use real butter

Recipe: alfajores macarons

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have a group of people who are willing to work hard together. On Friday I met with a group of ladies for a bridal shoot. No, I am not a wedding photographer AT ALL, and here I was teaching a couple of friends about shooting weddings! We had a lovely bride-to-be who was willing to drive up to Boulder and don her beautiful new dress and sit in the dirt and dry, prickly weeds for our shoot in the hot sun and blowing dust.

who wouldn’t marry this woman?

it’s all about the accessories

Lynn was a dream to work with: cooperative, patient, very sweet, and she looked awesome. Beth and Erin were terrific assistants and when it came time for each of them to shoot, they each did a great job. Considering we were shooting at the worst time of day, it went really well and Lynn loved the photos.

in the grasses

beth and erin resting in the shade of my car after a long and hot shoot

And now fall is really here! There were plenty of leaf peepers around the mountains today. I’m glad to see that so many people enjoy the fall colors although I’ll be happy when they are out of my frame while I am shooting during the week :)

hint of reds

still lots of green aspen

There is snow in our forecast for the next several days, which I’m quite excited about. It’s not even technically autumn yet. I used to associate fall with the start of a sports season – whatever sport I was playing (field hockey or volleyball). These days my thoughts immediately turn to the fall shoot, fall hikes, snow, and… ski season :) I also find my cooking mojo kicking into gear once more now that it’s cool enough to turn on the stove or oven. That has me thinking about apples, pomegranates, persimmons, roasting vegetables, hot spiced drinks, crock pot recipes… and a GIVEAWAY! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? That’s because I couldn’t decide on what to give away. That is, until I got one of these:

a 16Gb ipod nano

It came with my new laptop, but Jeremy and I both have iphones, so we were like, “We don’t need the nano.” The lady at the Apple store said it was free, so I said, “I’ll take the nano.” But I’m not keen on keeping stuff that I don’t need and I figured it would make a great prize for someone who would like to have 16 gigs worth of music, podcasts, and other aural stimuli in a shiny, black device as big as a business card. It’s brand-spanking-new, slick, and comes in its own Apple Sleeping Beauty clear faux-glass (plastic) case. How ’bout that?! So how can you make this little pal your own?

The Rules: To enter, leave a comment on THIS post telling me what is quintessential autumn for you! Please, no novels. One entry/comment per person. Multiple comments by the same author will result in disqualification and deletion. You have until midnight (MST), Sunday, September 27th, to enter. The winner will be chosen at random (method was officially approved by resident astrophysicist) in San Francisco and announced on Monday, the 28th of September. I will ship anywhere in the world. Good luck!

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: candied lemon slices

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Despite being insanely busy and turning down a lot of fun, exciting opportunities and events this month (only because I’m doing a ton of other fun, exciting things already!), I promised myself that I would participate in Barbara‘s annual LiveSTRONG: With a Taste of Yellow event. This is important to me, not because I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, but because I know a lot of people who had or have cancer. I have lost beautiful friends and family to cancer. And just last night, I learned that someone who saved my life is fighting for his own right now – fighting cancer. Barbara holds this food and wine blogging event each year in support of The Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise cancer awareness around the world. Last year was the first time I participated.



So if you want to participate there is still time (Barbara has extended the submission date to September 18th). Whip up something yellow – be it savory or sweet, and hop over to Barbara’s page for instructions on how to be a part of LiveSTRONG: With a Taste of Yellow. My submission is past the jump.

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I’m in the middle of the “getting to know you” period with my new camera. I haven’t taken it out for serious shooting yet, but I have managed to screw around a bit. Of course, the inaugural photo had to be Kaweah.

our sleep olympian hard at work on her exhausting training regimen

But you didn’t see the first few captures because I always shoot in RAW and my software was not compatible (i.e. it’s OLD) with the latest Adobe RAW version. After yet another upgrade (phase 4 now complete), we are now cooking with gas! I jumped from CS2 to CS4 (sorry CS3, never knew ya) and I like it so far… as long as it doesn’t require a desktop upgrade because we have all of $.52 to our names now.

the last of the harebells

the local stands are still predominantly green

Our nights are flirting with frosts again and it is starting to smell like autumn. I have apples on the brain too! Okay, but we have just under two weeks left of summer, so let’s not shortchange anyone.

organic lemon

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: mojitos

I thought we had escaped this year. We didn’t have a single hummingbird crash and burn on our deck (that we knew of) this spring. The frequency of accidents goes way up in May/June, but this year was accident-free… Then this week, we had 2 hummingbirds brain themselves on our windows within a 24 hour span. I hate to say this, but I am now rather practiced at reviving little birds – especially the hummingbirds. Yesterday’s hummingbird was the tiniest and worst off to date. I honestly didn’t think he’d make it.

not feeling so good

This little guy didn’t show many of the signs the other hummingbirds exhibit as they begin to recover. Usually they open their eyes after a little bit, start to open their beaks and taste the air with their tongues, sort their wings, look around. This guy just breathed rapidly with eyes shut and feathers in disarray for an hour. I mixed some sugar water (ratio: 1 part sugar to 4 parts water – and for the love of all that is good and sensible, DON’T feed them Splenda or any other fake sugar – hummingbirds need the real deal!) and held it up so his beak would dip into it. Ten minutes went by and nothing. Then I saw the feathers on his throat vibrate and noticed he was drinking! A few minutes after that he opened his eyes and watched me as he drank. Without any warning, he slowly levitated above the deck and zipped off to a nearby tree where he flitted from one branch to another until he flew away. Kinda made my heart fly too.

Now it is full steam ahead! Phases 2 and 3 of the upgrade will be complete this week. If I weren’t so busy, I’d be giddy.

i named them butter and sugar

huge ass L-plate

When last I hosted a stitch-n-bitch, Kitt offered to bring up mojito fixins. I had my first mojito just a few months ago and I’m not much of a boozer, but it sounds like the perfect summer cocktail to enjoy with friends, doesn’t it? Sure! Kitt’s mojitos were a total hit. I was so distracted hostessing that I completely forgot to actually try one. So when we had friends over this week, I hit Kitt up for her awesome recipe, which she ever so sweetly emailed to me.

basic greens: mint and lime

**Jump for more butter**