A few weeks ago I had a little free time so I decided to tackle some projects that had been placed on the back burner.  It might be my nesting instincts coming out, but whatever it was, it was great to get a few non-photography related jobs done around the house.

These were my projects:

1)    Sewing the bottoms on the dining room curtains…IKEA, I love you but why do your curtains come 75,000  inches longer than the window? 

2)    Make a sock monkey for Shooter.   For those of you who don’t know,  I refer to my unborn baby as Shooter as we have yet to pick a name. Since he was at over half of my weddings last year I felt it fitting.

3)    Sew a little tie onto a onesie for Shooter to attend Uncle Josh and Aunt Amy’s wedding in April.   I gave it a shot but this project is still in the works, and could very possibly end in Shooter not having a onesie with a tie on it for the wedding.  Lets just say not all projects seen on Etsy can be duplicated!

So here I am about 4 weeks later and my dining room curtains are finally looking  like they should instead of the bottoms hanging in a huge pile at the floor collecting dust and dog hair. Shooters sock monkey is complete and has a charm to it that’s a little hard to explain (I posted a picture below so see for yourself). I am sure Martha Stewart and/or the original sock monkey creator would gasp at the crudeness of my sewing skills and any or all of the monkey’s appendages I so painstakingly sewed on will probably come off the first time he’s played with, but I did it!  I sewed my son a stuffed monkey out of a pair of socks!   Mr. Monkey is currently and patiently awaiting Shooter’s arrival on his bookshelf along with a pair of  super cute converse from his daddy! I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board for the onesie/tie project, but if all else fails, Corey said he’d draw a tie on with permenant marker

Surprise! Yes - I’m pregnant, and I’m thrilled to announce that Corey and I will be proud parents to a baby boy this Spring (right before wedding season starts, what perfect timing, huh!?!).

I know it’s a little fuzzy, but it’s a picture of a picture that I took with my phone, so cut me some slack. More updates to follow!

Well, in all of our gardening excitement it looks like Corey and I went a little overboard with the zucchini plants this year. Even if we switched over to a 100% zucchini based diet I think we’d still have enough to feed the neighbors. I’ve been doing a little world wide internet research lately trying to find creative ways to cook with it, and I’ve actually been surprised to find quite a few fun zucchini recipe ideas.

Last week in between editing sessions, I went out on a limb and decided to give Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies a shot, they had to be better than eating another zucchini salad… right?

The dough was quite a bit wetter than I had imagined it would be, I suppose that’s due to all the water in the zucchini. I even added some extra flour. When I pulled them out of the oven I was a little disheartened to see that they looked absolutely nothing like real chocolate chip cookies and more like pasty dough balls with green chunks in them. I think my expectations were a little bit too high.

I nervously bit into the first one that I scraped off the tray… it was anti-climactic. They weren’t bad, but  nothing to write home about. I really wanted to love them… and I think I could actually endorse them if I found a way to make them a little less bread like, and a little more cookie like (the extra flour probably didn’t help that cause).  I’m not going to give up though, and luckily I’ve got an abundance of the main ingredient. I took a few photos of the process, and I’ve pasted the recipe below. Let me know if you’ve got some advice, or a zucchini recipe that you like!

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cup grated zucchini

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup quick oats

1 cup granola

2 cup choc. chips

cream the butter and sugar, stir in egg and zucchini, add dry ingredients, drop onto cookie sheet. bake 13-15 minutes at 350.

Not long ago a photographer friend of mine mentioned the name Dane Sanders to me.  Who?  According to this friend he was some popular SoCal photographer who had recently written a book…  Big Deal, I thought, I have lots of photography books and sure don’t need another one.

In the months that followed, I felt like Dane Sanders’ name was everywhere. Have you ever been on the verge of buying something new and then magically started to notice that new thing  EVERYWHERE? That’s kinda what happened to me with Dane. I finally checked out the guy’s website and read some book reviews,  and soon caved  in and bought his book just to see what all of the fuss was about…. I flew through the book in two days, and lets just say the fuss was very well warranted. Dane’s writing blew any preconcieved notions I had of  it out of the water. Yes, it was a book about photography (sort of), but it was far from typical. In stead of tech talk, posing, and lighting tips he focused on attitude, self image, community, branding, and our photo industry as a whole. Trying to describe it to you won’t do Dane justice, but it suffices to say that I put the book down with a far different (and much better) attitude and a brand new motivation.

Fast forward a month or two… I heard through the grapevine the Dane was travelling the country speaking and giving workshops, and yes, he’d be coming to Portland. Photography workshops (especially good ones) are not cheap, and since I had already blown through my workshop/schooling budget for the year I quickly became depressed at the thought of missing out on the chance to learn from this man who had had taken on a celebrity-like status in my head.  Long story a little shorter, once Corey had read the book too, we threw our workshop budget out the window and I signed up up for Dane’s two day workshop, chalking it up to an investment opportunity we couldn’t pass up (and we were right).  In the week before the workshop, so many people had signed up that the original workshop location was too small. I called up Sara (another great Oregon photographer and the workshop coordinator) and offered my studio as a back up, back up location. In a crazy turn of events, she took me up on it. In a few short months I had gone from never hearing Dane Sanders’ name, to buying his book, to idolizing him, to having him come to my house for his workshop. Whoa!

The workshop was nothing like I expected, yet everything I had hoped for at the same time. With 15 or so folks piled into my little studio, Dane took us from a group of competing strangers to a close knit group of new friends. We even had an engagement photo shoot (with 15 photographers!) in my “under-construction” back yard! I’d venture to say that Dane’s workshop was one of, if not the most valuable one I’ve attended. So, if you’re a photographer and you’re reading this trying to decide if the Fast Track Roadshow is for you, rest assured that it is. And for my past and future clients who are reading this, the workshop reinforced my gratitude to you for trusting me with something as important as preserving your memories with my pictures, please don’t be strangers!

Back in the Spring I returned from a weekend of shooting out of  state to find a surprise. Corey had built me a set of raised garden beds and a compost bin at the back of our yard. I was thrilled. We wasted no time in filling up the garden with basil, corn, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, lettuce, spinach, chives, pumpkins, onions, peas, watermelon, cantelope, oregano, rhubarb, and radishes. I didn’t have real high hopes for our young veggies, as I had no clue what kind of learning curve I might be facing… Let me just say that my fears were unfounded and our first gardening venture has been quite a success. I’m hooked. Not a night goes by without a crisp, delicious salad and we’re already planning on expanding the operation for next year by building a couple more beds.

Josh hung out at his apartment near the slums of Nairobi, Kenya expecting it to be just another typical Kenyan evening. He put on some music and layed on the couch recovering from soccer practice while waiting for some friends to stop by and join him for dinner at a nearby restaurant. Whatever he was expecting the night to bring, it’s safe to say he didn’t expect to meet the love of his life.

When his friends finally arrived, an unfamiliar face was with them… Her name was Amy. She followed him into the kitchen as he put a batch of Kenyan Tea on the stove for his guests. Introductions between them were followed by incredibly easy conversation. The group eventually left for the restaurant and Josh and Amy followed, both very aware of the recent sparks that had flown. When they arrived at the restaurant Amy couldn’t find a good excuse to sit next to Josh, away from her friends…but when dinner was over she pretended to let him teach her how to play darts.

Whether it was in the kitchen to the whistle of the teapot, or during the playful game of darts that followed dinner, the seeds of romance were planted that night. The rest is history, as they say.

Josh recently returned home to Oregon last month, taking a break from his professional soccer team in Kenya, the Nairobi City Stars. Amy, a California native, took a break from her elementary education position in Nairobi and returned to the states as well. I took the pair of them to Downtown Portland for a very fun photo session and very good dinner at the nearby Rogue Brewery. In the interest of full disclosure, Josh is my brother in law, and let me just say I think he snagged just about as perfect a girl as exists. I’m extatic to have another lady hanging around the fam and I can’t wait to see them again when they come back home for Christmas.

It’s almost not fair how easy it is when you’re taking pictures of people that are this good looking. Take a look!