Photo Books

I recently made three photo books using different services for each one.  I used Blurb, Shutterfly, and Apple.  Each of them have pros and cons, although I guess I would say that for the price, Shutterfly produces a great product with high quality photo paper and bound well.  Below are my notes for each product.

Blurb (MV '09 - hardcover w/ dust jacket) - high quality photo paper, well-produced picture quality, easy to use formatting program, easy to share book, nicely bound, comes with dust jacket OR picture wrapped cover option, most expensive.

Shutterfly (One Week in America - hardcover w/ picture wrap) - high quality photo paper, well produced picture quality, most difficult formatting program, nicely bound, picture wrapped cover (no dust jacket option), least expensive.  

Apple (Daisy - softcover) - high quality photo paper, well produced picture quality, easy to use formatting program, softcover binding is flimsy, second most expensive.

A Weekend in the Woods

We spent the weekend with friends in Mansfield, PA where we stayed in a hunting cabin outfitted with 8 bunk beds, a full fire place, and a double seater outhouse on the property.  The other girls and I couldn't build enough courage to use the outhouse and therefore had to make many trips into town.  The lack of a shower didn't bother us though... we had moist facial wipes and bottled water for teeth brushing, a luxurious experience that made us feel like new women afterwards.

The highlight of our trip was our hike at Tioga State Forest on the loveliest day ever.  The sun was shining and the temperature was perfect.  We hiked a trail that zig-zagged down to the river where we frolicked for a while.  The river water was refreshing on our feet and the dogs enjoyed splashing around.  We decided to be a little more adventurous on the way back up and stray off the trail to climb the steep hills between the zig-zags.  This plan wasn't well thought out as a few of us (including myself) became stuck when we didn't have anything to grab onto to help ourselves us up the VERY steep hill.  When we finally made it up the hill and back onto the trail, we decided that the climb was fun and exhilarating, but not worth trying again.  

Sweetheart Pies

Thomas made meat pies the other week and they were delicious!  The steak and mushrooms made a great combination and the sauce was so good.  The heart shape added a nice touch, giving them the nickname sweetheart pies.

Check Out Vimeo

Vimeo(.com) was recommended to me to upload my videos and to use as a virtual archive.  It has been easy to use so far.  I have many videos on my computer that I've been wanting to remove to increase hard drive space.  I feel a little better about deleting them now that they are backed up online, on disc, and on an external hard drive.  ACK!  This technology stuff poses more problems than solutions sometimes...

Anyway, here's a video of Carter singing Queen in the car from early August:

queen in the car from Melissa Straka on Vimeo.

Soup!

Lots and lots of soup!  We now have a small chest freezer to store our delicious homemade food.  Our regular freezer is no longer over-stuffed and spewing food out when the door is open.  So, we got busy last weekend making one of our favorites - tomato soup.  We picked two full bags of plum tomatoes and came home to start the process.  We are really pleased with this year's batch.  It's the right everything - consistency, taste, and quantity.

We ended up with 16 containers - a new record!