couldn't decide and had to choose 3. Yes 3. I couldn't help myself. I settled on a maple bar, chocolate cake and a glazed old fashioned. As soon as I got in the car I couldn't contain myself and ate the chocolate frosted cake immediately. Once I got to the hotel I pulled out the camera and snapped a few photos of the old fashioned before consuming that one as well. I did manage to save the maple bar for the next morning. This is also the same company that supplies Starbucks with there doughnuts these days, but I can't guarantee they taste the same. No matter what, I wish they had them in Arizona so I could eat one every day.

After the doughnut incident, I managed to get myself ready for the wedding. The wedding was for my friend Megan. She and I have known each other since Freshman year of college. Not only were we sorority sisters, but we also lived together in Germany during our sophomore year and were roommates our junior year as well. She is an amazing person (and now attorney) and I was so happy to be able to share the occasion with her. The wedding was in Woodinville, Washington at the Willows Lodge and it was incredible. Below are a few photos I took of the wonderful evening.

Megan and her dad walking towards us in order to walk down the aisle. We had a nice long glimpse of them, which was a great opportunity to take some photos.

The archway where the minister stood and some of the floral decorations. This photo is a little dark, but the sunset was frustrating me and my camera.

My friends Lauren and Carin and me. Lauren was in Germany with us, and Carin is also a sorority sister of ours!
Megan and her new husband Scott cutting the cake with his marmaluke. He's a Marine Corps JAG and he wore his uniform instead of a tux. How handsome!

Sharing their first dance as husband and wife.

Megan and I at the reception. That guy in the cowboy hat behind us is the best man.

The next morning, I met my grandparents and cousin at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. My grandparents were visiting my cousin Rainy who goes to school in Olympia, so we decided to spend the day together. After a horrific parking ordeal (let's just say that parking in downtown Seattle is ridiculously expensive) we started the day off with a trip to Daily Dozen Doughnuts. I was in serious heaven here. They serve 3 kinds of cake doughnuts, powdered sugar, sugar and spice, and frosted sprinkle. They are small and come in 1/2 dozens in paper bags. I think I could have eaten an entire dozen by myself.

After breakfast we hung around the market, taking in all the sites. The place overwhelms the senses, in a good way. The sights, sounds and smells are amazing. It makes me wish I could live near a big market like that. I would make the best food with fresh produce like that.

After the market tour, we headed to the Seattle Aquarium, which was really fun. They had all kinds of touch tanks, and seals and otters and such. I recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in downtown Seattle. After the aquarium we headed to lunch at Pike Place Chowder. I have one word for their food...AMAZING! I had a 1/2 crab roll sandwich and a cup of clam chowder and the chowder was possibly the best I've ever had. My cousin recommended it because she had been there on a previous trip, and I'm glad she did. After lunch we headed to the Space Needle, which was another must-do just to be able to say that we went there. After that, we headed back to the market for a snack before I headed back home. I could have easily eaten more, although my stomach couldn't have handled it. I guess that means another trip in the future!
These two photos are of me with famous pigs they have around the market. There are a series of pink pigs directing people to the market and the bronze pig is at the front of the market.

30 Days of Photographs {Week One}

So here we are...week one! I've had a lot of fun with this project so far. So here we are...week one! I've had a lot of fun with this project so far. Since I really had no idea about my camera, I did a lot of reading online during the week, taking notes and printing tutorials. While I still have a really really long way to go, I think that I've started to understand some of the basics. I decided the best way to do this is show the picture with a little description underneath each photo. Some are raw, and some are edited. Right now I'm using Gimp, which is a free downloadable photo editor. I actually have photoshop 7.0 for Mac, but it doesn't have near the photo editing ability that the newer CS3 or CS4 editions have. I'm working towards purchasing that, but it's pretty expensive. And until I figure out a way to know which mode it was in, the f/stop, etc. I'll be leaving that part out. PLEASE feel free to comment or critique these. I want all the feedback I can get!

Oh, and yes, I already slacked and missed a few days, but I had a crazy week and not getting home until dark doesn't make for very good photos! Plus my subjects are limited, you'll see that later.

August 2 - Gulliver. Edited to black and white in Gimp. This is my parent's 11 (I think) year old yellow lab. Gulliver is pretty special to me. He is actually a retired guide dog for the blind. We raised him as a puppy and I took him to high school with me once a week. Almost a year and a half ago, my dad drove all the way up to San Francisco to pick him up when he was retired. I don't think there's a person in the world who doesn't love this dog. He made a great first day subject because he doesn't move around, literally. He will go 8 hours sleeping in the same spot. Thanks Gulliver for being the perfect model.

August 3 - Hawkins. Cropped and filtered in Gimp. This is a horrible photo, I know, but this is the kind of subject I get to deal with at home. And this was the best photo of the night. I think that should tell you something right there. He literally does not stay still for me. Chris manages to take the most amazing photos, but me? Oh no, I can't manage to take one good photo of that darn cat. I still love him though, even if he makes me look like a failure.

August 4 - Salt. Unedited. For some reason, I really like this picture. My mom was making dinner at her house, and I was looking around for different subjects. I actually bought this salt for my mom for Christmas and since I want to improve my food photography, I figured this was a good start.

August 5 - Roxy. Cropped and edited for color in Gimp. This is my mom's new cat, Roxy. I haven't blogged about her before, but my mom rescued her from going to the pound about 6 weeks ago. She is still pretty shy, but when she came out one morning I was at their house, I jumped on the opportunity to take her picture. She doesn't move nearly as much as Hawkins, so I took about 20 photos of her. This one is one of my favorites.

August 7 - Wedding flowers. Unedited. On Friday morning I flew up to Seattle for a college friend's wedding. That is a whole other post in itself, but I had some great opportunities to take photos. I wish my best photo for the day had been of people, but with the Seattle clouds and sunset, the lighting wasn't super spectacular. I don't know how I managed to get this shot, but I was pretty proud of myself for managing to get some good field of depth.

August 8 - Space Needle. Unedited. I'm sure that some of you are cringing at this photos right now. Yes the lighting is way off but I love this photos. It shows that I took the camera off auto and while I might have failed with the exposure, I tried. I love the greenery against the washed out Space Needle.

30 Day of {Blank} Revisited

Since it's officially August 1st, today starts my first day of 30 Days of Blank. After a lot of consideration, I've decided to do...30 days of Photography. For a while now, I've wanted to work on my photography skills. Of course, my goal isn't to become a professional photographer by any means, but I would love to be able to take better "everyday" pictures. People, animals, food, and events are areas I would like to improve.

The camera I'll be working with is the Nikon D70. First let me say I know almost nothing about this camera. It's Chris's and while I have used it a number of times, I don't know anything about it except how to turn it on and snap a photo. Oh, and I also know how to change the lenses, because it does in fact have two. I'm looking forward to the next 30 days of learning about the camera and taking photos. My goal is to snap one picture each day that I am proud of. I will post the pictures weekly, since we all know I'm not good at posting every day. If anyone has any ideas about this camera and photography, let me know! I am literally going to just starting reading and hope I figure it all out. Thank goodness for the interest these days!