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Oh Sally Fields and your crazy misquoted quote.  Man that comes in handy so often.  Like right now.

I got an award!  Cool, huh?  I go completely nuts during the week and I get a nomination.  Sweet!

Bon Appetit Hon – Thank you for your kind words.  People are always their own worst critic but hearing compliments like that from complete strangers well… you essentially made my day.  Thank you.  And if you guys haven’t seen her yummy site, go now.  Please.  I love food bloggers.  Make my mouth water.  Love it.

Since I’ve been blessed with an It’s A Major Award!, I get to pass it along to anyone I want to as long as I think they have a kickass blog.  This will not be easy my friends.  But I’ll attempt it.

The rules are pretty simple.  If you receive the award and you choose to accept it, you are asked to:

1. Post an entry on your blog that displays the IAMA! logo and links back to the person who gave you the award.

2. Name as many other blogs as you like that are deserving of an IAMA! award.  But in doing so, you’ll need to say a word or two (or more) about what makes them awesome.

3. Include links to the blogs you are giving the IAMA! award.

4. Leave a comment in the newly awarded blogs letting them know that they have been recognized with an IAMA! award.

5. That’s it.

So… who are the lucky little ducks?

Almost Crafty - I know she’s my PodMate but in all seriousness she inspired me to start blogging and now I’m going to tackle knitting.

Lindsey’s Rantings – Because her rants are hilarious.  And who doesn’t love Monday 13s?

You Are What You Eat…or Reheat - White Trash Wednesdays: look out!  Lots of “nom” going on on this blog.

Jun-Blog - His photographs are perfect and full of interest.  And I want to steal his corgi doggin.

Amy Has Bangs – I love her appreciation for music and hockey… and bangs.

I don’t get caught up in  Halloween – I’m more of a Thanksgiving person.  You get a whole meal at Thanksgiving, not only candy.  Much better deal.  But even though I don’t don a costume to celebrate, I had to tell you what me and Abby did this week.  Our good friend Kelly had an idea for a costume and it was absolutely perfect.  So Abby and I made it for her.  You’re dying to know, right?  How about a little background story first.

I love Kelly and I’ve known her for years – like 13 or 14 of them.  We all became friends in high school and just haven’t grown apart (which I feel is a fabulous thing because I would be seriously lost without my three buddies).  But as long as I can remember, we’ve embarrassed Kelly.  We tease her until she blushes, she acts like she doesn’t know us when we start dancing like fools, we say inappropriate things and ask inappropriate questions just to get a reaction… and this has been going on for years.  Only twice in my life has Kelly embarrassed me:

1. The day she and Abby visited me in Indianapolis and had us pose outside the Super Target for a picture.  Kelly taking pictures is not a new thing but standing in a crowded parking lot taking pictures was.
2. The day we were at Joe’s Older Than Dirt and she couldn’t hear the music they were playing inside and proceeded to pull a tiny speaker set out of her gigantic purse and set it up on the picnic table.  I was mortified.  Mostly because everyone else then had to listen to her selection.  And she turned it up.  I swear, if Celine Dion had come on, I’d been out of there.

The girl likes loves music.  So when she asked me to help make her costume and she told me what it was I was both a) knocked down with how awesome the idea was and b) shocked that she didn’t seem embarrassed by the idea.  So without further ado, I present my Little Skipper, Kelly, and the Polo for this Marco, Abby, with Kelly’s kickass costume:

Yep, she’s an iPod.  I cannot wait to see what it looks like with the “earbud” speakers that Abby gave her.  She is not only cute but cutting edge and completely trendy.  And pink.  Of course the apple is on the back.  Nothing like a little sandwich board magic to make all your Halloween dreams come true.

I’m losing my mind.  I knew this day would come eventually but not this soon, not at my age.  But I have been a complete weirdo this week.  I blame it on stress and the most recent culprit, lack of sleep.  To put this more in perspective for you, here are some of the things I accomplished this week (if you can call it that):

• I forgot my lunch today.  Not a big deal.  But I take my lunch to work everyday – I do not forget my lunch.  Well I did.  On the counter, on the table, I have no idea.  But I do know that Chase dined on my lovely leftover pork chop sandwich.  Bitch.
• I left my phone in the car.  Not a big deal.  But I get paranoid with out the darn thing and trekked my butt all the way back to the parking garage to retrieve it.  And then had a strange conversation with the new little security guard.  It was almost as strange as that day we saw a deer leg in a parking spot.  Almost.
• I put leave-in conditioner on my face instead of in my hair.  I quickly panicked after I did this because my face is known to break out after having alien products applied to it.  So I washed my face like crazy.  But I still had the sweet smell of hair product all day.
• I just deleted a post.  I have no idea why I pressed “trash” but I did.  So if you see “Week 10″ pop up your feeder again, it’s because I’m a numskull.
• I had a minor spaz attack at Jimmy Johns.  Who knew they could fit that many people in such a small space.  And be able to hide the cup lids so well.  PodMate, I don’t know what I’d do without you.
• I went to our shared, public restroom at work in house slippers.  Yes, I occasionally wear house slippers at work.  I sit at a desk all day, no one sees my feet.  But everyone did today, including the custodian.
• I slept fully clothed last night.  I’m talking blue jeans, hoody, the works.  I thought I’d relax for a bit.  At some point I passed out and managed to weasel myself under the covers.
• And I ate cake for dinner last night.  OK, that’s not that weird but still, I had absolutely no desire to make a ham sandwich or warm up that pork chop sandwich that Chase wolfed down today.  Boo.

Keep me away from sharp objects.  I can totally see myself losing a thumb or something.  All I know is I need this weekend.  I need tomorrow night’s festivities that include cervezas, I need to sleep in on Saturday and I need to finally go see my new Target.  And maybe more cake. 

Although I had a bazillion “time” ideas for this week’s challenge, they all looked horrible. Watch faces, clocks, calendar pages, TIME magazine, thyme seasoning… all big fat fails. All of my shots just looked bland. I think Leo the fat cat used up all of my creative juice for the weekend. On Monday, while I was strolling around the office, a bright idea struck.

Here is my time:

This is my PodMate, aka Susan, aka Almost Crafty. And she’s looking into an old mirror that sits above the fireplace in the clock tower. You see, we work in an old building that was gutted and renovated into office space. And in the southeast corner of the building is a clock tower with a clock at the top (refer to ARosa’s time photo). So the tower is a small round room and the renovator left the original fireplace. And it’s a gorgeous fireplace. They also left the original mirror. Which is extremely expensive to purchase. These lead cracks are worth some mula.

PodMate looks so freakin eerie and I love it. Perfect for the spooky season. But also perfect for the “time” challenge because over time, the mirror has aged. Turning into a quick favorite. I promise PodMate isn’t this creepy looking – to prove it, I snagged a photo of her taking a self-portrait for her 365 project. Thanks again, PodMate!

Next week’s challenge is “candy.” Great timing considering it’s Halloween and the kiddies will be trick-or-treating. I haven’t decided if I’m going to pass out the goods or pretend I’m not home. Figure that out later this week. But don’t forget to check out the flickr pool’s photos or click on the challenger roll to see everyone else’s photos. I see a couple new names which is awesome – like they say, the more the merrier!

My mom is a knitter.  Just in the past couple years she’s managed to knit 2 purses, 3 scarves, 6 baby bibs, 25 baby blankets, 46 pairs of house shoes and 57 dish cloths.  OK, I really don’t know how much she’s knitted but I know it’s a lot.  She took to knitting quickly and her finished products always look great.  Especially the uber-soft, uber-warm scarf she crafted for me.  Love that thing.

Every Thursday night is “knitting night”.  My mom, along with other ladies, head over to a friend’s house to knit together and catch up on the latest gossip of Grey’s Anatomy.  I still think it’s funny my mom knows who Katherine Heigl is.  This friend is named Bev.  Bev’s the expert, the teacher, the hoot of the group.  And since Bev lives a hop, a skip and a stone’s throw from my house, I occasionally go and hang out.  I took the camera this last time.

I know this contraption looks completely confusing but I’ll tell you it’s a sock.  A very big sock.  I don’t know how she does it.  Bev can knit her heart out while watching TV and sharing her profound wisdom with me.  On this particular evening, between the life-lessons, I heard a little word slip because she missed a stitch.  “What?!  I messed up!”

One of these days I’m going to join them and actually learn how to knit.  Or as Bev says it, “click needles”.  I enjoy crafting but knitting and sewing kind of scare me.  I have no reason why other than I’m afraid I wouldn’t like the finished product after I spent all of that time making something to wear, even if it’s just a blanket.  And sewing has sharp needles and machines, the better to injure you with.  Yep, better start with knitting needles.

These are magic hands, my friends.  Bev has a stock room (more like a cabinet, but whatevs) filled with the treasures she’s made and intends to share with family and friends for the holidays.  Different pieces, different colors, different patterns, different feels… I just need to start clicking my own damn needles.

My friends have pretty much gotten used to the fact that I take pictures of everything.  Occasionally, someone will throw a fit but not very often.  I did once had a guy yell at me for stealing his soul… so I ignored him completely after that.  How do you respond to that?  I know, I have no idea either.

So when we showed up at the Corbett’s for a little hang out time, no one said anything when I pulled out the kahuna and started crawling around on the floor.  They say the best way to photograph kids and animals is to get on their level.  And their cat Leo was quite the ham.

This cat was something else.  After we made acquaintance (the booty rub gets ‘em every time), he stayed nearby.  And after I started snapping, the sounds kept him interested.  And he worked it – this cat seriously hammed it up for the camera.

I’m not really a cat-person.  I grew up with dogs and I’m much more of a doggin lover.  That doesn’t mean I discriminate against cats – I just really don’t know what to do with them.  One minute they’re all lovey-dovey and making biscuits and the next, their claws have dug into your arms and you have little kitty bite marks on your hands.  But not Leo.  He’s a lover.

Leo the fat cat.  He doesn’t really look fat.  But his belly hangs low.  This, however, does not take away from the extreme cute factor.  I had cat fur all down my front because I kept scooting on the floor.  But it was worth it.  I had close to 150 photos of just the Leo.  And I was not bored once going through them.  He puts on quite a show.

I feel bad for the other kitty.  He’s a Blue Russian and is apparently quite shy.  So he hid behind the chair and the couch the entire night.  Leo, on the other hand, stretched out in the middle of the floor, sat on eMohn’s head, stuck his own head through the blinds to watch the fire pit and modeled.  I love this little critter.

My favorite of the night (below).  The focal length just looks better on this shot.  The profile makes it more interesting.  And I love the post-processing effects I used (gives in that classic 1970s vibe).  Yep, my favorite.

Last night I met up with six of my wife-friends for a girls night out.  And we did something we’d never in a million years talk our husbands into doing: we painted pottery.  I’ve never painted pottery besides what I did in art class back in high school but this was fun.  And stressful (for me at least).  But when in good company, time flies by and the good times roll. 

I didn’t take the kahuna – I wanted to paint.  But Mel had the hunk and was flexing her muscles.  We seriously need to weigh this camera.  I’m waiting for the day Mel picks it up and starts doing arm curls with it.  Then we can all get tickets to her gun show. 

It took me FOREVER to figure out what I was going to do.  I knew I wanted something that would be used so I chose a square platter and then free-hand my design.  I’m satisfied.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like after its fired.  Why do they make you wait a week? 

I want to do this again.  Only next time I’m going to plan ahead and have a design already to go.  So I won’t pace the pottery walls in search of the perfect piece.  Or stand at the paint wall minutes at a time trying decide on colors.  Yep, definitely need a POA next time.

Ever since I’ve gotten my hands on Photoshop 7.0, I’ve struggled.  It’s really my own fault but that’s besides the point.  I can’t find a book about it (because it’s an older version).  I’ve done some online tutorials but again, not for version 7.0.  I work in advertising but have never taken the opportunity to have any of these guys teach me.  I wanted to learn it myself.  I’ve learned how to tweak some things.  And I’ve learned how to download other people’s actions – which could be considered cheating but they’re so freakin cool.  But last night, I had an A-HA! moment.  I love A-HA!s.

I’m a big fan of The Pioneer Woman – PodMate caused this addiction.  I’ve since passed it on to Mrs. Rev.  PW is witty and funny and her photos are super fly.  She takes the time to explain how she photographs and post-processes.  And though she has a much newer version of Photoshop than I do, I still try to play along.

This week she posted an assignment to share photos with rounded edges.  I have to admit, I’ve never rounded the edges of my photos before but what the heck, I’m game.  I followed her Photoshop tutorial to a T and it worked – my photo looked really cool.  But her last step – deleting the white corners – was a doozy.  Apparently there’s a “magic eraser”.  I can’t find anything that’s classified as magical besides that silly little wand on my version of PS.  Not surprising but I was irked.

I repeatedly failed with the “regular eraser”.  I even tried explaining to the computer what I wanted, what I needed, but it apparently doesn’t have voice recognition.  I was about to call it quits when I hit a button by mistake – and there it was, a “special eraser”.  Actually, I can’t remember what it was called but I know it wasn’t “magic”.  I selected it, moved it on to my photo and click click click… A-HA! The background started to disappear!  Success!  And I did it all by myself with nobody’s help and I’m a little proud of myself.  Take that, Photoshop 7.0!

In all its glory, I present the photo that took up 4 hours of my life trying to figure out how to round the edges and delete the white corners:

You see those white corners?  That ain’t my fault.  I got rid of them, they are transparent.  But for some reason, flickr is messing with me in my fragile mental state.  I’ve repeatedly checked my work, tried saving it as png, tif, gif, psd, pdf… all show my beautiful transparent corners in Photoshop but when I share the file on the clean, black background of shutterboo, they reappear.  I think it has to do with program reformatting it to a jpg.  I can be unhappy about that if I want to. 

I suppose I won’t be using round corners very often.  Because those white corners don’t sit too well with me.  Boo white corners, boo.

Quick Facts:

• who: Susie & Cliff
• what: a wedding
• when: this past weekend
• where: Nelson County
• why: because they love each other?

I thought I’d bust out the accessory flash and try to learn how to use the blasted thing at Susie’s wedding since I was so pissed about my failure at Emily’s wedding.  But I did want to stay out the professional photographer’s way – who, by the way, is a Louisville native and did a FANTASTIC job.  Who am I kidding – she does a FANTASTIC job all of the time… more on that later.

So yes, the flash and I decided to make up and become friends again.  But I still stumbled with the darn thing.  Arg.  Anywho, I did manage to get a few nice shots.  Most of which are of the toasts.  And the cake.  Speaking of…

Hello, Lover.  Did I mention it was chocolate with ganache?  A cake after my own heart.

And the groom had his own cake.  Cliff’s a firefighter – his cake actually produced smoke.  I did not eat his cake so I cannot attest to its goodness.  I had already filled up on hot brown casserole and ganache.  Nuff said.

Everything about this wedding was beautiful.  Susie had fall colors of oranges and reds and pinks and browns.  The roses were stunning.  The bridesmaid dresses were pretty.  Susie was GORGEOUS!

Funny story about those two pictures up there: it’s the toast, everyone wants to watch and be close as did I.  But I also did not want to get in Courtney’s way as she was the professional – I’m just some ding-dong with an annoying flash.  So in every picture I have of the toasts, you can see a man’s bald heading peaking out at the bottom.  Funny, no?

And my favorite of the night – Susie looks so happy.  And she was.  Probably still is as she’s on a beach somewhere sipping maitais and doing things that newly weds do like feed each other chocolate covered strawberries and hold hands when they walk everywhere and kiss every 10 minutes and glow because they’re so in love.  That’s OK, they can have their fun.  Reality will set in soon enough.  You married people know what I’m talking about.

Look!  A successful father & daughter dance photograph!  Much better than the photog fail in September.

After this, I packed up the camera because I was ready to boogie and get down with my bad self.  And VJ of course.  And let me just say that I think we have a fine taste in music but when both of our requests played that night, the dance floor emptied.  I kid you not, internet, no one in that room had the appreciation I have for Livin’ On A Prayer and VJ could have very well been the only person in the whole county who was excited about Come On Eileen.

When Shania Twain started playing (we live in Kentucky, it will always happen) and Susie grabbed the mic and began singing Any Man of Mine, I went and got the camera.  Because it was too funny to pass up.

It was a very fun night, VJ and I had a blast dancing all night even though we were filled to the gills with yummy food.  If I could have made it out that place with a tier of cake, I would have.  Even if it meant sneaking it up my skirt.  I’ve been having dreams about that cake.  Nom.

Susie,
I wish you and the Cliff the very best.  You two compliment each other so well and deserve all of the happiness in the world.  “Seek a happy marriage with wholeness of heart, but do not expect to reach the Promised Land without going through some wilderness together.”  Best Wishes, friend.

The Reason Why I “Stay Out Of The Way”

Back to the professional photographer.  Courtney Reece Photography of Louisville is amazing.  Courtney always takes such beautiful photographs and I love the journalistic approach that captures emotion with every shot she takes.

If you want to see truly amazing photos of Susie and Cliff, visit Courtney’s site (www.courtneyreece.com) as she already has two – count them, two – posts up about the wedding.  The wedding was Saturday, as in four days ago.  And Susie is stunning.  I’m repeatedly amazed as I read her blog often and scribble notes of what I should try to fail at next.

And to think 20+ years ago, I stood next to her and her twin sister, Kelly, wearing huge paper collars and singing Christmas carols for the kindergarten holiday show – and I have a picture to prove it.

I’ve decided I like the color challenges best.  This is the second one so far and I have more fun thinking up ideas and trying them out.  More so than say “window”.  Needless to say, I had the perfect photo opportunity for this week’s subject.  There are only a few things in this world you expect to be white: snow, clouds, the President’s house, anything albino, wedding dresses…

Here is my white:

Like I said, I went to a wedding this weekend.  And my goal was to get a sweet picture of the wedding cake.  My cake pictures were OK (BTW, the cake was out of this world delicious!) but this caught my eye.  It’s cropped of course, I would never zoom in on somebody’s butt like this (OK, yes I would), but I feel that it tells a story.  A husband embracing his new wife, supporting her, letting her know he’ll always be there for her and love her.  This was their “first dance”.

That’s what I love about weddings.  Love is the air and I breathe it in deep.  Everyone magically forgets about the dirty socks on the floor, the pile of dishes in the sink, the fact that your husband hasn’t taken out the trash in three weeks or bothered to mow the lawn in that same time.  Ah, weddings.  They’re pure romance [and cake].

Next week’s challenge is “time.”  Literally?  Figuratively?  I have no idea what I’m doing – time to start putting the pen to paper and the eye to viewfinder.  Don’t forget to check out the flickr pool’s photos or click on the challenger roll to see everyone else’s photos.  Enjoy [and join the challenge]!!