Wednesday, February 25, 2009

My Top Ten

My friend Donna made a list of hotties on her blog the other day. It inspired me to think about celebrities that I love (just actors for now). I'm editing photos right now and will have to do a real blog post later. Here's my hottie list as of Febraury 2009:

  1. Robert Pattinson
  2. James Marsden
  3. Emile Hirsch
  4. Hugh Jackman
  5. Jude Law
  6. Hayden Christensen
  7. Johnny Depp
  8. Orlando Bloom
  9. Will Smith
  10. Jimmy Stewart

Monday, February 23, 2009

Its A Long Story

The new challenge is posted over at Scrap Mojo. We challenge you to scrap the title "For the love of _____" and to include hearts on your lo. Due February 30th. The prize is being offered by the awesome Jenrenee. We have two new DT members and I'm super excited to be working along with Chataqua and Theresa K!

I am a bit crazy for Nutella so I decided that I needed to document my new love that I acquired while traveling through Europe. I know, its a weird take on the challenge, but I don't scrap serious stuff often. I love the goofy stuff! Photos are taken by the very talented Dan Corcoran.
I'm way behind in sharing what I was up to last week, so let's start with a week ago, Friday. My awesome cousin Kelley wanted to help motivate me to work on my December Daily album (I know, I'm still not done with that thing!) so she had me over to play with some paper and photos. She cooked a delicious meal and Jenna & Logan joined us later on in the evening. It was oh so yummy!
I worked Saturday morning and then went to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop with Dan as part of our Valentine's festivities. I didn't have high expectations for it but I do love Kevin James. I was pleasantly surprised and was highly entertained.

Dan cooked me a delicious meal of my favorite burritos ever! Just thinking of them makes me hungry. I love when he cooks for me.
Its been raining here A LOT. Like, we can't possibly have a water shortage this year. It rained 2.5" in between Sunday & Monday. It didn't stop. The weather was so bad I had to postpone dinner with Eric on Sunday night.

With all this yucky weather, I've found time to clean up my photos and get them into Lightroom. I imported 38,500 photos and then managed to delete duplicates, blurry, overall bad photos on Monday. I deleted over 2,500 photos and I'm just beginning. I took a ton of photos in 2007 but didn't have much time to actually look at them, due to school. Its been quite a surprise for me to see them.

Tuesday I woke up with a raging migraine. I was not a happy camper. After sleeping a lot and taking pain killers, I managed to take BART out to Walnut Creek, where Dan met me and we visited my grandma for a short time. Then we drove to Dublin to hang out with his recently married cousins Kevin & Courtenay (Courtenay married into the fam). We ate pizza and watched the Sharks game. Both Courtenay & I were super exhausted so we fell asleep before the game ended. Dan took this lovely photo of Kevin showing off his rare Sharks jacket.
I took it easy the rest of the week due to after shock head aches. I picked up an extra shift at work (yay!), did flash homework for the next two weeks, and had an eye doctors appointment. My eyes haven't changed in the last year, even bigger YAY!

Friday, I drove out to Fremont where I met Courtenay. We went to Lake Elizabeth and I taught her a little about photography. Here is one of her incredible shots of the lake:And a photo I took of a tree with some pretty green foreground:
Then we went to Picture Me Perfect and I introduced Courtenay to my lovely world of scrapbooking. She has tried it once before on her own, so I was just giving her a little encouragement, feedback, and shopping in the store of Michelle's trunk. Yes, I packed a damn lot into my trunk! She almost finished her first page on her Bridal Shower. I didn't get a picture because she had to rush off to meet her movie for a movie.

Kristi joined me to scrap a little later. We shared the table with Nikki Peterson (she was kitting), Brenda, and Patty. I had some amazing Banana Walnut gelato and that made my evening. The impressive part of the night is that we actually scrapped! Kristi worked on her adorable birthday album and I worked on a page that is below.
I decided to join a photo swap over at Scrap Gal. Erin was my partner, so here is my finished lo for her. Its quite rare for me to finish a lo at a crop, I was thrilled! I think I'm going through a phase where I have this need to put a ton of photos on a page.
I'm waiting on a few photos from this weekend, so that will have to be in a later post. Happy Monday!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Where does the time go?

It's hard to believe its Friday already! This past week seems like it flew on by. I am off to meet a friend so I thought I'd share my mom's potting shed and garden (backyard) as of November. I shot these photos with a lovely fish eye lens and the Nikon D300, thanks to Lisa. Have a great weekend.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Friday the 13th

Happy Friday! I'm not a superstitious person, and here is why:

I went to the Apple store today (second time this week) and they gave me a new iPod because my 7 month old one was misbehaving. On top of that, my great friend Misty got a job! Congrats to you!

How do you like that I was in Taco Bell (for the first time this week!?!) and they have a new item on their menu. Its the NEW Bacon Cheddar Crunch wrap. WHAT? That just sounds nasty and I want to know how that is Mexican food? I can't remember seeing bacon on anything Mexican and I live in California. So naturally tried the new Soft Taco Beef platter and had forgotten why I hate soft tacos so much. Can you believe I deviated from my Mexican pizza and bean burrito? I'll be reuniting with my old favorite next time.

I'm in a totally giddy and random mood. I'm sure you hadn't noticed. I decided to sit down and read J.K. Rowling's the Tales of Beedle the Bard on Wednesday. I didn't realize how short it was going to be and I probably should have read reviews before hand. It was a cute book but I finished it in just over an hour and of course, it was geared towards young children.In other news, Scrap Mojo is having a DT call. We would love to have you apply so get on the band wagon! We'll be announcing a new challenge on the 20th and I can't wait to share what I've been up to. I have been scrapping, I just can't share right away. So keep your eyes open next week for some fun stuff I've been working on. Alright, hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day! XOXO!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Movies, music, and tv

We spent Monday afternoon exploring Costco from Logan's excited perspective. He filled his cart so high that I couldn't push it on my own. It was a nice reminder that you can find free entertainment in the oddest places.

I spent yesterday in Walnut Creek with my grandma. She is doing so much on her own again. We went for a nice walk before the weather got too cold & windy. I enjoyed seeing the changes in the trees in plants since our last walk, just two weeks ago.
The cherry blossoms are blooming beautifully. I do love this time of year for this reason.
I have no idea what this is, but I spent plenty of time taking photos. I'm sure my mom will educate me on what kind of tree it is later tonight. Isn't it pretty?
I visited Dan after at his new working location. It was a pleasure meeting his co-worker and seeing how the showroom was laid out in comparison to the others. Then I drove home and watched the movie
Memoirs of a Geisha. I wasn't expecting anything fabulous and I was pleasantly surprised with the cinematography, acting, and story. If you haven't seen this yet, go rent it. It's long and at some points, difficult to watch, but some of the best movies are like that. Here is a shot from my favorite visual part of the movie: I also rented Just My Luck & Dick from the library. Neither were fab but they were mildly entertaining and didn't require a lot of comprehension. I've been enjoying a few new cds: The Twilight Soundtrack, Katy Perry, Mgmt, and a few singles by TI. I'm also having a little problem getting them to upload to my iPod so I'll be spending some quality time at the Genius Bar this afternoon at the apple store. Keep your fingers crossed.I admit it, I watch American Idol, when I can remember to. I did last night. I am thrilled that those two adorable guys that are besties made it through, as well as Anup, the construction worker, and the blind guy. Did the chick with the swimsuit make it through? They didn't make a big deal out of it, so I'm guessing not. Alright, enough of that, off to the apple store!

Monday, February 9, 2009

The Taco Truck & Pool

Friday night was incredibly fun. It is always so much fun when we hang out with Kristi and the group. It was even more special because Sandy & Nick drove 2 hours to come hang out with us at a taco truck. ;) It was a few steps higher than that but Sandy was not impressed. The best Mexican food comes from little hole in the wall places.

I learned how to play pool, sorta. I don't hold the cue right according to Sandy & Dan. So I like to wrap my fingers around it like some intricate weave, I still sunk a few balls and I was on the winning team. I took a few photos and here is my favorite of Kristi playing.
And the group shot:I spent most of Saturday and all of Sunday working so the rest of my weekend was laid back and quiet. I was turning off lights and on my way to bed last night when I noticed how incredible the clouds were with the moonlight on them. I was super tired but suddenly inspired enough to get out my D70 & gorillapod to try capturing the beauty. Here is the view from the kitchen.
And on a photographic note, my business cards arrived. I am really excited to have some updated business cards with lots of different photos on them. I ordered them through Moo, which I found through flickr. I ordered the 100% recycled paper and I love them to bits.
I finally have my entire iPhoto library imported into Adobe Lightroom 2, which means I can say goodbye to iPhoto. I couldn't be happier with how much faster editing, keywording, and retouching goes in that program. And it doesn't quit because it has over 38,500 photos in it! I will be focusing on organizing photos for the next few weeks until I'm all caught up. I spent a bit of my Sunday afternoon cleaning up my flickr account and it felt so good. Yes, I'm still on my cleaning kick! Off to do Flash homework!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Spring Cleaning

I haven't shared much this week because I started my spring cleaning a little early. I don't limit it to just my room. My computer has pictures on at least 5 different hard drives and it is irritating trying to find photos. I went out yesterday and purchased a 1TB internal hard drive by Western Digital. It is oh so pretty! Dan helped me install and transfer files yesterday. I can't believe how much space my stuff takes up. I think I'm nearing 3TB worth of space. Of course I'm hoping to use my external hard drive for time machine instead of storage. YAY!

Enough nerd talk. Well maybe just for today. I also wrangled a huge ink cartridge explosion inside my printer. I had ink ALL over my hands and it was far from pretty. I caught up on my flash homework on Monday evening. I went to visit my Grandma and bring my mom back home. Family has been visiting to keep tabs on her. She's healing slowly but surely. Wednesday I made a mess while making this:So I blame scrapbooking for kicking me into my spring cleaning mode. And the fact that I needed to open my computer to put the hard drive in. I wanted everything to be nice and clean. So today I've been going through my prints and purging. You wouldn't believe the amount of pictures I have! I also found time to print in the darkroom at Skyline last night. I just love the smell of stop bath on my hands. Call me crazy.

Also, Happy belated Birthday to Kristi! Her birthday was yesterday, but a bunch of us are getting together tonight to celebrate and have fun. Hope you enjoy your weekend.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Bitten by the photo bug

These past few days have been filled with lots of click click clicks. Friday I had a really long photo shoot with Jenny. We set up a mini studio right here in my living room and had about 5 costume changes. I was so sore the rest of the weekend. It felt like I had done lunges all day. I'll post those photos in a couple of days when I have time to look at them.

I am participating in a week long scrapbook garage sale at Picture Me Perfect. I didn't get to send as much as I had hoped for, but I'm hoping they'll have them frequently. I'm looking forward to having a little store credit for all of the new stuff arriving from winter CHA.

Saturday I had an itch to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather. One of my friends mentioned the camera obscura from playland in San Francisco to me recently so I wanted to go to Ocean Beach. What a beautiful view Sutro Baths was! This always makes me wish I had been around to enjoy the theme park in its hey day.
I went to grab my little point & shoot and saw this image. I've never taken a picture of how much stuff is always popping out of my purse. Now everyone can know that I am a pack mule. :D

I was especially excited to go inside of the camera obscura since this is how photography first began. Artists used these to aid them in painting. They almost considered it cheating. Here is a diagram of what the inside looks like. It was too dark inside to get any decent photos.
This reminds me of why I love to go out around 4pm and start taking photos. I shot 3 rolls of Black & white film (Tri-X by Kodak if anyone is curious). It is such a wonderful feeling to have film advance through the camera.
My favorite photo of Dan on our outing:
I've decided that I am a bit of a post it note junkie. I was watching a documentary on Annie Leibovitz last night and got royally inspired. I want to be like her when I grow up.
I'm off to work on flash homework, a new layout, and continue the job hunt. Thanks for stopping by.

Suggested reading

Blog Widget by LinkWithin