4 full days left

of work - not counting today. I took this picture this morning when I arrived at work:

I really like how the sun turned out.  I shot this with my 50 mm f/1.8 lens, using a technique I learned from the manual of setting the exposure when I wasn't pointed at the sun, locking it, and then taking the picture. That way the school didn't end up all dark. I did give this a little Lightroom/Photoshop love later though to brighten the sky and building tones.

My students took their Outlook certification tests today. Several were successful - those who weren't will take their retest in the coming days. In fact, this entire week is devoted to certification testing, as several students are in various stages of certification and still need to take their Word and/or PowerPoint exams.

Tonight, the hubby and I are finally watching the last two episodes of Lost - between our trip to Carlsbad to Peter's business trip, we just didn't have a chance to watch it. We're about half way through the final episode - it's ok, I guess. I think I'm getting a little bit over the whole Lost thing - just not as interesting as it used to be to me.

I was referred to a company called Borrow Lenses by photographer David Toth on the Fast Track Founders website. I had never considered renting lenses before but it seems like a great idea before committing to new glass that I'm not sure if I'd like to begin with. Now I need to figure out what to rent!

Anniversary Countdown 2008 - Day 2

I know I said I'd post a picture every day, but all the good pictures are on my other external hard drive, and I have two sleepy cats around me, so I can't get up right now, haha. Instead, I figured I'd post a link.

After we decided on Sedona as our wedding location, we needed to find a place to stay. After reading the reviews on TripAdvisor, we settled on the Apple Orchard Inn Bed and Breakfast because of its location, the pictures of the rooms, and the tasty sound breakfasts. It ended up being an amazing place to stay!

I'm sending myself to camera school

AKA reading the manual. I panicked for a moment - actually make that several moments - because I couldn't and still can't find my manual. I've always kept it in my camera bag, but when I looked this afternoon, it wasn't there. Fortunately, Canon has it posted on their website. I've spent the better part of the last hour and a half reading about what is known as the "Creative Zone" modes. I feel fine with Basic Zone modes, but have forced myself to shoot in the other modes almost from the moment I got my camera back in October so that I could take Raw photos. I'd seen early on how much more control I later had in Photoshop and now Lightroom when I was working with a Raw photo. You can't take Raw photos in the Basic Zone modes.

So, I whipped out my Moleskin (I LOVE these notebooks and regularly pick them up with coupons and Barnes and Noble even when I don't need them), got comfortable at my desk, and started taking notes. Jasper came up to visit and found a place sleeping on the couch next to me. This later ended up being convenient for my testing of said modes. 

While doing the note taking, I did little practicing. Early on, while reading, I learned about a formula for calculating the minimum shutter speed to prevent blurring caused by camera shake (take the Lens focal length times 1.6, then use the reciprocal - this means my 50 mm lens should use a minimum of a 1/80 shutter speed - who knew?). I decided to try this out in the TV mode (shutter priority). My first pictures, although dark, came out very clear. I did a little more reading, and realized that that the beeping that was going on after I halfway depressed the shutter and blinking with the number in my view finder was for a reason - gee, ya think? (By the way, I'm being very sarcastic here, to illustrate how stupid I'm feeling about not knowing this earlier, haha). The lower number, which happens to be the aperture, blinks when the exposure will be too dark. In order to get the number to stop blinking and beeping, I needed to either pick a higher ISO speed, or lower the shutter speed, or a combination of both.

I experimented and shot nearly 40 frames of Jasper. Sometimes I tried to get his attention, other times I just shot away not really caring how he looked, but focusing more on the lighting of the picture. Basically, my experiment showed me that in order to shoot in that particular light (in our second floor study/office with one window with mid afternoon light coming in at an angle), at a 1/80 shutter speed, I would need to increase the ISO to get the proper exposure (AKA no more blinky beepy camera menu). Or I would have to lower the speed to like 1/40 or even 1/30, but then I still had to increase my ISO to 1600 to avoid the camera shake blur.

My favorite picture of Jasper's first real photo shoot is this one:

The SOOC image

After a little Photoshop love

Hope my new found knowledge helps during my impromptu photo shoot with my students tomorrow. I plan on documenting their last certification testing experience of the 2007-2008 school year!

June is here and my hubby is home!

Peter came home yesterday! I'm so happy to have him back. Driving to BWI was easy until I realized how dark the sky was getting with the impending rain - now that normally wouldn't be a problem, except I was wearing my sunglasses. My prescription sunglasses. And I couldn't seem to find my regular glasses. So I'm driving along, praying it won't get darker, when I arrive to the I-95 tunnel. Uh oh. I couldn't believe it but it wasn't that bad driving through the tunnel - darker than I'd like - yes - but impossible - no. But as I reached the airport, it was getting darker still, to the point that when I pulled under the building overhang for arrival pickups, that I had to call my hubby and say "hey, where are you? wave around a bit or something". I'm sure he thought I was crazy - like "why can't the wife see me?". But, I found him successfully. Alas, our first few reunion moments back together were spent with me frantically have him poke around the front seat for my glasses which we eventually found and I gratefully switched. Oops. Note to self: Never toss glasses case on front seat, it might roll off and end up under the seat causing driving panic.

We had a tasty lunch at Houlihans before going to see what I consider to be the best movie of the summer season - the SATC movie. I absolutely loved it! I was a totally fan of the show and have seen and own every single episode. I was so happy with the way it turned out - seemed just the way it should. While I'm a total fan of huge weddings, all of the people, the amazing details, the gorgeous clothes and tasty food, I also think there is something so amazing about intimate weddings - just the couple and/or a few of their close friends - I suppose that's why we chose the latter when we got married.

When we got home, Peter gave me two special gifts he brought back from his business trip.

A Hello Kitty Purse from their new travel collection - it has the coolest compartments. I love how the style and colors make this look like more of an adult purse - I'll definitely use it when we go out - heck, who am I kidding? I'll starting toting it to work this week I am sure.

A Hello Kitty fan for my desk at work. How cute is this? You pop her head open and turn on the switch to run the fan!

When I woke up this morning, I took a peek out at my little garden, and saw that my sunflowers are getting ready to bloom!

This brings me to a new blog section for the next few days: Anniversary Countdown 2008! This year, on June 24th, Peter and I will have been married for two years. That still makes a newlyweds don't you think? So every day, I'm going to share one of my favorite pictures from the days leading up to our wedding day, and the main event, along with a brief story.

Choosing the Location

After Peter proposed, we knew we wanted to get married as soon as possible. We'd been dating since 2001, and we were ready. We talked about doing the local thing with family and friends, but while we have a close circle of friends that we would have liked to be there, Peter's family is all abroad, in the Czech Republic, and one of his closest friends lives in India, and no one would be able to make the trip. So we started scouting travel mags and thinking about our favorite spots.

Knowing that this special trip would just be the four of us (my parents and us), I started looking at locations from the photographers point of view. I knew that at the end of the day, the one aspect of the entire wedding that was the most important to me was the photography. I wanted amazing pictures and I knew the location would have a lot to do with that. I've been fortunate to travel to most of the 50 states because my parents took me on many road trips growing up. I had wonderful memories of our summers spent out in Arizona in my early teens while my Mom was attending the University of Arizona through a distance learning program. One location was particularly memorable - Sedona.

The red rocks and mountains out there are absolutely incredible. I also remembered the Chapel at Tlaquepaque in Sedona. I remembered walking in a tiny chapel with beautiful light streaming through and thinking - "One day I should get married here". I found the chapel online and shared pictures of it with Peter who also loved it. So it was decided - we'd get married in Sedona.

We flew out a few days prior to the wedding and did a little hiking.

These were the incredible views I was talking about!

Happy Friday

-giving my blog a makeover-

First, I thought it was high time for a new blog header. Last time I needed the hubby's help to change it, but I figured it out this time - go me! I chose this picture for three reasons:

#1. Peter and I are always taking self-portraits when we are just hanging out or on a trip and those are some of my favorite photos by far. I played around with my 50 mm lens tonight until I got one that I liked. It was harder than I thought it would be!

#2. I did such a close crop to my face because I thought it looked cool but also because I liked the idea of my eyes peeking out into the world of all my blog visitors (ok "all" is probably an excessive word because I don't think I have anyone that reads this regularly!).

#3. I've made some decisions this week that involve actively pursuing my love of photography - more about that later.

-my hubby is coming home-

Tomorrow. Finally. I've missed him so much. We've talked daily, chatted frequently, and text messaged when I had signal (which means not at my work), but it's definitely not the same. I'm going to pick him up at the airport tomorrow. I guess this means I should clean up the house. I'm hoping I'll be able to convince him to go to the new Sex and the City movie on the way home!

-summer vacation is almost here!-

There are 4 more regular work days left. After that, there are two days of final exams, then make up exams, then the final day which is for staff professional development. I will miss my students, but am definitely ready for my summer vacation.

-dissertation progress-

My advisor wrote me on Wednesday with edits for the first chapter of my three chapter dissertation. With my Mom's help, I made her requested changes and then some and sent it back this morning. I'm so ready to be done and from our e-mail conversations today it sounds like the finish line is approaching - all I can say is "HECK YEAH!"

-#3 revisited-

So last Saturday, after Peter and I had our pictures taken, we had dinner together at this cute restaurant. I mentioned how much fun I had with the pictures, and how cool I thought it would be to be a photographer.  It's an idea I've had off and on (and shared with Peter) for several years now, but I haven't taken it seriously. When I brought it up again that night, my hubby didn't for one second blink in speculation or criticism - instead he encouraged me to follow my dream. He always encourages me, no matter how crazy my ideas are - I am so lucky to have him.

I fully expected that idea to pass again in the coming days, but instead I found myself thinking about the idea several times a day. Shortly after flying home, I remembered a blog by a photographer I had subscribed to a while ago - Dane Sanders. I really don't know how I stumbled upon his blog, but I remember thinking it was worth reading and subscribed, and I also remembered some buzz on it at some point about something called the Fast Track Photographer program.

I found the Fast Track site again, and read over the membership details - and get this - I'm now a Fast Track Founder. How cool is that? I've already started posting in the forums and everyone is so friendly!

So back to reason #3 as to why I selected this photo for my new header - I feel like my eyes are finally open to exploring my potential and I'm so excited to see where this will lead. 

-photo of the day-

Found these in my closet today - didn't even know I had them! I have these awesome Tupperware-like shoe boxes from the Container store, but I need to find a way to label the outside so I know what shoes I have...maybe little pictures? Yes, I put my shoes in boxes. What? I have a lot of shoes! A girl has to stay organized!

Visiting the old homestead

Isn't my Mom beautiful?

Here yesterday, gone again today...

After being home for less than two days, Peter was off again today to Nashville for a work conference. I'm totally going to miss him. We are rarely apart, so that makes it even harder when we are.

Since it's Wednesday, that means it's "Starbucks Wednesday" (the day of the week that I treat myself to a Starbucks treat before work and don't feel guilty about it), and I stopped by this morning to get my favorite drink - a tall, nonfat white mocha with no whip - yummy! While there, I was given a special iced coffee card that gets me a free iced coffee every Wednesday until the end of July! Whoohoo!

After work, I decided to stop by and pick up my free coffee and get my favorite Cheese and Fruit plate to have for dinner. It was tasty.

I miss my husband and need to go to bed.

Peter's 29th Birthday Recap

His birthday dinner started off with some baked beans...

continued with some hot dogs, buns, and condiments...

...and finished up with some cake (Cold Stone Creamery's "A Cheesecake Named Desire")

And no, I wasn't slacking in the cooking department - this dinner was his request!

One more present to unwrap...

What could this be? This package sure was wrapped well. It's obvious that my Mom, and not me, wrapped it.

Now this last picture is a little misleading because these are the wrong sneakers. My Mom picked up these when she was supposed get these. Oops.

Oh well. That just means we will be taken another trip to our favorite Target when Peter gets back from his work trip.

a birthday wish for my husband

29 years ago today, my husband, Peter, was born. Peter, although I rarely call him that because we have so many nicknames for each other, is the sweetest, kindest, most intelligent, and handsomest man I have ever met. I always hoped that I would find the perfect man to spend my life with and I knew when I met him that he was it. He is my best friend and partner and I am the luckiest girl in the world to be his wife.

Before posting a few more Legoland pictures, a special birthday greeting:

I knew when I saw this at Legoland that I had to take a picture because I was sure I'd find a way to use it later.

And now a few more favorites...I had fun playing with some Boutwell actions this afternoon:

This morning, I surprised my hubby with breakfast...can you guess what I made?

Happy Birthday, sweetie!!

Back from our mini-vacation

So my big gift for Peter this year was a trip to San Diego, or more specifically to Carlsbad, to visit Legoland! I'll write a longer post tomorrow, but wanted to post some of my favorite pictures, all goofy self-portraits.

1. In our matching Rock Band shirts - which I wore proudly and Peter hid under two more layers. Ok, he didn't exactly hide it but for some reason he didn't want to go out all "matchy, matchy" either. He ended up being warmer than me though. Although it's blurry, this is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip!

2. On the Carlsbad State Beach - this was our first time ever walking on the beach together -  it was about time after 7 years together!

3. Need I say more?

4. On a boat ride in Legoland.

I'm totally excited to see the pictures taken by our photographers Gabriel and Carlie. They were so much fun to hang out with and have inspired me to start taking my love of photography more seriously. I'll be checking their blog every day in hopes of seeing some pics!

It's back to work tomorrow. Not counting final exams, there are nine more days. Oops, does that mean I'm counting down? No way! :)

A few pictures

The cutest cups my hubby found me at Anthropologie last Friday.

The surprise I found in the freezer tonight before making dinner - isn't my hubby sweet?

Last night's spaghetti with meat sauce - the verdict....it was yummy!

Tonight's dinner - mac 'n' cheese with tomatoes and chicken - surprisingly easy and really good!

Since it's already May 6th...

I figure it's time for a post. I haven't been all that busy lately, although Peter and I have been out and about a fair amount lately. Thursday, May 1st, we went out to dinner with my parents for my Mom's Birthday. We ate at the Italian restaurant/pizza joint in the Concord Mall. It was an interesting experience to say the least because they was a performance of the opera "Madame Butterfly" going on while we ate. Definitely not my thing, or Peter's, or Dad's either, but Mom seemed to enjoy it and since it was her birthday, that's what mattered!

Friday, I surprised Peter with an evening out after he worked the college's graduation festivities. He always looks so handsome dressed up for the ceremony, so I like to drag him out afterwards. We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner and watched a late night showing of Iron Man. I love P.F. Chang's. I love Chinese food in general, but have found as I have gotten older that I really can't stand take out Chinese food. But this restaurant is as far from take out as you can get, yet has positively yummy leftovers.

Saturday, we were completely lazy all day. I celebrated National Scrapbooking day by hitting many digi sales online, and Peter played his new game, Grand Theft Auto 4. Sunday, I drove down to Dover and went to the Dover Days House and Garden tour. We actually ended up visiting only one home, which is still the home of a childhood friend of mine, and we got to reconnect which was really cool. In fact, I'm sending her an e-mail after I write this. Turns out she lives in Dover and works up in Wilmington by us. Delaware really is small!

Yesterday, for Cinco de Mayo, we headed out to Don Pablos for dinner. The food was ok, but it was way too loud and packed with people only interested in drinking way too many Coronas. I guess I'm getting too old to enjoy that sort of thing. Wow - two references to age in this post and I'm only 26! What's wrong with me? Haha.

We've been doing a lot of eating out lately and while I do enjoy it, I'm definitely ready to stay home and cook this week. I found some great recipes off the Kraft Foods website and am following one of their Healthy Living Bags this week. Tonight's dinner will be Spaghetti with Zesty Bolognese sauce. I'm serving it up with some Joe Corbi Cheezee Bread. I'll post a pic of my results tomorrow.

Comic Con 2008

Yesterday, Peter and I took the train up to New York City to attend Comic Con. It was definitely not my idea to go because I've only read one or two comic books in my entire life. Truthfully, I wasn't looking forward to spending the day looking at people dressed up in odd costumes. HOWEVER, we had a really good time. There was definitely some people (ok, a lot), dressed up in odd costumes, but we got to see some cool new games.

One of the most interesting things for me was the chance to meet and talk to Sid Meier. This is a pic that Peter caught and I edited a bit.

He has created a ton of different computer games over the past twenty years and seemed to be really cool guy. I realized later that while I was playing the newest game Civilization Revolution, that he was even watching people play! I think that was pretty cool although I'm sure he must have thought that I was terrible. I plan on getting it though. I think it comes out for Xbox in June.  I even got an e-mail address from someone in his company so my students could e-mail him questions. I think it would be really cool for them to be able to develop a list of questions like "What's it like to be a game designer" and so forth. Here are some of my favorite pictures from yesterday.

In the car, leaving for the train station...

Inside the convention center...

Me and Yoda...No he is NOT taller than me, I'm on the floor!

The UglyDolls had a really cool booth

We also had a chance to view some unreleased video footage for the new Batman and Hulk movies coming out this summer - both look like they will be really good. And we even had a celebrity spotting - Eva Mendez was on the panel for a new movie coming out in '09 - Spirit. Very Sim City-ish looking.

Oh, and one final picture. Peter was interviewed by MTV for a Total Request Live segment - hopefully airing on May 1st - and although I know he was embarrassed, I thought he looked so cute!

While it was a long day, we also discussed that we should take day trips like this more often to New York because even though it's a long day, it's MUCH cheaper than staying overnight and it's really not that far from home - only two hours by Amtrak.

Love this spring weather

I'm so happy that spring finally seems to be here. I'm up so early on a Sunday because Peter and I have two important things to do on our schedule this morning:

1. Go to the Bagel shop - gross bagel with fish spread for him - yummy energy bagel with Peanut Butter for me; read the newspaper
2. Workout at the gym - our first time back since before Prague when we were both sick!

Yesterday we went to Dover and had lunch with my parents. It was nice to stop by and visit - we need to do that more. Afterwards, we hit up some of our favorite stores that we haven't visited since our spring break: Target, AC Moore, Costco, and Borders. Later, we had a really neat dinner. Applebees just opened up near us, or rather has been getting ready to open up. We stopped by for dinner, thinking they were open, and discovered they were doing a training exercise where people could make reservations, donate $5 a piece to the fire company and get dinner for free! So we did. It was decently good, and the service was fine (something that has been going down with many restaurants in our area), but we weren't all that impressed with the menu. We haven't been to an Applebees in 3-4 years, and only a handful of items were new. It's still nice to have a late night option open in the area though.

Here's us outside. I thought it was cool that I was able to capture the sign in the reflection of the window:

After the gym, we're headed back home so I can do something extremely important - take my practice LSAT. Peter is timing me. Yes, that's in reference to my news from yesterday. Wish me luck!

I'm back and Daily Dissertation Update #5

Ok, so my daily updates didn't work out so well. Let's see, what has gone on since I last posted, almost a month ago on March 14?

1. We went to Prague and did some touring

Peter with his Dad checking looking off of Charles Bridge

Us on Charles Bridge

Peter with his Mom and Dad

2. Peter's dog, Ramu, passed away shortly after we returned home from Prague. I'm so sad for Peter and his family - I know his parents miss him a lot. They've had Ramu for 16 years and that's such a long time. I am glad we had a chance to see him on our trip. Here's Peter and Ramu:

3. My Podcasting workshop ended - I had the same number of participants take the beginning Pre and Post Surveys and beginning data analysis reflects that my participants' knowledge and/or skills have increased - hopefully this means my methods work!!

4. Four of my students were accepted to attend a special Microsoft camp - crossing my fingers that all important people in my school district approve so we can go and I can chaperone - that will be decided by the end of this month, hopefully.

5. The HRS Committee finally approved my study today. Thank goodness. This weekend I am entering my final data into my paper and sending it my Mom to review before e-mailing it to my advisor on Monday. I'm still crossing my fingers that I can defend by the end of May.

6. I decided what I want to do next year academically speaking because I'll be done my doctorate program. More on that in June because I don't want to speculate until I have the official word. Let's just say it's huge for me and I definitely hope it works out.

Daily Dissertation Update #4

So my daily dissertation update was actually written yesterday, but I'm going to leave it as written since nothing else has happened with my dissertation...

Well I feel as if I am in the home stretch with my dissertation. With the exception of entering the information regarding the remaining weeks of my Podcasting workshop, as well as the data from the LoTi Survey that will be taken by teachers during the last week, I have finished writing my paper. It's a strange feeling to be mostly done because I feel like I have been writing this forever - even if in truth I only began writing in earnest around Thanksgiving/Christmas of this past year. I sent my finished paper to my Mom to read who then took it to my Dad to read - who is an incredibly picky reader, which is good. I just finished making the corrections my Dad found, and adding my appendices to the back. I can't believe it but my paper is 86 pages so far! Wow! I think that is the biggest thing I have ever written. With the remaining weeks of the Podcasting workshop information entered, along with the post workshop survey data, I know I will be over 100 pages which is good.