Old Hollywood Style

I had the honor and pleasure of working with Stacy & Duff today, along with David Wright and Dave Pavol. We had a blast creating 1940's Hollywood style images at the Hermitage Hotel.

Ravioli

Sometimes you just revert back to childhood, ya know? When Kelly text messaged me to let me know he was working late and wouldn't be home for dinner, I knew I wasn't going to cook for just me. So this is what I end up eating, lol. When I was a kid, my little brother and I LOVED spagettios and ravioli. Of course, back then you had to use a can opener to open it, and it had to be heated up on the stovetop in a saucepan. Now you just pop the top and stick it in the microwave. You don't even have to put it in a bowl! Easy clean-up when you are eating alone, true?

Cat Naps

Another cold, dreary, damp day. Perfect for cat napping, eh?

Hail

Spring storms. Every year, we have storms that threaten tornadoes. Today was no different. Fortunately, the tornadoes never materialized in our county. But this is how the day started...

And this is the hail we eventually got:

Cyber Friends

I love my cyber friends! Seriously, the internet has got to be, without a doubt, the most wonderful invention of my lifetime. I have friends all over the world! Photographers, scrapbookers, designers, people I have since since high school...I wouldn't have all these people in my life if it weren't for the internet. I was talking to one of my photographer friends out in Seattle the other day, and we were talking about candy. I know--women talking about food/sweets. Bizarre, huh? Anyway, she was saying how her kids like Nerds and stuff, and how she was strictly a chocolate girl. I told her how I could eat Sour Patch Kids until my tongue was raw. And that I love sour/tangy candy, as well as the chocolate and stuff. I get home today from running errands, and there is a package from Celeste in the mail--Sour Patch Kids and Nerds! What a sweet friend!

Project: Research Ireland

Research, research, research...because I'm going to Ireland!!! I am so excited. I have never been to Europe before, and I have always wanted to go to Ireland, even when I was a kid. We bought our plane tickets the other day, and now we are planning our itinerary. We will be renting a car, and driving all around the southern and western coastal areas, along with Dublin and Shannon. I can't wait!!!

Black Dagger Brotherhood

Obsession. I have blogged recently about my obsession with certain books. This obsession with the Black Dagger Brotherhood has surpassed all previous obsessions. I stay up until 4 in the morning sometimes because I can.not.put.them.down. I have read 4 books this week--starting the 5th tomorrow. I have a 6th in my possession, and the 7th on pre-order for a May delivery. This is as bad as some people's obsessions with Edward from Twilight, only these males are a little older than high school kids...

An Obsession with Books

I think my love of reading is becoming quite obvious in my posts lately. One of the problems I seem to have is in letting go of my books after I read them. I don't like to. Because I might read it again. Some of my most favorite books are so worn they are falling apart. They have been read over and over again. The Thornbirds is missing it's entire spine, and the covers are held on by a few tiny threads. The corner of the cover of The Count of Monte Cristo are starting to peel back. And the paperbacks on my bookcase are stacked 3 deep!

Citrus Pepper Cod

This is my citrus-pepper cod. I say citrus because the recipe calls for marinating in lemon juice and garlic, then sprinkling with lemon zest, pepper and parsley. That's just too much lemon! So I switched the lemon zest for orange zest--yum! Pan-seared in a low-cal non-stick spray, and this is a great low-calorie, low-fat, but still tasty entree! It's almost a weekly staple in this house, and very economical, too.

Project 365: Day 81 -- Italian Night at Red Tree

Our local coffee house held their first monthly Italian Night Event. It was a private party, invitation only, and it was great! A local chef cooked a delicious sampler menu, and there was a very talented jazz quartet. It was family-style seating, so we got to spend time with friends and neighbors. I look forward to the next event!

The Ducati

In nearly 16 years of marriage, there was only one thing I ever told Kelly he couldn't have or do--a motorcycle. And that was only because I knew how he drove cars! But eventually, he wore me down and I relented...so he has his 1998 Ducati Supersport 900. Man, he LOVES that bike. And I have to say that he is very responsible when he rides--leathers, spine protector, full-face helmet, gloves, boots, the whole bit. He fully understands how unforgiving asphalt can be at 60+ miles per hour. So this is his weekend toy...

Originally, I photographed my lunch for today's image. It was chips and a sandwich. Boars Head Black Forest Turkey and Boars Head Butterkase cheese on Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain White bread. Problem was, that pale bread, with the pale cheese, and the pale turkey and the pale chips on that white plate just didn't photograph very well. Blah. So I decided to photograph the luscious red strawberries I dipped in milk chocolate instead.

But my story today is still going to be about that sandwich. Or rather, my weird compulsions with food. I will eat the same thing for lunch every day for days, if not weeks, on end. Then I'll get sick of it and won't eat it again for months. Right now, I have been eating the same kind of sandwich, with the same plain Lay's chips, every day for the past week. Before that, it was Salami. Before that it was homemade pizza on a flour tortilla. The pizza phase lasted nearly a month, and the salami lasted almost two months. The turkey has maybe a week left...it just isn't as tasty as some of those other things--though it is much healthier.

I do the same thing with a particular kind of cookie, or ice cream, or cereal. I get locked in on one thing and eat it until I am just sick of it. Lately my snack preference has been Pepperidge Farm Gingersnaps or M&Ms.

I am also one of those weird people that eat all of one item on my plate before moving on to the next item. Tonight, when I make pork chops glazed with peach preserves, buttered egg noodles, and asparagus, I will eat all the noodles first. Because they get cold the fastest, and the taste icky cold. I also don't like different foods to touch each other on my plate. I need one of those plates with the divided sections!

What kind of weird food quirks do you have?

Well, my photo today is books. I have this quirky thing about reading...Once I read something I like, I read every.single.thing. that author has written. And I LOVE books that come in a series. And I don't like to start a series until I have all the books in it, so I can keep reading like one really LOOOONG book.

So you can see that some of my favorite authors are Nora Roberts, John Grisham, John D. McDonald, V.C. Andrews...And there are number of vampire-themed books here, too...

I had my third post-op visit today after my Lasik surgery. Everything is healing perfectly, and my vision is now 20/15 in my left eye, and only 2 correct letters away from 20/15 in my right eye! It's so great to be able to see the clock across the room, read the subtitles on a movie, and wear my sunglasses while driving! I can't say enough about the staff at Loden Vision Centers. Everyone there is very pleasant and helpful. I highly recommend them for anyone having Lasik surgery in the greater Nashville area.

Ah, finally finished cleaning up this room! It only took two days. With this house, we have certainly learned the art of cramming as much stuff into a tiny space as humanly possible, that's for sure. This room is a prime example.

Well, it's a mess. I have been trying to clean up and slightly reorganize my office/craft space, and let me tell you, it's a disaster! And it's too late and I am too tired to finish it tonight. So here's the visual documentation for the day...

I figured it was time to replace the goth/vampire avatar with something more closely resembling reality. So here is one of the 20 or so self-portraits taken in my bathroom mirror today. The rest of them were really awful!

Good friends, good food, and good wine. How could there be a better combination? We spent the evening with our dear friends, Scott & Sarah, at their home with their two boys Logan & Liam. Sarah made a fabulous baked onion dip and chicken tortilla soup. She and Kelly drank two bottles of red, while I drank an entire bottle of white. We had a wonderful time looking through photos from Kelly's trips to Bulgaria and Hungary with Habitat for Humanity, and talking about the economy, life, and our governing values in life. Life is good.

As a child, I always loved new school supplies. And stationary. This of course was years before anyone had heard of email, so I wrote letters to my cousins in New England and friends who had moved away on actual paper with a pen, put it in an envelope with a stamp and mailed it. I always found pretty stationary with kittens or puppies on it, or flower borders. As I got older, I loved office supplies of any kind. I could spend hours wandering around a Staples or Office Depot store, looking at pens, folders, highlighters, notebooks, etc.

In 1996, I discovered scrapbooking after seeing an issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine in a store. I bought the magazine, and spent the next two weeks scouring it's pages, devouring the articles and staring at the photos. In the 13 years since, I have completed over 30 albums and collected enough supplies to fill a small store. The mainstay of those supplies is of course, paper. Just look at all this paper. And this is after giving away huge stacks of it to a charity project last year. I still can't pass up pretty paper when I see it. It's a sickness, I tell you. Really.

I love cheese. Lots of different kinds of cheese. I guess it's how I get all my calcium needs, since I don't drink milk at all.

In keeping with the whole Year of the Purge thing, and trying to get this tiny house cleaned, decluttered, and organized, I went to work on the refrigerator the other day. I hadn't realized just how much cheese we had, and how difficult it is to store in those awful packages it comes in. So I made a trip over to Bed, Bath & Beyond, and found a bunch of Snap-Lock containers to organize my refrigerator. In the process of doing this, I discovered just how much cheese we have--26 different kinds! No wonder Kelly thinks I am nuts with the cheese.

This is my Woofey. He's spoiled rotten. He's an American Brown Tabby, medium hair domestic. I adopted his mother when she was just a tiny kitten after she and the rest of her litter and their mom were rescued from a construction site about 15 years ago. Peebles ran away when she was about 3 years old, having never taken too well to being domesticated. But before leaving, she broke out a window screen and got knocked up, giving us 4 beautiful kittens, two of whom we kept for ourselves--Woofey and Weezer.

Their given names are actually Chunks and Theodore, but we call them Woofey & Weezer more often than not. We lost Weezer several years ago to a hit & run in front of our house. He was trying to visit his friend Outcast across the street. Less than two weeks later, Outcast met with the same fate.

So now Woofey is even more spoiled than he was before losing Weezer. Woofey sleeps on our bed, often times on top of my legs. It doesn't matter that I am allergic to cats--that's what Zyrtec is for. This grumpy but lovable furball isn't going anywhere. We sometimes say he's bi-polar. One day, he's following me everywhere, purring and begging for attention, sleeping in my lap while I work. The next day he's grumpy and anti-social, hiding under beds. It doesn't matter- he makes us laugh regardless of his mood.

I love it in the evenings, when he decides its time for bed. It doesn't matter that we are still watching TV or whatever--he comes down the hall to the living room and meows at us, running back to the bedroom. He will do this repeatedly until we come to bed with him.

I've never really understood people who don't like animals or don't have pets. They add so much to our lives! Kelly and I can't imagine not having at least one furbaby of some sort in the house. One of these days, we will have another dog, after losing our 15 year old black lab several years ago. Woofey thinks he's a dog sometimes, and we tease him, telling him daddy is going to get a real dog to replace him. Woofey doesn't seem to care.

So here's my Woofey, doing what cats do--being lazy.

After spending the day at Donna's crop, and actually scrapbooking again, I went to Micheal's craft store today...and bought a bunch of K & Company papers and embellishments--and two albums. Look at all these beautiful goodies! I can't wait to get busy scrapbooking several of our trips that we have taken over the past few years!

I love to read. Even when I was a little girl, I would go to bed half an hour before my bedtime just to sit in bed with books. I love to read until I can't keep my eyes open, then I just turn out the light and fall asleep. When I was single, I did this all the time. Now that I am married--to a non-reader no less--I have to use a little book light, and turn on my side to block the light so he can sleep. And he still complains about the light keeping him awake!

I keep a pile of books on my bedside table. These are the next in line to be read. Once I finish them, I put them on the bookcase in the living room. I also love to read series. And I like to have all of a series before I start reading, so I can go straight to the next book as soon as I finish one! I am currently reading three different series--Sookie Stackhouse, The Black Dagger Brotherhood, and the Flynn Brothers Trilogy. I read books 1-7 of Sookie Stackhouse in one week. Now I have to wait until book 8 comes out in paperback in May, and then book 9, which is released in hardcover at the same time. I just started book 2 of the Flynn Brothers Trilogy. I read book 1 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and am waiting on Amazon to delliver books 2-6. I prefer paperbacks because they are more portable and less expensive. And I never want to get rid of books I enjoyed after I read them--so I am running out of room! Paperbacks are taking over my house. I love books...

I had a fantastic time today meeting new friends, spending time with an old friend, and picking up an old hobby I have missed. Donna hosted a scrapbook crop at her home. We had tons of delicious food, chatted up a storm about our families, movies, music, books, photography, scrapbooking, our pets, and Donna's issues with squirrels. And some of us actually created some scrapbook pages! I managed to get 7 pages together. That's more than I have done in the past two years! Of course, I also took photos of the get-together--especially of Donna's beautiful craft studio. Donna, thank you so much for including me! I had a wonderful time!

This afternoon, I assisted David Wright with a bridal portrait at Centennial Park. The bride had a great time, and her wedding planner helped out tremendously--here she's hiding behind the bride to help control the cathedral-length veil in the strong winds. At times, the wind took that 20 foot veil straight up in the air!

It's been so hard to get back on track after missing so many entries! But I am feeling much better now, and my eyes are doing well, so here we go...

We had a rare snowfall last night here in Kingston Springs. A little of an inch of fluffy white stuff. I love snow, so I wish we had gotten more, like the areas to our south that got 6 inches! Those kids are having a blast down there! But here are some photos I grabbed real quick this morning before it all melted.