Christmas Photo Shoot

I just finished my first Christmas photo shoot of the year and I honestly have to say that I am quite pleased with my work! My cousin asked me if I would take some pictures for her to put on a Christmas card and I gladly said yes.  I wasn't sure how make them pose so I turned to faithful Pinterest as always.  Pinterest always has great photo ideas. I had so much fun taking photos of this beautiful family that I'm just so lucky to be related to.  I can't wait for my next holiday shoots that I have lined up this month!  Here are a few of my favorite from this shoot:

Staying in Touch With Your Younger Self

I recently read an article online about getting older and one of the things that really caught my attention that it said was "staying in touch with your younger self."  This really got me thinking.

So I decided to pull out my old journals and just sit in my room by myself and read them.  My journals start back in 2009 when I was in middle school.  While reading each entry I felt like I was reliving each day.  It helped me vividly remember events that took place that I had forgotten about.

 I had so many memories rushing back.  I started to remember all the good times but with the good times came the bad too.  At one point I started crying.  I felt the same pain that I had once felt all over again except this time I knew everything was going to end up okay.

Another thing I learned after reading my journals is that the things that you think are the most important at the time end up being just minuet things and the most important things end up being right in front of your face the whole time.  I sadly came to the end of my entries only hoping that there would be more but unfortunately there wasn't.

My advice to not only young people but to everyone write down your thoughts, feelings and memories.  Whether they are good or bad so one day in the future you can go back and read them to remind yourself of the good times or show your self that the bad days do end and that life goes on!

Easy Fall Dessert Recipes

This fall I was looking for easy and cheap dessert recipes.  Here are two of my favorites that I found:

Apple Pie Baked Apples

Ingredients:

• 4 Green Apples
• 1 Apple Pie Filling
• 1 package of refrigerated roll out pie crust
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon

Step 1:

Preheat oven to 350

Step 2:

Cut the top of the apple off and then scoop out the middle of the apple ( I used a melon ball scoop)

Step 3:  

Use a pizza cutter to cut the pie crust into thin strips.

Step 4:

Mix the apple pie filling and cinnamon together then put the mixture into the apples

Step 5:

Weave the thin strips of pie crust along the top of the apple like a checkerboard.

Step 6:

Place the apples in the oven for 45 minutes

Pumpkin Pie Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 can of pumpkin (15 oz)
• 1 pkg JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding (3.4 oz)
• 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tub of Cool Whip, thawed (8 oz)

Step 1:

Mix pumpkin, dry pudding mix and spice in a bowl with a whisk until it is blended

Step 2:

Stir in the Cool Whip

Step 3:

Refrigerate 1 hour

I cut up fruit and graham crackers to dip with!

Hope you enjoy both recipes.  I know I sure did!

Update on Bieber

 In honor of his album's release Justin Bieber appeared on the Ellen Degeneres show everyday the week of the release for the first ever Bieber Week.  He sang, surprised fans, played games, talk about his past and future and ended the week with a huge concert on the back lot.

Justin Bieber's album Purpose is finally out and lets just say it did not disappoint.  The album includes 19 tracks featuring artist like Big Sean, Travis Scott and Halsey.  
 

Purpose has a completely different sound than Justin has ever put out before.  I was really surprised that there are a lot of slower songs on the album.  The album incorporates EDM ballads, R&B and dance music.  

This album really captures Justin's growth as an artist and as a human being as well.  His songs talk about the struggles with fame, battles with love and getting back up after falling.  

A quote from Kenneth Partridge in an article in the Billboard magazine sums the album up perfectly "New man, fresh perspective, music that pops:  That's where Purpose turns skeptics into born-again Beliebers." 

Along with the album Justin just released a 13-part video that features different dancers illustrating the album through artistic choreography.  The video opens up with a collage of Justin's biggest controversies and then goes into the first track on the album with following with the rest of the album.

 My personal favorite songs from the album include:

No Pressure

Love Yourself

Company

After the album was released Justin went on to announce his world tour!  It will begin March 9th and tickets are on sale now.   And you can bet your bottom dollar that I will absolutely be attending.  It is extremely hard for me to contain my excitement about Bieber being back on top and the fact that I will soon be graced with his presence!

 

If you aren't a Bieber fan, I strongly suggest that you get past the fact that it's Justin Bieber and actually give his music a chance.  You might be surprised!  His album is available on iTunes, Spotify and in stores. 

Getting a Musical Education

I happen to have an older friend that I met while working on a commercial a year ago.  She is 69 years old and yes I consider a friend.  I think it is important for younger people like myself to have older friends that can teach you valuable things that you can't learn anywhere else.  My friend has not only taught me a lot about the film world but life in general.  I have always been a history fanatic so just listening to her talk about her past is a treat all in itself.

Last night I had the pleasure of getting to spend some time with her.  She made me a beautiful dinner and we got to talking about everything going on in our lives at the moment.  Then we got on the topic of music.  She pulled out all of her old records and insisted on me becoming familiar with each artist.  We listen to music and drink wine for hours. 

The music she showed me was completely different than anything we have today.  A lot of it is instrumental but it is really beautiful and creative music.  Each artist has their own sound and truly are "artists."  She was hippie back in the day so she was enlightening me on music that a lot of people have never or will never hear.  This was such a fun night and she honestly has given me such a special gift by introducing me to all this music. 

Here are a few of the artists she happened to show me:

AL JARREAU

RICKIE LEE JONES

PHOEBE SNOW

JEFF BECK

JOHNNY MATHIS

STRATOSFEAR

HUMMINGBIRD

BOB JAMES

Element

I have some super exciting news.  So back in June of 2014  I had the pleasure of working on my very first full feature film.  My friend that I went to film school with, Alyssa Cawthon had gotten a job on it and needed an assistant.  She luckily thought of me.

  

Of course I accepted the job even though I wasn't getting paid I knew this was a great opportunity and could open doors for me and also help me get my foot and name into the film world. 

Cast and Crew

The movie is called "Element."  It is directed by Jon Keeyes and stars Paul Stuart, Steven Michael Quezada and Michael Ironside.  It is classified as a psychological thriller.  

I worked in the wardrobe department which I fell in love with.  My jobs included clothes, making returns, going shopping for costumes and whatever else needed to be done.  

The movie was a 16-day production.  We shot at locations all around Oklahoma City including the CityPlace building, Paramount Cafe, Mickey Mantle's and much more. 







The cast and crew worked so great together.  It was one of the best experiences I've had thus far in my film career.  

The exciting news is that they just released the trailer to the movie.  I'm really impressed with it and it looks like it turned out to be a pretty good movie.  It is really exciting to see all of it finally come together.  

The movie is about to make its festival run so fingers crossed that it excels.  I'm hoping I can get the chance to see it. 

Here is the Official Element Movie Trailer!

What I've Learned

 Hugs, Kisses & Snot

            For my blog adoption project I choose the blog titled Hugs, Kisses and Snot written by fellow Oklahoman, Stephanie Clinton.  She is 39 years old and describes herself as a “Stay at home mom, writer, community volunteer, doer of mom-things and a creative introvert with extrovert tendencies.”   I wanted to do mine over an Oklahoma woman blogger.  I searched and searched the Oklahoma Women Bloggers website until I found a few that I liked and Hugs, Kisses and Snot happened to be one of them.  I ended up picking this one because Stephanie was very quick to respond and willing to help me out which I very grateful for.  I think that is an important quality to have as a blogger too.  It’s very nice to have a blogger so interested in replying back to their fans in a timely manner.

Why She Blogs 

            Hugs, Kisses and Snot started in March 2011.  Stephanie started the blog after attending the Pioneer Woman book signing.  It made her think “I have interesting things to say, I have cute kids...I should start a blog!" So she did.  It started as a way for her to share what her family was up to, yummy food she prepared and fun crafts and DIY.  However, over the years it has evolved and includes humor essays on parenting, product reviews and thoughts on faith.    

Purpose of the Blog

The purpose of the blog is mostly an outlet for writing and sharing ideas on life, creativity, parenting and anything else that is important in her life at the moment.  She said that “Blogging has become more than a hobby and turned into a way for me to express myself. I hope to inspire other women to be creative and not take themselves so seriously. I would love it if women would read my blog and know that I was being real with them. That they could trust I was being honest about life and inspiring them to be honest as well. I would hope that after spending time on my blog they would know that life doesn't have to be Facebook perfect and that they are wonderful just the way they are.”

Statistics of the Blog

 The geographic location of the blog is Norman, OK.  When I asked Stephanie how many followers she had she replied with “Enough. I don't check stats very often so I'm not too concerned with how many followers I have.”  I also asked her if Hugs, Kisses and Snot makes money and she said that it makes a little but not enough to file taxes.  What makes this blog unique is that it is Stephanie’s own story and no one else can tell her story but her. 

Strengths and Weaknesses

The strengths of the blog is the honesty and humor in each post, the page setup is great and the fact that she post frequently.  I think her layout is very nice and simple but not too simple.  I really love the colors and designs she uses.  They look great together. I also really like the tabs at the top that she uses to organize her post into categories which makes it easier to find and navigate through all of them since she has so many.  I also think a strength of the blog is that the homepage has little synopsis of each recent post that you can read and can decided if you want to read that one or not.  I like this because you don’t have to scroll through the entire post to get to the next one.  I think the sidebar has a good amount of things on it and doesn’t look too junky.  I also like the fact that her contact information is easy to find and that her Instagram is connected to the blog.  The weaknesses of the blog well I couldn’t really find any besides the fact that I really don’t care for the blog title all that much.  Snot just sounds gross and unappealing.   I mean I understand what she was going for but just as personal preference I would not use the word snot in my title.  She however did say that her weakness is that she doesn’t spend a lot of time doing the things needed to grow a huge audience but she said that she isn’t overly concerned about the statistics anyways. Another weakness of her own is that she hasn’t learned how to analyze analytics yet.   

Stephanie's Thoughts

I asked her what are somethings that she doesn’t like about blogging are and she said “I hate it that bloggers feel that they have to have a niche in order to be successful. I don't want to be put in a box and forced to write about only one thing. I'm afraid I would get burnt out and run out of ideas if I had to pick just one topic to write about. I also don't like it when bloggers think this is a way to "get rich quick". There is no one way to make a lot of money blogging. It takes a lot of time and work and even then you have to constantly be thinking of the next thing that will bring in a paycheck. Plus, there is no guarantee that blogging will be a full time paycheck.”  She also mentioned that the biggest thing she has gained is online friends who have helped shape her as a blogger. Her advice to new bloggers is “Write about what inspires you. Find other bloggers that you can connect with. Having other bloggers who "get it" and can bounce ideas off of or ask technical questions is huge.”  

How the Blog Influenced Me

Hugs, Kisses and Snot has definitely influenced my blog and myself for the better.  Since my blog doesn’t really have a niche it was comforting to hear a successful blogger say that it’s okay not to have one and she is proof that you can still have a successful blog.  I don’t want to be put in a box to where I have write about certain things just like she mentioned.  I agree with the fact that inside the box will make someone get burnt out quicker and easier.  I really enjoyed doing this assignment and getting to know the ins and outs of blogging from a fellow blogger.  Stephanie had a lot of great advice.  I can’t wait to use what I have learned from her to make my blog better and make myself a better blogger as well.