Happy Hour

Today's photos are courtesy of Todd. I worked all day on work stuff and then my getting-the-store-ready stuff, so I didn't do much else exciting, LOL. Thank goodness Todd covered for me and took some pics, plus he handed the camera to someone else, who took photos for him too.

Todd's coworker Jay is leaving the company, so they had a happy hour for him tonight after work.

The views and atmosphere seemed gorgeous. I'm kinda jealous that Todd got to go to this type of event! :p







Todd the social butterfly.


The Man-of-the-Hour Jay. Looks like he got some gifts.


I waited patiently at home for Todd to bring some dinner home. Turns out he went to Brett's BBQ. We shared a sandwich and some sweet potato fries. Todd loves that place. A LOT. While waiting for his take-out food, Todd saw a band playing next door.


This was it for today. I will be a much more interesting person when I finish the work for my store opening, LOL. If I haven't commented on your blog as much, that is the reason why. I hope to be back to reading and commenting on your blogs soon. You know who you are.

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Digi Dares + Free Template + My Sweet Hubby

It is Thursday night, which means another Digi Dares for this week!  Digi Dares #152 is the brainchild of Sandra (Chengie).  I love her artistic & expressive style.  I can't do it very well, but I admire hers a lot!  Come join us this week as we scrap about "Yes" or "No".  Please go to the Digi Dares site for more details.  Layouts are due next Thursday 10/29 by 11:59PM Eastern time.

Here's my layout for this week's Dare.

Full credits are at the Digi Dare site.

I made a template for myself to scrap the Dare. I didn't include the smaller photos, just one big photo.

Feel free to download it here at Box.net.  Thanks for your comments!

Notice the listgirldesigns.com website?  That will be my store when it opens on Nov. 1st!  If you want to get the scoop on the grand-opening, including an exclusive coupon for newsletter subscribers, you can subscribe to the Listgirl Designs newsletter HERE! Ongoing, the newsletter will have new products and sales announcements, coupons, freebies, etc. So look for it in your inbox on Nov. 1st!

Today's photo is of my sweet husband Todd. I thought he had a meeting and couldn't be home for dinner, but I came home and he was here, cooking one of my favorite soups, Coconut-Curry Chicken Soup! It is SO good and only 315 calories per serving!





What a surprise! I appreciate Todd so much, for all that he does for me. I'm truly blessed and I try to remember that every day. :)

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Calorie Counting

Last week and this week I have been using the Daily Plate @ Livestrong.com to track my calories again.  I want to lose the extra weight that I've gained since my mom died in early 2007.  My healthful eating got totally derailed during our three-month kitchen remodel.  Eating out every day packed on the calories and weight for me.  At the end of the remodel in July, I weighed 129 lbs.  Surprisingly, I ran the Rock N Roll Seattle Half Marathon (13.1 miles) at the end of June with no problems.

Since July, I've lost about 4 lbs.  I am at 125 lbs now.  It's not fast weight-loss by any means, but I've only been seriously counting calories for 10 days.  This week I'm doing really well with exercising everyday and eating less.  Tonight Todd went to Socrates Cafe philosophy club, so I made myself a shrimp avocado quesadilla.



I think one of the huge benefits of cooking at home is that you know exactly what goes into your food.

Mission Tortilla (medium - 2 qty): 300 calories (Yes, I'm surprised at how caloric tortillas are. It's not even like it's dense bread!)
Medium shrimp (4 oz): 70 calories
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (1.5 tbsp): 180 calories (I probably should have used a cooking spray instead to save the calories. Oil sure is caloric!)
Mild Cheddar Cheese (1/4 cup shredded): 120 calories
Medium avocado (2/5 of one): 100 calories
Thomas Kemper Low Cal Root Beer: 20 calories

A 790 calorie dinner. Not too good, but I only ate 500 calories the rest of the day, so still okay. And I ran two miles and burned about 200 calories.

I hope to fit into my older, skinnier jeans in a couple of months. I love that most of the Cooking Light recipes (that's all we cook nowadays) are in Daily Plate. So I just do a search for the name of the recipe and then tell it how much of it I ate, and it just knows how many calories. Anyone else use The Daily Plate? What has been your experience with it?

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The Social Organizer

Yes, that is me. Todd, the social planner. I try to get people together. I'm not really much for party or event planning. I just assume that if people are together and fed they will have fun. So if I ever invite you to something, don't expect themed decorations and party favors and all those nice things. But I will get you together. And you can expect more food than you can eat and hopefully a few folks who will make you laugh. I was out of the office for Boss' Day. And nothing happened in my little work area. Most IT people are not social organizers like me. But now that I'm back I've planned something for my boss who I very much enjoy working for. It's a little late but hey, that's normal for IT people right? Another IT guy is moving on to another company. I would have planned something but someone beat me to it. Good on that someone. Tomorrow (Weds) night is Socrates Cafe night (today by the time most of you read this). I am always inviting folks to this but few have come. Anyone in San Diego interested? Details are here. It's not overly intellectual or intimidating. Just fun times discussing interesting perspectives. The meeting is on Adams Avenue in Normal Heights. There are plenty of great cookies and such in the nearby area if you are so inclined. We're going to talk about the ideal role of the news media in society. Can't wait! Partly as a result of my social organizing, I am going to have little free time in the next week. When am I going to ever work on my songwriting? Tonight: San Diego Java Users' Group meeting Wednesday: Socrates Cafe - seriously, you local folks should come out! Thursday: Happy Hour for departing colleague Thursday and/or Friday: lunch with friends Sunday: Afternoon plans with friends Monday: Boss' Day lunch I also sent out 3 separate emails to groups of friends to plan a lunch or dinner today. In the last week I sent out 3 others to different friends. That should extend the above list nicely. Yay to more social plans coming together! Too bad about the songwriting though. Maybe Saturday I'll sneak some in between football games. I'm afraid I have broken my promise to bring exciting photos this week. Luckily Listgirl has given you plenty the last couple of days. She covers my butt again! I did get a free book at the technical meeting I attended tonight. And what's a developer's gathering without a little ambrosia

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Confessions of a Photo Processor

I've received some questions about what camera I use, and also if I process my photos before uploading to my blog.  So I decided today was a good day to show you what I use and what I do.

Most of my photos are taken with this Canon SD850 IS.


It is really small and fits into my purse/pocket. This is the only way I could do Project 365. It's important to me that I have a small, all-purpose camera that I can use every day to capture the moments. Would I like to have a DSLR? Of course. But it's pricey, and I can't bring it everywhere with me. So that is on the list for "someday". I am a firm believer that you do not need to have a DSLR to take great photos. Really great photographers can make disposable or cell phone camera photos look fantastic. Also, the best camera for me is the one that I use the most often, so that's my little Canon.

I do process my photos in Lightroom before posting to my blog. Lightroom makes it incredibly easy. I set it up so that when my photos are imported into Lightroom, they are automatically run through an Auto Fix preset (free) by Matt Kloskowski at Lightroom Killer Tips. On photos with good color and exposure, I don't really need to do anything else. For certain corrections, I will play with the Lightroom development sliders to make the photo pop. I will show you a couple of examples.

This foliage photo is SOOC (straight out of camera) with no processing.


This is after a few quick tweeks in Lightroom.


So what did I do to it? Here's a comparison of the sliders in Lightroom.


When photos come into Lightroom, all the sliders are set to zero, which means no adjustments. Since I set up my photo import to automatically run Matt K's Auto-Fix preset, the sliders move. Then if I want further adjustments, I slide the Exposure button or the Contrast button a little bit.  Sometimes I play with the Recovery, Fill Light, and Blacks buttons too. 

This photo of Todd is SOOC.


With a few adjustments in Lightroom.

Even more handsome than before! :p

And here are the settings for the before and after.


Not everyone likes to sharpen their photos this much.  So use the contrast slider at your discretion.

Sometimes a photo will require some color / white balance adjustments due to lighting.  This was the SOOC photo of my camera at the beginning of the post.


Notice the yellow hues? When I take photos in my kitchen, such as photos of all the food we cook, the lighting casts a yellow hue on all the photos. Looking at the sliders, can you see the adjustment for white balance?


I moved the Temperature slider towards the blue a little bit, in order to get rid of the yellow hues in the photo.  And since any photos I take in the kitchen end up like this, I made myself a preset called "Kitchen Lighting Correction", which automatically adjusts the white balance to take out the yellow lighting.

In summary, processing photos in Lightroom is a quick way to sharpen up the photo and make the colors pop a little more.  I love it and use it everyday.  It saves me a ton of time, since I am processing photos everyday for Project 365.  Now you know all my photo processing secrets!  :)

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