Today is my favorite day of the year--the day Daylight Savings Time begins. It's luscious. Wonderful. Magnificant. Best day of the year. Nothing better than magically getting an extra hour of sunlight. It's downright divine.

In honor of the day, we stayed in our jammies all day. It was lovely. Just lovely. Everyone needs a jammie day from time to time. Somewhere around 3 I suggested that we get dressed but the idea was resoundly disapproved of so we did nothing.

I read my book on portrait photography. The author is a photographer who works the way I want to--she calls it lifestyle photography. It's mostly on location and in many usual locations, to boot. Natural poses, available light, rustic locations--great stuff. It is so what I want to do. Not staid, stiff, formal portraits in studio but relaxed, comfortable, fun portraits that people will love and will feel represents their true selves.

I also did some web research on portraiture and photographic equipment. I found a great website that has photographic props--wicker wing back chairs and backward chairs and bassinets and trellises, etc. I bookmarked it--it will certainly come in handy when I have some money to invest. I'm thinking the bassinet or baby chaise longue would be a good first purchase along with some fluffy white baby afghans and linens. That will have to be a first purchase because it's hard to photograph babies without good bolsters.

There are so many things I feel like I need to get if I'm going to be a real photographer--a medium-format camera, a 80-200 f8 zoom lens (which I can also use for macro photography), the aforementioned bassinet, and perhaps a newer 35mm camera, too. That's the bare minimum. A backward chair would be nice, too. And a pair of portable background stands and a background cloth (though that's not nearly as important since I want to shoot on location as much as possible). I don't want to be an equipment bug, though. I firmly believe that it is the person behind the camera, not the camera itself and the other goodies, that makes a good portrait. Still, a few good pieces are important.

Ah, I'm coveting. Yearning. Longing. I wish I had a bigger photography budget. Alas, I do not. We need to buy a piano (digital) and get rid of the rental one we have. We need to pay a $1000 application fee to get the adoption process started. We have a little trip to Las Vegas planned for June. And a few other things. I'll just have to do it piecemeal, I suppose. That means prioritizing. I'm thinking the zoom lens would be the highest priority with the medium-format camera next.

I made some very delicious spaghetti with meat and mushroom sauce tonight. I had a whole bunch of big, fresh mushrooms that I sliced up for the sauce. Mmm--I love mushrooms. It's getting to morel season. I've got to get some fresh morels this year and make my famous mushroom ragout over grilled polenta. It is so earthy and delicious! Ed doesn't fully appreciate it so I'll have to be sure to invite a fellow fungiphile over to share it.

The baby shower is this weekend so I need to get cracking on acquiring the needed props for the Big Baby Relay. It's going to be very fun.

Time to visit the loo. Later...

--L