I typed this out on January 1st, but LJ was misbehaving and wouldn't let me post it. Grr. Argh.

Yesterday was Andrew's 4th anniversary. Calling it a birthday feels weird because he's not here. Calling it a death day is just plain morbid and sad. Anniversary doesn't seem like the right word either, but it's as close as I can get, I think. The day was pretty somber. There were tears. We watched Zoolander and shared an Itsaboy Chocolate Stout that The Boy brewed 2 years ago. We both woke up feeling pretty miserable this morning, but that was thanks to all of the crying. *sigh*

On to happier news.

We've moved! We moved into our new house on October 19th. It's super cute and making it more "us" is really quite fun. I've painted the living room, dining room, our bedroom, and our office so far. Everything is coming along nicely.

Work. The engagement shoot for Sean and Ava (October 14th) in Delaware went well. Their wedding is in 11 days and I have my fingers crossed for nice weather because driving all the way over there in the snow (or anywhere for that matter) is not my idea of a good time. Ava send me the most beautiful e-mail when she booked me. I want to frame it when I'm rich and famous.  

November 9th, I shot the weirdest wedding ever. All of my communication was done via the brides mom (Gina) and I am NEVER doing that again if I can help is. It didn't help that the bride was a complete head case. Ugh. I'm not even going to go into detail because my blood pressure will go through the roof. Let's just say I'm glad that job ias over.

November 11th (2 whole days later), I did an engagement session for a couple (Brandon and Jackie) who is getting married on April 20th. They're awesome and I'm REALLY looking forward to their wedding.

A week after that (November 18th), I did some headshots for a friend of ours (Cathy) who was on The Boy's soccer team. She needed some done for an article she's having published and asked if I'd be interested. It was late notice, but I didn't care. I had some free time and I needed to redeem myself in the head shot world after the disaster that was Thursday and Christopher's session.

AND then on December 2nd, I did some maternity photos for our friends Karina and Kohnke who wanted a frame-able image for a collage they were making for a Christmas gift.

Yeah, so I've been a little busy.

Oh, and there was Halloween, and Hurricane Sandy, and The Boy being out of the country for 2 weeks, and Thanksgiving, and a not-so-surprise baby shower I was helping plan and host, and crocking, and meeting new people, and friends having babies, and CHRISTMAS...sheesh. It's no wonder I haven't updated since September!
 

Move numero uno is complete and we're now settled into our friend's condo. Even though Brad isn't here, all most of his stuff is, so it's kind of crowded. I'm still on a consigning/freecycling/Goodwilling/trash rampage, though, so it's getting slightly less so. It was...Until I did something like take a bag of Evan's too-small fall/winter stuff to consignment and come home with a shiny new gently used race car bed. *sigh* It was so ridiculously cheap that I HAD to buy it.

And then there's work. A couple days after we moved into this temp housing, I shot a wedding. It was the first time I'd shown up to work having never met the bride OR groom. Kinda weird, but whatever. They were super awesome and I had a great time. The pictures from that are here. I have an engagement shoot in November. A wedding the week after that. A wedding in January. AND as of a couple of days ago, another wedding in April/May. Woot!

And then there's vacation. Two weeks ago, we went on our very first vacation since Evan was born. Nothing fancy, really. The boy's parents rented a beach house in Ocean City, NJ for a week and asked us if we'd like to join them. The stars aligned and off we went. E was super good until we got to the water. He HATEHATEHATES the water. He also hates falling on the boardwalk and busting open his lip, but anyone would hate that, really. 

Where are some current pictures of Evan, you ask? Welp, I ran out of space on my picture page and unless I pay for more, I have to figure out some other place to post them. I've been uploading them to Facebook, so if you're not on there (or you HATEHATEHATE it), sorry. I'll figure out something else soon.

Settlement on the new house is in less than a month and we're super excited about that. As awesome as this condo is, it's just not home. Having our own place again will be awesome. Not having to worry about E running around like a maniac keeping awake our neighbors below will be awesome. Having a yard again will be awesome. Not having to lug anything we buy up 3 flights of steps will be awesome...

WAY back on July 12th, we finally got an offer on our house. It'd been on the market for over 13 months and it was aour very first bite. The offer was way lower than our asking price. We countered. They countered. We took it. We took it even though they required we not make it contingent on us finding a house. Even though it meant we'd be losing money on the house. Our deal says that the only thing between us selling this place is the home inspection. The inspection happened and they asked us to fix 26 things. (Some ridiculous, some not.) We countered with 10. (Some ridiculous, some not.) They countered with 12. (Adding 2 ridiculous.) We countered with 11. (We are NOT giving them new windows!) It was a super frustrating ping pong game with the buyers. Eventually, we decided that settlement on our old house would be August 28th. 11 days from now. Not that I'm counting or anything. 

For a few weeks following the deal, we'd been running around like crazy about to be homeless people trying to find somewhere that meets the following 3 requirements:

We can afford it.
It'd be in a good school district.
It'd be in a low-crime area.

That turned out to not be so easy. Every house we saw met 2 out of the three.

And then we found one. Kind of. It's not the most affordable house in the word, but it's great in the other 2 areas.

We're now in another game of ping pong. For some reason, this one is more amusing than annoying so far. One of the sellers is in Korea which makes communicating with him pretty much impossible. That, of course, also means that signitures take 3 times longer to get than they a normal. They can't settle until Mid-October. And there's the new nugget of info I learned today: Their realor just switched companies. 

Where are we going to live from the 28th to Mid-October, you ask?

A friend's condo. He's moving in with his girlfriend (who also happens to be a friend of ours) and he's letting us crash at his place as long as we need to.

Moving twice. I'm tired just thinking about it.

I am super excited to be able to say that my photography business is really starting to pick up! I've had 2 gigs in the last 2 weeks. The first one was family photos for my friends back in Philly. I haven't seen either of them in at least 10 years (but have reconnected via Facebook). Mike and I grew up together. His house was 2 houses away from mine. He went to my church and met his wife Theresa through there. In the last 7 years, they've been quite a little baby factory. They have 5 kids! The last 2 being boy-girl twins! So...2 weekends ago, we drove home so I could do that (and so the grandparents could get some Evan loving). We went to Ft. Washington Park in Ft. Washington, PA and I shot what is now lovingly referred to as the McSpadden Family Circus. 

HERE are the images from that shoot.

A few months ago, my photographer friend/ex-coworker from Penney's asked me if I could do some maternity shots for her. I'd never done a maternity shoot before, but I was honored that she liked my work enough to ask. She's 31 weeks pregnant with her first girl. (She has 2 boys already.)  Smack dab in the middle of this shitastic Maryland heat wave, Amber and I went to Downs Park in Pasadena, MD. While sweating our cajones off and getting eaten alive by horse flies, we made it work. Her hubby and the boys WERE going to join us, but they were having a cranky day and it ended up being just us girls. 

HERE are the images from that shoot.

I've also booked a few weddings! Woot! I have one in September, one in November, and one in January. Also, a handful of friends have asked me about some portrait sessions, but none of them have actually been scheduled yet. I have a high school buddy who wants pictures of him singing and playing his guitar and another ex-coworker who wants couple-y pictures since they didn't have a "real wedding". I'm certainly keeping myself busy!

Speaking of busy...have you ever wondered what a day in my life looks like these days? My friend Sandie JUST heard about DITL and was looking for someone to join in the fun. After a little convincing, I grabbed my camera so I could show her what a typical day looks like in my world. Although...some of it ended up being not all that typical. 

My DITL (Last Tuesday) is HERE. 

Enjoy.

Or something. 

Where have I been for the last 2 months?

Around.

I've had 2 photography gigs. One was with Thursday. Finally. We'd been trying to get together for a year and a half and it finally happened. Although, honestly, I wasn't really happy with the results. And I'm pretty sure they weren't either. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but after I send my clients the finished images, I usually get a something like "OMG I LUV THEM! ALL OF THEM! THANK YOU SO MUCH!". With Thursday and her hubby Christopher? Nada. Ok, not nada. It was more like "Can we have the RAW images so we can edit them ourselves. We were looking for something slightly different for the head shots". Yeah. So that happened. A slightly bruised ego. Luckily, the gig wasn't just about head shots. I did manage to get some cute couple-y ones of them. HERE's the entire set. I need to learn how to do portraits.

The other was a wedding. The wedding that was originally going to happen October 27th. Thanks to some bad luck, Heather and Chris changed nearly every detail about their wedding and moved their date to May 11th. Luckily for them (and me), I am AWESOME and was able to figure out a way to stay in the picture. *rimshot* The wedding was absolutely amazing and I was able to capture some fabulous images. I even received one of those "OMG I LUV THEM ALL!" e-mails from the bride. That set is HERE.

I love shooting weddings. Really. I think I've found my niche.

Remember my resolution? 

To recap: 2012 is going to be the year I:

1. Snag more gigs/build portfolio/make money
2. Create an awesome looking website
3. Become a sole proprietorship.
4. Get more gear.

So, uh, remember that silly little slow cooker recipe contest I was in? The one I thought I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning? Well...I won! I The announcement came Monday and I'm still in shock. I won $1150 (before taxes) and a shiny new KitchenAid crock pot! There was a bunch of crap going during the voting process, which, admittedly took some of the fun out of it. Cheating accusations. Cyber bullying. It really got out of hand. Fast. Luckily for me, I ended up on top!  My story even made it into the local paper today! SEE?

If you voted even just one time...thank you.

Hi all! I am having one HELL of a February! 

Click HERE, vote for the "Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese" 50 times, and then keep reading.

Done? Ok. Vote tomorrow, too. And the next day. And the next day. And every day until March 9th.

I'm not just any old food blogger anymore. I am an award winning food blogger! Say what now? On February 2nd, Ginger from The Crock Pot Recipe Exchange posted a link to a "Slow Cooker Showdown" on DinnerTool that was looking for original recipes. That night, while catching up on the DVR, I entered a recipe I'd recently made: "Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese". I noticed that in the official rules, a person was allowed to submit 5 recipes per day during the submission period. If you did the math, ONE person could legally submit 80 original recipes. I saw that the winner's prize is $1000 and a new crock pot. "That would be nice", I said.  I submitted one recipe and moved on. I may suck at math, but I know statistics. 

Imagine my surprise when I received an email 2 days ago saying that I was a finalist! My recipe made it into the final 4! AND had I actually read all of the rules, I would've seen that I'd won $150 and a shiny new KitchenAid slow cooker! Holy. Crap. Dudes. I was giddy all day long.

There's probably not a snowball's chance in hell I'm going to win this thing. I mean, the final voting process is a HUGE popularity contest and my social circle is relatively small. Not only that, through my lovely ability to legally cyberstalk people, I've learned A LOT about my competition.

Honey Sesame Chicken crocker: Has won so many contests that she can put her 2 kids through college. She's a professional blogger for babycenter/momformation.

Homemade Pumpkin Spaghetti Sauce crocker: Was popular healthy eating food blogger at the now defunct (as far as I can tell) The Soulful Spoon. Her dad was killed in a car accident and she stopped blogging. At least, I THINK that's what happened. She could have a blog elsewhere...

Salted Cashew & Caramel Blondies crocker: Has a popular blog called Eden Eats Everything and has vowed to use the winnings to pay for her dad's chemo therapy. 

Sometimes, I really hate the things you can learn on the internet.

HOWEVER, I am still super excited to have made it to the final 4! You can help me TRY to win the elusive $1000 by voting for my recipe EVERY single day from now until March 9th. Even better? Each IP address is allowed 50 (YES, 50!) votes per day. So go! Get your clicking fingers clicking away!  

I'm not one to make resolutions, but I did decide that 2012 would be the year that I'd more aggressively try to get my photography business off of the ground. To be fair, I "resolved" the same thing in 2010, but a week into the new year, we learned that Evan was...uh, made. About two weeks ago, I spiffed up my portfolios on WeddingWire and OneWed. About a week ago, I e-mailed the brides and grooms in weddings I've done and asked them if they would be willing to write reviews. Yesterday, I spammed all of my Facebook friends with the suggestion to "like" my my photography page. Not too bad for a month and a half into the year, me thinks.

4 days ago I received an e-mail from a bride who found me on WeddingWire. It simply said that she would like more information about my packages and that her wedding is October 5th, 2013. I don't know if she and I have a friend in common or if I was the result of some random search. It's bizarre to me because I am CHEAP and have the free version of the profiles on WeddingWire and OneWed which means TONS of other photographers likely show up before mine. You know...the people who can afford to pay to have their names show up first. People who know how to create awesome looking websites. People who know what the hell they're doing business-wise. People who are the complete opposite of me.

That same day, I saw that she also "like"ed my photography page on Facebook. I stalked her profile and saw that I am the ONLY photographer she "likes". Really? The ONLY one? Umm...ok. Weird. I e-mailed her some quotes and expected to never hear from her again. (Because that's what ALWAYS happens.)

But then yesterday morning happened. I received another e-mail from her. She could NOT stop complimenting me on my work. It's possible she was fishing and wanted me to come down on price, but I like to believe that she was being legit. Some of the things she said were just...so sweet. It was the kind of e-mail that will cheer me up on a bad day. I want to print it out and hang it somewhere as inspiration. I also REALLY want to shoot her wedding. 

The next steps to my grand plan of 2012 are the more difficult ones that are going to take a lot of time and money.
1. Snag more gigs so I can add to my portfolio and have money to do 2-4. 
2. Awesome looking website.
3. Sole proprietorship.
4. Invest in studio equipment/2nd camera and the like.

Is it REALLY February 2nd? I've sat down to write a few times, but the words just didn't come out. Or I got pulled away. Always something.

Christmas happened. Evan was ridiculously spoiled by pretty much everyone except us. We knew that was going to happen.

Andrew's third birthday happened. This was the first year we didn't have anyone over. AT ALL. It was just me, the boy, and Evan. We received notes from friends and family throughout the day and every time, I broke down into tears a little bit. The major waterworks didn't happen until about 5pm when I looked at the clock and thought about us driving to the hospital at 5pm New Years Eve 2008. After Evan was in bed for the night, we drank the last of last year's homebrewed "It's a Boy Chocolate Stouts", ate a piece of birthday ice cream cake, and watched something uplifting on tv. I don't even remember what it was. Darn.

In photography land...

I did an engagement shoot last month. I asked my photographer friend, Tricia, if she'd like to help out so she could get experience and add to her portfolio and such and she jumped at the opportunity. The 4 of us were going to go to Downs Park, but it was super cold and windy, so we decided to move it to Savage Mill at the last minute. The bride and groom to-be (Heather and Chris) are absolutely adorable. AND they're having a Halloween themed wedding so I am, of course, super crazy excited about that. Is it October 27th yet? The images from their engagement shoot are HERE.

I spent about a week working on Kelly's and Dan's wedding albums. They were shipped 2 days ago, so they should be arriving on my doorstep any day now. I need to start charging more for them. I didn't realize how time consuming they are. At least designing them is fun! I do like to be creative.

After accidentally leaving Thursday hanging for several months, I e-mailed her to see if she was still interested in having her head shots done. I can't BELIEVE we've been trying to get together for over a year now. Our schedules are just completely polar opposites. Anyway, she said YES! So...we're looking at getting together in April now. 

In other news...

Our house is STILL on the market. We keep having showings, but no offers. 

Also...

Still doing playgroups. Most of the recent ones have been at our house because it's winter (contrary to yesterday's weather. 70 degrees in February!). We have a good time and it's nice for us to be social. 

And...

I'm still crocking. And people have started calling me a food blogger. It's weird. But...I guess that's what I am these days. How did THAT happen?

And, of course, Evan...

He's FINALLY communicating. He signs some words. Done. More. Airplane. He says a few words. Bye. Ball. Balloon. Done. Air. Hi. Dad. Mom. He's just...the best. 

That's it for now. Hopefully, I'll make another appearance before April.