Black Belt Scrapping

Botanical Happiness

You likey?.....pretty, huh?  I've got a set to give away so leave a comment here today and I'll have Shannon draw names out of a hat tonight.  I'll announce the winner tomorrow!  Christina Renee is back with new goodies in the store, so be sure to check them out!

Debra asked me yesterday about what camera and lens I used to shoot those spring flowers in my yard.  I have a Canon 30D and a few different lenses....50mm 1.8, 85mm 1.8, 28-135mm wide angle zoom, 100mm 2.5 macro, and a Lensbaby. My next one will probably be the Sigma 10-20mm wide angle.  If money were no object (har har har), I'd also have this and this and this.  For the flower photos, I had my 28-135 on my camera and just went with it, although if I wouldn't have been lazy, I would have used the 50mm.  I also have a Canon Speedlight flash which I am reluctantly learning to use with surprisingly good results.  Let there be light! Finally, I have my "baby camera" which is a Canon SD1000 Elph point-and-shoot and it takes outrageous pics for what it is. I love it that it fits in my pocket and the color is always fantastic. It's my "purse-camera" and I love it for the beach, the ballpark, theme parks, etc. and any place where I don't feel like dragging the big heavy SLR. Besides, I would just DIE if I dropped my 30D into the sand.  That's a sickening thought.

Still coughing like crazy here.  I was feeling much better on Saturday during the day, then took a turn for the worse again on Saturday night.  Frustrating.  I feel like such a slug because I'm exhausted from coughing and I can't sleep at night.  My whole body is sore andmMy taste buds are really off too.  Nothing tastes good.  I tried to sip a bit of wine earlier today and it tasted like soap. Ewwww.  That was not a good choice.

In my grand state of couch-potatoness this weekend, I watched Into the Wild.  It's the true story of Christopher McCandless, who upon college graduation, gave away all of his possessions and trekked all the way to Alaska to live in the wild.  I had heard the story before, and I've read Jon Krakauer's books in the past, so I knew I'd like the movie.  I thought it was great.  Beautiful screenplay and direction by Sean Penn in collaboration with McCandless's sister.  The photography was equally beautiful.  I loved the movie. I can't imagine what it must have been like to him to truly live free for those two years, with no obligations, but yet so lonely as well.  It was a movie that really made me think, and I'm going to be checking the book out of the library this week.  We're off to the "Wild Wild West" later this week, so it'll be some good airplane reading!

I'm off to take some more Sudafed (why did they have to change it?  Another case of punish the masses for the mideeds of a few....aargh!) and get to the office!

Spring Color

I actually made it outside today to snap some "first flowers of spring" pics.  Never mind that it's about 40 degrees and damp, they sure look pretty!

Happy Sunday everybody!  I'm still feeling like crud, so I might spend the afternoon watching movies.  I never do that!  I'm thinking Into the Wild (I love Jon Krakauer books!) or Michael Clayton (love a good lawyer movie!).

Recovery

When you go to school to study computers/computer science, there are plenty of paths that you can take when you graduate.  Some people, like me....go on to less than sexy jobs developing software that helps big business function on a day to day basis (I developed billing and customer networking systems for large telecommunications companies, like AT&T and British Telecom).  Other people find really sexy jobs, like writing video games or doing sophisticated computer animation for companies like DreamWorks or Pixar.  Then there's the brainiacs that write software that isn't fun, isn't sexy, isn't anything anybody WANTS to buy, like recovery software.  You know, the stuff that can get your pictures back after you accidently dump your photo library into your trashcan and delete them.  The stuff that I was hoping would recover all of my deleted layouts.

The good news.....it recovered the files!

The bad news.....It had been six days since I deleted those files and had since used the drive, and the files were corrupted. Well, I got ONE layout back.

So that's that.  And as for the other kind of recovery, I'm still feeling like crud and coughing like mad. It's so annoying. I'm exhausted from coughing, but I can't sleep because I cough all night!  I've been slacking on my photo taking because I've hardly left the house! Shannon volunteered to take my photo for yesterday, so be sure to check out my photo blog and give her some love!

Today is rank testing the taekwondo school.  Shannon and I should be testing today, but I guess it just wasn't in the cards this cycle.  With jury duty, being sick, a lot of snow days where the school was closed, and just assorted other things getting in the way, it's not going to happen.  I admit that it is kind of nice to have a Saturday that's not scheduled all morning and most of the afternoon, like a regular Saturday!

There's a free Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concert today so I might take Shannon down to that. She's never been and always wanted to go! 

That's all! 

Back Up Your Files

Do I really need to tell you to back up your computer?  I hope not.  Until yesterday I thought I was good about it.  Being a Mac girl, I have Time Machine and I use it.  Unfortunately, I didn't get it until February. I not only back up all of my photos, digital elements, and iTunes to my external hard drive, but I burn them to DVD as well.  You'd think I'd be in good shape, but alas I was not.

Layouts.  That's right.  All of my digital scrapbook layouts have mysteriously disappeared from my external hard drive.  I have no clue what happened.  Normally what I do when I do layouts is every week or so I move my layered layouts (in .psd format) to a certain folder on my external hard drive.  I also have a folder for the web-sized, flattened .jpg images.  Yesterday to my great horror, both folders are missing from my hard drive, leaving me only what resides on my laptop.  Given that my laptop doesn't have a huge hard drive, that's not much. 

Unfortunately, unlike my photos and itunes, I never backed up my layered images to CD or DVD.  Thanks to the wonders of Time Machine, I was able to recover most of the web versions of my layouts, my friend Jan's CD album that I made for her, and about 6 layered files.  That's it! 

I'm just sick.  This means that I've lost all of my layouts prior to November 4th of last year, and I can never have any of them printed.  I can't have any of them published, because I no longer have the high resolution versions. 

I'm just sick about this, if having bronchitis wasn't bad enough.  Why didn't I burn those damn high res versions to CD? For some reason, I just never thought about it.  AAAAARGH!!!!

*** Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm completely convinced that this is totally a case of USER ERROR.  I did a big "re-org" on my EHD last Friday and I'm sure that I deleted the wrong folders and didn't notice it at the time.  Everything else is in good shape and right where it should be.  ***

This is a classic case of Murphy's Law.  Back up your layouts. 

Ugh....

I HATE being sick.  You know the deal, when you're Mom and you're sick, the crew is still wanting their after school transportation and dinners on the table. Nobody cuts you any slack. It's only 8:00am and I've already been asked what tonight's dinner plans are.  I DON"T KNOW!  How about another cup of hot tea with a Nyquil chaser?  Jeez, people.  Figure it out yourself.  Cut me a little break today.

My annoying cold has done what all of my colds seem to do, and that's settle into my chest for a good ten day's worth of nasty bronchitis.  I can NOT stop coughing.  You know, the kind of cough thats so hard that it makes you feel like your eyes will pop out of your head.  I cough so hard that I throw up and once that starts, it's hard to stop. I'm already there. 

It also sucks being on South Beach Diet when you're sick, because comfort food (which is the only thing that sounds good) is generally off limits.  Normally I'd say screw it, but we leave on vacation in a week and I need to be able to get my arse into my ski pants. Yeah I'm the doofus who thought it would be fun to go skiing over spring break this year.  What an idiot!  The last thing I want to see is more snow this season. Anyhow, pass the salad!

So, tired of me whining yet?  Okay.  What did you think of American Idol this week?  I was pretty surprised at the bottom three, I thought Ramiele would go home.  She's been bad and was just awful on Tuesday night. My two faves, David Cook and Michael Johns just rocked it!  Love those guys. As usual the women don't do much for me.

I'm liking Top Chef this season too...some interesting personalities in there this year.  Last night's challenge  with the block party was really tough.  I can't imagine having to do that and coming up with really great food. If you're a Top Chef fan, tell me this.....where's Gail?

The Biggest Loser is starting to get down to the wire too.  I like all of the guys, but you can't help root for the underdog women.  This season's weight losses have just been remarkable!  Can you imagine losing 80lbs. in 13 weeks?  I want Jillian Michaels as my own personal trainer...yeah, I say that as I lie in bed with my laptop and my Kleenex box.

Thank goodness for the wonders of modern technology like a DVR and a laptop to keep you entertained when you're sick.

Cool Photography

I'm really under the weather here today, so I thought I'd just show you a really cool photographer/web site that somebody pointed out to me a few days ago.

His name is Trey Ratcliff from Austin Texas.  When he's not running a company that manufacturers video games, he's taking pictures all over the world.  He is famous for his HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography which isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I happen to love it.  He's even generous enough to share how to do this and I admit that I'm quite tempted to try it out a bit myself.  I'll probably lie in bed today and look through his entire portfolio!  His formal site is linked on his name above, but I love his blog here:  Stuck in Customs. 

I love it that you have his permission to use his photographs for non-commercial usage as long as you give him a credit. That's really generous of him.  Scrappers take note...if you want a bit of stock photography for a layout, you can use his work as long as you don't sell it or get pubbed with it.  Just make sure you give him a nod when you do it. 

Here's one from Chicago's O'Hare airport and I've been down this hallway and while it looks cool on it's own, this photo makes it look REALLY cool!

Hong Kong

and finally, one from Malaysia.  I love how cute these kids are!  Hope you have a great day, I'm going back to bed!

Recipe Tuesday - Brunch Fare

Okay, you have been warned. If you're here for your healthy recipe Tuesday, you aren't going to be getting anything healthy this week.  On the other hand, these are two special occasion recipes that are real crowd pleasers and enjoying good food with family and friends might not be good for your waistline or your cholesterol level, but it's good for your soul. That's important too, right?

On Easter Sunday I hosted a holiday brunch, which is starting to be a tradition on both Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.  This time I served a honey spiral ham (I do my own...can't imagine waiting in that crazy line at the Honeybaked Ham store!), beef tenderloin mini sandwiches, bacon and onion quiche, deviled eggs, fresh fruit salad, mixed green salad with feta and cranberries, scalloped potatoes, coffee cake, and dessert!  Sometimes I do another hot veggie, but I skipped it this year.  Enough was enough!  Anyhow, my scalloped potatoes were my grandma's recipe and they've been a family favorite and a real MAN PLEASIN' side dish forever, and this new Sour Cream Coffee Cake was absolutely marvelous (and I'm not a huge fan of sweets). 

So here goes! 

Barb's Scalloped Potatoes

Approximately 3lbs. russet potatoes, scrubbed and dried
1 large brick of Velveeta cheese (I use the reduced fat and it's fine!)
butter
fresh ground pepper
milk or cream

Slice the cheese into pieces that are about 1/4" thick and set aside.  You'll only need about 1/2 of the brick, but feel free to use as much as you'd like! 

Take your potatoes and slice them thin.  I put mine through the food processor/slicer to make paper thin slices.  Spread 1/3 of the sliced spuds in the bottom of a large baking dish. I use an old deep, stoneware bean pot. Make sure to spread out the slices. Cover the potato layer with cheese slices.  Add a bit of fresh ground pepper and put a few pats of butter on top of the cheese.  Add another potato layer and repeat (yeah, it's potato lasagna!).  Finally, add the remaining potatoes and cover the top completely with cheese, add a bit more butter and pepper.  Pour some cream/milk slowly into the pot ~ about 1/2 cup (I never measure!).

Bake at 325 degrees for about 90 minutes, or until the cheese on the top is brown and bubbly.  Let these sit for 15 mins or so before serving.  Fabulous!  The men are always requesting these.  One tip....do not make these ahead of time before baking (like assembling the night before and baking in the morning).  The potatoes will turn dark brown and get wonky. They'll still taste fine, but black potatoes don't look as pretty on the buffet table!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I took a basic recipe from allrecipes.com and adapted it to my own liking.  It rocked!

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For topping:
1 cup finely chopped pecans
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 C flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan.

Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and baking powder and set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the sugars, butter and eggs until smooth. Add the flour mixture and beat until smooth. Finally, stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Spread half of the batter in the baking dish. It's thick, so you'll need to spread it out with a spatula.

Mix topping ingredients in a separate bowl.  I made mine in the food processor, so that the butter could cut in evenly and the nuts were fine.  You can leave the nuts out if you like.  Add more cinnamon if you like too. 

Layer a little less than half of the topping on top of the batter.   Spread the remaining batter over the topping in the baking dish and put the remaining topping on top! 

Bake for 70 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife put into the cake comes out clean.  I would start checking it around 55 minutes to make sure you don't overdo it.   

Oh Lordy!   This is SOOOOO good and words cannot express how wonderful your house will smell when it's baking.

Enjoy!  I think later this week, I'm going to double the recipe and make a bunch using my mini loaf pans.  I can put them in the freezer to pull out whenever, or give as gifts!

Tween Shopping

A happy belated Easter to my friends out there!  I hope you had a lovely day, whether you celebrate the religious traditions, the chocolate traditions, or just enjoyed a lovely Sunday.  I'm writing this on Sunday night after a marathon of choir and church commitments, and hosting brunch for a bunch.  I'm whooped, I'm going to bed early, and I'm sleeping in as late as possible in the morning so I'll get this done tonight!

Anyhow, I wrote these following thoughts on Friday afternoon after a rare occurance for me... a trip to the mall.

Oh, and just so you know ahead of time.  Andy asked me on Friday to make a coffee cake for our brunch today, so I found and tried a new recipe.  It was OFF THE HOOK insanely good.  I'll be sharing that recipe with my own twists tomorrow on Healthy Recipe Tuesday.  I might even share my very popular "scalloped potatoes" that I've been making literally for DECADES to be served at holiday meals.  Forget about the healthy for a week and live a little!

++++++++++++++++++++++

I remember shopping for school clothes before sixth grade. I was in the dressing room of the girls' department at Sears at the Westgate Shopping Center in Toledo Ohio, and nothing fit me.  I can still visualize the stack of clothes that I tried on with no luck.  I can see the pattern on those ugly green corduroys (hey, it was 1975!). I hated the pants, but I hated the fact that they didn't fit even more.

I was average height with broad shoulders and no waistline.  I was basically shaped like a brick. To top it off, I also had bad hair.  I was not a cute pre-teen by any stretch of the imagination. Here's a photo of me in all my splendor at age 12 (and check out my dad with his studly, 70's style!):

I remember being in that dressing room and sobbing.  My mom was mad.  She was tall and thin and always looked great in clothes.  I wasn't, and I didn't, and shopping for clothes was frustrating for her and humiliating for me.  I don't think I'll ever forget that day. 

Fortunately, I got taller and grew into my athletic build, although I never really shook the "fat teen" thing. Looking back, at 16, I was 5'8" tall, built very athletically, weighed about 122lbs. and wore a size 7/8. I remember being ragged on by the high school cheerleading coach for needing THE BIGGEST SKIRT THAT THEY HAD...which was a hefty size eight.  I was so fat. Sigh. Here I am at 17:

ANYHOW....my daughter is now 11 and quite tall for her age. She's got the same build that I used to have. She's not fat, but she's not thin either, and she no longer fits into the clothes in the girls' department. She is already getting grief at school because she's not stick skinny and blonde like the "popular girls" (give me a break!). Two days ago when I finally dried out from the rain-that-would-never-end I realized that this Sunday is EASTER and my little Easter Bunny didn't have any dress to wear that wasn't black.  Now black would work fine for me, but she's not wearing black on Easter! 

So while she was at taekwondo yesterday, I slipped off to the mall to see what I could find.  If you read my blog regularly, you know I hate the mall. But God help me, I went to the junior department at Macy's.  I had never been there before. I have to say that while I was expecting Lindsay Lohan and Britney skank-ho fashion to be screaming at me, I actually saw a lot of really cute clothes ~ clothes that were stylish, modern, and fun. I was quite impressed.  Sure, some were certainly too old for a fifth grader, but I ended up bringing four dresses home, hoping that one would work.

Like these:

I tried to find the four dresses that I brought home, but they weren't on the website. These are all similar.  Shannon like bright, splashy retro type styles and prints, and that's what I happened to find. I also brought home a white eyelet skirt and lacy sweater with a cami to go underneath. 

Well much to my GREAT delight, all of the dresses were a hit!  The fit, they looked cute, and she loved them. GO ME!  SCORE! No dressing room tears, just tears of joy! 

I'm one happy momma.  I'm hoping that Macy's junior department continues to be kind to us until my tween gets out of that awkward stage.  It's an Easter miracle! I really do not want her to have to go through what I did when I was her age, clothes wise.  Guess it's a good thing that I only make those potatoes on holidays!

Good Weeds

I finally started getting my act together yesterday for Easter.  I have the baskets done, eggs boiled (we'll be decorating tomorrow), brunch coordinated, and the house somewhat cleaned and under control today.  Well at least it looks good now. I'm off to the office today, but everybody else will be home so I pretty much know what it's going to look like when I get home.  The place won't be trashed, but people seem to have a hard time picking up after themselves and putting their dishes in the dishwasher around here.  Evidently that must be considered "my job", but I don't think it's my job.

Some people asked me yesterday about the treatment on my Molly Malone's photos.  I used Bren Boone's Vintage Dreams Lightroom preset initially, then tweaked them a bit on my own and with Simonetta Rossi's Washed Out Vignette Lightroom preset.  I'd link you to Bren's but it looks like she took them down.  I never use presets just as is, however, I always fool around with the color settings, usually playing around with curves, and adjusting the amount of black in the photos. I'm glad you liked them!  Speaking of photos, I forgot to take some yesterday.  I had intended to snap a few at choir rehearsal last night, but I forgot.  I'll have to pick out a cheater to put up on the photo blog for yesterday. No more flood photos, however.  Ugh.

Thought I'd post some layouts today and give you a heads up about a great contest at Weeds & Wildlflowers.  They're celebrating their one year birthday and if you make a $10 purchase in the next few days, you can qualify to win their entire store!  That's a lot of really great stuff, so wander over there and check it out. They are doing giveaways every day too, so check out their blog and leave a comment and hopefully you will be one of the lucky winners.

I also found out this week that I'm going to be a guest for Annie at Paint the Moon next month.  I'm really excited about that!  I can't wait to get started over there!

That's about it for now.  Here's what I've been doing while watching Survivor and Top Chef this week:

Pump It!

Yeah, that's what I did all day yesterday.  The rain has finally stopped and I'm whooped!  Today I've really got to switch gears and start thinking about Easter.  We're singing tonight, Saturday night, and Easter Sunday, and Andy and Shannon have to help at Good Friday services tomorrow. I have nothing for baskets, no eggs, etc. and I'm also hosting a huge brunch on Easter Sunday and I haven't started getting ready for that at all either.  Gotta get crackin on this, but all I want to do is sleep.  I think I am coming down with a cold this time.  Last week it didn't materialize into anything, so hopefully this week will be the same.

Anyways, here are some pics of my back yard from yesterday.  My yard used to be pretty.  Not anymore. It's cold too, it sure doesn't feel like the first day of spring.

And as I promised earlier in the week, here are some of the pics from St. Patrick's Day at Molly Malone's!