Photo Talk Plus, EP7 With Nicole S Young

If you missed this episode with special guest Nicole S Young, you can watch it here easily. Nicole is a successful professional photographer who makes a decent income doing food / stock photography. She gave many tips and insight into doing this kind of work. You can view all her books by clicking here.

In addition to interviewing Nicole, along with our panelists Timothy Jordan, Ivan Makarov, Gino Barasa and Kimberly Pemberton we discussed the following topics:

• Best of 2011 – G+ Photography Book
• SOPA/PIPA
• New Google+ text on photos feature
• Google+ photography related hashtags
• Trey Ratcliff s article from GigaOm on why eBooks are so successful

 

Sake Champagne Mojitos

Yes, you read that correctly. I KNOW.

I love mojitos. Don’t even be all, “Duh, you love Mojitos, Lotus, I mean, REALLY. What alcoholic beverages do you NOT like? Pffffff.” Also, I swear I will slap you if I hear you mutter “fucking drunk” under your breath.

Unless you hand me a glass of wine right after you do it. Then we’re cool.

What the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, Sake Champagne Mojitos. RIGHT. Found this recipe from Joylicious via @Pinterest and I’m in love with it. So I decided to share the recipe with you, because I’m a giver. And an awesome person. (And so humble. To a fault.)

You can click the link above (credit where credit is due) to get to the post where I found the recipe. Or if you’re a lazy asshole, you can just read it below, with my notes. (And by notes, I mean, I changed it to please myself.)

Sake Champagne Mojitos

• Bottle Sake
• Bottle Champagne
• Large bunch of mint (4-6oz)
• Juice of 6-8 limes
• Light Agave Nectar (to taste – I used about 2/3 cup)*
• Lots of ice cubes/chunks

Wash mint, tear leaves from stems and place in a large pitcher with the lime juice and sweetener of your choice (*I used Agave Nectar, original recipe uses Liquid Stevia, you could use honey or simple syrup, too). If you have a muddler, break that mother out. If not, grab a wooden spoon and use the back of it to muddle the leaves, juice, & sweetener in the pitcher.

Muddle is a funny word. Make sure you laugh a lot while you’re muddling.

Muddle. Muddle. Muddle.
*snicker* *chuckle* *teehee*
Muddle. Muddle. Muddle.

Add the entire bottle of Sake & the entire bottle of Champagne. (Except for those “tastes” you might feel you have to take from the bottle. What? Shut up. Don’t judge me.)

Stir and then serve over lots of ice.

Consume.

Be happy in your heart.

Dance on patio tables in the summer sun.

Take photos and send them to me.

Enjoy.

Come stand the heat with us!

We’re heading into the kitchens of Mr. Lady and Busy Dad, and you’re invited.

When Shannon emailed me recently and asked me to help her and Jim with a cooking class they were doing for The Motherhood and ConAgra, I was all for it. Look, I love those two, and Shannon’s email said something about food, porn and cheerleading outfits. It was pretty much absolutely and completely a given that I going to say yes.

I mean, really. Could you say no to these two?

So: I’m co-hosting an upcoming class in the Web’s first-ever virtual cooking school, Cooking Connections, and I would love for all of you to participate! So check out the information below and get ready to see Shannon & Jim cooking and being dead sexy live, on camera, while their co-hosts heat things up in the accompanying chat. (Cheerleading outfits are not required and have absolutely nothing to do with the class, but I’m pretty sure that if you wear one, it can only enhance your experience. Especially if you send me photos.)

Here’s what you need to know about the cooking class:

When: Wednesday, March 16, at 8 p.m. ET

Where: TheMotherhood – here’s the link to the page where the class will be held: Cooking Connections Class with Shannon & Jim

What: The class I’m co-hosting is called “Cooking with Dad,” and it is hosted by the awesome Jim Lin, aka BusyDad of The Busy Dad Blog, and the equally awesome Shannon, aka Mr Lady of Whiskey in My Sippy Cup. Join us for a fun and hilarious class – we are going to have a blast! Jim and Shannon will be chatting via live video feed, and the rest of us will be sharing anecdotes and tips for having fun in the kitchen with Dad (and/or the other non-cooks of the family) in the text-based comments below the video. Don’t miss out on the party!

The class is sponsored by ConAgra and hosted by TheMotherhood.

The other fabulous co-hosts are:

Julie – Angry Julie Monday
Mishelle Lane – Secret Agent Mama
Ashley Evans – Schadenfreudette
Tanis Miller – Attack of the Redneck Mommy
Dan Deguia – Deguia.net
Melanie Sheridan – Mel, a Dramatic Mommy
PJ Mullen – Real Men Drive Minivans
Diane – Momo Fali
Robin Sue Joss – Big Red Kitchen
Eddie Carroll – Life, One Pixel at a Time

And prizes even! Booyah.

To make it even more interesting, there’s a pretty awesome way that you can enter to win one of three gift baskets from The Motherhood and ConAgra. You need to create a short video ahead of time, so get on this now! Go see Shannon’s post for details on exactly what you – brilliant, creative, and fabulous reader – need to do to enter. (FYI, Shannon says cheating is totally encouraged. How can you not want to be a part of that?)

I hope you all decide to stand the heat and join us!

photo credit:
“Shannon” by Shannon
“Jim” by Mishelle

He kind of looks like a hopped up pill freak.

This is… well. I may be the only one who thinks it’s funny.

John and I ate on the floor several days ago. The Mexican placed himself right in front of us and… well, if you could totally freak out in a very contained way for fear that non-contained freaking out would get you sent to your bed or outside in the cold?

This is what it would look like.

My favorite is the way he pokes his tongue out all of a sudden.

PS: Yes, I ate on the floor just to torture him.

My Favorite Breakkie

Today’s Photohunt Theme is “Breakfast”

In this photo, taken last year on Christmas morning, Braden is enjoying his first of many special Christmas breakfasts.

Christmas Breakfast has always been a big deal to me.  My family didn’t splurge or indulge in really special foods regularly, but only on special occasions like holidays and birthdays.  Part of what I looked forward to on Christmas morning was the food – I literally got almost as excited about that upon waking as I did about the gifts.

We’d have a spread of amazing cheeses, usually including things like Brie, Havarti (my fav evah) and Gruyere.  Alongside the cheeses would be salamis and summer sausages – Mmmmmm: MEAT.  Rounding out my favorite breakkie would be the truly amazing bread that my mother makes only twice a year – it’s called Zopf and it is a melt in your mouth bread that will change your life.

Do not scoff at me.  You have NO idea.

I wanted to maintain this holiday tradition within our own family, and last year was my first attempt.  I was so proud of my bread!

And eating that meal made me feel like I was with my parents and siblings, even though they were all far away.

What’s your favorite breakkie?

I like to joke that I have a penis, but in my jokes, it’s already big, thank you very much!

Have you ever been going about your business as usual, not hungry at all, and all of a sudden you want to eat everything within reach? Like, your appetite doubles times infinity plus seventy-eleven, in the blink of an eye?

Or, you want greek olives, peanut butter, apples, and tuna fish all at the same time? Along with your tropical punch flavored juice?

Yeah. That was me earlier this evening, and I have absolutely no reason why. And before your brain cells start rubbing up against each other all excitedly and “squeeing” as they trip over themselves, anxious to stimulate you hurriedly to suggest that I am pregnant, that’s gonna be a big N-O, Roger.

I can’t stop myself from interjecting here to say that every.single.time I see/hear/think the name “Roger” nowadays, I instantly hear an asian man’s voice saying, “Sorry, Rogah, you tigah now.”

And it makes me happy. Every time. Why is that so funny to me? Anyway…

See, certain things have to happen to make a baby. For a baby to get inside of a Mommy’s tummy, a Mommy and a Daddy have to love each other very much and then get really close to each other, and the Daddy has to hug the Mommy and then… Ok, you know what? This is going nowhere.

Ya’ll KNOW “How Babies Are Made.“  If you don’t, you are either too young to be reading this blog (I AM SO GOING TO TELL YOUR PARENTS!  YOU BETTER GO BACK TO NICKELODEON.COM RIGHT THIS MINUTE.) or you are not very bright, and in that case, perhaps it is for the best that you do not understand the whole process.  The rest of you are probably visualizing dirty bits and such now.

(Haha, I made you all think about doing it. Well, except for those of you who were already thinking about it anyway. Pervs. You know who you are. I see you over there, stop trying to hide and avert your eyes. Oh, I also see you, you who are making really, direct, uncomfortable eye contact with me and twitching a little. You are freaking me out. Stop that.)

Uh… so, what was I saying again? Oh yeah. I’m definitely NOT pregnant. I mean, John was on the west coast of the US while I was ovulating, and while he is.. uh… not lacking in the manly parts department by any stretch of the imagination, he isn’t THAT gifted.

And really, if there’s any wenis out there that can reach from California to Tennessee? I AM SCARED. Keep that thing away from me. Also, inform the owner of said Giganto Wenis that he could make a FORTUNE in endorsement ads for all those creepy companies that send me emails claiming that their product will enable me to “knock down walls with your penis!” and “tear her apart with your rod!”

For the record, knocking down walls with my penis would be really cool, tearing someone apart, not so much. Maybe work on that ad campaign a little. Possibly only send it out to violent rapist types. And people who ACTUALLY HAVE PENISES.

Also, I do routinely joke that I actually have a penis (it’s funny, I don’t care what you say)… and you know what?  Both my penis and I are pretty offended that I’m getting those emails at all.  How insulting!

I wonder if John gets emails for products that will enable him to crush a man’s head to a pulp with his cleavage?

It’s hard to believe I started this post by talking about my weird cravings considering where it has lead.

Maybe that’s what happens when you eat dried cherries and pork sausage together.  Hm.

Thoughts?

I only wanted to crawl in a hole and die for a little while.

Eating out.

Say those words to me and I will likely just *blink” and give you a look of, “Whaaaaaa?” We didn’t eat out much once Braden was born. A few times, we took him with us, snuggled into his carseat/carrier. But most of the time, we stayed at home, and this was due to the fact that we couldn’t afford restaurant food. If we could, we’d have done it constantly, because, Hello? Cooking on zero hours of sleep? Uh, how about no? And besides, we’re practically Professional Quality Gluttons. Facehole Cramming is our Xtreme Sport of choice, you could say.

As Braden got older, money wasn’t the only thing stopping us from taking him out. Even once he got past his colic (a period I like to call “OH HOLY EFF”), I was nervous about how he would act. See, I was once that young and stupid (childless) asshole who got really pissed off when there was a screaming baby in the restaurant. So now, I intuit that perspective – I imagine all the people in the room who are going to be pissed off at me and my kid. And I translate that into how many people I’m going to have to admit, in front of judge and jury, to killing with my bare hands in a homicidal rage. You know, if they say anything. Or even make a face I interpret as displeasure aimed in our general direction. Killing so many and going to prison would be quite unfortunate.  I would not make a good prison bitch.  I’m too mouthy.

When Braden was about 6.5 months old, at the beginning of April 2007, we were living in an apartment, (*coughDUMPcough*) and our craptastic upstairs neighbors (including the Spawn of Mr. Ed, who I’ve mentioned here) moved out, and left the washer hookup faucet turned on, flooding their apartment and ours. The fix was to pull up our carpet, exposing all the dust, dirt, and fleek (a word I just made up for ‘unidentified disgusting crud’) lying beneath it, and direct a mega-powered-fan under the wet parts to dry them out. The result was that the air in our entire apartment got peppered with all the dirt that had ever settled into the carpet. Yummmmmm. So we got out of there and went out to dinner.

Braden was quite lovely, actually. The most eventful thing he did was try to eat the table.

And then barf on it.

Not long after that he continued to morph into a more mobile version of Hell Child, and once again, we avoided eating out.  All he wanted to do was get.all.ovah.evah-thang.  We held out. Until October.

That is when “The Long Horn Incident” occurred. We try not to remember The Incident. It is not spoken of around here. When it is clear that we are both thinking about it, we just exchange a look and shudder. And we hope that anyone at that Long Horn restaurant will try to forgive us, and that their nightmares are not recurring. THAT dinner became take-out as quickly as possible.

So, you might have thought us rather crazy when we decided to give it a go again on Tuesday night. But with John home for only 3 days, and me just really wanting to have a little fun… we decided to take a chance. And out we went for dinner.

Ruby Tuesdays was the target, er, eatery we chose. Close to our home in case we needed to get the hell out of dodge and home with hot food in a hurry.  We entered with our Smiley Faces on and pretended like we thought it was going to be GREAT!

We got seated. Braden lunged for the salt and pepper, but I quickly distracted him with a toy truck. (Damn, I’m goooood.)  That worked for about 2 seconds. So did the book, and the crayons, and the toy camera.  So, if you do quick math, you will realize that he was good for all of 8 seconds into the event.

Then the screaming started.  The Open Mouthed Red Faced Screaming Of Death To All.

And the thrashing.  And gnashing of teeth.

Oh, and Braden was also causing a scene.

After a brief jaunt outside with him, John and Braden returned.  There was one more screaming episode, which I somehow dampened with words like, “Oh my goodness, you’re loud, look at these beautiful crayons!” (And dude, I acted like they were THE most BEAUTIFUL crayons you have EVAH SEEN.  He must have fallen for it.)

Then he was good.  For the whole rest of the meal!  Astonished were we!  We couldn’t even say it out loud, though we almost did several times.  Then we’d stop cold, laugh, and knock on the table.

People, it was magnificent.  I ate a whole meal at a restaurant, it was delicious, and my son wasn’t such a turdface that we had to leave.

Shit, I might not need therapy after all!

Oh yeah, I posted a video of myself pulling my pants down on The Internet yesterday.

Nevermind.

Sparkle On!

Here’s hoping your weekend kicks ass, guys.

Braden and I will be playing with these:

Also, eating hotdogs, playing outside, and just generally hanging out together.  On Saturday, John will join us in our merriment.  There is much to be thankful for.  Like anytime the 3 of us are together.  That’s pretty sublime.

Can you believe that is the most recent picture of the 3 of us together? That’s from October, for cryin’ out loud!?  Who thinks we should take a new one on Saturday?    *raises hand*

 

If you have any downtime this weekend and feel like reading: yesterday’s post is here, and there’s one I’m excited about here, too.   (*school-girl-type squeal*)

Comments on either/both are appreciated… as always ( b/c I’m an Attention Whore, I’ll admit it freely).

By the way, thanks so much to all of you who already hopped over there and read, and BIG thanks to those who commented! You even had to do MATH to leave a comment there. And that’s just above and beyond what should ever be required without compensation. So really, thanks, You Wonderful People! You made my day yesterday.

*gratuitous ass kiss warning*

Know this: I appreciate all of you, you who read, you who comment, – even you who don’t comment as long as you’re here with me! I appreciate you who are here often as well as you who only visit sporadically. I just appreciate all of you. Without you, there wouldn’t be much reason for me to hit “publish” on any of these posts. Sure, I write this for myself and write what I want to write, but I could keep a private journal if it didn’t have something to do with my interactions with YOU.

So, thanks so much for supporting me whenever you can.

*end of gratuitous ass kissing*

 

Now go eat some grilled stuff, drink some fun drinks, watch the bright lights and listen to the loud pops and the laughter of your loved ones, while you smile and soak it all in.  Enjoy every moment, it’s worth it.

<3