oh my goodness, yes

"I will NOT let my heart shrivel like the Grinch in the face of others’ beauty and talent and glory. I will SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS instead. I will celebrate the success of other writers and artists because IT IS GOOD. Because there is enough for all of us and each of us. We each have our own lane and so we can cheer each other on loudly and with total abandon."
-Glennon of Momastery.com

This might be the very thing I needed to read, in order to push me to success :) 

banana bread

So I've never been much of a chef, until recently. I was never interested in helping my mom out with dinners in the kitchen as a little girl [sorry mom] and I've never felt I was very creative with meals. I'm still not a chef by any means. However, over the last few months I've gained inspiration from Pinterest and felt more confident in my cooking. 

Now I have an enormous kitchen that overlooks my family room so I don't have to feel disconnected from everyone while in the kitchen which makes cooking kinda fun! So, as I was browsing Pinterest yesterday I came across some delicious looking banana bread and realized I had every ingredient at home. Saw that I had some semi overripe bananas sitting on the counter and decided I needed to give this baking thing a try. 


Delicious Banana Bread 

What you will need
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/2 cups overripe mashed bananas [i used 3 bananas b/c that's all i had, but most recipes suggest 4]

 Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees then coat a 9×5 loaf pan with cooking spray.
In a smaller bowl combine flower, salt, & baking soda. In a larger second bowl combine beaten eggs, butter, brown sugar, & vanilla. Begin mashing bananas and add to the second bowl. Stir in dry ingredients. Poor mixture into loaf pan and bake for 50-60 mins. 
This recipe was super easy and the final result was SO delicious with some butter spread on top. Let me know if you give it a try! Perfect for Fall. And as soon as Fall weather makes it's appearance I'll be diving into pumpkin bread :)





family vaca: day four | sand harbor


On our last day we drove over to Sand Harbor and enjoyed perfect weather. If you've never been there, it's a must see in Tahoe and you should make sure to go at some point. It's a small paradise! And now the photo dump..


day one
day two
day three

family vaca: day three

It was pretty cold for most of our stay in Tahoe, but we were still able to have lots of fun playing games in doors and venturing to the deck when the winds died down. This trip happened back in June but the pictures were too pretty not to share! 


After we walked from our cabin down to the beach we couldn't find my dad, thought maybe he walked back because it was so cold. But after a little scanning of the beach, we found him hiding down by the water wrapped in towels to keep warm...what a nerd :)


Morning lattes made my life complete on this trip. Morning cribbage and relaxing on the deck were also another regular activities before taking off to the beach. 



part one
part two




Confessions

This is me, being serious with me...and all of you I suppose.

As an artist I'm my own worst critic. Duh, I'm positive that's true of every artist. I constantly compare my work to other photographers and web designers. I took one photography class in college... and the professor loved selective coloring... *crickets*... in other words, I didn't learn a thing in her class. So basically everything I know is self-taught and graciously shared with me by some fantastic local photographers.

I'm in the process of designing my website, cue comparisons! I'm trying to find a healthy balance between "That photographers website looks awesome, good for them" and "I like what I saw there, how can I tweak it to my own style?" and "Why won't this line disappear and why does my logo look like a 3rd grader designed it and why does my font look fuzzy and what the heck is the difference between html bla bla bla and why won't my comments show up and..."....you get the picture. My brain hurts and sometimes I think my creativity just blows.

Bad attitude to have? Absolutely. Realistic? I sure hope so. There has to be a fine line between drawing inspiration from others and downright criticizing yourself because it looks nothing like the pros. I want to define my own style but sometimes I get stuck in these cycles....

"Oh her processing is awesome, let me grab my SOOC and try that! Saturate the blue tones okay, raise the exposure..wait no..that blows her face out..maybe she meant use the brightness slider..ah no, that can't be. Let's move the curves tool...yep that did it. Shoot no, that looks nothing like her image. Well maybe I can start my own processing trend...why is the sun disappearing when I move that slider? I liked the flare! Wait now the grass is white...how does that even happen? Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. Close"

That happens...like daily. I constantly criticize my own work, I constantly change my website design because I can't seem to make it look "professional" enough for my own liking. I've spent SO much money on equipment and host websites, design templates...you name it. The hard part is, I know I haven't even made a dent in the world of photography equipment. I have like the most basic pieces of equipment needed to start up. How do I progress from here though? My computer is slow because I have two million raw files on it, and it's just a laptop...my external hard drive is about to fill up, I have 2 CF cards that are filled after 1 session and sometimes I can't get all the images I need because the cards fill up so fast. I don't have a flash, I have one lens. *end rant

I feel the pressures of starting a business. I knew they would come and I knew they would be hard, but now I'm stuck in the process of it all and trying to find my way out.

I'm really not fishing for complements on my work, or "you can do its!" I know this journey won't be a dead end. I know I'll be successful someday, it's just a matter of making it there...This is really more about being honest. I want to look back on my journey and see where I was at during these beginning stages. Today I am pretty stressed, extremely over critical, and hopeful for the future.

Sorry for the downer, this "build your own business stuff" isn't so easy...but like I said I'm hopeful for the future.

just keep'n it real.



turby turb & some news


I can't even handle how precious this little punk is. It's darn near ridiculous how spoiled he is and how much we love him. He had surgery this past week to get some cysts removed and his usual spunky self turned into a puddle of pity which in turn broke momma's heart. He's healing though and will be back to driving cars n stuff soon.

In other news...we're moving into a HOUSE. It was something we've talked about for months but weren't sure it was possible. Our lease will be up in October so we decided to start searching to see what we could find. As luck would have it, God poured down His blessings on us and gave us a house.  More on this later.

Be on the look out for some house design posts in the coming months...yippee!!