I was Tagged! Gasp!

Five random facts:

1. I can’t sleep without hugging a pillow.  If I have to sleep without one, my arm falls asleep. Bad circulation?
2. I have really terrible nightmares about Matt.  He’s the sweetest ever but I have dreams that he does horrible things to me.
3. I have vampire teeth because I’m missing the two small teeth between my front teeth and my canines.  So it’s just two front teeth and then canines.  I lost the babies and the adults never grew back in.   Go ahead, I’ll wait while you look in your mouth because you didn’t realize you even had teeth separating your big ones…
4. I have never ever had a pedicure in my entire life.  And only one manicure for my wedding day.  That’s it.
5. I love the smell of various chemicals.  Paint, Mop n-Glo, that smell that first comes out of your air conditioner (anti-freeze?)  I don’t know.  But I love them so much I feel like I can never smell them enough.  (don’t worry, I should clarify that it’s a painted room, not a bucket of paint, that I huff). 

Six Things I wish I could Do:
1. Speak Spanish
2. Play guitar so I could be my own blamin’ backup
3. Play a sport – any sport – and not feel like I’m going to twist my ankles at any moment – or knock someone out with a fat flap.
4. Tan in the sun
5. be more stylish
6. wear HIGH heels (kinda goes with 5, but the act of walking successfully in them without pain is the goal)

Five Mommy Confessions:
Okay, since I don’t have kids, I’m going to make these future mommy confessions.  Like, we’ll pretend I have a 6 month old, okay?  Go!
1.  I silently judge baby names that are spelled funky.  (that one stands as it is now, without a baby!)
2.  I honestly don’t think anyone’s baby is as cute as mine
3. I think babies smell like potatoes (this is also currently true)
4. I with my boobs would always stay this size (i imagine they will get bigger)
5. I am not a fan of “new baby day” at any function – Matt’s work, church, etc.  I think they are lame and no one cares.  Except you – you care about your baby, but you don’t care about mine so let’s just be honest.

Seven favorite movies of all time:
1. Bridget Jones’ Diary
2. When Harry Met Sally
3. 10 Things I Hate About You
4. Beauty and the Beast (cartoon)
5. It’s a Wonderful Life
6. Good Will Hunting
7. The Mirror Has Two Faces

Five favorite TV shows:
1. 30 Rock
2. The Office
3. Scrubs
4. What Not to Wear – I meant to say LOST here.  Maybe I forgot to list it because it doesn’t seem like it belongs in the category, “TV shows” because it’s so epic.
5. Top Chef

Six Bands I want to see in concert:
Gosh, I’ve seen most of my favorites so I’ll pick some cool as heck people:

1. Ray Lamontagne
2. Amy Winehouse (please don’t die before I can see you)
3. Beck
4. Eva Cassidy (why did you have to die?)
5.  David Gray
6. Dixie Chicks (i do!  I could sing along the whole time – what’s better than that?!)

Five Favorite Pictures of the last year
do you realize how long it’s going to take me to pick 5?  I am going to do top 5 personal and top 5 professional – k?  K.

one night I was sad and so matt put his bathrobe on backwards and under his glasses, put my turtle slippers on his hands, had a ukulele in his hands, trying to play it and even had Cash in his arms and walked toward me like a monster.  I laughed so hard and couldn’t believe my eyes.

I am continually so terribly happy about this house

this just makes me laugh – hard.  Shannon’s face and Case’s face and Chad being so stoic.  I love this little family!

Professional:

Seven people I tag to do this:

1. Shannon
2. Tiffany Beatty
3. Allyson Wall
4. no one else looks at this blog that hasn’t already done this!
5. maybe mom will see it!  So mom!

Adele and time with the Meltons

We had a fabulous weekend hanging out with Kyle and Libby and eating good food and seeing great music.  Here’s some highlights:

Hailey – the newest Melton is getting so big!

such a baby face!

Shannon and Grace playing on her computer

Grace excited about her new bike

beautiful Libby and Grace

me and my favorite people

me and matt at dinner before the concert

the amazing Adele in concert!

she was so cute and kept mentioning the Grammy’s and squealing and giggling about it.  at one point she even took a picture of the audience because she couldn’t believe how many people were there.

More Skittles in Your Area

It’s almost embarrassing to write a post on this blog.  I know I’ve said it a million times but the photo blog just gets more attention because it’s what I do all day.  However, that is no excuse to abandon this one.  A lot of new things have been going on lately.  My brother and his wife moved to Ft. Collins, Colorado and we will miss going home to Portales and getting to hang out with them.  We are excited about planning trips to CO to see them – Ft. Collins is like Napa Valley only with beer instead of wine – not too shabby.  We’re happy for them and their new start and are excited to see the life they make for themselves up North!

In a similar note, Chad and Shannon had their second child, Jake a couple of weeks ago.  So crazy how Case went from little to big brother in just one day.

little brother

big brother

_______________

The title of the post is because Valentine’s rolled around and I decided to give Matt a WHOLE BUNCH of his favorite candy – Skittles!  One day a while back he mentioned how great it would be to buy a $100 worth of Skittles and kind of marveled in a kid-like fashion how awesome that would be.  So I didn’t quite spend $100, but I bought about 17lbs of Skittles at Sams and put them in a HUGE glass canister with a big orange scoop (boys don’t always wash their hands – plus he has this truck load of Skittles at work and we can’t trust a year’s worth of random hands plunging into the same candy over and over-gak, just thinking about it!)

From our Skittle overload, we found a post on Serious Eats where someone took Skittles and made their own Skittles infused Vodka.  Sooooo of course we had to do that and what resulted was pretty sweet:

So what you do is you take 6 empty water bottles, fill them with about 8 oz of Vodka and stick 60 Skittles of each flavor into respective bottles.  Wait a day – they all dissolve and then you filter it through a coffee filter a few times, fill pretty bottles and store in freezer!  I personally think that taking a sip of the stuff just straight is a near death experience, but diluted in Sprite at about a 1/10 ratio is not bad!  It’s definitely Skittles-tastic and not to mention, a bit of a Wonka thing to do which makes always makes life a little more fun.

This post is going to be quite long if I keep going.  I promise to post more regularly about our normal life, sans photography shoots.  By the way though, I have my first wedding of the year this coming Saturday and I’m hoping for the best.  Finger’s crossed (not while shooting)

Love to you, my 4 readers who have all complained nearly simultaneously that I never post on this blog

A

blast from the past

everyone else is doing it lately – posting pictures from a few years ago.  And I wanted to as well.  These are from my wedding which was only 4 years ago but my how things have changed!  Fun to look at, fun to remember. 

(i’m sorry this blog sucks so much – I will try to do better.  my other blog gets so much more love but eh, what can you do)

 

 
This is the famous picture of Libby looking like a geisha

 

my awesome niece, Kari.  Our flower girl!

 

 
some of my most favorite people

 

 

 
my brothers – Matt with my Aunt Mary and Chad with Mammaw

 

 

 
I haven’t seen LaShae since that day and she is now married with a baby– Cali is now engaged, Summer has an almost 2-year old, Nicole has 2 children and Justin…well Justin is still awesome, haha.

 

 
Me and LaShae seeing each other for the first time since high school graduation (which had been 4 years)

 

 

 

 
Matt and I talking to his great-grandmother.  She was 98 and flew to our wedding from Delaware! 

 

 

fun times.  I wasn’t doing photography when I got married so my wedding never got blogged.   These are all just taken by a friend – maybe someday I’ll scan in the “real” pictures but who scans anymore?  I have not the patience!

The Best Creamed Corn on the Planet

That’s the official name of the dish, because I said so.  I made this after seeing someone make it on Martha and a few months later Matt said, “remember that creamed corn that had the chives?  Where did we have that?” and I couldn’t remember either even though I had made it and I figure that is a good sign.  It finally came to me and I remembered I had seen some guest on the Martha Stewart show make it. I fiddled with the ratios so I can officially call this my own.   See how I am?  Scandalous!

We tend to cycle through dishes in the Palmer house and get stuck on one and right now, this is the dish we are stuck on.  Every time we are asked to bring a side, we first think of this corn and what’s even better is that it takes all of 4 ingredients and is cheap and awesome.  Thanksgiving side dishes need revamping?  Try this out!

The Best Creamed Corn…

1 bag frozen corn
1 – 8oz package 1/3 fat cream cheese
1 bunch FRESH chives
A splishy splash of milk

Dump the frozen corn in a large sauce pan and put a splash of milk, salt and pepper and cook the corn (with lid on) till tender and piping hot.  Cube up the cream cheese and throw in the corn.  Take the fresh chives and either snip with scissors or dice very small and put in about 1/4 cup snipped chives.  Once cream cheese is melted, adjust the consistancy with more milk if needed.  Whatever consistancy makes you happy.  Readjust to taste with salt and pepper and THAT’S ALL FOLKS.

Serves 6-8 1/4 cup portions, but people will get seconds so plan for that.

It’s "A Good Thing"

Dear Martha:

I don’t want to be like you because I like having friends, but I do think your hair is radical and my hair wants to be just like it so in honor of your awesome hair, I spent 6 hours total over two days getting my hair did.  I dedicate these photos to you. 

Either about to sneeze or cry because my lens is set at 50mm and I had to stretch my arms out like go-go gadget arms

The color scheme is just fabulous, dahling

 

Taking pictures of myself is not my forte

 

 
Myspace Mod

Thanks, Martha.  Your hair is a good thing.

My Utmost is…

apparently already online day by day.  It’s really really good and so I encourage you 3 who read this faithfully to take just 10 more minutes when you’re checking emails in the morning and read the daily thought.  And if anything ever sticks out to you, please comment on this post and put what day and what stood out to you.  I have just been so blessed by the daily readings!

Here it is, already typed out day by day:  My Utmost For His Highest

My Utmost For His Highest; Sept 1

I’ve thought of doing this several times – writing out the page of the day that appears in the very old book, My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers.  Every page is a day of the year and every day it seems I need to hear what the subject addresses.  So I thought there are a few people out there who read my blog (or at least look at it from time to time to see if I’ve gotten my rear in gear) who might get something out of this.  So here we go – Sept 1 in My Utmost for His Highest: (this guy doesn’t sugar coat anything so be prepared)

Destined to be Holy

“…it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy” 1 Peter 1:16

We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life.  We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness.  Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them.  Many of them may be right, noble, and good, and may later be fulfilled, but in the meantime God must cause their importance to us to decrease.  The only thing that truly matters is whether a person will accept the God who will make him holy.  At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God.

Do I believe I need to be holy?  Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy?  If through your preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I then resent your preaching.  The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me.  God has only one intended destiny for mankind — holiness.  His only goal is to produce saints.  God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity — He came to save us because He created us to be holy.  Atonement through the cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.

Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God.  Holiness means absolute purity of your walk before God, the words coming from your mouth and every thought in your mind — placing every detail of your life under the scrutiny of God Himself.  Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.”

If anything or any part of this daily devotional sticks out to you, please leave a comment – I’d love to hear what others think!

Banana Coconut Tarts

I’ve been meaning to blog about this recipe for a while now.  Cassie asked me several times to write it out for her and now my friend, Becky, as well.  So here it is!  I got this awesome pie cookbook called Sweety Pies by Patty Pinner.  It’s a wonderful book filled with stories about each and every recipe.  I’ve adapted her simple pie crust recipe because if followed directly, I had dry dough every time.  So I use the basic recipe for pie dough as seen in the New Best Recipe by Cook’s Illustrated.  It’s a great plain pie crust recipe to use.  Lots of fat.  Good start.

This banana coconut tart will fall apart in your mouth instantly.  I would give it a good 30 minutes to cool before trying one, but once you do, the crust will collapse and warm tropical gooey goodness will fill your mouth.  Served with fresh whipped cream – these are sure to make you a few friends.

Banana Coconut Tarts

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, slightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Dough for one 9-inch single pie crust (use your favorite recipe or ask your mom)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium-size bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy.  Beat in the egg, milk, and banana until smooth.  Stir in 1 cup of the coconut.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough until 1/8 inch thick.  Cut the dough into 12 circles about 1 inch larger than the mini tart pans (I used my muffin tin).  Line the muffin tin with the circles of dough and trim edges even with the top of the pan.
Spoon the filling into the shells and bake until the tarts are light and toasty brown, about 20 minutes.  In the last 10 minutes of baking, spread the remaining coconut on a baking sheet and bake until brown – watch it carefully so you won’t burn it.  Take the tarts out of the oven and sprinkle each tart with some of the toasted coconut flakes.  Let cool at least 30 min before serving.

makes 12

Cake Mix Cookies

Got a few requests so here it is – Cake Mix Cookies!  The reason I like this recipe so much is partly because I have a teeny obsession with cake batter flavored things.  Like cake batter ice cream or um, cake batter by itself.  So if you use the yellow cake mix for these cookies, they become the quintessential cake batter flavor which, to me, is heaven in a cookie.  Another reason I like this recipe is that it is probably the quickest thing to throw together if guests show up – most everyone has a box cake mix in their pantry and everyone (should) have eggs and oil.  And that’s all you need!

My mom whipped up a quick buttercream icing and added almond flavor (for me) and coconut flavor (for my bro) although I love both flavors and really, the coconut icing was a little tastier on the chocolate cake mix cookies we made.  However, I would leave the frosting off because it’s a pretty sweet cookie on it’s own.  And the chewiness is lovely.  Okay, here it goes – beware – it’s a long recipe!

Cake Mix Cookies
yield 2 dozen aprox.

1 box cake mix – yellow for that cake batter flavor but any flavor works the same – try strawberry, German chocolate, orange – I like pineapple, too!
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs

Mix all together until smooth (a wooden spoon does well), drop by tablespoon fulls on a greased baking sheet and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 7-10 minutes.  Watch them – take them out when they still look a little undone – they finish baking on the hot sheet.  You don’t want to bake these too long or it takes their chewiness away!  And a hard cookie, for me, is death.  Some of you might like crispy crunchy cookies, and to you I would suggest getting your head checked.

Enjoy!