Happy Wednesday y’all! This post completes a personal goal I set for myself last year: to take more pictures and use my camera more. I tried several times at doing this in the past, but could never accomplish it. What I found that I was missing was more accountability. I needed more “reason” behind it. So, at the beginning of last year I set out to find more ways to hold myself accountable with photography. The best way for me to do that was to create a blog post about taking pictures each month. It took a few tries, but sharing five photographs with a few stories seemed to produce a great post. And those are what you have been reading the last few months.
Writing these blog posts helped me to grow in my photography, document a few favorite memories during the year, and learn to be creative with what was around me. Goal. Achieved. With those thoughts in mind, I am sharing my photographs from December!
Words to describe my December: Fun. Packed. Restful.
One of the funniest activities I did this month was watch my nephew (he’s five) and niece (she’s four) in their holiday Christmas play. They were cast as angels and had a song to sing and dance to during the program. My nephew rocked it! He did great by singing and dancing and just having fun for those three minutes on the altar in church. My niece had a different experience. As soon as she saw her grandparents sitting in the audience, she threw her halo onto the ground and made a run for them in the audience. No singing. No dancing. Our family tried to get her to go back on the altar for her song, but no luck. Her mind was made up, and she wasn’t doing it. Her class finished, and she joined them afterwards. Their first Christmas play was definitely memorable to say the least!
Between Christmas parties and dinners and shopping, it felt like the weekends before Christmas were packed. I love seeing everyone around the holidays and know that clearing my schedule is the best to way to enjoy this time of year. Blogging during December didn’t really happen much, but taking a break from here also left me refreshed for the new year, which leads me to my next thoughts…
How to rest. By the time Christmas hit, I had a terrible sinus infection and my energy was gone. Once the holidays were over, I rested in bed for quite a few days because I needed to kick the sick feeling. In a strange way, I am thankful I wasn’t feeling great because it made me slow down and stop. Something I needed to do. This was the first year I decided to take a few days off in between Christmas and New Year’s. Maybe you can relate or maybe you can’t, but getting rest can be a hard to achieve somedays. I have this idea in my mind that if I stop, I won’t gain momentum to get back into things. In reality, that’s just not true. Yes, I need a little extra push to start again, but after a day or two everything is back to normal.
Here is what I photographed in December:
<Christmas season is the perfect time to bake. One Sunday afternoon, I helped (and by help I mean photographed and taste-tested desserts… I did help stir a few times too) a friend bake a few delicious goods. The mint-chocolate chip cookies (linked to my Pinterest page here) came out great! The pralines… Even after two attempts, the pralines still never turned out right. Making pralines takes skills… Skills we haven’t quite figured out yet.>
<Favorite present that Izzy couldn’t put down: lip gloss and a kitty cat.>
<Favorite present that Mikey couldn’t put down: a helicopter. Simplicity at its best.>
<December 31st, 2015. My year ended with friends, pretty decorations, and a loss for the girls with Battle of the Sexes.>
These really were some of my favorite posts to put together this year. They made me photograph more. They made me try new settings with my camera. They kept me motivated because I had reasons to shoot. And they allowed me to see progress and growth, which was the most rewarding part of this experience. I haven’t decided how will incorporate this into the new year, but I really do enjoy the series. If you have any feedback as to if you enjoyed this type of post, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to leave comments below!
If you missed any part of this series, you can check them out here:
and July…. I vacationed 🙂
THANK YOU so much for following along, leaving comments, and sharing my year with me! Enjoy your day!!
XOXO – Ashley
Ah, pralines. Try one, or both, of these. I’m no candy chef, or any kind of chef, but have tried both of these recipes with delicious results. I measure heavy on the pecans.
Pecan Pralines
Recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, 2006
Serves:
about 10 pralines
Ingredients
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 cup pecan halves
Directions
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the light brown sugar, granulated sugar, heavy cream, butter, and water. Place over a medium-high heat and stir constantly until the pralines reach the softball stage, 238 to 240 degrees F. Add the pecans to the candy, and pull the pan off of the stove. Continue to stir the candy vigorously with a wooden spoon until the candy cools, and the pecans remain suspended in the candy, about 2 minutes. Spoon the pralines out onto a parchment or aluminum foil lined sheet pan and cool completely before serving.
Or this,
Pralines
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen
Show: Paula’s Home CookingEpisode: A Candy Occasion
Rated 5 stars out of 5
Total Time: 50 min
Prep 15 min
Inactive 10 min
Cook 25 min
Yield:8 to 10 servings
Level: Difficult
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons dark corn syrup
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups pecan halves
•
Directions
Butter the sides of a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Place the sugar, salt, and corn syrup, milk, and butter in saucepan. Over medium heat, stir mixture constantly with a wooden spoon until sugars have dissolved and mixture comes to a boil. Continue to cook to a soft ball stage, approximately 236 degrees F on a candy thermometer. If you do a cold water test, the ball of candy will flatten when you take it out of the water. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
Add the vanilla and nuts, and beat with a spoon by hand for approximately 2 minutes or until candy is slightly thick and begins to lose its gloss. Quickly drop heaping tablespoons onto waxed paper. If the candy becomes stiff, add a few drops of hot water.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate this! We had a difficult time when it heated to the soft ball stage and removing it from the heat quick enough. I will definitely give these a try!