{Poor Oliver}

In attempt to get Oliver more "comfortable" with being alone outside, Scott and I have been leaving him out there while we shower and get ready in the morning. We figure this way he only has to endure the "alone" time for about 30-40 minutes before we come and get him. Apparently even this is too long. This morning I looked out my window to see him doing this. Poor Oliver gets so sad when we aren't watching and adoring his every move. He has decided he will get as close to us as he can by sittings on his peoples chair. Perhaps this is a small improvement over lying by the gate and whining. Poor, poor Oliver.

Oh, on a side note we took him to the vet yesterday. Our little puppy is now a huge 42 pounds. He has gained 18 pounds since we last took him to the vet. Our favorite puppy comment comes daily when we are walking him. Without fail we hear, "Oh! Cute puppy...Oh, he is going to be big." Yes, we know. He is big.

Why?????
I see you in there. Come and get me!
Yay! Treat, ball, people, ball, kitchen, treat, treat, treat.

{So Excited}

Sunday night I came home to find a box on my doorstep. When I opened it up I found three of these in it. Thank you, thank you Katie and Rylee. Your present made my day. In fact I was just thinking of how I needed to be taking extra special care of my last remaining gloss. I now can rest easy knowing I have these 3 to step in. I laughed out loud when I saw them.
Thank you for such a thoughtful and personal gift. You are the absolute best!

{Why?}

I have dry lips. They are always chapped and I am always biting them. It is a sorry habit that my mom was never able to cure (biting my lips, not that they are dry). I could never find a lip balm that worked until a couple of years ago. That was when I discovered the magic of Rosebud lip salve. It delivered when all other lip balms had failed. Rosebud lip salve makes me happy. I always have a jar with me and I get very nervous if I am not able to reapply on a moments notice (i.e. I left it at home, in the car, etc). Sometimes I play a game in my head about what I would have with me if I could only have 3 things on a deserted Island. Rosebud is on the top of the list.
However, there must be a troll in my purse who feels the same way because I have lost 3 new, hardly used, tins this last month. Sooo frustrating! They only sell it at Anthropologie, it is 8 bucks and I have to make a special trip to get it. I lost Rosebud #2 this weekend and so had to make a Gateway run (again). I was smart this time and bought two new ones just in case. All was going well until today, when yet again, I couldn't find my lip balm. It has been all of 4 days. Luckily I safely stowed the back-up tin in the zipper pocket of my purse, but still, it would have been nice to get a week out of the old/new one. Grrhh!
For some reason this really, really irritates me. Sure, I might be stressed about starting my new business and going to the doctor a billion times, but the continual lose of lip balm is starting to put me over the edge. Maybe I should just pick up a new tin every time I'm at Anthropologie. I can store them like a crazy lady in my closet and never, ever let anyone come near them, or touch them or smell them. They are all mine!!!!!
So this is my trivial moment of the day. I should be ashamed, but I am not. I would probably be more embarrassed if I told you how I threw a minor tantrum this weekend when I first discovered the second to the last one missing. Lets just say I have been a little stressed lately.

{A Work in Progress}

Nevertheless, here is the link to my new Green Apple Blog, greenapplephotograpy.blogspot.com.
So what do you think? Yay? Nay?

{Weekend}

So, um, I never quite know how to start my posts. I notice that I usually want to begin with so, and it has really been a conscious effort on my part not to start everyone that way. It has been a couple of weeks though, so...
Last weekend was pretty good. We went to the Living Traditions Festival on Friday with Marianne and Bryan. We always go for the food. This year I tried some tamales and papusas from El Savador. Mmmm. The papusa was yumminess itself. Really, it was a heaven of cheesy, bready, fried goodness. Maybe not so good for my hips. Really, though, my good intentions are always weak at best and I always make exceptions for Festivals and State Fairs and Farmers Markets.
Saturday I photographed Kaili. Isn't she cute? She wasn't so sure about me for almost the whole sitting, but finally took a liking at the end. The key was blowing a bunch of weeds we picked into the air. I will have to remember that for the next time. Kaili is my cousin BreeAnn's stepdaughter and BreeAnn is such a good mom to her. It was great to see them together.
The rest of Saturday was spent ripping out all of the grapevines on our fence. It took 7 hours. Whitney helped and for that I will be eternally grateful. It was a dirty, hot job. We were all sunburned, and I now have a really sweet mid calf tan. The highlight however, was the snail colony we discovered. Who knew so many slimy things were hiding under the fence? Whitney was freaked out by their sliminess, Oliver ate them and Scott threw them into the road to die; apparently the manly way to kill snails.
We are slowly making progress on the yard. I have the master plan in my mind and it is s0 hard to be patient. I want it all done now! Too bad everything takes so much time and costs so much money. Our next project is painting the porch roof. It desperately needs it. Scott was having a moment on Saturday when the sander we bought wasn't doing the job. Lucky for me we had Creamies on hand. They saved the day.

{Potential Logo}

Here is a potential logo. I am still working out colors, but I know I want to use Celery Green and Grey. I like the idea of the square because I can use it on my pictures as copyright with the initial GA.
The spacing all needs to be worked out and the apple designed, but what do you think of this direction?

P.S. A big, huge thanks to Angela, the Illustrator Goddess for helping me with this.
P.S.S. Emily, I totally got the idea for the separating line from you. I always love your stuff and I hope it is okay that I borrowed it.

{Random}

{Sneak Peaks and Busy Days}

Last Saturday was crazy busy. I had another photo shoot scheduled for early Saturday morning (early to me) and got up at 6:30. My cousin Rylee and his wife Katie graciously helped me out as I'm trying to build up a portfolio outside of Silver Pelican. I had so much fun getting to know Katie better. They will be featured on my first blog post that I am working on for Green Apple. We shot at a super secret location (not really) that I have been dying to go to for a long time. It looks like it is about to be torn down so I'm so glad I got there before the demolition team did.
Afterwards Scott and I planted our first tree. Yay! It is a Norwegian Sunset Maple. They are suppose to be amazing in the fall so we are super excited. Bruce and Lynette came over to help a little with the yard work. Thanks guys for the all the tilling and tree planting help! Our yard is starting to come together a little bit, but we have a long, (really, really long) way to go. This Saturday we are taking the glue off of our front porch. I hear that really stinks. Stupid outdoor carpet.
I also did a little photographing at my cousin Jane's wedding later that afternoon. I wasn't her official photographer so I tried to be incognito and stay out of their photographers way. I just shot a few candids. The reception was in their backyard and was lovely. I love backyard weddings. They are so personable.
That wasn't the end to our busy Saturday, but I wont bore you with all the details. Let's just say I sat down for the first time at 10:30. Whew!
Anyway, I just wanted to show a few sneak peaks of what I am working on. There is still so much to do. I am working right now on getting all of my licenses and trying to create some level of order to all my pictures.
So, if anyone else is interested in a free photo shoot let me know. It can be bridals, engagements, family, kids, seniors or whatever. I would love the opportunity.

{Ogden Part III}

{What is Easier to Remember?}

So, I have tried to register my domain name, but a lot of green apples were taken. These are what were available. Which do you think is easier to remember?

greenapplesphotography.com (notice the s on apples)
greenapplephotography.net (is there a disadvantage to being a .net?)
green-apple-photography.com (too confusing?)
greenapplephotographybylindsey.com (too long?)
greenapple-photography.com
greenapplephotographyonline.com

If anyone has any other ideas please let me know. Greenapplephotography.com, greenapplephoto.com, gaphotography and greenapplestudios.com were all taken.

*I just researched picking domain names and they suggest always using a .com, not making your name too long, not using dashes and keeping your branding simple. Shoot. All of my options include one of those. It took me forever to come up with Green Apple. I want the domain name to make sense and not be too difficult to remember and easy to find. I think greenapples might be confusing, I guess .net isn't good and I'm not sure on dashes. I'm sure they are tricky to remember. I have already taken the blogspot name of greenapplephotography. At least that was available!*

{Ogden, Part II}

{I Heart Ogden}

I'm not a early morning kind of a gal. The only times I have ever woken up earlier than 7 am is when I am traveling or for that one killer semester back in college. Things have changed a little since the dog, but not enough to require me up earlier than 8. So, no one was more surprised than me when I pulled myself out of bed at 6 am Saturday morning. Deep, deep down, buried somewhere between my good intentions and my brain, I have always harbored the notion that it would be a lovely thing to be a morning person. I fondly imagined myself waking up at the crack of dawn so I can sit on the porch and watch the sunrise while I eat my breakfast (fruit and granola). I would then head off to the gym, because I am totally healthy like that. I would be so proud that I was up and at 'em while the rest of world was lazily sleeping on. These musings, however, were about as close as I ever got. I have never had the will power. That alarm goes off and I hit snooze over and over again until Scott gets mad at me and then I just turn it off.
But I digress. I woke up at 6 am on Saturday because I had a photography shoot with Adam, fellow photographer/cousin-in-law. We had talked long ago about attempting to do this. Scott, as I have mentioned before, isn't so much a fan of going out with me. Sure, he will go if my life depends on it (literally), or if we are on vacation and he doesn't have much of a choice, but in all other scenarios he is adios. Even when he does go with me he looks like such a sad, bored puppy that I feel guilty and decide to end my endeavors early (the same is true of shopping). So, when the opportunity arose for me to go with Adam I was super excited. I don't photograph for pleasure nearly enough and I hardly ever go with someone.
After many different options were discussed we finally settled on Saturday, Odgen, meet at 7 am. Sure, I know the light is better early and all that, but I wasn't thrilled to give up my sleep-in-day. I have to admit that I went to bed on Friday with a little sadness in my heart. However, Saturday morning came, I got up, and even showered--yay for me! It was worth it. The light really is better. Also, it's pretty cool to realize that at 10:30, when I would normally be waking up, I had already been photographing for 2 hours. I felt very productive and satisfied with my early-rising bad self.
I think it was safe to say that fun was had by all. We were flashed by a large man with a butt covered in tattoos, Adam made fun of me and my 3 cameras, (hey, I just can't commit to one), and I was able to convert Adam to all the wonders of Ogden. I have always loved Ogden. Sure, I know it is considered ghetto, but I think it is ghetto fabulous.
So, there you go. That was my Saturday. Here are some of my pictures. I will be posting more tomorrow or maybe the next day.

~Later Alligator





Here is our favorite apartment ice box. I wonder how it got here?