POTD January 16, 2008

Here is the original and then after I played with it. I ran Ren's Soda Lite action on the photo, reduced the opacity on the light layer and upped the contrast a bit. Then I resized to 5x7. I hated that I couldn't get one full length of her running so I cropped what little of her shins I got in the original. Opinions?

POTD January 15, 2008

This is our eldest dog, Hatcher Bear, our first Weimaraner (we have him, the grey, and a blue female). I was playing around with f stops on my 50mm 1.4 and since it was dim inside I went pretty low. Looking at it now I think I need to try again and go up more so I can get more of his full face in focus, not just his eyes.

POTD January 11, 2008

My older sister, my only sister, Harvest. We may have had our fights growing up and in many things we are as different as night and day, but when I see her with her daughter everything in me is proud to call her my sister.

50mm, f/8, iso 400, 1/400

POTD January 10, 2008

James, my husband, usually picks Kinsley up after work so I have about 10-15 minutes to get our three dogs taken care of and shake work off before they get home. It's nice, it's exactly what I need after a day at the office. I got home a little early today so I got out my camera and snapped a few shots of my two favorite people walking in the door. I think my next focus will be on getting taller (somehow I think this might not be possible!) or learning how to take a picture of a 6'8" man. I forget how tall he is until I take a photo and realize I look up his nose a lot. This was the best out of all of them and it's because I have him squatting down a little. Good thing he thinks I'm so wonderful and doesn't mind any of my "could you just get a tiny bit shorter, no don't lean, can you squat?" requests.

XTi, 50mm, 1.4, 1/50 corrected in PS for tungsten lighting issues, I think my house glows orange! Maybe I should "focus on WB in 2008" lol.

Regarding Caldrea

I got hooked after smelling Caldrea products at Central Market recently. I hate odd or fake smelling cleaning products and while I still have some in the house I won't buy more now. Last night, during shooting the picture below I moved everything off the kitchen counters, scrubbed with a mix of the all-purpose cleaner and warm water, and oh, the smell was like heaven! Even better, it wasn't like I had to use a ton or had to scrub to really get anything off the stove- it came up like magic. I scrubbed the lower cabinets and the appliances as well. Sparkling. We have a semi-open floor plan in our house and it made the whole living room smell good. I am just a FlyBaby now, but I have a feeling this is going to be good for our house.

I know it's all natural, not sure if it's organic, but it's not tested on animals and I love that.

Oh, and you can buy it online at their site or drugstore.com and probably others. I bought through drugstore.com because if you have a mypoints or Upromise account you can get points of 3% back into your account. Can't beat that (especially when it can be a little spendy).

POTD January 9, 2008

Here's my newest "Focusing on 2008" picture. I'm putting more focus on things that make me happy. One of them is a clean home. I love my Caldrea too. It makes any job I have easier because one whif of Ginger Pomelo and it doesn't seem like such a chore.

I will admit, I am not all that fond of this picture. It was already dark outside and the lighting in the kitchen is awful. I adjusted the curves but it came out so gold.

50mm 2.0, 1/100

POTD- Focus in 2008

My focus this year is on being a wife and mother. My husband and I keep throwing around the idea of expanding our family later next year, closer to when our daughter turns three but I'm still not convinced if it's the right time. So this year I'm going to focus on us as a family and being a mom and trying to decide if it's time to expand or if three is the perfect amount for our family for another few years.

I adjusted the curves and also used Teya's Clean Convert action.

Hats off to 2007

I'm a little late but here is my niece, the littlest Stars fan in the family.

Last wreath hanging

*updated to add- thanks for the comments! It's an "icicle" wreath I got from Michaels a few years ago. I just got really close to the icy beads.

Happy New Year

Only four days late. I'm still trying to catch up from having over a week off work. I'm starting to compile all of our info for taxes. I think I may use Turbo Tax and do them at home. I'm a Quicken freak so I think that may help. At a minimum I got one of those "try it for free" deals so I onyl have to pay if I decide to print the forms out. May as well see what the damage is this year and brace ourselces rather than crossing our fingers under the table.

Martha, of course, has another fabulous month of organization ideas. I'm slightly excited about the possibilites. Perhaps I can convince the man to build me something. Oh, and thinking about that makes me think of childproofing. We're having such a hard time figuring out what we can do upstairs that will make it so Kinsley can't fling herself or anything else through the cut outs in the wall that look down into the living room. It has to be sturdy, obviously, and I'd rather not spend tons of money on it. I know, that's a huge request.

I haven't said it yet this year but I love my camera. Kinsley and Madeline, my niece, are below.

Another from the ranch

kitty, originally uploaded by BlushOnYourCheek.

I adored this kitten, she was so tiny with so much hair.

One quick picture

since I've got bread at the end of it's rise and it needs attending. Two of the horses at my family's place. I think Silver is on the left but Sport and Silver look nearly identical to me so it could be Sport. Bonnie is on the right, she's a Percheron/Clydesdale mix and massive.

Crafty fun for toddlers

I'm co-chairing Kinsley's daycare Christmas party on Friday. So, my task was to come up with a craft little people could do with relative ease. So, James and I are going to busy ourselves cutting out about 100 mitten shapes from red, green, and white cardstock tonight and tomorrow. Then on Friday the children will decorate two with foam stickers, little pom-poms, glitter glue, crayons, and then we'll tie a ribbon between the two and they have made a mitten ornament.

Then, for my own fun, I'm thinking I'm going to make these calendars for next year. I already have a wall calendar for my office wall but I can make an excuse and have a pretty one on my desk as well.

Advice well taken

12.16.07kinsley.2, originally uploaded by BlushOnYourCheek.

We took time to stop and smell the roses today. It's been nearly 4 or more years since neither James nor I have been in school. It's nice to finally have some downtime.

The Pear Shirt

pear shirt, originally uploaded by BlushOnYourCheek.

Finally, I snagged a picture of the shirt I made for Kinsley. I bought a red knit shirt to wear underneath it now that it's getting colder outside. I'm really hoping I didn't make the sleeves too tight though.

Pink is festive

cookies, originally uploaded by BlushOnYourCheek.

I had a quick moment to decorate a few stars last night- all pink of course. It really did help lift my spirits and get me in the Christmas mood. I even managed to sing a little "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas".

Martha turned my frown upside down

I was in a bit of a funk about Christmas this year. We had let a friend stay with us to help him get on his feet in a new town and it went downhill from there. Needless to say the loss of a friendship and a feeling of having generosity taken advantage of can zap any Christmas spirit.

But just as I was starting to send out invitations for a pity party I decided to bake it out. So I baked 2 dozen thumprint cookies, 2 dozen sugar cookies, another 2 dozen gingerbread cookies, and a loaf of bread. I can't take all the credit on the bread since I let the bread machine work a brioche out for me but it came out so delicious.

I'm going to decorate as many cookies as I can tonight and hopefully get a good handprint of Kinsley's so I can make hand cookies. I used this royal icing recipe but doubled it and subbed powdered egg white for the real thing and used almond extract instead of lemon juice. James just called and said he picked up pink sugar sprinkles for me. It's like he knows what little thing is going to make me happy in the day and he knows being able to pink up the holidays is just what I need to do right now.

I'll upload pictures of the cookie madness tonight (except the thumbprints, those disappeared since Saturday).

The girl, my world

50mm 1.4 lens, Aly's Simply Vintage action

Busy weekend

But oh so worth it.

Last night I helped my cousin and two of her friends tear down the wallpaper in my aunt and uncle's house. Wowza. When DIF says wait 15 minutes they mean it and we were not so patient. All in all though, 4 hours later all the paper was down. James and I went back to help smooth out the drywall and prime the walls. I'm so excited to continue with the painting; it's going to be gorgeous!

Playing with histograms and photoshop

(action is Creamsicle by SCP and a frame action from action central)

Looks like this could be fun-

I started thinking that it might be fun to work my way through a cookbook next year, something simple-ish, like a baking book where even the worst outcome may still be edible. Then again, maybe I should work my way through a book I already have, like one for quick dinners from Southern Living. Anyhow, looking at Amazon I found Cakes, Cupcakes, and Cheesecakes from the Williams-Sonoma collection and now I'm thinking that might be fun too.

Hm.

Oh, and crepe paper poinsettias look like a great way to get the look without worrying about the poisonous side effects.