First Sale!

I had my first photography sale a couple weeks back and completed the transaction today!

When I posted my moose photos a couple weeks back, I had interest in one of the photos from a girl from church. I ordered her an 8x10 print soon after and it came last week. I didn't make it to church on Sunday, as I had a cold and did not want to spread it around, so I met the girl for coffee this morning and we exchanged print for a check. Boy, it felt good to have my first sale!

Seldovia Trip: Scenes Along the Way

I love seeing holes in rocks like this. It makes me want to climb in them!

The wake from the boat we were in created some interesting effects on the waters. I loved the shots with dramatic contrast from light and dark.

The water in the Bay from Homer is a dull gray color. But out farther in, closer to the communities across the Bay, the color reflects the lush greeness of the mountains.

And eagle resting on and island.

Another eagle resting.

Vacation 2009: Day 12

May 11
The last day of our trip!

C and I woke up fairly early at BIL1's place. I had a hard time breathing due to his smoky place (he doesn't smoke inside, but it still permeates everything) and I spent a lot of time on his balcony/deck thing reading in the Alaskan sunshine!

We ate the yogurt for breakfast that we had gotten after midnight the night before, and then sat around reading comic books while we waited for BIL1 to wake up. We finally got him out of bed before noon.

Then, it was off to go shopping! Target has been open in Alaska since October, and we hadn't made it there yet. Neither had BIL1. We got lost trying to find it, but after calling a female friend of BIL's, we made it. First, we had to check out the brand new Kohl's there, though. None of us had been in one before (I've ordered from them online, though) so that was snazzy.

C and I checked out George Foreman grills there, but didn't purchase one. Target was 1 store away, and we went in there. We wandered through there a while, and ended up buying a couple of food items - a liter of soda and some candy that were cheap, and a grill! It was, of course, cheaper there than in Kohl's, so that was nice.

From Target, we drove across town again to Walmart and loaded up on staples that we need for cheap. Heaps of food, kleenex and toilet paper later, we checked out. Buzzed into Quiznos for lunch/dinner (4pm) and then back to BIL's place. We ate our food there, and then dropped him off for work (5pm) and said goodbye.

On our way out of town, we got stopped by a train, at 5:05pm. Right at rush hour.

Not sure who was in charge that day, but it was ridiculous. We were stopped for 10 minutes and the train literally inched along, and then stopped, and then inched along back across the highway.

I ended up driving the whole way home. C ended up reading to me out of my book for at least 2 hours of it. His voice was raw, but it was fun. We drove into my old hometown about 9:30, I think, and hung out with my parents for a bit. The sun was setting at about 10:30, and I kept glancing out the window at it. We said our byes to my parents and raced to the beach to catch the end.

From there, we headed the last 15 miles home and then went to the grocery store to get some milk, eggs and bread and went home after 11pm.

We still had 2 days off each, so the next 2 days for me were spent madly editing photos and uploading them online. Ahh, it was fun!

Thanks for reading the recaps of our trip!

Buh Bye Cheerios!

One of my quirks is that I love eating cereal without milk. Cheerios and Froot Loops are my favorite for this. And unfortunately, I dropped the box last night, and it landed right on the opening. About half of the box is left, but it was rather sad!

Rob and Jo's Wedding

Friday, I got off of work 5 hours early to go to a long awaited wedding! The groom is one of my best friend's brother and I worked with the bride. We became good friends and hung out outside of work as well. I heard a rumor that she was thinking of asking me to be a bridesmaid, but she only ended up with one attendant, Redhead! I'm glad that I wasn't in the wedding, because it is so much less stressful that way! And, I got to take photos!

It was a fun time, but only 2.5 hours total. (Local weddings tend to be short of late. Not sure why) But I got some good photos, even if I wasn't the photographer.

I love weddings!

Good friends

Rob and Jo's Wedding

I love weddings! My good friend Jo married Redhead's brother on Friday!

Married!

The ring boy

Escaping through bubbles

I loved both of these two shots.

The flower girl twirling

Clothing Wishlist

I am in a conundrum about clothing. I never have been one obsessed with clothing, but everytime I enter a store, (retail or thrift) I simply must look at the clothing. Often, I will find something that I think I need and buy it. That has changed over the past year, as C has told me repeatedly that I don't need anymore shirts. Which is true. I don't have enough space for clothes as it is. I share my closet rod with C.

I have gotten rid of a lot of shirts and other miscellaneous items so that there is not much left (relatively, anyway) I've known for a while now that I will eventually need to invest in a bit more of a nicer wardrobe at some point once I graduate from college with an accounting degree. But that won't happen for a while.

I do the majority of my looking for clothes online. There is no mall here. To get decent clothes, I have to drive an hour and a half up the road.

Yesterday, I attended a wedding, and was in a tizzy trying to decide what to wear. I finally decided on something, but it was kind of depressing realizing that I don't have many dressy clothes anymore that go together well. I have been so good in the past few months in not looking at clothes online, knowing that I don't need anymore.

Of course, I came home last night and immediately started scouring Oldnavy.com and Kohls.com. I found a few things that I like, but nothing really really made me 100% sure I needed it.

- A white tanktop/camisole. I have several Old Navy tanktops, but none that look nice under a V neck shirt. I want something that has a higher neckline, which is pretty hard to find, especially when I can't try them on. I like this one, that one and this one too.

- I am also looking for a dress that I can wear to less formal things. Again, a higher neckline, but also cute. Sleeves would be nice, but most of the dresses I've seen look awful when they have sleeves. I like these ones the best.

Those are the only two things that really come to mind right now. Oh, and a bolero or jacket type thing. Then, I could wear more of the spaghetti strap dresses I have without feeling awkward about it.

Anyone have a go to site they love for clothing? I need to poke around my bookmarks again and see what I have in there. But I'd love some suggestions!

Seldovia Trip: Gull Island

Flock of birds near the Island

On Tuesday, my husband and I went on a boat trip across Kachemak Bay because I wanted to go. We went with Rainbow Tours and it was a fantastic time. This is just the first of a few posts I will do as recaps. Our first stop was Gull Island. I have seen Gull Island many times, but I am always amazed at how many thousands of birds are there.

Approaching Gull Island. Those white specks? Some are birds, but most of it is bird feces.



Fascinating hole in the rock island.

Here you can see a small fraction of the number of birds here. It's an amazing sight!

You Capture: Summer

This week's You Capture post is all about "Summer." Summer is my favorite season! I love taking photos that chronicle Alaska's transformation to the warm days.

I see this view on my way home each night now. It is fascinating to watch the flowers bloom from the road!
Our neighbors are in the process of landscaping. What's more summer-y than yard work?

The cliche dandelion. I love these things though!

8:30pm sunbeams on leaves

We had quite the rain Sunday night that drenched everything, but then the sun came out!

Seldovia Trip

Note: Soon, I will have photos of the scenery and animals up from this trip on my photography blog.

We live on a bay, and there are other communities across the Bay. I realized recently that I have not gone anywhere over there in 5 years.

Now that I have this amazing camera and an insatiable appetite for photography, I was yearning to go somewhere close. Yesterday, C and I went on a boat ride to Gull Island and Seldovia. I have only been to Seldovia once, which was for a school trip in the 8th grade, and C had never been.

Seldovia used to be one of the bigger towns in our area, due to trading, but when the AlCan highway was built, it's status diminshed. After the 1964 earthquake, Seldovia lost a lot of turf and the town shrank even more. Now, there are less than 300 full time residents there. But it is a quaint place to visit.

The typical tourist photo

C was less than enthused by this trip, but he came along for my sake. We sat with some folks from Florida. They were pretty surprised that we were actually from Alaska, much less the town we departed from. I think they thought it odd that we were doing something touristy. (The reasoning for it was that we don't know anyone really well with a boat that could take us over there, so I figured we should let the pros do it!)

The wife and I got along well, and we both ran out of the boat often to take photos of animals - birds, sea otters and a harbor seal. C ended up reading his book most of the way to Seldovia and back :P. It was raining pretty much the whole time, but I was not too bummed. When it's raining and cloudy, the Bay's waters are much calmer than with sun. Plus, the photos turned out better with no sun!

We got to Seldovia and started wandering. There were tons of painted fire hydrants and trash cans everywhere that gave the place a fun look. Chainsaw carvings are big in the area too, and there were some incredible ones all around the town.

We ended up having lunch at a rather expensive little restaurant, but it was good. As we were in there, the rain started coming down in torrents. When we were finished eating, it had slowed a bit, but we came prepared with our umbrella! It was fun to walk along the streets together under the umbrella.

We wanted to get to a beach and ended up at a boat launch. It was still raining hard so there wasn't much to do. But as I looked down, I saw sea glass everywhere. My pocket was soon bulging. In 10 minutes, this is what I came up with:
We left soon after and started walking back through town again. We soon got back onto the boat and headed back home. By then, everyone on the boat was pretty tired, and many slept.
I read my book for a little while, but then started on the lookout for some more otters and cool scenery, as the sun started to peek out. I ended up being only 1 of like 3 others who even ventured outside at all on the return trip. Kinda sad, but I got some good photos!

New George Foreman!

On our way back from our trip, C and I picked up a George Foreman grill. My boss had continually encouraged me to get one..so we scoped them out at Kohl's and bought one at Target.Last night, we finally broke it out of the box and used it!
C found some recipe that he thought sounded appetizing, so we tried it. Yummy chicken, green beans and corn! It was fabulous :)

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We got a bamboo plant for our wedding. It has grown pretty big in the past 14 months. :)
But now, it was time to get some more plant babies for our place. My boss graciously has been supplying me with cuts.
There are two types of plants in that jar and I can't remember the names of either of them. I am waiting for them to grow roots so I can plant them.
These are 2 different types of spider plants that we just planted. And in between is the cactus my sister brought from Arizona 3 years ago!

Now you have met our new plant babies! There is supposed to be another one coming soon, too :)

Winding

Took a short detour on my way home tonight. I love this road and the view from it. I couldn't quite capture exactly what I wanted to from the sunshine shining at the top of the shot, but I still liked it!

Solstice

I meant to write this yesterday, but Blogger was not cooperating.

Yesterday was Summer Solstice. I never like that day. Once Solstice is over, it means that the days start getting shorter. Yes, it will be nice to finally be able to sleep in past, oh 4:30am, but I really never look forward to winter. Summer is too short here and winter is too long.

Once the middle of June comes and goes, I start mourning the end of summer, even though this is when it really gets going. I love eternal daylight (except for sleeping). Wintertime's minimal sunshine really gets to me sometimes. I make the most of the rest of the summer after this point, but really, it's depressing to me! (Even though we still have like 2 months of a lot of daylight left)

At least I don't live close to the equator where you can't even tell a difference between the solstices!

My Wishlist

One of my downfalls has always been my lust for stuff. My husband could care less. He buys nothing. He had a nice chunk of change in the bank when we got married...because he bought nothing. And he still buys nothing. No clothes for himself (what guy does?) no computer games, or anything. Me, on the other hand, wants everything!

I collect things, am an avid book reader, etc. And now that I have a lovely camera, I dream of nice lenses and other accessories (books, etc) My Amazon.com wishlist is ever growing larger with bigger ticket items of late, and it is a bit depressing. I started an online savings account on ING to have a place to put my personal spending money and am slowly saving up money for some goals.

Here's my list of bigger stuff...

• Amazon Kindle $359 - I have a lot of books. I ran out of bookshelf space by the time we moved into our apartment. And I continually get new books. I do try to curb the urge, but I have several favorite authors that I must buy the new releases from. A Kindle would be pretty awesome to have. But, you do still have to pay for the books, so...
  
• MSI Wind Netbook $300 - I want a cheaper laptop to take with us on our next trip. I was concerned while we were in Hawaii that I might lose some photos or something and never be able to get them back because all I was able to do was tote the memory cards around. My laptop died a year ago and I missed being able to take on along on our trip. A netbook sounds like a great solution! I am currently saving up for this specific model.
  
• Kitchenaid Mixer $200-300 - More of a household need! I know that C would love to have one of these. He constantly gushes over his mother's old mixer from the 80s, and I'm pretty sure a Kitchenaid would be just as nice. I have played with Redhead's Aid a few times lately and I would love one. All we have is a hand mixer and it does not work very well...so we always mix things by hand.
  
• Ipod Touch $215-280 - Just tonight did I really look into this thing. BIL1 has an iphone and we were really intrigued with it. I learned tonight that you can read Kindle books on the Touch too. I don't need it to be a phone, especially with the outrageous contract fees every month. C thinks the idea is pointless, but I would love one!
  
• Camera Lenses $200+ - Not much to say here :P
  

So there you have my current list of toys. Any thoughts on any of those?