This is the face you get when you tell my nephew to smile. Hehe, yea it pretty much melts your heart. <3
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I’ve been tagged by the wonderful Samm Blake and the rules of the game are to answer the questions, tag 5 other people, post their name then leave them a message on their blog letting them know that they have been tagged and so forth.
What was I doing 10 years ago?
10 years ago I was 16, and on the second half of my junior year in high school. I was colorguard captain (yea I was a bandgeek - NOT ROTC), actively participating in the school’s Christian club, Asian club, and in the spring musical, “The Pajama Game.” We won championships that year for winterguard, and I remember being so proud. & happy! I will even go so far as to post a picture of the guard.
Can you guess which one I am? :)
Things On My To Do list
+ more sample albums.
+ cook at home more.
+ adding more things to do with the portrait/dance side of my work, which will be revealed soon!
+ travel to europe.
+ travel to china.
+ travel!
Bad Habits
+ I sleep really, REALLY late. It’s awful how late I sleep. and because of this…
+ I wake up really, really late.
Places I have Lived
+ Sacramento
+ Oregon
+ here.
Things Most People Don’t Know About Me
+ I am obsessed with letterpress stationary
+ I just switched to Mac this past year after being a PC girl all my life - including having “built” one (I had a friend guiding me the whole way, but I put it together myself!)
+ I looove Mutts comics
+ I took three years of French in high school and can barely remember any of it. Although I’d like to pick it up again.
+ I have a thing for trees
I tag you!
(this is really hard, and I hate leaving people out, but I’m forcing myself to only pick 5 in two categories, and if I don’t pick you, it’s not cause I don’t love you, I do! I’m hoping the people I pick will be able to do one of these too ;) And I’m trying to pick people I haven’t picked before. :P)
{non california}
+ Justin DeMers
+ Kate Crafton
+ Kathy Carlisle
+ Richard & Amy
+ Jodi Renee.
{california}
+ Lisa Roah
+ Eddie Bojorquez
+ Sarah Maren
+ Junshien
+ Sarah K Chen
I’m realizing more and more lately of how much I love good food. There are days I wish I was living in Europe - going to the market everyday to get fresh ingredients, making whatever looks good. I still follow recipes, but one day! You will find me with a garden, (I currently have a black thumb and no where to plant anything) cooking whatever comes from the market & garden (think Jamie Oliver at Home - which by the way, I absolutely love this show).
Along with my love of foreign foods, I love books that incorporate food & recipes. There’s something about adding in stories along with recipes that just speaks to me. It’s almost as if by cooking these foods, you’re a part of the story. My first book like this was Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Cake!, which I was totally enamored by. I remember reading it over and over again and just staring at the recipes, wishing that I could make them. I can’t remember if I ever tried to, but I’m sure I probably did.
My next favorite book with recipes was Like Water for Chocolate, which I had to read for summer reading in high school, and just fell in love with.
My latest find is Trail of Crumbs, a story that drew me in the minute I read the little summary inside the book jacket. I stood at the bookstore for about 20 mins, fixated in one spot, reading and reading. For some reason I didn’t take the book home, but I definitely plan on it very, very soon.
There’s just something magical about cooking & food. Like photos, they evoke memories, thoughts, forgotten feelings. Every now and then I get a whiff of something that smells like a mixture of soy sauce and rice pasta and I’m instantly brought back to a time when my mom made me pasta that smelled just like that. Rice porridge does the same. It’s comforting. :)
Mashed sweet potatoes
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe, so here’s another that I’ve enjoyed. :) I added peppermint extract to this to make it a little more flavorful. It’s fun - you could try to add a drop of red food coloring to make it pink as well :)
(from allrecipes.com)
PREP TIME 20 Min
COOK TIME 3 Hrs
READY IN 3 Hrs 20 Min
Original recipe yield: 3 dozen
INGREDIENTS
* 4 egg whites
* 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C). Butter and flour a baking sheet.
2. In a glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites until foamy using an electric mixer. Sprinkle in sugar a little at a time, while continuing to whip at medium speed. When the mixture becomes stiff and shiny like satin, stop mixing, and transfer the mixture to a large pastry bag. Pipe the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet using a large round tip or star tip.
3. Place the meringues in the oven and place a wooden spoon handle in the door to keep it from closing all the way. Bake for 3 hours, or until the meringues are dry, and can easily be removed from the pan. Allow cookies to cool completely before storing in an airtight container at room temperature.
This was actually one of the weddings I did a while back and never got the chance to blog (although, it is in my portfolio on my website). So here I am blogging about it! :) I was actually supposed to do a shoot yesterday which I wanted to post photos from, but due to the rain it was cancelled. :( Boo!
Monique & John were married in Sacramento at the Cathedral of Blessed Sacrament, with photos taken around the capital, Stanford House, and the reception at the Masonic Temple.
P.S. Notice anything with my logo/watermark? ;)
This was actually the very first shot of the day, I found Monique sitting in the sink doing her makeup. ;)
In our first place here in San Diego, there was a mourning dove nest right above our patio. I remember sitting there, watching the mother & father take turns, coming back to the nest to sit on it. I learned that during the day, the father sits on it while the mother searches for food, and vice versa in the evening. It’s sweet, really. I stole this photo during a chance moment when both were gone.
The sound of those coo’s reminds me of mornings at home.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling down but rising each time we fall. ~ Nelson Mandela
Quel est donc
Ce lien entre nous
Cette chose indéfinissable
Où vont ces destins qui se nouent
Pour nous rendre inséparables
Quel est donc
Ce qui nous sépare
Qui par hasard nous réunit
Pourquoi tant d’allers, de départs
Dans cette ronde infinie
On avance
Au fil du temps
Au gré du vent
Ainsi
On vit au jour le jour
Nos envies, nos amours
On s’en va sans savoir
On est toujours
Dans la même histoire
Dans la même histoire
La même histoire
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Life’s a dance, we all have to do
What does the music require?
People are moving together
Close as the flames in a fire
Feel the beat; music and rhyme
While there is time.
We all go ’round and ’round
Partners of lost and found
Looking for one more chance
All I know is,
We’re all in the dance
Night and Day, the music plays on
We are all part of the show
While we can hold on to someone
Even though life won’t let us go
Feel the beat; music and rhyme
While there is time.
We all go round and round
Partners of lost and found
Looking for one more chance
All I know is,
We’re all in the dance
- Feist (from Paris, je t’aime)
(pst. i love feist’s videos for “i feel it all” & “1 2 3 4” all her videos are pretty awesome actually. so is her music <3)
Did you see the last lunar eclipse before 2010 today? Crazy to think that 2010 is only 2 years away. I only got a small glimpse of the eclipse, it was cloudy & moving quite a bit, so there were only moments of clarity.
This is the last of all the photos I’ll be posting from this event! I have more TTD stuff coming up, so stay tuned for that! :D
And here’s the link to all the photos I’ve posted form this shoot :)
This is going to be split into two posts, I’ve decided ;) I just keep adding them!
Shellane reminds me of Princess Toadstool in this photo. Hehe
I’ll be adding some more shots from this shoot tomorrow, for now, stay tuned! Also, I have a lot more Trash the Dress shoots coming up, so those will be exciting to share!
Lots of other exciting things to come & share too! I’ll keep you all posted of course ;)
Links to the other Salton Sea TTD photos: [one] [two] [three] [four]
I pulled up some old images that I took in college which brought back memories of being in a darkroom for film classes. As much as I don’t miss being holed up in a literally dark room for hours on end trying to get the perfect print, I do miss the feeling of seeing an image develop right before your eyes, and I can still smell the smell of fixer (a chemical used in the process of developing).
The bottom image is the view of the darkroom for enlarging prints, it’s pretty blurry cause well… it was dark in there. lol. When developing negatives (the image above) you’re pretty much locked up in a pitch dark room for about 10 mins, waiting for film to develop. The slightest bit of light kills your negatives. I dreaded developing negatives because my imagination always got the best of me during those long 10 mins of doing nothing. but. wait. in the DARK. :p
Ah, I do miss doing it yourself though, a few years back I bought my own stuff for bathroom b&w developing, but I no longer have the time to really do it anymore. Maybe someday soon :)
My boyfriend made breakfast yesterday for Valentine’s day. Hash browns, poached eggs on ham & an english muffin, and another english muffin with chocolate sprinkles. Mmmm <3 : )
Very rarely do I make posts with self portraits, but I love this sweatshirt too much not to! I got a lovely package in the mail yesterday from my wonderful friend Carol, who finally got my birthday present after some shipping mix up. I squealed when looking into my mailbox, finding a lovely package squished in there. :) This wonderful present was from To Write Love On Her Arms, something that Carol introduced me to, a “non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for those struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.” (yes I stole that off their FAQ)
When she sent me the link, I read the story that started the whole movement and found it completely touching. I love it when someone has inspiration, a vision, and runs with it - to change the world. To change one another. And to think that one person can inspire that in someone else. It’s an beautiful thing.
Love is a beautiful thing.
P.S. Look what lens is back! :D
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