100 Portraits Project

Yesterday I posted this on my work blog, so you may have already seen it.

About two weeks ago, this guy connects with me via twitter and asks "@emilyhudspeth can I talk to you about participating in my #100portraits project? http://www.100portraits100days.com/ "

Sounded interesting so I said yes and he should email me so we can talk about it. At this point, I am thinking he wants me to do my usual role in a photo shoot. Typically, I arrive and do hair and makeup for the models. Sometimes I assist with wardrobe and stay on set to transition the model to a second look.

Chris contacted me and told me more about his project and I looked at his website and checked out this 100 days project. Now I get it. He wants me to be one of his 100 portraits, pretty cool. This is really taking me out of my comfort zone, see I am a behind the scenes gal. However, the project has me interested. I even see some familiar faces.

Now that I know what the project is, I say yes and we roughly schedule me in for a few days before Christmas, Thursday I think. That morning I am set to be #64. Just before I talk to Chris, I check to see who was #63. She has fire twirling hula hoops! How cool is that! No pressure or anything, but you are following the awesome fire hoop chick.

Chris calls me to set up a time and a few hours later he arrives right on schedule. Now this is my first encounter with him, we introduce ourselves and get right to setting up this shoot. I am so nervous. I mean, I am really in panic mode. The pressure is on. I tell Chris that I am a new gal to Richmond and I really appreciate him inviting me to be a part of the project. I also tell him that it is really important to me that this photo be "very me", meaning that I wanted people to look at the photo and say now that girl looks like alot of fun, she looks nice and like a fabulous hair/makeup artist. No pressure, Chris.

We pull out my giant kit for hair and makeup and Chris sets up table. He gave me great direction and even though I had so much anxiety leading up to the shoot, he really calmed me down and in a matter of minutes we had a few good shots.
That is the sign of a good photographer. They come in and get the job done. It took more time to set up and break down that it took to get a handful of good shots. Impressive.

Then, we start to have a little fun. Okay, we accomplished what we set out to do. Now, he tells me just pick up that mirror and pretend to do your hair and makeup. Now that I am relaxed and the pressure is off, the real me comes out. We laugh when he shows me the camera and I say, "yep, thats me!".

Emily Hudspeth: really serious about hair and makeup but pretty fun to work with.

So this is me. Number 64 in 100 portaits.100 days by Chris Owens Photo

Thanks Chris Owens Photo for pulling me out of my comfort zone and making me get a little silly.

12 Days of Jasmine

The life of Jasmine is coveted by most. The smallest of the bunch, she runs the show. After a few days of mobile uploads in a row, I decided to bring you the 12 Days of Jasmine. I hope you enjoy.

Day 1: Good morning! Ill be here all day, if you need me.



Day 2: Happy friday!

Day 3: Mine! (even though I stole it from Charlie!)

Day 4: I dont want it but I dont want to give it back so I'm guarding this bone with me life, while catching some zzzz's. I'm known for multi-tasking.



I have been looking for girlfriend for 15 min, calling her, yelling outside, upstairs, then downstairs. Now this is where I find her. Hidden on the back of the couch! Letting me run around like a crazy. Sorry, day 5 of jasmine isn't very exciting.





Day 6: we are not getting off to a good start. Perhaps I need to explain to Princess Jasmine that the holidays are about sharing and caring? She is really concerned that Charlie is going to steal her little bone. She doesn't seem to recall (or care) that she stole his a few days back. What am I going to do with her? And why does Charlie let her be the bully?



Day 7 was my spa day at the petco, where the pets go. I feel beautiful and ready for christmas. I hope you do too!

Day 8: All of the children are snuggled in bed, one day early. My mom and dad are watching the grinch who stole christmas

Day 9: This chick preaches constantly to protect yourself from the sun. Today, jasmine's message is "merry christmas: do want you love (like indoor tanning) even if you mom says you really shouldn't." Have a great day.

Day 10: feliz navidad from jasmine. If you are looking for her, she will be here, in her moms lap, all day.

Day 11: Jasmine decides that eating the bone in Charlie's bed while growling at him (even though he has no interest in her or her bone) is more fun than eating it in her own bed.

Day 12: Holiday Hangover. At least Sister Jasmine has this little nub of bone left to snuggle up with.

Every day with Jasmine is fun filled, emotional and exciting. I hope you have enjoyed the 12 days of Jasmine.

Merry Everything

If you are easily offended, please look away.

This morning, a friend of ours emailed me a YouTube video that made him think us. We thought it was super hilarious.


We found a few more but I will just share my favorite one.



Have a sense of humor. Its more fun than taking yourself so seriously. Merry Everything.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

We are spending this Christmas in Virginia, snuggled up and settling into our new house. It has just been wonderful, to take much needed time to rest and relax. With 84 days until our wedding, I could use a moment of silence.

You know (or should be now), that we do love to hang out at home and eat really well. We have eaten really well this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Let me share some recipes with you.

Christmas Eve dinner: Braised Veal Shanks and Wild Mushroom Risotto.  I highly recommend this! Super delicious.

Followed by Toll House cookies for Santa. We always use the recipe on the bag o chips. Successful everytime!

Christmas Brunch:  French Toast Casserole and Potato Latkes.
* after 3 failed trips to Whole Foods for a challah bread, I gave up and we went with the back up option (cinnamon swirl) and it was really good.  Clearly I didnt get enough latkes at our hanukkah party. I had Jeff make sweet potato latkes last week, which were not good. I needed a little more latke in my life.

Our plan was to go to the movies and get Chinese food, a tradition of Jeff's people. Since we have a little winter storm brewing and I am really enjoying lounging, we went for Chinese take out and an on demand movie.

Just as an FYI, we LOVE chowhound and highly recommend it. That is where we found this chinese place to get our take out from. Any place that has an American Chinese food menu AND an actual Chinese food menu has to be awesome. Just so you know, when ordering you, must specify that you want the actual Chinese food. If you are white they just give you the American, unless you specifically ask for it. But anyway.

Here is an update on the weather, the snow is really coming down and starting to build.

We (Jasmine and I) dont hate this snow, maybe because it is super sparkly Christmas snow? Its probably because I got some warning and I do not have to leave the house since we are on "stay-cation". 

If you are looking for us, we will be at home in our footed, fleece snow flake jammies. Thanks Jill for sending such an awesome holiday treat! How ever have I made it this long without owning multiple pairs of these!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

This Bird Is Not Built For Snow

This chick has never claimed to be a snow bunny. I would say more semi-tropical than anything. But here we are, twice removed from the days of Spanish Town, this chick is now attempting to adjust to her new environment.

Charlie, while he has never actually lived outside Louisiana or Texas in the winter months, is a LOVER of the snow, just like his father. He loves the snow so much that I could not get him to come in at all! When Jeff came home from work, he went out to play in the snow with Charlie. Everyone was having a good time until Jeff tossed a snoball at Charlie. This was not Charlie's idea of a good time, so he got pissed and decided to pout inside. I would have done the sam thing.

Notice that you do not see Sister Jasmine. She is not a fan of the snow and could be considered semi-tropical like her mother.

playing in the snow

 For alot of reasons, I do not welcome this frozen precipitation falling from the sky. I will spare you my whine-fest. (Well, in short I will say, yes it is pretty. But I am not on vacation! I am not sipping hot cocoa and marveling at the wonders of winter. I am pissed off because I am cold and this shit is wet and gross. I have things to do and this is a huge inconvenience!....ok, Im done for now).

Please take a moment of silence in rememberence of my herb garden. It was once a flourishing masterpiece that I was so proud of. Then this snow storm snuck up on me and its safe to say that this is the end of a season. We will replant next year.

 This is the view from my front door. Ok, I guess it is pretty.

Today is the "first day of Winter" ( I wrote this 2 days ago) and Im ready for it to be the last. Will this chick survive in her new climate? Maybe, but don't look for her to spend much time outdoors until Spring.

Today Jeff informed me that we need to get ready for the big snow storm that is coming on Sunday. Being snowed in on Christmas weekend wouldnt be so bad.

Hiking around Austin

Back in my 20's, the weekend before we left Dallas to head to our new home in Richmond, we scooted on down to Austin to visit Bryan and Staci. Jeff and Bryan go way back to middle school. Bryan and Staci had visited us in once in Baton Rouge on their roadtrip to Austin the year before. They even came up to Dallas to visit us for the 4th of July. So we were not about to leave the state of Texas without visiting them and Austin.

 So we pack up the car and head down to Austin with our little family of 4, (me, Jeff, Jasmine, Charlie).

We had a great Saturday night then Sunday morning we went to brunch then out for a little adventure. I have no idea what this place is called. Im usually good about making a note but this time I dropped the ball. Regardless, this chick/dude and our super cute couple friends (seen below), went out to enjoy the great outdoors.

After a bit of hiking the trail we stopped for a water break, Jasmine and Charlie are clearly enjoying themselves as you see from their happy faces, complete with waging tongues. You may want to click on this one to see it in all its glory.

 Charlie and Penny (B&S's baby girl) are the best of friends. It isnt very often that Charlie gets to play with another dog his size. He tries so hard to play with Jasmine but she makes it very clear to him that she has no interest.

 After a tiny dip and splash in the creek, Jasmine happily suns herself on a rock.

 Charlie could just stay here forever. This was a great little activity for us to do, all puppies slept the entire way back to Dallas.

As always, we had a great time with Bryan and Staci. We cant wait to see you both at the wedding. Staci, I will see you in January for our girls trip to Austin.

Tacky Light Tour of Richmond

Thanks Chris and Ashley for taking us on our very first Tacky Lights Tour! 

Chris (a life-time local)  was a great trip advisor but if you do not have your own trip advisor, you can get the info here to manage your own schedule. People go all out, renting buses or limos. Its kind of a big deal.  

My personal favorite was the house that had a sign saying tune to this radio station. We followed the instructions and were pleasantly surprised when we realized that the lights were "dancing" along with the music, which happened to be the club version of "Amazing Grace". No, Im serious. You can't make that up! Strange song choice but impressive display of the Christmas spirit.

Our trip advisor, Chris, took alot of pictures. I will upload more to facebook since blogger is giving me fits today. Enjoy!

As a side note, I cant look at all this explosion of spirit withouth thinking,
#1. Why would you do this?
#2. How much is your power bill?
#3. And you want to cause a traffic jam in your neighborhood every night for a month?
#4. Do your neighbors hate you? year around or just at Christmas?
#5. Do these people plan to be on the tacky light tour OR are they shocked when their address makes it on t he list?

Either way, it was fun.

And I found this website with more info on the tacky light tour. Who knew it was the 25th anniversary!

After the very first "tacky lights" tour was organized by Richmond radio deejay Barry "Mad Dog" Gottlieb in 1986…
After being named "the capital of the lighting universe" by BusinessWeek…

And a "Christmas beacon" for tacky lights from Forbes Magazine…

After being featured on NPR for our tacky lights...

And TLC's "Crazy Christmas Lights" TV show...

Mayor Dwight Jones has named Dec. 15, 2010, "Richmond Tacky Light Tour Day."

Which basically means that Tacky Lights are being recognized by the mayor and its 25th anniversary here in Richmond.

Hide and Go Seek

Jasmine's new game is Hide and Go Seek. She does the hiding and you are supposed to find her. Last weekend, I nearly had a full out heart attack when Jeff and I destroyed the house searching for her everywhere. We looked outside, under everything, in every room, multiple times.

We couldnt figure it out. She had been in the backyard that day, in and out. The front door hadnt been opened. There was no way she escaped the back yard. Where could she be!

About 20 minutes into the frantic search, Jeff says that he will go looking around the neighborhood and I should call if I found her. He walked out the door and I went upstairs for the 4th time and that is when I found her sitting behind a box in the spare bedroom. She was hiding and shaking, I still dont know why. I had been calling her for the longest time and she wouldnt come out. I am pretty sure she didnt want to get in trouble and she knew she would because she is not allowed upstairs. I yelled, just in time and he came back. She got into a teeny bit of trouble.

Then this weekend, we played again. This was not as stressful, I found her immediately. Where was she?

Im not sure why she decided that hiding in my closet with the shoes was a good spot. It doesn't look comfy and I visit that area several times a day.

Shark Steam Mop

I insisted that the Shark Steam Mop was a must have tool for my new grown up lady life. I had to put a stop to the extemely time consuming Saturday ritual where this dude gets down on his hands and knees with a bucket and washes the floor. Now, dont get me wrong, I just adore that he cleans regularly and does it well.

But, I am not about to do this chore....EVER. I am not going to do it in the kitchen and I am certainly not going to do it in the bathroom. Gross.

I bought the steam mop and delegated the task of putting it together. I do not care for following instructions or putting things together. I think that is a good dude duty.

 One thing led to another, and....

He is done!  The end result, a short 15 minutes later!

The magical thing is that all you have to do is fill this sucker up with water. Just water, no chemicals! It steams right up in a couple of minutes and we had the entire down stairs (kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom and laundry room) steamed in about 10 minutes or less. This thing is so amazing!

I think I love how great it works in the bathrooms most of all. The bathroom tends to really get grody when you are slinging as much makeup and hairspray as I do on a daily basis.

Rosario, the Roomba, does a great job but a weekly steam will keep your floors squeeky clean! I think we will name this Steam Mop Buster. What do you think? I think Buster suits him well.

The Making of Holiday Cards

This year, I decided, would be my first year to send holiday cards. Every year I enjoy so much getting them in the mail and displaying them through out the holiday season. In the last year, I have decided that I am going to be a full out grown up lady and do grown up lady things. I am of the opinion that one of these things is sending holiday cards.

So when my mom came to visit I decided that we would take advantage of the extra set of hands and have her take a family picture of all 4 of us. She took about 27 and they were not our best. It is really hard to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time. Here's a look at what we ended up with.

 This is the first shot, probably the best one.

 It all kind of falls apart here.

 What am I looking at?

Where is Jeff? Oh, yeah, he is chasing Charlie around the back yard. Charlie decided posing for a picture is lame and we should play a game. I thought this was a great shot of the ladies of the house but not appropriate for our holiday card.

 Charlie, what are you looking at?

 Jasmine decide Jeff needed a little kiss.

 I thought that was a great idea so I gave him one too!

The top half looks great.

 Jasmine and Charlie gave up and retired to their corner.

The next day we took this one on our visit to Jamestown. It came out very nice, probably because we werent trying. So this year, it is just the two of us. Sorry, Jasmine and Charlie!

I was starting to get a little worried because I hadnt gotten any cards from friends and family this year. Maybe people dont know our address? Maybe they forgot about us?  Luckily, today (what started as a terrible day) was turned around when I received cards from Lindsay, E'tage & Mark, Stephanie & Angie, Claire & Richard. Thanks for brightening my day with your holiday cheer!

Nell's Buttermilk Cheese Biscuits

This weekend was our first weekend to actually lounge about and catch up on things around the house. Ah, what a glorious thing.  I decided that Saturday I would not leave the house, not even to go outside and check the mail. I did do the mandatory p90X workout that day, then showered and resumed lounging.

We really needed to go to the grocery store but I decided we would make do that do with whatever we had and we could go on Sunday. I remembered that Nell had sent me a couple of recipes for my KitchenAid mixer. The mixer still has not been named so feel free to make suggestions. Im thinking something fancy and French, Julia? Nell named hers Tiffany, which is awesome but taken.

I grabbed my trusty laptop and found the email where Nell had sent over her recipe for Buttermilk Cheese Biscuits. Luck be a lady, we had everything we needed. Except buttermilk. Not a problem, if you are a handy chick like me. Just google "substitute for buttermilk" and you will find this little gem. I decided that I would use half Greek yogurt (for the tang) and 1/4 milk, 1/4 cream.  We only have 1% so I made the executive decision to fatten them up a bit by adding the cream.

Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup cold buttermilk, shaken
1 cold extra-large egg
1 1/2 cups grated extra-sharp Cheddar
1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water or milk

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Place 2 cups of flour, the baking powder, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low, add the butter and mix until the butter is the size of peas.

Combine the buttermilk and egg in a small measuring cup and beat lightly with a fork. With the mixer still on low, quickly add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and mix only until moistened. In a small bowl, mix the Cheddar with small handful of flour and, with the mixer still on low, add the cheese to the dough. Mix only until roughly combined.

Dump out onto a well-floured board and knead lightly about 6 times. Roll the dough out to a rectangle 10 by 5 inches. With a sharp, floured knife, cut the dough lengthwise in half and then across in quarters, making 8 rough rectangles.

Transfer to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. ( I used the Oneida Pizza Stone Aunt Sandy got us. That thing rocks!)  Brush the tops with the egg wash, sprinkle with salt, if using, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the biscuits are cooked through. Serve hot or warm.
 

As you can see one is already missing and they have only been out of the oven about 30 seconds!

Next I need to try that recipe she sent for Mississippi Mud Cake! Thanks Nell!