I hope everyone’s having a splendid and love filled day!

Valentine’s is for sharing love with everyone (not just romantic partners… but we like those too).

We’ve got big plans tonight in dreary, drizzly Tallahassee. Pictures to follow!

And for the record…. I didn’t buy those shoes. I did wear them for 15 minutes. What are your thoughts on pony hair leather? It sorta freaked me out so I passed — perhaps momentarily??

Chase and I circa 2010 – I want that pink shirt.

“It does not cross my mind, the past. I don’t look back on what has transpired, but last week, when I was tasked with guest lecturing to 20 photography students in Denver, I had two solid hours to relive the last four years of my life.

I received that piece of paper that meant I was an adult, a degree, in the Spring of 2008 and a letter from a sweet sounding woman named Sallie Mae telling me I owed her money. I was relatively lucky with my student loan amounts (under the national average), we will get back to this later. Now, those that grasp the difficulty of making a living as a creative in 2008, I’m sorry. For those that don’t, it was like finding Osama…in 2008. What I’m getting at, making life work, the way you saw it in your dreams, was hard, and you were only relieved once 2010 came around.

I won’t tell the story, but the an important part of the lesson comes from telling you a tiny bit.

I set out, left Denver, those I loved, and every comfort, for a boat in Baltimore, hoping to chase my photography dreams on a sailboat. Taking risk, taking a big risk, I decided was the only way to make “it” happen. It only took a week, reality hit, being a galavanting sailing photographer wasn’t going to work out, not this way. I was inches from leaving, tail tucked, for an unknown job out west, when I bought a beer at a bar filled with sailors and met a guy named Bill. I’ve always been a talker, but most importantly, I listen. After a few cocktails we struck up a friendship that now will last a lifetime, and he gave me the opportunity and the time to avoid tearing up my dreams and stuffing them in the garbage.

Everyone loves a list on a blog so we’ll start it with that.

1. Family, friendships, and relationships are the only way I have ever made it to where I am. I have no clue how an introvert makes it as a commercial photographer, I can’t begin to fathom it.

2. Listen to people, except for those that tell you how it is supposed to be done. I was never an assistant, never an intern, and never took a second job to make ends meet. I went against the advice of professors and people much smarter, more talented, and with more experience, and so far it has paid off. LISTEN, to strangers, to children, to music, and to artwork. I’ve never met anyone I didn’t like off the bat, and if you are willing to listen to a strange redneck in Arkansas for an hour about carving wood with a chainsaw, you’ll find its worth it.

3. Responsibility, I hate it. That being said, I’ve always wanted a dog that would go on road trips with me, a cabin in the woods I own, and a girlfriend that deserves to have me there for more then a two week visit. Its a difficult balancing act, and I am just starting to get to the point where I might take on a few of those things, but starting out, there was no way it was possible. I don’t even have a bed, and all that I own can fit in my paid off 1996 Subaru Outback Legacy with 300,000 miles. No car payments, no mortgage, because when things get tough, and they do, those bills keep coming.

4. Take risks. then fail. Then take more risks. you’re still going to fail. Then do it all again after you shake the dust off. I’ve never found joy in safety, the most joy in my photographic life has come at times when against all good judgement, I’ve come to the cliff edge and jumped, and like Wile E. Coyote, something blows up in my face. (When the time comes, I assume your supposed to do that with women).

5. I said at the top, the past doesn’t cross my mind, nor does the future 95% of the time. I have planned, budgeted, and set goals, but plans go bust, never hit a budget, and goal posts move by the hour, and I’ve turned these thoughts off, knowing now, I give as much as I possible to each moment, worry about as little as possible, and find inspiration in the unnoticed.

Much of what I said, you’ll find doesn’t fit with your life, and thats fine, because this is my life. Each finds their own way for their success, all I want is to shed light on how it works for me in this single moment, knowing tomorrow, my entire story could change in an instant. This is meant for the young photographers I spoke to in that classroom, but maybe it resonates with you too. For those two hours I went through my entire story from the doldrums of 2008 to the happiness I’ve found so far in 2012, but that was then, and this is now. I have experienced everything that falls between despair and elation, needing every bit of each end of the spectrum to understand.”

Cheers,

Chase M. Heilman

p.s. Chase doesn’t generally do kid photography but seriously, a baby in a sink… couldn’t resist.

Sooooo…. to the recipes! I made the first three for dinner last time I hosted girls night (along with braided cardamom bread! Coming soon!)

1. This carrot soup was scrumptious! Total comforty-food.

2. I didn’t know how much I would like this broccoli cheddar soup but it was SO good. I put a little too much mustard powder in mine so it had a kick. And I actually think this was better the second day.

3. I added feta to this chickpea and raisin salad and it was perfect. This kinda makes a lot… beware.

4. Green bean fries! A delicious way to get yo’ greens!

5. Ummmm…. coconut curried potatoes with peas! Snap. Make these ASAP.

6. And finally, this chicken enchilada pasta is Barber’s new favoritest thing ever.

There you have it.

Sort of related: I only buy those anthro bowls pictured above on sale ($2.95 or less). I’m on the lookout for more if you ever happen upon a significantly marked down seasonal color.

Entirely unrelated news: I get google alerts for the name “Katie Brooks” (naturally) and I got one the other day that led me to this Katie Brooks’ website. Seriously — we might be best friends.

No, not Nala’s. If you guessed that is was Johnlawyer’s birthday you would be correct!

After school, work and soccer practice kitten and I are going to throw a little party.

There will be sprinkles!

And maybe some presents!

Happy 26th birthday dearest.

Is there anything better than new pens?!

right now.

i’m learning a lot about adobe fireworks (anyone ever use this?!), adobe dreamweaver and how democracies and torture go hand in hand.

i’m watching Downton Abbey (PBS Masterpiece Classic!) and Alcatraz (JJ Abrams new show!) – love both by the way.

i’m eating lots of strawberries and blueberries — one of the pros of living in Florida, berries in-season in the spring.

i’m loving my new kitchen aid mixer (thank you santa!). remember when i said it was the most beautiful thing ever?

i’m working on a project life album! (more on that soon).

i’m planning someone’s upcoming birthday.

i’m listening to the mumford and sons station on pandora. the best.

i’m applying to jobs (lot of ‘em).

i’m reading the girl with the dragon tatto series (in between school readings – it’s killing me)

i’m ordering this dress to wear in a spring wedding (it’s being dyed… i will not be wearing white).

and we are going to the circus tonight. i haven’t been since elementary school and i recently read ‘water for elephants’ so i’m experiencing some mixed feelings. we’ll see.

happy friday!

I was trying to do something in photoshop and everything started running waaaayyyyy slow. Then a little box popped up to tell me that my scratch disk was full… Which it is not! I have more than half of my capacity left. I googled. And searched. And scrolled through discussion posts. I was convinced that I had a “roaming” program that was causing my computer to think it was full.

So I made an executive decision to back up everything on the computer, un-install and then reinstall OS X and then reinstall all my programs.

So guess what? (Now we’re getting to the crazy part) — I decided to try out this photoshop thing I was working on one more time…. turns out, due to a minor overlook, I was trying to make a canvas that was 180,000 pixels wide by 180,000 pixels tall. ACK! That’s HUGE! Like 600 inches by 600 inches huge! No wonder my computer was SO angry (I couldn’t even fill the canvas with the paint bucket!).

So here’s the best part…. all I wanted to do was make some glitter!

Seriously people. I found this cool tutorial for making a glitter pattern and three hours later I was farther away from glitter than when I started. Good news: My hard drive is way clean AND everything is now backed up on an external hard drive. Bad news: I lost three hours of my life and was this close to performing surgery on my computer…. which is probably a questionable decision.

So that’s that. I’ve one more glitter tutorial to test out and then I’ll post both so we can compare.

At 4:52 a.m on December 27th we set off for Keystone… Two SUV’s carried 11 people, 11 bags, 7 iphones, 5 ipads, 2 dvd players, 1 un-born baby and a lot of snacks!

We had a brief stopover in Denver to pick up person number 12 (hey Trey!) and do some car shuffling and then we were in Keystone!

Prior to arriving in Colorado our group was missing one key element. A white board. Seriously. We ALWAYS have a white board –> In college, last time we took a trip to Colorado, in Chicago… It’s sort of a key element to our planning process and to our playing pictionary. Lucky for all of us, Stu, who lives in Colorado and was meeting us at our mansion, brought a white board. Crisis averted.

Check out the arrows in that plan!

Every day we made plans (on the whiteboard!) and had schedules for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every night we had a big family dinner at our huge dining room table. We skied and snowboarded and played so. many. games. We hung out in our hot tub and made fires in our fireplace. There was lots of photo hunt played on ipads and lots of ski apparel everywhere. We went on a hike, we had a girls day of manis and pedis and we drank some Breckenridge Bourbon on a brewery tour. We ate Mexican food one night and we played flip cup every single night.

For a few days leading up to New Years we debated whether we should go out to a bar or stay in and throw ourselves a party. We went back and forth and weighed the pros and cons and we couldn’t really decide….. We took a trip to Breckenridge on New Years Eve day and after the brewery tour one car stayed in Breckenridge to eat lunch. Unbeknownst to the lunching group the second car stopped at Walmart on the way home and bought some cheap decorations. We came home and rearranged the furniture to make a dance floor and decorated the whole living room to resemble a really low budget homeschool prom (or what I imagine one looks like….)

It just so happens that the second car had come to the same conclusion — that they wanted to stay in for New Years Eve as well. Fate! They were so happy to walk in to a pre-decorated house….

So we got gussied up in our New Years best, ordered Chinese food (a vacation tradition), played some games (duh!), had a dance party, toasted the New Year, played some more games and rang in the New Year together in our very own mansion in the mountains.

{Please note my friend Keelia dressed as Kim K. Awesome. Please also not the reunion of my roommate and I! Holla.}

We are now taking suggestions for our next vacation…. Ideas?

My original goal was to make 20 loaves before 2011…. Clearly that didn’t happen — but I’m going to go ahead and finish it out at a little bit slower pace (and truly I’m probably over half way there, I just have a bunch of bread “backlogged” waiting to be posted).

Recipe: I used this one. Technically not a loaf I guess but it’s still bread right? I promise my finished product looked more like the photo on the orignal recipe page…. Late at night my kitchen light is clearly subpar. I actually made this recipe sometime in early December and these scones were enjoyed with hot tea on a rare, cool Florida night.

Changes: Notta. I think some mini chocolate chips would have been kinda nice.

Verdict: Good. Not my favorite scone of all time but they got the job done. I’d make them again… probably with chocolate chips.

you might notice that the small eating area also doubles as THE kitchen counter space. when i lived alone this was totally fine…. but since there have been two of us the counter space is always covered with food preparations or just stuff. like law books and cats and stuff.

so barber got to thinking (this is dangerous)…. and then he did a little sketching and before you know it he had whipped up some plans for a little breakfast bar. i may have replied with some sort of incredulous laugh when he presented the idea of building (what?!) a breakfast bar.

he wanted to put it right there.

one might ask where a breakfast bar would fit? that’s exactly what I asked!

so we did some rearranging (you would not believe how often you can rearrange furniture in this tiny of a space). and then john-the-builder went to Lowe’s (a favorite past-time) and bought some supplies. and then late (very late) one night he built a breakfast bar.

i woke up to this.

(pardon the iphone quality.)

seriously?! a breakfast bar! schmancy, no? look at that sexy leg (which we will own forever on account of it costing almost $20!).

the blue chair is scooted over over to the right of the door where it just barely fits. like we’ve said after every other time we’ve rearranged, we think that the change “really opens up the space nicely.” one of those dining room chairs used to sit outside on the porch area because it wouldn’t fit inside.

the whole setup is really quite nice. we’ve already eaten several meals there and it will fit one laptop if someone wants to do a little work.

that my friends, is how we, for the last four months in our apartment, came to have a breakfast bar.

in other news – look at Mr. Almost Lawyer on his last first day of school. So professional.

]]> http://kateregan.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/on-breakfast-bars-and-such/feed/ 3 kreganb IMG_2470 IMG_2469 photo (6) photo photo http://kateregan.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/december-rewind-nala-edition/ http://kateregan.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/december-rewind-nala-edition/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:30:06 +0000 kreganb http://kateregan.wordpress.com/?p=1230 ]]> On Christmas Day my family got into a discussion about how old Nala is in cat years. Supposedly she’s like 27 or something(?!). Puh-lease. (She will actually turn 3 in April).

Annnnnnnyway – Nala really got into the Christmas spirit this year and I thought she deserved her own post (this is mostly for you Paula!)

Have you seen this video? We tried to replicate it and were surprisingly successful.

Wrapping her up was fun but I have to say that she really stole the show with this years Christmas outfit. Remember last year?

Seriously. This might not be hilarious to anyone else. But I just can’t help myself.

Have you reached your cat quota for the day yet? Ahaha! Just one more….

with a white background and maybe some fake snow this could be straight out of the Sears portrait studio.

One more Christmas Rewind to go!

But I promise you we celebrated! And decorated! And opened presents! And went to Colorado!

I think it’s important to document those things… even if it’s a bit belated. So here’s post one of a few of December Rewinds.

First off – Christmas tree! Barberlawyer had never experienced a real Christmas tree (travesty!) so I decided that we needed to make that happen. To Lowe’s we went (sometime in late November)!

We found a little-ish guy that we thought would fit just perfectly little in the Postage Stamp.

The only real ornament we have (other than all the ones stored at our parent’s houses) is one that holds a picture of Nala (she got it for her first Christmas). Other than that we used a conglomeration of random plastic bobbles and strands of beads that I had on hand from other projects.

It was quite perfect in the postage stamp. Our tiny apt. smelled so good and Nala LOVED hiding under it and playing with the ornaments.

One night we got extra festive and even “lit” a fire. Haha!

‘Tis the season!

The tour was way, way more intense than I had prepared for… Not in that we had to do anything out of the ordinary or difficult, there were just a lot of animals. A lot. There are five kennels where you can drop off an animal over night…. Every morning all five are full. There were so many cute animals, and sad animals and abused animals and it was all I could do to keep from crying…. which I presumed to do as soon as reaching the parking lot afterwards.

{Side note: Although they are just animals it is good to remember that there are lot of people (and furry friends) who are worse off than you. The holiday season would be a good time to donate food, clothing or toys to animal or people shelters. End, side note}

When we got home from the shelter we squeezed Nala and said a quick thanks that she somehow made it to our house.

Then she humored us with her patience and hilarious facial expressions. Uh yeah, of course she has facial expressions. Duh.

If you scroll fast it’s kinda like a flip book.

Just so you know, we were hysterical at this point.

And why do we own so many stuffed animals you ask? For times like these obviously.

So even though I usually reserve Sundays for relaxing I got up at 7:30 and judged informative speeches, prose and something similar to dramatic interpretation until about 1. The prose stole the show by the way. I want those kids to tell me stories every day. I came home and Johnboy was relaxing in the living room with our pretty Christmas tree and some football and a soft kitten. I was so very tired what with the getting up early on Saturday and Sunday (did you know I ran a half marathon on Saturday?) and the busy finals-ish week I had before that…. JohnHenry notices this tiredness — maybe the flop on the floor queued him in — and he said, “I’ll take you to Earthfare to get a salad for lunch.”

I am an expert in grocery store salad bars people. As far as salad bars go Earthfare is just ok but it’s the only one in town (the travesty!) and they have a hot bar to accompany it… so I said yes, I would love some salad from the ok salad bar.

We said goodbye to kitten and headed out the door. Earthfare is probably a ten minute drive…. meaning we wouldn’t normally just jump in the car and go there unless we were already headed in that direction.

A holiday picture of kitten to break up all these words.

So I made a delicious looking salad with all the fixings. And we got edamame, mushroom salad and curried chicken salad from the hot bar. And I got Annie’s organic salad dressing. And we even got a pint of soup to bring home for dinner. We get in line to pay for said items and Barber says the most terrible five words ever. “I don’t have my wallet.” dun, dun, dun.

Thinking that I was being taken to lunch I didn’t have my wallet either. So there we were with lots of salad, two phones, a set of keys and no money. Not one cent.

I wish I could tell you something awesome happened — like they had pity and let us take our salads anyway. But no, the lady behind the counter was all responsible and took back our food and smiled at us awkwardly.

And then we left.

Moral: When a boy asks you if he can take you to lunch, always bring your wallet. This way you won’t have to go home and eat wilted spinach salads with weird onions that you found in your refrigerator.

The End.

But here we are with the last of it all rolled into one package.

1. jump rope // 2. a fun box // 3. a pink shirt // 4. all of our christmas tree ornaments (once we take the tree down) // 5. a criminal procedure supplement // 6. a contracts supplement // 7. a westlaw backpack // 8. the last barber beer // 9. cups // 10. a civil procedure supplement (forgot that number 10 there… whoops).

Despite the fact that I didn’t blog once a day in November, this whole giving process was pretty fun. I’m kinda ready to move on and talk about other things though… like Christmas and aprons and birthdays! Stay tuned.

♥ paint sample art and fort building ♥

♥ kittens and christmas tree and twinkly lights. ♥

♥ JohnChristmas’ very first real tree ♥

♥ homemade coconut granola and neon gap presents and thanksgiving game night with wine ♥

♥ leaning pumpkin spice cake and nana’s cheese ball and a thanksgiving feast ♥

♥ pretty lab puppies ♥

♥ the most beautiful mixer in all the world and a post thanksgiving birthday celebration ♥

♥ lots of catnaps ♥

♥♥ and a very pretty kitten ♥♥

♥ all of this, to really say, that we have a lot to be thankful for. we have a tiny apartment that’s lots of fun and great friends who took us to their homes for thanksgiving festivities. we’ve got 2 (or 3) weeks of school left and then a long trip home to see our own families for christmas festivities. we have lots of family and friends all over that we can call or visit at any time. we’ve got a ski trip planned and a birthday to celebrate. and really, it’s nice to have a holiday where we take a moment to appreciate and remember all of the things we have to be thankful for. ♥