Pie Crust and the 4th of July

We spent the weekend in Idaho for the holiday, but mostly just to get away. Some of my family lives up there, and while it's stressful in its own way to be around family so much in a condensed amount of time, it's still relaxing no matter what to be away from normal life in a green, grassy, breezy, familiar place that is consistently 10 degrees cooler than Salt Lake.

We spent half a day in Lava Hot Springs--which was pretty much insane, given that it was July 4th weekend. We wanted to go to the hot springs, and were almost jumping for joy when we saw that they weren't very busy. But one toe in the water showed us why there were only 10 people lounging around with their feet in the water. It was freaking hot. Like, so hot we couldn't even keep our feet in. LAME. So we suffered the jam-packed public pool down the street for about an hour and a half, all the while with Trevor asking if we could go yet. Seriously, is it so bad for me to want to spend a little time away in the sun and chlorinated pool water away from any friends, family, or acquaintances I might run into that might happen to see me in my swimsuit? Society just won't let me. We knew it'd be busy, but we were hoping not quite THAT busy. The highlight of the outing was probably a toss-up between the Thai restaurant's yellow curry, or the geyser at Soda Springs.

I did get a sunburn on one side of my body though.

We ended up getting up at the crack of dawn on Monday to make it out to a chuck-wagon breakfast, but it didn't work out. You know how things go when family gets together; something always goes wrong. I'm sort of surprised we made it home alive since we were both practically napping at the wheel (not really, we aren't that dangerous, I may be exaggerating).

My grandma made pie with me on Sunday, and handed down to me my great-grandma's flour sifter. She showed me how she makes pie crust, and had me roll out my own dough after she showed me how she learned to do it from my great-grandma. Pie crust is freaking ridiculous. Mine kept cracking and breaking and getting dried out. Hmph. The only other thing I've sucked at right off the bat so much in the kitchen is frosting cakes. But, needless to say, I will cherish that pie-making afternoon for the rest of my life. My grandma is getting old. And she only has more stress in her life lately. I want to remember the different things she gave to me at different times in my life--whether it was a floor to sleep and feel safe on during a summer trip when I was 5, protection from my older brothers and their plans to shove me into the ditch or catch moths and put them on me pronto pups on the shop porch when I was 10, consistent compliments on my hair, eyes, height, or brains as grandmothers do from the time you are 1 day old, or crust-making when I'm 23.

Needless to say, this was my first Independence Day without a single firework, sparkler, or throwing snappy thing. We catnapped the afternoon away while doing laundry, and mustered up the energy (somehow) to make spaghetti and lay on the couch watching Stargate while the fireworks went off outside in the parking lot. I love America; America's the best. And this year I celebrated by listening to America the Beautiful by the MoTab on my phone.

RotK and Shtuff

• We are going to The Return of the King tonight. It's a bad night for it. I hope I get more in the mood before 7, because the extended version is like 5 hours long. And we already paid for our tickets, so... good mood go!
• Editing is going well. I am currently working on 2 business headshot sessions, one small family of a mom and son, and 1 large family. I think I've finally mastered my editing time calendar. I used to overbook myself and not really know why--I figured out I have to leave adequate time between shoots to account for my editing time. Like, more time than I thought. I started to do less time in between, and rushed the editing, but I felt like I didn't have time or space to grow or explore new editing techniques. I've had to learn to say "no," or "I can help you, but not for 6 weeks." It's hard sometimes when I might lose business because I don't have enough time. But hopefully the time I spend learning and developing increasingly better editing skills will make up for that down the line.
• I'll post some pictures from what I've been working on as I finish them.
• House is messy because life is hard.
• We're planning a trip to Idaho to visit family for the 4th. We'll also be spending a day at Lava Hot Springs, which I'm looking forward to, even though it will be busy.
• Oh! I went to a Dinner Club with one of my friends from my old office last week, and it was such a good time! I'm glad I went. I made frog eye salad (my mom's recipe, of course). But it was just nice to eat and talk with some ladies--some I knew, some I didn't--who were genuinely nice and trying to do the best they can. I'm totally going next month. Each month is a different theme, and we all bring different dishes, like potluck.
• I'm reading The Unremembered, by Peter Orullian. My book club chose it also, so that kind of works out--which is lucky because it's sort of long. I was excited about it at first because it's supposed to be an epic fantasy, and the cover is actually way cooler than a lot of fantasy covers. I can tell it's the author's first full novel though. It's a pretty neat story and I'm liking it. But I don't think I would've recommended it as my book club's first fantasy genre novel had I read it beforehand. Oh well. I get to host the get-together in July, and it's going to be awesome either way.
• Trevor is doing a lot of homework and getting A's. I'm trying my best not to distract him or invite him to do fun things when he should be studying or doing homework. This Lord of the Rings business isn't helping the last couple weeks though. It's throwing us off.

Books

Mmm, I love to read.

Just wanted to share that with you all today.

I was thinking about that last night as I was watching The Two Towers in a theater (yeah, that's right, it's 2011), and realizing I really just want to read the book again. And then I realized I have too many other books to read. I have too many books I want to know, too many subjects I want to learn about, too many adventures to go on to repeat that one again just yet.

I think I'd love it if my work paid me to read a novel from 8am to 12pm, then I could do normal work. I'd be okay with that.

This is sort of related more to mathematics than to literature, but yesterday I listened to that recording of a customer on the phone with Verizon disputing a charge on his bill. Long story short, nobody at Verizon understood the difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents. It made me stop and think about how grateful I am for my education (however long ago it was), and that I was taught by teachers who cared (for the most part) about my welfare. They taught me the basics, but also helped mold my brain into something that can understand beyond what I've been taught. I love to learn. I want more of it. I think that's why I crave reading so much, is because I really don't have the opportunity to learn scholastically at the moment.

Books are amazing.

What's happening

• Trevor started school on Monday at SLCC. He's taking math and english right now, and I'm jealous and relieved it's not me at the same time.
  


• Trevor is working 3/4 time at At Home Heros as a dispatch person.
  


• I started a new job on May 23rd at Wagstaff & Crawford downtown. This was a pretty awesome promotion that included a pay raise, my own office, benefits, and I'm not the lowest employee!



• I have my first business headshot photo session booked for this month. It's with my old work.



• I paid my first photography income taxes in March. That is a sucky concept.


• We paid off some credit cards, and got a student loan. Nice trade. Not.



• We now have use of our second bedroom, which we've turned into an office. We're totally taking advantage of it and using for pleasure, photography business, and Trevor's writing. I even sewed curtains with this fabric:

• Trevor is delving more into writing as a hobby, and I'm super impressed.



• In February and March I started a family cook book which I'm taking pictures for. It's been put on hold while my regular photography has picked up. But I think about it a lot :) That counts, right? I frequently feel the urge to photograph food and am trying to make it a higher priority and a part of my business model.
  


• We bought an iPad this week! It won't come in the mail for another 2 weeks, but we are now officially iPad owners.
  

• We went to CONduit a few weeks ago; it's a fantasy/science fiction writing convention. It was pretty enlightening and encouraging. We met a TON of authors, and got a lot of helpful info.



• I've had a ton of photoshoots: www.facebook.com/photosbybecky


• That's all for now.

Day 3 Saturday – Your idea of the perfect first date.

Food and lots of time to talk. No sports. A movie is okay if you also have plenty of time to discuss it and other things. No awkward clothing, like prom dresses. Nature is good.

Day 4 Sunday– Your favorite photograph of your best friend.

Day 5 Monday – A photo of yourself from high school.

Days 4-5 are the same picture. It's actually on my blog right now, and I'm at work and can't access any other pictures. So... Look to the right and see the one from my graduation. That is one of my most favorite pictures of Trevor, who is my best friend. And it is one of me in high school, because technically, I wasn't graduated yet since this was taken BEFORE the ceremony. (If you aren't on my blog when reading this, go to http://beckygreen.blogspot.com to see.)

Day 6 Tuesday– A photo of an animal you’d love to keep as a pet.

more than anything, i want this dog.

just lookit his ears!

day 2: a picture of something i ate today

choclate sheet cake

made by my brother-in-law brandon

it took no effort on my part, which makes it 100X better than normal sheet cake

i also ate an apple

and a tiny bit of leftover squash macaroni and cheese, and chicken

and tuna mac

and a hot dog with ketchup and relish with macaroni salad

wow. i had a lot of macaroni today. it's cause it was shopping day. and most of my meals came BEFORE we went shopping. which meant we only had leftovers and tuna and macaroni.

oh, and i had a delicious and satisfying peanut butter and banana sandwich on white bread. it had MOUNDS of peanut butter and the bananas were falling out all over the place. it was perfect.

food is the best.

30 Day Blog Challenge

Um... hellow blog world. I feel we've grown apart. I've convinced myself I need to take a 10 minute break at work because I'm slowly freaking out inside with a project I've been working on for a couple weeks.

I think my last post was in Octoberish. We had Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Trevor lost his job (2 days before Christmas, actually). The latter is consuming our lives at the moment. Although, it's not really as bad as I thought it would be. Trevor's happy to be rid of has last job; I'm happy he's happy. Now we just need to fill the void. It's hard to go through, but I think things will turn out for the best. We wanted Trevor to start school, and as soon as he gets a job, we can start making that work. It changes our long-term plans a bit, but maybe this is how we were supposed to do it... I guess.

So if anyone knows of anything...

Moving on.

I miss my blogging. I've been focusing on my photography a lot, and December was pretty chaotic since I had a sale. But now that January is here with it's freezing temps (along with my normal rates), no one is scheduling anything. So I've been practicing my design skills. I offer announcement designs for weddings, graduations, births, etc. And I want to work on learning how to do different styles, or features that I like on other announcements I see. So I've been working on a few. And reading as much as I can.

But to keep up the blog, I want to do one of those blog challenge thingies I found. It's for 30 days and you do a post every day. You've all heard of them. Don't hate me.

30 Day Blog Challenge
Day 1 – A photo of yourself and a description of how your day was.
Day 2 – A photo of something you ate today.
Day 3 – Your idea of the perfect first date.
Day 4 – Your favorite photograph of your best friend.
Day 5 – A photo of yourself from high school.
Day 6 – A photo of an animal you’d love to keep as a pet.
Day 7 – Your dream wedding.
Day 8 – A song to match your mood.
Day 9 – A photo of the item you last purchased.
Day 10 – A photo of your favorite place to eat.
Day 11 – What’s in your makeup bag?
Day 12 – A photograph of the town you live in.
Day 13 – Your favorite musician and why?
Day 14 – A TV show you’re currently addicted to.
Day 15 – Something you don’t leave the house without.
Day 16 – Your celebrity crush.
Day 17 – A photo of you and your family.
Day 18 – Something you crave a lot.
Day 19 – Another picture of yourself.
Day 20 – The meaning behind your blog name.
Day 21 – A photo of something that makes you happy.
Day 22 – A letter to someone who has hurt you recently.
Day 23 – 15 facts about you.
Day 24 – A photo of something that means a lot to you.
Day 25 – What’s in your purse?
Day 26 – A photo of somewhere you’ve been to.
Day 27 – A picture of you last year and now and how have you changed since then?
Day 28 – Your favorite movie.
Day 29 – Something you could never get tired of doing.
Day 30 – A photograph of yourself today + three good things that have happened in the past

DAY 1: A photo of yourself and a description of how your day was.

This photo is the opposite of how I feel today. But I'm hoping it will help me change my mood just by looking. My hair is flat and not exactly straight in places. My eyes are puffy and tired because I stayed up too late and got up too early. And of course I'm not wearing makeup. I meant to put mascara on like 5 times throughout the day and just never got around to it. I'm wearing some of my least favorite clothes (pants that button too high and a long shirt to attempt to hide that fact) because all our laundry is dirty at the moment. I've spent the majority of my day at work sorting through hundreds of sheets of paper and removing paperclips and staples as part of a project that needs to be done by the end of the month. I've been eating lunch brought from home for weeks and my mood is mostly grumpy after lunch because of this; today is no exception, and the feeling seems to have lingered into the afternoon. I'm reading a book which is enjoyable, but one I'm not in the mood for 100%. My one highlight (Trevor coming in for a couple hours to work on the project with me) just decided he wouldn't come in today. And I'm having a hard time keeping myself from going home early so I can feel like the day I want is actually beginning.

I think the rest of my day will go better. I'll get to glean some happy vibes by posting some of my design work, read some stuff, maybe go to the library, and have a dinner that isn't chicken nuggets or Ramen. And since tomorrow is Friday (a short day for me), I can stay up late vegging out with a movie or a book in PJs if I so desire. Plus, Trevor has nothing going on, like, ever, anymore. So he'll be around the house if I feel like bothering him or cuddling... whichever I want more.

We will speak again tomorrow; I promise. It will be day #2.

ToM: midnight release

On Monday night Trevor and I went to the midnight release of the next Wheel of Time book called Towers of Midnight, down at the BYU Bookstore. It was kind of insane. We didn't pre-order, which was a huge mistake. We got put at the end of the line HUMUNGO, after like 900 people who did pre-order. They started letting the rest of us losers in after all the numbered people got in the bookstore, but right as we got to the front door, they shut the doors! The people right in front of us got in, but not us :(

So we waited an extra 15-20 minutes or so, and some official word came out that they weren't sure they would have enough books, so they weren't letting us in yet. Which was totally lame, because Brandon Sanderson was doing a reading from the book, and a Q&A session before the release. By the time they decided to just let us in to wander and try our chances at getting a book after everyone else, we totally missed the reading, and barely caught the Q&A because it was packed. We literally only saw the author's head for like 1 second when he stood on his chair at the end.

Luckily he lives in Utah and favors our state for releases and signings, so we met him a few months ago for the release of The Way of Kings. And he's coming back in a month or two for some more regular signings. So we'll see him again.

While we were watching the pre-order people get their books after it hit midnight (seriously, there was a count down and everything, like on New Years... ), we ran into the artist who does all the map-work and symbol-work for a few of Brandon Sanderson's other books. We met him at the other signing we went to. His name is Isaac Stewart. Trevor recognized him, and he said he thought he recognized us... probably not, but it was nice :) We like the way he does maps and stuff. He talked to us for a few minutes, which was really cool! He had a pre-order #, but he was pretty sure he wasn't going to have to wait in the line. Sure wish I was a big author's friend :D

The security guy (who they call "tower guards" like from the books) spoke with the head-hancho ladies and they told us that because we were so patient and took the bad news so well when we were shut out of the store, he would get us in the front of the line when it was time to try our luck at getting a left-over book. So he took us clear across the store to the line, where the rest of the people had already started lining up. Maybe 100? The people at the front of the line were ALMOST going to have a heart attack when he stuck us in the front. Once they got their explanation though, they were somewhat appeased.

While we were waiting, we saw people open up their new books and READ THE END! What??! Lame. What a waste.

There were a LOT of people in costumes. And a lot of weirdos. Although, I have to hand it to out-of-step people; they aren't afraid to be who they really are and love something that is considered pretty nerdy by the public. I don't really see why it is considered that though. The covers suck, yes. But once you actually read fantasy/sci-fi books, they really don't feel that geeky. They're awesome! And just in case any of you were wondering--not all fantasy books have dragons ;)

So finally they said they had extra books and they let us go get ours, and about 900 goober-people, 4 hours, 3 lines, 1 WoT crossword, and 20 pieces of halloween candy later, we actually had our copy in hand! The books were pre-signed by the author earlier that day, but we had the option to wait in another line to have the author personalize it, and to talk to him. But we figured since it was already like 1am, we'd just go to another less-chaotic signing later.

Needless to say, we both went in to work late the next day. It was kind of fun to have something DIFFERENT to do. I like having something I'm interested in enough to go to at midnight :)

So right now I'm finishing my re-read of the previous book, then I'll start it. Really, we didn't need to go to the signing. We could have picked it up the next day at Barnes & Noble, and just gotten it signed later. We didn't even start reading it that night. But it was fun to just be a part of the scene, hear the author's Q&A, and support the cause.

photos since september

and now for the cell phone pictures of my life:

waiting in line at the haunted corn maze at cornbelly's. it was fairly spooky. a good warm up for the halloween season. we went to castle of chaos earlier this week too, and i definitely feel brave after that. they make you get into a coffin and shut it! and then they drop you down into a room with a guy hacking at you with an axe. they also make you crawl through this dark spooky area all by yourself... eep

this is from august, actually. but i like it. trevor's brother got married--it was a luau reception.

this is from our anniversary on 10/4, 4 years married. we were waiting in the rain at the dino museum.

this is just sometime in october. trevor is playing with our niece lucy. she's super cute!

so now we are just planning our halloween party and more holidays and birthdays and photoshoots. oh, but i think i already said that last time.

People have been pestering me to write again... Things have been super busy. I guess they always are though.

I've been taking tons of pictures. And working. And reading a lot of books.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/stats/1441799-becky

I can't seem to stop reading. I just love it too much.

Did a couple weddings: http://www.wix.com/photosbybecky/web/page-6

Trevor and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary and had another stay-cation. We stayed at the Little America and got room service and watched cable :) FoodNetwork is amazing.

We are soooo close to paying off our credit cards. January will be the last payment. Then we have our cursed TAXES from last year (which maybe will be paid off if we get a refund this year) GRR! And our cars, which will be the next thing we pay off, a year from January, a year early. Woohoo!

Seriously, we don't do much. We go to work, and come home, and read and edit and watch tv and have dinner. We hang out with family and sometimes there's the occational friend on the weekends. Photoshoots on weekends...

Oh, I guess this is noteworthy: Trevor's boss got fired! YES! Actually this is his second boss to get fired this year. He was a big fat jerk and now he has a new boss who he actually has worked with before. He's a nice dude. So hopefully Trevor's work-life will be a little happier soon. He hurt his back at work like 2 months ago and is finally almost back to normal.

Oh, and I guess it's also noteworthy that last month (as in September) I made a goal to go to the gym for 5 days a week for 4 weeks. I ended up going 4 days a week for 4 weeks, but I did it. And my muscles grew and it sucked but was good at the same time. I stopped after 4 weeks like a loser, but I'm pretty sure I'll do it again as soon as I'm not dying of pictures waiting to be edited. This time I should probably work harder on my actual diet so it makes a bigger difference, haha :)

Oh, and if you're in my family immediate, and you're reading this--I miss you guys and I think I might kill you if you back out on hanging out with me in a few weeks. My mom and little brother moved to Idaho in August, and the family that remains in Utah are sort of stinkers and we haven't hung out very much.

We are excited for HALLOWEEN!