Sunshine & Raindrops ~ Home Depot and Homemade Granola

I've been wanting to make a few changes to our typical menu and grocery list. So this past week I tried making our own veggie stock and chicken stock. I also made homemade granola and a giant batch of pizza dough. And this week I'll be trying out granola bars and a new bread recipe, as well as making a big batch of soup so I can stick some in the freezer. It's fun to put on an apron on my days off.

As a result of all these homemade yummies, I've been eating better this week. Breakfast is yogurt and granola and lunch is usually a spinach, cranberry, and feta salad. Yum! If you buy healthy food, you'll eat healthier.

Last week I had an engagement session and a wedding. Hello wedding season! You sneaked up on me! (Check back Wednesday for Whitney and Brandon's engagement session! I'm so excited to show it off!)

There are only 9 days left in tax season! Can I get an amen? Because Ryan has been so busy, we haven't been able to work on very many house projects. We have 4 or 5 smaller projects that are either half done or that we're itching to start, but we were missing something for it. So we took a little trip to Home Depot. (Long time no see, pal!) We picked out some pretty flowers for our front flower bed, grabbed a handful of spray paint cans, some supplies for our pendant lighting, and a golden yellow paint sample. I'll be instagramming some of the results of that shopping trip this week, so be sure to follow me @caitlingerresphoto.

Ryan and I have been trying to pin down a date for an Ikea trip, so we sat down last night with a printed April and May calendar and started filling stuff in. And yikes, our schedule is getting full! I'm itching to get to the land of Swedish furniture, so I hope we can fit it in soon!

Sunshine & Raindrops

- The Psych Finale was a perfect ending to an amazing show. We were sorry to have the show end (although we were less than impressed with several of the last season's episodes), but we're not necessarily saying goodbye to Psych anytime soon, because we re-watched most of the first season over the weekend.

- We celebrated the Psych finale with pizza and fresh pineapple. And oddly enough discovered that Ryan is mildly allergic to pineapple. Good thing he's not crazy about it anyway.

- Saturday morning I picked up a new book that I thought would be mildly interesting and I have barely been able to put it down since! The title, Garlic and Sapphires grabbed my attention and the author's writing is excellent! The way she describes food has me yearning to go on vacation again so we can visit some more incredible restaurants.

- I had a serious baking itch on Friday but realized I was low on flour and then AFTER running to the grocery store, I found I was also low on eggs, so I was limited to 2 recipes instead of the 3 I was hoping to make. I figured if I was going to get my Kitchen-aid and everything else dirty, I might as well make more than one batch of cookie dough.

- Saving Mr Banks wasn't exactly what I was expecting, especially since the character who inspires Mary Poppins shows up so late in the film, but I thought it was excellent. And the music has me itching to watch Mary Poppins again!

- A drizzly rainy Saturday put a damper on plans with our families, but we still had a good time together. And it was pretty comical to watch the guys run around in the run trying to put up a fence, when they had to stop and take shelter every 10 minutes.

Sunshine & Raindrops ~ Reno Plans, Rings, and a Really Exciting Calendar!

- Resisting the urge to post sneak peeks from last week's stylized shoot. But I did get to share this behind the scenes photo Jess took of me.

- Since I haven't been able to see Frozen yet, I've been listening to the soundtrack, along with the music from Tangled and Enchanted. And then Enchanted was on TV Saturday morning. I love a good princess movie. Don't judge me.

- We got an anemone for the fish tank and suddenly it looks way more full. You can follow our fish tank adventures with #tank153, but my husband is usually the one posting fish pictures.

- Spending a couple hours helping friends paint their new townhouse had me itching for new projects for #ourlittleyellowhouse. As soon as tax season is over, we'll be knocking out our master bathroom reno and hopefully a little CGP office update as well.

- One of my dearest friends got engaged over the weekend and I just can't wait to hug on her!

- Now that spring is (sort of) here, I'm very excited to be shooting again! Some beautiful engagement sessions and weddings will be on the blog soon!

- My spring calendar is filling up. If you want to sneak a lifestyle family session or anniversary session in before the heat turns up, I only have 2 opening left in April and 2 left in May. ALSO, I only have 3 openings left for June and nothing open for July.

Contact me right away so we can get a date on the calendar for you!

Sunshine & Raindrops ~ Food, Fun, & Photography

- I ate some of the best enchiladas of my life this past week. I don't usually associate spinach with Tex-Mex, but it was amazing! I might have to start dragging my hubby to Abuelos.

- Kids books keep getting better and better! Did you know they make books with little plastic poppers built in that you can push in? It's like bubble wrap or those little fast food drink lids, but you can keep pushing them back and forth!

- What do you get when you cross a hair dryer, a large candle, and a tiny piece of tape? Apparently you get a fun ring shot setup. I was inspired by Susan Stripling's Creative Live seminar to think more outside of the box when it comes to my detail shots and bump them up to the next level.

- A new flash joined the CGP family! The old one was being a bit wacky and unreliable so I bumped up my planned upgrade. (I know, I'm the only one excited about this.)

- Bowling on Friday night! We hadn't been in a really long time so it definitely took a warm up to get us back in the groove. And in the 2nd game, all 4 of us broke 100! That was a big improvement on some of our 1st game scores.

- Yesterday I was able to join Jessica Stone, Amber Roberts, and many others in an amazing stylized shoot at New Kent Winery. I've only looked through a few portions of the day, but it was INCREDIBLE! I cannot wait until we get the green light to show them off and I'm very excited to see them featured!

Sunshine & Raindrops ~ Figure Skating, Face Time, and a CGP Feature

Some of the sunny and rainy moments from the past few days:

- Tax season is finally starting to get to me. Actually, I think it's a combination of seeing my husband for 15 fewer hours every week and working from home and not talking face to face with people every day. (Who would have guessed that this introvert would miss face time?) Only 44 days to go.

- Nine weeks into working full time with CGP, I've finally reached the point where I've finished almost everything that needs to be done. There are a few not-so-fun tasks that still need to be accomplished, but for the most part, this is the calm before the storm. I have a couple of shoots this month, and my wedding season officially starts the first weekend in April. So this week I'm giving myself permission to work as little as necessary to accomplish what needs to be done. I took two afternoons off last week and spent some extra time relaxing. And I plan to do the same this week while I still can. Cross your fingers that my boss doesn't notice and nix all that!

- My parents actually thanked Ryan for taking me off of their hands. Apparently their love for me is not as great as their dislike of Olympic figure skating.

- Ryan and I finally got working on our DIY pendant lighting for over our dining room table. And ironically, figuring out how to safely convert a candle holder into a suspended light was easier than getting the light kit sitting flush to the ceiling. But now that we know what we're doing, hopefully the other two pendants won't be too far behind.

- I'm very excited to have a couple of session and wedding publications lined up over the next couple of months. The first one, Keshia & Frankie's Williamsburg engagement session, was featured on On the Go Bride Thursday! Check out the whole feature here!

Sunshine & Raindrops - Food, Fun, & a Lack of Instagramming

Sometimes I'm really terrible at Instagram. And I don't mean when my poor little Droid phone can't keep up with the pretty images that iPhones get. I mean when I get so wrapped up in LIFE and so excited about what I'm doing that day that I forget to document it in an interesting and artistic way for the rest of the world to feel jealous about.

And when you put it that way... I'm totally ok with having a lack of Instagram photos from this past weekend.

And since I have no cute pictures from this past weekend to show you, here's a shot from a shoot-out I did a few months ago.

The Sunshine:

- Meeting a new friend (Amanda, our model above) for coffee. I love talking shop with other photographers, but Amanda and I have a surprising number of things in common! Including the fact that we both crochet like a couple of little old ladies!

- Meeting two new photog friends for lunch on Saturday. (My social life was HOPPING this past week!)

- Officially welcoming another 2014 bride into the CGP family! That always makes my day!

- Having friends from church over for Sunday lunch. We love their new emphasis on community!

- Sunday was such a beautiful day! Ryan and I spent the afternoon wandering around First Landing State Park. I hope spring is on its way!

The Raindrops:

- Friday I had planned to meet up with another photographer to shoot head shots for our websites, but a thunderstorm quite literally rained on our parade.

- I'm always forgetting my bank password, so we had to reset it this past weekend. And would you believe it, but they have a limit on how long your password can be! How unreal (and stupid!) is that? It's hard to make your password complicated enough but still remember-able in so few characters!

- Ryan took leftover bacon pizza to work on Thursday and proceeded to leave it there, forgotten and uneaten, all weekend. Isn't that a shame? (Can we say #firstworldproblems?!?!)