Smoothie Update

I've been getting requests for my smoothie recipes on Instagram- definitely motivating me to update the daily green smoothie here on the blog. Seriously, though, I just kind of wing it depending on what's in our fridge, what may go bad soon, or how much time I have in the morning.

This morning happens to be Saturday, so I had plenty of time to not only sleep in, but make a fully packed smoothie, too. 

Today's Smoothie:

1.5 cups of the Tropical Frozen fruit mix from Costco (mangos, papayas, and pineapples, I believe)
3 fresh strawberries (from yesterday's farmer's market)
1 banana
Handfuls of spinach and kale (sorry, no real measurements today)
Small scoops of flax seed and chia seed
Teensy weeny amount of stevia for some extra sweetness

The tropical mix is all yellows and oranges, so it doesn't hide the green coloring like the berries do, but the flavors are excellent. We've found that our favorite smoothies usually have the tropical fruit mix as a base. Luckily we were able to look past the green coloring early on in our green smoothie explorations. :)

And on an unrelated note, we're trying out a new scratcher for the cat babies. Since we got them, Sawyer refuses to scratch on anything meant for cats. He'll only scratch on the couch, sigh. Jack, on the other hand, has scratched on every single thing we've gotten them, mostly because he's ridiculously smart and knows that's what we want him to do, so he'll do it every time we're looking to get some praise (and maybe a new hair tie). But he doesn't really love any of them.

While we were morally and aesthetically opposed to getting one of the carpeted stand-up things, we've run out of textures and types to try. And this one was cheap. So far so good- they've been lounging around it since it appeared in the living room this morning, though Sawyer still hasn't scratched on it that we can see. The thing's filled with catnip, which they love, so we've got high hopes he'll come around. (The catnip's also why Jack is staring off into space here. He's been lounging a little too long on the carpet...)

On the third day of spring break...

Yes, I am finally getting back around to blogging. Man, I wish I could blog more often. I hate not being able to look back and see what was going on. For the month of March, I had a whopping two posts! Two! Who the heck knows what we did in March of 2012 now?

Actually, I've come to realize that with Facebook and Twitter, I can easily tell what was going on, albeit in smaller increments. Too bad I can't just link everything into one feed! That would make life easy and keep the blogging guilt at bay.

So here's the haps for spring break:

I have four main goals this week. One, purge the house of stuff we don't need, and organize the stuff that stays. So far, I have done the bathroom cabinets (almost completely) and the spice rack and a few cabinets in the kitchen. Threw out an entire garbage bag of unnecessary junk yesterday, and it. felt. good. (Even though doing it at the time is painful- what if we did want the probably-long-expired bottle of nutmeg?) 

Second goal is to pad my portfolio with tons of stuff to show on my official, final interview next week. I'm excited to show off all the stuff I've been doing, and so nervous that I won't have enough time in the interview to get to show it off. :( I'm also going through all the lynda.com tutorials for Adobe Captivate, which is a presentation software that pretty much is like PowerPoint on steroids. You can actually create flash files that are interactive for the viewer. Love it! Totally want to make quizzes and tests with it! (Yes, I am a nerd.)

Third goal is to get us eating some good, healthy foods. Chris and I decided to try to start going casual vegan/vegetarian. Casual as in, we're laying off the meats and dairy, but not to the point that we're cutting out completely. As Chris notes, we both love Mexican food too much to cut out cheese. Milk, sure, but not the cheese. Unfortunately for this goal, we've been having either lunch or dinner with friends the last three days, so I haven't been able to actually put any recipes to use. Hopefully today I'll make a trip over to Sprouts for some quinoa. I'm also trying to only buy what we need as we need it (even if it means more trips to the store), because we throw a lot of produce away before we get to it. And this makes me sad. I threw out an entire head of broccoli yesterday; we hadn't chopped off one little stalk. :( Sprouts is right down the street anyway, so it's not too big of a deal. So we're pretty psyched about eating healthier and cutting out the junk that's in processed foods. 

Fourth goal is editing. I've got a spring portrait session with our favorite (five-year-old) client Adalyn and her baby sister, then a six month shoot from the Santone twins! Super cute shots for both, and I'm excited to get to that part of my week.

So those are my goals! I can't believe it's already Wednesday though. Why do breaks go by so fast? If this were a regular week it would be dragging on. I would be saying, "Geez, it's only Wednesday," instead of, "Ah! It's already Wednesday! I'm running out of time!" I was kind of freaking out on Monday with all the stuff I had to do, so I decided to make smaller daily lists to check off, too, which has helped.

Today's list:

Finish the bathroom organization

Organize the office (specifically my craft space)

Update the blog (check!)

Decide on a recipe for dinner tonight

Go to Sprouts (get a 69 cent coke on the way)

Finish our voter registration cards (we hadn't re-registered after we moved)

Watch two more chapters of the lynda Captivate videos

Vaccuum bathroom (per Chris' request)

Do Chris' laundry (per Chris' request)

Make my daily green smoothie (and check again!)

Let's talk about the smoothie thing. We've been doing green smoothies for awhile around here, and I'm super lucky that Chris got me the Ninja blender for finishing my credential program. That thing is amazing! I read somewhere that daily green smoothies can do wonders for energy, not to mention you get about six servings of fruits and vegetables from one smoothie (and even more, depending on what you put in it). 

Today I kept things simple:

1 cup of strawberries

1 banana

3 cups of spinach

2 cups of kale

I was trying to really pack the greens in there, as you can see from the photo. Spinach and kale are perfect for this, because they really don't have any taste, whereas strawberries and bananas are perfect in the opposite way for masking out any other flavors. I was also trying to make a Jordan-sized smoothie, not a Chris-and-Jordan-and-some-extra sized smoothie, but I got a little more than I bargained for with this one, about one and a half full glasses. Took a while to drink the whole thing. 

And we can't have a post without these little stinkers. They had just finished up their breakfast and were waiting for me to toss a hair tie out in the hall for them to chase. They have quite a routine in the morning.

April the third

Well, my pictures uploaded backwards, so we'll start with the end of the day! Chris and I met his co-worker Jasmine for appetizer and drinks at the Riviera. We talked photography, work, and tater tots.

Earlier that day, I went to Bed Bath and Beyond to finally load up on some much-needed spice containers. Our cabinet had become filled with little bags of spices from Sprouts that had no permanent home. (And I still had a bunch of 20 percent coupons to spare, as you can see.)

I also got rid of tons of old spices we had. I hear spices are bad after like six months, and I'm sure most of the spices we had in there were at least 3 years old. I won't ever buy in bulk again, unless the jar it comes in is super cute. (Like the organics brand at Sprouts. Love those glasses.)

Got a new pair of sunglasses. I apparently left mine in the abandoned field near Courtney and David's house last night. Sigh. I totally broke the 'No Dumping' rule!

And to start off the morning, we had Jack's wake up call. It's hard to escape it.

And there we have it: April 3rd in reverse!

Photographers Shooting Photographers

These are our friends Courtney and David Matranga of Day Photography & Co. We like hanging out with them. On Monday night we went to their place for a delightful dinner and some quality time, but before we went out to this abandoned field near their house in Lakeside and took turns photographing each other. Surprisingly, I think Courtney and I found it weirder to be back in front of the camera than our guys did. Chris and David seemed to jump right into the fun poses and nose nuzzles, while I felt a bit odd (and I think Courtney did, too) trying to be cutesy for the camera. It's been awhile since we haven't been the ones wielding the cameras, and it's definitely funny to hear someone directing you with the same stuff you're constantly telling people: "Brush your hair out of your eyes." "Tilt your chin down a bit." "Look up at him even though you can't really see him." Etc. 

Anyway, it was super fun. I was excited to download the snaps we got and start editing them a bit, and I'm also excited to see what they got of us. Fellow photographer friends are awesome!

Before our shoot, I took some time to dye a dozen eggs, thinking we could use them as props. We only kind of did, so it was a bit of a waste of eggs. But it was fun all the same.

Mmmmmmmm... not the same kind of egg, but even better.

Rainy Sunday.

I don't know what it was about today, but as I lay in bed here, trying to get sleepy enough to actually go to sleep, I just feel like it was so wonderful.

Chris and I stayed in bed until noon, sleeping and cuddling, kicking the cats out for getting wild, then letting them back in when they started mewing pathetically outside the door.

Eating two meals at our kitchen table, instead of in the office over work. First was lunch, where Chris made us giant sandwiches, and second was a collaborative effort for dinner, where Chris made egg drop soup and I steamed some asparagus stir fry.

Getting a bag of veggies and fruits from Sprouts and planning out the week's meals. Thai chicken lemon soup is something we're looking forward to...

The smell of the crockpot cooking chicken for the week.

Enjoying rain from the comfort of our home. Holing up in the office with our space heater while the rest of the house froze. Being delighted with the sound of sporadic hail throughout the day. (Waking up suddenly at 3am to the deafening sound and trying to figure out why we could only hear it on one side of our house; it was beating sideways against our sliding glass door in the living room and sounded like we lived under a waterfall.)

Working alongside Chris in the office. Paying off a big chunk of our car payment and getting rid of other bills. Talking about our next vacation. Giggling and kissing whenever he said something funny.

Watching him edit a maternity shoot with so much love. Seriously. He loves his job as a photographer.

Getting an email from a potential wedding client that she wanted Next to Me Studios and was so bummed we were already booked on her wedding date.

This is our little life. Sometimes it's nice to have those sweet little stuck-at-home days to really remember how awesome it is.

March the second

Today was ridiculously productive. Somehow having a good four hour chunk of time, along with four backed up episodes of Grey's Anatomy on sidereal does wonders for productivity. I finished most of the most recent book interior I've been working on for awhile. With the completion of my research paper last night, that's two of my big projects done. Woo-hoo! And my next big projects are photo editing families, which is just so much more fun than research papers and book design.

Since Chris worked late tonight, I even managed to get to some much needed chores. The kitchen is once again clean and the sink is clear. Our floor is vacuumed. I've got more clean clothes than I had at the start of the day. It's good to clean.

Another big productive thing that happened today was that I finally figured out where all the hair ties I give Jack end up going. Jack loves hair ties. He will amuse himself for hours with a single one. But inevitably, he loses them, within 24 hours. It had gotten to the point where I had to go buy new packs at Target because I no longer had any for myself. So he had gone through three in the last day alone, so I began searching again, even though I've looked in every nook and cranny of our little condo already. They're really aren't many places these things could go. I was searching behind the TV stand, in all the cords from the TV, DVD player, Wii, etc., and I noticed, in the glass of the stand, the reflection of black and brown circles. Jackpot. It still took me a bit of time to figure out where the reflection was reflecting from, and after moving some of the consoles on the bottom shelf, I finally found them. They'd been sliding under the glass and getting stuck under the stand. So glad to finally have that mystery taken care of. And Jack was overjoyed to have ten hair ties all at once. Though he's probably got them all stuck under there again.

Here's the whole setup. Can you spot the hidden hair ties? ;)

Photography blog and branding update!

The latest blog post for our little photography studio is up tonight. This one was the most adorable family shoot, where I walked away in love with three little boys. True story. They were so adorable. Check them out, along with the rest of the fam, at our photography blog. 

In other news, we're making progress to getting our new website and brand down! Cody sent us our first sneak peeks last night (right in the middle of our watching Monday night's How I Met Your Mother- I saw the tweet and then had to keep my mouth shut for the last ten minutes so we could get through the rest of the episode!) We are so excited about the looks Cody's got going for us. I can't wait for us to get our brand spanking new, professional and design-y website and blog going!

We discussed branding with Ben & Jerry, of course.

And this is us (and Sawyer, who wanted to be in on the snugglefest) being so stinking excited about the new look!