Win a session :)

In an effort to increase followers on the bloggidy blog, we're doing a contest to win a free session!

All you have to do is share the link to the blog:

http://beckygreenphotography.blogspot.com

You can use the picture or the link, as long as it links back to the blog! Then all you have to do is leave me a comment or send me a message letting me know where you shared the link, and you'll be entered to win a free 30 minute session. Your name can be entered more than once for sharing in multiple places, so get going! And don't forget to follow the blog, because the contest ends when it reaches 30 followers!

friend's engagement pictures

http://beckygreenphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/engagements-in-american-fork.html

I took my friend's engagement pictures 2 weeks ago. I thought some of you might want to see since you might know her.

clubs

I've been doing a lot of "clubs" lately. Dinner Club, which I think I've talked about before, and which has probably made me gain like 10 pounds, I haven't checked. And Book Club, which has made me read books I probably wouldn't have.

I was invited by an old co-worker to go to her Dinner Club. Basically it is a bunch of ladies from her neighborhood who get together once a month to eat a themed pot luck dinner. They all bring a dish (which is usually pretty darn fancy compared to normal people food), and eat it at someone's house (which is more house than I have), and talk about their houses, kids, husbands, and lives. At first, I was worried I'd be out of place... But after I went just one time, I knew these ladies weren't the snooty types I was judging them to be. Even visiting a giant house with a giant pool in their giant backyard, I couldn't help feeling welcome and wanted. We just talk. About life and family. And even though I don't have all the things they have yet, like a house and kids, and, well, money, in many cases, I have enjoyed the company of women (wow, that was a lot of commas). Plus, there's delicious food. I might suffer through a lot of things for delicious food.

Book club has been going on for a few months. It's probably a pretty typical book club. We decide on a book, read it, and meet about it once/month or so. We talk about the book for maybe 20 minutes, and then chat about important stuff for an hour and half. I'm sure once we all have nothing new to report on our lives, we might talk about books more. But honestly, 20 minutes seems pretty good to me. I've missed a few of the get-togethers but I've read all the books. It's kind of interesting to see which books people like, and which they don't. Also, it gives me a reason to read out of my comfort zone sometimes. It's weird sometimes to see the books that society as a whole values the most. Sometimes the books are complete trash, and the world is in love. And sometimes they're gems. The world is weird.

As you can see from my older posts, I've been doing a lot of photography stuff. Like, stuff for my business. I bought my own light kit, only to find it is SO not what I wanted. I have to return it and get a different one, which means spending more money on a better one. 5 steps forward, 1 step back. I guess I can't complain. But of course this all comes the week before I have a gig where I need a light kit. So I'm back to borrowing. I'm grateful I have that option though.

I would love to be a fancy cook. Random thought. But I've been watching a lot of random cooking shows on Netflix lately, and it's rekindled my desire to learn diverse foods and cook super fancy. I try, but I'm still really limited by my experience. I hate watching cooking shows and knowing that I have NO IDEA what a dish would taste like because I've only tried 1 ingredient they used.

Trevor's first semester back at school ends this week.

And that's pretty much all for now.

Photography Blog

hello!

I've been working on SO much stuff for the business these last two weeks! 

I updated my website: www.wix.com/photosbybecky/web

But most importantly to all your bloggers out there, I made myself a designated photography blog:

http://beckygreenphotography.blogspot.com/

So go like it, and follow it, and read it :) 

It's all integrated into my website now! It's pretty crazy. And I finally figured out how to do all the stuff on my website I've been wanting. So I made those changes I was talking about last week to my services, and I'm soooo looking forward to using the new system. 

Hope everyone goes there and leaves me some love :) because I love YOU!

Lots of stuff I'm thinking about.

uh... stuff going on:

• Saw Harry Potter 7 part II twice last weekend. It was super. Cried most at Snape's memories.
• Procrastinating Trevor's next semester registration. 
• Working on photography networking: cupcake photos, free wedding stuff to some people. Trying to open my eyes more. Doing a women in business photoshoot thing in a few weeks.
• Working on my marketing. I bought some new labeling supplies for my photography discs, and came up with a new logo I can start using. I need to update my website, bad. It's been like 9 months.
• Trying to make by brain stop thinking same-old-same-old. Thinking of things I currently have in place that are limiting my creative potential possibly? 1/2 hour sessions might be ruining my ability to be creative... but I like offering a cheap alternative to clients who need it.
• Thinking about at-home studio possibilities and oggling over DropItModern
• Thinking about all the things I need to buy for the business: an external hard drive or two for backing up, a freaking long zoom lens, a better flash, bulbs, backdrops, the world--why not?
• Trying to stay positive and not getting caught up in small arguments--although I've pretty much failed at this lately. There's so many little things.
• Reassessed our debt situation today. That's always fantastic. 
• Trying not to watch too much TV, although I'm probably failing at that too. Netflix is so amazing, but so annoying sometimes.
• I need to eat more vegetables! And less cake. Too bad there's a fudge covered cake sitting on my counter at home right now, waiting and gooey-izing while I work. And too bad I found that cinnamon roll recipe by Alton Brown over the weekend. Something's gotta give.
• I gave up a stupendous coupon over the weekend to Torrid. It was one of those "thanks for shopping with us, so here's a coupon for $25 off your next $50 purchase when you come back during these dates" coupons. That's 50% off! Ugh, but I couldn't justify another $25. Sad day. Gosh, we need to spend less.
• Am loving Trevor. He's special to me. He makes me laugh, and he makes me frustrated--especially when he switches the mouse on the iMac to his freaking crazy insane 100 button WoW mouse that I can't edit with, or when he stressing me out every 10 minutes about something, or when he wants to watch Battlestar Galactica and I just want to watch Terminator Salvation dangit because it's been forever. I love him, and he makes my life better. 

More pie

I decided I needed a stress-relieving session of baking on Sunday. So I decided to try my hand solo at pie making. And I also wanted to test the difference between shortening-only pie crust as my grandma makes, and a shortening/butter combo as my pal Alton Brown makes. (Yes, he's my friend.)

The difference: Shortening-only pie crust is whiter, crisper, and more delicate. A pie crust with shortening AND butter is soft, flakey, tender, and golden. They're two different beasts, in my opinion. The butter/shortening combo was 10 times easier to handle though.

I got to use my great-grandma's sifter for the first time, and I felt super special.

I ended up making 3 pies in a matter of 4 hours. Berry, cherry, and key-lime pie, all completely from scratch. I spent the most time on the cherry, depitting and all. But the fresh cherries that were actually kind of amazing, turned in to that fated "cooked" cherry mess. Cherry-pie lovers would probably love it, but for some reason, I just can't handle cherries. The berry pie recipe called for a bit of blueberry jam, and it actually solved the sour problem. I might stick to that trick for the rest of my life. The key-lime pie is great. Although, I might just suffer the artificiality next time and add the green food coloring, because lime pie that isn't green is off-setting.

All in all, I had an informative and stress-eeking evening. Now we just need to eat all this pie.

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.