WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back to some more ERB love.

One of the first things Karen told me about when we were dating was her family's "Snow Breakfast." When she first mentioned this Mikols family phenomenon, I was scratching my head. Did their whole family sit around and eat snow and snow-related products? Did they eat things out of the freezer and call it snow? I was confused.

Luckily, Karen straightened me out. The "Snow Breakfast" was a family contest dating back more than a decade. The Mikols' family members (or those married into the Mikols family ... meaning Chris Laws, Robin's husband, and myself) get together in the fall and attempt to guess the first day it will snow in Wichita.

Long story short — The Notorious ERB (me) was the first individual not named Mikols to win the "Snow Breakfast" trophy when two independent sources confirmed snow on the east side of Wichita on Friday, Nov. 28. Now, the trophy will be prominently displayed at our abode in Salina. YES!!!!!!!!!!!

It feels good to be a part of the family. :-)

NOW you can start with the Christmas stuff

It's IRRITATING as heck that the radio stations have been playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Seriously.

Even Lowe's had Christmas trees IN the store BEFORE Halloween.

Out of control.

Anyhow, I'm learning how to use my new camera, so here's the first video I took with it. :-)

This gave me a giggle ...

... and since I'm violently opposed to forwarding e-mails, I'll just post it here, because it's freakin' hysterical, as well as being in the spirit of the season.


The Parrot

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad
attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth
was rude, obnoxious, and laced with profanity.

John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying
only polite words, playing soft music, and anything else he could think of
to "clean up" the bird's vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up, and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled
back. John shook the parrot, and the parrot got angrier and even more rude.
John, in desperation, threw up his hand; grabbed the bird; and put him in
the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed.

Suddenly, there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.
Fearing he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer.

The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms.... and said,
"I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm
sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend
to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."

John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to
ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the
bird continued, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

HAPPY EARLY THANKSGIVING

Mental meltdown

Our Christmas ordering deadline was Sunday ... my brain is mentally on our honeymoon ... especially since my awesome hubsby gave me my Christmas gift early .... so I can learn how to use it before we head to the beach!


I'm excited to test out the camera over what I know will be an awesome Thanksgiving!

Crossover — I hate you/you suck

Yeah, nice words, eh?

But truly, if you hear Mike and I looking over images at a wedding, trying to put a quick slideshow together, you'll hear a full-blown chorus of "I hate you" from Mike to me when he sees my images and "you suck" from me to he when I look at what he's produced throughout the day. But don't fret ... it's totally in the spirit of healthy competition. And we thrive on trying to out-do the other. ;-)


So ... to view what we're talking about, cruise on over to Heartland's blog by CLICKING HERE.

Oh, but there's not ALL hatred. ;-) I did MIke and Angie's pregnancy portraits last night. Because we want a wedding to have a few days at the top of the blog, I can't post them yet, but I'm DYING to .... so here's a quick preview of hottie hottie Angie


And of their "fur baby" Harley ... who will almost certainly have jealousy issues once baby Maddie arrives!

I OWN you, brownies in a box!

Well, after my first (and admittedly disasterous) attempt to make brownies from the box (you can read about it HERE), I have SUCCEEDED!

While killing time before some baby portraits, I was rummaging through mom and dad's pantry. I found the double chocolate Ghiradelli brownie mix. OH BOY! (I'm in Wichita doing portrait/photo stuff this weekend, but have had a LOT of down time).


I carefully read the box, and assembled the ingredients, INCLUDING EGGS (this was my downfall last time).

Being of the Mikols family tree, I couldn't just make brownies from a box. I had to jazz them up a bit. ;-) How does one do that? By adding a cup of dried crasins, of course! Because what could be better than chocolate + crasins? I can't think of ANYTHING!


YUMMIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and the *best part* of this whole recipe is that mom said she found the brownie mix for $1.25 at Aldi!!!!!! Seriously!

So you see, I don't suck so bad at making brownies from a box! There is hope, after all!

And ... also in our family today, Erik is at home and is gearing up to fire up the George Foreman someone gave us as an awesome wedding gift!


Neither E nor I have owned one of these before, but when he saw me cook chicken on it last week, he was a little disappointed I didn't leave some chicken for HIM to cook b/c it looked like so much fun. SO in my absence, E is firing up the grill tonight.

# 43 — Do not get a plastic bag at a retail store for a month

... CHECK!!!!!!!!!!


The goal of this 101 in 1001 item was to use a cloth/material bag instead of plastic bags from retail stores.

Early this summer, Erik came home with a handful of red Dillons bags. They're awesome! We use them constantly for groceries, but I have to admit I was a little bit of a slacker at other places. But I wanted to cross this off of my list ... so a few times, I told the clerk I didn't want a bag and just carried out an item or two, or used the Dillons bags.

Seriously guys, it's not too big of a deal. It's actually easy to do ... AND you get 5 cents off per bag of your entire purchase at Dillons when you use the bags ... so you see, they're actually PAYING you to use the bags. I'm sure they have already paid for themselves. :-)

#63 — Develop a newsletter for Heartland

... CHECK!!!!!


WO-HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been wanting to do this for awhile, but I have FINALLY signed up with an online e-mail marketing program, Constant Contact. I did a trial with them this summer, and was seriously impressed with how easy it was to make a newsletter. I *did* try iContact recently, but their newsletter templates were not easily adjusted. I had to go into the HTML code and tweak it (thankfully I learned how to read basic HTML in college), but I could never quite get it how I wanted it.

Anyhow, we have been gathering e-mails when we show slideshows at wedding receptions. Now, Constant Contact makes it seriously easy to send out an e-mail branded to OUR studio! It's AWESOME! :-)


Another fantastic component is I can track who opens the e-mail, what they click on, etc.

Our former lab sent out massive e-mails, but I never had control over what they said, and was never able to view any statistics on them. This is a super-cool program that I'm excited to integrate to Heartland!

In the future, perhaps we'll make big announcements on it ... and just today, I used it to send out a reminder to all of our clients with active galleries to place Christmas orders on or before Sunday. Sweetness!

And I'm happy to report that I now have almost 20 items crossed off of the 101 in 1001 list (19 to be exact).

Christmas came early!

Last week, during one of my brief stays in Salina ... we decided to check out door nobs for the kitchen.

Before Erik moved into the house, the seller put new cabinets in ... which is awesome! But ... that leaves the cabinets looking like this:


My fingernails have certainly taken a beating trying to claw open the cabinets. But truthfully, the drawers are worse. They're difficult to paw open.

Anyhow, I got an awesome little corner to help make sure each nob is in the same place. Don't you think it did an awesome job?






But ... we didn't count doors or drawers before we went to the store (we weren't planning to make a purchase, but the price was right). Anyhow, we were short one for the upper cabinets ... and had to make a trip yesterday for the lower ones.

Oh, speaking of purchasing nobs, we went to the local hardware/home improvement store to check out prices, but an on an off chance, I'd seen some nobs at Target ... and they were priced so competitively ... well, you think about it. $3.50+ for a nob or 10 for $15-20 ... the decision wasn't hard.

So ... lesson learned ... if you need nobs for your kitchen (or even bathroom), check out the "Home Improvement" section at Target. :-)

Quantum good time

Yesterday, Erik and I went to see the newest James Bond flick.



I've been looking forward to this for MONTHS ... and the icing on the cake for us was in Salina, the early movie is only $5! Hot dog! Awesome-ness!

I have to say I LOVED it ... but as Casino Royale, the first 15-20 minutes was completely EXHAUSTING! I get worn out watching those first minutes .. and there was so much action, I totally need to see it again to catch all of the nuances.

While we were waiting for the movie to start, E and I were talking about James Bonds past.

E says Daniel Craig is awfully scrappy ...


... a la Sean Connery.


E says Pierce Brosnan is more suave/GQ ... a la


... well, I don't know the other guy, but I"m sure E will leave a comment and tell us which Bond past Brosnan is like.

# 100 — Visit "baby Paul" at college

... CHECK!!!!!!!!


Last weekend while I was in Chicago for Lori and Derek's Engagement session, I made plans to visit my youngest brother in Urbana/Champagne, Illinois.

We started with a tour of the campus, especially the lab where Paul works.


This is plasma ... I thought it was made up in Ghostbusters, but evidently, it's a real thing and Paul had photos to share. :-)

We then went around the rest of the campus. Isn't it beautiful?!?!!??!!!!


More fall beauty!


Check out the stunning leaves! I can't get OVER the awesome color. :-)


So glad to get another item knocked off of my 101 in 1001 list. :-)

On my trip to Chicago, I took a less conventional method of travel. When I was hanging at Joyce and Billy's wedding, one of Joyce's co-workers was talking about the Megabus. While I never found a ticket for $1, I *did* get tickets for under $50 one-way. Yup, that's a round trip to Chicago for less than $100! Unbelievable! And the best part was ... NO AIRPORT SECURITY!!!!!!


It was a long trip ... 10 hours up ... but pretty good. I rode on the top of the double-decker bus and was able to watch and be sure no one ran off with my luggage. :-)

And tickets to/from UIlli were less than $20 one-way.

I *did* get stircrazy on the trip ... and if the bus has been on the road for awhile, the toilet might be full and then you have to wait for one of the stops .. but stops are reasonable.

And a great part about using the bus ... it uses less fuel than a plane would, so I was actually hugging trees! :-)

I also have to give a big shout out to my awesome mother-in-law for letting us crash in KC, and for also meeting Erik half way to drop me off. Thanks, BA!

Fortunate?

I have to admit, I've *always* loved fortune cookies.


From my young years, I've saved them.

Yesterday's fortune?

"You are about to embark on a most delightful journey!"

I hope so....

What's the best fortune YOU've ever received? Leave it in the comments, because I bet there are some good ones out there!

Wife Wessons

Ok, so I'm lame and am being a goof. This is something I think I'll start .... "Wife Lessons .... or Wife Wessons" ;-)

Anyhow, Wife Wesson No. 1: Never EVER under ANY circumstance tell your husband you think you make a better hamburger than he does. Don't even THINK about it. Nada. (even if it IS true).


And trying to soften the blow by saying "but honey, you COOK them ... and you'll always do that better than me." That is gasoline on fire, not water. ;-)

Tagged

I don't usually "like" chain sorts of letters or blogs .... but I'll play. Especially since Erin tagged me. Besides, she asked SOOOO nicely.

Husband's Name: Erik Robert (or ERB)

How long we've been married: 46 days, according to the counter on Facebook. Oddly enough, it was *supposed* to count down to the wedding, now it's counting up ... so no, I haven't been counting the minutes ... but I have LOVED every one of them!

How long we dated: Um.... on April 16, E wanted me to start calling him my "sexy beau hunk." He proposed Nov. 4. So about 7 months.

How old is he? Let's just say this: When he was graduating from high school, I was in the 3rd grade.

Taller: Erik! I like my fella tall!

Who can sing best? Hmm....E would probably say me. But I enjoy his voice ... with a little discipline, he could put me to shame.

Smarter? Um ..... depends on what you mean by smart. I can barely add numbers in my head, and E rocks at it.

Laundry: We're pretty equal on that one, and I appreciate how Erik takes charge and does the laundry when I'm obsessed/distracted by photos.

Paying bills: We've not been married long enough to really establish it. We're both used to doing it ... but since we moved into his place, all the bills are in his name. But we're also getting ready to combine accounts later today.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Ok, can we clarify here? If I'm standing at the foot of the bed, looking at the bed .... then E sleeps on the right. But If I'm lying IN the bed on my back, I am sleeping on the right side of the bed. Don't confuse the blonde. ;-) But It basically has to do with the fact that it's closer to the bedroom door and he comes to bed later than I do.

Mows the lawn? Erik has done more of it than I have ... but every once in awhile, I'll surprise him and mow it.

Cooks dinner: Depends on the day of the week. If Erik is working, I cook dinner. If he's off, he likes to grill out.

Who's the first to admit when they're wrong? Depends on what we're "wrong" about.

Who kissed first? This is silly .... because it takes 2 to kiss.

Who wears the pants? Erik actually likes wearing skirts. ;-)~ Ok, so if you mean "who makes the decisions" .... it's pretty joint. Or if one of us is stronger in an area, we'll defer to the other. For example, when it comes to remodeling, Erik basically lets me do whatever I want. But to be fair, I do give him veto power.

I'll tag:
Angie of Angie and Mike because she never posts. I *adore* Mike, but Angie is cute and I want to hear what she has to say!
Robin of Christopher Robin because she's my sister ... be sure to ask her about the mouse in her house! ;-)~
Nicoleman because she's just cute, cute, cute. :-) And I'm sad she's moving further away from M-town.

1,800 and 2,500

I'm becoming a numbers geek ... check out our number of total visitors:

And this is the number of pages viewed:


have a lovely Tuesday. :-)

The Cozy Inn

Erik swore he would NEVER step foot inside The Cozy Inn. Never.

"Why not?"
"It stinks" he informed me.
"Balderdash."

Our first date at Cozy was St. Patrick's day, 2007. He'd lived in Salina for 8+ years and never eaten there. Never. Erik had even resisted his dad's repeated requests to go.

So .... when he took me there, I *knew* he was smitten and making compromises.

But he wouldn't go in. We would only order from the window.

I begged.

And pleaded.

Finally, he agreed.


I just LOVE the character of the place! check out the little salt and pepper shakers!


And the tiny hamburgers are TOO CUTE to resist!


Yummmmmmmie!

Wedding photo update!

ALL of our wedding photos are up!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PleaseCLICK HERE to view them ... I will be sending out a massive e-mail in the next few days.

Cheers.

Cooperstorm IV

For the last four years, the K-State photogs have descended on Salina to cuss and discuss photos. It's great fun to have a reunion and see everyone!


Beer is brought and consumed, food is eaten and photos are shared.


Last year, we had friends travel from far away to attend! Last year from Atlanta and Houma, La.

This year, our buddy Clif came up from Texas .... and next year we look forward to Justin visiting from Iowa!


In the above photo, I think Clif looks a little like the profile of Garrison Keillor (see photo below).


Anyhow, what I love, love, love about our annual reunion is to catch up .... and see where everyone is. It's *so* interesting to me that we all started in the same place ... as news photogs, and we have branched off SO far ... yet photography is still integrated in each of our lives.

I couldn't help but wonder: How many paths are possible from one starting point?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!!!!!!

I don't have time now to recount the history of the Mikols Family First Snow Competition ... but if I find a column I wrote about it, I'll post it later. (these first two photos are from the annual snow breakfast, which was held the day after our wedding because everyone was in town)


So .... it's MY TURN right now ... and it needs to snow in Wichita PRONTO! I have until noon on Nov. 10 for it to snow. Then we have to wait a week ... and Erik is in on the contest! E has from Nov. 24 to Dec. 1, which are excellent dates.


And here are Erik and Chris. These two fellas are the newest participants in the contest. Poor mom hasn't won yet, and it would probably make her green if one or both of her sons-in-law won before her.

Last year, "the family" (yeah, don't I sound like someone from The Godfather?) didn't allow Chris to participate because he married Robin after the official opening of the snow dates. I would have let him participate if he picked a date after their wedding, but the family was firm. Chris could NOT participate in 2007.

There was a *little* rumbling this year because the opening of dates was less than 24 hours after Erik became a member of the family ... but whiners can just deal. ;-)

#9 — Dye my hair

... CHECK!!!!!!!

When it comes to people who cut/style my hair, I am a strict monogamist.

It takes me YEARS to get comfortable enough with a new lady to the point where I say "do whatever you think will look good ... just NO BANGS." YEARS.

So ... after 3 years with Laurie in Hays, I felt she was the lady to give my hair a kiss of color. Especially since I LOVED her hair color (why is it SO MANY hair sylists have such CRAZY AWFUL hair color?).

Anyhow, about two weeks ago, it was time to chop the hair I'd grown for the wedding ... and it seemed an opportune time to color it as well.

Before:

After:

Nothing *too crazy* but a little bit of sun-kissing. Besides, now I'm ready for our tropical honeymoon!

I'm up to 17 items crossed off the 101 in 1001 list. I need to get shaking on more of them! I *did* start my no piles month this month (I'll be gone for 2 weeks, so it *could* be considered cheating, but whatever). I'm also 1 week away from the end of #43 (no plastic bags from the store for a month). :-)

VOTE!!!!!!!!

I don't care if you are a

or a


Today's message is short and sweet: Tomorrow ....


Yeah, yeah, yeah, people are circulating endless emails about the evils of candidates ... whatever. I'm getting sick of them and am counting the hours until this cursed election is over.

But I want to point out this .... there are races that are probably JUST as important as the national races, yet few people pay attention to them. What are they? Local governments. City and County commissions. I covered these bodies for 3+ years as a reporter ... and it's TRAGIC how few people are actually involved in local politics .... the stuff that DIRECTLY and affects your life EVERY DAY.

Ok, for example: The City of Salina will spend almost $70 MILLION in 2009. Yup, the city has a $70 million budget. How many people came to a city commission meeting to talk with commissioners about it? Less than 5.

Cities and counties do everything from keeping the trash picked up and the sewers running to paving and reapiring the roads you drive to work on.

I won't ramble anymore, but just do yourself a favor and vote for local elections ... then when you have an issue, call or e-mail your commissioner. I guarantee they'll be more responsive than some schmuck in Washington or Topkea will be.

And in case you want to know how to gather info on local candidates, a lot of newspapers publish a voters guide ... the two I saw were in the Oct. 19 ballpark ... so if you need more info on candidates, go to your local paper's Web site or drop by the office to help select those that will be spending millions of dollars in YOUR community.

A few more favorites!

Seriously. Awesome.

I can't tell you how excited I was to have socks from Little Miss Matched (Erik insisted on having matching socks ... so now he has two sets of "miss matched" socks).


And just another fun one from the field.