Vomit and Fish Heads: Detox Day 2

Well, either I'm coming down with some evil little microscopic bug that has a vendetta against me, or I got really dehydrated on my bike ride today. Pretty sure it's not the latter because I've already drank 2 liters today. I suppose I could blame it on the detoxing, but that's never happened before. *Sigh*

Either way, today has been miserable. The sun is out and the sky is blue...it's a gorgeous day... One plus, I got to enjoy a nap! That NEVER happens and when it does, it's pretty much amazing.

There are SOOO many blossoms on my plants. We even have some little green tomato fruits starting. I CAN'T wait to pop these juicy little guys in my mouth.

Today I rode another easy 13 miles instead of the planned 26, mostly because I feel like...well, you finish that sentence. Cycling always makes me feel so much better. For those of you who don't know, I have a pretty nasty fracture in my back and when I'm on Marty (that's my bike) I feel like a million bucks and there is ZERO back pain. I would ride all day long if my legs would allow it just to make my back feel better. I'm telling you, if you don't exercise, you really should. It's SO addicting :)

Oh, and thanks to all of you out there (real or imagined!) for giving me a place to be accountable. I pretend I have hundreds of readers who are waiting to hear my daily report. HAHA. Hundreds of imaginary readers maybe. They're the modern day imaginary friends!

Anyway, I thought today I would tell you about a secret I discovered for how to grow amazing tomatoes. I've always gotten a lot of produce out of my little garden, but only before the sun burns everything up or the hook worms or other pests devour my juicy, vibrant, organic goodness. Lame.

What I never really realized is how important placement, pruning, tending, and feeding is. I've got a ton to tell you but today I just want to show you what I used to "pre-feed" my tomato plants. Apart from working in compost and steer manure into my soil like every year, we also put some slowly decomposing elements to provide longer term fertilizer.

I got the ideas from here and here and sort of adjusted it based on my own soil. So here we go. First, you'll want to dig a hole at least twice the depth of the plant you're transplanting. Ours were 1/2 gallon size and our hole was about 14 inches. Then you'll put several things into the hole:

There's some aspirin in there somewhere! I'm not going to lie, it was a little creepy having all these fish heads staring back up at me while planting!

1. Fish parts. We just bought a cheap package of fish (total of about $2 for 4 decent sized fish) and cut them into thirds, one for each plant (we have 12 tomato plants). Put these in first. You can probably ask your butcher for some leftover parts for free. We just didn't have the time.

2. Aspirin tablets. Any brand, doesn't matter. I put four in each hole. This helps give a boost to the plant's immune system.

3. Egg shells. We always save our egg shells for composting but this time we kept them for a few weeks to use for the tomatoes. I put four egg shells per hole. This (along with the fish bones) helps to supply calcium. Tomato plants that don't have enough calcium get blossom end rot.

4. Tomato fertilizer. There is a lot of debating over what ratio is best for fertilizing different vegetables. Really, it's going to depend on your soil and what works for you. You can buy soil test kits for pretty cheap and pick your fertilizer based on your results. We've always used Vigoro Tomato & Vegetable Garden Plant food. We may change it in the future depending on what our soil shows. To be quite honest though, we do a lot of trial and error.

 5. Cover with a few inches of good quality manure and/or compost.  This keeps the decomposing matter away from direct plant contact. Then put in your tomato plant and fill in with soil as usual.

My boys!! They're always so patient with my weird experiments and projects. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them both. Aren't they handsome?

 I hope you all have a great day and feel inspired to get outside. Sunshine has a way of making almost anything feel better :)

Acorn Squash Salad and Detox Day 1

I believe it's a Chinese proverb that says "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step" (or something VERY similar...). So here we are, day 1 of spring cleaning. I don't want to bore the world with my day to day happenings (if you can even call them happenings) but I figure everyday I'll share something about this process. Detoxing has gotten quite popular after all!

Today was a day of prepping. Grocery shopping, errand running, paper tweaking, calendar planning, house cleaning. I like days like this because I can avoid the work I really don't want to do (like, say, finalizing a thesis...).

So starting at 6 am I walked the dog, drank my fiber laden, raw food, protein shake for breakfast, rode my bike for a quick 13 miles, ate my designated 1/2 cup of lentils for lunch (seriously the best part about this diet is the lentils. YUM!) and am finishing up some roasted veggies for dinner.

I've never eaten acorn squash before. Verdict? AMAZING! Pretty sure I'll be eating many more of these little treasures in the future. I adapted a recipe from here to work with the detox diet (which means I took out the good stuff, like cheese...). Give it a try, it is amazingly tasty, even without the cheese!

Potato and Acorn Squash Salad (Adapted for Detox Diet)
Makes 2 servings


Ingredients

• 4 mixed fingerling potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces (I used red potatoes)
• 1 small Acorn squash, peeled, seeds removed and diced
• 8-10 spears of asparagus, washed, with bottom 1/3rd of stalk chopped off
• 1 cup baby carrots
• 1 tablespoons light olive oil
• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves only
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 large handful spinach & arugula mix (or one or the other)
• 
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425. Lightly toss the potatoes, squash, carrots, asparagus, rosemary, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes and remaining olive oil until coated. Roast for 40-45 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork tender. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, add the potatoes, spinach/arugula mix. Toss lightly to combine. Serve immediately.
3. SAVOR the delicious, earthy, warm goodness :) Mmmmm!

Here We Go Again...

Well, spring is here. My garden is growing like crazy and everything is blossoming. The sun is out everyday. I can ride my bike OUTSIDE instead of on that boring indoor trainer. It also means that it's time to detox again.

Thats right. Detox. It's this crazy hippie thing the hubby and I do every year to clean out the proverbial pipes. I clean out my shower drain on a regular basis (it's needed WAY more often than I want to admit...thank you long hair) so why not clean out my body?

The one we choose to do is a 21 day... yes 21... ordeal. If I were smart I would pick one of those 24 hour juice fasts or something less difficult. 21 days is rough, BUT I always feel amazing afterward (someone please remind me of that when I'm craving bread tomorrow!).

We use Standard Process (definitely not paid to say this) and we LOVE it. It basically means for 21 days all you eat is vegetables and fruits (2:1 ratio) and either 1 cup lentils or 1/2 cup wild rice. That's it. No bread. No dressing. No dessert. No meat (at least for the first 11 days). Do you think we're crazy yet? If not than you're crazy!

This year, we've decided to blog about it. I am so convinced about the benefit of this type of detoxing, even for this long (takes 21 days to form a habit!!), that I thought it would be fun to talk about how it's going... for any other brave souls out there! I'll be posting some photography of the food we try, since we always try new produce when we do this.

So, HERE WE GO! I'm off to start off this marathon with a nice HOT detox bath. Look back here for the amazing recipe for what to put in this bath :)

Lace, Pearls, and Pinwheels

Today I got the opportunity to photograph Addison. Let me tell you, if I have a kid as happy and calm as her, I'll be...well...happy and calm! I have to say though, daddy better watch out! This little princess LOVES her bling!

We had her in several outfits but when she was in her ADORABLE teal lace romper with her pearls on, she was all smiles! I think I had more than double the number of smiles from her when she was wearing that outfit. I guess I'd be all smiles if I were pretty in lace and pearls (*hint shout out to the hubby!).

I have missed many things about working in the pediatric ICU, but most of all, I have dearly missed my coworkers and friends. I am so grateful that this whole photography obsession has helped me keep in touch with so many of my friends from CHLA! LOVE you guys, and it was so fun to see you today Christine!

I am so excited to show you the rest of these pics. Come back soon so you can see my HANDMADE vintage pinwheel backdrop. That's right. Pinterest has stuck its dirty little fingers into YET ANOTHER area of my life. *Sigh* Is there a program for that? Pinterest Anonymous? Just sayin...

Celebrating New Life

This has been a crazy week. I took my LAST EVER oral exam, wrote 14 pages of my (probably 50 page) thesis, cleaned my house (almost) top to bottom - of course omitting any heavy lifting... thank you back...- and finished these pictures. It's always nice to be productive. I have to say though, this is how I felt after this week:

It's been fun to work on these pictures... Life is such a miracle! After working in the Peds ICU for so many years, I have to marvel that any children are born so healthy and beautiful as these two. I'm pretty sure that I was lucky I didn't have blurry pictures because of laughing so hard!

Ok, so this one is blurry, but I just thought it was so adorable. I WISH I got it in focus!! Alas :)

My garden is growing too. I just love watching the new life sprout during spring (though 90 degrees feels WAY more like summer...). I got my first blossoms on my cherry tomato plants, which means I'll be eating those little juicy red globes before I know it! YUM! We've also got our lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, onions, beans, snow peas, and zucchini making some great progress. I don't have kids yet, so I guess I have to find the miracles in my life in little bean sprouts coming out of the ground.

If you like these pics, I have more posted on my Facebook page. I plan on enjoying the weekend with my hubby and sister-in-law. Hope each of you gets a chance to do something fun!!

For This Child I Prayed

I love newborns! They are such a miracle and to me an amazing reminder of God's love. I have been blessed to be a part of so many of Steib's photographic milestones. Now I got to help welcome sweet, beautiful Ryleigh into the family. She is so lucky to be joining such an amazing and fun family.

I have seriously enjoyed avoiding writing my thesis in lieu of doing photos, BUT, alas, my rough draft is due WAY too soon, so I won't post the rest of these until next weekend. I know, sad... but hopefully this little taste will get you excited to see the rest!

For this photo, I got the idea from Pinterest (of course) from a photographer here. Instead of doing it on a white background, I wanted to give it more drama, so I did it on black. My amazing lighting assistant (the hubby!) did a great job creating shadows to really emphasize the creases on the hands and baby's feet. There is just something about a daddy protecting his little girl that just steals my heart! LOVE!

I love this scripture in 1 Samuel: "For this child I prayed." I don't have children yet. I can't even try to have kids yet. But I have to imagine there is so much to pray for. We pray to have a child. To have a healthy child. To know how to take care of that child. To know how to raise that child in righteousness and goodness. To learn from that child. That that child will find love, joy, peace, and God in the midst of the pain, sorrow and suffering that sometimes comes in life.

I guess to me, these 5 words pack a powerful punch. Paired with the photo of the hands, worn with life's experience, cradling the innocent little feet, I can't help but feel that those hands are folded in prayer at the moment this photo was captured. There is so much hope, love, and protection conveyed through this image. It was by no means an original photo idea, but I can't help but fall in love with it anyway.

Come back next week for another post. 

Don't forget to visit and "like" my FB page: facebook.com/alannarenephotography

A Moment Can Change Everything

I've decided it's time to start my blog back up again after ignoring it for so long. Why did I neglect it? Nearly 5 weeks ago I was nearing the end of our really amazing family vacation. I talked everyone into going sledding one last time before we all headed home. Unfortunately, that trip would teach me a life lesson that I wasn't prepared for.

That day I got pretty severely injured. I sprained my back and got a few small fractures. I felt like there was a charlie horse in my back. I couldn't bear any weight for the first day and had a hard time walking for the next 2 weeks. Thanks to my wise husband, I was able to make it through the initial moments of pain, assessing my situation, and realizing I didn't have a more severe spinal injury. I felt blessed to have him by my side.

Over the next several weeks, I have been limited in my physical ability. I have gone through moments of severe depression, anger, regret, fear. I gained a new understanding of how precious life is. How short and fragile it can be. How in just a moment, everything can change. I was lucky enough to not have everything change permanently. Not everyone is.

Being stuck at home, stuck in bed, gives you a lot of time to think. Even though my rehabilitation is just beginning, and there is still much I need to do to regain full function, I have been able to start and see the blessings of breaking my back.

I am excited to restart my photography, my cycling, my studies, my hobbies, my passions. I feel blessed to have learned humility, patience, and to have re-found a determination to stay healthy and strong. I 'm excited for a new year!

The Whitest Christmas

Well, it's the day after Christmas, early in the morning before everyone is up. I've been reflecting on the week and this great opportunity I've had to spend the weekend with my family in beautiful Tahoe California. 

 We came up on Friday afternoon, a day early because there was a pretty big storm on the way. Apart from the drive being nearly 5 hours longer than expected, it was uneventful. When we arrived it was dark, but there was only about 3 inches of snow.

Over the next 36 hours it snowed well over 2 feet. I went outside and tromped through the snow to take some pictures and it was thigh high...and I'm a pretty tall person! It is so beautiful here! What a beautiful, quiet, and still place to spend the holidays with my family. We've already made some really fun memories!

The Sunday before Christmas we went out to go ice skating and got caught in a really bad storm. We skidded and almost hit another car, but we slid into the bank instead. Unfortunately, that meant we got stuck and had to dig ourselves out with a shovel, all during a whiteout storm. After we got un-stuck, another car got stuck nearby. We passed our shovel to him and wished him luck digging himself out too. Then they closed the pass so we got stuck for a few hours waiting for the pass to open. It was a crazy adventure! I am so grateful we were all ok and no one got hurt. We were cold and not in snow clothes, we spilled the hot chocolate jug in the car, and we had to use the frozen port-potty on the side of the road, but we made some good memories while stuck in the car together. 

On Christmas eve we took family pictures (to come soon!) and built forts in the snow. Then we opened our traditional Christmas PJs and read the Christmas story Cajun style and Texas style. It was pretty funny! Then we ate roast beast and fudge and watched the grinch.

On Christmas day we had stockings but mostly just opened gifts that we made for each other. It was a simple Christmas focused on being with each other. It did involve playing with BB guns in the snow, and that usually makes everything more interesting! For dinner we did a Christmas themed murder mystery game (it was the head elf whodunnit...) and laughed a lot at the costumes and accents.

I feel blessed to be in this beautiful place with my family, taking each day as it comes, focused on what is truly important. I love being surrounded by so much beauty and stillness. I hope each of you have had a memorable Christmas season and have had the opportunity to spend it with the people who are important to you.

Theres more pics on my FB page! Hopefully there will be more to come. https://www.facebook.com/AlannaRenePhotography

A Very Merry Christmas

This has been a truly remarkable year. It's hard to believe another year has passed. I've finished another semester, graded another bunch of papers, finally decorated for Christmas, and am getting dangerously close to embarking on a whole new chapter in my life. Graduation is around the corner and having a family is not far after. I feel grateful for where I am in my life and a little afraid, but definitely excited for where I am heading! 

This season I've had the opportunity to do several Christmas photo shoots. They've really helped me remember the blessing of family in my life. One of those shoots was of a 3 day brand new baby girl. What a great Christmas gift for this wonderful family! What else can you ask for than a healthy, beautiful baby. 

It was a unique opportunity to try and capture the miracle that is a newborn. I hope to do more sessions like this in the future and hopefully get a little better at them! Despite having never photographed a newborn, I think Ricky and I were able to capture a handful of really precious photos :)

I hope everyone has a really wonderful Christmas holiday! I am looking forward to a week away with the family. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!

If Three's a Crowd, What is Six?

I did such a unique photo shoot today! Three maternity portraits all at once :) Life these last couple weeks has been nutty, to say the least, so I found myself really relaxing and having a good time with these three ladies. They were hilarious!  I am dying to work on the photos, but unfortunately some end of the semester stuff has to come first. Sometimes prioritizing is just so lame...and no fun... Against my better judgment, I decided to stay up a bit tonight and play with a few of the photos. I might regret that tomorrow, but who can resist? Here's a sneak peak, for your viewing pleasure!!

Can I just say that I seriously want a pair of those hot pink sequined Toms for myself...LOVE!

Hehe. Lovin' the "pimp" onesie! 

Santa's Comin' to Town!

It has been an absolutely CRAZY couple of weeks... after Thanksgiving, I had to play a lot of catch up with school work and work work. Yesterday, I finally decided I needed to do something fun, so I put on Christmas music to listen to while editing some pictures, then started some Christmas decorations. FINALLY I felt like the Christmas season started. Then last night I listened to the Christmas Devotional given by the First Presidency and found myself feeling tremendously grateful for this time of year and for all my Savior has done for me. The treats, the decorations, and the celebration is ALWAYS amazing, but remembering the Lord makes this time of year truly special.

I've done several Christmas photo shoots this season, and it has been so fun! I have learned a lot about taking photographs in terrible weather. Ricky and I just seem to keep getting rained on! I love the rain, but not so much when trying to take pics...

I always think it's fun to try new things too. One really great thing about the internet is that everyone comes with some fun ideas! Perhaps some aren't so good, but whenever you're doing something new, some things work out and others don't! 

One thing I try to do with my photos is capture a few moments that really show personality or capture the story of what that shoot was like. This one was wild! It poured rain almost the entire time. We ended up taking most of our pics under a tree. It was really muddy and slippery and my poor husband was super sick. If you've ever done a shoot with my hubby, you know he is a NUT! He has a real talent for making some really interesting sounds that kids find hilarious - in fact, I usually have to try REALLY hard to not laugh because it makes my camera shake :)

 My favorite thing about kids is that they are really unpredictable. It can mean a perfect "smily" photoshoot, or one that captures the million faces they have. My favorite? Those million faces! If you want a photographer who only gets all smiling pictures, I'm really not your person. I LOVE the candid, goofy, angry, sad, laughing, and curious faces. Kids change faces every 5 seconds... that is WHO they are. That is what makes them so special.

I hope everyone has a really fantastic Christmas season, filled with good food, family, fun, service, and remembering the Savior. Visit my Facebook page for more photos!

Senior Sneak Peak

Today was an amazing day! The weather was PERFECT, my kids were well behaved in my primary class at church, I got to have a great dinner with my in-laws AND I got to do a senior photo shoot with my fashionista sister! Who could ask for more? Now I am watching Pink Panther and working on photos while drinking hot chocolate. The hubby is playing some war video game with his brothers, so he is happy too. 

Check back on my Facebook page here for more pics this week! 

Facebook.com/alannarenephotography

We started our photo shoot at Megan's high school. It was challenging (but fun) to find a few interesting places to take pictures!  I love challenges!

I kind of want this table in my backyard...forget those really expensive pretty ones they sell at the store. This one is so much cooler and has much more character!

Man she is cute! Watch out BYU...here comes Megan :)

This is totally a fashionista shot. She looks like she is modeling for some magazine.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Glowing Eyes and Candy

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! I wasn't sure I'd get to participate in the sugary festivities, but lucky for me classes were cancelled and I got to hand out candy to all the eager kiddos at my door. Unfortunately for my sleep that night, I adopted the "one for you, two for me policy"...

Since I wasn't expecting to do anything, I was not prepared for the hoards of children that were out begging for candy. I had a stroke of genius about 4:00 pm, a mere 2 hours before the first kid came to the door. I decided to draw out some scary eyes with a black marker on white paper, copy it in the copier, cut them out and tape them to my door. Then I ran down the street to Home Depot and got a black light.

The eery result was a dark walkway to a door with glowing eyes. It actually worked a lot better than I thought it would, which was nice since it only took me about 45 minutes from start to finish (including buying the black light). I put on my Thing One costume (thanks to my sister for the idea!), and decided to put on some "scary" make-up for fun. It was a blast. A few of the kids told me they thought my door was scary. LOVE it!

Now I can get ready for Thanksgiving! Cheers :)

This is what my "cheesy" but cheap Halloween decor looked like in the daytime.

Thanks to a tripod and a long shutter speed, I got a semi-decent picture of the glowing eyes. It really turned out kind of eery! 

Thank you iPhone for your front camera so I can take a picture of myself while waiting for more trick or treaters.

All I have to say is there was a lull in trick or treaters for 30 minutes... and my husband wasn't home...so I got bored. I have probably 10 more self-portraits :)  Gotta love smart phones!

P.S. I made the T-shirt myself. Just get a dark t-shirt iron on kit from a hobby store. I googled "thing 1" and got this logo. My husband was thing 2, but I don't think we got a picture of us together.

Christmas in the Desert

I love Thanksgiving. I hate how everybody skips Thanksgiving. Costco has had Christmas stuff out for a month now... For those of us who don't live in a part of the world that actually has seasons, we have to live vicariously through... well... decorating. The closest thing I get to fall is the fake fall leaves I have scattered throughout my house, accenting about every area possible. I LOVE fall! I love the colors, the weather, the holidays, the end of the semester. Ok, so Christmas is a better celebration for the end of the semester! Even though the rest of the world is flying right into the Christmas season I'm determined to stick it out until after Thanksgiving. 

However, my cute brother- and sister-in-law wanted to take pictures for their holiday cards. I guess one day of pre-Thanksgiving Christmas cheer is ok. We met them in Vegas at our grandparent's house. We had an awesome weekend and even scared ourselves silly at the Fright Dome at Circus Circus (*disclaimer... the endless lines made it WAY overrated...). Anyway, my sweet little sister-in-law wanted to have green in her pictures. I wanted to laugh and say, "Green?? We're in Las Vegas! Everything is brown or some shade of brown." But how could I let her down? Luckily, my grandparents live right across the street from the LDS temple. If any of you have been to an LDS temple, you know it has green everywhere - year round. Doesn't matter if you live in the desert, a snowy place, or paradise. There is always a neatly manicured garden. It's beautiful. We had a blast taking holiday pictures and I think they are turning out pretty darn cute :) Here's a sneak peak. 

Off-Roading in Luxury

2 weeks ago we lost a dear friend. Our car Betsy has been a part of our lives since before we were married. After many road trips and lots of repairs, Betsy decided to just stop running. It would have cost us upwards of $1,500 to fix a car that was only worth $2K. Instead, our mechanic said he would make the repairs and give it to a college student whose family doesn't have a car.

Despite the fact that a good deed came out of this tragedy, we still found ourselves without transportation. Lucky for us, a really nice guy from Long Beach was selling his car for a great price. It is super well maintained, got a clean bill of health from the mechanic, and is absolutely gorgeous!

We bought it Saturday and just for fun, we took the car out for a little off-roading and a sunset photo shoot on Sunday. It handles amazingly, breaks on a dime, and even has seat warmers :) I think that's my favorite part. I now call myself the proud owner of a Subaru Outback. Now to give it a name...