A much overdue gift of gratitude!

Here's a few shots of a project in progress. This was a gift for my cousin who planned a lovely getaway for us last fall. The first attempt didn't turn out the way I hoped or wanted it to, so it was reworked into something else. This is the second try. First an 8x10 canvas was painted with acrylic paints. Then I started playing around with how to lay it out.

The shells, stones, and sand were collected on the beach where the picture was taken.


The Scrabble tiles were in my stash and were perfect, as Scrabble was a part of the weekend.

Acrylic gel medium was used to attach the sand and pictures, and a heavier duty adhesive was used for the rocks and shells.

Completed project:

A little painting done by B.

A Big One!

Someone turned 40 last week. A picture of what was our home town for most of the past 12 years had been requested when we moved away from there last fall. I took some then, but had never gotten around to printing and framing one, so here it is. The picture doesn't do it justice. It turned out very nicely and is now hanging in a place of prominence in our home.

Week in the Life 2008...revisited

It seems like everyone is in the process of cleaning and purging at this time of year, and as much as possible, we are here, too. One thing I came across was this handful of pictures (and the accompanying ephemera) from Week in the Life 2008, which I obviously never finished. Since I went to the trouble and expense of printing the pictures, I decided to at least put them in pages in an album so we can look at them and get them out of my piles.

As you may notice, I still have an extra blanket on my side of the bed. It is still getting close to freezing at night.

Wednesday Week in the Life

It feels like this is going better this time around. I'm not taking, or printing, as many pictures, and have the album in progress with hopes of getting it mostly assembled Friday night. There was an "a-ha" moment tonight, that the reason I never finished it the last time I attempted this, was because I printed way too many pictures and was so overwhelmed, I didn't know where to start. But partly due to being more selective, and partly to my new skill of printing two photos on one 4x6, it feel much more manageable this time.

Mmmm! Geoff says this is more like dessert than breakfast:Coffee in my favorite cupChecking out the wonky weather. Our neighbor told Little G that he had decided that iceberg that remains in their yard deserved a name at this point. He's trying to help it disappear by spreading the stuff around, but since it wasn't much over freezing today, that isn't happening very fast.Getting ready to listen to the littlest one read. Everyone got dressed in their soccer clothes this morning, but practice was cancelled due to the weather and wet fields. Little G has been getting in on this documentation project and took this one which I thought was pretty good. He is interested in photography and was taking pictures from all different angles of me doing this tonight.

Another thing that struck me today, was that we take very little video, unless it is some "event". The kids are growing up so fast and their voices will change, and their behaviors, and we will miss our opportunity to preserve little bits of that. I'm thinking that another "Week in the Life" may be in order, only this time a video version.

A recent fascination with ATC's (and how it relates to Week in the Life)

In the past I have read about ATC's and thought they sounded like a fun art form. In the past few weeks, my interest and fascination with them has been renewed. The size is what appeals to me the most I think - 2 and 1/2 inches by 3 and 1/2 inches - same as a baseball card. True ATC's are a little piece of art, made for the purpose of trading with other artists/ATC makers. (If you Google "Artist Trading Cards", you can read more about them.) Not really having anyone that I know of/feel comfortable with locally to trade with, and being a little leery of interacting randomly with people over the internet, I'm just kind of making them to play.

These are actually just ATC-sized thank you cards I made for the kids.And these are some ATC-sized journaling cards created for the Week in the Life project using Microsoft Word, Publisher, and a couple of different fonts. One thing that came to mind to record this week, was how many loads of laundry are done. That is the first card in the upper left corner with a spot for recording the number of loads each day. There's another one for number of sodas consumed, and so forth. I'm hoping to come up with some other categories along the way as well this week.

Also, more than eight months after receiving the magazine with instructions for doing so, I finally took the time to learn how to combine two pictures into one in order to, in essence, make my own wallet size photos on a 4x6. I'm not explaining this very well, so here is an example.

Some reasons for doing this is to print more pictures for less $$$, to take up less space in the album, and to get more pictures on a page. It isn't always necessary to print full size photos of everything. Wanting some smaller ones for the Week In the Life project provided the motivation for figuring out how to do this. And you know what? In the end, it only took a few short minutes to do so. What was I waiting for??? I haven't ever printed all the pictures from our trip at Christmas time, partly because there are so many and it is hard for me to choose, but now I can print some of them in this smaller size!

Self-portrait Friday

Tonight I was making my first attempt at straightening my hair myself (the hairdresser did it at my last cut) and the whole family came in to watch at one point. Little G thought pictures were in order and took this (along with a few others). It's going to take some practice to be able to do this very well, but it isn't something I plan on doing all the time, just once in a while for something different.

Page of the Week #7

Better late than never, right?

Here's my take on this:

Self-portrait ...day and a snowy walk

Sneaky, huh?

It was pretty nice out this afternoon and we had one of the most productive days of school we've had in a long time, so I decided we all needed to head out for a walk. The kids (well, Little G specifically) started off in tennis shoes across this area where we often walk, except that it is still under a few feet of snow. I was stepping very gingerly, being somewhat heavier than the three of them and wary of one false move landing me up to my hip in the wet, icy stuff. But fortunately no, we all made it back fairly dry and not too cold.

Self-Portrait Friday and Saturday

This one was taken a few weeks ago and is a true snapshot of my life...on the computer!

I know that this one isn't very flattering, but I was already drinking coffee this morning when the kids came and handed me this large glass of Diet Coke. Geoff calls it "Caffeinated Mom" (but isn't going to win any photography contests in the near future). They had just dropped Mentos in a bottle of Diet Coke and this time it was a flop. Possibly because it had been dropped on the ground? Fortunately when Little G did it for his science fair display and presentation yesterday, it worked!

Self Portrait Friday...a few days late

L and I were coloring a picture together while she sat on my lap. I haven't done that with her for a while. The critical importance of spending quality time with the kids and just enjoying them was on my mind a lot this week. Then refreshed there again when listening to the first song on the playlist here (Slipping Through My Fingers).

Self-portrait Friday (or Saturday...)

Ooohh, Aaahhh

Just spent a few minutes flipping through the photography section of The Pioneer Woman's site, and feel inspired to take more, pictures, especially black and white ones. I'll get right on that, ASAP. After finishing the forty hundred other things I should or could be doing besides flipping through PW's blog. But it reminded me of this one from yesterday:

My camera is not a DSLR. Maybe someday, but at the moment there are two inhibiting factors: 1) time, and 2) money. There hasn't even been time to learn how to use many of the features on this current camera. One thing that has been a little challenging for me with it though, is getting a good close-up shot. My intuition is that it requires some other kind of lens, but my knowledge is quite limited. While trying to capture this bamboo (story to follow) the camera would auto-focus on the table or the blinds in the background. Um. OK. That was a boring and irrelevant tangent. I finally got this shot and like it.

We bought this bamboo in the summer in the desert on a day when it was over 100F I believe, then left it in the car while we made a few quick stops. The leaf that was growing out of the top died. I wanted to toss it, but Geoff didn't give up so quickly. Soooo, it sat on our counter for weeks. No. Make that months. Until I recently discovered this little sprout erupting!

Self-portrait Friday

I think I might have a problem with "peer pressure."

Why else would I do this?

I mean if someone told me to go jump off of a bridge...who knows?

The year of ...finishing unfinished projects??!?!?

There are innumerable projects around the house just waiting to be tackled.

I'm just sayin'.

Such as the hanging organizer with clear pockets all across it that was started about 5 years ago, tucked away in a box, and peeks out at me nearly ever time I open the closet it is stashed in. It would be perfect for the girls doll accessories, if it were finished.

Or the December Daily projects from the last 2 years. (And lets not even think about the "Week in a Life" project from September of 2008...pictures all printed but not one of them in an album.)
This list could go on forever...dining room chairs need recovered, "ducky" bathroom needs to be updated for older kids, every nook and cranny of the place that needs purging, etc., etc., etc. (There were a lot of "needs" in this paragraph. Are they really "needs?" I suppose not, but they kind of nag at me from time to time. Not sure what they're saying, but nevertheless, they nag.)

There are also numerous books I would like to read, both ones we have here around the house, and ones to check out from the library. And a few things I would like to learn, such as how to use some of the extra features on my sewing machine, how to crochet, how to take better pictures, and how to do more digital scrapbooking (add this to the list of reasons why, though I don't think I could ever go completely digital - I like working with the paper and having it in my hands, and the kids have expressed that they like the texture of paper layouts with all the little things added to them).

And really, a higher priority than any of these, is improving our school schedule and productivity, which has never seemed to get into a very smooth groove yet this year. This could be due to adding in one more child, and switching up the curriculum a bit as well, but is probably more truthfully due to some of my own areas of sin and shortcomings. But even higher on the priority list is the One who is my "one word" focus of the year.

To be honest though, when I think about all of these things, they are mostly all about "me" in some way or another, and that is not such a good thing. So at the top of the list, add in: "Practice dying to self and find more ways to serve others, and to help my children learn that as well."

Perhaps because it is a new year, there are so many things all filling my head. Add in the incessant chatter of the children and it all equals a lot of mental chaos, and missing of emails, and generally having a hard time getting it all together, mentally (or any other way for that matter!).
To finish this post on a more interesting note (or not), here is a photo from our recent cross country travels taken on a cold and foggy morning driving to Amarillo from Dallas. I have seen "real" photographers list things such as the aperture, exposure, etc., about their pictures. This picture was taken at 70mph out of a filthy car window. How do you like it?

Another one done!

There's a bit of pressure to keep cranking things out around here as we meet up with various people over these weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Here is the next completed project.

This one, as well as the orange and purple creation in this post, are both variations on a layout that Kirsten did (but I don't believe it's posted on her blog). There's another, almost identical one in progress for Geoff (he already knows about it, and probably won't read this anyway).

It's getting to the point where a few hours are going to have to be carved out - probably from sleep -to choose, upload, and order prints for a few more projects. What a black hole of time! The results are worth it though, I guess!

Remember when I mentioned reading The Pioneer Woman a while back? I hadn't returned to her site till today, but just discovered that she has a whole section devoted to photography with just the kind of info I can handle: short bites and not overly technical. Somehow I made it through pharmacy school but for the life of me, cannot wrap my brain around "apertures" and "f-stops" and all. There's just some block in the neurons that prevents it. Not to say I won't keep trying and might someday get it, but it probably won't be in this life phase where at every given minute of the day there are anywhere from one to four people talking to me. I love all 4 of them dearly of course, but 2 consecutive minutes of silence might do wonders for my tendency towards "ADHD" ("Acutely Drained Housewife - or Homeschooler - Disorder).

I went to the site looking for these Bacon-Wrapped Jalapenos that I learned about here, and ended up wasting 45 minutes that I did NOT have this morning reading posts on her site. Let me say again, that lady has a crazy-huge number of readers! Agh, and now the birthday girl and her entourage are down (up, really, but downstairs for the day and for presents and cinnamon rolls) and no shower for me yet. I'll regret this.

By the way, it was 38F outside and 58F inside when I got up this morning. Brrrr... Hopefully baking those rolls in the oven will warm the house up!

Camera play

Just beginning to experiment with the various settings (probably shouldn't have experimented on fast-moving subject matter)...

"Film grain""Cool""Warm"Good ole' B&W

"Pin hole"

And I think this one was just on "auto" but liked the colors, though the photo turned out blurry - probably needed to be on "sports" mode or some thing for taking high speed shots.

Just some "pretties"

After a few years of waiting, several hours of researching, and receiving some money for birthdays, etc., we invested in a new camera. For the most part I've been using primarily the "auto" setting and haven't had a ton of time to study and play with it. These were taken in Geoff's aunt's and uncle's garden in Scottsdale a few weekends ago. It is like a private oasis!

Now the camera situation has improved, but we're having technical difficulties with the computer. I still think digital photography is a hassle in many ways...

Seventh folder, seventh photo

First of all, has anyone else who uses Blogger had issues with pasting text into your blog posts? It is a problem...

Kristin tagged me quite a while back. Here is the game: Post the seventh picture in your seventh folder and tell about it. Then tag seven others...

The 7th picture in the 7th folder for this year was this Valentine's cookie, which is making me want to go eat something bad for me, so I'm going to stop writing and looking at it.

Another finished project

Didn't get the best shot of it, but here is the more "wintry" skirt requested by dd. It has a nice twirl factor, which is what she is working on this picture. It was fairly quick and easy, in spite of all the gathering and over 3 yds around of hem on the bottom. Think we'll make one in the summery version (which was how the pattern was presented) when it warms up a bit around here.

On an almost totally unrelated note, my cameral lens is dirty. Anyone have any suggestions or insights for cleaning it? (It's just a little point and shoot.)