making my "thing"

last night i woke up in the middle of the night with a vision.

well, actually this started about a month ago when gymboree came out with their newest line (for baby girls, the homecoming/fall line).  they had a shirt that said "sugar and spice and everything nice" which sounds a lot like my blog title, sans the GNEISS part. 

speaking of gneiss, it was so nice to see rocks today (in people's office cubbies) and hear words like "monitoring wells" and "site assessment" and "clean up" (when not referring to the floor and toys).  i felt like a geologist again for the first time in a while.  WHEW, nice.

so anyway, not that i'm a pro at picture taking OR editing or anything but i do have a big "shoot" (though pro bono) this weekend with the farm tour.  and, if i'm gonna be giving out those pictures, well, i did want to sorta get my name out there for any potential business in the future.  so, i was trying to think of a "business" name (without being a real business, since i haven't technically made any money yet) and, well, i came up with one.

sugar and spice.  well, it goes right along with this blog - and probably my personality too, and all the things i love to eat too. 

so when i got home from work today, we played and played (the kids and nathaniel and i) and then i sat down at this here computer and figured out how to make rounded AND floating edges.  i.e., this:

and then i took that and made it into something with my NAME on it.  this will be easy breezy to recreate into different shapes or with different color backgrounds or font colors... should i actually take some worthwhile pictures this weekend.

and so my last thing to say here is that (well, things) #1, i'm surprised at how many comments i got on my jpg, raw, and jpgautocorrected blog poll!  thanks guys!  and, they were just that - in that order.  #1 is the jpg, right from the camera (that one was my least favorite).  #2 is the raw image that i processed - i like that one a lot, but #3 is the jpg that photoshop elements 8.0 corrected on its own (i think i would have tweaked it differently, but i was trying to make the poll "even"). 

the jpg edited seems to be the majority's favorite (both on blogger comments and facebook comments).  i liked the #2 (raw) the most, but the #3 (jpg corrected) was a very close second.  so close that i had to make that poll!  thanks to all who participated.