What’s been keeping me away… Part 2!

Man.  It’s been rough getting back in here.  It’s been more than busy.  So much has happened since the last time I was here!

Let me think.

We made beer.

We found a great little shop called Santa Fe Home Brewers Supply, it’s got everything you could ever need when it comes to brewing beer or making wine – including the know-how. They are incredibly helpful when it comes to getting started. Our dark Ale came out very tasty, although I’m not sure it’s very alcoholic. That’ll be something to work on in our next batch.

Somewhere in between there, we went to Telluride, CO for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. The Decemberists, Mumford and Sons, How to Grow a Band, Bela Fleck, Abigail Washburn among many other greats. It was amazing as always. It’s always great to be around mountains like that.

We also had the great opportunity to go shoot a WW2 50 Caliber Boyz Rifle with the Hoover family. My guy did some maintenance on the rifle for the owner and we were invited along to go test shoot it. Needless to say, it still worked…

Other than all that, I’ve been thankful to have the opportunities to shoot an old friend’s wedding as well as some relatives’ family portraits. I’ve been editing photos every extra second I get. I discovered something I will most likely be employing soon. Photoshop Actions and Shortcut Keys… !!

The Guy and I started a new little side business and things are going swell with that. But we are learning to take any time off seriously.

…and I took a break over the weekend to knit up a little sweater for our roommates’ dog, Harvey. It’s getting chilly!

Hope everyone is doing well!

This Morning’s Juice:

We’ve started juicing.

We recently became inspired to start a mini-health kick and I think this one is gonna last!  While we won’t be doing a hard core juice fast, we are juicing at least twice a day for breakfast and dinner.  For breakfast, it’s been accompanied by something small but protein-packed like a couple of boiled eggs, and dinner comes with something simple like chicken and rice.  We’re still eating our typical lunches.  We’re finding it’s a great way to get more plant based nutrients than the Guy and I have had in quite some time.

It helps that a friend at work told me about a great little produce shop close to our house called nothing else but “Produce for Less.”  I’ve only been there once, but they had a pretty great selection.  I was able to walk outta there with two big bags of juicing things for $11.  Incredible!  It’s kept us going for about three days now.

We haven’t really been following any recipes.  We  figured we’d just go for it.  But I’d like to remember this morning’s.  It was pretty darn good.

It consisted of:

6 Small Apples

4 Large Carrots

1/2 1 Large Yam

Small piece of ginger root

Now, I must tend to the bread I have rising.  :)

Happy Saturday!

Happy Freakin’ Fourth of July

Bleu Cheese Burger, a photo by amy_renee on Flickr.

I think this year was the best 4th yet.

We perfected the greatest cheese burger ever.

Try bleu cheese and Chipotle Cholula Hot sauce!  Oh my god.  It’s amazing.

Wedding Photos Complete

0172-1, a photo by amy_renee on Flickr.

Photo DVD has been mailed! It was a lot of work editing all these, but I think we got some good ones.

Steph & Ben Wedding Preview

Gerber , a photo by amy_renee on Flickr.

Had the opportunity to shoot a friend’s wedding on Friday evening. It was gorgeous.

I’ll be edited for the next few weeks, though. I don’t mind though! It’ll be great practice.

Sunday Morning Hike

I didn’t bring my Nikon, because I’d like to start focusing more on the actual hiking, but it’s so hard to not want to take a picture in these places.

We tried Atalaya for the second time today. We decided to dedicate a little more time to it this morning. We left the house at 6, and started hiking by 6:15.

The sun was red when it came up this morning because of all the wildfires…

p.s. I made the wonderful Pioneer Woman’s BBQ Chicken Pizza last night. I’ll definitely by making that crust again. I made garlic breadsticks with the extra dough and they were pretty darn good… They made good leftovers for this morning too.

Blocked Girasole

Blocked Girasole, a photo by amy_renee on Flickr.

Ah! Like magic! After a day of spending too much money to get my car fixed, I finally found a little time to wash and pin Girasole.

…I like it…

What’s been keeping me away…

What is it about May that always makes is the busiest month of the year?  I wasn’t even a full time student but somehow everything still crept up at once.

Here are some good things that were keeping me away from blogging…

Easter:

I wanted to try to make Tsoureki this year.  The Greek Easter bread.  This recipe for the dough was amazing.  I’ve been meaning to try it again.  I’d like to leave out the lemon zest and the anise to make just a nice fluffy loaf of bread… I imagine it would be a little closer to challah.

And somehow, I find Easter is always the best time to make excuses to play with glitter…

 

Finishing off the Jewelry Midterm:

I ended up selling my little koi fish to my boss for his daughter’s birthday.  I was honored just knowing somebody would be interested in buying and wearing my very first piece.  I found a little silver collar and made a finding that I think made it hang very nicely.

Mother’s day gifts:

My sister and I wanted to practice our bezel setting for our jewelry class before we set out to do our final project.  We had purchased two little lapis cabochons back when the class first started.  We were going to save them for my moms birthday, but we figured mother’s day would be better timing.  :)  I’ll try to get some better photographs of them soon.

Finishing Girasole:

The edging took a couple weeks to do… It is now complete. I just haven’t really taken a picture yet. I still haven’t blocked it… It’s a little difficult to find a big enough area for it.

Jewelry Final:

We had two elements that had to be included; a chain and a bezel set cabochon.  They could either be in the same piece, or two separate pieces.  I knew I wanted to try a ring, so I figured I’d make a bracelet for the chain.

I attempted the woven roman chain.  It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to for the clasp, but once I actually sat down in the studio and forced myself to think of one, I just went for it… and I’m pretty happy with it.

At the same time I bought the lapis pieces for those earrings, I bought a piece of onyx.  I love onyx and silver.  It’s so simple, it looks so great.  I just wanted to get the basic techniques of making a ring down, so I kept this one pretty simple.  I cut a couple pieces out of the band and then soldered it onto the back of the bezel.

I’ll be needing to set up a small home studio very soon.  I already have requests from family members and quite a few ideas I’d like to try out on my own.

Finally the other thing that has taken a bit of my time was moving!!  We are now in a new apartment with a couple of friends.  It’s close to everything!  I think it’s gonna be a good thing.  :)

Life is wonderful.

How I Ripped my Pants

It’s an incredible feeling when you aren’t sure if you will be able to lift your foot for even one more step. That’s how I felt at approximately 2:45 today.

Today is my Saturday. I decided to take a couple of days off. The guy had a few days off in the middle of the week so I decided to take off from work and join him. It’s rare that we have a whole day off together since our work schedules overlap.

Borrego Trail was the plan! It looked beautiful. We wouldn’t have to drive forever and ever to get there. It was a really beautiful morning. We got up early and left to the grocery store to get some lunch items (pre-mixed tuna salad with crackers! Love that stuff).

With Bunker the bull mastiff in tow, we began our drive up the mountain.

We found the trail and got to it! Started out easy enough…

Bunker likes bananas.

We hadn’t really noticed that after passing a creek and going through a clearing, a couple of hours had already passed.

We also realized that bunker loves oranges.

Considering yesterday’s nasty windy weather, we couldn’t be more thankful for the fantastically beautiful day that this was.

We had kind of a midmorning lunch (and discovered that Bunker also likes pistachios) and contemplated what to do next. There was a sign that noted another trail in our proximity, the trail we were on and pointed in a direction that said it would lead us back to the main road that goes up the mountain…

We chose that one!

Hmph. There wasn’t exactly a clear trail, but we figured we’d get to it soon enough.

We started through a valley between two very large mountains and… wait for it… Hit a dead-end.

Only one way up!

I don’t have a fear a heights… But I will say that I have a very great fear of falling. Growing up, I clearly remember preferring the climbing of stairs as opposed to going down. It was a little more work, but the likelihood of falling down an entire flight if stairs was significantly lower.

With a lot of encouraging words from the guy, I did it. Just kept movin’ the legs.

Yeah I just climbed that… No trail – But plenty of small rocks.

The view on the way up was pretty amazing – when we remembered to turn around and see how high we were.

Pretty good for 11:40 in the morning.

Somehow, we still expected there to be a trail up there… Or a road… Or something…

At this point all those news reports of lost hikers started going through my head. I think I even started writing our own in my head. But in all seriousness, I really wasn’t terribly worried. I mean I climbed this mountain with an expert. (ahem.. I mean former marine)

We were prepared for anything… We knew exactly where we were. We could always turn back and go right back down the mountain to the trail …so we did.

At this point the only thing going though my head:
*my mom would kill me if she knew I was doing this*

-hi mom.

Going down went a little faster than going up. Key Idea: if it gets too steep, sit down and slide.

I slid a lot.

Steepest part: me next!

Ran into a small bush… But we all got all they way down.

Pants:

Didn’t make it.

Once I cleaned out my shoes of all the dirt, leaves and twigs that made it in there, we started on our way back. (…on the trail, mom)

Going back was extremely difficult… A lot of it was uphill. We were taking much-needed breaks quite often.

All in all I’m very thankful for this day. I did more than I ever thought I was capable of… The day was beautiful and made me realize that I’m in such a great place in my life to be able to take little days like this for myself to spend time with the people I love. I love my life.

Plus, I get to go Jean shopping… Heh.

Jump

Jump, a photo by amy_renee on Flickr.

One MILLION jump rings.

…or at least it felt like a million. It took me about 3 episodes of The Cosby Show to wind and clip these little babies.