The Park and The Tree

One evening Mom, Chelsea, and I took the kids to play at the playground after dinner.  

I had had my camera out for the past hour or so, and commented to Chelsea that I was done playing photographer for the night as I put it in it's bag.  Then I turned away from the playground and saw this...

and pulled it right back out.  

I mean, seriously.Jayce climbed right on in.  It had very climbable low limbs, so he scurried on up.See him?But he couldn't go much further up once he was in it, and got bored quickly, which is fair enough.

So I gave Chelsea my camera so that Hannah and I could pick a few of the flowers.  
That Chelsea, I'll turn her into photographer yet! :)  I love this one, even though we were pretty disheveled from a full day of playing in actual sun. :)Goodbye beautiful tree and park!  You were a good end to the day.

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So I Took A Class

My Photography class is officially over.  Overall I enjoyed the class, but of course there was good and bad.

The good.

The community.

There were about 30+ people in the class, most of whom were professional photographers looking for refinement.  So the discussions were good.  Someone would post a picture or a question, and there was lots of interesting feedback.  Once we were finished, I realized there were a few questions I had been sitting on thinking that we might get to them in the lessons, and we hadn't, so I posted them to the class.  Each time I got the opinions of 20+ photographers which was awesome.  It was a really open community, which can be rare as some people want to keep their secrets to themselves.  But for the most part everyone was more than willing to share information on their gear, settings, editing, etc.  I don't have anywhere else where I can go for such a wealth of that kind of knowledge and I loved that.

Learning.

 I realized pretty quickly that I have been doing a pretty specific type of photography largely based on my needs when I first learned about my camera.  For example, when I was learning to shoot in manual, I was doing Lemon Tree and Etsy, both of which required bright and detailed product photos.  So I'm pretty good at getting a well lit, brightly colored, fine detailed picture of a pillow I made or something like that.  But I had never really taken the time to learn how to master photos in a lower light situation, where the goal was not to make the image brighter, but to take a beautiful shadowy, darker sort of image.  So it was interesting to hold my camera intending to get a completely different effect than usual, and I was happy to have some guidance with metering and settings because I felt like a fumbling idiot.  

Some feedback.

As I said before the class really got rolling, I was happy to get some feedback, but also a bit nervous.  It turns out that I had no reason to be nervous.  This is not because I did so well, but because it was an encouraging community.  All of the feedback, to and from each individual, was presented in a positive way.  

The bad.

I don't like to be told what to do and when.

  I know, I know, this seems dumb.  But I needed to take photos on certain days when I didn't have time, didn't have a good subject, or I just wasn't feeling it.  Then I attempted to focus on my assignments while Chris tried to keep the kids distracted long enough for me to do so.  Perhaps I just didn't manage my time well in those weeks.  Jayce was sick the first week, Hannah the second, and I struggled through the lesson the second week so it seemed to drag on as I read it slowly, re-read it, and practiced.  I imagine that I am just used to grabbing my camera when I feel inspired and have something I want to catch, or sitting down at the computer when I have time, space to breathe, and a little peace.

I would have liked a little more.

I imagine this could be said of any elected class.  Do you ever feel like you completely got your time and money's worth?  For this in particular, I would have liked some more feedback and critique.  It was only a month long class, so there is only so much that can be covered in that time, I get that.  Also one of the lessons didn't really apply to me, and I was disappointed about that.  And there were a few topics I thought would have been covered that weren't.  (Again, I know that whole limited time thing.)  But still.

Now I have no pictures.

Not really, I have pictures.  But I just glanced through my January folder and realized that I have pretty much only edited stuff for the class, because by the time I was finished with those, I was sick of editing.  

And that's about it.  Not really, there is plenty more to say, but I think that's all I'l say for now, or this might never be published.  More later though.  Maybe.

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Five on Friday

Hello!

1.)  I realized the other day that my last portrait was from 10 months ago, and I should probably take my own picture more than once a year.  Since January was my month of photography, it was the perfect time, and I got one that I'm happy with.  Funnily, (maybe?), I had to do this a few different times: some of the times I was more dolled up, my hair fixed, looking cute (kind of), with makeup, etc.  But when I would look at them later, I would think, "This looks like 'dressed up me'" or something like that.

But I think that this one just looks like me.  This is what I look like most of the time, hair up, glasses, and this thick scarf (because it's cold!).  If it was zoomed out, I would be wearing sweats and holding a cup of tea. (Again, the cold thing).  Perhaps this is my residual self image? 

2.) It's February!!  Which means that as of today I can "officially" move on past my month of photography, and onto my month of knitting.  

I'll write more about the month of photography and my class in another post, but the gist of it is, as expected, it was good and bad.  

The good: Through my class I learned.  That was the goal and I had some success.

The bad: In order to learn, I ended up taking lots of photos of inanimate objects while my kids were sleeping.  And I don't like this.  I needed to do it in order to learn several of the technical things and new methods, and it was impossible to photograph my children when I was spending so much time staring at the back of my camera and switching the settings around.  

This all solidified something that I kind of already knew, I do like photography, but what I really like is family photography.  Particularly my family.  

 When I sat down at the end of the day to edit photos of the snow or our flat or the buildings, even the ones that turned out beautifully, I just wasn't into it.  I wasn't excited to see how the images turned out or eager to play around tweaking them here or there like I usually am.

I remember talking through this with a friend who really enjoys outdoor photography, and I had said, "I almost never see a beautiful building or landscape and think, 'I want to take pictures of that! ' I think, 'I want to take pictures of my kids playing in front of that.'"  

So there's that. 

3.) That said, it has been really beautiful around here these past few weeks as the city was blanketed in snow.  I am glad that I was in this course while the weather was like this, because I was able to capture it in ways that I normally wouldn't have thought to.  I just won't be making a career out of this. :)
4.) This past month we have been able to return to one of our family dinner traditions from when we lived in Lincoln, pancakes for dinner.  We found pancake mix (kind of hard to find) and pancake syrup (harder to find and cost a fortune!) but it was so worth it.  We were all in heaven.  It's strange how much you want something when you know that you can't have it, and how comforting it was to have a meal from our old home in our new home.  

Also, these pictures of Hannah helping Chris cook kill me.5.) I am guest posting this wonderful recipe at KoJo Designs today as a part of the Winter Whites series.  I just love Kirstin.  She's a peach, our kids are roughly the same age so I'm always crushing on something amazing that she has just made for hers that I now need to make for mine, we're both trying to decorate our new (white) homes without going crazy, and she's a total sweetheart.  And she lets me post at her site occasionally when I get the bug to write up a tutorial. :)

As to the puppy chow, I may or may not have made this 3 times in the last month for one reason or another.  It's a problem, really.  However, even my English friends like it despite all of the times that I've heard, "Oh British people don't understand why Americans like peanut butter and chocolate together."  It turns out that some of them understand it perfectly.  

It also inspired Hannah to start saying "puppy," something that she has never said before, preferring to call dogs "ruff ruffs."  But now, if she sees some white squares in a bowl, will yell "Puppy! Puppy!" until we give her some.  Not that she's the boss around here. 

Happy Friday!  These days I'm just as excited as a kid out of school about the weekend. :)

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Things I'm Learning

(It snowed this morning!  This has nothing to do with this post, other than, it's snowing as I write this!  Snow snow snow!) 

Well, I post a list of my 2013 to dos and then I take off, right?  How annoying.  Let me assure you that no one was more annoyed last week than me.  I have spent the last 5 days with a computer that is out of working order, and had a few moments of tears and despair, (like when I thought that I had lost every single picture, document, download, and file from the last 4 years.)  But I hadn't.

I had a few triumphs last week as well.  36 hours in a row(ish) of fussing with this or that on the computer, taking cues on what to do next via Facebook chat, text messages, emails, internet searches, and forms from the Apple store finally put me back in working order.  Whew.  It turns out that I can install a hard drive, and reconfigure, and install, and setup, and move a bunch of crap around until it is all in happy working order.  

That said, I don't think I'll ever do it again.  Sometimes money saved is not worth the headache, or the emotional torment of 2 days of constantly fluctuating between "It's working!" and "It's ruined!"  But still, there has been learning.

1.) Turning my brain off turned my brain on.

Seriously.  Giving the creative parts of my brain "the month off" has actually kicked them up a notch.  I'd been thinking "don't make anything, just do photography stuff" and then a window dressing solution just popped into my mind with things I already had on hand, I made it, and I love it.  It was a bit like how you can't remember something when you're trying, but when you're falling asleep it suddenly is there.  Kind of weird, but great.  I hope this happens in some other places this month too.

2.) I don't know what I'm doing.

I have been so eager to take a photography course just so that I could learn what I've been doing wrong.  But it's still hard, particularly when there are certain "rules" that I've been following that I shouldn't have been following.  But I posted a question on the wall the other day and was like, "Wait a minute.  I thought that…" and it turns out that a few other people had this question too.  And the teacher really liked this image of mine, and I'm happy with that.  Particularly since my computer was dead to me all week when I needed it, and I just grabbed this one and two others from my camera, quickly edited them and threw them onto my class' Facebook page.  Whew.  But next week starts the very critical critiques, and I'll be hunkering down with some chocolate beforehand to nurse my poor wounded ego.  But I kind of can't wait.  How weird is that?

3.) I like what I like, and that's okay too.

After the kids were down last night I was flipping through my pictures and came across this one of Hannah, which I remember taking and thinking "that's my shot."  I also thought, "the teacher won't like this one."  Not that it's bad, because it's not, but because it wasn't what she was trying to get us to do.

But I still love it.  Chris saw it and immediately started talking about Hannah and I did too.  It's the type of picture that perfectly captures one half of her personality.  A moment where she is all sweetness and chubby cheeks and a kissable neck.  These are the moments when I'm so glad that I have my camera around, and I know how to use it well enough, if not perfectly.  

I know that I'm a perfectionist and a bit of a people pleaser, but I'm aiming to be refined by my class, not completely changed.  Or am I just being preemptively stubborn in the anticipation of critique?  I'm not sure.  

Either way, wish me luck.  :)
Linking to Miscellaneous Monday.

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My 2013 List, Month by Month

When Chris and I moved to London, we talked a bit about what I would like to do now.

Now that Jayce is in school all day long and I have a little more time to myself.  Now that we live in this amazing city with so many resources to take advantage of.  Now that Hannah is closer to sleeping through the night than she has been in the past.  Now that our whole life seems to be a clean slate, waiting for us to fill it up with whatever we'd like: meeting friends, joining a church, making new habits, filling a new home, and setting up our routines.  When we lived in Lincoln I threw myself into different things at different times: thrifting, DIY-ing, painting, blogging, photographing, sewing, writing, reading, running...what would be my London thing?  Or things?

I think the new year has provided me with the perfect opportunity to figure out how and where to organize my time and energy in the form of resolutions.  I've seen a few other bloggers do this sort of monthly change-up, (here and here are a few favorites), and I think it is a system that will work perfectly for me.  Having one month set aside for each task will help me to focus my energy so much better, instead of feeling like I need to be doing a little bit of everything all the time, which is how I feel now.

All of that said, here is my 2013 monthly lineup.

January: Photography.

This item is first, because this week I started a photography course.  Three years ago I was dying to take some photography lessons or a course, but there wasn't anything available anywhere near us.  I am thrilled to be able to push myself more in this area, and excited to get some feedback from the instructor and the other students since I've never really had anything like that before.  I'm also pretty nervous, but for right now the excited is bigger than the nervous, so I'm clinging to that. :)

February: Knit.

I think this one is fairly self-explanatory.  Joining the knitting group was a wonderful start, and introduced me to just how many beautiful projects are out there, but it's difficult for me to learn much with Hannah by my side, or, more accurately, running away.  I need to set aside some time to read a book/watch a youtube video (or ten), and practice, some things that I haven't made the time to do.  But in February, I'm going to make it happen.

March: Decorate.

I've said it before, but having an entire flat to decorate, all at once, when you're starting with nothing…well, it's a daunting task.  There is everything from furniture to storage, from curtains to rugs, from art to finishing pieces, and for EVERY room.  I need a month so that I can focus on putting this place together now that we've lived her for a little bit and have a better sense of what we want and need.  

April: Blog.

I spend a lot of time on this blog, it's the main window that a lot of friends and family have for our life, and I want it to be good.  There are some things I want to do differently, things I want to do better, things I want to update and things to change.  There also is a backlog of posts that are important to me that I need to catch up on.  Did you know that I took photos of every room of our old home for a little walk down memory lane/home tour?  Have I mentioned that we took the kids to Edinburgh last month?  And I know that I still have most of the flat to show off.  I'm going to update as much as possible.

May: Sew.

I sewed a LOT throughout the months of October and November, mostly for gifts and decorations for our home.  But there are still a lot of things that I'd like to try: little projects that I've been putting off, bigger projects that will push my skill level to the next level, and just having some time to sit down at my machine and figure out how to make my sewing time and projects to be smooth and efficient.

June: Decorate.

Yes, I know this is on here twice.  But there is a whole downstairs AND an upstairs, and I know I will run out of time and money in March before I finish it all.  Really, I should call this one, "decorate the kids' rooms."  We'll be having some visitors this summer, (yay!), and this will give me the motivation to get some of the home projects completely finished.

July: Light Room.

All of my photos are edited in Light Room.  Yet even though I've been using it every week for over 2 years, I am still learning how to use it best.  I know that there are short cuts that can speed up my workflow and tools that I should take advantage of to achieve better results, but this requires time to learn, practice, and implement these things.  Enter July.

August: Visit.

We are tentatively planning to come home the month of August for some family and friend time.  I cannot wait.  This is my goal for the month: see and visit with the people that I love, get in some major quality time, and just soak it all up.  That's it.  Its a month I am very much looking forward to.

September: Join.

Jayce (and Chris) will have just started back at school and our family will be setting up a new routine in line with the new school year. So this seems like a perfect time to evaluate our commitments and activities and perhaps plug into some new ones.

October: Make.

This past October I was busy making Christmas things the second week of October, and I think it was a good practice.  It helped me to get a start on things before the craziness of Halloween/my birthday/Chris' SBL trip/the Christmas season. So I'm giving myself permission to focus my time just on creating something or another.  I'm sure I will make more than just one thing, or maybe as many as I possibly can in one month.

November: Me.

What is something that I would like to do, just for me, that I always put on the back burner and chose busyness instead?  Read?  Exercise?  Nap?  Study?  Go out with friends?  Go out with Chris?

The week that Chris was in the US and the kids were sick, I made a deal with myself that in my "free time" (once they were in bed or napping), I was going to do whatever I needed the most.  This meant that a few times I chose to take a nap instead of attend to chores, ate dinner while watching Greys Anatomy instead of answering emails, and read a book that kept me up past a responsible bedtime hour.  But these were good things, and in my birthday month, I'm going to chose me with my free time again.  It will likely end in sewing/blogging/Light Room anyway, but hopefully there will be at least an instance or two of reading in tub.

December: Cook.

I hate cooking.  Which is why this is last.  But putting forth the effort to find new dishes to add to the rota is nothing to shake a stick at.  I found this last month, and though it is a hassle, I have made it twice since then, except covered in dark chocolate.  It's amazing.  If I think about it too much, I'm going to start gnawing on my hand.  Finding recipes like this is the reason I need to make an attempt to try more.

Wish me luck!!  Anyone else doing some form of resolutions this year?

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Flips

One morning last week Hannah was sitting perfectly still.  

I should stop right there for a second, because that is an event in itself.  

It was a good combination of her being a bit sleepy, a fresh bowl of Cheerios to snack on, and a silly show that Jayce was watching.  She planted herself on a pillow and was still.  

She was so still that I stuck a clip in her hair and she didn't even notice.

I seized the opportunity to get a few photos of one of her most defining characteristics at the moment, aside from the sass, her soft, flipp-y little curls.

Straight out of the bathtub, they are tight little ringlets, but just at the bottom.  After a night of sleeping on them, they are soft and delicate.  It is impossible to be sitting near her and not reach over, twist the curls around your fingers, comb them back and forth, try to pull them into little pony tails and then brush them back down exactly as they were.  

Eventually she spotted me,

but I was no match for whatever show was on at the time.

Then I put away my camera and stopped resisting her.  I pulled her into my lap and sat down on the rocker, so we could rock and snuggle, and I had complete access to her to her plump cheeks.  And those flips.

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