Life Lately

Hi! I know I've been kind of AWOL and there's really only a handful of people who even read this, but I wanted to share what I've been up to lately.

In late August I started taking my first class since I graduated from college.  Since I work at an academic institution (UC) I can take classes for free.  And since photography is a key part of my job description, I can take a photography class on work time.  Super awesome, right!?  For someone who loves taking photos and even does it as part of their job, it's kind of crazy that I've never taken a photography class, not even a film photography class.  Somehow it's just something I skipped in all the high school and college art classes I took.  But since I want to start taking conservation photography documentation classes soon, I figured I should probably get a basic photography class under my belt first.  While parts of the class have come naturally, I am surprised how challenging it has been so far.  In particular, being restricted by our subject matter and assignment.  We all know that nature, and flowers in particular, are my favorite thing to shoot.  Well, the subject matter for our first class project was "Abstract".  That meant NO nature whatsoever.  No trees, no plants, no people, no animals.  No naturally made things whatsoever!  It was a definite challenge for me, but it really made me look at things differently and I think I really learned a lot and grew as a photographer during this project.  And that was only our first project!  I wanted to share some of my best shots with you all...

In early September I made probably my prettiest and craziest cake so far for a dear coworker's birthday, and I just have to share it...

It was an orange poppyseed cake with orange buttercream.

 Also, for the last couple months I've been making handmade books and watercolor cards and prints.  I'm finally getting ready to sell them this weekend!  This will be my first time ever going out into public and selling stuff I've made to people.  In person.  In real life.  I'm a little nervous!

I've got 49 books/journals ready to sell, as well as galaxy cards and prints.  Here's hoping it goes well!

For any Cincinnati folks who might be reading, I'll be selling at the Pleasant Ridge POP! Market from noon to 5pm this Saturday (24th).  The market is located in the Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian Church parking lot (5950 Montgomery Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45213).  

That's all for now.  I won't promise that I'll be back to blogging on a somewhat regular basis, because that just doesn't seem realistic.  I've got a lot of fun stuff on the horizon and being present in my life just seems infinitely better than blogging at the moment.  But I'll try not to be a complete stranger.  Happy Thursday everyone!

Dad's Birthday Cake

As I mentioned before, one of the main reasons we have our yearly family cabin weekend in November is to celebrate my dad's birthday.  Every year my sister usually gets a birthday cake from the store (usually a pirate one...it's an inside joke), but this year I decided to make one from scratch.  And I decided to make it lactose-light so my brother-in-law could actually have some!  I ended up making this brown butter and vanilla bean layer cake with bourbon buttercream (well, margarine-cream).  Plus, I had recently seen this scallop tutorial on Pinterest and was itching to try it out (I thought it was interesting but not too girly or anything for my dad).

The scallop design turned out fairly well for my first go at it.  The cake itself was good, but a little dry.  And the bourbon buttercream was subtle, so even my mom (a non-bourbon drinker) liked it. 

 I wasn't too crazy about the consistency of the margarine-cream frosting...but I'm a butter purist when it comes to cake baking, and I'm glad I tried it and I know it can be done.

I also made a batch of this caramel sauce (wet method) and these candied pecans (minus the cayenne) to accompany the cake.  And both came in very handy as waffle toppers the following morning!

My dad blowing out his candles.

The finished product.

It was a fun cake to make, since it was the first cake I've ever made for my dad's birthday.  And I'll definitely be trying out that scallop design again in the future...it was so easy and a nice way to cover up imperfections on the sides of the cake.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!  Happy Friday!

Project 365: Days 1-12

Here's the first post of many for my 365 project I'll be attempting this year, where I'll be taking a photo every day in 2015.  I'm trying to push myself to use my camera for this, instead of my phone, not because it's better or anything but because there's still a lot I need to learn about my camera and its settings.  And about photography and lighting, in general.  I'll go ahead and admit, that the first 12 days were a challenge.  Remembering to take a photo everyday is tricky.  Not to mention the fact that it's freezing and gloomy outside so I've been pretty much limited to indoor photography.  And not just that, many most days I find myself taking photos at night, indoors, which is about the worst time to take photos.  During the work week, when I leave the house in the morning it's still dark outside.  Then by the time I get home and feed/care for the animals, it's dark again.  I look forward to the days when I don't have to go home for lunch everyday to let Mabel and I can use my lunch-break to take photos.

I've noticed that one of the things I'm going to struggle most with is not getting a photo everyday, but posting just one photo for every day.  Well, I might as well just admit defeat now...I can't do it!  I'm going to post more than one photo per day, that's just who I am.  I've accepted it, now you have to.  Anyway, here's the first 12 days, hope you enjoy.

Day 1:  What better way to start off the new year than by frying up some homemade donuts!  No?  I hadn't made donuts since high school and had been aching to whip up a batch during my time off, so I decided January 1st was the perfect day to do it!  Actually, it might have to become an annual tradition.

Day 2:  Mabel

Day 3:  I think I was feeling bad for Cheesy, like he was feeling neglected because of the new puppy, so I apparently decided to dedicate several days to Cheese! 

Day4:  Doing what our family does best...being lazy.  That's my hip/thigh covered in the quilt and Cheese is cozily nestled in behind my legs on the sofa.

Day 5:  Cheese loves all food, but his favorite veggies and fruits (which are the majority of the human-foods we give him) are probably carrots, bananas, and clementines.  Every time I eat clementines I have to share some with Cheese.

Naturally, Mabel wanted in on the actions so she proceeded to lick Cheese's jowls!

Day 6:

Day 7:  Our street is currently a work-zone (and has been for about a month now) while they work on the gas lines.

Day 8:  Cheese has learned that if I'm in the kitchen then there's probably some sort of food being made or chopped.  In this case, he's checking out the cake I was making for my boss' birthday.

Day 9:  Pistachio cream cake (with a pistachio mascarpone filling and chocolate ganache).

Day 10:  Tiki mask we got while in Hawaii!

Day 11:  For Christmas my mom made us a basket filled with all kinds of goodies (from homemade treats to a cool cutting board to bulk food store goodies).  One of the things in the basket was this bag of peanut butter cookie mix, which you just add water to, scoop and bake!  So easy and so tasty!

Day 12:  Continuing the fur-kid trend:  a picture of Gui looking down disapprovingly from his perch at Mabel.  And Cheese being a total ham!

Life Lately (in Instagram)

My apologies for my absence lately, but frankly I've just been too lazy lately to blog.  A horrible excuse, I know, but it's hard to motivate yourself to take pictures and whatnot when it's cold outside!  But now I'm back and I've got some photos to share later this week!  Before I get to that though I thought I'd play catch-up with some Instagram photos so I can share with you what I've been up to lately.

First off, I've done my fair share of baking lately...

The newest member of our department, Ashleigh's, birthday was at the beginning of February so I made her this ginger-lime cake with marshmallow frosting.  I also made some candied ginger for a garnish, since she loves ginger so much!

To celebrate my 29th birthday I made this amazingly delicious pretzel, salted caramel cheesecake.  I actually made it the weekend before my birthday while my parents were in town and my oh my it was good!

If you live in or around Cincinnati you'll already know about the string of delays and closures in the past month for the University of Cincinnati.  For me this meant that there were a couple mornings, here and there, where I got to sleep in late, drink my coffee in bed, cuddle with the cat and watch Star Trek all day while wearing my pjs; it was awesome!

Oh, as if I hadn't been ingesting enough calories one night I decided to whip up some hand pies.  I made two kinds, strawberry nutella ones (left) and pulled pork ones (right).  Both were quite tasty!

This guy.  Not only does he always steal my seat on the couch when I get up, but he steals my pillows and positions himself under my blanket!  Oh, Cheese.

While my seat was being stolen by said basset, I was making banana pecan pancakes and bacon for Antoine and I!

For giggles, Cheese posing with my empty coffee cup!

For my actual birthday Antoine took me to the Palm Court downtown for their Sunday brunch buffet.  I'd heard about it but never been.  My goodness, it was amazing!!  The bread pudding rocked my world!  And afterwards I was so comatose that A and I had to go back home and take a nap.

After our nap I just couldn't get out of my pjs, they were too comfortable, so we decided to take it easy and watch Saving Mr. Banks.  And I made Cheesy pose for this picture with me.

Melting icicles.

Round three of my birthday celebration included an amazing night out with my sister, Michelle, and our friend, Helene.  We went to Cooper Hawk and did a wine tasting, got pretty tipsy, and then enjoyed a wonderful dinner.  What a wonderful night!

We got another round of snow this Friday, which Cheese was pretty happy about!  He loves playing around in the snow, especially when it's not below zero!

Guillermo, my furry stalker on cold nights.  He's perpetually glued to my lap in the evenings.

This past Saturday Antoine and I went to Spring Grove Cemetery since neither of us had ever been in the winter before.  It was so beautiful, but more on that later!

On Sunday we wanted to take Cheese to the dog park but once we got there we found out it was closed.  But we still took Cheese for a walk and threw snowballs to him!  He loves catching snowballs, it's his favorite winter hobby!

That's been my life lately, it's been pretty great if you ask me!  Stay tuned later this week for some snowy Spring Grove photos.