Experimenting with my new camera

Today I got to play with my new camera a bit. I have not done too much with it yet because I don't actually know what all to do... I am figuring it all out though. I haven't a clue when it comes to things such as shutter speed and all that... I have never taken a photography class so I am trying to teach myself and it is slow going.

I took these shots today and I have to say I am rather pleased with them. A friend of my husbands suggested changing the shutter speed and some other stuff... I will have to try all that tomorrow when I figure out what he meant, and how to do it too... :)

In my red kitchen

It is Tuesday, and the final day of this months Self Portrait Challenge for "Enclosed space"...
I am kinda glad because I was running out of idea's to do for this theme... As you can tell by how i am stretching it this week.

This week I am enclosed in my red kitchen. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my walls in my kitchen. When I was pregnant with my second baby I decided that there should be no white walls in my house... well, at least not very many. So I decided to paint my kitchen red. But not just any red, oh nooooo... A very neat faux treatment red.

I called my aunt over and she helped me plan and paint the walls. We made two different glazes, one out of a barn red paint and one out of a golden yellow paint. Then we grabbed these weird paint tools that look like they have artificial grass on them, and went to town smearing the two paints on the walls in huge swirls. We had no idea what it would turn out like when we started... we don't usually plan it all out really well, we just decide what might look neat. And usually it works out really well. And in this case it did.

My kitchen walls can sometimes look like a huge fire ball... and some people come into my home with their jaws on the floor. I guess its not everyones cup of tea... but it sure is mine.



On another note, I think my body is trying to tell me something... Last week I had what seemed to be the stomache flu, although noone else in my family has gotten it... Then on saturday as I was beginning to feel better from that, I lost my voice. Today, I still have no voice.... And then at about noon today my back went out. I did not do anything to cause it either, I was walking down the hall when all the sudden there was just a huge, sharp pain in my lower back, all around my sacrum and hips and lumbar vertebrae.

Hrmmm.... to my body: I am listening, what are you trying to tell me???

And two more pictures just for fun, showing off my walls and my beautiful paintings by Marcus Bausch... Taken with my super cool new camera that arrived TODAY!!! Its a Canon Powershot S3 IS. I still have not actually figured out how to use it... soon!!!

Appetite

This weeks subject for Artwords is Appetite. The goal? To create a piece of work that portrays appetite.

Well, for me the first thought that jumps to my mind when I think appetite is an image of an appetite denied... Having dealt with an eating disorder for most of my life it is difficult to think of anything else when the word is something that is normally associated with food or eating.

The original picture of this woman I found on the internet in an image search on google and changed it up in photoshop. It did not say who originally took the picture or who it is of. I am actually using this as a reference for something else that i am drawing, but since that is not finished yet I will post this one in its place, and then post the finished drawing once it is complete.

For some people this image may be a little disturbing, and it probably should be. I hope that if nothing else it creates an awareness in the people who see it.



To see other peoples portrayals of "Appetite" you can go here.

And... I'll sing another song.

So, I have this song stuck in my head. Great little song if you ask me. It is a song by the band Palomino called My Next Breath. I have been singing the song non-stop for a couple days now... Well, I had to stop to eat and sleep and stuff... But you get the picture right?

Anyhooooooo... I decided to sing it here again. I kinda like singing on my blog, it lets me hear how much my voice has changed over the years. It lets me hear where I really need some work... It lets me sing for crying out loud:) That is really the thing I like best I suppose. It has been so long since I have sung in a band or anything like that, I am realizing that I miss it very much. Although, I am not so sure I would be able to get up in front of people anymore and actually make any sounds other than a weak squeak or even worse no sound at all.

And so I guess until I decide to actually do something I may become the singing blogger... Be that good, bad, or something inbetween...

If I am rambling on and on and making no sense it is just because it is almost 1 in the am here and I am still awake... Why? Well, because I was hooking up my new printer. YAY! I finally bought a new printer so I can print out my photo's again. I killed my last printer at Christmas time when I made a bunch of calendars on my computer and printed about a billion of them out on my printer. I had it running pretty much all day long for 2 full days.... Went through 2 complete sets of ink in all of my photo ink cartridges, two in the yellow as well and one in the black. Poor printer. It was a trusty companion, but I suppose it had to kick the bucket some time. I left it sitting on my desk until last week and finally I gave it a proper burial in the dumpster... Rest in peace beloved Canon photo printer. You served me well, and although I have now replaced you with a newer much cooler version I will never forget you. :) <<<<< See? Rambling!!!

Well, here is the song. It is certainly a little pitchy in some places to say the least, but whatever. Enjoy... or don't its cool:)

Poetry Thursday 8-16-06

Ok... I am a slacker. I have been meaing to post for Poetry Thursday for literally a month or so.... but it seems I have somehow let it slip until now. This week is a free week and thus there is no prompt or subject. Cool! I enjoy a little freedom... it means I don't have to think too hard. ;)

Well, here is my entry for this week, it is nothing fabulous, but it ain't terrible either! Enjoy.


I thought I heard you
Speaking ever so soft
Your voice carried by wind

I almost saw you...
One face in a million
Concealed by the crowd

Asleep...
I felt your body
Pressed close to mine

My dreams will carry forever your memory
My heart will remember you always

Blue

This is my first official entry for Artwords... this weeks subject is Monochrome. So, I took a picture of little old me and doctored it up some in Photoshop... so here I am, feeling a little blue.

Muddy SPC and MAJOR frustrations with kindergarten

Today I chose to do a SP that is a little fun. I have had an idea in my head for the last couple weeks of something I was going to do... but then I threw it out the window and decided to do this instead. I wanted to do a fun, lighthearted intry this week. I have noticed that pretty much all of my SP have pictures of me with no smile. Well, this week i am smiling.

About 2 weeks ago I took my boys to Mighty Mud Mania. It is at a big park in Scottsdale AZ. Where they basically turn the whole place into a mud pit for the day. There are obstacle courses and places for the younger kids to play. The fire dept. is even there to spray the kids down with their hoses. It was a great day all in all. The boys and I got very muddy and wet and dirty... and had a blast.

So here is my entry for today. I am enclosed in Messy muddy fun. :)



Also, I have put together a little slide of some of the other pictures of that day. I couldn't help it there were just too many fun pictures to choose from!



And as always you can see other peoples portraits HERE

Now, onto the subject of Kayden's kindergarten... UGH! Can I say FRUSTRATION???? Yeah I am a little frustrated. I am beginning to wonder if maybe I should have gone ahead and waited until next year to start him. He is only a couple months younger than the majority of kids in his class, but i know there are also other kids in his class as young or even younger than he is. But even though he is totally ready to start as far as being ready to learn more and even already knowing how to do some things that the older kids in his class cannot, such as writing his letters and numbers and some words... He is still a little immature emotionally however. Or rather he acts exactly like a 4 year old.

As of yesterday (his 3rd day of school EVER) Kayden has been sent out of class to the principals office TWICE!!! Now, nobody even mentioned the first time to me, Kayden told me himself. But yesterday when I picked him up his teacher did mention to me that he has been having a hard time. She was very kind and nice about it all, but I get the feeling that they are not all too patient with him (this could of course be me being a mother though too).

When I asked what he was doing she told me it is things like not staying on task, and not staying focused. He apparently gets bored or whatever with what he is doing and starts to touch other peoples work. She said that he keeps trying to take off his shoes... Now to me that sounds like not too big of a deal, I personally hate shoes and remember doing the same thing. My kids don't wear shoes often so he has to get used to it now. My one year old has only ever worn shoes two times in his life so far... I think bare feet are good!!! :) She mentioned he has a hard time sitting still on the floor with the class. They do a thing called Criss Cross Applesauce where they sit around a big rug on the floor with their legs crossed... Well, Kayden said it hurts his legs and wants to sit another way. I told him to tell her it hurts and ask to sit another way. He told me that he did ask and she has told him no. Maybe she did not understand what he meant? Who knows. The thing that made me think that it may be an issue of them not being as patient as they could be is one question that she asked me. She looked at me and asked if he has ever been in a school situation before. Ummm... yeah! I already sent him off to college! Is this not KINDERGARTEN??? Grade ZERO!!!!! I know, I realise that in todays society many many parents opt for the daycare and pre-school options. But not all of us! There are still those of us out there who choose to stay home and raise our children instead of having others do it for us (that is not intended to offend anyone who uses either of those options). I kinda was under the impressino that kindergarten is supposed to be that first school setting, you know the one where they learn what kinds of things you actually are expected to do while in school.

So I am now frustrated that the schools cannot work with our children who still act like children, who are entering a new life experience and need to adjust to it. I am sure that he is acting up, he does it at home. But he is a GOOD kid who just needs patience. He is already starting to not like school after 3 days. He needs to have somebody help him make it a good experience instead of something he gets into trouble at all the time. I hated school when I was a kid for these same reasons, my husband too for that matter. Both of us were like Kayden where we had alot of energy and it was hard to focus and sit still... Those things did not get much better with age, but we learned to cope with it and learned to do the things we needed to do. I was very hyper active as a child and my husband has ADD... Our kids don't have a chance! LOL. I just really hope that his teacher and I can come up with something to do so that he can still enjoy his experience instead of growing to hate it like he is already doing. BAH!!! I don't know what to do, I suppose if it really is not working i can pull him out and try again next year. :(

Can he really be this old?

So, after months and months of Kayden asking almost everyday when he gets to start "big boy school" he finally started today. He was beside himself with excitement and honestly so was I. This is going to be so good for him. I can already tell.

Kayden is a highly energetic boy. As he gets older it is getting better but the one thing I lack the ability to do is have a structured day. I do not work that way. Not at all... I have tried so many times and it always ends with me feeling upset and frustrated because I cannot do the things I want because I am on a schedule. I know that he needs that [structure] and so all last year and through this year I have been home pre-schooling him. And he did amazingly well.

Originally my plan was to do the preschooling for 2 years and then send him off to this fabulous charter school we have out here that is all about music and drama and the arts. They have all the other boring stuff too, but the focus is on music and art. They require each student from grades 4 and up to play the violin or another stringed instrument and even give FREE suzuki lessons!!!! They have art camp and musical theatre class... for PE they have dance... Yeah, if only I had gone to a school like that. :) Well... I got off subject a bit. As I was saying I planned on doing preschool for 2 years then having him start kindergarten. Well, he did so well and seems to need even more than I ended up letting him test into kindergarten early. The school i really wanted to send him to will not accept a student if their birthday misses the deadline, which Kayden does by nearly 3 months. So I enrolled him into one right up the street.

I was a little nervous for him today I mean it is a full day kindergarten so I dropped him off at 7:45 and picked him up at 2:45. (Well, more accurately it was about 3:20 by the time I was able to pick him up. The line of cars was so long and moving so slow that I did not get to the pick up area until then. Tomorrow I am going to get there way early so I do not have to wait in line again.) He did wonderfully however, he made lots of new friends, and learned new songs and games which he taught me all evening.

It is a strange feeling to send your little one off to the big world of school... it means he is getting bigger. A good thing and yet, sad in its own way. I am so proud of my little boy I can hardly stand it!

I got a few pictures of him there with his teacher and class this morning, but i have not downloaded them yet... so in the next day or so I will post them. But until then I will leave you with these... Back when he was still my baby, well kinda... :)

Enclosed Spaces... The car.

When I am in the car with my kids I spend alot of time wishing they were asleep... with a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old things get loud, and messy, and there are fights with minor injuries and lots of crying and screaming. Wow... that sounded really negative, but common, it is TRUE! I mean the 2 year old likes to mash his foot into the one year olds face while the 4 year old hits the 2 year old in the back of the head and screams at him to stop. They are loud, my Mother says it sounds like I have pterodactyls in the back ground when she calls on the phone. When we are all in the car it can get a little TOO loud and it can feel like the car is jsut WAY too small although it seats 8. So, this week my enclosed space is my car, because it seems to be shrinking everytime we all get in it.

This first picture is of me after the one year old and two year old fell asleep... See the slight smile? I know, the hat is up a bit too far on my forehead to look cute like its supposed to, but whatever... It was QUIET!!!! :)



And this second one, is me leaning back into the second row of seats to try and capture some of my kids in the pic with me... You can only see part of Jett's (2 year old) head, and Kayden (4 yr old) is not in the picture but he was crying that he wanted to be in it... And that cute one there... the one who looks like he is being quiet? That one is Kael the one yr old. I love my boys! Even when they sound like Pterodactyls!



Next week ( I hope) I have an idea I have been working on... I just have to get over this silly fear I have of looking stupid in front of my husband so that he can help me out with it... I had planned on having it ready for this week as it will be really neat if it turnes out as I hope... But I will do it for next weeks I guess :) Besides, my face is kinda broken out and I feel fat and bloated this week... Not what I want in the picture! Next week though.... It will be good.

Singing a song... Oh dear!

Allrighty... don't even know what on earth posessed me to do this, but I sang a song and posted it here... My friend wanted to hear me sing, he has not heard me in years. So I figured why not? I was too chicken to do it over the phone so I did it here. I am a dork I know. The good thing though Is that I don't actually have many readers so perhaps nobody will ever even hear it at all... A girl can dream right?

And if by chance someone is listening to it, then I will tell you that I did it acapella so it may be off a little, and the song is one that certainly sounds better with music accompaning it because of the way it is written...

The song it Shotgun Down The Avalanche by Shawn Colvin and John Leventhal. I did it from memory so I hope I got it right...

Enjoy, or don't... No worries:)

SPC 8-1-06 Rub a dub dub, Georgiabean in the tub...

This months theme for the Self Portrait Challenge is "Enclosed Spaces".

The guide lines were:

First - Use an enclosed environment‚ a space that has the confines and restrictions of the photo-booth.

Also - The element of chance is also important, not looking through the viewfinder, but rather viewing yourself as others might see you in that circumstance. Holding the camera out in front of you or placing it on a surface and pressing the shutter.


I decided for my first one to do something simple. I have an idea in mind for a more difficult one but it takes more preparation so I did this one first. It is taken in my bathtub.

Water is a tricky element. At times I feel like it is endless... and sometimes it can press in around you. One of the things I fear is drowning. I am sure there are far worse ways to go... but drowning freaks me out. And at the same time I love water. I gave birth to all three of my babies in water, I find it relaxing to float along in the water, to lay down in the rain and let it fall down on me. Water can be healing and cleansing... and freaky:)

So here is my SP for this week. My enclosed space was a bathtub, this is my underwater.



Any comments or suggestions for future portraits with the theme or "Enclosed Spaces" would be greatly appreciated. And as always, you can see more Self Portraits RIGHT HERE