Hello and welcome to 2011!!!  I hope you all had a great New Years Eve and fabulous holiday – whatever it may be that you celebrate.  🙂  We had a decent holiday – minus the strep throat that all of us but my five year old got (and some vertigo I was diagnosed with – ugh)!  I am still technically on vacation until this Friday but wanted to throw a post up here.  ((Though I noticed I neglected to post my top 18 photos – oops!!  Will remedy that tomorrow.  In the meantime head over to my Facebook page (HERE) to see my top 12.))  SO what better way than to do my first Ten on Tuesday for the new year.  I am doing something a little different and answering some questions this time!  Just to give you a glimpse of the me behind the blog and the camera.

1. I went a little nuts on Etsy.com before the holidays.  I do in general but I ordered several new hats for newborns.  And then some more.  And then some headbands.  And then a few more hats the other day.  But I neeeeed them.  Right??!?!?  So there are going to be some new goodies to see on my precious newborns.  If you have not discovered etsy.com yet, DON’T DO IT.  Especially if you have a girl.  Or like handmade things.  And definitely not if you have more than one girl and like handmade things. (Don’t get me wrong, there is cute boy’s stuff too but the girls’ stuff is SO freaking adorable)

2.  On that note, I have my first two newborn sessions of the year this week or next an I cannot wait!  It has been three weeks since my last session and I have to admit it, I am kind of bored.  I love love love shooting and editing.  I itch to get back to it.  It’s like an addiction.  I can’t wait to sit in front of my computer with my cup of coffee and my iTunes and edit.  Can’t WAIT.  The families next week might not be able to kick me out of their house I have missed it so.  That and I have a new beanbag and blankets to play with.  But c’mon let’s face it, if someone was insisting on staying and soothing and playing with your newborn while you rested would you really turn that down??  😉

3.  I have made the decision to upgrade to the D3s.  (For the non-photography people, it is a camera body.  An awesome, beautiful, amazing camera body)  Or I did make the decision until I chatted more with my friend Susan (the one I went to Seattle to visit) and decided to definitely upgrade but perhaps wait a few months and see if Nikon releases the much anticipated D4.  But if it’s not out by Spring forget it – the D3s is mine!!

4.  I did spend some time trying to update things while on “vacation.”  Next on the list is reordering some old packaging materials, picking some new packaging things and then updating my galleries!  It had been long enough since I last updated my website that I actually forgot what my control panel password was.  That says something.

5.  I am trying to come up with some new ideas for this new year.  New advertising opportunities, new displays, new promos, etc.  We’ll see how that all goes but  stay tuned – I have some good stuff buzzing around in this (dizzy, spinning) brain of mine.

Now time for the questions!!

6.  If you weren’t a photographer what would you be doing?

Good question!  My degree is in Psychology and growing up I always wanted to be in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis unit – think Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs and the tv show Criminal Minds.  In all reality, I would probably be working as an Industrial / Organizational Psychologist for some corporation since that was going to be my (mythical) Master’s concentration.  I was a high school Spanish teacher for five years but all of the politics within education (ie teach to the test) drove me away from that,though one of my best friends tries to this day to convince me to come back to NC and teach AP Psychology with her 🙂

7.  What’s the first picture you remember taking?

The first one that I remember well was taken in 8th grade on a whale watching trip.  It wasn’t of the whales, but rather of a classmate.  I called her name and snapped a photo as she turned and I still remember it clearly.  I think I even followed the rule of thirds in its composition hahaha!

8.  How did you find/come up with Layne’s name?

When I was teaching in North Carolina I had a student named Lane.  I loved her name and she was quite an amazing girl as well – smart, athletic, just a great kid.  When it came time to choose names, I had that in the back of my mind and let’s face it, Rogalski is not an easy name to find first names to go with.  Plus we already had Nolan and discovered that the “n” sound at the end worked well.  Truth be told, though, we had it narrowed to Charlotte or Layne and she didn’t have a name for the first hour or two!

9.  What’s your favorite childhood memory?

Camping with my parents at Camp KOA in Cardinal, Ontario.  We went pretty much every year!   We had a giant green tent and I remember seeing the stars, going swimming (read: being thrown) in the pool, singing songs around the campfire with neighbors.  One great memory from that that makes me laugh though is driving home and watching a lawn chair go flying off the top of our woody wagon and land behind us on the highway. :

10.  Whats your go to dinner when you’re too tired to even think, let alone cook?

Our 100% go to dinner (but you have to know ahead of time you’ll be too tired!) is salsa chicken in the crock-pot.  Throw three or four frozen chicken breasts into a crock-pot.  Pour in drained can of pintos and drained can of sliced black olives.  Add 1 cup salsa and 1 cup frozen corn.  Cook on high 4 hours.  Shred chicken with forks and stir in 4 tbsp reduced fat or fat free cream cheese.  Cook 30 more minutes.  Stir and then we wrap it in tortillas with jalapenos and sour cream!  If no time for crockpot, is it bad if I say pizza??  It’s true!  We have a fabulous place about 1/2 mile down the street.  My go to pie is a white pie with spinach, tomatoes, garlic, olives, fresh mozzarella and mushrooms and sometimes, feta.  YUM!  If I feel like meat, a hawaiian with ham always wins.

Okay, so that was fun – I think I’ll do it again next week assuming people have more things to ask me!!  The only thing I ask is no business or technical questions. Those can always be emailed to me or if you wish to ask anonymously, check out the “Ask Me” tab over there on the left hand side and do it that way!

🙂

I wanted to do my top 12 photos for the 12 days leading up to Christmas.  But two things happened.  One, time went WAY too quickly and all of a sudden we were past 12 days before Christmas.  The other problem was that as I started to try and narrow down the photos, I ended up with closer to 40 photos.  So while the plan was good, the reality didn’t happen.  Instead, I am doing my top 12 days of photos, three per day, alllll within six days.  So six photos per day.  No real order within these days.  But these are my favorites from this year, for one reason or another.  🙂

Today, Day 3

I wanted to do my top 12 photos for the 12 days leading up to Christmas.  But two things happened.  One, time went WAY too quickly and all of a sudden we were past 12 days before Christmas.  The other problem was that as I started to try and narrow down the photos, I ended up with closer to 40 photos.  So while the plan was good, the reality didn’t happen.  Instead, I am doing my top 12 days of photos, three per day, alllll within six days.  So six photos per day.  No real order within these days.  But these are my favorites from this year, for one reason or another.  🙂

Today, Day 2