Miradam's Musings

Sorry! We've been pretty absent from the blog last week. As we mentioned a bit ago, we're working on a huge project... part of which we finished yesterday! We're so excited to reveal most of it to you sometime this June :D BUT the blog posts are back in the schedule for next week. Until then, we thought we'd tide you over with some musings...

~ A couple of weeks ago, we took a day off and one of the things we did was stop at Milwaukee's Villa Terrace. While we've photographed weddings and sessions there, we only briefly had a chance to walk through on our own, and that was a few years ago... so we thought it was time that we paid it a more lengthly visit :) As always, it was gorgeous (photo below from Wikipedia).

~ We've been doing tons of photo-location-scouting lately, and while walking around the streets of Bay View, we saw this very perplexed dog... and we could not stop laughing! :D At one point, the dog was laying is head on the "gentleman's" lap, just staring at the head!

~ We recently had our mentor session with Kenny Kim (we had the winning bid in the Thirst Relief Auction). We had a blast getting to know him, talking shop, seeing his Thirst Relief and Italy work, enjoying a delicious meal here, sipping some red wine and espresso... I could go on and on. We can't thank him enough for the invaluable advice he shared with us. He was humble and fun, and we look forward to hanging out with him again the next time we're in Chicago :) We finished the day checking out the Shedd Aquarium (we only got to see half of it last time) and having dinner with one of our best buds. I love days when everything just puts a huge smile on your face! Here's a photo Kenny took of us with his phone, and one that we shot at Shedd (also on our phone).

~ A couple of weeks ago, we met up with photo friends in the Third Ward at Gallery Night & Day to check out some artists' work, including ours. The MIAD graduate show was also that night, and it was so exciting to see so many blossoming artists with their futures full of possibilities! A fair amount of them created books, which I was disappointed to see were not for sale. We asked them, and it seemed they hadn't thought of it (they were probably overwhelmed with finishing their project, completing their last semester, etc... which is very understandable!). I hope some future MIAD graduates are reading this so they can learn to sell their artwork. Anyhoo, here's a shot at the exhibition that had nine of our pieces in it (taken on my phone)...

~ We finally invested in some new office furniture!!! Bought two sets of these (below). Cannot wait to receive it!!! Our office is currently by far the least pretty room of our home... but not for much longer!

~ Also while scouting, Adam and I took a little break to go paddle boating at Veteran's Park. We're slowly but surely learning to balance work and play... It's very easy as a small business owner to be all work and no play. Having balance is not only good for your personal life, but it also refreshes you as an artist (or whatever your career may be). Here's one of our shots from the pond (taken on our phone).

Have a great weekend! Talk to you soon :)
~Miranda & Adam

Miradam's Musings

~ We're super proud of Dave for winning a prestigious award!

~ We went to our first Brewers' Opening Day. We had great seats, and it was a blast :) But, we're going to save our Brewers' festivities for non-opening day games in the future. Way to crowded! We waited in line for the bathroom and then waited once in line for a beer, and got back to our seats over two innings later! Here are a couple photos from our phone from the game (the first one is on the bus we took from the State Fair grounds to the game).

~ Speaking of the game, it was GORGEOUS out that day! I was wearing a tank top in the stands and was hot... and even got some color (which is rare for me - Miranda - since I normally reflect the sun)! Then, two days later it was snow flurries outside our windows. That's Wisconsin for you.

~ We've been busy bees working on several projects along with trying to perfect our workflow before wedding season is full force.

~ Not sure if you've heard of the new rampant drug among teens dubbed "skittles" but apparently Skittles-the-candy-company thought it would be cool if they marketed to skittles drug users and exploited this issue by making their new website hallucinogen inspired. That's wrong on so many levels.

~  Our nieces have their favorites among Adam and I. Grace's fav is Adam (Uncle A), and Ava's fav is me (Auntie M). Coincidence or not, Adam is Grace's Godfather and I'm Ava's Godmother. They're still too young to even really understand that, so I don't think it has anything to do with it...? It works out nicely, though, because when Adam and I hang out with them, they don't find the need to compete for attention. All is harmonious and fun :D

~ Adam's pool leagues are over now, and his team finished 2nd! He's officially a part of Mad Dog Saloon's history, with a little plaque on their wall. (photo from my phone)

~ Two different clients of ours had loved ones pass away over these last couple of weeks. Each expressed their gratitude for the memories we captured for them. Adam and I are humbled and honored that we were able to give them such important remembrances with our photos. Our condolences, love and support are with them and their families.

~ We purchased pre-sale tickets for Lady Gaga this September! Neither of us have ever been to a show like the one she's bound to put on, so we're pumped! Most of the concerts we've been to have been rock, blues, and hip hop, so a huge pop star's show will be a very new experience for us!

~ Whenever it's nice outside (which has been surprisingly often this April), we've been going for long walks in the park. We have some lovely Spring photos that we'll be sharing with you soon! One day, we saw HUGE birds that we had never seen before. With the help of Google and Wikipedia, we discovered that they were Turkey Vultures (see below, photo from Wikipedia).

~ Don't forget to come see our work at Light Ideas Gallery this weekend at Milwaukee's Gallery Night & Day! :D We'll be there tonight, and hope to see you! :)

Talk to you soon!
~Miranda & Adam

Miradam's Musings

~ I (Miranda) have been spending a lot of time with my sis lately, so much so that her couch fiasco (the furniture store is giving them a hard time about their warranty) has ended up in my nightmares. While some might say that means we've been seeing too much of each other, I think it's cute (though I don't welcome further nightmares :)

~ Last month, we had the winning bid in the Thirst Relief Auction for a mentor session with Kenny Kim. It's so phenomenal that the auction raised over $41,000 to provide safe, clean drinking water for those in need around the world. Can't beat donating to such a great cause, and having the opportunity to "talk-shop" with such an awesome photographer. We look forward to our session with him!

~ I (again, Miranda) purchased some Sketchers Shape-ups, and while I feel like I look like Herman Munster in them, I'll tolerate it, because I really do feel the burn wearing them.

~ We had a huge response to our internship this year! It almost made me blush a little :) We're looking forward to our new intern, Molly, starting in Mid-May!

~ We've been trying to schedule as much fun in as possible before wedding season is in full force, because as our friends know, we then fall off the face of the earth and live in the wonderful world of weddings. Don't get me wrong, we have a blast doing what we love during wedding season! We just have less time for our social life. Here's what we've been up to over the last couple of weeks:

• Went to see Vampire Weekend! Since I (Miranda) have seen a million punk and rock shows, I've learned the art of worming your way to the front, so that's where we were! Apparently the adorably naive girl who had been standing there for 3 hours did not understand that's how rock concerts are, so she she was quite upset and put her seemingly illegally obtained beer in my face (apparently very proud of her fake ID) and told me to get my 18-year-old-a** out of there. I thanked her for the compliment :) It's not every day someone under-guesses your age by a decade! On a side note, we also ran into Laura & Eric there!

• Took our nieces to see If You Take a Mouse to School at First Stage Theater. It was so much fun to see their faces light up!
• Bought tickets to the Brewers' Opening Day (this coming Monday)! We're pumped! We'd love some suggestions for good tailgating food...
• Have been having dinner with a lot of our friends lately! After dinner with Kelly & Dave, we stopped for a cocktail and stumbled upon some karaoke! We're hoping to post a video at some point but just haven't had the time to figure out the logistics of that (we need to edit the video on our iPhone... Any tips?).
• Went on a tour of the Pabst Mansion. They told us that it's rare to see people from Milwaukee on the tour even though the mansion is in Milwaukee! So we recommend our fellow Milwaukeeans to check it out! We loved it. (Photo below from Wikipedia.)

• Had a game night with Adam's family. Seriously, I'm curious how many decibels we raise in laughter :)

Have a great weekend, everyone! Talk to you soon!

~Miranda & Adam

Miradam's Musings

Around the time of our wedding, our friend Dave started jokingly calling us Miradam, and the circle of our friends and us had a hilarious time seeing what last names we could come up with using the letters of Zynda and Kneeland. So since then, our "celebrity name" is Miradam Zynland ;)


We thought we'd pay homage to that in a dorky and funny way by bringing "Miradam" into our new blog series featuring our random thoughts.

So here they are, kicking off our first miscellaneous post...

~ We're currently working on lots of new and exciting stuff for our business! We can't wait to share it with you in the next couple of months! Because we're putting our energies into these projects, we might be blogging a bit less, but trust us, it'll be worth it :)

~ We're super pumped to have finally completed our own wedding album! Let that be a personal testimony as to why it's not a good idea to do your own wedding album. It took us YEARS, and this is what we do for a living! We actually just received it today. Waiting to open it till we're done working today :)

~ We just celebrated our wedding anniversary :) We started the day going to see Street Scene at the Milwaukee Art Museum, went for a late lunch at Cafe Hollander, went to see Alice in Wonderland at the Oriental, followed by a cocktail at Hi Hat and dinner at Bosley on Brady (a couple of these places might look familiar to you). We had a wonderful day together!

~ We finally got out and did some personal shooting. Felt so good. We'll share some photos with you soon!

~ Spring is here! We've thoroughly enjoyed seeing things spring up in our yard. Check out the shot below (taken on our phone)...

~And speaking of spring, I (Miranda) love how my shoe selection has opened up with the nicer weather! I love shoes :) Check out this pair that I bought to wear at Dave & Amanda's wedding (photo taken on our phone)! I think I'll be wearing them with a black and white dress with a red bolero like this one on Etsy...

~ Made it over to Jess's house to see her and her hubby's baby! Reggie has some good genes! :)

(taken on our phone)

And... this post got long, so we'll have to save our other musings for a later time...

Talk to you soon!

~Miranda & Adam