The Saturday Sit-Down #33: Klein dot Co

Q: In three sentences or less, tell us a little bit about who you are. J

A: I’m Amanda, the Klein behind Klein dot Co! I’m a former teacher and forever California girl, now living in Alabama. I’m wifey to super scientist Max and #boymom to sweet Parker Campbell. I’m a stay-at-home-mama, so on any given day you can find me cooking, baking, crafting, taking photographs, at Pilates or barre class, on a walk to the coffee shop, volunteering for Junior League, or putting my M.Ed. to good use teaching my little guy.

Q: When did you start your blog, and what do you primarily blog about?

A: I started blogging in July of 2007 – that’s right, eight years ago. I was about to get married and move out of California, so blogging was a way to keep everyone back home updated on our life happenings. Eight years later, it still is! The blogosphere has changed a lot since then, and these days in addition to writing about everyday life, activities, adventures and recipes, now I get to do the occasional collaboration or sponsored post, too!

Q: I was so excited to see that a few years ago you moved to my hometown in Alabama! So awesome! How do you like Alabama so far, and Huntsville in particular?

A: This December marks three years living in Huntsville! I can’t quite believe it! In some ways I still feel so new (hello crazy roads that change names all over the place) and in other ways it feels so natural to live here. Everyone is beyond sweet, very friendly and super welcoming (Erica, I bet you have the best southern manners!). I adore all the new phrases I now get to say – I totally adopted “y’all” and I’m quite proud that I used “bless” in a conversation just last week (you know, as in “bless her heart.”)With about 400,000ish people in the metro area, Huntsville is the smallest of the places I’ve lived in the past ten or so years, but it’s still big enough to have everything we need right now. We love going to the symphony, watching minor league hockey games, attending concerts at Big Spring Park – and best of all we can walk to it all! Huntsville seems to be growing by the second, and I’m loving the new local businesses popping up everywhere (especially the ones serving gorgeous cappuccinos!). We also have quite the list of breweries here! Most people might be surprised to read that Huntsville is also called the “Rocket City” – you can’t throw a rock without hitting an engineer here (my husby included!).

A: Growing up in California, I didn’t understand why people from out-of-state would comment on the perfect weather (it was all I knew). Now I get it! After experiencing Arizona’s heat and Alabama’s humidity, California (and the Mediterranean climate of the Bay Area) is pretty much perfection (though the occasional Alabama snow is all sorts of awesome). I miss California’s gorgeous scenery, the beaches, and the price of my California wines! Bottles are much more expensive when they’re shipped across the country. While I’m at it, I miss the price of avocados and artichokes, too! (Though they’re not worth the housing prices and traffic, ha!) Being in the Bay Area was fabulous since I was always just a CalTrain ride up to the city (San Francisco) and everything amazing that was there.

I went kicking and screaming (#kiddingnotkidding) to Arizona, but developed an appreciation for Scottsdale, where Max and I lived as newlyweds for five years. I even learned to adore the saguaro cacti! The Phoenix metro area is relatively new, so it’s masterplanned and the highway system is extremely well thought out. It was very easy to maneuver around the city (which was needed since everything is quite spread out). Most buildings are beautiful and newly constructed, power lines are buried so there are no eyesores (or power outages from trees falling on the lines) and best of all, it’s a resort town so it’s spa and shopping Mecca. Double points for no earthquakes or tornadoes. Out of all the places we’ve lived, Scottsdale was the easiest. Though relocating is difficult, I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to experience living in different parts of the country (and to be able to reflect and really appreciate what we have in each area).

Q: Tell us about your precious son! How old is he, what are his favorite things to do, etc.

A: Parker Campbell is just the light of our lives! He’s an old soul; I swear he came out of me already an eighty year-old man (though he’s actually just four). He loves sushi and aged gourmet cheeses (basically he has an internal beacon for whatever is most expensive, ha!), and playing Beethoven on the piano. At age three he was reading short books, doing addition and subtraction problems, and telling time on analog clocks, so my prediction is he’ll be an engineering Ph.D. someday like his Daddy! Parker is also all boy, and would love nothing more than playing outside (preferable a sport with a ball) all day long. He’s the reason for my caffeine addiction. 😉

A: Thank you so much! We have a Canon 5D Mark II that we literally found via Craigslist, and bought off a professional photographer named Wolfgang at 10pm inside a Scottsdale McDonalds. I kid you not. If you’re familiar with Canon cameras, the 5D is Canon’s second to top model, and was the newest release at the time, so we walked in with quite a bit of cash and I was twelve kinds of terrified. But, like all our Craigslist purchases thus far, it went phenomenally well and Wolfgang was a wealth of knowledge about all things Canon. At the time, Max had a 1 Series (Canon’s top model) but it was several years old, so the 5D was actually an upgrade. I’m pretty sure that all of our lenses have been purchased used – buying used is kind of my husband’s motto in life, actually. Buying used lets us get the really nice lenses (the L series ones which have the best glass) for the price of the lower quality models. He surprised me last year for my birthday with Canon’s 50mm 1.2 lens, and I’m just obsessed with it. A 50mm is great for portraits or close ups of food (my favorite thing to photograph!). For editing, I use Lightroom and always brighten the photos up.

A: I’ll take a spa day, please! Preferably in California. Or Scottsdale. Or, since I’m making it up anyway, why not on an island 😉

2014 By the Numbers | Taco Tuesday Roundup | The Stay At Home Mom’s Guide to Business Travel 

I finally made a Facebook Page for the blog! It’s brand new but its’s there. So are the struggles of being one of the “older” bloggers catching up to everything! I’m also on Pinterest, and Instagram (I’m @sugarmande) is just my favorite!

And just for fun…