Patience

A virtue of which I am evidently lacking. Otherwise, I don’t think mine would be tested quite this often.

Life in the basement is getting to me. Actually, it’s not the basement at all. It’s the under 18 people that occupy said basement with me. This basement isn’t big enough for that. I don’t know how previous generations survived to adulthood living in much smaller houses with much larger families. Seriously!

Anyway, KC told me to find a hobby, so I’ve dragged out and re-subscribed to the ol Photoshop, and today I was blissfully engaged in redesigning a friend’s blog for practice. Oh my goodness. SO FUN! Made me want to redesign mine even though I like how it is now. HAHA. At the very least though, I’ve got to get back to blogging. I put it back on my habit tracker in my bullet journal in hopes that it will inspire me to do it more often. LOL.

I like how my long abandonment has led to zero site traffic here. I am way more comfortable spilling my guts. Okay, not entirely. My personality doesn’t allow me to be entirely comfortable with that. Hahah.

I’ll wrap up this post with a Thursday Thirteen, I haven’t done one of THOSE in forever!

Thirteen Current Things:
1. Praying for: a house
2. Listening to: the dog breathing, my in-laws conversing upstairs (can’t hear the conversation, just the murmur of voices), K-man’s music from the back corner of the basement (again, can’t hear clearly, just enough to be annoying – like everything he does these days)
3. Reading: Misleading Miss Verity by Carolyn Miller
4. Eating: too much junk food (I’m definitely eating my feelings…I should probably add that to the things I need to pray about)
5. Working on: A Little Bit of Insulin
6. Missing: the hubby (he’s traveling for work *sigh*)
7. Wishing for: a bigger kitchen
8. Needing: A bigger house (see a theme?)
9. Singing: Blessings by Laura Story
10. Digging: my amazing hair products that knock shampoo days down to 2-3 times a week (usually 2…I LOVE IT)
11. Watching: realtor.com like it’s the hottest reality show…seriously…I check it like every 20 minutes. *eye roll* reality is, it’s more like watching paint dry than an exciting tv show, but I can’t stop myself. lol
12. Playing: Toy Blast and Scrabble
13. Need to Stop: worrying =)

So what’s on your list?

Cheers

Here’s to all the projects that seem like they should be easy. But then they’re not.

My world is FILLED with these projects. But back to that in a minute…

So Easter was nice. The one family picture I managed to get had major glasses glare which bugs the snot out of me, but at least the moment is captured.

Then back to projects that should be simple but then are overwhelmingly not….my last project in Documentary Photography was to get six images that document yourself. I thought…yeah, simple. But then…how do I narrow it down to six?

  

Amazingly NOT simple.

Also not simple, my stinkin semester project in digital. I’ve reshot the thing twice now and still don’t have usable pics. I don’t know why it doesn’t seem to be working. So now I’m flat out refusing to reshoot it again, I’m going to do the same idea but with different stuff that I can shoot in a different location. We’ll see if that fixes it. It should be so simple. Ten images composited into one final image.

I’m not complaining…just noticing how there are so many things that SHOULD be easy.

Oil-based primer is another prime example. (LOL…I crack myself up)

“Just use this Mineral Oil to clean your brushes,” the Lowes lady says.

Thirty minutes and every surface covered in slimy gook later….NOTHING is clean.

Plus, I have windows open and all kinds of fans running and I’m about to pass out on fumes. All I can say is, THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT! If I have paint the PTDQ’s bathroom one more time, I’m going to be tempted to just gut the thing and put a whole new bathroom in there. :) Since that’s not in the budget right now, this crazy sticks to everything primer better do its job and keep the paint on the wall.

Whew.

On that note, I need to get back to work…if I can uncross my eyes long enough to photoshop my project.

Later, mater!

Hallelujah!!! (with a small side of Bummer)

So for starters…last night I had the normal kind of crazy dreams. You know, your everyday, basic, “the Russian’s are coming,” I’m eating apples in a tree house with some random kid from your childhood while someone you used to work with is mowing the grass, and I’m going to be late for something but I haven’t figured out what….kind of crazy dream.

No, I didn’t have that dream last night….it’s actually a compilation of several crazy dreams I (or someone I’ve known---hello KC’s Mom) has had, but it’s an example of the kind of dream I had last night.

COMPLETELY a welcome change from the, Oh My WORD, my heart is breaking, I can’t escape from this horrifying nightmare because it just keeps coming back in new ways, and I wake up exhausted even though I know it was just a dream, kind of dreams I’ve been having.

Yep. So hallelujah! Hopefully it is a trend that will continue. =)

Also another little hallelujah, I HAVE WINDOWS LIVE WRITER AGAIN! Blogging on my phone (while functional), just didn’t have the same ease of use!

And now for the small side of bummer…I noticed a class meeting today (in which a college BigWig, a cop, students, and our department instructors attended), and afterwards, heard from one of our friends in that class….Mr. Shows Up Late with Half-baked Work Who Threatened Students & Instructor…..

a. is going to be allowed to come back
b. will be searched before entering campus before every class
c. is required to be on time for all future classes (oh, duh, and here I thought that was the requirement all along!~)
d. is not allowed to threaten or verbally abuse any other students (again…a given, right?)

LIKE OH MY WORD!

Yeah, and I looked him up on the Public Records…it’s not hearsay that he is out on prob/parole. Sheesh! If I missed half as many days and came in late half as many times, I’d have already been kicked out of the program….without even threatening anyone! It’s unbelievable that he’s going to get to stay in the program (even on a probabationary status!) Mercy is great…free passes that infringe on everyone else’s rights are not.

Okay, it’s a LARGE side of Bummer.

Anyway, a short list of other recent work:

• designing for a bloggy friend some of you may know
• my semester project piece (which had to be inspired by the historical photographer we researched and wrote our paper about…I used this image by Hansel Mieth as my inspiration)
• and my inadvertent photo pun….from my advertisement project. Get it? Film ad…photo lab? LOL. Totally unintentional, but I went with it. =) I love my beautiful puppies. =) 

There’s obviously way more I could talk about (it happens when one avoids blogging), but I’ll quit there and go find me some lunch.

Have a very, VERY lovely day. =)

Better Days

So....not perfect days, but at least I'm not as close to spending too much time in orange jumpsuits.

Of course, now I have snow days and makeup assignments to drive me up the wall, so better days may not last long.

Speaking of assignments, here's the one I've gotten ready to turn in for Friday. And hey look...it's my bottle the other person wanted to hijack....

Alrighty then.

When It Rains

Well, if you’re in New York, you might have a whole lot of snow when it rains. Around here though, it’s right above the snow point. I don’t see the point of cold weather if there’s no white stuff. So around here, when it rains, it just pours.

I actually was talking about the old saying, not so much actual weather but it made me think of the NY snowpocalypse when I typed it so there I went.

I don’t have ADHD…much. LOL.

I’m trying to do 5000 things at one time right now so I’m failing miserably at all of them. But I got one of my homework assignments done at school today and I am so proud of my work that I just wanted to pop on and share. I loved this project.

This is the assignment

OBJECTIVE:
Using the text from a poem or song, create an image that illustrates and interprets as well as includes the text. The image that you create should be a personal reflection of you and what this particular text means to you. The image will be a constructed image and must contain and utilize:

o At least 7 different sources and layers. The sources can include, but are not limited to: photos, digital imagery, drawings, sketches, paintings, etc. The different sources should be combined in such a way as to create a cohesive, single image. The source images must be yours and cannot be copyrighted material. Layers must be labeled.

o At least two layer mask

o At least one adjustment layer

o layer blending modes

o layer styles

o filters – labeled in the layers palette

o text layers- minimum of 3

And this is my project:

Ooh I just like it. Fun, fun, fun.

Anyways. It would help my miserable multi-tasking if this poor overloaded computer would work faster. It’s like a dinosaur at the moment because I have clogged up all the free space. *sigh* 

So now I have quit blogging and get back to editing (not to mention cooking supper and laundry). I’m behind on two sessions of editing. One was a mini-session of Aunt C and one was a family session. I don’t know what it is about photography, but it seems to be all or nothing. I had nothing in October. This month, there’s eight on the calendar. Four down, four to go. And that’s not counting homework projects. Whew.

Okay….enough talking, time to get back to it. Later. =)

Oops…I Did It Again

That coming back to post some Sexy Seven D pictures just didn’t happen, did it. I just keep getting busy and busy again. LOL It doesn’t look like it’s going to get at all better until Christmas vacation…and then I’ll just be busy with different stuff. Haha.

So we took off on our yearly cruise this month…that was part of the reason for my absence. I’ve also had more homework than I can think about, which is the other reason for my absences.

For my facebook friends, these photos are old news, but I’ll post a few here anyways.

Cruise 2014 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Right now I’m working on (or trying to work on) my composite project for Digital I, but photoshop just crashed on me and my computer seems to be running at the speed of molasses. My last project was retouching and handcoloring an old, pretty much trashed photograph and that was really fun…a lot of work, but impressive results. I made an A. Woohoo. I love A’s. I hope I do as well on this next one.

Here’s that last project…I just like looking at the before and after. LOL. I guess that makes me a little bit of a nerd. Oh well.

Talk about a ton of time with the Clone Tool in Photoshop. LOL. Now I just have to create an illusion in Photoshop for my next project using all my own images….talk about zapping my creative juices. And then after that, I’ll get to design a movie poster. And this is just one of my classes. I still have work due in my other two as well.

And all that, ladies and gents, is why I’ve fallen off the face of this blog this month. Only four semesters to go. I can do this. =)

Mid July Already

I can’t believe how fast this year is going. I just can’t keep up at all! The kids are little fishies this year and on the swim team so between meets and practice, I haven’t had time to do much else since we’ve been back home from all our travels!

I did some senior pics a few weeks ago in the middle of all my traveling, so they kinda got lost in the shuffle, but they’re over on my photography page (image is linked).

I like this one because I had fun adding the bubbles during the editing. LOL. They look pretty natural (I think). =)

On the topic of photography, I was reminded last week that next semester in school, we’ll have to narrow down our focus to what part of photography we’re going to be shooting for (pardon the puns lol). I’m not sure what my main interest is going to be, but I really have fun with senior photos. Of course, I’d love to do travel photog (any excuse to travel, right?) but I don’t see that being something that would pay the bills. LOL. I still have a few weeks left to think about it though…I hate deciding. I feel like if I pick one thing, I’m putting myself in a box. =/ But we’ll see how it goes. I’m registered and pretty much ready for the next go around, although I do need to get my camera serviced before another semester gets started.

Fun stuff.

I’m sure there’s other stuff I could blog about, but I was in Walmart the other day and all the school supplies were out, and it got me to thinking about school. So that’s what’s on my brain today.

That’s it for now. Laterz.

Time Didn’t Stop?

Whoa…I thought everything froze. Or maybe that’s just because everything is going so fast, it’s all a blur. I let a whole month go by without blogging…my bad. (SORRY AUNT C! =)

This was totally not my favorite month of my life. I am not good with stress and extreme busy-ness, but we’ve made it and nearing the home stretch now.

Our house is sold. Barring any unexpected problems, the new owners will be moving in our lovely gi-normous house on the 15th. Which also means that we have to leave our lovely gi-normous house before then. It’s been quite the rollercoaster (especially when we thought the closing date was moving up to this coming week—but wasn’t…whew!). All the inspections are complete and everything is good to go, so it’s just getting everything moved and cleaning up after ourselves now.

I was really panicking, because up until today, we didn’t have anything else lined up for sure. Thank God though, because somebody knew somebody and turns out we knew that somebody, too, we just didn’t know they had a house for rent in exactly the right spot for the right price at exactly the right time. We were all prepared to move in with my parents if we couldn’t find something, but lucky for them—and us (since their house is not ideal for four adults, two kids, three dogs, and one cat—and we’d have probably all been ready to strangle each other by the end of a week) this other temporary home worked out. =)

*big sigh of relief*

So now it’s just a long process of packing all our junk (I really thought we had gotten rid of a lot…but…NOT) and separating what needs to go to storage and what we need to use in the rental house for the next 2-3 months. Also, we’re still house hunting. We have to be out of the rental by November because there were other tenants already scheduled to move in then, but this gives us just the amount of time we need to find a home to buy. =) Couldn’t be a more perfect arrangement, I don’t think. =)

Also, in the last month, the kids wrapped up their summer swim team commitment, and did a really good job on the team. K-man learned all the strokes and was particularly good at breast stroke (even got a couple ribbons). Munchkin had a harder time this year, being the youngest in her bracket instead of the oldest like she was last year, but she still managed to win a heat there at the end of the season.

I finished my semester project with 200 out of 200 possible points (YAY…and thank you to Mom, Dad, Aunt E, and the videoed interview of my grandma who passed away awhile back, for all the information to make a successful paper)! I also went ahead and took the last few exams for that class and got a final grade of A (another big sigh of relief) from that class. I’m really glad I didn’t try to take any other classes besides that one this summer! That would have been disastrous with everything else going on. My next semester starts August 19th and I’ve got 5 credit hours in this one. Shouldn’t be too terrible awful. =)

Went to Ohio last week, too. I really didn’t want to go, with everything else going on, but I’m really glad we did now, because I totally needed the break.

Another thing in my crazy life – I committed to do pictures of a friends “outdoor” wedding a couple of months ago. I never dreamed everything would turn into the perfect storm and happen at the same time. Our house selling and us in the middle of moving right at the time of the wedding, the fact that it’s a wedding and I don’t particularly care to do weddings, it rained and outdoors became indoors, I want to work on editing but packing still awaits….yeah. Perfect storm. On the very bright side, it seems that I did manage to get quite a few good pictures in spite of the “indoors” thing. Another beautiful thing was the bride…she was SO laidback and not stressing about the photos or how they turned out at all, which makes my job so much easier. It was probably the easiest wedding I’ve ever photographed, despite the terrible, awful indoor aspect. I know it helped that I had a wonderful friend IN the wedding party who was TOTALLY helpful in organizing and orchestrating the timing for photos. It was just awesome! Hopefully, my lovely bride-friend will feel the same whenever I deliver the finished product to her. =)

Anyway, I was going to go to bed an hour ago, but I thought I’d blog for five minutes first. And this is just one of the many reasons the blog has been neglected for an entire month…because this happens every time! =)

These are just a few of the reasons behind the overwhelmed-ness of my last post. And by the way, thank you for the comments on that…you guys are sweet! =)

Love till next time! =)

Where To Begin?

The beginning would be the obvious answer, but it seems so very far away now. I’m not sure I want to go back that far.

So. How about May’s Photo a Day challenge. Here’s those:

1. 2. 3. 
4. 5. 6. 
7. 8. 9. 
10. 11. 12. 
13. 14. 15. 
16. 17. 18. 
19. 20. 21. 
22. 23. 24. 
25. 26. 27. 
28. 29. 30. 
31.

The list:

I’m working on a photo hunt for June, but I’m falling behind…worse than last time, so I am either going to have to play some serious catch-up or give-up. LOL

As far as what else is going on…I’ve done more pictures. I’m taking one summer class (Sociology of the Family) and already dreading the research paper I have to write for it. I have about a month before it’s due, so I should be working on it but…yuck. LOL. The kids are on the swim team so we’ve had practices for that. An offer came on the house, but not sure yet if our counter offer will be accepted or not. Of course, with the potential of downsizing looming on the horizon, I’ve been thinking about starting to go through our junk and get busy on clean-out, because there’s no way all our stuff will fit in the tiny fixer-upper we’re considering. And then I signed on to sell Thirty-One Gifts, (because I just ADORE their bags and organizers and I want to make enough to pay for my little addiction), but that’s not helping the DOWNSIZING idea, except that I can really use the organizers to make my life easier after I downsize all our other junk. It helps that Thirty-One bags and totes are so stinkin’ adorable and useful that they pretty much sell themselves. =) Don’t believe me? Look for yourself! =) Of course, in person they’re even more awesome, and naturally, I’d be more than happy to show you. ;-)

Anyway, that’s my very recent life in a paragraph. Of course, there’s tons more that doesn’t fit in one paragraph (birthday parties, graduations, bills, church, laundry, spray painting old folding chairs, yada yada), but we’ll just leave it at that.

I’ll try not to wait so long between blogs next time. =)

Yackety yack

Oh my stars. I didn’t realize it had been so long since I blogged. LOL. I’m usually aware, even if I don’t feel like doing something about it.

Summer semester started today. One online class (Soc. of the Family), but it doesn’t start until June 4th, so I have another couple of weeks. Already have my book though, so I’m ready to go. And yes, last semester was 4.0 GPA. Go, self!

This is the kids last week of school. Can’t wait to sleep in until…uh…seven. LOL. Summer is already shaping up to be a busy one! Between photo sessions, swim team, church activities, vacations….whew.

I love summer!

On the topic of photo sessions though….

I LOVE this shot of my aunt and uncle that I caught at the end of Saturday’s session with my uncle’s band. My aunt is so pretty! I wanna be just like her when I grow up. ;-)

Also talking photography, I’m sticking with the Photo A Day for May. I get a couple shots behind every weekend because the weekends are so nuts, but I keep right on catching back up and sticking with it. Yay! I haven’t gotten today’s shot yet, but here’s yesterday’s: (Reflection of yourself – this one is in the window on my back deck).

Gotta run. (literally) later!