Thursday, December 16, 2010

"Family Portrait Session Takes it all out of Men in the Family"

Can't you just see the headlines? lol I can't put up the family photo for various reasons but I had to share this one of my brothers and dad. You would think they had just worked 12 hours or something and not had their picture taken. And! It was taken on Thanksgiving weekend so it's not like they had done much of anything but eat and sit anyway! :-P


 I hope neither of the boys read this...I might have to publish a retraction...

Soul Smothered Chicken

This is the recipe I recently tried out for the first time. It's not for us though. So as I type this...and look at the very true to life photos...it's cooking on the stove...and I'm smelling it...and my sister is asking if we'll get to take a bit... Oh the agony of cooking yummy meals for other people! Oh well. Rather than continue to go on and on about the hardships of smelling amazing food in the kitchen that you won't be indulging in yourself, I'll begin my timeline. 

First, set out the ingredients. Ok, I don't actually do this as a habit but for the sake of a picture I did. 


Then you brown the chicken on all sides...which I forgot to take a picture of. Yeah, I'm on the ball here. 

The already browned chicken.


Then you take the chicken out and saute the vegetables. 
(I did not know how amazing fresh garlic smells as you saute it! Wowza!)


Add some S&P to that and some flour then add the broth and drop the chicken back in. (So I'm not following the recipe to a "T"; but that's why I'm putting the recipe up too. So you can. :-) )


Cover and simmer for 30 minutes or so and Presto! You have a delicious (Yes, we tasted it. What?!?! You wouldn't have???) chicken dinner in seconds! Well, unless you're cooking it and not reading it on a blog. :-)




Now comes the fun part.

 

Clean up. :-/


(For the full recipe check out my recipe blog, Sarah's Recipe Cards)

Monday, December 13, 2010

Hello, my name is Sarah.

It's been so long I wasn't sure if you'd remember who I was so I thought I'd start by introducing myself. My name is Sarah, I "own" this blog, I love photography (among many other things), and I blog from time to time. We have met before but it's been quite awhile. You'll remember me soon....hopefully. 

Anyway, as I've done my best by way of a short a sweet introduction I'll get on with my blog as if everything was normal. :-) It has been forever since I blogged last! I've been watching the months pass and with each one I thought, "There's goes another blogless month." Then tonight I spent a wonderful hour and a half chatting on the phone with a good friend and she even mentioned that it had been awhile. Then (that's a lot of "thens"...) I discovered tonight that our wireless connection was back up! So, here I am! :-) By way of a "quickie blog" I'm just going to share with you a few of the "ornamental" photographs I took on Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful day of just us. Cooked, and bantered, and teased all day then had our big dinner just before 8 PM. It was a very pleasant day all around. :-)

This is the tablecloth that my sister bought Mama and the center piece that I put together. It was the first year we had a centerpiece and it was a lot of fun. Hey, it's the little things that count, right? :-)


Here's the table just set before we piled it with food. 


An "artistic" shot of the table. 


And the table laden with our bounty. Not all of it though. We also had a side table full of goodies. 


So, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by family and loved ones and I hope this is the first of many more frequent blogs. :-)

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Happy Fall!!!

It's my favorite season! The smell of baking apples is in the air and the sound of the leaves blowing through the neighborhood fills my ears. I love all of the colors and the smells of Fall should be available year round!
I feel the urge deep within me to wax poetic but being incapable of such things I will wax normal. :-) 
The small of apples that I spoke of aren't actually baking apples but apples on the stove. Last weekend we went on a short road trip and brought along some sliced apples. As expected, no one was interested in them and they weren't even touched. (We are apple lovers but sliced apples have been the snack of trips for years and we're...burnt out.) So yesterday, feeling industrious and a little like little Suzy homemaker, I decided I wasn't going to let the browned apples that now no one was going to eat go to waste. I was going to make applesauce. :-) Or at least something close to it. (Last Thanksgiving my Mom "accidentally" make applesauce when cooking the apples for our apple pie so I knew it couldn't be that hard :-) ) So I peeled and diced the slices and set them to simmering. They cooked along fine and were soon getting soft so I added the cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar as well (as a little more water which I had been adding a little bit at a time). I kept a close eye on it...but not close enough. :-S Soon I realized I wasn't hearing the sounds of simmering apples anymore so I went in to check. I wasn't hearing such sounds because now I was burning caramelizing the apples. End of said "Suzy homemaker" project. But! Today is another day and we had some Red Delicious apples that I knew no one was going to eat (not our favorite kind) so..... "Suzy Homemake" attempts #2! :-D
As of right now they are still on one piece as is the bottom of the pan. :-) I've been jumping up every couple of minutes to stir and sometimes add a little more water.

On to another subject for a bit while we wait for the apples to finish. :-) Fall has been "threatening" for quite some time now but hasn't really "hit" our yard yet. Well this morning it did. I walked outside this morning and saw that our lawn was covered in leaves (from our neighbor's tree, I might add :-P). So much fun! So of course I had to go out and take a few pictures...but of what? Just the leaves? Okay, got a few of those...


Aha! The cat! :-) She makes a very good model. :-)



 
Back to the apples. They are so yummy!!!!! I think I'll put the recipe on my other blog. You'll have to give it a try! If nothing else, it will fill your house with wonderful Fall scents. :-) Happy Fall everybody!!!



Sunday, October 17, 2010

Sunrise...Sunset....and a mess up

Who hasn't tried a sunset picture. And who hasn't gotten some pretty good shots. It's an amazing piece of work straight from the Lords hands. A beautiful sight to behold and fairly easy to capture because of it's amazing beauty.


 But not as many of us have tried sunrises. I know I haven't..partially due to the fact that you have to get up...really early to catch it. :-P But I happened to be up the other morning and had to try to catch the amazing colors in the sky. 


I like what I got. :-)

Well back to the sunset. I actually took that on the very bumpy bus ride back from a youth rally we went to. Hence I had a few that were just a bunch of blur. I was deleting all of the blurry ones and about to hit delete on this one when I noticed the uniqueness of it. I don't know if you see what I see but it almost looks like a watercolor. Anyway, I loved it. 


So, always take a second look when you're about to delete something. Some times the most fun and unique shots are in the mess ups. :-)

Friday, July 16, 2010

I'm Cheating!

I am still here!!!!


I haven't posted in so long!!!!! Things have finally slowed down just enough that I'm starting to feel the pull of the blog! But I don't have time to wait for a slow computer to upload a picture so ... I'm using one of the ones I had saved in the edits for an emergency such as this!
This is a flower in our yard, actually taken this spring. :-) I just love the colors!

I will try to catch up soon both in photos and in life! :-) Thanks for being patient!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Bar-B-QUE!!!!

Every Memorial Day we have a tradition. My dad has, for many years now, had that day off and as few and far between as his days off are it's always really exciting when one rolls around. So since we can always count on Memorial Day we've set that day aside as one of our few family days. We usually have some friends over, BBQ, hang out all day together, play games (usually at least one game of croquet), and sometimes end the night with a movie. This year was no differant except for the fact that this year we had some new friends to add to the festivities. :-) Our house was hopping this year! Some friends stayed all day, then there were others that popped in and out. Just when some would leave, a new batch would show up. As special as this family tradition is, we also always remember what the day itself is a memorial of and we are so greatful. Thankful for the men and women who, through the years, and with or without the support of the people of their nation, have sacrificed so much for my, our, freedom. I am of the belief that America hasn't made very many wise decisions here in the last few years, but that doesn't change the fact that I am proud and thankful to be an American.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Whew!

I was right! With all that's been going on at our house, it's now been 3 weeks since the last time I posted on here!
We have officially turned out house upside down as we clean out every nook and cranny ... and some we didn't know we had. Finding a whole bunch of stuff that we put away for "next year" and now it's years later and we can't use it any more. Finding papers etc that we "needed" to keep but are now finding that we can trash them. Digging up memories, some happy some sad.
The boys are re-doing one of our bathrooms. They've completely gutted it ...

(in the process, found a huge wasps nest!)

and are hopefully soon in the process of putting walls back in it...and a sink...and a toilet...We really miss having two bathrooms!


I tried to do a garage sale last weekend with all of the stuff we've found throughout the house. Friday I got up, ran an errand, then just I got everything set up, it started to rain on my parade garage sale. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy but it was just a "few-minute-rain" so I wiped everything off and decided to give it a second shot. I ran my sister to work real quick (by now it's 10 A.M.) and as we're driving it starts to rain again. I think it was about that point that I decided to give up. So I decide we're going to get up bright and early Saturday and try try again! ....... I slept through my alarm. :-S (That's how busy we've been!) So! Ever the hopeful, I'm going to give it one more shot this weekend. We'll see what happens...
We're having a Memorial Day BBQ this monday which I am looking forward to. We've got a list of jobs we're hoping to get done by then. It'll be nice to hit our first "goal". I think it'll feel more like we're getting somewhere then.

Since the last time I blogged we had our Mother Daughter Banquet. It went well and I got a few cute pictures then ... 

such as the boys standing at
attention as our servers :-)

and on Mother's Day.

Nathanael had his first violin recital on Mother's Day. He did very well!!! It was so exciting!


And last night the church held Laura's Baby Shower. The night went fairly well (if you don't count the black out)...a few mis-haps, the most critical being, after taking a dozen or so pictures my batteries died! I really, really, REALLY hate that "Batteries are exausted" screen. But I did get a few before then.



Other than that, I haven't taken very many pictures lately. I'm telling you, we have been swamped!

Well, seeing as how I'm using up valuable time that I could be using to work on ... something back at the house, and how this is turning into a short novel, I guess I'd better run. I'll see you again one of these day! :-)

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Random

I have been SO busy lately. And I know, we say that right? But I really mean it when I say busy. What makes it harder to get on the computer for me is that I don't have one at home. :-S So, it's whenever I can run to the library real quick...then plug in my camera...impatiently patiently wait for it to load...look through the hundreds few pictures to decide which one to blog (unless I already have an idea)...open it...and blog. I know, quite the process. :-P So I've begun to, when I actually am here, with my camera, save a handful of pictures and then when I stop in for just a second, I have a picture waiting for me to blog about. :-D Great system, right?
Anywho...this is one I grabbed real quick the day I went out with Nathan and Dillion for Senior pictures.


It intrigued me.

Unfortunantly, for my blog, the Summer is only going to get crazier and crazier. So, we'll see how often I actually get here. I will try to post photos of all of it as it happens! :-)

Friday, April 30, 2010

Rain, Rainbows, and Blur

So the other day when I was here at the library it started to pour! As some of you know, I had left the windows down on my car! lol! So after weighing the pros and cons I finally decided to make a run for it. (hiding my camera in my large purse so it wouldn't get wet. Thankfully I love my larger purses!) Well I ran for it and still got soaked as well as my backside getting soaked from the car seat! It was alot of fun though! And I came home to my younger brother standing around in the rain with a friend from church getting absolutely soaked to the bone! :-P



Can you see the rain?! I couldn't believe how much of it there was!!!


Then afterward, of course, was the beautiful rainbow! And it was amazing! So bright and you could see the whole thing! So of course, more pictures. :-)


I've always loved rainbows. They are so beautiful as well as an awesome reminder of the grace of God. They just take my breath away.  




Then I had to play around a little bit....Can you see the rainbow in the background? :-)


I love the blurry look. :-)

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Running behind schedule...

Whew! Life has just been nuts! And not having a computer at home I can't just grab a minute here and there to blog real quick. So, not only am I running behind in my blog posting but the topic for today is "National Library Week"...which was April 11-17! lol! Oops!
Well...I actually did come to the library that week with the sole purpose of getting a few good pictures of our library and then blogging about it....only to have my camera flash the "Battery's Exausted" sign at me. Oy!
So, a little late and not as full as I was going to do originally, but here is my salute to our local Public Library. :-)


I am very thankful for our Library! We've been a "part" of our library nearly since the day we moved to town 15 years ago. Some of the ladies working here have watched me and my siblings grow up. Books, movies, music, and the Technology Center...I'm thankful for it all! :-D

Friday, April 2, 2010

The "Amazing" picture I was talking about...



Well here it is. I don't know if it looks as amazing here as it did on my camera but I thought it was pretty neat. It took me a few tries, some differant angles, and leaning on my brother to minimize "shaking" but I finally got one I really liked. :-)

What do you think?

Monday, March 29, 2010

Just got an AMAZING picture!!! Can't wait to get to a computer to blog it! :-D

Plug


So this is me kind of plugging a name out there for all you "home-made-stuff-lovers". :-)

This is the hat a friend of mine made and wore to our Watch Night Service at church. I enjoyed the picture as well as the hat and thought, "Hey, why not blog it?"


Whatcha think? :-)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Surprise!

So I grabbed my camera the other day and started following Kitty Witty around trying to get a good picture (as I've already said, with no children in the house, the best I can do for cute subjects are our family felines). She went out the front door and just dawdled around the front porch offering me very little to work with...





 ...hence the pictures of our downtown area (which is only a few blocks away).

(regular focus)

(infinity focus. Hmmm...)

She finally leaves the porch so I follow her getting excited, waiting to see what "animal" thing she will do that I can capture and in so capturing, "awe the world". So...I follow her all the way around to the back of the house ... to the back door and realize, she wasn't on her way to doing something cute and "animally", but was going to try the back door to get back into the house!


So I made her stand there while I snapped a couple more pictures. *sigh* Ok, I give up. So I let her in and check to see just what I've gotten...if there's anything good. Lo and behold! I have a surprise! Hidden among all of the "average" shots, is this cute one where I have managed to grab her mid-lick! :-D


It made it all worth it. :-)

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

My other passion

For those of you who don't know me, my other passion/hobby/art is piano. I'm not Mozart but I have been playing for most of my life and I love it. Therefore, naturally, one of the subjects I enjoy taking pictures of is the beautiful Baby Grand we have at my church. :-)





These are just a few I took when I was messing around a few weeks ago.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

A New Technique

So, since we have no adorable children in our house (presently :-) ), I have to use what I have on hand which most often happens to be our family felines. :-)

Since getting my camera and gathering tips from friends, the internet, books, etc, I've had alot of fun playing with ... "things"on my camera. lol Namely, lighting. Years ago I took a one-night photography class here at our local college and was told there to "always use your flash. It will sharpen your images, etc, etc." Well I did that for years but then all of the sudden realized I was hearing the complete opposite from the photographers in my life. Hence, I now never hardly EVER use my flash and I'm finding that I LOVE my pictures so much more this way. I tell you all of this to now tell you this. :-) When I followed my cat into my brothers bedroom and saw that she had jumped into his "cubby" thingy, the room was dark but she was right next to the window. So I pulled back the curtain and *VOILA*! Beautiful natural light that doesn't make her eyes green. :-p