Too legit to quit, actually!
http://www.mnc-photography.com/
I am the proud mama who can't hang this on my refrigerator so I am "hanging" it here. So proud :)
My friend, Kate, found a doggie by her house and asked if I could post his picture and info and see if anyone knew anything about this guy. She found him Soulard/Benton Park area and I know a lot of you girls live down in the area. He doesn't have a chip and Stray Rescue is full. She's going to hang onto him for a little while but if we can't find his owner or a new home, we will have to go to Humane Society.
LOCATION: Found near the intersection of Lynch and Salena around 6:00 pm on Monday March 29th.
DOG INFO: The dog appears to be an American Bulldog (maybe a mix) and is about 70 to 80 pounds. He is white with brown markings. He has a very sweet demeanor, loves other dogs, and appears to be a little timid around men.
PLEASE CALL: Peter @ 636-346-5285 or Kate @314-537-6225
Read more...Last week, I made two new, delicious recipes and both got thumbs-up from Mike. He had been out of town a lot this month and I was really excited for him to finally be home. I woke up early to make these yummy mini-omelets and they were awesome. (Both photos from Gina's Weight Watcher's Recipes)
This recipe can be found HERE. I used 6 whole eggs and 2 egg whites and made 11 omelets instead of 9. Don't be worried that you have more broccoli than egg mixture. It all evens out in the end and tastes great!
On Thursday night, I decided to bust out the good ol' crockpot (my favorite invention) and made Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili. Ohhhhhh baby. Delish!!!
My veggie amounts didn't quite match what the recipe called for HERE but again, it still turned out great. We ate some of the chili in corn tortillas and some with cheese and sour cream on top with a spoon. Someone at work told me that it is great over rice (like in the picture above) too.
I know that weight loss and recipes aren't really "fan favorite" topics on my blog and they don't get a lot of comments. BUT...this is where I am right now in my life so I'm going to keep blogging about it :)
of how you have grown up. You will always be our first puppy and our first love. We look forward to celebrating many more.
Photos courtesy of my man
This week's lesson is all about the color of light and white balance. The handy-dandy lesson is HERE. You see, sunlight casts different colors throughout the day but for this lesson, we focused on indoor light. Most times when I take pictures indoors at night, the pictures come out yellowish. Not very pretty. Tonight, I took a picture of a white piece of paper so my camera adjusted to that color. I'm not very good at explaining (or even understanding) this photography phenomenon so go ahead and read the lesson yourself.
Let's get to the photos. The first picture was taken on AWB (auto white balance). Notice the overall orangish tint to the picture...
The next picture is taken using the tungsten WB setting. The white on Mia's paws, face, and neck are actually looking a little more white but not quite perfect yet. 
Finally, I was able to use the custom white mode (CWB) that I set up earlier with the white paper. Perfect :) Personally, I think this picture looks like it I took it at noon with all the windows open so light could fill the room. Nope...it was 9 pm!
We celebrated Mia's birthday all day and you can tell that she is just pooped. We got some adorable pictures of her opening her presents and I hope to have them uploaded soon!
Better late than never, right?
This week's lesson is about ISO and shutter speed. The very helpful printout is HERE. ISO is all about lighting. You set your ISO to low numbers in low light and higher numbers indoors. The lower the ISO, the slower your image is captured and the more light is required. The higher the ISO, the faster your image is captured and the less light is required.
Shutter Speed is how quickly your shutter opens to capture the image. A fast shutter speed can capture things like sports and quick moving action. A slow shutter speed looks blurry...think cars on the highway at night. I love those kind of shots!
This week's assignment wanted us to capture water in our sink. The ISO was set to 1600 because I was inside. This first picture has the shutter speed set at 0"5 (half a second). The shutter speed is REALLY slow so the water looks blurry.
This next picture has the shutter speed set to 1/80 of a second. Much faster and sharper but still a little blurry.
Finally, I set the shutter speed to 1/1000 of a second. VERY fast and able to catch a very sharp picture. Cool, huh?!? (I did have the lighten the color of the picture afterward because not enough light was getting through with that fast of a shutter speed.)
Week 3's assignment will be up tomorrow!
Happy birthday, to my favorite man.
You are an amazing husband, wonderful friend, and such a great father to our baby, Mia.
We love you very much! Have a great day!
Today, I stepped on the scale and had a big loss. I lost 3.4 lbs this week!!! Awesome, right?!? Wellllll...it comes after last week where I had a pretty BIG gain. I guess I am starting to feel the frustration of the yo-yo. I know that cutting out alcohol will definitely improve my numbers on the scale but I am not ready to do that just yet.
This week was awesome because I finally met a HUGE running goal. I went outside last Saturday and ran. And ran. And ran. I ran longer than I had ever run before. I ran longer than I ever thought I could run. I ran for 56 minutes and 53 seconds. HELLO...that is almost 1 hours of running! Without stopping!!! Never did I think that I would ever be able to do this. I couldn't even run the entire 5K on Thanksgiving without about 30 seconds of walking. This was HUGE for me and if you don't believe that I did it, here is the proof...
Here is where I stand as far as weight loss.
WW Week 7
Weigh-in: -3.4 lbs
Total Loss: -7.0 lbs
Slow and steady. I have had big losses but a couple of gains too. I really need to be more committed to this weight loss. I am sure that Mexico lingering in my future will help motivate me.
There are a couple of weight loss sites that I would LOVE to share with you. Being on weight watchers has really forced me to make conscious decisions about what I am eating. I can honestly say that I haven't been to a McDonalds, Taco Bell, or Qdoba (they are all within 1 minute from my house) in 7 weeks.
The first, new favorite site is Hungry Girl.
This site is amazing! You can find delicious recipes include how to cook with my favorite cheese, Laughing Cow (only 1 point per wedge). Seriously...check out these recipes right here! I love California Pizza Kitchen's BBQ Chicken Salad. LOVE IT! I can make it on a pita for only 6 points. Ummm...yes, please! If you subscribe to her site, you will get emails almost daily about great swaps and how you can make your favorite restaurant items. I will be trying this recipe very soon!
Ok...next site. Actually, it is a blog...Gina's Weight Watchers Recipes. 
Go there. Now. Everything on this site looks amazing! I haven't actually made anything from this blog yet but I have all of the ingredients for the Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili and will be making it next week. A few of my friends tried this Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breasts and had wonderful things to say. I will be trying this one out soon too! I love how all of the Weight Watcher points are already figured out!
Finally, Dottie's Weight Loss Zone (restaurant section). You can go to any of your favorite restaurants to find out how many points are in the meals you want to eat. This site has been necessary for me. I have had 3 night events at school over the last couple weeks where I have had to run out and get something to eat before returning to school. I am able to go to this site, find something that fits within my points, and enjoy. I was pretty shocked to see that many of my favorite foods were worth more points than I can eat in one day. Mike almost died when he saw that the nachos he gets from Taco Bell were 18 points. That is almost 1 day of food for me.
Sooo...that turned out to be a much longer post than I thought it would be. I guess if it was helpful to anyone, then it was worth it. Have a great night!
is Carmen Sandiego? No, I have not suddenly become an ACME agent/detective. However, I am feeling like quite the world traveler.
It is official...we are going to Cancun!
I have been very busy juggling school as a teacher and as a student this year. Recently, I have working on our Italy trips and I am pleased to say that all of our hotels have been booked. Mike and I didn't want to spend too much money on hotels since we don't plan on spending too much time in them. That being said, we weren't quite ready to stay in hostels or 1-2 star hotels either.
In Rome, we will be staying here! How sweet and I love it all lit up at night! 
In Florence, we will be staying at the this beautiful hotel. 
To say that I am excited to visit Cinque Terre, would be an understatement. This adorable, yellow hotel has me so excited! 
Look closely over the bridge in the picture above. That is the terrace where we will eat breakfast each morning.
Venice, Venice, Venice. Here we will be staying at another yellow hotel...I see a pattern here!
Another rooftop terrace...
I promise that when I have a bad day, I am going to look back at this post and know that I get to visit these places sooner than later. Ahhhhh.....
A few blogger friends are following this online tutorial and I thought it would be the perfect way to get more familiar with my camera. Meredith at La Buena Vida posts a photography lesson each week and then you try it out and post your results.
Week 1's lesson is about aperture. Everyone loves when pictures that have that "blurry" effect and aperture is the reason why it happens! Mike has tried lecturing me about this many time so I was familiar with this concept. When your aperture, or f/ (f-stop), is low, then less light is coming into your lens. Therefore, less of the picture is in focus and the background will be blurry. When your f/ is higher, then more light is coming into your lens and more of the picture will be in focus. Read more about her first lesson HERE. The printout that helped me a lot is right HERE.
I was outside enjoying the weather with my favorite pup and decided to take some shots of her adorable, little legs.Picture #1- This picture was taken with the f/ set at 1.8. This means that a small part of her legs will be in focus and the rest of the picture will be blurry.
Picture #2- This picture was taken with the f/ set at 8. This means that you will see more of her leg and hairs in focus, as well as the fence and ground in the background.
Picture #3- This picture was taken with the f/ set at 22. This means that more of the background is in focus, such as the wooden planks of the fence and the coloring of her back leg.
Week 1- Done and done!
Today, I finally took Oprah's "No Phone Zone" Pledge. I have Oprah set on my DVR and at the end of every episode, she mentions making your car a no-phone zone. I don't really know what I have been waiting for or why I didn't pledge sooner. This morning, I promised to stop texting in my car. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I have definitely texted while driving. It is careless and dangerous and I am not going to do it anymore. On Oprah's website, you can choose what level you would like to pledge. You can choose one of 3 no-phone zone promises:
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