i n • p u r s u i t

What Makes You Happy? There are lot of things that make me happy! Being with my husband. Watching my dog nod off. Watching the chickies run. Lunch dates with my mom. Shopping with my sister. Twinfest. When my daddy calls because he misses me. Being able to walk across the street and hang out with my brother. Playing with the Alex, Lauren & Davis. A new eyeshadow palette. A good night's sleep. Girls' nights. A successful wedding. Taking couples' portraits. Worship time at church. Leaving the gym. Having a productive day.

Self portrait and 5 random facts about yourself Sometimes, when I come home it's dark outside. It crosses my mind that when I lock my car (and the horn goes off), I might have alerted the horde. You know, like  the car alarm in Left 4 Dead . If I don't have anywhere to be for most of the day, I still want to get ready for my day. So, I'll do my hair and makeup, I'll put on a nice top and earrings...but I'll keep pajama bottoms on. :) My favorite snacks are: powdered doughnuts and popcorn popped in coconut oil. I buy powdered doughnuts VERY sparingly. I think it is easier to drink a lot of water if you have a pretty glass or bottle. I'm on the fence about keeping my bangs. On one hand, they're pretty high maintenance  On the other hand, they make me feel like I look sooo cool.

A lot of my March Resolutions are the same from last month. These are things that, whether I did well or failed at them in  February, I'll be keeping them on my resolution list until they become a solid habit. No-buy month. This does NOT include my Ipsy Glam Bag because that is an automatic withdrawal. Don't skip either of my bible studies Do bible study home work. Go to the gym at least twice a week. Take Bella for a walk at least once a week. Keep up with my daily cleaning schedule. Early to bed and early to rise on the weekdays. My schedule used to consist of me out of bed by 6:30am most mornings. Not so much these days as I don't usually have anywhere to be until 9:30am at the earliest. However, i must prefer waking up early to start my day. Get my makeup out of the bathroom. I hear it's not good for makeup to be in the bathroom because of the moisture, so I'm going to put together my own very modest battle station . Finish my Brand Camp w...

...editing photos, reading blogs, watching tv (currently Buffy the Vampire Slayer ), looking up recipes, blogging, refreshing Facebook. I'm usually a bit more hunched over too, probably. Don't tell my chiropractor... And I usually use a white MacBook, not a MacBook Air, but my computer was being repaired when I took this photo. My computer got fixed, by the way, in record time from the Apple Store! I dropped it off on Friday and they shipped it off to repair the back light on the screen and some broken plastic from a design flaw. I got it back on Wednesday looking as good as a new computer. Yay! :)  And, yes, for all this technology, that IS my film camera next to me. I still love shooting with film!

I took this photo yesterday. I was just playing around with off camera lighting and didn't have a model, so I used myself! (And, by the way, it's really annoying running back and forth to the camera because I don't have a wireless shutter release.) I have seen some amazing self portrait photographers, like Rosie Hardy for instance, and taking this simple self portrait yesterday made me thinking about having my own self portrait project. Certainly nothing like a 365...hahahahah! We all know I would fail at that. But maybe, every so often, I'll try to take a creative self portrait. I took two yesterday, so I've already got one lined up for tomorrow. Oh yeah. ;)

Told ya I'd eventually catch up! I event went as far as to start right away. All of today's photos were taken with my fabulous new lens! It's the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM . From everything I've read, it's a great lens that is "L" quality. And trust me, I read up a LOT before investing in this lens. I'm a prime girl and getting a non-L zoom was something I'm wasn't really crazy about. I thought about getting the 24-70L or the 24-105L, but on my crop body, those two cameras end up being ~38mm at the widest. ( L = Luxury. Canon's very expensive and highest quality lenses. Prime = lenses that do not zoom. If you want to zoom, you use your feet.) *Ahem* Sorry about that. I know most people who read this are probably NOT camera nerds and are bored by now. Suffice to say I spent a chunk of change and got a hunk of a lens and I LOVE IT. So, I was going through photos from a wedding that I shot on the 15th. I was sure that there ha...

Meet Suzy, or Suzie, in these past twenty years, I never really have settled on a spelling. I won her in a raffle when we were little and lived in Guam. She's pretty much the only thing I have ever won in a raffle. She's a puppet and when I lived at home, my dad used to use Suzy to wake me up. Except, with my dad, she's Ralph. A male dog who complains about wearing a dress and talks like he smokes way too much. He also bites. I don't know about y'all, but when I hear the phrase "something blue," I think of weddings. These are my wedding shoes. Before that, they were the shoes I wore at Sharon's wedding at which I was a bridesmaid. It actually took me several days to remember to take a photo of the sunset. I kept remembering after the sun went down. Fat lot of good that does. Well, this is a photo of the sun setting over the neighborhood. :)  It was hard to find anything that I had 13 things of and, while wandering around the kitc...

Wow! Stargirl brought it to my attention that I missed Day 3. Can't believe I just skipped it like that. It's been on my computer, but I completely forgot to post it. :) Days 10-11 were not forgotten, don't you worry. They're just still on my camera. :)

I love my husband. My husband does not love to have his photo taken. But he loves me, so he let me take his photo. :) Bounced flash off the ceiling for this one and had light coming in from the window, right behind him. Editing:played around with adjustment brushes. So much fun, playing with adjustment brushes! And tweaked a bit with some of the basics. Not too much editing, though, because I shot this in JPEG ISO 2500 | 50mm | f/2.5 | 1/250sec

Took this photo at work. Lovely bokeh from the gold flecks in the granite. The red "halo" around the apple? That's my arms. I'm in a red sweater! I'm just not crazy about the lack of red in this apple and I wish I had taken another photo after I got home. My husband had gone apple picking today and we have a LOT of apples in the house! Editing: I sharpened the apple because the focus was a little soft. I did other tweaking with the histogram. ISO 1000 | 50mm | f/1.4 | 1/60sec My bad habit? Checking email/facebook/etc, editing photogs, surfing blogs, before I do my chores around the house. Ahem. Right now? There is a sink full of dishes that need washing... Editing: Soulshine preset Holy Night ISO 1000 | 50mm | f/1.8 | 1/60sec

See, told you I wasn't going to be able to keep up with posting everyday. :) Here are the photos from days 4, 5 & 6. 6 out of 6 ain't too shabby. Let's see if I can keep this up. It helps me to have a list to follow. Today, I brought my camera to work and kept looking up and seeing if anything looked good from down below. (Since today's challenge was to take a photo from a low angle.) In the end, I ended up crouching in my driveway, looking up. The setting sun had been swooning me the whole way home and I just had to have it in my photo. My Aunt Mary Ann made me this quilt for me wedding gift. I absolutely adore it! I was walking out of the office with camera in hand, ready to scour the house for something green when my eye landed on the quilt. I crouched down to photograph it and noticed the flickering candle on the coffee table. Perfect! External flash bounced off ceiling on this one. Editing: Eric Kim's Lomo Pop preset ISO 2500 | 50mm | f/1.4 | ...

Lookit me killin' two birds with one stone and working a So Much Pretty post into my photography challenge! ^_^ Also, yay for me, posting two days in a row! I was initially going to wait until Saturday to post the week's worth of challenge photos, but I decided to post it today. Because I'm crazy like that! I'll try to post daily and have catch-up posts when I need to. Mike is a life long Detroit Lions fan (through the good and the very bad) and he got me this tee last time we were in Michigan. Forgive my bags under my eyes, I am wearing no makeup and am still exhausted from yesterday's wedding. Also, I'm not smiling because I was still thinking through my posing and was about to change the angle of the camera so my head wouldn't be cut off. I ended up kind of liking it and keeping it. I had fun editing this photo. I don't play around too much with my clients' photographs because I want a consistent look to my photos. So it was fun for me ...

Today marks day 1 of the 30 Day Photography Challenge ! I won't be posting photos daily, because I just can't keep up with that sort of thing. We know that now. So, instead I'll be posting my week's photos each Saturday. And since today is Saturday, I'll start with today's photo! I took this photo at the wedding I shot today. I was walking past a mirror and though, "Oh yeah! Self portrait!" So, I snapped this one, just in case I forgot to get another one later. Glad I did, because I didn't think about taking a self portrait again the rest of the day!

So, clearly, the 30-day vegetarian challenge is over. Its been like a month since I updated. SORRY! We've loved the vegetarian challenge. And, now that it's over, we are part-time vegetarians. I mean, it's been over for two weeks and it took me a week and a half before I cooked any meat. And, it was considerably less meat than before. I would use 3 or 4 chicken breasts in our meals and, this time, I only used one. There were a lot more veggies instead. Veggies from the farmers market, not the can. Favorite vegetarian meals: black bean burgers portobello mushroom & avocado burgers anything quinoa sushi (rice, smoked salmon, crab, avocado, cucumber) salmon When going out to restaurants, well, I think I'll try to stick with vegetarian dishes. I haven't been out to dinner yet, so we'll see. And, when eating at a friend's house, I'll eat what's put before me. I suppose that, technically, this has been a lifestyle altering experience becau...

Oops. I didn't keep track of anything I ate last week! I do know for a fact, though, that this was the first week I didn't have a slip-up. No corndogs, hot dogs, or bites of steak! Though, I did make a yummy pasta primavera that happened to be cooked with beef broth. That definitely makes it lose its vegetarian cred, but really, there wasn't any meat other than that in the dish. Also, it was organic beef broth. Surely that means something? I went to the farmers market for the second time this year. I bought lettuce, yellow squash, zucchini, peaches, broccoli and carrots. Oooh, also a scone, a muffin, and pasta! We have rarely had this many fresh vegetables in the house. And, looking at all of them, I knew I needed to be deliberate about using them, otherwise most of them would go bad. This led me to the pasta primavera recipe. I used green/yellow/purple beans and basil from our garden and yellow squash, zucchini, and carrots from the farmers market. To be honest, I t...

This week, I had a fail on Sunday. I had a hot dog for lunch. Let me correct that, I had TWO hot dogs for lunch. Not veggie dogs. Cheap hot dogs from a corner store. One had relish (relish! That's like vegetables, right?) and one, oh, the second one? It had chili. Oh, how I love a hot dog with chili. See, we were on the beach and I was hungry. My brother went to get hot dogs, and I wasn't going to starve myself. Other than that, I've had some really delicious meals. Wednesday, Mike made portobello mushroom burgers topped with guacamole and they were amazing. I mean, they were so delicious, I couldn't believe it. We liked them so much we had them again on Friday. :) I went out with some girlfriends on Thursday to On the Border. It took me a while to figure out what to eat and, boy, my options sure were limited. I eventually settled on Dos Equis fish tacos. Fish tacos isn't something I ever think to buy. Fish tacos just sound gross to me. I sure have changed ...

Day 1: Technically, I did not start this vegetarian thing until the evening. Because at JR and Amelia's wedding, I had corn dog. Of COURSE I had a corn dog! It was a like a state fair reception. I had a corn dog, lemonade, and cotton candy. Gosh, I could go for more of that cotton candy... Anyway, for dinner on Sunday we had salmon, one of our favorite main dishes. It was a great way to kick off this vegetarian thing. Salmon, mashed potatoes, and a big side of leafy green salad. Yum! Day 2: Let's see. For lunch today I had leftovers from last night. Salmon, mashed potatoes, and a huge salad. We're going to try to eat at least one serving of raw food a day.  For dinner, Kristy & Kyle came over for Kyle's birthday. Everyone else had burritos, I made a cheese quesadilla. We also had beans, rice, and, of course birthday cake! I splurged for Kyle and got him a ice cream cake. It was delicious. Day 3: I had another cheese quesadilla for lunch today. They...

So, I don't know if I've talked on here before about how Mike and I are going all hippie. We've started buying our meat from a local farm. We rarely every drink coca-cola. I'm trying to watch out for high fructose corn syrup. We're trying to eat healthier, organic, and local. We've watched Food Inc. , Food Matters , and King Corn . All of which I highly recommend, by the way. King Corn is probably the most entertaining of all three. The other day, I watched a trailer for Forks Over Knives . Mike had posted it on his twitter account. Well, he comes home that evening and says that he thinks, maybe, he'd like to go vegetarian. ... ... Did I hear that right? I did. I wasn't too crazy about it at first. But I jumped on board and it's been pretty fun so far. So far as in, we're on Day 5. We're going to stick with this for a month, and then, who knows, maybe we'll like it so much it stays. We'll still eat fish. But, being raise...

One of the many photos from today's session! Isn't he adorable?

Today was the last day of our 1 year anniversary trip. It was a really fun trip and we finished it off today with my brother taking some photos of us at this super awesome location.  There are these awesome murals by dynasty muralworks on the wall behind a boat store/storage location near the beach. I decided to do this one self portrait, and I'm glad I did because I can now show it to you. (Also, if you live in the Greenville, SC area, don't forget to contact me about a FREE photo session !)