the pure interest

A wedding I photographed at our church on Saturday, June 21. I was really happy with it - only a few hiccups. I’m starting to really enjoy the power that my HUGE flash offers, even though its a bit unwieldy. I still have so much to learn. But I have two more weddings booked for the summer!!! I never thought I’d go here, but I’m really excited about it.

I took these two photos at my parent’s house in their garden on Father’s Day. I hope to one day have the freedom to plan such a volume of plants in my yard, although I don’t think I’ll go QUITE AS crazy as they do, I mean, it’s wild back there. They have a ton of daisies that spread like wild fire.

Yesterday’s update is that I ate OK, but did have to bake cornbread for a dish I’m making for a picnic, and it smelled so incredible….I ended up burning it, so I just HAD to try a piece to make sure it was ok. The inside was, but not the outside, but I’ll tell you, after eating hardly any bread or fat all week, it tasted amazing. So that put me about 250 cals over, but I’m not too worried. Again I had no time to workout, but I’m trying not to beat myself up. Going straight from work to lunch to the doctor to work to freelance to box moving to eating dinner on the way to praise band and then to praise band then to the grocery store then beginning to prepare picnic feast for tonight basically left NO time for a workout. Sometimes the expectations in this workout plan are totally ridiculous, if YOU HAVE A LIFE. And I don’t even have KIDS YET!!

One thing I’ve been really noticing while looking at my food eating totals is that my fat intake has been seriously cut in half, and I think that is really making a difference. I mean, I know “eating low - fat” is so 10 years ago, but it is so important. I can feel it in my body - I fit into my jeans that were “just too tight” two weeks ago. That is a progress people.

I don’t have all the information for today’s meals with me. So far today I switched breakfast and morning snack because of ease of preparation, and I just could not stomach what I was supposed to eat for breakfast with how I felt this morning.

Day 5 Meals:

Breakfast: Turkey and Egg White Scrambled Eggs (added a little fat - free shredded cheddar and pepper, saving for morning snack)

Morning Snack: Blueberry Yogurt Smoothie (ate 1/2 for breakfast - it  was HUGE!!… did have to add a splenda packet and some chocolate slimfast shake for flavor)

Lunch: Chicken Pita (broiled skinless chicken breast, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, lettuce, fat free ranch, whole wheat pita) My rushed version?? piece of wheat bread, 2 oz shredded chicken, fat free ranch and a few pieces of lettuce shoved down in about 3 minutes.

Snack: Peanut Butter Toast (I did celery & peanut butter instead)

Dinner: Steak, Brussel Sprouts & Salad with Italian dressing (nope, going to a picnic!)

Huge, amazing, fragrant peonies in my parents yard. Does anything smell as amazing as these flowers?

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

My dear friend Ashlee (now resides in Boston and I miss watching The Office with her) and her new husband Jason were married on Saturday.  She’s a graphic designer and he is a product designer who works here. So obviously, everything was perfect in its aesthetic appeal.

As usual I hung around like a pesky fly taking pictures when I could. She really loved them, saying “breathtaking…” I said it was easy because THEY were breathtaking, plus PhotoShop is really cool. AND, they haven’t seen any other pictures yet, so it’s always exciting to see your first set. I think their professional wedding photos will be amazing as they instructed their photographer to be “off beat” and “non-traditional” as possible. I could here his camera shutter going during the ceremony - he was taking multiple shots sometimes 10 clicks in 10 seconds. And the garden grounds were so awesome, I’m sure they will be amazing. 

Ashlee & Jason have dated for almost 10 years before getting married, so this was well over-due. Congratulations guys!!

I can see I’m losing people/interest with these posts. Don’t worry, some pretty photos are coming the rest of the week. Stick with me - I just have to do this!

This was last night’s dinner. Salmon, Salad with Feta, Zucchini and Light Italian dressing, and steamed asparagus. I have to say, I could totally be on Hell’s Kitchen*. I mean COME ON!! THAT is a beautiful dish. Too bad I hated the salmon. (Fact about Rachel: Hate’s all seafood except for the occasional Maryland hot crab dip which is mainly cream cheese anyway) But Brian liked it, so I guess I cooked it well - a little bit of dill weed seasoning, slight honey drizzle and cooked in a teaspoon of olive oil.

*Speaking of HK, Thank goodness Jen is gone!!! And did anyone see the preview for next weeks? I almost don’t want to watch because I don’t want to see Christina go down - I truly think she’s the best chef out of the three choices. I hope they just edited it to make it seem worse then it was.

Yesterday was an odd day as I felt pretty darn nauseous from around 1:15 pm to 2:30 pm. It was so severe at certain times. I actually think it is a result of these fiber pills I was taking - so those are out of the program. I also did cheat a little last night as I had done so good all day and was so low on my calories. Kristin, my diet buddy, said I could have a hoho so I had one, 125 calories. It tasted awesome. Then I felt sick. Basically when I’m eating less like this and so much of it is healthy, I’m even MORE conscious of my stomach pain if that is humanly possible for me. So that’s a big problem with this whole thing.

Day 3 Menu:

Breakfast: Tomato Egg White Omelet (I’ll be substituting Day 4’s menu actually, low fat cottage cheese and fresh raspberries)

Snack: 10 almonds and some dried cranberries

Lunch: Roast beef Reuben and salad — yeah this will be more like an open faced turkey sandwich, and salad with some zucchini and little steak pieces in the freezer

Snack: Strawberry Yogurt Protein Smoothie (I really want to do this, but I’m not sure how to make this smoothie last until mid-afternoon as I’d have to make it at lunch. Any suggestions??

Dinner: Chicken Burrito with Rice & Beans (I dont know if I have all the ingredients for this dinner, so I’ll be improvising)

Workout — Tonight I’ll be turbo sculpting (weight training) My side still hurts from the first workout which is so bizarre. I must have been WAY more enthusiastic then I even realized

Today is Brian and I’s four year anniversary. It sort of crept up on us . . . haven’t been able to celebrate yet although I’m not sure we’ll do much (as is typical, we rarely celebrate anything on the day of - birthdays, valentine’s day, etc. due to Brian’s mainly night and un-movable practice schedules). It’s hard to believe we’ve really been in love for so long, between 7 and 8 years) and married for four. 30% of my life has been spent with Brian in it Even in the mundane mornings like today, when the cats were annoying us and Brian wouldn’t get up, I still laugh at him in sleepiness. I have never laughed as hard, had so many life experiences, highs and lows, been so real with or trusted someone as much as I do him.

I love my husband, our life, and our ministry together and I’m excited for what the next few years will bring. Happy Anniversary Brian!

(Last two pictures courtesy of Danielle. Thank you for these, I love them.)

edit: Also, Happy anniversary to Dan & Courtney (married on the exact same day and year as us!), Holly & Aaron, my older sister growing up, and Happy Birthday to Michelle! and my British cousin Paul!  June 12 is an important day people.

Thanks to Emily, I wanted to try this today. You make a collage of Flickr photos that correspond to the answers below. Normally I post my own photos but I was really interested to see how I could visually represent myself with other people’s photos! I wasn’t totally happy with it because a lot of the ones I chose would not allow uRL linking, so I had to pick sometimes my 4th and 5th choices for images, and some images had black borders which sort of ruined the symmetry so I ended up going in and manipulating myself a bit. But, still successful I think!

The Questions
1. What is your first name? Rachel
2. What is your favorite food? Yogurt and Berries
3. What high school did you go to? Harbor Creek
4. What is your favorite color? Red
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Matt Damon
6. Favorite drink? Water
7. Dream vacation? Hawaii
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate Cake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? A Mother
10. What do you love most in life? (Worship)ping the Lord
11. One word to describe you. Emotional
12. Your flickr name. Pure Motif

The Concept
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker).

The last week or so has brought to fruition lots of mini-types of flowers showing their delicate faces in my little garden. 

The ever-present forget-me-not:
 

Weigela bush with deep pink flowers:

Phlox (still kicking!):

White Star-of-Bethlehem buds. They make me crazy while growing (starting in March and looking like weeds until they bloom for about 2 weeks) The bulbs are highly invasive, I’ve probably pulled out about 4,000 since we moved in 3 years ago:

Mountain Snow Ground cover - has flowers right now:

My parents gave me one of these within another plant dug out of their garden. I am totally in love with the delicate pinky/white balls of blossoms. They are tall and slender and perfect. However, I do not know what they are called. We thought heliotrope, but upon further research I don’t think this is right. Help fellow gardeners:
 

sigh…

i.

love.

flowers.

and.

nature.