Photo Field Trip

I am SO loving this photography program….it’s a lot to cram in my skull but boy howdy is it ever awesome to understand how my camera is doing what it does.

I’m shooting in Manual mode now and oddly enough, everything isn’t all black or all white anymore. LOL!

Anyway, our class took a field trip today out to an old mill to work on this week’s depth of field assignment. It was gorgeous and so fun!

Now my problem is to pick which photos to turn in because I have at least two options for each set that I really like.

Here’s a set I probably won’t turn in:

The lovely Ragweed

First photo is increased depth of field using short focal length (wide angle) and second photo is decreased depth of field using long focal length (telephoto). The first one is at 35mm and the second one is at 134mm.

I also got some really cool shots that don’t qualify for the conditions of the assignment, but I just couldn’t resist taking other pictures besides the assigned ones.

Ahhhhhh…I love photography! I love “loving” it again…I was totally burned out for awhile but this has gotten my mojo back up again. I’m so excited…I just can’t hide it…lol.

Sorry…I’ll quit gushing now. I could talk about that wallpaper….gushing immediately goes away then…rofl.

In other news, there’s a lot less of that wallpaper in the house now…but still too much for my tastes. *sigh*  At least we’re getting something done though. Could always be worse.

Later!

Monthly Post

Well….looks like this is just going to be the year for monthly posting. I just don’t seem to be getting around to posting more often than that. BUT—at least I haven’t completely abandoned the ol’ blog like some that I won’t mention. LOL =) =)

It’s been another busy month. I did have a few days rest during the rental only phase, but now we’ve closed on our next house and we’re living in the rental for one more month while we fix up the new place, so we’re back to the joys and time-sucking qualities of home ownership—but just not living in it yet.

We closed on Monday, and got the paint to get started the next day, but then we just keep running into road-blocks. The walls needed to be patched and sanded first, then we decided to remove the door frames and replace the interior doors while we were waiting on the patching part, but then the door frames are not standard sizes so we’ll have to special order those. Same with the replacement windows…special sizes. BUT the work crew already has the kitchen gutted and most of the family room that is going to be converted to the new master bedroom, so we are seeing progress from the professionals…it’s just we amateurs that aren’t getting anywhere. LOL.

ANYWAY…we did get all our stuff out of the storage building and stored in the basement of the new place, so we did get something done. It was kind of a crazy week last week. I got busy and didn’t get all my homework done until tonight. I hate last minute stuff. Just like over the summer, I’m really thankful I am only in one class…I’m keeping up my grade better this way. If I had more than one class with everything else in my life, I’d never make decent grades. Speaking of class, there are some people in there that have really tempted me to blog before now…seems like every single class I get stuck with a crazy. Praying for patience and the ability to keep my mouth shut.

Whatever. Some days I have it…other days….well, I have something, but I don’t think I’d call it patience. lol

Here’s some of my photo assignment rejects: I only turn in five photos for my assignment this week, and I had a couple to choose from on some of these, so these are the ones I didn’t turn in.

These were from the panning shot requirement…I had to take like five hundred shots trying to get a good one, and then I snapped ONE of the school bus going by behind the house and that ended up being the one I liked best. Go figure. These were my next favorites though.

Shoo. I’m exhausted. But all my homework is ready, I got a short nap today, and I have a giant bottle of Advil. I think I’m ready to take on the week. Here goes nothin’

While we’re talking photos, check out the horror that is also known as the kitchen wallpaper that we got to get gone this week:

Well anyway…wish me luck…I’m going to need it because they didn’t do no sloppy job with that wallpaper…it’s the good stuff and it’s glued on tight. *grumpy face* lol.

Later!

Ahem. Is This Thing On?

Whoops. I did it again. It appears that I have misplaced another month. LOL.

It’s been a little busy around here. I can’t imagine why I haven’t had time to blog. It’s only that since I last posted, we moved out of our ginormous house (and left it super-duper clean---a three day task in itself), made at least fifty trips to the storage building, moved everything that didn’t go to storage into an adorable little rental house (after I spent a few hours cleaning it), had VBS, started the process of purchasing a house to live in after we have to leave this little rental in another two months, got all the back to school shopping done, got caught up on the laundry that got behind while moving, organized our boxes at least fifty times to try to keep everything where I could find it in the interim between permanent housing, went to visit family in Georgia, got the kids and myself back in the school routine again…and on it goes. And that was a really long sentence.

I’m trying to enjoy this short period of relatively UN-busy-ness between permanent housing by taking a few short naps and taking time for fun reads. I say ‘relatively’ because it still seems like there’s an awful lot to be done every day, but it feels less busy because of those small things like not spending every waking hour moving boxes or cleaning. The beautiful thing about small houses is that I can tidy and clean the whole house in 20 minutes. Yippee! LOL

School is going good so far. I’m in Fundamentals of Photography this semester. I feel like I’m taking anatomy for cameras. If I can get all the technical terms straight in my head (and even better—remember them forever), I will be one happy girl! You’d think it’d be simple…but…not so much. I love it though!

The kids aren’t quite as thrilled to be back in class, however. I’ve already heard from my little numbers guy…on the first day of school, no less…”One day down, one hundred and seventy nine days left.” This from my same kiddo who went to meet his second grade teacher last week, and when she asked him if he had any questions for her, asked how many hours it was going to take every day. She said about six and a half. He nodded and seemed satisfied with her answer. He is going to be my little nerd. I can see it now. The other one is excited to be joining chorus this year. She’s not so keen on schoolwork, but she loves extracurricular activity. So now, one day a week, her little brother will ride the bus home by himself, and then he and I will go pick up his sister about 45 minutes later. Ah well.

I’m just hoping they don’t have any more bus-tastrophe’s this year. The very first day of school, they rode the bus home. They are supposed to be the second stop, but the bus was broke down and running late and then I sat on the porch and watched it go right on by our stop. I called the school, they couldn’t get the bus on the radio. Finally they called back and said they just missed the stop, and would be back by in about ten, so I waited. And waited. And then watched their bus go by on the street behind our house. And then the school called again and said the bus went to pick up the middle school load and my kids were still on it, and that they would be dropped off at the beginning of the middle school route. SO…more than an hour and a half on the school bus. I’m thinking it was worse for mommy than for them. The bus driver apologized all over the place when they finally stopped in front of our house. And the last two days they have only been on the bus for their normal less than five minutes ride.

Well, anyway, that’s about it for the exciting things around here these days. I’d promise to blog again soon, but I’m about to realize that I shouldn’t make those rash kinds of promises anymore. LOL. Especially since our next house is tentatively scheduled to close in about 2 weeks and then it will all be ON from there. =) I can promise I’ll do my best to not be so neglectful of you though, my dear blog.

For now…I have to get back to my to-do list…it’s shaping up to be a busy afternoon.

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! =)

O--

---verwhelmed. I need a hole to crawl in right now. Oh my.

I have nothing really important to say, just that I’m here. I’m still alive, but seriously…SERIOUSLY…overwhelmed.

And I’m hungry.

Some day I’ll come back and tell you all about it.  That is…if anyone’s still here. =)

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!

Don’t Wanna

I have a really bad case of those today. Don’t wanna clean. Don’t wanna do laundry. Don’t wanna blog.

Semester is over. I’m pretty close to 100% sure that my GPA is 4.0. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but my final paper (the research essay) got a 100 from the professor who said he doesn’t give out 100’s. And I didn’t have to take the final in that class because it was only worth 3 points and I was already over the top for possible points to get. He also published two of my essays in that class. *great big googly eyes* Art is finished, too. My sketchbook got a 100 (but not because of creativity…he scored based on completeness and organization and I didn’t miss any of that). I don’t know what grade I got on the final, but I’m pretty sure I probably could have almost failed it and still been okay. 

I don’t wanna sign up for a summer class, but I’m gonna anyway. I have an appointment for Monday to get signed up for Social Problems online. (joy) lol I can’t wait till Fall when I can take FUN-damentals of Photography. *GRIN*

Speaking of photography…business has picked up. I’ve had sessions and a lot of inquiries on sessions, along with a few booked sessions. Sooo, I decided to update my photography page to try to eliminate having to repeat myself over and over.

Also on photography, I’m doing this:

They’re on my facebook, but I’ll probably make a post of all of them here at the end. =) Here’s today’s (#9):

Yes. I ate them all after I took the picture.

While we’re on the subject of eating. I don’t wanna go fix supper.

Time Flies

Went along as chaperone for the Kids Day Out trip with the church kids this afternoon. It was sort of a consequence for Miss Munchkin’s behavior issues of late, but it ended up being a good thing since there were a few more kids than usual on the outing. My consequence was that I didn’t get a nap this afternoon though…so I’m kinda beat. And I have a crick in my neck that’s driving me bonkers. But I will stop complaining now.

Munchkin is nine now…that is just insane to think about…so I’m not going to think about it.

Also insane was last week, trying to make cupcakes and cakes and homework and cleaning house and all that jazz…glad last week is done. =)

Wrapped up editing tonight on a 10 year anniversary picture session that I also squeezed into last week. They turned out AWESOME. I’m going to post them on my photo blog when I finish here. Here’s a sneak peek though…ACK, I love photos of horses.  These guys were somewhat uncooperative because there was so much tempting grass around them, but the pictures turned out okay anyway…lol.

Also wrapped up my final essay to turn in tomorrow. it’s not perfect, I’m not real crazy about it, but it’s done and I think it will pass. Up to this point, I’ve gotten every possible point you can get in the class, which means that this essay can get a 73 and I’ll still get an A in this class, so I’m not sweating it. LOL

Yeah…it was a busy week last week. And I’m tired and feeling the effects of not having my Sunday afternoon nap, so I’m going away to post those other pics and then get to bed. =)

Night.

Mmm Hmmm.

I’m thankful for all the clothing that we are blessed with…even if seems like half of it is in the laundry pile and the other half is on the ironing pile.

I’m thankful for a washing machine…even if it does leak at random and inopportune times.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to go to school and to learn new things…even if I have homework due that doesn’t seem to be getting done the way it should be.

I’m thankful that EGR’s skipped class today…even if they haven’t dropped out completely or left me alone like I wish they would.

I’m thankful for my kids…even though they’re driving me insane….or MORE insane, to be precise.

I’m thankful they’re outside halfway getting along at the moment…even though that seems like a strange occurrence these days. LOL

I’m thankful my legs can run…even though running is awfully tough.

I’m thankful for being so blessed…even when miniscule frustrations are boiling under the surface.

I’m thankful for my blog to vent miniscule frustrations…even though I don’t get here as often as I’d like these days.

And now…the kids are yelling for me again, and the iron is heated up and ready to go again, and the washer needs to be checked, and the…..

Could’a Should’a

Things I should be doing right now instead of blogging:

• Homework – That 5-10 page research paper isn’t gonna write itself and the art sketchbook isn’t going to glue all the examples of art into the appropriate pages, either. For that matter, it’s not going to glue all the examples of art in ANY pages, appropriate or not. LOL. And I’m going to do what I did for the entire spring break last week: “Aw…I’ll get to it tomorrow.”
• Filling the planters on the front steps with the baskets of giant, beautiful, red flowers that I bought at the greenhouse today for “curb appeal.” (Not that we really NEED it, since we’ve had so much interest in the house that I’m forced to clean it—really clean it—nearly every day). LOL.
• Dragging out the patio furniture and “staging” the backyard.
• Cleaning out the planters on the back porch so they can be refilled.
• Removing the leaf and brush pile that is currently uglifying the back end of the lot.
• Lugging up the yard-sale boxes from the basement to the garage because that’s happening on Saturday and I need to start getting ready.
• Organizing and doing another (more in-depth) purge of the closets and removing the purged items to the giant yard-sale pile that (should be) in the garage. (Note that the photo of my ingenious little yard sale meter sign is taken at my eye level and the pile actually goes all the way to the ceiling in that closet. lol. Oh, and that sign is there because I know why that closet looks horrible and un-organized, like I threw random things in and closed the door—which is what I did, but I wanted to make sure that potential buyers know there is a purpose in that junk closet…hahaha. I might be anal.)

Things that I HAVE been doing instead of blogging:

• Worrying about a topic for that 5-10 page research paper.
• Painting the rest of the kitchen/living room ceiling that never got completely finished when we redid the kitchen (over a year ago…lol…oops). For the record, ceilings are wonderful, and I’m really thankful we have one. But I DON’T like painting them. My hand and neck STILL hurt.
• Removing half of that leaf and brush pile previously mentioned.
• Trying an oven cleaner recipe from Pinterest….that I must have done wrong because it just made the dirty spots sparkle, when I wanted them GONE.
• Cleaning the house.
• Cleaning the house again.
• And again. (Did I mention the house has shown 4 times in the 6 days since it went live on MLS?)

And now….I’m going to go work on those planters for curb appeal, since as I’m typing this, I’m looking out the window at the cars slowing down to look at the house. =) Plus, it’s time for the kids to come home, so I can watch for them at the same time.

Multi-tasking….yeah!

And ta-da……curb appeal!

Sapped

I know. I keep starting every post with apologies for my absences. LOL. 

It has been SO busy, and the to-do list is still not all completed. I’m not sure if Spring Break has helped or hurt my crazy schedule. LOL.

The house has shown twice now. Once yesterday, once today. Guess we’ll see what happens. The house is sparkling though, and everything but the yard sale closet looks reasonably organized and neat. I’m loving that! We got the yard mulched last weekend, so even the yard looks great. I ordered the official signage today, but I’m wondering if they will even be necessary with the amount of interest in the house so far. LOL. We’ll see. I sort of have mixed feelings because I like our house—it’s just excessive. *sigh*

I really need to do some homework and take advantage of spring break by getting caught up, but wow, I’ve just not had time to really think about it.

My concentration is totally sapped…even for something as simple as blogging. So goodnight. =)