Archive for 2010

The season I miss MOST in Michigan is fall. It’s a beautiful time of year, with the colors changing and the weather becoming cool and brisk. It’s also the time of year that my birthday falls on AND when I met Kevin. We discussed getting married in the fall, but like any sucker of a bride, I eventually decided on a June wedding.

In any case, we were recently in Michigan in November and I had some opportunity to take pictures of the fall color.

I really dig taking pictures at night. I love taking advantage of single lights because it creates a dramatic feel to the image. I haven’t experimented much taking pictures with people, but I like half-lit images. They have that film-noir kind of feel.

Oh, how I love FOG! Sure, we have a marine layer in OC, but fog is so much denser. Also, the marine layer isn’t here at night. Which is probably a good thing.

That’s my brother’s girlfriend off to the right.

LOVE this photo! It’s my parents and brothers walking back to their cars after dinner.

Last but not least, a truly awful family photo. This is what happens when you have terrible light, you’re shooting at 1.4, and refuse to use your on-camera flash. Sometimes you should just use the pop-up flash! And sometimes, it’s more about just capturing the memory instead of trying to get everything perfect!

I LOVE Christmas! It’s my favorite holiday. But I have a THING about it – I absolutely refuse to recognize it until AFTER Thanksgiving. I mean, it’s really getting ridiculous. Halloween hadn’t even arrived and I was already seeing Christmas decorations for sale! I love Christmas, but I draw the line on celebrating it for TWO WHOLE MONTHS. Pretty soon it will be Christmas in July, huh?

In any case, once Thanksgiving passes, I get into full Christmas mode. We just put up our tree today, listened to Christmas music, and made my favorite holiday drink (one and a half ounces of pear vodka, one and a half ounces of sweetened apple juice, a generous shake of cinnamon, and a splash of lime juice). I even have a candle I dubbed “the Christmas candle,” a Bath & Body Works candle called “Creamy Nutmeg” which smells oh-so-good!

Here’s a picture of our tree at night…it’s small but I love it! I don’t know what it is about Christmas, but I love it…but NOT until after Thanksgiving! :)

I remember asking a friend once what her guilty pleasures were, and she replied, “I don’t feel guilty for any of my pleasures.” I thought it was refreshing and have tried to apply the same thought process for things I enjoy. After all, I do enjoy them, so why should I feel bad?

Yet admitting you love, love, LOVE the Harry Potter series can raise an eyebrow for some people. I feel sorry for those unenlightened people. I can’t tell you what a great, nay magical (hee hee) series of books this is. And what can I say, I’m a book nerd and I embrace it!

So needless to say, I’m pretty excited to see Deathly Hallows Part I this weekend. I’m not QUITE so passionate that I HAVE to stay up until midnight to see the movie. I’m quite satisfied to go see it tomorrow, or maybe Sunday.

But in the meantime, here is my Harry Potter collection. As you can see, the books are WELL worn. I read the entire series at least once a year and enjoy it immensely!