Just Me: Black Eggs and Ham

I'm a forgetful person, I've come to grips with it. There's a reason why I wear everything important on a lanyard and hang it around my neck like a crazy person. I'm not a dumb person. I went to graduate school and got a master's degree in Cell and Molecular Biology. Ten years later, I can still describe in detail the expression of DNA to the production of proteins. I can remember those things, but ask me where I put my keys and I draw a blank. You can literally hand me my cell phone and wait five minutes. If it's not in my pocket, most likely, I will have absolutely no memory of putting it down anywhere. I really have to focus on mundane tasks and repeat it to myself "check on the desk" a couple of times to make some sort of memory impression. Okay, that's the background, here's the story.

This past week, I woke up at three in the morning after falling asleep at 6 pm the day before. Energized, I hit my to-do list with unbridled energy. By the time lunchtime had arrived, I had done three loads of laundry, vacuumed, swept and mopped...it was awesome. In the midst of all that, I had also put some eggs on the stove to hardboil for my salads at work. Remember that detail...because I didn't.

My sister asked me to meet her at the mall on the other side of the island. I had taken some pictures of her twin daughters for her to use for their 1st birthday invitations. We met at the mall, designed some invitations...and then she asked if I wanted to eat lunch. Sure. I love lunch. We went to California Pizza Kitchen, one of absolute faves, and had the most scrumptious lunch. Oh, diet begone...I had the artichoke dip and fettucine alfredo pasta. So, almost three hours after leaving home, I finally get in my car to make the drive home...stuffed and content.

Should I stop at the store? Do I need anything? I know I have enough eggs....eggs...why does eggs keep nagging my mind...

OMG!!!

I have a clear memory of putting eggs in a small pot of water on the stove to boil and I KNOW i never went back. It's now three hours later. I called Scott...no answer. I called my mother-in-law...she's at work. I called my brother-in-law....wait, Scott is finally calling me back. He's at church. I tell him to race home. He hangs up immediately and I'm left driving on the H-3 with white knuckles clutching the steering wheel. I call my sister and explain what I did and there's some frightening silence interrupted by "Oh no"s. I ask for prayer...but what do I pray for. What's the minimum damage I can pray for. We just got a new roommate who is in Maui on spring break. How bad would I feel having to say "hey there, I'm sorry but your stuff kind of got burned up in a small house fire." And, wait, if the kitchen did catch fire, wouldn't our neighbors notice and call the fire department. How come no one called us? Wait, they don't have our phone numbers....These are the thoughts that cross my mind. Expect the worst, pray for the best.

The most scared twenty minute drive of my life.

Scott got home ten minutes before I did. A scorched pot...a really bad smell...but that was it. God is great...AMEN!!! I know that God delivered me out of this one. So, thankfully, my wonderful husband was just shaking his head in bewilderment and looking at the exploded egg pieces over our kitchen. He also brought up that last week, I called him at four in the morning because I remembered that I had left a chicken baking in the oven six hours prior (that he had already discovered and taken out). And I haven't used the stove since this little incident, I am going to come up with some system...maybe a big stop sign on our front door.

It's odd because I swear I put three eggs in the pot but now there's only two. And we found small pieces of egg and egg shells on the floor and walls...some by the piano which is not only ten feet away from the stove, but it's not even in eyesight of the stove...somehow the egg piece must have had a curved flight. Still, all the egg shards don't quite add up to the missing egg.

Eggs anyone? (we added the water to cool it down before trashing it)

And yesterday, I found some still on the wall and on top of the fridge:
(top of fridge)

(cupboard door)

Wedding: T and B north shore

What: Wedding of Tiffany and Bill
Where: North shore of Oahu's coast
When: March 20th, 2009, 4:00 pm

Scott and I had the chance to work together again. A local wedding planner requested our services, this time on the north shore at Kawela Bay. Scott and I have never been there. He drove, 1) cause I like when he drives and 2) because I was still half asleep having to cut my sleep in half to get to this wedding on time. We drove past the acces path the first time, probably thrown off by the "No trespassing" signs posted over the fence.

The sun was blazing overhead which I thoroughly dislike for photos because it's too harsh. I tried using my flash as a fill flash but it just kept blowing out the exposure. I am watching a lighting DVD and am trying to learn, but when the pressure is on and time is running out, you start getting frantic. However, before the ceremony, I took pictures of the flower girl and bride in the shade of a banyon grove and I loved it. For the formal pictures, I had scott hold a screen to provide some shade and relief to the wedding party.

There was a man there playing ukulele and singing accompaniment music for the ceremony. The ceremony was really small and quick so he was finished after like 20 seconds...so he just kept playing while I took pictures of the bride and groom and family. It was really nice...mood music. I sang harmony (softly of course so only I could hear). After we were finished, he came up and turns out he was my classmate from Farrington upper campus. He said "i know you never recognize me cause I was wearing da sunglasses. I'm the one with da nice eyes. See, still got em!!!" And he pulled off his shades to reveal green eyes. Scott and I thought that was funny. It's true, at a school with all part-Hawaiian, green or blue eyes really distinguished you.

I finally put up $24 bucks for the next year to upgrade my flickr account just so I can control the sizes of the images I blog. On the free account, you're only given three sizes and if you try to resize it, you risk getting pixelly. I've finally learned that the web only cares about pixel size, not inches. So all these images are 800 pixels on the long side. Finally, after how long, I've learned. It was just freaky because on high resolution, 800 pixels wide means that these photos are only like an inch high.



















I'll post soon about a cooking mishap. Stay tuned.

Wedding: Sneak Peek of Tiffany and Bill

Wedding of Tiffany and Bill
Where: North Shore, Oahu
When: March 20th, 2009 at 4 pm




This was the flower girl, I believe she was the groom's daughter. This was in the banyan grove between the road and the beach. This was before the ceremony so I didn't want her to waste or dirty too many flower petals. So, she only tossed about four in the air and I cloned/copied the petals to create a shower. It was a little easier because the background was blurred enough so the petals had a defined outline. I used the magnetic lasso tool to trace around a petal, copied it to a new layer...then moved and distorted the size and angle of the petal. Repeat a couple times.


I played around with this trick with Sammie's confetti shower. There was a light background so I copied/cloned groups of stars and spread them around. Sometimes I would rotate or invert the group. Here's a game, draw circles around similar groups...you heard me. Pick up that permanent pen and go to it. I'm sure you can figure a way to scrape it off the computer screen later.

My thoughts: Black and White conversions

So I know I posted this in the previous post, but I love it. And it brings to mind black and white conversions. Black and white conversions are key when you're trying to achieve a certain look, add an artistic flair, and it's also an escape if your colors are off in your photograph. Black and white is very forgiving for skin tones or color casts. The problem is that I suck at black and whites. If you just convert your color photograph to black and white (grayscale or desaturated), it looks blah. And all my black and whites look blah. They will look very flat, very gray. You have to adjust it to get deep blacks and bright whites and add in interest. I couldn't for figure it out for the life of me. I added blacks but the skin still just looked gray.

My last post had tons of black and white, cause I found an action I really like. I downloaded a free set of photoshop actions from Pioneer Woman http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/2008/04/actions/. She has two black and white conversions, but I found I like to use the "soft and faded" action and just turn off the sepia "tweak" layer. So awesome, I just select, hit play....and voila. I do adjust the "soft and faded" layer which is a screen layer (lightening layer). And then after I flatten all the layers into one image, I use selective color to bump up the blacks a little. Still working on it, but at least my black and whites are finally showing improvement.

Growing Up: Sammie's 1st Birthday

Today is Samantha's 1st birthday. Sammie turns 1. Her mom and I have been trying to get together to take pictures of this little girl for a while. With six days to her first birthday, we just scraped it in. Before she was born, Kanani showed me pics of her other kids when they were babies and told me "my babies don't have hair but they're the cutest babies you'll ever see." I thought she was just speaking with a mother's bias, but she was right. Sammie has these big eyes with the longest lashes, simply striking.

I showed up at their house early Monday morning. Sammie is not my biggest fan, she usually clings to mom constantly (and I'm not exaggerating with the word "constantly"). However, since I met them on location at their house, she was in her comfort zone. And when I unpacked my bags of goodies...alphabet blocks...my lens and flashes, she became my best bud. And since mom was adventurous and let us try all sorts of poses, Sammie was delighted to find that she could now climb on anything she wanted. All rules went out the door. But the real delight, was when mom brought out the cupcake with yummy pink frosting. Too bad, she dropped it frosting side down and spent ten minutes digging through the cupcake trying to find it. I hope I got enough good ones. She's a smiler but quick...she mastered walking weeks ago and has moved on to jogging.

Wedding

Just me and my life-Trying to get fit

Following Scott and my adventure doing the Great Aloha Run (see Scott's blog), I was inspired.

Early sunday morning, the first morning of March 2009, I found myself at Kapiolani Park surrounded by a crowd of women all wearing pastel dry weave running tanks and black shorts. I actually used to love running, I ran track, soccer, and mostly just for fun. The only community runs I did was the Straub Women's 10K race back in high school. Fifteen years later, and 20...30...maybe 40 lbs heavier, I signed up again. I've been running a little frequently but I mix it in with a lot of walking so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I was really curious to find out.

Sunday, March 1st 2009

5:00 phone alarm goes off
5:00-5:15 Hitting snooze alarm multiple times...even lying on cell phone to muffle sound
5:30 rushing to the car with tons of stuff for church
5:31 stopping to toss some stuff into Scott's car
5:32 In car and going going going
5:42 Pondering "I did toss my running shoes in the car, right? Yah, I definitely did."
6:10 Finding a sweet parking spot only 1/4 mile from the race start
6:10 Sitting in my car realizing that I maybe didn't bring my shoes after all

Yup, I'm sitting, all decked out in my workout clothes...and my black rubbah slippahs. Hmm. I called Scott and woke him up all distraught. Even in a deep sleep, he was able to offer insightful advice. He thought I should go to the officials and ask if I could borrow their shoes. He was really serious. When I didn't jump at the idea of asking strangers to lend me their shoes, he volunteered to jump in the car and bring me my shoes. Yah, Scottie, my hero!!!

While waiting, I jumped in line for the bathroom at Kapiolani Park which took forever...scott actually had drive from Kaneohe to Waikiki before I got to the front of the line...and that's even with the women taking over the men side as well. Much to the dismay of the very drunk weird guy who kept yelling "what? You got to be kidding me!!!" even as he patiently stood at the end of the line. And Scott got there five minutes before the starting gun went off, bless my bestest husband ever.

As I stood in the crowd of maybe a couple hundred women and waited nervously for the race start, I started to get the feel that perhaps I'm a little behind the times. All these girls that these earbuds with cords that disappeared into these cute little miniscule white mp3 players on armbands or in some pocket.

Here's my music player of choice:

I can't believe these are out of style already...I finally made the big switch from a walkman to the discman a few years ago. Scott and I hosted a dinner at someone else's house and the host apologized that the stereo system was broken but offered IPOD speakers. Scott and I had to scoff a little and say "IPOD? We don't have IPODS."

I also can't stand having things in my pockets. So, guess what was clenched in my sweaty hand for 6 miles.

And let's face it, I'm not in the best shape. Check out these chubby legs. Do they look like capable of speed? I think not. These babies are meant for sitting on the couch watching Top Chef.

During the run, I tried to pace myself but I pushed myself too hard in the middle section cause I died at the end. I had to start walking at the end but then people kept stopping and encouraging me to run with them. So, when I crossed the line, I felt like I was going to throw up. And they have volunteers that form a tunnel and channel you to the middle of the park. They were waving their hands in my face and I pushed through them praying "please don't throw up on them...don't throw up...don't throw up." Thankfully I finally calmed down and got my breath back.

I'm so proud of myself and I want to keep going with this.
Final Time ~ 1 hr 7 min (10.8 min/mile)

Straub Women's 10K Run-Check

Following Scott and my adventure doing the Great Aloha Run (see Scott's blog), I was inspired.

Early sunday morning, the first morning of March 2009, I found myself at Kapiolani Park surrounded by a crowd of women all wearing pastel dry weave running tanks and black shorts. I actually used to love running, I ran track, soccer, and mostly just for fun. The only community runs I did was the Straub Women's 10K race back in high school. Fifteen years later, and 20...30...maybe 40 lbs heavier, I signed up again. I've been running a little frequently but I mix it in with a lot of walking so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I was really curious to find out.

Sunday, March 1st 2009

5:00 phone alarm goes off
5:00-5:15 Hitting snooze alarm multiple times...even lying on cell phone to muffle sound
5:30 rushing to the car with tons of stuff for church
5:31 stopping to toss some stuff into Scott's car
5:32 In car and going going going
5:42 Pondering "I did toss my running shoes in the car, right? Yah, I definitely did."
6:10 Finding a sweet parking spot only 1/4 mile from the race start
6:10 Sitting in my car realizing that I maybe didn't bring my shoes after all

Yup, I'm sitting, all decked out in my workout clothes...and my black rubbah slippahs. Hmm. I called Scott and woke him up all distraught. Do I just give up and come home? I don't think I can run in slippers and I have to be at church soon so I don't have time to just walk. Scott to the rescue. He jumped in his Saturn and volunteered to drop off my shoes.

While waiting, I jumped in line for the bathroom at Kapiolani Park which took forever...scott actually had drive from Kaneohe to Waikiki before I got to the front of the line...and that's even with the women taking over the men side as well. Much to the dismay of the very drunk weird guy who kept yelling "what? You got to be kidding me!!!" even as he patiently stood at the end of the line. And Scott got there five minutes before the starting gun went off, bless my bestest husband ever.

As I stood in the crowd of maybe a couple hundred women and waited nervously for the race start, I started to get the feel that perhaps I'm a little behind the times. All these girls that these earbuds with cords that disappeared into these cute little miniscule white mp3 players on armbands or in some pocket.

Here's my music player of choice:

I can't believe these are out of style already...I finally made the big switch from a walkman to the discman a few years ago. Scott and I hosted a dinner at someone else's house and the host apologized that the sterio system was broken but offered IPOD speakers. Scott and I had to scoff a little and say "IPOD? We don't have IPODS."

I also can't stand having things in my pockets. So, guess what was clenched in my sweaty hand for 6 miles.

And let's face it, I'm not in the best shape. Check out these chubby legs. Do they look like capable of speed? I think not. These babies are meant for sitting on the couch watching Top Chef.

During the run, I tried to pace myself but I pushed myself too hard in the middle section cause I died at the end. I had to start walking at the end but then people kept stopping and encouraging me to run with them. So, when I crossed the line, I felt like I was going to throw up. And they have volunteers that form a tunnel and channel you to the middle of the park. They were waving their hands in my face and I pushed through them praying "please don't throw up on them...don't throw up...don't throw up." Thankfully I finally calmed down and got my breath back.

I'm so proud of myself and I want to keep going with this.
Final Time ~ 1 hr 7 min (10.8 min/mile)