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. ;-)