oh my, apparently it’s been a good four months since i posted. oops.

a couple of weeks ago, i got to shoot the bluebonnets along the drive for work and snagged a few additional ones as well. may be the last ones i see for a few years. enjoy!

surprises for yumminess

for years, i’ve been wanting a kitchen aid stand mixer. pretty much every time i would cook anything requiring mixing, i would tell my mom how much i wanted a mixer. i looked at them online, pointed them out in other people’s kitchens and generally was obsessed. my mom was always sweet about it, but told me i would have to wait till i was going to get married and put it on my wedding registry. i usually sighed and convinced myself to be relatively patient.
 
we were opening presents on christmas–things like nice socks and new work shirts–pretty much what i expected because i enjoy practical things. there was this one, large box looming in the corner. knowing my mom, there was no telling what it was… but it was heavy. i’m generally difficult to surprise (and hate large scale surprises)–i can go through a stack of magazines or send my mom a link of something online that she’s probably already picked out for me. anyway, i was totally puzzled. i began unwrapping this brown box… then cut the tape along the top and pulled the flaps back. MUCH to my surprise, i saw the top of a kitchenaid mixer peeping through. i’ve probably never been so shocked, unsuspecting and giddy all at the same time. i’m pretty sure my chin dropped to the floor as i looked up at my mom in disbelief. she just smiled and said, “well, i just couldn’t let someone else give it to you–i wanted it to be from me.” [it was such a part of my growing up and family time in the kitchen] it was a WONDERFUL surprise and i’m super excited to get lots and lots of use out of it!

 

 

 
eep! it’s so pretty!
 
of course i had to try out the mixer so i used it to make some brownies although it’s wasn’t really necessary.

oh, and check out these cool ice trays. the bottom is rubbery, so you can pop the curved ice out one section at a time. they don’t really stack though. :-\


 
so i’m a few days (or couple of weeks) behind posting this blog. since the brownies, i made a chocolate pie and had the best whipped cream on top–something i’ve just never been able to achieve with a hand mixer.
 

holidays at home: a pictorial summary

this holiday season i was lucky enough to get to take a week off to spend with families and loved ones. here’s a quick recap:

our cousins anna, luke, will, john, sandie, shellie and stacie came to visit (and see santa’s wonderland). we shared a meal while they were in cs. it was great to see the little ones–we hadn’t met the boys in real life and anna was tiny the last time we saw them!

 
then, i went to belton with brandon. we had some pre-christmas celebrations with his fam.

 
after a few more days of work, i headed to texarkana. there i had a delightful time with loved ones and i got to spend some time away from the computer (finally).

 
in case you missed it, bode and i sent out an e-christmas card. savin’ the trees.

 
my sister was a debutante this year. here are photos from the presentation and ball. we were blessed to have many family members attend; hadley’s super sweet roommates and brandon made it to town, too.

 
finally, one of our friends got married on new years eve. she had a bbq a few days before… which, of course, warranted the making of more photos.

red velvet

my sister will forever make fun of me because about a year ago i was surprised to hear that red velvet cakes had chocolate in them. i guess i just never really thought about it. a photo diary of my baking last week:

amoa

yesterday, having a bit of free time in austin, i decided to visit the austin museum of modern art (AMOA)-downtown. they had two featured exhibits:

running the numbers looks at contemporary american culture through the austere lens of statistics. each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. my hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month.

this project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, i hope to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities we each play as individuals in a collective that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

~chris jordan, Seattle, 2008

chris jordan’s visual presentations were thought provoking and i definitely got lost staring into all the details, trying to figure out how these were compiled. it was difficult to find any kind of pattern. this was visually one of my favorites–barbie dolls, 2008. 60″ x 80″. it depicts 32,000 barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006.

i could relate to sunyong chung’s works on a different level. she had filmed dancers with light and overlaid these trails to be the basis for her sculpture the dance. i wish i’d taken my camera in, but i forgot to grab it and wanted to just experience rather than document my experience.

spring catch up

amanda needed a new headshot to take with her to new york, so we fixed her up. she’s so comfortable in front of the camera and we had a blast collaborating on getting exactly what she wanted.

brittany’s mom had requested some senior portraits to include in her graduation announcement, so we shot a lot all over campus. because she’s been to like 204848274 zillion aggie football games, we decided to be super cheesy and shoot some in front of kyle field. i think a&m should use this in promo materials.

caitlin requested a rush order on a headshot to turn in with a dance teacher application. we tried to capture her naturally, friendly and approachable so parents would want their children to take lessons from her.

just wanting to have a little fun and come out with a new headshot, amy booked me for a shoot. we played with different colors and textures behind her and determined that teal was her color.

david gardner’s jewelers asked me once again to shoot one of their events–this time featuring roberto coin and his collection. the store was set up like a club, from the red carpet entrance to the dj room. it was a blast trying to capture the personality of this event.

what a group of girls

these eight lovely ladies were so much fun to photo. they loved laughing and coming up with new ideas for photos. i had a great time helping them capture some great photos at the end of their college days.

jenny & tyler

had a lovely engagement shoot with jenny & tyler a couple of wednesdays ago (05/05). they were so fun to shoot. very relaxed and had fun with each other. who would have guessed the wind felt like a tornado the whole time?

marisa & trey

i feel like i should start blogging about my photoshoots to be all professional and 2.0. yay.

yesterday i shot marisa & trey’s engagement photos. they were so much fun. they wanted some traditional a&m scenery as well as just cool shots. here are a few highlights:

i think this one is one of my favorites. the texture on this wall has always been something i’m drawn to, and they look so cute and old fashioned standing there.

i’ve figured it all out…

it came to me today in the shower: the secret to producing good art is mastering the mundane and producing new. that’s not it exactly. it was worded better in my head about six hours ago. sigh. i leave you with a nice stopmotion chris took of me in mexico.