A Picture of the Person You Can’t Live Without

This was supposed to be the writing prompt for yesterday.  But I delayed this one because I knew we would be getting pictures taken today.  We had our family pictures taken tonight by Annie, which was so fun.  I handed Taylor my phone while Annie took a picture of Eric and I together and he was smart enough to snap a couple with my phone.  Can’t wait to see the real thing from Annie’s camera!
Next month, Eric and I will celebrate 19 years of marriage.  Pretty soon, I will be married longer than I’ve been single.  Crazy!  But I wouldn’t change my life for anything.  I love Eric.  If I had been asked what my plan was when I graduated from high school, it would not have involved getting married at 19 and having my first baby at 21.  But when you find true love, why wait?  Eric wasn’t the type to wait around while I dithered about getting married so young.  I like to give him grief about how his marriage proposal put my travel plans to France on hold.  I still haven’t been to Europe, but there is still plenty of time for that.  And it will be 10 times more awesome with Eric than it would have been while I was single.  Love this guy!

The One Place I Will Visit Before I Die

I LOVE this picture.  Even if I didn’t study French all through high school and college, I would still pick this as my top travel destination.  Everyone I’ve ever talked to who has been to Paris, can’t say enough good things about their visit.  I keep delaying planning a visit because nothing short of two weeks will be enough time for me!  Someday it will happen… I’m nothing if not patient!

The 50 day Facebook challenge on my blog… maybe.

I need some motivation to get back into blogging.  I get on my computer and I get so distracted by other things, Facebook, Pinterest, email, Photoshop… I just don’t seem to find time to get around to blogging.  I want to blog, but obviously, I don’t want it bad enough to make it happen.

Have you seen anyone doing a 50 day challenge on Facebook?  I checked it out it looks like just the thing I could use to resurrect my blog and my enthusiasm for blogging.  So, for the next 50 posts or so, I’ll be using the writing prompts from this challenge.  Or maybe I’ll just use a few.  Not sure yet, but I need something to motivate me!

So here is me doing Day 1 of the Challenge:  A picture of yourself with 10 facts about you.

1.  It’s hard to find pictures of myself.  I take a lot of pictures.  I’m not in a lot of pictures.  (I took this picture of myself the day I picked up my glasses in August.  I’m still getting used to be a glasses wearer.)

2.  I like to sleep.  Maybe that’s another reason why I don’t get on my blog as much as I should.  I’d rather be sleeping than blogging.  I don’t get nearly enough sleep, hence the reason for #3….

3.  I love Diet Coke.  I also love Dr. Pepper Ten.  I love Diet Coke with vanilla added, and I love Dr. Pepper with Cherry added.

4.  I could eat a cheeseburger, fries and a diet coke every day.  If I ever got tired of that, I would eat cheese enchiladas with diet coke every day.  Notice the pattern… always including diet coke!

5.  I just committed to do Ragnar in February with some of the most amazing women I know.  I’m super excited about the running and girl time… I’m kinda freaked out about running through the desert in the pitch black in the middle of the night.  Did I mention I like to sleep?  Good thing I also like Diet Coke.

6.  I LOVE christmas movies.  Currently, Elf is my favorite.  Why can’t Will Ferrell be that cute and clean all the time?  Only 4 more days until I can watch Christmas movies 24/7 guilt free.

7.  I write out all my words in text messages.  I hate it when kids abbreviate their words, or use acronyms like idk (I don’t know).  I hate it even more when adults do it.  It’s a weird pet peeve I have.

8.  I hate cleaning my house.  I have 3800 square feet.  I don’t have a cleaning service.  I used to fantasize about getting a cleaning service until I read The Help.  Now, I don’t think I could ever hire someone to clean up my messes.  As a result of all these factors, my house is never clean.  And never all at the same time.

9.  I hate yard work.  If I didn’t have 3 boys, I probably would have hired a lawn service by now.  I still wish I could do it, but if I pay someone else to mow the lawn and pull weeds, what chores will be left for the kids?  I also want them to learn how to work, and how better to teach that lesson than pulling weeds in triple digit weather?

10.  I don’t watch the news.  I stopped watching the news the day after Obama got elected.  At the time it was an aversion to the sappy Obama love that I just couldn’t bear at the time, but after a couple months, I realized how much negativity there is on the news.  When I do catch an occasional news cast, it reminds me just how much I hate watching the news and how much happier I am without it.  Besides, you find out all the important stuff on facebook, anyway, right?

Books I’ve Read

October 2011

 

 Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never read an Agatha Christie novel before.  Good thing it got picked for Book Club or I would have never discovered how delightful these books can be!  The audio was hard to listen to at first… all the French accents were tough to understand, but after a while I got used to it.  Once I could understand everyone and learned all the names, it was very enjoyable to listen to.  I’m looking forward to many more Agatha Christie novels in my future. 

 

 

  The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley

This is the second book about the character Flavia de Luce.  Flavia is an eleven year old girl obsessed with chemistry and death.  Flavia also happens to be a great detective.  Between Flavia’s obnoxious sisters, the 1950’s English country setting, and her obsession with chemistry, there’s plenty to keep you entertained.  This was the perfect book to take on my trip to Seattle last month.   It kept me entertained on my long days of travel back and forth.  I highly recommend this series of books.  Currently reading #3 in the series and so far it has not disappointed! 

 

I haven’t updated my good reads account in ages, so I’m feeling like there was another book I read in October that I’m currently forgetting about. If I remember it soon, I’ll update this post to include it.  I’m currently reading 3 books right now, so November’s post should be much more exciting! 

Portrait Class Recap

Things I learned in my Rec Center Photo Class:

1.  Try to do portraits during the “golden hour”… one hour before sunset.  And always have a reflector on hand.  The other “golden hour” of the day is one hour after sunrise, but I’m NOT a morning person, so not sure how often that will work out.

Check out how evenly lit Robin’s face is with the use of this reflector!  The sun is shining directly onto the left side of her face, but the reflector makes both sides look great!  (FYI, our teacher is a huge lover of “props”, hence the boxing gloves!)  Of course, for the real portrait, I would have made sure the reflector isn’t in the photo!

2.  Shoot in RAW.  I’ve always been afraid of RAW, but I shouldn’t have been.  It’s   A.  MAZE.  ING.  It does help to have a book (or person) to show you how do so some of the basics.  Shooting in “Manual” mode is important too.  Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t.  Manual is a real trial and error process. 

Above picture taken straight out of Camera (SOOC).  Below, same photo with a “vibrance boost” using the adjustment sliders in the RAW converter and then cropped.  Super easy and doesn’t look “over edited”.

3.  Be willing to invest in good photo editing software.  We all want great photos straight out of the camera, but in today’s world, editing is what gives your pics that extra “pop”. 

      

I’ve heard good things about Adobe Lightroom, but didn’t understand just how cool it was until I saw my teacher use it.  It is the ideal software for photographers who shoot in RAW format exclusively because you can do all your RAW adjustments in the program and then convert large batches of photos into JPEG (or other) formats with one command.  I would have asked for this for my birthday, but I really want a MAC too…. and all things must be purchased in order.  No sense in buying this program for my PC if I am going to be getting a MAC anytime soon.  I’m nothing if not patient. 

4.  Don’t leave home without the tripod.  You never know when you will need it.  None of us had a tripod for this shot, so we used the table.  Have you ever seen these kind of shots and wondered how they do it?  I’ll tell you… It’s a 15 second long shutter release.  The guy in the middle (our teacher) is holding as still as possible (which is why he’s not smiling) and someone else is running around him holding colored lights and waving them all over the place.  Awesome, no?  I can’t wait to try this with my kids, once I get my tripod fixed.

5.  Take More Classes!  Taking this one class rejuvenated my desire to go back to school.  I don’t want to get a degree or anything fancy, I just want to take some classes to solidify my knowledge base.  I’ve been reading all over blog-land how many fabulous photographers have “self taught” themselves, but I’ve come to realize that I just don’t have the right personality for that.  I enjoy figuring stuff out on my own, but I really prefer the classroom format where someone else is outlining the curriculum.  I found out that the nearest community college to me has a pretty decent number of photography/Photoshop classes.  And they have classes during the day that work for my schedule so I can still be free in the evenings for the kids.   Cheap and convenient?  Don’t think it gets much better than that! 

Books I’ve Read

September 2011

  The Good, the Bad and the Undead:  Kim Harrison

This is the second novel in the Rachel Morgan series.  I wouldn’t recommend reading these out of order… they aren’t really stand alone books.  Not because it’s one big continuous plot, but because there is so much given in the magic world explanations that don’t really get repeated or explained again in subsequent books.  I still think this series reminds me of a cross between Stephanie Plum and Twilight.  The first book was pretty tame, but the second one was definitely more racey.  Not sure if they are going to keep that trend, or not, but the overall plot was really good.  There are several more, but I’ve got a bunch more books on my “want to read” list that I will probably try to tackle before I come back for Rachel Morgan #3. 

 

  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks:  Rebecca Skloot

This was our September book club book.  Again, someone picked a book that I would have NEVER chosen on my own.  And again, I was blown away by how good it was.  This is the biography of the real life woman, Henrietta Lacks, who was the unknowing donor of the world famous HeLa cells.  This story is both inspiring and tragic.  Inspiring in how many medical advances and discoveries were made because of Henrietta’s cells.  But tragic in the way the doctors/researches dealt with her family.  Anyone who has any kind of medical background at all will LOVE this book.  I don’t have any medical know how, and I loved it anyway. 

Pinterest Strikes Again

Not much has been going on around here during September except school.  I should have been blogging more, but I’m not going to lie… I spend an exorbitant amount of time on Pinterest.  This week I did two fun projects that I found on Pinterest.  The first was an orange burlap wreath.  Hobby Lobby was conveniently OUT of orange burlap when we went to buy it, so this is where we improvised. 

   

This is Karen.  I truly believe we were twins in the Pre-Existence.  We met in January when we were both called to be YCL leaders at Girls Camp.   Over the last few months, we’ve discovered that we have the same birthday, we are both native California girls, we both get our hair cut from the same hairdresser, we both love Mexican food, snowmen, chocolate/mint desserts, Diet Coke from McD’s, wreaths, and Pinterest.   We are both sarcastic and say “Dude” and “Totally” and “Awesome” a lot.  And in the craziest twist of fate ever, our families both moved from California to Arizona in the same week of March 2005!   See?  Twins, I tell you.  She is the sister I never thought I had!  We had so much fun making these wreaths together!  And for those of you who’ve been on Pinterest, FYI… the plumbing tubes from Home Depot don’t make the greatest wreath forms.  That’s what we used and they were indeed cheap, but they are already sagging.  I just saw that a better alternative would be using pool noodles.  Next time, that’s what we are going to use.  Because, yes, there will be another wreath making day.  You can never have enough wreaths, right?Here’s the other project I did.  It’s nothing but canning jars, tissue paper, mod podge and construction paper.  I was finally able to put some use to the 300 canning jars my mother brought to me a couple visits ago.  The kids got involved with this project… that’s how easy it was.  I used real tea lights for this photo, but I think I’m going to buy some battery operated ones so I don’t have to worry about the jars overheating.  I LOVE how cute these turned out!   I have two more kid friendly projects lined up for next week.    If I can get my act together, you might see another Halloween craft here on the blog before the month is over!