{DFW Photographer} Christina Lee Photography

Christina Lee Photo has moved!

2011-04-23T23:31:00.000-05:00

Gee it has been quite a while since I have updated here! It seems that I failed to let all of you wonderful people know of a big change that I made back in March.

At this point in time, I have moved my blog and website over to www.christinaleephoto.wordpress.com

I have combined both my website and blog into one location, and I hope that you will join me in this new adventure. After winning an incredible year's subscription to SmugMug, and really appreciating its benefits, I have decided that it would be difficult to keep up with essentially three websites, along with a web site for a large 5A high school, teach high school kids, be a wife, oh yeah, AND further develop my craft in photography! So, on that note, at this time christinaleephoto.com is still under my ownership, I just do not have anything running under the domain at this time, but I plan to get things up and running again appropriately by this summer, once I get this crazy school year under wraps. In the meantime, I'll be posting my updates and latest news and images on my new wordpress blog, and I plan to maintain my SmugMug account that includes my client viewing, and of course, there is my Flickr page as well, which I have now gone Pro in, so I anticipate a lot more uploads!

Thank you so much for reading my simple little blog here as I write about my photography adventures, please make sure you join me on this new adventure as well!

Thanks again!
-Christina

{DFW Photographer} Featuring Jamal Turner

2011-01-05T21:31:00.001-06:00

I couldn’t help but do a post about this guy. Jamal is a student at my school, (he has officially graduated early because he is going to college this semester to do spring training.)

Right now I’m watching him participate in the Under Armour High School All American Bowl Game on the white team, number 3. Jamal is our varsity football quarterback and has been widely recruited across the country to play football beginning next year. Jamal decided to go to Nebraska after much consideration, and needless to say, we are all excited about his new journey he is about to begin. (Looks like I’m going to become a Husker fan next year, along with a *cringe* Sooner fan as well…but that is for a later explanation, and another kid.)

Now, I normally would hesitate to post his picture on here as well as his last name, but seeing has how if you click on the links above you’ll find out his last name, where he’s going to college, and you could probably even find out his weight, I don’t think a post commending him on his achievements is going to hurt.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to take some pictures for Jamal for our homecoming court portraits, so I decided to post a couple of the shots here tonight in honor of good luck to him and his game.

One of the incredible features about Jamal is learning of how he has overcome loss and hardship throughout a lot of his life already. The first week of school, he tragically lost his mother. I admire Jamal for his motivation to keep going; he actually played in the game the next night because “because it’s what my mom would have wanted.” All this after loosing an older brother just a couple of years before.

He is strong, has perseverance, and a talented athlete. I wish him the best of luck throughout the rest of his life!

{Dallas Family Photographer} Wisk Family

2011-01-05T21:03:00.001-06:00

A little less than a year ago, I met up with Hillary and Larry on a chilly day to shoot their engagement pictures in Dallas and the Arboretum. Recently, we met up again to do some family pictures for them and Larry’s soon to be seven year old son, James.

We went to the Mandalay Canal in Las Colinas where it was a little chilly at first, but we made it through with some good shots!

James was a complete ham---and I love it! I think it is great that James put on this fun and comfy look with his beanie here!

“Gimme Seven, cuz you’re gonna be 7!”

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I posted. I have had some problems uploading with my computer. I’ve actually had this post written for about a week and just now was able to get it to upload. (Sigh, probably something to do with Explorer; fortunately I use Firefox most of the time.)

{DFW Photographer} The Eason Family

2010-12-06T15:59:00.001-06:00

This weekend was the first time I ever actually met Amanda and her family in person. In the past I’ve just connected with her on Facebook and briefly talked with her on the phone about camera settings one afternoon.

Anyway, we worked out a trade of sorts and I did a family shoot for them in Waxahachie on Saturday, where the light was wonderful and the scenery, well, it was divine.

Amanda is a college friend of my sister’s and has the wonderful luxury of being a stay at home mom while her husband, Andy, works and is in law school. During her time at home, Amanda has created the Bitty Bear Baby Boutique, where she is a sewing goddess with all of her fantastic baby goods, and even some goodies for mamas and daddies as well!

This weekend, Amanda surprised me with the adorable Mama Clutch in a beautiful damask fabric with pink accents and a SUPER cute fabric flower! I may not be a mama, but I can still carry the Mama Clutch---maybe it’s more like a teacher clutch for me, since it fits well in my laptop bag for work.

Amanda also included some of the business cards that I designed for her, and I must say, they came out looking super cute, yet, very professional!

{DFW Photographer} Introducing New Mini Accordion Books!

2010-12-04T10:05:00.001-06:00

I am so happy to introduce a new product I have over here at Christina Lee Photography! These new mini accordion books are the perfect modern day “brag book” for your latest photo shoot.

Wouldn’t this be an awesome way to show off the pictures of your lasted addition to your family? It easily fits in your purse or pocket and is more durable than regular prints!

How about a gift for Grandma? I think these would be just fabulous for excited grandmas to show off pictures of their new grandbaby!
(Did I mention that Christmas is coming up soon too!)

The accordion books are custom designed and printed on linen paper on both sides. They present the look of classic quality while being new and innovative.

These sweet little babies are double sided as well, and come with a custom front and back cover, and are magnetized to ensure it stays shut when you want it to!

What a great way to post pictures on your desk at work, or even on an entry table or bookshelf in your home! I love that these are pretty enough to set out, but handy enough to carry them on the go! They are also super durable to where it’s fine for kids to play with them as well; and we know kids love to have things in their hands and look at pictures!

So order your accordion book today with selections from your latest photo shoot on them!

{Irving Photographer} Miss Mature Irving

2010-11-21T00:27:00.000-06:00

Today I had the pleasure of doing a photo shoot for one of Cliff’s co-workers, Ann Danford, the 2010 Ms. Mature Irving. I have worked with Ann once before when we did headshots for her granddaughter, Alex. This time, we did a session for Ann’s wall photo at the Irving Heritage Senior Center for her Ms. Mature Irving award. This was my first experience to photograph a beauty queen and it was fun! :) It was great working with Ann again and I look forward to again in the future!

{The New House} Silver Reflections

2010-11-18T20:01:00.001-06:00

{DFW Photographer} Our Niece, Zoey Ann

2010-11-15T21:52:00.001-06:00

Cliff’s brother and his wife gave birth to their beautiful daughter on September 20th, just four days before we closed on our new house, so it’s taken me a while to get to editing her photos from her first photo shoot. Zoey is absolutely beautiful, and I’m sure she’ll be plenty spoiled this Christmas as she is the very first grandchild in both of her families, plus she is the first girl in the David & Tricia Carpenter family. I look forward to seeing this beautiful girl grow up and enjoy life! She is such a blessing to all of our family.

{DFW Newborn Photographer} Joy in the Season

2010-11-11T22:06:00.001-06:00

This was from part of the end of my photo shoot of baby Joy last month. I love how peaceful she looks as she lays in her mother’s arms.

{The New House} Christmastime is a Comin’

2010-11-11T17:56:00.001-06:00

Well, right now we are planning on having my dad’s family over for dinner on Christmas day, so I’ve started planning for our first big dinner party at our new house. We are expecting 11 people including Cliff’s parents. A bittersweet thing about my dad’s family is we are pretty small. My mom and dad were the only ones to have children of my grandparent’s three children and my aunt and uncle are both single so Jessie and I have been the only children at Christmas for many years, (which was good at times because it allowed for extra special spoiling ;) Either way, it has always been special. We always break out the nice silver and china and have the nice sit down dinner, which is a nice change from the relaxed atmosphere that is the norm these days, plus it’s easier to do when your family is a little smaller.

We always have fun—especially since Jessie and I have gotten older and can crack dirty jokes with my aunt and uncle. ;)

In preparation for this special dinner, I picked up the prettiest napkin rings from ZGallerie the other day in Dallas, and can’t wait to use them.

{The New House} Lovely Mantle

2010-11-08T16:17:00.001-06:00

I love our fireplace—it is not messy at all. I love it because even I can start a fire---by switching the “on” switch. :) At first I hated our mantle---it was just so “blah.” Then we painted the living room walls the nice Cobblestone gray color and now the white mantle just pops! Recently, Cliff and my dad mounted our television and then began running speaker wires for Cliff’s new sound system that he “got for his birthday” when really I told him since it would make things easier—he could just go buy the sound system he wanted for his birthday. I decided to add a few of our pictures and I recently bought the cool silver candle holders at ZGallerie in Dallas last weekend.

Any way, here is our mantle:

This isn’t the best quality of picture---it was pretty late at night and for some reason I just could not eliminate the shake on my camera---which means I’m usually too lazy to break out my tripod. Oh well, it’s a picture—so there ‘ya go. :)

{DFW Photographer} New!

2010-11-03T17:01:00.001-05:00

Christina Lee would like to introduce her new custom packaging! :) Who does not like to receive products wrapped up all pretty and arranged nicely? I know whenever I make a purchase---particularly at a clothing store, I like it much more whenever the bag is of higher quality---like those nice paper sacks with the handles, or even if my clothing items are wrapped in tissue paper. It isn’t necessary, but it makes the experience that much more special.

Here’s a preview of our new packaging:

I know Peacock isn’t exactly a popular color, but I love it, especially with the damask and black and white. I find it to be sophisticated, yet fun, and that’s the reason I chose that color, because I want my photography to be exactly that---balanced—sophisticated and exciting at the same time.

{The New House}The Guest Bathroom

2010-11-03T16:22:00.000-05:00

Well, the house is slowly coming together. He have the tv hung and speakers on the wall, cable, and boxes are slowly, but surely disappearing. The room that is probably the most together would be the guest bathroom. So, I thought I’d share some pictures with you.

All of the above photos were taken using my Canon Powershot G11 point and shoot camera. The shots were taken in raw+Large files and edited in Photoshop. I am still loving my nifty little point and shoot for side and fun projects. My dad is a little scared that I might abandon my dslr…..which I don’t EVER plan on that one happening. I still use my dslr for photo shoots and the more serious stuff, but it’s fun to use this little gem as well.

Now about the bathroom:

We really didn’t do anything in here but paint. I used all the same materials we had in the old guest bathroom. I really liked them and the towels were very lightly used, so I just kept the same stuff.

We, Cliff, painted the bathroom walls a cool silvery color by Behr paints that actually shows up more like a light blue---which is just what I wanted, and Cliff just happened to be happy with it.

The shower curtain and rug both came from target, while the towels and bathroom accessories such as the soap pump and trashcan all came from Bed Bath & Beyond, (all gifts from our wedding registry.) The really cool apothecary jar with the cotton swabs came from The Container Store purchased back about two years ago after we moved into our last apartment. All the lotions and whatnot come mostly from my mother who likes to give me a lot of Bath & Bodyworks stuff, but I never have the ability to use it all---plus some of it reacts with my dry skin.

**A note about bath products** I like to take the stuff from hotels and whatnot like a lot of people do---I try to store some of these items in my guest bath in the drawer next to the sink so if my guests ever forget anything while they are staying with us---they have a backup option. I also do this with some mouthwash and toothbrushes if we end up with extra after we come home from a dentist appointment. (Cliff has gone to the dentist a LOT this year so we have lots of trial mouthwash bottles sitting around.)

{Mansfield Newborn Photographer} A Little Piece of Joy

2010-10-24T20:01:00.000-05:00

Recently, I had the pleasure of capturing some of the first images of a precious bundle of Joy. My friends the Wyatt family welcomed their first little one to the world in September and she already has her father wrapped around her little finger.

Here are some images from the shoot:

Project 365 Update

2010-10-12T20:26:00.000-05:00

Well, things certainly have been busy around here, but we are taking the evening off to watch the Rangers playoff game. Hopefully we will go home tonight in a good mood, aka: with a Rangers win.

Here are some of my 365 updates from the last couple of days.

Day 16: Sunday, October 10, 2010. I installed new hardware on the typing table that is in the front entryway. I’ve had these things for a few months. I love the green glass. I also have coordinating knobs for the white radio cabinet that I plan to re-paint.

Day 17: Monday, October 11, 2010. Our kitchen in its current state with the new kitchen island. We are so pleased with how this has turned out so far. It fits perfectly with our kitchen and goes quite well with it. The black appliances make it easier to bring black into the decor and the wood top with black bottom I just love. Expect to see some green and white incorporated as well fairly soon! I feel like we could use some more storage space in here, but one thing I love is the built in appliances and the GAS stove!!! I love cooking with gas!

Today’s photo is not of our house…but out at my inlaw’s house in Waxahachie. Their home is in the city limits, but it backs up to a cotton/corn field, (whichever they are planting that year.) I love the look of the sunset behind their house. It’s so pleasant and peaceful.

Well, that is about it for today…we are STILL without internet at our house—it’s driving me crazy, and I’m ready for At&t to get in gear—especially so I can work on lessons from home like I know I’ll need to do in a couple of days…oh well!

Have a good night….and GO RANGERS!

365 Photo Project

2010-10-10T18:22:00.000-05:00

Well, we have moved into our new house, (even though we have a few straggling boxes left at the apartment and some odds and ends….

I have not done a 365 post in a WHILE---so I thought I’d update with some images. I have not been so successful with capturing an image every single day; it is definitely more challenging than I originally thought.

Without further adieu, here are some more of my 365 images:

Day 6: The chandelier in our dining room with the new wall color: Cobblestone from the Martha Stewart Living collection. I am surprised that Cliff actually went for the gray color—I figured it would be more of a fight! Eventually, I would like to get some white drum shades for the bulbs on this chandelier.

Day 8: Saturday, October 2nd. I love this basket that I found at Maypearl’s Antique Alley weekend recently. I think it will be great on our kitchen island or bar. It will be especially great for holding some cookies (as shown) or treats during the holidays, (which, we are hosting Christmas this year for my Shankle family!) This image is from my grandfather’s 80th birthday party last weekend out at the Batchelor cabin in Naples. We had SO many cookies all homemade by my aunts and cousin!

Day 9: Sunday, October 3rd. Our new kitchen island in the back of my dad’s truck as he’s driving off from Canton First Monday Trade Days with it. We are so excited about this island! It’s perfect for our kitchen and it’s repurposed out of an old school. My dad put locks on the casters to make it less likely to move around. The top has a lot of carvings in it such as, “Viva Mexico, Erika!” and “Carlos” and several other things….including one that is inappropriate that we did not notice until after we bought it. We are contemplating carving our names in it and the date we moved into our new house---not sure if we’ll do that or not though.

Day 10: Monday, October 4th. Our living room, equipped with new paint! I did not like the fireplace much at first, but with the new paint color---I’m definitely liking it more!

Day 11: Tuesday, October 5th. I’m so excited that we both have a covered parking spot that no one will take---in our own garage!!!

Day 12: Wednesday, October 6th. Our dining room with the new paint color!

Day 13: Thursday, October 7th. I drove through and got some bar b que at the brand new Rudy’s in Arlington on the way home, in hopes of not loosing time on packing. It is SO nice to have a Rudy’s close now! We are big time Rudy’s fans!

Day 14: Friday, October 8th. This is about the time we went to bed---finally on Friday night---why you might ask? Because we were still packing---and I wouldn’t say we actually finished it—we just began to shove crud in baskets, sacks, and boxes to move other stuff to the house.

Day 15: Saturday, October 9th. MOVING DAY! Yes, I color coded the moving boxes according to which rooms they went in. Then, I took it one step further and posted a legend by each door the guys would be coming in with our stuff!

Well, that is it for now! I’m hoping I won’t lag farther behind on my blogging due to not having internet if At&t doesn’t get their act together and let us know for sure whether or not we can have U-Verse at our house. (All the houses we share a property line with have it---but the website is saying that we can’t.)

Happy Sunday, and see ‘ya later!

{DFW Photographer} Wait, You Mean I’m a Grownup Now?

2010-09-28T14:36:00.000-05:00

Life has been crazy busy in the last few weeks. Just in the last week a couple of very eventful things happened in our family.

Monday started with the birth of our beautiful niece—the first Carpenter grandchild, Zoey Carpenter! Zoey decided to come 5 days early because she just couldn’t stand hiding out any longer. Around 10:00 Monday, September 20th, Zoey made her first appearance into the world. (pictures to come later.)

Friday was a very eventful day on a personal level for Cliff and Myself. We took the plunge, nearly emptied our bank account, and purchased a house. You might remember that we started searching for a house back in January, and it ended up being quite the ordeal if you have read this post. We didn’t broadcast the information very much to our friends or on facebook, etc. because we did not want to go through the frustration of explaining to everyone again if the deal fell through.

The house is not as large as the last one we had under contract---but it is of good quality and in a good neighborhood, and it was cheaper! We were able to put the house on a 20 year note, so we’ll have it paid off faster! Nevertheless, we are still very excited to be purchasing our very first home together and getting it ready to move into during the next couple of weeks.

In lieu of starting a new chapter of our lives together, AND getting my trusty little point and shoot—the Canon G11, (which I am LOVING,) I have decided to start a “365” project where I post one picture a day, (or post several pictures—one representing each day prior,) based on our first year adventure as being home owners in Mansfield, Texas. I’m not sure that these photos will always be the best quality that I am capable of, but I did want to document this first year journey of becoming home owners because this is a place we worked so hard to get to, and there was a lot of time invested in the search for this new home. (So the above displayed photo of Cliff and me standing in front of our new house counts as day #1.)

Here are images from the 25th and 26th of September. Shamefully, I kind of forgot and didn’t take a singe picture yesterday on the 27th. :(

Here is a shot of our cousin’s daughter: Kenna, singing at the top of her lungs with a paint brush in one of our guest bedrooms. This girl cracks me up, and is not afraid to sing and dance in front of you. She makes me smile every single time I see her. Love her and her parents SO much!

Like I said, these photos are not of great quality but hey, they are photos and they are part of documentation of this new journey we are taking this next year!

Today’s image is of the custom cupcake picks I made for my grandfather’s 80th birthday party set for this weekend. Think he might get me for posting an old football picture of himself?

On another sad note, I am so glad that we were not in Austin today to have to experience the shooting at the University of Texas. Cliff is a UT alum and we visit fairly often. If you have not heard, there was a tragic shooting in one of the libraries on campus involving a student shooter who fired off several rounds before taking his own life. Fortunately, he did not hurt anyone else, but it was scary either way.

{DFW Photographer} Mansfield Maternity Photography Seven Months in the Making

2010-09-13T01:23:00.001-05:00

I just started a series of shoots that I have been looking forward to for about seven months now.

One day in February, (I can’t remember exactly which date it was,) we met Ben, Jenn, David, and Tricia at Outback Steakhouse in Arlington. There, Ben and Jenn announced they were expecting their first child in September. This is the first grandchild of the David & Tricia Carpenter family—and we are all so excited!

Immediately, I was looking forward to hopefully taking some pictures for my wonderful brother in law and sister in law. Today I was able to take some maternity photos for Ben and Jenn after we all recovered from a belated birthday lunch for Jenn and me at Joe T. Garcias in Ft. Worth.

We went to Katherine Rose Park in Mansfield, where we found out that earlier in the week, the park pretty much flooded from the sudden gush of rain that hit us and flooded a lot of the area. Fortunately, the area was not so badly damaged that we could not get some good shots.

Here are a few good ones from today’s session:

One Jenn was really looking forward to was the hands in a heart on the tummy---so we had to make sure and get that one. ;) I think it turned out quite nicely in b&w.

It is hard to believe that little Zoey will be here before we know it. My husband will officially be an uncle, and family gatherings will be a little different---definitely in a good way! Our family will be a little more complete with a new generation represented!

{DFW Photographer}Real Life Moments From a High School Teacher

2010-09-02T00:04:00.000-05:00

We are officially in the second week of school here in Texas. Another year I am glad to have the opportunity to be involved and share my love of computer technology and multimedia with high school students.

I feel like I have had the opportunity to learn so much in my two years, going on three at my school. You see, the school where I teach is different than the one I attended. I went to a school where there were quite a few people who had attended the school district since the beginning and many others who had transferred in due to parents relocating for jobs and careers. I was part of group B. We moved to Midlothian due to my father taking on a new role in the company he worked for in Dallas. We all had financial challenges, but we all were still quite comfortable and had everything we needed, some more than others, but our needs were met. The school were I teach has a different assortment of students from various backgrounds. Some students come from a home with both parents and are as comfortable as I was growing up, others live in a home where their parents speak a different language than they do. Some students moved to this area with their parents in order to find new work, while others move to this area ahead of their parents with siblings or other family members in order to find them some work. Some students have a child, others have children, who must leave school to see their child in daycare during lunch, or take the baby to the doctor, or they are concerned about what their “baby momma” is telling their two year old about them and that she’s trying to take the baby away from them. Many students are dealing with walking in the halls, expecting their first child---some are only 14 years old.

Some students don’t live with their mom but they don’t live with their dad either. Maybe they live with a grandparent, cousin, or other family member, sometimes a friend, but they stay with their parent every now and again.

Some students are doing just fine and have two loving parents but someone in their clique got into a fight with another clique last week and then was threatened, and sometimes that carries over into the school. (For the most part though, they do a pretty good job of keeping the gang violence outside the school.)

Some kids face having the electricity being cut off for weeks at a time because the only person able to bring in a paycheck is living off disability, and that does not do much to take care of five or six people. So there is no hot shower, freshly cooked food, and little light at night to do homework.

Some students face the unfortunate circumstance of “how am I going to be able to participate in all these senior activities” because their step parent refuses to pay for any of them in the one income household because that child is not their own offspring.

Some students are just fine.

Some students are not disciplined and just need a good, thick board whipped across their behind.

But others are despite all odds that are against them that otherwise say they should be screwed up. But they are not. They are focused, mature, sincere, and kind.

We can’t make excuses for why students do not succeed in school. We must continue to hold them to high expectations. If we raise the bar, they will meet it. We must teach students how to deal with keeping their life as organized as possible even when the rest of it is chaos.

We must teach our students how to deal with challenges and raise their own bar, despite the fact they have been diagnosed with ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, etc.

I had a moment today where I was talking to a parent over the phone regarding a student skipping out on class after lunch. I am so glad my attitude was different than the one I immediately had when I saw that the student never came back to class. I decided to approach the situation of asking the parent if the child was okay---did they get sick or did something come up during lunch that I did not know about. As it turns out there was something that came up….a situation that I am fortunate that I have not had to deal with while I was in school---partially due to my upbringing, and another partially due to my situation.

My students, my wonderful students. Sometimes I would love to knock some sense into their head using osmosis, but there are other times I wish I could cradle them and love them and give them the world as well. Little do they know how much they teach me day in and day out.

Cheers to a new school year—and keeping my senses. :)

{Allen Newborn Photographer} Meet Baby K

2010-08-22T20:00:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, Cliff helped me pack up the car and we drove up to see our wonderful friends in Allen for their precious daughter’s first official photo shoot!

I have been friends with Nolan and Christina since college, and we were all members of the ETBU Tiger Band together…ahhh memories! Back in 2007, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to shoot Nolan and Christina’s beautiful wedding in Rockwall and now they allowed me to come do pictures of their brand new family member. She is so beautiful, and I am so happy for my friends Nolan and Christina!

Here are some samples from today’s session:

Yes, be prepared to wipe away a few tears with this shot!

There is something special about seeing a man hold his first born daughter. I just know Nolan is going to be a spectacular father. Say a prayer for all those boys who will try to date this pretty girl!

Love this family!!!

Well, that’s about it for now! Still recovering and wearing a large brace on my leg. Tomorrow is the first day of school for the 2010-2011 school year. Luckily, I’m able to bum a ride to work from a friend!

Hope y’all have a great week!

Tales of a Woman With a Bum Knee…

2010-08-08T17:47:00.000-05:00

Well, I have not left the house much, other than to go to physical therapy or to the doctor, with the occasional trip to El Fenix, so there is not much going on around here at the moment. I just keep sitting around and relaxing and doing my knee exercises in hopes that I’m actually getting better with this whole knee surgery thing. The most eventful thing this week happened on Friday when I got the staples out of my knee, which allowed me to finally take a full fledged shower on Saturday, my first since my surgery. (Thank goodness, I was SO ready for that shower.)

Thankfully, my sister came this past week to help me out some and drive me to doctors appointments. Her help was greatly appreciated.

Since I’m not doing much but sitting on my tail these days, I haven’t really bothered to take many pictures, except of my hideous knee, and I can only get away with so many of those.

However, I did find this image in a folder of random summer images taken last month during our trash the dress session in Dallas. It is of the iconic Dallas Pegasus.

My Leg in Its Current State, part 2

2010-08-04T21:02:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of therapy for my knee. They unbandaged my knee to where it was open where you could see the staples. This totally grossed out my younger sister who graciously drove me to therapy this afternoon. When I got home tonight, I decided to take the bandage off again and re-wrap my wound, but not before taking a gruesome picture of my staples in my leg! So, this post’s image is going to be a little gross and will not be good for those with a weak stomach. For those of you with a stable stomach that is stronger, feel free to see my knee below.

My Leg in Its Current State

2010-07-29T16:17:00.001-05:00

Well, I’ve been talking about how I’m laid up in bed and just had surgery, etc, etc. So, what’s all that talk without some proof? I was finally able to get my hands on my camera and verify my knee issues yesterday:

Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me Going to College.

2010-07-27T17:50:00.000-05:00

The summer leading up to college was full of excitement. I was watching sale ads and shopping at stores all summer to gather the perfect necessities and accessories for my dorm room. The thought of being able to outfit my own space with items of my choice and going off to live on my own was so exciting. Bed Bath & Beyond and Target became my favorite stores. I wished I could afford the Container Store but obviously, that did not fit into a fresh high school graduate’s budget. However, regardless of researching all the lists of things I would “need” for my college dorm room, there are still some things I wish someone would have told me to think about purchasing.

Wall Coverings
We all want to fill our walls with items that are spectacular and full of our personality, so we’ve got to figure out how to fill the walls and get stuff attached to them.

1. Double Sided Mounting Tape. I began to buy this stuff like it was going out of style by the time I was a sophomore in college. It’s thick, strong, and can help hang items on the concrete walls of your dorm room. (Exactly, not all dorm rooms have sheetrock walls, so you can’t put nails in them.) Another good option is spray adhesive. You can find it at a hardware store or most any big box store.

2. 3M Command Hooks. These things are great, and come off with ease. They allow you to hang cute Christmas wreaths on you dorm room door, or create a hat rack along your wall, OR use ‘em to hang up Christmas lights around the perimeter of your room, creating a nice glow, maybe even consider using them to hang pretty cloth shower curtains on your wall to create a drapery effect of some sort.

3. Candle Warmer. It is common knowledge that you cannot burn candles in any dorm. It is not that the school has something against candles, they just don’t want you to accidently burn the place down. A candle warmer can be easily purchased at Walmart or Target for fairly cheap, then just stick a candle on top of it, (in a glass container) and when it gets warm enough, pull out the wick, and your room will be smelling nice and pleasant in no time. If you like the look of glowing candles they also have battery powered candles and tea lights these days which can be pretty cool as well.

4. Cable Lock for your laptop or computer. If you value keeping your computer, get a lock for it. Sure you may trust the other people around you, but you never know when someone might walk in your dorm and walk out with your precious laptop.

5. Check the Electrical Plugs in your dorm room or apartment. My sophomore year in college, the dorm was really old, built in the ‘50s, back before ground plugs were put into electrical items, so as a result, none of the plugs in our dorm had the space for the ground plug! Our computers, television, fridge, etc. None of it could be plugged in as soon as we moved into our dorm! So, we had to race to the local Lowes or hardware store to try to find the plug extenders or adapters to put in several of our plugs so our electronic devices would work. Especially if you are moving into an older dorm, you will probably want to make sure the plugs can accommodate your stuff, and prepare for it if they can’t.

Overall, there are so many things that you won’t immediately think of to take to college, so it is best to do your research ahead of time. Check out lists online that are available and make sure you check with your dorm for a list of stuff that is not allowed, you don’t want it taken up once you get to school.

One more piece of advice:

One thing I didn’t really consider was the hauling of all my stuff to school in the fall. I was just so excited to buy it all and pick everything out that I forgot about lugging it up all those stairs and fitting everything into my car. The great thing about a lot of stores now is that you can purchase an item in one store and pick it up at another! OR you can order something and have it delivered to your school when you move in! THEN you really won’t have to carry it all that far! Let the businesses do the shipping! Another thing you can consider is just waiting to buy some of the necessities in the college town once you get there! Several stores such as Bed Bath & Beyond will ship the product you order to your school, or allow you to pick it up in your new college town. Seriously, it will save you some time from packing and what not so check those options out!

Not sure what all you’ll need for college?

Here’s a suggested school supply list from Staples.
Bed, Bath, and Beyond has a great page of tips of What to Bring and What to Do at College as well as a list of Practical Solutions for moving into a small, cramped, Dorm room.

Best of luck on your college adventure, and remember to call me when you need pictures. ;)

Now, for a few pictures of my favorite college dorm room from my sophomore year in Lineberry Hall at East Texas Baptist University, where I shared a room with Wendy and Ashley for the first time. I’m willing to bet this was one of the best years of my life!

Above: the living room/study space---that’s my desk with the cool lanterns above it!

Above Left: the living space looking toward the door with the three closets we had, one had entertainment, one was the pantry/kitchen, and the other was a “coat closet” of sorts and mostly held a crate with our dirty dishes.
Above Right: My bed space! we fixed up this cool frame with drapes and had these curtains I could close so it was like my own little room within a room. ‘Twas nice.

Have You Heard of “Salad In A Jar”??

2010-07-26T13:10:00.001-05:00

Just like the title says, have you heard of Salad in a Jar? It is a wonderful food blog by a lady I met in a photography class named Paula. She lives in Arlington and works by day, and on the weekends, she’s busy putting together and publishing wonderful recipes that she shares with the world!

Most recently, I made her Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Chicken Bites for dinner, except on my puny George Foreman Grill since I don’t have a real grill. They were absolutely delicious!

One of Paula’s favorite foods that she likes to blog about is her Greek Yogurt, and has lots of recipes that include Greek Yogurt or varying flavors of it!

If you are looking for a great, decadent treat that is also easy to make, try her Chocolate Chip Cookie Truffles. They are OH SO good, and a great new take on chocolate chip cookies!

Earlier this summer, Paula invited me over to her beautiful home to do some pictures for her for her blog and website. I had a great time shooting her photos and loved seeing her kitchen where she makes all that recipe magic happen. I just know my sister would LOVE her kitchen cabinets, which are painted red! My sister’s favorite color is red and those cabinets look great painted!

If you haven’t already, scoot yourself over to Paula’s blog and check out some of her great recipes at Salad In A Jar!

{DFW Photographer} More From Trash the Dress

2010-07-25T14:43:00.000-05:00

While I am laid up in bed with my right knee lays up on a mountain of pillows and my dog is at my feet guarding my handicap, I keep trying to amuse myself. So, this has given me the chance to dig through some photos I’ve taken this summer and in the midst, I came across some more photos from Trash the Dress that I thought I’d share with you.

This first image I love, but I couldn’t figure out which edit treatment I liked best with it, so I am presenting two options.

Next we have a shot of our fabulous smugmuggers getting some last shots in at about 10:00 at night! We had so much fun!

Then we could not have done it without our fantastic hair and makeup girls! Morgan Causey is my friend Sara’s sister, who just graduated from Cosmetology school this summer! She did a wonderful job and is taking new clients, so feel free to contact her if you need a new stylist! Feel free to email her at: morgan.causey@gmail.com

This shoot was so much fun, unfortunately, I am not sure that I’ll be able to go to the next meeting due to my recent surgery. :( However, my friend Justin will be moving to Dallas soon and when I get back on my feet, he’ll be joining me at the next session. It is so much fun meeting new people!

Out of Commission

2010-07-23T05:47:00.001-05:00

Well, in case you have not already heard, I’m taking a break from photography for a while, and most of life. Yesterday morning I had surgery to reconstruct my right ACL in my knee.

I should be asleep, but due to excruciating pain in my knee, I can’t sleep. I don’t cry much from pain, but I have multiple times since I woke up from my surgery.

My wake up greeting was vomiting into my oxygen mask, and at which point, they sedated me again to allow me to rest more I guess. This experience has definitely been more painful than the surgery I had back in November of 08 to scope out the ACL and just remove it.

The cool thing so far was the nerve block they put in that make most of my leg numb. I could touch my skin through the brace and it was like touching someone else’s skin.

I thought I would be okay by myself today while Cliff is at work, but I am SO thankful that my friend Diedra is coming over now, plus my mom is coming in this afternoon. It’s just nice to have your “mommy” around when you aren’t feeling good.

Oh Monday Monday

2010-07-19T15:00:00.001-05:00

Today is Monday, not all that eventful. Just getting ready for my surgery that’s later this week. I’ll be having ACL reconstruction on my right knee, which sadly means, no photoshoots for a while. (Believe me, this makes me VERY sad.) However, I should be back at at ‘em in no time. I will just have to take the rest of the summer pretty easy before I get back into the swing of things.

Today, my friend Sydni and I ventured out to downtown Arlington to scope out a few potential spots for a photo shoot or two. Have you ever been to downtown Arlington? It is not very big, but it’s got some cute character. I think our favorite new church is the First United Methodist Church of Arlington because the architecture is simply, well, FABULOUS! It’s got some gorgeous archways and just so beautiful, plus, not far from there they are renovating the old downtown theater, which is just so cute to me! One of these days, Sydni and I will be able to pull our money together and open a cool downtown studio with an upstairs loft area---it would be so much fun! Some day……

Holly has been hanging out in her box a lot lately, just “chilling.” Yesterday, I found her just in her box, for about an hour and a half…laying down. I guess she thought I was about to go somewhere or something. Either way, the light was great, so of course I grabbed my camera that I had just put up and snapped a few shots.

{DFW Photographer} What Camera Should I Buy? Canon Version

2010-07-17T19:02:00.000-05:00

Recently, my friend Sydni wrote a blog post about “What camera should I buy” because she gets frequent questions of what kind of dslr camera to purchase. Sydni did the Nikon version because she prefers to shoot Nikon cameras and that is what she is familiar with. SO…I decided to write up a Canon version of “What Camera Should I Buy?” as I have had a few people ask me the same question a few times over the last year or two. Plus, I can’t let Sydni get away with JUST recommending Nikons! lol

When it comes down to it, choosing a brand of camera really basically depends on how it feels in your hands. (That’s how some people break down and make their choice.) Do not forget that there are other dslr brands out there as well that have good technology---such as Sony or Olympus. (Sony is the same thing as the former Minolta if you happen to have old Minolta slr lenses.)

Back to Canon though. I love my 30D Canon, and honestly, I probably won’t shoot with anything else that I personally own, despite the fact that my mother, cousin, best shooting buddy, Cliff’s cousin all shoot with Nikon. (Yep, I’m REALLY outnumbered in my family.) They make excellent lenses and sharp, sharp products, and I really liked the Canon I worked with in the Public Relations department at ETBU when I was working there. So that is how I made my choice. (and I think my mom was secretly jealous when I got my new Canon. ;))

Anyway, here’s my list of Canon cameras I would recommend checking out if you happen to be in the market for your first DSLR!

First on the list is the Canon EOS 7D
It is 18 Megapixels and is super sharp, even in dark gyms according to my co-worker who is the photography teacher at my school. This camera combined with the 70-200 f/2.8 IS will help you produce some beautiful images from sports and activities inside dark gyms and soccer games or night time football games. Another person I know, Megan Dacy, loves her new Canon EOS 7D. Some of the things she loves about her camera is the super fast shooting speed of 8 frames per second, “making wildlife photography fun and easy.” She also loves how this camera has three custom settings where she can save shooting info. in three different settings, truly making her camera, HER camera. Another one of her favorite features is the 1080 HD video capability, which is super easy to switch over to.

So, if you have some experience with a higher level point and shoot and know some information about manual settings for your images, the 7D will be a great investment for you. This camera is compatible with all Canon EF and EF-S lenses—(basically, all the high end lenses as well.) The highest ISO is at 12,800, which allows you to shoot with more light in low light situations. Cost runs around $1575.00 for the for the body alone, but with a 28-135mm lens, it cost about $1775.00.

Next we have the Canon EOS 50D
This camera is two versions newer than the current camera I have, so how could I not recommend it? My friend Justin owns this camera and used it to replace his rebel about a year ago. The camera has 15.1 Megapixels and a 3 inch LCD screen with live view available and face detection. ISO Capabilities run up to 12,800, (just think, about film grain---allows you to shoot in lower light situations,) and shoots up to 6.3 frames per second, (a little less than the 7D.) This camera is also compatible with all Canon EF and EF-S lenses. Since this camera came out more than a year ago and the 7D is basically the newer version of this line of cameras, the price has dropped to about $1095.99 for a new 50D with a 28-235mm lens. So, if you can live without the HD video capabilities and a little faster shutter speed, but want a camera with great capabilities with more control, the 50D would be a good investment for you.

Next we’ll get into the Canon Rebels. The Rebel line of Canon’s cameras are lighter in weight than the 50D and 7D, so they are a little bit easier to transport and are great for starting out learning a DSLR and great for moms who want more control over the shooting process when they are capturing all those memories of their precious loved ones. :)

This line of cameras would be great for you if you want more control over your settings and want to increase your skill, but don’t necessarily want to go pro. For the 50D body alone, cost will run you around $825.00 and with a 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 lens the cost will run around 1,099.95 according to Amazon.

Let’s start off with the Canon Rebel T2i
The T2i is a great 18 Megapixel DSLR with a 3.0 inch LCD screen and 1080p HD movie capabilities, and advanced live view. ISO capabilities maximize at 6400 (smaller than the 7D and 50D) but still more powerful than the previous EOS versions. The T2i can shoot up to 3.7 frames per second and is compatible with all of Canon’s EF and EF-S lenses. One thing that is really cool about the T2i is its compatibility with SDXC memory cards and features an indicator for the Eye-Fi* support. Which means….with the appropriate memory card---you can wirelessly transfer the images straight from your camera---you don’t even have to take the card out of the slot! (how awesome is that!?!) (Of course you have to have the appropriate compatible technology to make it work.) One thing I really like about this camera is how much lighter than mine it is. (Totally more handy when out traveling or running around on vacation!) To buy this camera equipped with an EF-S 17-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens it will cost you around $1,029.00

Next we have the Canon Rebel T1i
The lightweight and user friendly T1i is a great starting point in the digital slr world with its 15.1 Megapixels and 3.0 live view LCD monitor that shoots up to 3.5 frames per second and offers HD video capture with resolutions up to 1080p. ISO ranges up to 3200 so it is a little lower than the T2i, but it is also a lot more friendly on the pocketbook! It is still compatible with all Canon EF and EF-S lenses so you don’t have to worry about your camera not being able to use a top notch lens. To buy this camera equipped with an EF-S 18-55mm f/2.5-5.6 IS lens will cost you around $699.00. (WOW! A LOT less than the T2i!)

Differences between the T2i and T1i are honestly, not that much, other than ISO capabilities and the megapixels. When it comes down to it, megapixels are not what the camera is all about and does not determine whether or not the camera is “all that and a bag of chips” so don’t let the smaller megapixels determine whether or not you will purchase the camera. My camera at this point only has 8.2 megapixels in it and it still takes great photos. You have to consider what you want to use your camera for and how much you want to invest in it.

Here is some other “Must Have" information when purchasing a camera:

Visit a store, hold the cameras, test the cameras, play around with them. (And I don’t mean go to Target or Best Buy---go to a camera store where they will actually have a charged battery so you can REALLY test it out!) Another thing you might want to consider is renting a camera for the weekend with a lens so you can really get a feel for how you like it. One place Sydni and I go to frequently to rent equipment is Arlington Camera, where the people are nice, and really know their stuff!
Shop around. After you have decided which camera fits your budget best and you have decided that you cannot, without a doubt, live without this camera, shop around. Look at various locations and check various credible sites for prices on the camera and make sure you look up what the package includes. One place, Abe’s of Maine will have packages available that would include all the little goodies you might want/need with your new camera. Other reliable stores include B&H Photo, Arlington Camera, and New Egg.
Buy a UV filter for your lens! A UV filter protects your lens from harmful UV rays and also protects your expensive lenses from scratches. It is a lot cheaper to buy a new filter rather than a new lens. I keep a UV filter on each of my lenses at all times.
Do your research. Read, research, take a class, learn how to use your camera. If you don’t know how to use your camera, you’ll never reach your full potential with your new amazing dslr. Some stores offer free classes and places like UTA offer continuing education courses on digital photography.

Other than that, good luck in your new search to find a new camera! Also, don’t forget, how often do you really get the chance to shoot a canon? Only when shooting with a Canon camera! ;)

“The Tipping Point”

2010-07-16T09:56:00.001-05:00

If you have not heard of The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell you might have been hiding from the book world the last year or so. Or maybe its because my husband stays up on new releases of books more than I do. Perhaps he reads more books than me and if I read something, he’s usually read it. (Unless it’s Band of Brothers or Understanding Poverty.)

Either way, I recently (finally) finished reading The Tipping Point. Not that it is an incredibly slow read, it is more like I am a slow reader and I am more easily distracted than my husband when it comes to reading.

I found The Tipping Point to be a very valuable read if you are any member of society…yes that is all of us. I believe it definitely contributes to making governmental decisions, and in this country it is all our duty to be a part of making governmental decisions, (which includes voting and writing our representatives.) It is not all about governmental policy but it does show theories of how things can influence society in different varieties, such as government, economy, etc.

The section of the book I really appreciated was the section regarding the “Broken Windows Theory” which explained the idea that if we do not do anything to correct and fix broken windows in our neighborhoods and cities, it sends a greater message that crime is not well managed.

The book itself addressed the effectiveness of the placement of the Broken Windows Theory to the rising crime rate in New York during the 1980’s. The city of New York addressed what seemed like small issues such as fare hopping and graffiti on the NY subway system. They made it priority to clean up the subway system and as a result, crime dropped drastically over the next few years. Eventually, addressing these small issues seemed to influence the bigger crime issues such as homicide, lowering rates overall.

I feel this theory really is interesting to me because I feel like the Broken Windows Theory is not addressed in many schools today, and probably not in the school that I work in. We try so hard to get these kids to graduate from high school and pass the dreaded TAKS test, but how can we get them to pass if they don’t bring a pencil to class to write with or come to school every day without an ID on? Some people say those are just small problems and we need to pick our battles, but it does not seem that “picking our battles” seems to really work. Discipline forms still flood our principals’ offices, and we often start school with less than half our kids present, and we still have no Parent/Teacher association, (that’s right, no parents involved.) It makes me wonder, if we started truly enforcing the consequences of tardiness, lack of wearing identification, coming to school in dress code, and addressing absences, would it overall affect our discipline problems and in turn improve our graduation rates? Or, how about not just worrying about graduation rates but about the quality of education we are offering these children overall?

There are so many children who are not taught to respect the rules at home and not taught to use words of respect for authority that it becomes a great challenge at school. We have to do what we can to manage, and it seems our current system of picking our battles does not seem to be working. Maybe it is time for a change.

I know this post was not photography related, but it has to do with life. Photography captures glimpses of life. I want the photography from my life to be pleasant glimpses and not those leading into despair.

‘Till Next Time

{DFW Photographer} Sunny Sunday

2010-07-11T15:00:00.000-05:00

Today is Sunday, 7/11, so go get your free slushies from Seven Eleven. That's right, they're giving away free slushies today, so go get yours.

Today it is finally sunny outside. It seems like it's been quite a while since we saw a pleasant day here in DFW, and one that isn't so dreary or rainy.
I'm glad the sun has come out; it is just too strange to have it being 78 and cloudy in the middle of July in Texas.

Today's image is from my visit to East Texas a couple of weeks ago when I went over to my cousin, Angie's house. Angie is three years older than me and has two wonderful children. Since Angie's photography buddy, (me) was in town, we drove up to a local old feed store and took some pictures. This one below is of Chance, her son up by an old door we found.
I really enjoy the time I get to spend with my cousin. She's become a great friend over the last few years and we get along quite well. It is always good when you can have great friends that are also family. :)

Well, that's about it for today.
'Till Next Time...

{DFW Photographer} July Dallas SMUG Mug Meet and Trash the Dress!

2010-07-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Last night was our monthly Smug Mug meeting at the Tower Club in Dallas, (yes, very swanky and nice!)
This month we had a Trash the Dress photoshoot....at night with four amazing models and two great cosmetology girls!

Overall we had about 35 photographers come out and Candice Cunningham came back out and supplied us with the wedding dresses, (apparently she has quite the collection for events such as these.)

Once we got outside we had a great time working with some fantastic people and it was SO much fun getting to do this shoot! Here are a couple of samples from last night's shoot:

This couple was HOT! and passionate:

I haven't had much chance to look over the rest of the photos--it has been a busy day so far, but when I get some others fixed up, I'll post 'em!

Till Next Time!

{DFW Photographer} Nolan & Christina's Sneak Peak!

2010-07-08T13:22:00.002-05:00

Like I said in my last post, Nolan & Christina came over yesterday afternoon and we shot some pictures for their maternity session. I had a blast, and I always enjoy doing pictures for Nolan & Christina. They are great friends from college and I am so glad that we keep in touch. Afterwards, we came back to the apartment and ordered pizza and hung out for a while before they had to go back to Rockwall. Before too long, baby D. will be here and we'll find out if they are a he or a she!

We started the session in my dining area with my makeshift backdrop, then headed to the club room or living room of the apartment office, and then headed to a local Mansfield park with lots of beautiful Pecan trees.

Christina is already super mom--when they first came over yesterday, I found out they had been mowing yards all day---at 8 months pregnant---see what I mean? Super Mom! They are going to be wonderful parents, and I look forward to meeting their wonderful baby soon!

Here are some more images from yesterday's session.

Christina said she likes the pictures without their faces. She said last night she liked this one:

It is funny, because I was able to get an incredible shot from their wedding back in 2007 without their faces:

Of course we had to do a couple of belly shots:

Christina is seriously one of the most beautiful pregnant people I have ever seen. She is gorgeous! I hope I look half as pretty while pregnant IF I ever have that experience!

You can view more photos from the shoot by clicking to view the slideshow.
Here's to hoping you're having a Happy Thursday!

{DFW Photographer} My First Maternity Session: Nolan & Christina

2010-07-07T22:05:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I shot my first maternity session here in Mansfield. My friends, Nolan & Christina came out and we did some pictures of them together before they welcome their new little one into the world in August. I love how they are leaving the gender of the baby as a surprise until he or she gets here!
I feel so honored that Nolan & Christina would let me photograph them again. I had so much fun photographing their wedding back in July of 2007, so to get a chance to do a maternity session for them made me super excited! I truly look forward to capturing more shots for them in the future!
Here are a couple of shots from this afternoon that I just love:

{DFW Photographer} Adventures on the Shankle Farm

2010-07-05T13:47:00.001-05:00

From Shankle Summer

I think my dad really enjoys having land that he can do things on, such as play and tinker with plows and tractors. Something might not be quite right and he will stick with it and mess with it until it is right.

From Shankle Summer

One time he tore out an entire staircase and built a new one because the old one was not quite right.

From Shankle Summer

I love that about him. He likes things to be done right and quality, not quick and shabby.

From Shankle Summer

I think my dad would be a great co-worker, (which is strange because we did get along all that great when I was a kid.) but I know exactly what I can expect from him as a co-worker and I know I would be able to depend on him and in turn, he pretty much knows exactly what to expect from me.

From Shankle Summer

These were taken while I was out on the Shankle Farm recently on a cloudy afternoon while Dad was working on his new plow. (I say "new" it really is actually not new, just new to him.)

I Miss This Dog

2010-07-05T13:36:00.000-05:00

From Shankle Summer

I really miss her. :( I left her with my Mom & Dad last week out in the Far East, (East Texas) since we were planning on leaving town that weekend for Austin, and my aunt is bringing her back to DFW tomorrow when she comes back to town. I has been nice not having to worry about taking her out to go to the bathroom, but I miss her cuddling up with me on the couch, the bed, etc. I also love the company when I'm home by myself, without the annoyance of having to answer a million questions.

This picture was taken last week when I was visiting Mom and Dad. She loves to prop herself up in the windows or just hop up there and hang out. I always think it is cute because it is like she is propping herself up on her elbows or something. Really, I am just a biased owner and think everything she does is cute...well, ALMOST everything.

I will see her tomorrow, but I still miss her today. :(

Happy Birthday USA!

2010-07-05T00:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I hope you have had a happy 4th of July. This is one of my favorite times of the year. When I was younger, we would go out to the lake and spend what seemed like all week for Fourth of July. We commonly camped out at the park for the TXU employees out by the power plant on Lake Bob Sandlin in Mount Pleasant, (coincidentally, across the lake from my husband's family land was/is and their lake lots.) Back then I didn't realize that we were camping in just about the closest thing to a free vacation as ever, but it was a lot of fun for us and I love having those memories of always going out to the lake. Ahhhh, to vacation to the smells of burning coal and bbq, and swimming in a lake that would dye your white swimsuit a rusty orange color! (PS: Don't ever wear a brand new swimsuit out to Lake Bob Sandlin---it won't stay new for long.) A lot of our family lived pretty close to the lake so every year we'd camp out at the lake with our close family friends Kenny & Karen and then our family would all come out on the 4th and we'd have a big get-together. Another great part of this time was my birthday. My birthday was ALWAYS spent out at the lake, but during these family gatherings, meant I had a family birthday party as well. :) Last year I told my mom I wanted to be out at the lake this year for my birthday, and she was relieved to hear that because she felt somewhat guilty for making me spend my birthday out at the lake all the time---she thought I got tired of it. Little did she know---I loved it. It always made my birthday seem special.

Well, we didn't end up at the lake this year for my birthday as I hoped. (We decided earlier we would just stay here since we were supposed to be buying a house, but when that fell through it was too late to make other plans of reserving a camp site.) We still were able to have some fun though. This year, Cliff and I went to Austin and stayed a couple of nights in the Renaissance Hotel in the Arboretum, then we decided to go to a "Jorth of July" party at some friends' house in south Austin. (Just imagine a whole lot of people dressed in jean shorts and t-shirts and you get the idea---it was super fun!) Here's an image from the bar at the hotel that I grabbed about 7am yesterday morning while an alarm was going off--so I was unable to go back to sleep!

Cliff and I always enjoy driving around Austin when we are there because there are so many pretty areas. Yesterday, we climbed up a cliff and took some pictures of an incredible bridge over the Colorado River on the Capitol of Texas Freeway.

I haven't really had a chance to go through the pictures from the party yet, but hopefully I'll have a few good ones to share. I hope you had a great weekend and a good week coming up!

July Birthdays and Fabulous Giveaways

2010-07-01T10:56:00.000-05:00

Happy July! It's totally, like, the best month EVER! (Okay, maybe I'm a little biased because my birthday is in two days!) (I really hope Cliff gets me an ice cream cake again!)

I have several friends that have July birthdays as well!
For example, my birthday twin, Sydni Rae! We're both fun photographers who have the coolest birthday ever--that is almost guaranteed to have fireworks, because we are that awesome, (no, not because it's the day before July 4th)

Then, there is my sister in law, Jenn, from Bohemian Rose, who makes all the fantastic soap and bath & body products out of her own home and they are delish! My favorite scent is the Minty Lavender! I am not a lavender fan, but when mixed with mint, ahhhhhhh! it is incredible! Warning though---the soap lasts forever! I keep waiting to buy more until I run out and I keep not running out! She also has some fabulous products such as her soap scrub--great for summer feet, yummy lip balms, facial scrubs, and more! Check her out and enter her contest!

Another great blogging friend of mine, Arena, from The Nerd's Wife is doing a book giveaway as well, because her birthday is in July too! (We are both hitting the quarter century mark, go us!)

Take a minute and stop by the awesome blogs of these fabulous ladies and wish them a happy birthday! (or, just enter their contest!)

{DFW Photographer} Twitter, Weddings, Roommates, and Family

2010-06-29T17:46:00.000-05:00

This week has been pretty full of excitement so far. Right now I am in East Texas out at the "Shankle Farm" ie: My parents' house/barn, spending a few days with family and visiting with old friends before I have to plant myself in DFW for the summer when I have knee surgery next month.

Twitter
First off, let me announce, I'm on Twitter now! You can find me at www.twitter.com/cleephoto.
I decided that I guess it is about time and give in to peer pressure and try this thing out. I'm still not sure that I really understand the point of Twitter, but hey, I will give it a shot. After Candice Cunningham was shocked that I did not Twitter despite the fact that I'm a Multimedia teacher and her giving me grief about it, I decided to try it out. :)

Weddings
Saturday I made my way out to Mansfield, Louisiana to see my former college roommate, Hillary get married. I did Hillary's engagement pictures last year in December and later did her Bridal shots this past spring. She was such a beautiful bride, and it was great to see college friends again! One thing that is great is I have been DYING to share Hillary's bridal pictures with you, and now I FINALLY get to share these pictures! We did the shoot on a Sunday afternoon at the Mandalay Canal in Las Colinas. This place is so beautiful! I wish I would have known about it earlier in life or had attempted to find it earlier, because it is just gorgeous. Hillary and her mom came out to my house from East Texas and we went out to take the pictures, sadly, she left her veil back at my apartment, but we made do anyway.
This slideshow I created at Magtoo.com where you can make slideshows for free as silly or elegant as you like.

Here is Hillary with both her dad and stepfather, both named "Stan" and have been great father figures in her life.

From Hillary's wedding

These two girls were precious and I had fun playing with the editing of this picture:

From Hillary's wedding

James is Larry's son from a previous marriage that is super cute and seems to be fitting in with his new extended family quite well.

From Hillary's wedding

I thought the forks were lined up so pretty---and I like weird things such as forks.

From Hillary's wedding

Here are the three former fabulous roommates:

From Hillary's wedding

While I was at Hillary's wedding, I was able to see my old roommates from my senior year in college. Wendy and Eva were both there, and they both got married back in 2007 right after I graduated in May. We all lived in this really old house in Marshall, and we called it the House of CHEW, (Christy, Hillary, Eva, & Wendy.) It previously had been dominated by the baseball boys of ETBU and the softball girls before that. When the three baseball boys that lived there before us decided to move out, we jumped at the chance to move in. We had some fun times, expensive electricity bills, furry rats, but all in all, it was a good year where we learned a lot and made a lot of memories. Wendy and I had lived together for two years previous to that senior year, and we were both concentrating in Social Studies in conjunction with our degrees in Education--so we were the history nerds, oh yeah, and band nerds as well. Three glorious summers of marching band on a black asphalt parking lot----whew! Those were the days! We found Hillary and Eva across the way, and Hillary and I were also in colorguard together at ETBU, (part of the band.)

Since Hillary's wedding, I have been in East Texas visiting with some family and friends while I am here and I'll head back to the metroplex tomorrow morning. I've taken the opportunity to do some things that I don't always get the chance to do while I am out here. Sunday, I went and visited my cousin Angie, who is a photography buddy as well, and really enjoyed my time with her and her family. We get along very well. Angie and I both are really practical and have a lot in common. Her and Mandy were so mean to me as a kid, I mean, really, who wants to hang out with the younger grandchild? But since we have gotten older, and really since I went to college, we have become very close. I value our relationship, and hope it always remains as good as it is.

Monday, I went up to Mount Pleasant and visited my best friend, Terrie, who is going to be teaching Pre-K this fall!!! Terrie has always wanted to be a teacher, from the moment I have met her, she knew she wanted to teach children, and now she finally gets to achieve her dream! I am so excited for her! We went up to her classroom to work on getting some things organized, and goodness, there were packets of construction paper stashed EVERYWHERE in that room! I think we finally found it all and were able to organize it all in the closet. At least we got ONE thing done!

Tonight, we are going out to eat fish with some 2nd and 3rd cousins at a traditional place that we go to eat if we ever have a family gathering....David Beard's Catfish Village off Hwy 155 in Ore City. I definitely look forward to eating some bottom feeder catfish and visiting with family!

'Till Next Time!

East Texas Red

2010-06-24T22:44:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned previously in my last post, I recently went to East Texas. It was good to see my parents again, and of course, Holly Dog loves to go out to the "farm" and play endlessly with Millie--my parents' chocolate lab.

This year, my parents have finally been able to put in a garden. When I was younger, my parents always had a garden when we lived in Longview. It was a pretty large garden, usually with corn, cucumbers, jalapenos, and of course, tomatoes. You cannot have a garden and not have tomatoes growing in it. It is a must. Well now, they have a massive garden with lettuce, cantaloupe, squash, zucchini, strawberries, corn, watermelon, peppers, and of course, tomatoes. When I told my mother in law about my parents' garden this year and that we would be visiting soon, she told me one important thing before we left, "...AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT MY TOMATOES!" well, and she did remind us to be safe, because that is what mothers do, and even though she'll tell you she's not my mother, she is still my husband's, and my friend as well; so of course she will tell us to be careful----no matter how old we get.

Back to tomatoes though. East Texas tomatoes are incredible. They are all a deep, meaty red and full of flavor. They are downright, better than any other tomato I have ever tasted. Slice them up, add some salt and a good bit of pepper, and they are delicious. Be careful though, if you eat too many---your mouth may react to all that acid. But they are ohhhhhhh so good!
Tonight, I made a great bacon and tomato sandwich. But before I butchered a beautiful East Texas tomato, I had to give it a little "photo shoot." haha!

From Blogger Pictures

See how red and meaty these things are?? YUM!!

From Blogger Pictures

With June Comes Bridal Showers

2010-06-20T21:20:00.001-05:00

Very soon my cousin Caleb will be marrying his wonderful bride, Katie...on July 3rd, (also my b-day!) So, this weekend we threw a bridal shower to welcome Katie to the Higgins family.

My mother and aunt Debra were the ladies who were in charge of putting this whole thing together. They always do a great job throwing showers. I must say, they put together the absolute best showers of anyone I've ever seen. They make sure all the details are taken care of and they make sure each one is extra special. The food, of course, is always spectacular and great!
Here are a couple of the great little desserts we had at the shower yesterday:
My aunt Debra made these great lemon tarts, topped with miracle whip and a fresh raspberry. I think my favorite part though was the homemade pie crust!

Then there are the pound cake yogurt desserts that my mom made... They were scrumptious!

For the shower, my contribution was designing the invitations. I came up with about 10 different versions and my mom and aunt decided on this one.

I also wanted to give them something really special for them as a wedding gift and really congratulate them on becoming a couple, so I decided to design a set of note cards with their name on them with their new last name monogram.

Once I get some of my pictures sized well enough--I'll post some more images from the shower and the hamburger supper we had afterwards in honor of Father's Day. (Which my mom reminded Cliff that he could not eat first with the fathers because she was not a grandmother yet!---she's a little anxious for grandchildren.)

Well, that is about it. I'm going to go do some research and prep for maternity and newborn sessions I have coming up!

Lovebirds Blog Background

2010-06-16T19:31:00.001-05:00

Here is yet another blog background I've uploaded. I used some free brushes from Pixels and Ice Cream and added the colors and techniques. It is 1600 pixels wide for those extra wide screens and 1100 pixels tall. Click on the image to download.

The Written Word Blog Background available for download.

2010-06-14T10:46:00.000-05:00

Here is another blog background called "The Written Word" It was a little challenging deciding how to add the touch of color in there, but I went with a well rounded red. It's extra wide for those wide screen monitors and laptops, the central area for the body of the blog is 750 pixels--the optimum width for the web.

Lovely Birds Blog Background available for download.

2010-06-14T10:44:00.000-05:00

This is another blog background I whipped up yesterday. I would like to have made a couple of other changes to it--but of course I saved it in the wrong PNG format. Oh well. Click on it to download!

New Blog Background Available for download

2010-06-13T17:43:00.001-05:00

My friend Sydni Rae commented on how she liked my new background getup. Well, I decided that I would create a couple of other backgrounds and share them with a creative commons license so if anyone wants to use them...go for it. Click on the image to download.

Damask Bliss blog background available for download.

2010-06-13T17:41:00.004-05:00

Here is another blog background that I worked up this afternoon in case anyone else wants to use it. It has a creative commons license on it so you can use it for personal use or on your business blog---just don't try to re-sell it. :) Click on the image to download.

DFW Photographer-- Head Shots in Las Colinas

2010-06-13T12:48:00.001-05:00

Cliff has always been pretty supportive of the decisions I make. He's even been so supportive as to place a link to my website on the community electronic bulletin board at work. As a result, a couple of people have been interested in my photography and have called me. That is how Ann found me. Last week Ann called me looking for a rush job for some head shots for her granddaughter, Alex, who participates in some pageants and has started doing some modeling.

So, we met up Saturday afternoon at the Mandalay Canal in Las Colinas for a quick photo shoot, and Alex was fun to work with and I think we got some good shots! Good luck Alex on your upcoming pageants and I look forward to working with you again!

Honestly, it is hard to pick a favorite!

DFW Photographer---Birthday Wish!

2010-06-10T23:32:00.000-05:00

Well, last night was the first ever Dallas SmugMug Meeting at the very nice Tower Club on Elm Street.
Candice Cunningham was one of our guest speakers and she was quite inspiring with her talk about marketing your brand. (I might have gotten in a little bit of trouble for not being a twitter-er.) One thing I saw of Candice's was something I would LOVE to have.....
This amazing little thing called the Canon EF 70-200 mm L F4 Lens Coffee Mug.

I just might start drinking coffee regularly in the middle of summer so I can have this mug. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this!

Do not fear Nikon lovers, they have a coffee mug for you now too.

About the best price I have seen on these wonderful little things has been about $35.00--a little pricey for a coffee mug, but come on! I say it is truly difficult to pass up something this amazing!
Needless to say...the title of this post says "Birthday Wish" so if you must know, my birthday is coming up in less than a month---on July 3rd, which happens to be the same day my cousin is getting married. So----if anyone mentions "I really would like to get Christy a super cool birthday gift." Go ahead and tell 'em I'm in love with this little lens look a like coffee mug! And......don't hesitate to order one of these fantastic little things for the camera enthusiast in your life.

Sam Houston HS Graduation--2010

2010-06-09T11:06:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday, I went to Sam Houston's graduation, and it was a great experience. Last year I did not go to graduation, but I am sure glad that I did go this year. It was a nice reminder of why I chose to teach high school. It gave me great joy to see all of the graduates so happy that they were earning the right to cross that stage, especially some of those that we weren't quite sure if they were going to make it yet. :) Some of these students are the first graduates in their families, and it was truly a special event. You know, some people are lucky to have children graduate a couple of years in their lifetime. I am fortunate to have kids graduate every year!
Below you'll see a slide show of pictures I took at graduation.

Saturday's I Heart Faces Photo Walk, Dallas

2010-06-08T21:29:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday was busy, and when I mean busy, I had three different things going on that day. First thing was first, the I Heart Faces Photo Walk in Dallas. It all started with me checking the map and website to make sure I knew where to meet. 9:10am at the Starbuck's off Akard street. I assumed Woodall Rodgers Freeway had an exit for Akard---I was sure of it. I was wrong. Then I felt I knew Dallas well enough that I didn't need to take a map with me. I was wrong. After driving around and around, searching for a place to park, beating my steering wheel multiple times out of anger because I was twenty minutes late and couldn't find anyone walking around Akard street with a camera. FINALLY after driving around and closer to Woodall Rodgers, I found a parking lot with a mass amount of women holding cameras and camera bags. YAY! I found the group! (Pause for breath here.)

Aside from being late for the group, I had a great time walking around downtown Dallas meeting various people and taking pictures with other enthusiasts. Thanks to my friend Arena, (The Nerd's Wife) for getting me on board to go on the Photo Walk. I had a blast and got a plethora of pictures!

Shall I share some pictures from the walk? But of course!

We had some great young ladies as models for our walk. They were super sweet and loved the camera.

Get your photography on Arena!

Then I met some other people while on our walk throughout downtown:
I met Darius, who was waiting at the lightrail station after hanging out downtown during the morning. He is super nice and was so nice in fact, he allowed me to take his picture while waiting for the train.

Then we met Mr. Hobbs, a security officer while downtown. He and his partner kept us laughing the entire time we interacted with them! They were such nice gentlemen! They said they weren't used to so many people taking their picture. I told them they just need to go tell their wives they were "paparazied" today. :) This image is SOOC by the way. Not a thing was done to it. (Fill flash really can do wonders for you photography when outside.)

We also met this lady who was a carriage driver for a family who was shooting a video for a girl's quince birthday. (Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the girl's dress, which was awesome in it's black and hot pink combination.) I did not get a chance to speak to the driver, but her picture came out good just the same. I like her in her proper traditional attire while checking her iphone. :)

The photo walk was a great way to start my summer and my busy day on Saturday. I look forward to doing more I Heart Faces Photo Walks and shooting more with my friend Arena in the future. :)

I Heart Faces Photo Walk--Dallas

2010-06-06T01:21:00.000-05:00

I thought I knew how to get there, just exit Akard off Woodall Rodgers....no biggie.....YEAH RIGHT!

Thirty minutes later, after I've driven in circles around downtown Dallas, and round and round the Starbucks, Myerson, called both my dad and grandfather who know downtown pretty well due to their work experience and beating my steering wheel relentlessly, I finally discovered the parking lot with a crowd of women and their DSLR cameras! I FINALLY made it to the I Heart Faces Photo Walk that my friend Arena, (The Nerd's Wife) hooked me up with for this morning's photography adventure.

Being Texas, it was hot, but we had fun! It was really neat to meet other photography enthusiasts that live in the area and shoot pictures with them as well. It was truly an experience! I love learning more about photography and one of the best ways is to be around other people who are eager to learn as well and are open to learning from each other.

Here's one of my 176 shots from today of one of the precious models we had with us!

I ran a couple of Pioneer Woman's actions---Boost and another one on the new Photoshop CS5 extended version, then re-sized it for the web, and apparently I can't spell "photography" tonight. Go figure---it has been a long and eventful day of photo walks, graduation, and birthday parties.

I'll be back later with more images and news about the photo walk. Peace out and 'till next time!

End of the Year Wrap Up

2010-05-26T23:21:00.000-05:00

The 2009-2010 school year is slowly coming to a close---yet fast at the same time. I still want to do some super cool projects with my kiddos but alas, the school year has to end at some point. The thing that made me smile the other day though is when a few kids asked if there was a "Multimedia 2" option in the classes. Boy---I wish there was---we could focus more on other parts of media and we could go further in depth and make it all connect a little easier, but there isn't....oh well.

Right now we are finishing up a super cool project called the "Multimedia Marketing Package Design" where my kids had to design a logo, business card, and letterhead for a skateboarding company in Dallas. They had to imagine that they were hired by that company to give them a "facelift" and create some new marketing tools for them. I have been very pleased with most of the results so far! Some of these kids are putting together some GOOD stuff when I have not been able to get assignments out of them all year long! I am so proud of my students so far while grading these and seeing about 150 different ways "Index Skateboard Supplies" can be interpreted. It is amazing how different some of these designs are, and how creative some of them are as well. There are of course, the bad apples who did not do much of classwork all year long, and did not do half their project, but the stuff I am getting from most---I am super impressed! I've been printing out logos like crazy and posting them all over my walls!

All that said, I am looking forward to the summer. I am looking forward to focusing on my photography more and developing it into a better tool. I want to be phenomenal at photography. As I look through pictures from the past in history and I see those important moments captured on film, such as the "Migrant Mother" from the Depression era, or the Frenchman weeping as the Nazis marched into Paris, I just cannot help but think, "Man! I want to have a picture like that!" I want people who see my work to well up with emotion and feel like they are there in the action--the moment, that changed history. I want them to feel joy, happiness, sorrow, and anger as they see my photos. I want them to be able to see the story. I am going to make it an earnest goal of mine to practice and work on my photography this summer and be active in the community to expand my photography and allow myself to grow.

I am a photographer.....hear me click my shutter!!!!!!

The Texas Tech Graduate

2010-05-20T16:59:00.000-05:00

Congratulations are in order---my younger sister graduated from Texas Tech last weekend on May 14th with her Bachelor's degree in Human Sciences. Cliff and I ventured out to Lubbock for the event and discovered that the town can turn into a series of rivers once it rains a little bit. Yep, just a little bit of water out there causes you to start looking for an ark! I didn't think I'd get any pictures of graduation but the rain stopped and Cliff, being the incredible husband that he is, went back out to the car and brought my camera inside, just in time for Jessie to walk up to the stage and accept her diploma, and for me to capture her "getting her guns up" in the crowd of the rest of the graduates who had their hands in their laps. :)

Jessie is a lot of fun---she's very outgoing and marches to the beat of her own drum for sure---everyone in our family can identify it. She does not care if it is cool or what others want her or not want her to do---she's very much her own person. I admire her for that. She can make me laugh so much. Even when we were younger, she had a wild imagination and could turn a simple ribbon bow into a whole Broadway performance. (She really did that one time at the table...) She knows me well enough that if I had to leave my house to be completely renovated and decorated by someone else, I would completely trust her to do it---and not much of anyone else. Jessie is usually the first person I buy for at Christmas---because I probably found her gift in June---she's that easy to buy for. Tech fit her well as red was already her favorite color and the air is dry---allowing her to contain her wild woman hair!

Jessie will start teaching a toddler class this summer at the Texas Tech CVRC--where they hire certified teachers for their pre-school. She's very excited to start her job, as well as the rest of the family is for her.

Never Underestimate the Power of a First Look (DFW Wedding Photographer)

2010-05-18T23:10:00.000-05:00

Exactly as it says, do not underestimate the power of a First Look Session with your future spouse on your wedding day. This is time set aside before the wedding for you and your partner only--with the photographer. It is a good time for the photographer to get some portraits of you two together without everyone waiting on you to cut the cake. Here you can get some really intimate portraits that can mean a lot between you and your spouse, and you are still excited and not all worn out from the festivities. Honestly, I wish Cliff and I had done a First Look session for our wedding...I REALLY wish we would have done that! We got pictures of us together, but I felt like they were rushed and I wish I had some more of just us together before the wedding. I tend to be pretty traditional, but if your love is truly meant to last....a first look session will not bash your luck for your marriage, in fact, it might even make it better!
The above picture is of my cousin and her husband before their wedding. They did something really cute where Stephen wore a blind fold and Mandy came to him--it was super special and a moment just for them during the wedding day.
So think about it before you plan the photography for your wedding day, and do not forget to ask your wedding photographer about a First Look Session!

Senior Season

2010-05-03T22:55:00.000-05:00

Right now it's senior season---it's all about the seniors in high school, or some in college as well! Kids are gearing up and getting ready to assemble their graduation invitations, and of course, add in their super cool new wallet picture they had taken during their senior session with their photographer.

I love senior photography. You can be so creative with it, and there are no set rules anymore to senior pictures; well, except the only rule may be, "express yourself!" This is the time where it is all about that person and their achievements so far in life, and the bridge to the next level. From now on, they fully determine what happens in their future, whether they decide to go to work, technical school, college, military, or some other endeavor. This week I've had orders for three senior sessions and I'm so excited to have gotten the prints in today! I love coming home to that package of prints from my lab and seeing the hard work I have put into my projects in tangible form. I love preparing the prints, making sure they are packaged well enough for delivery to my clients and preparing everything just right.

Tomorrow I'm delivering a new product that I'll be offering with senior print orders from now on that is super cool! It totally fits with what a senior session should be all about---creative and expressive of the individual. However, I'm not planning on revealing this until tomorrow, because I want my client to see the product in hand first! (Don't worry, the pictures are already taken.)

So, make sure that when you have your senior pictures done, they are reflective of your personality and creativity...after all, it is your time to shine!!!

'Till Next Time...

I'm Having Nightmares

2010-04-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

That's right, I've been having nightmares, except they don't happen when I sleep, but they still keep me up at night. They make my stomach hurt, my hair fall out, my husband's hair fall out, and give me ulcers in my mouth. The nightmares I've been having are called searching for a home to purchase. Ugh, house hunting, I'm so tired of it!
We did have a contract on a house, but it fell through. The sellers found out how much their house was actually worth and they did not want to come down, and eventually gave us problems with upholding their end of the contract as well. Monday was an absolutely horrid day and I thought I just wanted to crawl up in the fetal position, fall asleep, and then wake up in June; either that or go barge through someone's office and demand my earnest money back. It was a nightmare that wouldn't end, hopefully the worst is over now, we shall see.

Now we are considering a couple of options. We can wait for this whole tax credit to blow over and home prices to drop and build a new house and choose what we want, on the lot we want, (anyone know anything about First Texas Homes?) or we can purchase an existing home that's about 12 years old, but in good shape and a great size. It's only been on the market for 1, yes, one day, and houses are being grabbed up quickly. Two houses we were interested in a week ago have already gotten contracts on them, so if we act on it, we need to act fast. The hard part is deciding what to do. Do we attempt to go for the tax credit with a matter of a few days left or do we build something for a little bit more money and get what we want??? (Which would also be closer to our totally fantastic, and photography buddy family members, AND it's just off the lake!)

People say if you can build a house together your marriage will survive, I'm beginning to think that just buying a house alone is hard enough. The financing has been fine, it's the negotiations with the sellers that has been so difficult, then finding something that isn't being grabbed up that fits my picky desires. (Hey, I'm making at least a 10 year investment here, I'm allowed to be picky for once!) Luckily it hasn't been quite as hard agreeing with Cliff. Some things yes, but others no; I like older houses, where as Cliff prefers a newer home, about 12 years is as old as he'll go.

Well, I have this and two showers ahead of me this weekend. I get to hang out with some college friends this Saturday and old church friends on Sunday, plus I get to see my mom and dad!!! Maybe I need this weekend to get away from it all.

Laura's Senior Shoot, (Grand Prairie Senior Photographer)

2010-04-14T20:48:00.000-05:00

Cliff is so awesome, he is also supportive in my endeavors. He demonstrates this by doing things such as putting my business card up on his work bulletin board to advertise for my photography. It actually worked as well! Cliff's co worker asked me to do a senior session for her daughter, Laura, who is graduating from South Grand Prairie High School this spring.
This weekend we did her senior shoot at Cedar Hill State Park.

Laura is so pretty. She's pretty quiet, but anything she says it is something worth saying. Laura told me she is planning on going to college in sunny Florida and major in film making---how exciting is that!? Congratulations Laura and I enjoyed our session the other day!

All About the Monogram

2010-04-10T03:55:00.000-05:00

I love things with monograms. I just like type and fonts in general. I think that letters are so beautiful, why shouldn't they be used in our homes and decor? They are classic and distinguished at the same time. When Cliff and I got married, I could have plastered our monogram everywhere at the wedding had he let me, matter of fact, we had it as the cake topper and on our invitations. Now, my obsession with our monogram probably has to do with
a.) I'm a multimedia teacher and fonts are just my thing, and b.) our monogram is all one letter, so it's uniform, and I like a uniform look.

The monogram posted above is in the same font we had on our invitations and on my wedding planning notebook. (Yes, I had a notebook I put together, and I still have it--can't bear to take out the contents and throw them away!) In a way, I'm matchy matchy like that.

Well, it's late and my mind won't let me sleep, partly because I'm nervous about this house hunting (again) tomorrow, so I'm still up and surfing the web for fun things online. I also have a couple of friends getting married before too long and I like to get personalized gifts when I can, something that means something. A monogrammed gift can always be a good idea, you can usually judge by their personality if they will like it or not. Most people will enjoy that you put thought into the new life these two people are bringing together. So, here are a few cool gift ideas with monograms.

This gift is a personalized address rubber stamp from Lovetocreatestamps at their Etsy shop. This stamp is only 12.75 when others are definitely more expensive. The only thing is that it is not self inking, so you have to keep an ink pad on hand, however the beauty of that is you can change the color ink you use for whatever you use the stamp for. (Think, red at Christmas, perhaps purple at Easter, etc.) If you know your couple's new address this is something that will give them a sense of togetherness, and it will help in the thank you card process as well!

Next there is always the option of ordering some family coasters for your friend's new family. Whether it's two people or fifteen people, you have a family, and these coasters are timeless for friends who are getting married, plus we all use coasters. These coasters are from ShoopTiles32 at Etsy and they are 15.00 for a set of 4.
Not everyone will like the timeless look, but still a lot of people do.

However, if your friends are a little bit more modern and trendy, these super cute personalized yellow Clover Leaf Coasters are so cool and they come from Swagger gifts. Earlier today when I was scoping out KevinandAmanda.com, I saw that Amanda posted about Swagger gifts and found these coasters that I thought were super cute...which kind of led to the whole monogrammed coaster search on Etsy...

Well, of course you can go with some monogrammed hand towels. These towels, of course are from Etsy. I love how they are sleek and modern looking, plus they have the established year on them. These come in a pack of two by MaureenMakesIt and they run at $25.00 for a pair.

The possibilities are really endless. There are so many items out there you can choose from, it just might take a little planning ahead.
Some other items I think are cool include the rubberwood cutting board and metal spreader I found on Amazon or this cool monogram bottle topper for wine enthusiasts that runs around 13.99.
Now, can you go too far on the monograms? OF COURSE! (Monogrammed toilet paper anyone??) However, some gifts with initials are still pretty neat. Happy shopping everyone. I'm going to bed.

House Hunting

2010-04-10T00:07:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow we are starting the house hunt...again. Hopefully out of 12 houses we can find one that will actually work out this time. We had a contract on a house for a little over a month and it fell through this week due to the appraisal. I'd be lying if I said I was not really disappointed about the situation, but I guess it just was not meant to be. That's alright, there is a house out there for us that will work out just fine, and we'll have a happy life together and hopefully begin to raise a family out of it. The most important thing will be that we're together in a happy healthy home. The sad thing about the state of the housing market right now is that there really aren't a whole lot of winners in the situation. Lenders aren't making money because they are not lending very much, sellers are having a very hard time selling their home, buyers are having a hard time getting lending approval. Unfortunately, some people are loosing their home and having to move out, all to see their former home sit empty and unlived in for months and months. Right now we are the buyer, and I guess it really is the better situation to be in despite the stress we've had to go through finding a home. Fortunately, our credit situation is fine, it was just the appraisal that threw a kink into the system. The lender thought the house was worth less than the seller thought it was worth---so we did get it...stinks huh? I guess the worst part about that situation is that I had no control over it; and it completely depended upon other people's decisions and I find that frustrating. Hopefully this house hunt will be better. Wish us luck tomorrow!

It's Time For Bluebonnets!

2010-04-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

If you live in Texas, you truly understand the hype over bluebonnets, our beloved state flower, that is pretty much unique to this state.
(We won't focus on the fact that a Bluebonnet is pretty much a weed.) This is a favorite time of year for outdoor portraits among families.

Here is one of my FAVORITE bluebonnet pictures ever!

This is from my first photoshooot with my Canon that I got back in the spring of 2007. It's from the engagement session of my cousin, Mandy and her husband Stephen. We were out for 8 whole hours shooting! However, we got some good shots that day, and who can resist Mandy's smile?

So....in lieu of Bluebonnet season here in Texas, I'm thinking of hosting a special: $175 family session up to five people for an hour in the bluebonnets with rights to print! This will only last as long as the bluebonnets so book your session now and enjoy those beautiful weeds!

'Till Next Time!

Someone Keeps Trying to Steal My Pillow

2010-03-28T17:01:00.000-05:00

This is what I woke up to this morning....my dog laying above me on the brown pillow and her head all over my pillow. The lighting was great so I broke out my camera and Cliff woke up to the clicks of the shutter snapping shots of Holly.
Happy Sunday everyone!

Meet Makayla

2010-03-24T20:44:00.000-05:00

Meet Makayla Lynn Alexander. Isn't she so peaceful and sweet looking? Mykayla is the first daughter of my cousin Mandy, and she was born on February 16th of this year in Fort Worth.

Recently, I went over to visit Mandy, Stephen, and Makayla at their home after they had been home from the hospital for about two weeks. Makayla slept so well despite the electricity messing up at home and going on and off throughout the day. (Fortunately, they did get it fixed!)

Mandy and Stephen were married in 2007, the same year as Cliff and I were, except they got married on June 30th, a few months before we did. Mandy and Stephen met while attending college at Sam Houston State and are both very dedicated to their life in Christ and spreading the Word of God. I have no doubt that Makayla will be standing right there with them before too long, and I imagine with a super cute smile on her face if she is anything like her mother.

My grandfather now has as many great grandchildren as he has grandchildren and so far, they are more evenly split--3 boys and 4 girls, much more evenly than the 2 boys and 5 girls with the original grandchildren. :)
Well, I'm going to go back to going through my Spring Breakout pictures. Look out for a post about Baer House, the Bed and Breakfast we stayed in during our visit to Vicksburg!

Spring Break Recap

2010-03-22T23:11:00.000-05:00

Well, we arrived back on our home turf yesterday afternoon at 4:00 pm and we came in, dumped our things at the door, and then the dog and I retreated to the bed and took a nap! Cliff had to peel me out of the bed to come in the living room and eat some pizza. It was not ideal to stay away from home for nine days, but we did indeed enjoy our time on vacation.
I probably took hundreds of pictures. I really have no idea how many there were, but I do know I did still have plenty of room on my 8gig memory card.

Here are some of the images from our memories of spring break 2010. Now I have not had the time to go through all of them and pick out the best, but here are some goodies:

Here are Jordan and Kristeen, our good friends who live in Baton Rouge. Cliff and Jordan have been friends since elementary school, and the three of us were all members of the Midlothian Panther Regiment in high school. Oh high school band... Cliff and Jordan were both snare drummers and hands down the coolest guys in the band. Kristeen is Jordan's fantastic wife whom I feel we get along quite well. She is super nice and has excellent taste in wedding dresses. Matter of fact, we all got married within two months of each other, and come to find out, Kristeen and I picked out practically the same wedding dress--with just a little difference in the coloring behind the beading and on the train. It was totally unplanned and kindof neat. Kristeen's bustle totally blew mine away--it was SO much prettier than mine.

Well, you can't experience the heart of Louisiana without a swamp boat tour, and with that comes seeing the alligators. We came at the perfect time of year. They were just coming out to start sunning, but they weren't quite eating yet. So I was able to snag several shots of the alligators and terrify my mother when I showed them to her.

This shot is from our New Orleans experience. We ventured down to the French Quarter on Saturday evening to see the Big Easy for ourselves. Here, we were able to see this fantastic band who sang vintage songs from the depression era. I'm almost regretting not purchasing their cd.

Well, that is about it for tonight. It is late and time for some more sleep so I can keep up with the kiddos at work tomorrow. Have a good evening!

Mississippi

2010-03-17T23:27:00.000-05:00

Currently we are in Vicksburg, Mississippi for our Spring Breakout, 2010. Today we ventured around the Military Park and took Holly with us. I think if we could have let her off her leash she would have greatly enjoyed the trip---especially with all the wide open spaces.

Yesterday, on our way in, we stopped at this plantation on the way and took some shots of her in the dafodills. Isn't she super cute?? Okay, perhaps I am biased. :) Holly really is my pride an joy, and my photography model who never complains.

Here is a view of the military park in Vicksburg. We stopped about halfway through because I really wanted to see some other things in Vicksburg as well. It is truly SO BEAUTIFUL here. I can definitely understand why photographers would come out this way and visit because the park is just outstanding. It is amazing to see how God created something so beautiful. I will indeed post more pictures of our Military Park trip once we get home or get to my parents' house.

I also had the opportunity to take some natural lighting shots of some of the rooms here at Baer House where we are staying. It really is a neat home and has a truly interesting story. I will also have to post some of those pictures later as well.

Well, I'm off to bed, it's time for some rest. The last thing I want to be on vacation is tired!

Spring Break 2010!!!

2010-03-15T11:01:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again, SPRING BREAK! Man! I'm so glad this time has finally come this year! Currently, we are visiting friends in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and we have enjoyed every minute so far. I have now finally experienced New Orleans for the first time ever and we have enjoyed a swamp boat tour in the last two days. The boys are out playing golf and pretty soon, Kristeen and I will go get a pedicure.
After this we are headed to Vicksburg, Mississippi for a couple of days and then we'll end the week by visiting my parents out at the Shankle farm.
The good news is I still have plenty of room on my 8gig memory card. The bad news is, I have run out of room on my hard drive on my computer...yikes!!!
Either way, here is an image from yesterday's swamp boat tour...where we saw real aligators!

As usual, all photos are property of Christina Carpenter, photographer of Christina Lee Photography. Please respect the photographer's work and do not use or copy without permission.

I hope you are having a great start to your week and enjoying your spring break if you are on one!

SHHS Cheer

2010-02-19T18:21:00.000-06:00

Lately I have been quite busy at work, and I just got busier.
Aside from my teaching job at Sam Houston High I also do the webmaster work there and design/maintain the website. Well, that led to doing some poster design work for our drill team, which ended up pretty cool! If I had the file with me I would show you, but then again, I guess you could drop by www.aisd.net/sam and see the drill team's spring show and tryout ads for yourself.

Well, our cheer sponsor saw the posters and really liked the work, so I was asked to do some more work....design a cheerleading tryout poster. Since then, another high school in our district has also asked me to design their drill team poster...it's really kindof neat because I enjoy doing this type of stuff, but it is added work too!

Back to the cheerleading squad though. Today after school, we met on the football field and did a little mini shoot for the tryout poster. Here's one of my favorite shots of the day:

Don't these kids look great! The afternoon was perfect. It was cloudy and I had my flash...all was good. The only thing I did to this image was resize it for the web and darken the grass just a tad...just to give it some "umph." This crowd was fun to work with and I look forward to getting their tryout poster put together next week.

I know the pose is a little done before, but I still like getting the grass behind them. The darkness somewhat balanced out the white of their uniforms and just looked really good with it.

When we finished, some of the girls asked me how to get some pictures for themselves and I told them I also do senior pictures as well. So, girls and guy....I look forward to hopefully doing senior portraits for y'all at some point!

Well, that's it for now, have a good weekend!

Birth Announcements

2010-02-13T22:24:00.000-06:00

Well, we had a snow day on friday, so we didn't do much but sit around the house.
I also happen to know at least 14 people that are expecting children at the moment.
So.....I got the creative bug and decided to design some birth announcements.

Do you like them? I'm still in practice mode. However, if you are interested in ordering, please leave a comment or email me at cleeelegantphoto@gmail.com

Well, that's about it! Hope you have a good weekend and a great weekend!

Day 20: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-13T22:10:00.000-06:00

We only have one day left....

Today was pretty much the same. We had fish for lunch and grilled chicken breast tenders for dinner.

We looked at two houses today, and showed them to each of our parents. I'm so thankful our parents are willing to help us out in this house buying process. They were all able to help us see some things in each of the houses that we previously had not seen. I think we've permanately knocked out the largest house from the mix. It's a good floorplan, but we just found all kinds of little cracks in the sheetrock and the baseboards throughout the house. For someone it will be the right house, but it's not for us. The other one we still really like, perhaps even like it more and more. I'm not sure if it beats out another house we haven't had a chance to look at again though. We shall see.

Well, that's about it for tonight. Have a good one.

Day 18: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-11T22:35:00.000-06:00

Today I cheated on my diet, err, my body cleanse.

I cheated on it because I ate this:

It's Snow Ice Cream. We have had upwards of five inches of snow on the ground today here in DFW. I have NEVER seen snow like this in Texas in my lifetime. It was perfect snow, easily packs together. It was great for snow ice cream. Now how many chances do you ever get to make and eat some great snow ice cream here in North Texas? The chances are second to none. So I broke my diet and mixed in some evaporated milk with a little Splenda and vanilla for an afternoon treat.

Here's what you need to make Snow Ice Cream

You'll need snow of course. Get some fresh--an area that hasn't been touched. We have to watch out for yellow doggie snow in our complex.

Scoop you up some fresh snow in a bowl, Splenda (or a sweetener,) Evaporated Milk, and Vanilla.

Mix in about a 1/2 tablespoon with splenda, a tablespoon or two of vanilla, and a little evaporated milk and mix it all together. Then you've got your snow ice cream!

Like I said earlier, it has been snowing like crazy here in DFW today. It started in the middle of the night and it's been snowing all day!!! I had so many kids absent today. I probably had about 15 absent from two classes. During all lunches there were lots of snowballs thrown in our school courtyard, but luckily, nothing near as bad as what apparently happened at Skyline High School this afternoon, according to News 8.

The snow is the deepest I have ever seen in this part of Texas. It is so much fun to play in, but it's definitely all over the road. It's supposed to drop down to the upper '20s as far as temperature tonight, so all the muck will definitely freeze, causing several schools to cancel classes tomorrow, including mine. YAY NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!! (oh, did I say that too loud??)

Here's some images from today:

Here's the front of Sam Houston High School at around 10:00 am.

This is how my car greeted me as I went out to the parking lot to leave today. I was one of the only people left at about 3:45pm. It was so clean and not covered this morning when I left home. I guess that's over.

Holly and Cliff were out this afternoon when I got home. Holly loved the snow.

Hey you super cute dog!

Just sniffin' around, lookin' for some smells...

Cliff had to muzzle her a little bit when she would not quit barking at a super cute bull dog out and about with his owners.

Well, even though I don't have school tomorrow, it's time for bed. Hope you all have a good evening.

Day 15-16: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-10T21:24:00.000-06:00

Man, I'm really falling down on the job here. I'm not keeping up with my blog.
Things have been crazy, but in a way, I'm being a little lazy as well.

Well, only four more days to go after today...thank goodness.

I've already mapped out my meals for Monday, February 15th. Thank goodness I'm off work that day. Celebrating our presidents is awesome. I'm totally starting my day with waffles from Waffle House. I'm also going to be making these spectacular Chocolate Chip Cookie Truffles from the recipe my friend Romaine posted on her blog. They are super easy to make and Cliff and I both like Chocolate Chip cookies....what could be a better pairing??

I've started drinking some green tea--(hot) and it's doing a pretty good job of providing me with a hot drink during the cold season. This morning it kept me warm in my classroom since the air conditioning was on in the stinking room. I mix it with a little honey and it's fantastic. It's a good break from just water.

Tonight I made the fantastic baked carrots again. It was good with our grilled chicken. Again, just cut up your carrots, add a little water, put in some sliced REAL butter, and bake for about an hour. They come out super tender and quite tasty.

Well, I'm off to edit photos and I think I'm going to come up with some birth announcements. Seems like a good move for my photography. :)

Y'all have a good night.

Day 15: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-08T22:25:00.000-06:00

Today wasn't all that bad. I tried a grilled chicken salad from Dairy Queen for lunch....it totally sucked.

I find it difficult still to remember to eat my snacks. We are so engrained with the idea of eating three meals a day that it is hard to adjust to something different and eating so often. I have to eat during a morning class while I'm teaching sometimes and that makes me feel weird. Oh well, I guess I can tell the principal that I have low blood sugar and had to stop and eat something if they stop by for some reason.

Other than that....things are pretty good. I went to zumba again tonight of course---I definitely enjoy it.

Well, that is all. Hope you had a good evening!

Ryan's Senior Photo Session

2010-02-08T22:21:00.000-06:00

This past Sunday (before the Super Bowl,) I was able to shoot a senior session for my cousin, Ryan, who is graduating this spring from Mansfield ISD.
Ryan has changed quite a bit from running away from my sister and me at family functions to now being very social and I do enjoy conversation with him.
Ever since Ryan was young, he's greatly enjoyed roller coasters, even designing them on pieces of manilla paper and using crayons when he was around nine years old. Since then, he's still heavily into roller coasters and is a super intelligent person. I have no doubts he will go far in his life.
Mandy is his friend and came along with us on Sunday to help make sure he wore that special shirt for his mom and we did a few shots of them together and of her as well. She is beautiful and is graduating this May as well.

Here are some images from the session:

We also did some pictures of Mandy as well:

This day was perfect for shooting. It was cloudy, so we could shoot at any time. It was definitely cold though. Ryan and Mandy both were troopers though and we tried to take frequent breaks to warm up in the car.

I think we are going to come back to this location on the porch with the chair, I want to get a photo of Mandy in some really nice dress with her heels kicked up. It would be super cute don't you think?

Here's a sneak peak of some of the images we got of both of them together. More will come tomorrow!

Day 12-14: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-07T22:41:00.000-06:00

So, I have fallen behind on my blogging. My apologies. :(
This weekend has been pretty crazy and now I'm just now getting to updating the blog.

Friday night we went to the grocery store and bought some more produce, six pounds of carrots, 2 pounds of lunchmeat, and I'm sure we bought at least 2 more pounds of grapes.

Oh Lord! Help me last until next Sunday! I'm so ready to eat sweet things and potatoes, wheat, dairy, and corn things again! I'm getting tired of grilled chicken breasts and fish.

Tonight was successful. We celebrated the Super Bowl (boo Saints!) at Cliff's parents' house and we cooked dinner.
Grilled chicken breast, baked carrots, steamed broccoli and cauliflower were all on the menu. It was good. The carrots were some of the BEST tasting carrots I have ever had. I just sliced them up, added salt and pepper, a little water, and a good helping of butter and put them in the oven for an hour. They were so very tasty.

We ate Pappadeaux for Saturday night's dinner--the Cedar Plank Salmon. It was very good as well. The only thing I was uneasy about was that the fish was not completely cooked all the way through. They cooked it more like a steak, so it was a little pinker in the core of the helping of meat.

I'm missing actually eating something for breakfast in the mornings. A cold "shake" isn't exactly what anyone wants to start their day with on a cold morning. I'd much rather start my day with Cream of Wheat, or waffles. That is okay, I'll get to have my waffles next Monday morning as soon as we get done with this cleanse.

On a side note:
We looked at 10 houses on Friday afternoon after I got off work. I think we've narrowed 20 houses down to three. Now, to look at some more and view those again. (Oh! decisions decisions!)

Today I did a photo shoot for my cousin Ryan, who is graduating from high school in June. We had some fun and got some good shots. I'll make sure and post separately for that tomorrow.....along with viewing goodies. :)

Day 11: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-04T22:44:00.000-06:00

Tonight's update is going to be short---got to get to bed soon.

We don't have to do three shakes a day anymore---Praise God!

I worked out at Zumba again tonight---someone asked if I had been loosing weight....cool! :) That makes me happy.

That is all, I'm going to bed.
Love to you all who actually read this....if there is anyone actually out there. :)

Day10: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-03T22:11:00.000-06:00

YAY! We made it to day 10!!! As of tomorrow---we only have to drink one shake per day!

Thank goodness.

No Zumba tonight. This allowed for me to do some running of errands after work today.
...running of errands such as purchasing new workout getup because I don't really have any long pants that aren't thick sweatpants. Lucky for me, I found two brand new pairs of pants at Target that I can't wait to wear. (Matter of fact, I'm breaking a pair in tonight as we speak.)

Do you know what is so great about these pants....they come petite and long sizes.
Short girls and tall girls alike can understand my enthusiasm on this matter.
I have never before seen petite sized workout pants, and they have always been too long for me. So, I end up fraying them because I step on them or I cut them off at the bottom and then they end up too short. I can't believe that I found something that fits!
You can see the pants here on the Target website.

Tonight's dinner was grilled chicken breast and steamed broccoli.

Both were good. We've been eating steamed broccoli with almost every evening meal. Luckily, Cliff and I both liked broccoli before this whole adventure began. For some strange reason, we didn't eat broccoli all that often when I was growing up. I didn't dislike broccoli, and I don't recall my father disliking it, so I'm not sure why we didn't ever eat it. Maybe my mother did not like broccoli.
Who knows, at least I eat it now. It does a body good, almost like milk.

Ah milk.....how do I miss thee. In a little over a week I'll be able to sample some wonderful milk and other dairy products once again.

Well, that's it for tonight. Until next time...

Day 9: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-02T21:21:00.000-06:00

As I sit here watching Top Gear, only the best car show on television, I cannot help but think that today has been successful.

I've eaten all five of my meals, drank all of my water, and worked out for an hour today. I feel good about myself.

Here's something that I really feel good about tonight---my water.
In the 21 Day Body Makeover you are required to drink between 64-100 ounces of water per day. Cliff and I bought these 32 oz water bottles, so obviously we need to fill them up twice per day in order to drink all that we absolutely have to. Well, today, I finished my first bottle of water by 9:30 AM!!!! I finished it just before announcements had finished during the second class period of the day. Needless to say, I felt awesome. ...and then it took me the rest of the afternoon to finish my second bottle of water, but of course I drank plenty for dinner and after Zumba tonight.

One other thing about this makeover---let's get personal for a moment here, and boy do I mean personal as far as for a woman goes.
Lets talk about farts....errr passing gas, yes, that term is better. One thing I have noticed since starting this program is that I have had less gas since I started totally changing my diet and drinking more water. I decided to ask Cliff about it tonight at dinner, (yes, I have no shame,) and he said he has experienced the same thing as well. (Thank goodness--because well, I have experienced his gassing without apology since pretty much 2005--yep, before we got married.)

Okay, enough about gas.
Well, I'm about to get heavily involved in an episode of NCIS. Y'all have a great night.

Day 8: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-02-01T21:20:00.000-06:00

Only two more days of three shakes a day. Thank the Lord!
I will say this though, I am beginning to get used to those stinkin' things. They still aren't good, but they aren't as gagging as they were one week ago when I started this big adventure.

Tonight's dinner sucked. I tried one of the recipes for salmon, but didn't have quite all of the ingredients. I chopped one cup of onion, four cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of olive oil and half a cup of Apple Cider Vinegar. I threw that all into a large skillet and brought it to a boil. (I put too much vinegar in it, because I could still smell it when I ate the salmon.)

Then, with the mixture heated, I set it to the side and dipped each salmon steak in the juices and put them in a broiler pan and put it in the oven about 5 inches away from the heat for four minutes on each side.

The salmon indeed got done, but it lacked flavor.
The steamed broccoli however, was good as usual.

I've added to my list of things to eat when I get done is El Fenix---chicken enchilladas with queso topping with rice and beans, along with plenty of guacamole and chips.
If you have not had El Fenix and you live in the DFW area, you are missing out. Heck, if you live within two hours of El Fenix, get your booty in the car, drive to DFW and get yourself into an El Fenix. It is among the BEST Tex-Mex food there is out there. It is absolutely wonderful. The downtown Dallas location is so inviting, with plenty of seating and a very courteous staff. The people there are so kind, it definitely adds to the experience.

Okay, enough of talking about food that I can't eat for another two weeks.

Upside of today: a woman in my Zumba class told me that I look like I've dropped some weight. It might be a trick on the eye, but it was still nice to hear. :)

Alright, that's it for tonight. I'm tired. Until next time...

Day 7: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-01-31T22:17:00.000-06:00

Well, today was day seven. Only fourteen more days to go after this one. Only three more days until we only have to have one "shake" per day---thank the Lord!

We keep making trips to the grocery store because we keep running out of apples and lettuce and grapes, etc.
I hate the grocery store. I guess with as much as we are limited on what we could buy it makes the trip a little shorter. Either way, meh.

I have noticed that the program is making us go to bed a little earlier--Cliff in particular. He now rarely stays up any later than 10:00 pm at night. This is good--that way we wake up better and more refreshed the next morning.

My stomach is a little heavy tonight. Since Cliff found out we can have some steak every once in a while, he decided to prepare steak for us tonight for dinner. We marinated them in some light Italian dressing (which is great for chicken as well.) and threw them on the George Forman Grill, (who is from my college town of Marshall by the way.) With the steaks we added steamed broccoli and cauliflower (white, because Cliff won't touch the colorful stuff.) I added half a sweet potato since we can have half of one per day, and they need to be eaten anyway. Oh man, I enjoy a sweet potato! (Just ask Cliff's family when we go out for steak--who's most likely to order a baked sweet potato--yep, that's me!) Great, all this talk of sweet potatoes is making me think back to those fabulous holiday meals we had in November and December....oh man! Those are my favorite meals of the year! Who can beat dressing and sweet potato casserole? I could live on that stuff.
Anyway, I decided to take a picture of my meal because it's rather pretty and it's colorful--which is what your supper plate should look like:

On other notes, today we had to do something that Cliff is totally against. We bought Holly a sweater. We really were forced to, because we took her to the groomer on Friday and they shaved her naked, and the poor thing has been shivering throughout this cold snap. So, we went over to Petco and I tried to pick out the most manly, least girly sweater outfit there was. It BARELY fits this poor girl, and it's a red fleece vest basically that some other dog had tried on and gotten dust and dog hair all over it. I had to make sure and wash it first because I didn't want Holly ending up with Mange or something like that. (Her hair is too pretty to fall out.) Holly seems to like the sweater quite well, and Cliff says the sweater isn't so girly that he will still walk her. (Thank God, because I don't want to take her out all the time, especially in the cold.)
For your viewing pleasure, yet another image of my dog:

and yet, I decide I need to add even another picture of the super cute puppy to the mix.

Well, that's about it for tonight. I'm off to do some reading before I have to go to sleep. It's back to work tomorrow...

Day 6: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-01-30T23:41:00.000-06:00

Today presented its challenges with us being very busy searching for homes during most of the day in Mansfield.
As a result, we were bad kids and skipped both of our snacks because we didn't each lunch until three pm and we forgot to take our snacks in the car with us in the first place. Despite the cold though, I think we both managed to drink all of our water.

We purchased more grapes today to put in our morning shakes. We got two bags and it cost us a whopping $19.00---holy cow! What the heck---why am I insane enough to spend that much on grapes alone. (although I did have a couple after I got home and they are plump and taste pretty good.)

For dinner tonight we tried eating out at Chili's and it wasn't all that successful. I got the margarita chicken and substituted the sides with seasonable veggies---which really means it was steamed broccoli with a few shavings of carrots that weren't really worth eating. Cliff got the Salmon--and it was bland. We do not reccommend getting dinner at Chili's if you are on this body cleanse--because it doesn't really make the food taste any better.

On another note, we went house hunting today---oh joy! We looked at 8-10 houses, I can't exactly remember how many there were, and I don't care to go back and count. We got some good ideas of what was out there and we found at least one thing that we liked about each house. We found one that was great--but it is right behind our apartment complex, and every time we would look out the living room windows we'd see someone's balcony at our current apartment complex. Oh, but the kitchen was fabulous!

We did find another house, the second house---it was a pleasant surprise. It needs a kitchen makeover, and another bathroom cabinet in the master---and probably the secondary bathroom. However, overall, it's a really nice home. Ready for babies too--it's got a bedroom off the master and they connect--so it would be a great nursery, and then you can sheetrock it back up once you get done with having kids or you can turn it into your office--who knows. It's something we'll probably keep on the list. It made a pretty good impression.

Anyways, well, hope you've had a pretty good weekend so far, I'm going to go back to watching 500 Days of Summer and cuddle up with the hubby.

Day 5: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-01-29T20:23:00.000-06:00

Today was better.
I drank all three of my shakes---I missed my 2nd and 3rd one yesterday.

I stepped on my scale this morning---and here's the verdict--I'm 5 pounds lighter. :) That makes me happy.

I made decaffinated, unsweetened iced tea this evening for dinner---something different to drink--finally. I've had nothing but water to drink for the last four days.

Tonight we had some homemade chicken fajitas--without the tortillas, cheese, rice, or beans, you know, the good stuff. However, it was still pretty good. I chopped half an onion, half a bell pepper, and a cherry tomato and grouped it with some real butter, garlic, and chicken. I fried it up in a pan with some light olive oil and it came out not all that bad. Cliff and I both had plenty.

I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.
The shakes are starting to taste not quite so bad, but I'm still hungry for a pizza.

Day 4: 21 Day Body Makeover AND Bogger Problems

2010-01-28T21:27:00.000-06:00

First and Foremost. If you are trying to read this blog in Internet Explorer, I apologise. For some reason, the background is not showing up and therefore, you can't see the white text. I've gone through the code and can't seem to find the right spot to fix it. I have submitted a question to Blogger to see if I can get some sort of answer, we'll see if I can't get a fix soon. The blog does display fine though in Firefox or Safari. Again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm working on it.

Okay, now on to the Body Makeover

I think I need to start taking the Apple Cider Vinegar....and if you've read the post from day 3, you can figure out why.

Still drinking LOTS of water.
Tonight I had baked whitefish from Black Eyed Pea---they looked at us funny when we requested no bread and no rice with our meal. It was difficult to pick veggies to go with the meal as well. Only broccoli and carrots--or the squash casserole were allowed.

Man, I can't wait to eat bread again----oh my goodness.
Presidents' Day is going to be a feast day for us----we're probably going to make ourselves sick on all the food we'll eat. I'm going to start my day with waffles. I'm sure there will be some peach cobbler thrown in there somewhere as well.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it last night, but we have started taking Fish Oil Tablets as well. It is supposed to help you sleep better and help clean out your system. My grandmother tried to get us to start taking Fish Oil tablets months ago and now her wish has come true.

Till Tomorrow----I'm so glad it will be Friday---but I really wish it was Saturday already.

Day 3: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-01-27T22:10:00.000-06:00

Three days down....so many more to go.

I tried adding grapes to my shake this morning instead of strawberries...Cliff is right, the grapes make it a little more manageable and almost good to drink with the shake. I also add Sonic ice in there as well---it's better when it's cold. My second shake at lunch I added less water to make it thicker and get the thing over with faster. It was still aweful. My students walked in for 8th period class and saw me finishing up the shake, at which point they asked me if it was good. I got a couple of them to smell it---and they agreed---it smells aweful!

Lunch was pretty good. I opted to go out today for a grilled chicken salad at Sonic. I ordered it without cheese and the chicken was actually pretty good. The chicken is served warm on the salad, so that is nice. Cold chicken = gross.

Cliff was very thrilled today when he found out he could eat steak for dinner. He emailed the developer of the program, George DeJohn, today and told him we were planning on going to Outback Steakhouse with our family and asked I guess if he could, by some miracle, have steak. Much to our surprise, George responded back with "Yes" the only thing is you should keep it down to a smaller portion and stick to a tenderloin. Of course, no bread and no "bloomin' onion" were allowed at dinner. (Even though, a bloomin' onion would be great.) I had Salmon again with steamed veggies and of course, water.

I feel like I'm drowning myself with water after drinking so much of it. Honestly, my stomach somewhat aches all day after drinking so much water. I know my body is not used to it, but it still does not feel all that great to be constantly drinking liquid all day long.

Tonight I did not have the luxury of doing my Zumba fitness routine. Instead, I went down to our complex gym with Cliff and we both rode the bike for twenty minutes with a two minute cool-down. A little bit of Maroon 5's Sunday Morning and the State of the Union address was thrown in as well while I peddled my way to a cleaner me.

I've been frequently having headaches throughout this process, but I had started having headaches frequently before we started the program, so I'm not sure that they are related. Cliff did look it up though and he said that you should exercise or reduce your supplement of the Power Cleanse until the symptoms subside.
Here is what they said on the website.

It is likely that you are detoxifying too quickly for your liver to keep up. This can cause toxins to re-circulate, causing symptoms such as headaches or joint pain. I recommend you reduce the Power Cleanse dose in half until the symptoms subside. Include a lot of high sulfur veggies such as garlic, cabbage, broccoli, onions, kale, and asparagus to help your liver detoxify and clear the toxins from your body. I also recommend a supplement called AminoDetox which will specifically help the liver "catch up" on its part of the detox process. This combination should slow down the re-distribution of toxins in your body and improve your liver's ability to clear the toxins.

I look forward to sleeping after we finish watching Top Gear and I finish this post.

Wedding Idea: Not Your Typical Pew Bows

2010-01-26T21:40:00.002-06:00

I don’t know about you, but when I got married I wasn’t thrilled with the regular pew bows, especially the standard white ones that come in a box pre-made. That was just not the right look for my wedding. However, I did not have the money to spend on fresh flowers to hang on all the rows in cute little containers of some sort. I had to cut somewhere, and I felt the scenery was so pretty that we ended up not having anything hanging on the row ends anyway.

Then, I shot a wedding last August with my friend Sydni that gave me this awesome idea for row markers. Pictures---of course! I love pictures (naturally) and we tried to have as many as possible posted at the wedding of Cliff and I.

Here’s the image:

What this bride did was attach a ribbon hanger to the back of a picture frame (they used all the same frames, you can mix or match—whatever,) and then the frames simply hung over the side of the pew.

Later in the wedding, the bride and groom gave the framed images to their family members--such as grandparents, parents, and aunts and uncles as gifts. This is a great way to personalize your wedding, give gifts to your family, and save a little bit of money in the process. This can be really fun if you like Shabby Chic kind of style if you mix finishes on frames and different types of ribbon--it will make it look like heirloom family photos.

Speaking of heirloom family photos---you might want to even consider using those in your frames down the isle as well! Why not make it a family event--get old wedding photos of your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. and line them down the isle. It might add a really nice touch if family is something that is very important to you.

Either way, happy planning!

Day 2: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-01-26T21:26:00.000-06:00

Well, lets see how today went.
The shakes still stink, and I'm still kindof cranky.

I have been having headaches lately but that was going on before I started the body makeover. One thing is for sure---I slept well last night. I hit the pillow and I was pretty much out! It was great---I haven't slept all that well in a while.

Tonight we opted to not have dinner at home. Instead we went to Cotton Patch where we each had the grilled Salmon with the steamed veggies and Cliff got more broccoli. At first it was really hard at first to look through the menu at all the tasty items such as bacon and cheese fries----I'm not a huge french fry fan but oh! I'm certainly getting a plate of those with a pot of ranch dressing when I finish with this stinking thing!

I'm finding that I'm having cravings that I've never thought I've really had before. I found myself craving dark chocolate today--which I've never had a craving for before. I miss things such as sweet tea and even beans...yes, we can't even eat beans, I guess they cause excess gas.

The program suggests that women will have problems with constipation so they urge women to take one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar with every meal. I have not had that experience so far, and I have not taken the apple cider vinegar. I'll pay attention to it over the next few days and see if anything changes.

Lunch was not all that bad. I had cold cuts of chicken wrapped in lettuce. It was actually pretty good!

It wasn't a fantastic day but I can make it through another tomorrow.

Day 1: 21 Day Body Makeover

2010-01-25T20:39:00.000-06:00

Well, I am definitely a Miss Cranky Pants today. I still haven't eaten any dinner, and I haven't had any meat all day! I didn't fall asleep until after 3:00am last night, and I'm almost certain I saw 4:00 am.

When I wasn't able to wake myself up with a super yummy Chic Fil A biscuit this morning and a sweet tea, well it didn't make a good start to my day. I had a "shake" made with water and fresh strawberries.

Bottom line, the shake taste like play doh--it's OH SO GROSS! I feel like Dumbledore in the Sixth Harry Potter book when he has to drink all of that liquid and he tells Harry "Why are you making me drink this!?" Harry in this case would be my husband---why did I let him talk me into this?? The powder from the shake leaves a bad taste in my mouth all day. I was not able to enjoy the salad I was having for lunch because I had to snack about an hour before hand.

Ugh, this is going to be a process, perhaps I'll grow stronger if I continue to persevere in this conquest to make my body over in 21 days. Tune in tomorrw for Day 2 progress and hopefully a better outlook on food---Salmon is on the menu for dinner. Unfortunately, the nasty shakes are still a requirement for me to drink three times a day.

Goodbye Dairy, Caffene, and Good Stuff

2010-01-25T00:55:00.000-06:00

For 21 days we will not see dairy, caffene, or sugary good stuff enter our bodies here in the Carpenter household. For 21 days we will not eat beef (yikes!) and mostly eat veggies, chicken, and fish. How will my husband survive? I already eat more of this stuff than he does--that's why I'm more concerned about him. However, he has more will power than I do. (Yes, I can admit it.)

Tomorrow we begin the 21 Day Body Makeover. (Finally!) After Cliff has been on anti-biotics for the last three weeks or so, we will finally be able to begin our New Year's Challenge. Cliff and I both have lost metabolism over the last couple of years and are downright happy, so we've gotten fatter than we should be. I will say we could both be worse, but we could be a lot better, so we've decided to take the step to do this program so hopefully it can jump start us loosing weight. I think we need to do before and after pictures--in the event this actually works. I'll be exercising with Zumba three times a week for an hour so hopefully it will really help. If this doesn't get the results I want--I'm going to Weight Watchers after this. I want to be back in decent swimsuit mode by the time my birthday rolls around in July. (That's a lofty goal, but I think I can do it.)

My plan is to write every day, even if it is just a little bit about our experience. That way, if anyone needs info. about the experience--well, it's out there then.

It is entirely too late, and hopefully my husband has stopped snoring by now, so maybe I can get some sleep.

Goodnight web world. Until tomorrow....err later today.

Just Kick It

2010-01-21T20:52:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been preparing for the 2010 Spring Show with the SHHS Drill Team AKA: the Tex-Annes at work. Sara, the instructor, is a great woman and we both started at Sam Houston last year.
We've done a couple of shoots now to get an image for the promotional poster and we found our winning image yesterday...it was the first of the images!!

Here's the image:

These girls can do some fabulous leaps. I caught this one and decided to convert it to black and white.

Once I finally finish the poster---which is actually coming along pretty well now, I'll post it as well.
I love it when I get to practice my photography at school where I work. I enjoy helping people out and having the opportunity to use my "talents" if you can call it that.

Well, that's about it for tonight. I've got to go prepare my business card lesson for tomorrow!

Proximity and other Graphic Stuff

2010-01-20T01:15:00.010-06:00

I don't know why I am still up. Perhaps the Chicken Alfredo that Cliff talked me into getting at Olive Garden tonight has not settled in my stomach, especially after an intense ab workout at Zumba classes. Ugh, either way I'm up and I can't help but think of the lesson I'll be attempting to go over with my students tomorrow.

Tomorrow we start discussing proximity and alignment. These are two of the design principles discussed by writer, Robin Williams. Robin puts basic design principles into a memorable acrostic: "CRAP." Yep, I said it, your designs need to look like CRAP!

Now, we have discussed design principles before at the beginning of the year based off the Digital Web Magazine, but I really like the way Robin Williams puts it, and the way she easily relates it to business through her examples with business cards, posters, ads, etc. This is why we are going to discuss design principles according to Robin Williams--I want the students to relate this directly to business oriented design. I want them to apply the principles to designing goods specifically for business. I think it's important to know the difference between a good business card and one that totally stinks (typically one that sticks information in all four corners, which I'll post examples tomorrow.) I want the students to be able to design an ad or poster that makes it easy to read and really grabs the attention of the public. I want my students to take something they can directly apply to the world of work once they leave my classroom. (Afterall, that's the purpose of getting an education....right??)

So...in lieu of hoping to prepare these young minds with information to develop the skills to properly design promotional materials for the world of work, we'll begin to embark on this adventure while we finish up Fireworks by beginning on designing a business card. After we design business cards (and hopefully print them out;) we'll move on to designing a promotional material such as a poster for their business and when we move on to flash, I want them to be able to design an interactive advertisement for the web in Flash.

I know it sounds very strange but I really really love studying the principles of design and improving my design abilities and putting together things such as business cards and promotional items. I'm not sure why, probably because it relates well with my organizational nature.

However, here is some advise for you as you plan your graphic design adventures that my students should already know. (Because we've practically beaten this over and over in class.)

1. Don't use any more than 2-3 fonts on a design project.
You don't want to clutter your project with a variety of fonts because then it will lack flow, and then the reader will stop reading, and the whole point of your project is so someone will read it.

2. Use decorative fonts sparingly.
Exactly as stated above. Use those decorative fonts sparingly! Why? Well Curlz is really cute and all but have you tried reading an entire paragraph written in it?? Your eyes get tired don't they? So, my advise is to use the decorative font once---and not for a large body of text, more like a headline or sub headline and then the rest of the text should be in a clear, easy to read font such as "Times New Roman" or "Arial."

3. 1 Serif and 1 Sans Serif font please!
Here's my little vocabulary lesson for you: Serif means "feet" and Sans means "without" so, Sans Serif means "without feet." A font with feet or "Serif" font example would be "Times New Roman." A font without feet or "Sans Serif" font example would be "Arial." Why is it important to use 1 and 1? Well, if you use three different fonts that are Serif, then you won't be able to tell the difference between all of them as easily, and if you discern between the different fonts you will not be able to group important information together, which helps you better retain the information.

4. Dark fonts go with Light Backgrounds

Why you might ask??? Well, can you read lilac colored text very easily against a white background?? I cannot either. That is why. You don't want to strain your reader's eyes. This is especially important with digital design because eyes already have to adjust to reading on a computer screen.

5. Light fonts go with Dark Backgrounds
Just like the reasoning for number 4, you want to see some contrast between your text and your background so the reader's eyes are not as easily strained. Have you ever tried to read dark blue text on black background, (a choice that is a favorite among my students before they have come to grips with design reality.) It's awful for your eyes!!!

Just using these simple guidelines in designing the promotional materials for your photography and the graphics you create such as holiday cards can make a difference in the appearance of your business. It can take your promotional professionalism to a whole new level! Try these guidelines out and see how your appearance might seem different.

Here are a couple of visual aids to help you keep in mind the next time you design a business card or promotional material for your business.

This business card is a BAD example of what your card should look like. This card has no flow and pieces of information are randomly stuck in corners. You want your business card and promotional materials to have a definite flow, an order in which the reader will look over the card, and this has no order whatsoever.

This is a better example of what a business card should look like. It uses the principles of proximity and alignment to create a card that has flow and defined order. Proximity is the concept of grouping alike items together. Notice how the name of the company and the representative's names are grouped together, and then all the contact information is grouped together further down the line. Also notice, this card is lacking two very important pieces of contact information for this day and age.....an email address and a web address! Those are almost more important than the phone number. Especially if you are a photographer or graphic designer, a web site is a must! A web site is a way for you to display your work, it's your portfolio, so you most definitely want it available on your business card.

Also remember the rules about color, if you use too much, it will be too busy and distract from the core content of the card, your contact information and name. It will take away from the flow. So, decide on a color scheme, with about three colors and a fourth if it is used VERY sparingly---pref. that fourth color be a basic black or white. There is really a strong statement you can make with only three colors on a card.

If you feel the need to suddenly re-design your business cards, consult this great blog entry at the Web Designer Depot which is titled; "100 (Really) Creative Business Cards." These all make a statement and are sure to gain a spot in a wallet or purse whenever they are handed out. They are all unique enough that people should feel like they are throwing away art if they dare toss it into the trash.

Also, while we are on the subject of typography, (the study of words, type, and letters,) here's another great blog entry from the Web Designer Depot regarding Typography Rules for every Designer---mostly aimed at Web pages, but also very applicable to designs in print as well.

Well, I updated, added a few pictures, perhaps I'll add a few more examples throughout the weekend.
'Till Next Time!

Guard Dog

2010-01-18T19:39:00.000-06:00

Well, since Cliff has been down with the flu, he's been staying covered up in the chair quite often, and Holly has gotten used to him lying around. Holly is quite the cuddler, and I love that about her. She's totally a people dog and loves to be close to her humans.
Well, today here's what I caught her doing:

Isn't she super cute??? I'm not sure if she's standing guard over Cliff or just looking to claim him as hers. Either way, it's adorable.
Here's another:

Ray's Pharmacy

2010-01-18T14:36:00.000-06:00

Today is MLK day. I'm doing my part of service by taking care of Cliff while he's recovering from the flu. He seems to be feeling a little better today, still has some fever, but it seems to be going down. Last night he didn't have to get up at all and he only slept with one blanket. It seems things are getting back to normal.

Well, we ventured out to get some Wendy's because that is what Cliff was craving for lunch, and on our way home we stopped by a local pharmacy that opened a new location on Broad street in Mansfield.
The building has classic appeal and fits in nicely with a small town. By my standards, it is super cute. Cliff and I walked in the door and found ourselves in a pharmacy of traditional style--equipped with a gift section, pharmacy, and a soda fountain! Near the front we managed to meet the man who started Ray's pharmacy in 1954, Mr. Lee Roy Ray. In the back there is an old large oak cabinet with glass doors that lift up with a collection of Ray's memorabilia. Mr. Ray shared memories about some of the items in the collection and the history of the pharmacy, including a prescription book that was opened to a prescription written for his future daughter in law when she was two years old. We found out that Mr. Ray sold out to his son and now there are five Roy's Pharmacy locations in the area.

I loved how small town and traditional feeling that the pharmacy still embraces. It seems to pull off that feeling in a town that is booming with five high schools and has neighborhoods popping up all over the place. The owners seem to have done things right, because the Soda Fountain was booming with lunch business, and as a result, others were roaming around the pharmacy as well. This pharmacy reminds me of the trips we used to take to Louis Morgan in Longview that has now blossomed into a gift store popular for local wedding registries as well as a pharmacy. I really enjoy shopping at local businesses and supporting of my local community, and hopefully developing relationships with store owners and having that friendly interaction, so I think Ray's Pharmacy will probably be getting some of our future business. If you live in the Mansfield area, check them out!

Who Needs Campbell's When You've Got Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup?

2010-01-17T12:52:00.000-06:00

Well, Cliff is still under the weather with the flu. His temperature fluctuates between normal, 100, and 103.4. Cliff's appetite has not been quite what it is normally so I decided to make a good, soothing, homemade soup last night.
The last time I made this soup was back in the Christmas break of 2002 when my dad and I were stuck at home while my mom and sister were on a mission trip in Mexico with our church. I was initially the sick one, then dad caught the sickness, so then I had to take care of us both. I decided to try my hand at homemade Chicken Noodle and it came out pretty well.

What can be more soothing than Chicken Noodle Soup? Homemade for that matter, not the condensed kind from the can. I'm talking really CHICKEN noodle soup, with hearty bits of chicken in them. (Oh the dog was in heaven too! because she got a couple pieces of chicken and broth! Holly loved it.)

Well, I decided to go all Pioneer Woman style and attempt to take pictures through the process of making my soup, in the event it came out pretty good and I wanted to share the recipe. The pictures are no where near my normal quality, as I decided to not use a flash and I was working in my dark kitchen, but oh well, here 'ya go.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients:

-approx. 3 Chicken Breasts (I use Pilgrim's to support my hometown economy, but you can use whatever.)
-approx. 6-8 oz. of thin spaghetti
-1 can of chicken broth
-1 can of cream of chicken soup (okay, I guess you still need Campbell's)
-Salt
-Garlic Salt
-Mrs. Dash Table Blend (optional)

Here's the scene:

Boil your chicken in a pot. Fill the soup pot, or in my case, my coated cast iron pot where it just covers the chicken. Boil your chicken until it is done, (the meat will all be white.)

-Pull your chicken out onto a cutting board (you'll slice it in a moment.)
In the meantime keep the heat going on your pot of water.

-Add to your water 1 can of chicken broth and 1 can of Cream of Chicken Soup.

You might have to whisk the Cream of Chicken in order to get it to distribute evenly throughout the broth.

Now, slice and cut up your chicken, which is best to do while it's still hot.

Next, allow your broth to come to a boil and then add your spaghetti and allow it to cook until it gets soft. I always do the utensil break test, I see if I can break the noodle with my utensil against the side of the pot to see if it is soft enough.

After you add your spaghetti, now is the time you take to add your garlic salt and Mrs. Dash (if desired) to your broth.

This stuff is my Grandma's secret ingredient I guess you could say. She likes to use it instead of salt in her green beans.

After your spaghetti is done cooking, add your chicken back in by the spoonfuls, or drop in, just don't spash yourself with the boiling liquid.

Stir it all up real nice!

Doesn't that look YUM!?

Let the pot stew for about 10-15 minutes, you'll want to turn your heat down to about 2-3 at this point.

Finally, serve it up to your loved ones! I added baby carrots on the side because Cliff generally doesn't like things added to his Chicken Noodle Soup, ESPECIALLY celery, because he hates celery, but he likes carrots on the side.

This makes enough to feed at least a family of four, and there is enough left over to stick in the fridge for a re-heat if you are feeding just two.

Hope you enjoy!

Decisions, Decisions

2010-01-13T23:07:00.000-06:00

Well, two more days of this week and those are exam days. They will be busy yet more relaxed at the same time. All I have to do is give out an exam, yet I have to grade all 120 some odd of them and have the grades in by 3pm on Friday. I'm SO. READY. FOR. THIS. WEEK. TO. BE. OVER!!!!
I'm not quite sure why I'm so ready for it to be over, but I am. I'm ready for the weekend and some time to sleep and rest.

I met with Richard and Terrie tonight for dinner and dropped off some Taco Soup for them to eat, and Terrie informed me when Lexi will be having her open heart surgery. The surgery will be Monday morning. Luckily, I will be off that day for MLK so I will be able to go up to the hospital for the surgery without having to take off from work. I'm relieved. I could probably use some time at home to take care of business here, but it's important to be with my bestie during her time of need. Ugh, I just said "bestie" --what am I coming to?

On to decisions---Well, we are in the process of beginning to look at houses in hopes of moving in something by mid May or so. After looking around some, we've somewhat began to look and consider other options. (Cringing)--We're even considering building a new house with a neighborhood builder. You know, one of those builders that claims to be "custom" when they're really just another track home with the garage on the front and you pick from about 6 different floor plans and options for tile, carpet, counter tops, etc. and you have no choice on the fixtures and whatnot?? Yeah one of those "custom" builders. I'm okay with the idea of track homes, but don't call yourself custom when you really aren't. I guess my idea of custom is a little different. BUT ANYWAY--back to the subject. Are we actually considering this?? We've only been married two years!! Are we ready to take on that type of marital pressure? Apparently, if a couple can survive building a house together, they can survive anything. My biggest thing is that I want it to really make financial sense. Will the expense be worth it? I don't know! Sometimes I wish I had someone to make my decisions for me. I'm sure I'm worrying about this too much---perhaps it will help to write it out. Most of my posts aren't quite so eliquent because I have so many thoughts and my mind is working so fast that it is all my fingers can do to keep up with how fast my thoughts are working in my head. Please forgive my random and loosely strained together thoughts.

Have a good night!

Hello Monday

2010-01-11T21:00:00.000-06:00

Well, this year is off to quite a start.
We've had freezing weather last week and my best friend gave birth to her second child, a beautiful baby girl. My best friend, Terrie, lives in Mount Pleasant, Texas and gave birth to her baby there on Monday. The birth went very smoothly and I was so sad to not be able to be at the hospital when little Lexi was born. Unfortunately, Lexi has some heart complications involving an aorta that will not open all the way, and had to be air lifted to Dallas on the same day as her birth. Terrie, Richard, and her parents, brother and another family friend all drove as quickly as possible to Dallas to join little Lexi. As it turns out, Lexi is probably going to have to stay in the hospital here in Dallas for about three more weeks after she has open heart surgery next week. Last week was long, filled with visits to the hospital and scrambling to prepare meals that would travel well so Richard and Terrie wouldn't have to eat out for every meal. Despite all the hardship last week, we still have a beautiful little girl to rejoyce her life in this world. She is beautiful. I can't wait until she gets to go home where I can take pictures of her without wires and tubes all connected to her.
Meanwhile, I was able to get some shots of this precious baby girl in the NICU this past weekend.
It was dark in the room, so I had to bump up my ISO super high which caused a lot fo noise. However, I still got some shots. Sometimes that's all that matters.

Lexi has a wonderful father who is so caring, and is willing to sing her back to sleep.

This father daughter relationship is already something super special.

Now, on to today's photo adventures, I braved bad lighting and super action and did a shoot for our school's drill team for the upcoming Spring Show 2010. I'm so excited to be doing their shoot as well as the poster designs for this year's show!!! I have a high respect for Sam Houston's Tex-Annes. They are a great group of young ladies and they are highly dedicated to their performance. They are definitely a positive example for the rest of our school. Here's a preview from today's shoot:

Well, that's about it. Hope you had a great monday!

Shoot Sac Has Arrived!

2010-01-04T17:42:00.000-06:00

I couldn't wait to get home today because my Shoot Sac came in!
I was so excited, that I opened the box in the office of the apartment complex and showed the girl who got the package out for me.
Here's what I saw when I opened the shippping box.

Such beautiful packaging isn't it?

I think I'm going to keep it and put my covers that I collect in it.

I LOVE green with black and white as well.

Fling cover! yay!

I like the people at Shoot Sac and their little "Thank You!" stickers. How nice!

My shoot sac with Fling cover and added shoulder pad.

Now, if I could just figure out what my husband had delivered today as well.

Do you know what it's like whenever you buy a wonderful new dress or amazing pair of new shoes that you are so excited about you wear it around your house for a couple of hours once you finally get it home? Yeah, I've been walking around the house wearing my shoot sac. It is THAT cool!

Monday is Going to be Bittersweet

2010-01-02T17:53:00.000-06:00

There are two good things about the upcoming Monday and then there is one bad one.

I'll start with the bad and end with the good, because I like to leave you with happy thoughts.
1. School starts back on Monday.....which means I have to go back to work on Monday...boo.
However, the good thing about Monday is that I enjoy the job that I have. I like working with technology and the more I'm on my computer the more I learn about the programs I'm working with, which leads to expanding my knowledge in more than just my job. Now, if the kids are just not annoying and bothersome we will be fine.

Now on to the good. There are two REALLY good things and two other pretty good things going on Monday, January 4:
Really Good things go first:
1. My Shoot Sac that I ordered for my camera lenses comes in!!! I am so excited about this it's not even funny. I took some of my Christmas money and splurged and bought the shoot sac with a "Fling" cover. I can't wait to go out shooting with my good friend Sydni Rae with our shoot sacs and get a picture of them together so I can call it "A fling with a cowboy;" I can't help but think it's cute even though I know it's totally goofy. The idea comes from my shoot sac name being "Fling" and Sydni's being "Cowboy." Here's an example of what my shoot sac will look like:

2. My best friend will be induced for labor to give birth to her precious baby girl. I already know this little girl will be precious because first off, her name is going to be Lexi Jo, and second off, she is Terrie ~~Smith's~~ Autrey's daughter. Terrie already has her room set up and it is just dripping with girly cuteness with all the pink, brown, and green in the room and the fantastic custom bedding that Terrie's mom made. Terrie is fantastic at making anything cute and turning any house into a home and she's done the same with Lexi's room. This girl already has a bow holder full of bows. The really dreadful part about Terrie having Lexi on Monday is that I won't be able to be there. BOO. I can't exactly take off work my first day back, believe me I'd love to though. However, I will be making my way out to Mount Pleasant next weekend to officially meet Ms. Lexi Jo and of course, produce her first photo shoot for her and take tons of newborn baby shots. :)

Now on to the pretty good things about Monday:
1. Zumba starts back up at the MAC. I'll have to dish out some money for my annual dues to the MAC and for my monthly fees for Zumba, but it's totally worth it. I finally found a way to work out that doesn't feel like total torture and I really enjoy it. I love to dance and this allows me to dance my face off. I also use Zumba to stay active and will hopefully help me in slimming down and reaching my weight loss/slim down goal.

2. Cliff and I start our 21 day body makeover/DIET. This will suck and be pretty good at the same time. It will suck because I have to give up some things I love to consume in my body, such as: sweet tea with caffene in it, white potatoes, red meat, etc. However, it is a good thing because I know that this is doing something good for my body and it will help me cleanse my body of toxins and help me begin to loose the weight I need to. The great thing is that Cliff will be doing this with me and I'm better at this sort of thing when I have motivation and an accountability partner. I have already made some changes in my diet such as drinking more water and have cut WAY down on cokes, but other than that I've never really gone on a full out lifestyle change diet. I need it, and I am looking forward to seeing my body slim down and back into a proper 24 year old's body.

Well, it's a pretty exciting Monday ahead of us. I hope yours is just as exciting as well, that is, if you wish it to be.