3 Quarters Today

My Life, my photography, my passions

info@3QuartersToday.com

Homemade Cheesy Potato Bacon Soup

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What is better than a hearty meal in the winter time, soup, but not any soup, but “Cheesy, Ham, Sausage, Potato BACON Soup”. Yes, I said Bacon, almost a whole lb of bacon goes into this hearty warm potato soup and I’m not apologetic.

We are kinda bacon addicts in our house and now that bacon is hip popular again we don’t have to hide from the health nazis anymore.Cheesy potato Soup

I don’t like the cold of winter, but I do love soup season. There is something comforting, snug and warm about the cold wind howling outside and sitting on the couch with your hands wrapped around a warm bowl that just creates memories of home.

Although I didn’t grown up making soup it has become my winter passion for the past several years.  I haven’t had a can of Campbells in my cupboard for year. But I always have individual zip twist containers of frozen soup in the freezer.

Every batch or potato soup is a little different. Sometimes it’s thick and creamy other times it is full of chunky potatoes, ham, carrots, peas and celery.

Last weekend I made a large stock pot  and we ate it all day long then had enough for Monday for our lunches.

This year I have made chicken and rice soup, venison stew, chicken noodle soup and of course chili.

Cheesy Potato Bacon Soup Recipe

Click Here for Recipe for potato bacon soup recipe
Click Here for Recipe for potato bacon soup recipe

More of My Homemade Soup Recipes

Correcting White Balance in Snow Photography

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Winter in Nebraska can be fickle. We can have a season of blizzards, or just a couple of big snow storms that dump 8-12 inches a few times during the season. This year we have had no big snow storms, just a slight dusting at Christmas time, enough to say we had a white Christmas and nothing more.

The news is full of winter storm watches, bitter cold and above average snow falls from Chicago to New England, but nothing in Nebraska. So I’ve gone back into my archive photography files to get a taste of a snowy winter. The year is 2012 and in February we had a really nice, slow snowfall that coated everything. I went out with a camera I just got for Christmas, my oldest Marine son gave me his Canon Rebel before he deployed, and took photo after photo of the amazing scenery.

I have since started shooting in RAW and editing in Lightroom, so I thought I would rework a photo to see how I can improve on it now.

Winter snow on the plow
1. Before SOOC
Snow on the plow
2. After: crop, white balance, edited in Lightroom
Lightroom photo edit: snow on the plow
Click on image to see Lightroom details in editing.

First I cropped the original to a 5×7 and zoomed in a little closer. Then set the white balance in Lightroom by using the eyedropper on the snow, this eliminated the greenish cast. I also increased the highlights, clarity and contrast to give more texture. Below is horizontal crop version where I applied noise reduction. Since this image was originally a JPG shot at 400 ISO I thought it could use some smoothing out.

Which do you like the best, 1,2 or 3?

Winter farm storage
3. Horizontal crop with Lightroom noise reduction

Related Lightroom articles

Yearly Goals and Accomplishments

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I feel it’s important to set goals in life, no matter if they are personal or business goals. During the past year I finished a private online experiment to see if making money or a residual income on the internet is feasible. Was it successful? I would say yes. Did I get rich? No, but I by the end of the  year to pay for my monthly gas bill to drive to my regular full time job at Hamilton Color Lab.

It was successful enough that I have decided to take it to the next level and set a more ambitious goal for this year.

CafePress is my most successful income stream in the past year. Since both my sons are US Marines I started designing Marine Corps items in Photoshop I created to sell my Marine and military themed apparel and gifts. (click on the image below to go to my store)

CafePress Marine and Military Store

My YouTube account is still generating a change (ok a few dollars, two months of gas) not as much as 2012 but then again I don’t have any new Marine Corps videos. The demographics are males between the age of 18-27, you can imagine who is watching. I also  started writing for Squidoo, which is another blogging site. Squidoo shares the click through Adwords income with their successful writers and any Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Zazzle or CafePress purchases generates a commission. (You can sign up for Squidoo here)

Yearly Goals to Making money on the internet

My biggest social media accomplishment was growing my @3Quarters2Day Twitter account from about 1,800 followers in the spring to 20,000 in less than nine month. Yes, I have 20,000 30,000 people who follow me at @3Quarters2day and it’s been a lot of work to get it there.

Many hours spent on my Twitter phone app following people, responding to tweets and being real. It has paid off though, Twitter is responsible for over 60% of my referral on my internet platforms. (Pinterest is a close second.) 

I have learned a lot about Twitter, how to write tweets that get responses, how to use #hashtags successfully, and how to free up my time for responding to followers by using paid social media tools such as SocialOomph and JustUnfollow

In addition I have learned more about Photoshop, shortcuts, design, layout and multiple other tips and tricks that have helped with creating templates and military designs for CafePress.

This year I also started doing some free-lance graphic design and marketing for a few clients. One of which is for a  jazz musician, Steve Raybine and 2014 holds a lot of promise on a new venture of Music Motivational posters. We are currently looking for nationwide distributorship in the music industry. Currently the designs are for sale on Fine Art America where I also have a small presence selling my photography. (I didn’t do much with my own photography this past year, however that will soon change.)

Music Teacher posters

As with anything marketing and developing an audience and following takes time and although my income curve is definitely on an upward trend I spend many hours a week nurturing the various channels. In fifteen years I would like to retire, travel around the country (or world) in an RV and generate enough online income to live comfortable and enjoy life sitting on a beach chair with my laptop.

2014 Yearly Goals

(I refuse to call them resolutions)

  1. Increase @3QuartersImages Twitter followers to 5,000
  2. Increase @PetsNCritters Twitter followers 10,000
  3. Create a Military Pride store on Zazzle (mirror CafePress to a point)
  4. Write an average of one Squidoo lens (article) per week
  5. Increase backlinks from WordPress to Squidoo
  6. Increase Twitter feed on SocialOomph to reflect WordPress content
  7. Move to WordPress.org and add affiliate partners (DONE)
  8. Use the WordPress scheduler to post on a regular basis (at least twice a month)
  9. Increase monthly revenue stream an 50% by the end of the year

Are these goals achievable? I tried to make them S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, attainable, reachable, and trackable) and although I haven’t written out how they will be achieved I know where I’m heading.

Have you created goals for your personal or business life? It helps to become accountable by either writing them down or  telling them to someone. My co-worker was my accountability partner this past year and my pocket book, the empty one with dust bunnies, reminded me to stay on track.

Part of the WordPress journey will be providing updates on the goals, how the social media platforms function, and continued photography posts with more Photoshop tips and tricks. I may even learn how to video the steps and create a YouTube channel. Notice I didn’t put that on my goal. I’m staying realistic. Who knows what the year will bring!

Squidoo Monthly Payouts

CafePress income for the year
CafePress monthly revenue.

Above are monthly revuneu graphs of income streams from two of my internet platforms. As you can see, I’m not getting rich. The number of hours to maintain this growth I can’t even begin to count. For example just today (Saturday) I’ve been on the computer for ten hours photo editing, creating reoccuring tweets, creating new Squidoo backlinks, creating the graphic for this article, writing this blog and gathering the links.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask, I’ve received a lot of advice and it’s my turn to pay it back.

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Thankful November: My 30 Day Photo Challenge

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Thankful November seems to be the trend as I’ve been seeing thankful postings on Facebook and on Twitter the past couple of days. I think we should say thank you everyday, but there is something powerful about saying “thank you” out loud and counting your blessings during the month of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving tends to disappear between Halloween and Christmas, the holiday has all but disappeared in the consumerism and holiday hoopla. So yes, I think I will participate in Thankful November.

When I think of all I have, all God has provided, it’s really amazing. Life could be so much harder, and as I look back on my life there have been some years that pushed me to the limit physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I learned to appreciate the little things in life, see the positive instead of the negative and “Let God.”

So the photographer in me is going to merge two projects, a 30 Day Photo Challenge and 30 Days of Thankfulness.  Those who have followed my blog might remember my 365 project. I’ve come a long ways in my photography since then and I’d like to start sharing again. Photography is my way of documenting and recording what is important to me, so in essence, it’s what I’m thankful for in life.

Harvest in Nebraska, Combines in the fields
Day: 1 Harvest in Nebraska (Commute to work)

Day 1: I am thankful for my commute to work every day. The twenty-eight miles takes me about 35 minutes when I don’t stop to take photographs. During the fall the farmers are in their fields picking corn and combining soybeans. Harvest is a reward for a year’s work.

Fall color, red maple leaves in Nebraska
Day 2: Fall Color (Flowers or Nature)

Day 2: I am thankful for the little things, leaves on the trees, the change of seasons, it makes me happy.

My Boxer Leah
Day 3: My Puppy Dog

Day 3: My dogs make me happy, animals love unconditionally and Leah my Boxer is always happy to see me when I come home, she wiggles her tail so hard her whole body wiggles.