One Year Later

A year ago today (at roughly this time) Dave and I got engaged. We have been happily engaged and planning our wedding since. There have been a few snags in our wedding plans as of late, but things are moving along nonetheless.
We are going to be getting married on September 29, 2012 at the Southway Hotel and Conference Centre (aka the Southway Inn) in Ottawa. We have found  made a great deal of the remaining decisions, or at least started the process of doing so and are meeting with our planner at the hotel in the new year.
Of course, I have quite a large spreadsheet for the plans and today I started printing out things and compiling a hardcopy binder (softcopy just wasn’t cutting it anymore due to the large number of contracts, pamphlets and business cards).

Our engagement announcement went into my hometown paper quite some time ago. It was difficult finding a recent photo of the two of us, but I eventually found one on which we both agreed.

Christmas 2011 Wish List

I have been getting a lot of questions from people as to what to get me and/or Dave for Christmas. So like last year, I decided the best thing to do is to make a wish list.

Dave’s Wish List:
The Book of Cain
Diablo Archive
Archer TV series (Season 1, 2 and/or 3)
Bob’s Burgers TV Series
Movies: Bon Cop bad Cop, Hanna
Sin War Trilogy eBooks (Google eBooks; #1, #2, #3)
Gift Cards: Google eBooks, EB Games, Future Shop, Amazon, etc.

Steph’s Wish List:
Once again, I have broken it down into Camera and non-Camera related items.

Camera Wish List:
4’ wide white paper background;
8’ wide white, black or grey paper backgrounds
~4’x6’ piece of high quality black velour fabric
Bowen's softboxes
Radio trigger system (compatible with Bowen's 400 lights & Nikon D3s camera)
Bowen's battery pack
AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II Lens
AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 G ED Lens
AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED Lens
AF Fisheye-Nikkor 16mm f/2.8D Lens
Photo paper (Epson Premium Photo Paper [4+ stars], 8 1/2"x11")
Computer ink (for the Epson Artisan 800 all-in-one printer - code 98)
small white/gold reflector (maximum 10" or so but folds smaller - example).
Photo Books (Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop, HDR Photography Photo Workshop, Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers; A Professional image editor’s guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC, Photo Recipes Live: Behind the Scenes: Your Guide to Today’s Most Popular Lighting Techniques)
Variable Neutral Density Filter, 77mm
Lens Cap Strap Holder, 77mm
Handy-Dandy Camera Strap

Everything Else Wishlist:
gift cards (Ricki's, Henry's, thecamerastore.com, Amazon, Lululemon, Photojojo)
picture frames (8x10 or larger, compilation frames);
Movies (Gnomeo and Juliet, Winnie-the-Pooh Movie, The Little Mermaid, Life After People, Sandra Bullock/Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts/Drew Barrymore movies)
TV Series (Being Erica, Powerpuff Girls, Beverly Hills 90210, Charmed)
National Geographic Magazine Slipcases for Years 2008 onwards
Nikon Lens Mug
Time Lapse Camera
OPI Nail Polish (you can find a list of colours I already have here. There aren’t many specific colours I want, but I would like the Natural Nail Strengthener, Any colour of Shatter, A bright orange colour, pastel pink, traditional bright red, pastel green, a plain white, a light grey colour, a taupe like colour, a true black colour, anything from the Femme de Cirque Line)
OPI nail polish case like the one below:

For any of the books, movies or TV series listed in my list above, you can find them in my Amazon Wish List.

My list seems (and is) much longer than Dave’s but once you widdle out the thing that people are not going to buy me (like the very expensive camera lenses and lighting equipment), it isn’t that big.

A Colourful Addiction

I love OPI nail polish!! I have a hard time going to any of the stores that sell it here in Ottawa and not buying multiple colours. But since ‘I’ decided that I have a lot of OPI nail polish, I figured I should put a hold on buying it for myself. So to be able to still get some kind of a fix for the stuff, I decided to blog about it. Originally I wanted to take some studio shots of my nail polish to go with this blog post, but those will have to wait as right now I just don’t have the time.

 

Painting my nails is one of the few ‘girly’ things I do. I think it is fun and it also helps me from biting/picking my nails – which is pretty awesome for the times I want to grow them out.

 

The below table outlines the name and general description of the OPI polishes I have to date (and yes, there is a spreadsheet that this was copied from).

 

OPI Name	General Description
Top Coat	N/A
Natural Nail Base Coat	N/A
Kyoto Pearl	a Sheen-like White
Give Me the Moon	Iridescent Light Purple
A Grape Fit	Medium Purple
Honk if you Love OPI	Dark Purple
Suzi Says Feng Shui	Medium Blue
Yoga-ta Get this Blue	Dark Sparkly Blue
Jade is the New Black	Medium Green
Steady as she Rose	Light Rose/Pink
Suzi & the Lifeguard	Medium-light Sparkly Pink
My Address is ‘Hollywood’	Medium Sparkly Pink
Bogata Blackberry	Dark Sparkly Burgundy
Malaga Wine	Dark Burgundy
Teenage Dreams	Glitter Pink