Photo of the week: January 31, 2012

Exposure - 1/60

Aperture - f/5.0

Focal Length - 55 mm

Getting closer by the day to seeing actual daylight when I'm home. The sun isn't up all the way when I leave for work and it's sinking in the sky when I get home. Soon we shall meet again.

Snowmen cupcakes

These photos are actually a few weeks old, but I found them earlier this morning and couldn't remember why I never shared them. My office had a casual Friday pizza party a few weeks ago, which meant I had an open invitation to bring in a baked good.

Of course that meant I would jab sprinkles into marshmallows with a pointed toothpick and call it cute!

I made just simple chocolate cupcakes and topped them with vanilla frosting. I thought butter cream frosting topped with marshmallows would make the cupcakes too filling. I know, the horror!

For the snowmen (or snowpeople) I used 1.5 large marshmallows. The whole marshmallow was the base block and I squished the half of marshmallow to make that into the top block. To "glue" the blocks together I spread a bit of frosting between the pieces.

For eyes and mouth I used three sprinkles. I put a bit of frosting in a large spoon and dumped some sprinkles into an empty soy sauce dish. I dabbed a toothpick with a bit of frosting from the spoon and then picked up the individual sprinkles I needed. I very simply jabbed the sprinkles into the marshmallow. It was really funny to see how different the facial expressions were on the snowmen based on how far in the sprinkles went into the marshmallow. Small and beady eyes came off as angry snowmen. Large eyes came off as happy snowmen.

The funniest part was having the hubs walk by and witness my marshmallow assult. He just looked at me jabbing poor and defenseless marshmallows and muttered, "you have serious issues."

If I didn't start this project at 9 o'clock at night I would have added Twizzler pieces for a scarves and covered espresso beans with chocolate to make hats. I'm saving that idea for next time :)

My public plea to Santa paid off! My aunt bought me a cupcake container for Christmas, which is amazing. I seriously don't know how I've transported so many cupcakes in the past without ruining them. These snowmen cupcakes are so tall that they never would have fit in my normal brownie container.

Hopefully you can make some snowmen cupcakes if it actually does snow in your neck of the woods. It felt like 60 degrees this weekend in Baltimore, which means we're just dreaming of a winter wonderland here.

Are you sure they're the same breed?

I honestly do not understand how two dogs of the same breed could be any more different.

Exhibit A: What I was trying to do the other day in my photo of the week submission.

The happiest pooch you'll ever meet when there's snow on ground. Actually, the happiest pooch you'll ever meet if there's snow, rain, sun, wind, acorns, squirrels, and/or butterflies around. He's not a fan of cats though for the simple reason he doesn't know what to do with them. Loves to give kids puppy kisses, but he's really trying to lick the dried ice cream off their faces.

Exhibit B:

The angriest dog in the world when it comes to any natural elements besides sun. Snow is her absolute least favorite thing in the world, only second to cute babies. Those little mini humans steal her thunder and she's not cool with it. She'd definitely eat one if given the chance.

At least she looks adorable in her little hoondstooth jacket. Thank you Martha Stewart! That bad boy fits her perfectly and the hubs and I have picked up more than one in different colors for Jewels. If you're near a Pet Smart and see one in a size small, please let me know!

What's old is new again

Inexplicably, I've wanted a pair of black leather pants my whole life. There is no rationalization for it or any semblance of rhyme or reason. Whenever Anh, from 9 to 5 Chic, wears her leather Balenciaga leggings I feel the need to drop some serious dough on a pair of leather pants. I either need to start selling things on the black market (like what I have no idea) or pick up a side job to pay for all the things I want to put in my closet.

However, reality usually sits in. I think to myself, "where the heck are you going to that you'll wear leather pants? Do you realize you hate your thighs and leather pants will highlight those bad boys?"

Darn.

Of course, I then recall the episode of Friends where Ross gets stuck in his leather pants. Hehe! I just get giddy and realize there's no way in heck I'll ever own leather pants.

Last week I joined some friends at a Stella and Dot trunk show hosted by my dear friend Miss M over at District Sparkle. The show was held at Second Affair Consignments store in Dupont Circle (a future post on that it coming). While oogling all things sparkly and shiny two black skirts caught my eye. The one was a very simple velvet ballet type skirt on sale for $2.50 even though it still had the tags on it. The other was tagless, but was a leather skirt that looked about my size.

So I snatched that bad boy up and made my over to the dressing room. Sure enough, it fit. Even better... it was only $25. I walked out of that store with both skirts. Honestly, who doesn't need two more black skirts in their closet?

Um, yes please!

Yesterday I had to drive to work and decided since I wouldn't be spending much time outside it was the perfect day to rock my new leather skirt.

Blouse - Express. Seriously, I've had it since high school or college, so it's super old.

Skirt - Vintage

Shoes - Cole Haan. Scored for $50 at Rue La La.

The greatest thing about this skirt, beside of course that it's leather? The sucker fits me perfectly. It tapers at my waist and has enough room for my big ol' soccer butt.

The only foreseen problem with such a cool skirt is that I can't wear it all the time. That's the tough part of statement pieces. They lose their unique value if they're worn over and over again.

Anyone own leather pants? Leather skirt? Leather dress? Or do you stick to leather handbags and purses?

Photo of the week: January 24, 2012

A hint of snow descended on the Baltimore region over the weekend. Even better is the fact that there is still a bit of the white stuff lingering around. It appears I purchased my new Hunter Boots at the right time because they are getting a serious workout this winter.

Ugh, I woke up this morning and all the snow is gone! Stupid rain.

Photo of the week: January 17, 2012

I was enamored last week with this article I read on the Digital Photography School titled, "How to Use Zoom Blur to Add Action In Your Photos."

Sunday morning I found myself over at M&T Bank Stadium for the Raven's playoff game. I hope to post more pictures tomorrow, but for now here's my photo of the week where I was messing around with my camera in the fourth quarter while freezing my bum off!

I took a few other pictures with slower shutter speeds, but was focusing on the players as they lined up over center. I quickened my shutter speed up to 1/50 for the photo above. In hindsight, I wish I would have kept it slower around 1/20. I think that was a nice amount of blur, but focusing in on the large Ravens field graphic would have worked better than focusing on the players.

(1/50 above)

(1/20 above)

How about you? Have you played around with your zoom while taking a picture? On purpose? Any suggestions?

The difference between men and women

Way back in early September the hubs was getting ready to begin one of his fantasy football drafts. Unfortunately, this was a draft with real live people and not random strangers on the internet. One of the dudes couldn't join in at the last minute and the guys were about to lose their draft time slot if they didn't have someone else join their league.

Enter: hubs' red head and tom-boy wife, who has never played any type of fantasy sport.

I won't go into details of how the hubs was guiding me through my draft choices and he said, "no, don't take that guy." Then, he proceeded to take that guy .2 seconds after I picked someone else.

All is fair in love and fantasy sports it seems.

Flash forward 14 weeks and I beat my own hubs in order to secure the fourth and final spot in the playoffs. The hubs didn't even make the playoffs :)

First week of the playoffs I take on the #1 seed, who just happens to be my brother-in-law. Yeah, I squeak out a nail biter and beat him by 1.28 points. There was some play in which a penalty that is never called on a field goal was called and the team received five yards and later drove down the field to score a touchdown, which took points away from the kicker, but gave me the victory.

Weird stuff like that happened.

Then, the during the final days of the championship week I ask the hubs, "do I get anything if I win this thing?"

"Yeah,, $160."

Buddy, that changes everything! That's some serious coinage for my shoe budget!

In a very odd twist of fate, I had to play my own brother, my ginger blood, in the championship. He actually beat me, until I checked a few days later and there was a stat correction and it turns out I beat him by .44 points. Yeah, it was absolutely ridiculous.

At the end of the season, I was the only girl in the league and I took down all the boys.

Not too shabby.

Now what did I do with my winnings? I bought a pair of Hunter Boots! I've wanted a pair for years, but could never stomach the $125 price tag. So two years ago I bought a pair of $25 rain boots from Target and called it a day. Yeah, they sprung a leak after a season and then when I kept wearing them it looked like I wasn't even wearing rain boots on my one leg.

I figured it was probably time to join the big leagues and buy a proper pair of rain boots. I've read the reviews and these bad boys tend to last for much longer than a season. If I can get a few years out of them, then they were definitely worth the investment.

But let's be honest, I don't pay full price for things. Neiman Marcus, of all places, slashed the price on select colors to $80 last week. I called customer service to ensure they were the Original Tall Gloss and once confirmed I placed my order.

Just in the nick of time too! It's been raining all day and the rain is forecasted to continue for the rest of the week.

Dress - Banana Republic

Cardigan - J. Crew

Tights - Target

Boots - Hunter

So really the moral of this story is: Guys, if you invite a lady to join your sports league or whatever and there is money on the line, I suggest you don't get upset when you find out her winnings went towards shoes and not beer. Sure, I only spent half my winnings, so I'm definitely up for buying a round or two at the next happy hour with the guys, but if it's raining I'm definitely wearing my boots and showing them off to the guys.

As the hubs said, "they're the best looking rubber boots I've ever seen."

He was being sarcastic of course!