Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Promoted!

I finally made it to Karate on Monday night and got promoted (I wasn't there for the official promotion last Friday) I am now officially a SamDan or third degree Black Belt. How did I ever get here? Since I wasn't there for the official photo last week I went to the photographer privately and he will photoshop me in. Isn't it great? I could probably do a better job than the guy they use, but it usually turns out pretty good :) At least I will be in my photo.

It was hard getting back into the groove this week, I am still reliving last weekend, but now it's back to normal. My bathroom is beginning to have a shape again, today most of the drywall went up. It's starting to look like a small bathroom again LOL, I just got used to the width, now it's gone again. I am getting a little antsy, I really want it to be done. My floor heating pad just arrived today, that was really fast. I just ordered it a couple of days ago. It's exciting to see it all come together...

I have been scrapping a few Vegas pages






I have so many photo yet....

today I did this one, Rachel had asked me to take her pictures the other day, of course I was more than happy to oblige



here are a couple more of her photos






We had pretty good light that day, it was fun!

And I am caught up with my 365 pages again:


It has been snowing again since lunchtime. Phil told me the roads were really bad, so I decided to skip Karate again tonight. I was really set to go but not in this... I hope they won't cancel school again tomorrow, I am tired of snow days that need to be made up in the summer. Plus Gabrielle is in the middle of mid terms and she doesn't want them postponed.

Earlier I went out and took a few macro shots. I use the Tamron 90 mm, but I would really love to try the Nikon 105mm to see the difference. The Tamron seems very hard to focus and control. Plus it's very hard to hold it still, the focus changes so easily. Anyway, here are a couple



see how those crystals are hanging on to each other. I find that fascinating!

Well, that was a rather lengthy update, sorry about that! Have a wonderful day, hopefully less snowy than it's around here!


Saturday, January 22, 2011

Gone and back



I spent a fabulous long weekend in Las Vegas, meeting all (or most of) the girls from the CT at Designer digitals. It was wonderful, marvelous, exciting, super and cool! To meet all these women whom I have known for a couple of years on line was such a wonderful experience. Some I recognized immediately, others I didn't recognize at all LOL. It was awesome! The weather was gorgeous, short sleeves, sunshine, just perfect. We had an awesome team dinner Saturday night and Randy taught a couple of really neat classes during the day. We split off into small groups and regret that I wasn't able to spend enough time with each and every one of them, but I had a great time. That top photo was processed in HDR, which was one of the classes Randy taught. So much fun! The lady on the left was my roomy, so sweet and two more ladies from my team. We also took ladies on sticks along, so they wouldn't miss out LOL. Anywho, it was wonderful!
Coming back was a totally different story. I flew into Dulles with a connecting commuter flight a little after eleven PM, or so I thought. It was sleeting and just a mess, we spent an hour on the tarmac until the flight was finally cancelled. They re booked us onto the next one which wasn't until lunch time the following day. I was really upset, I did not feel like spending a night in a cheap hotel, having to come back 2 hours before the flight to go through security again. A gentleman who was on the flight with me suggested to me and some other ladies to find a cab to take us home. Fortunately he found one and he negotiated a rate with him. $400 for the four of us, which was just a little more than a hotel would have been (plus meals) So we set out on this amazing journey, it took hours!!! Driving through inches of sleet for several hours until it got a little better. To make a long story short, I made it home by 7 AM just in time to kiss the kids good-bye for school :) The gentleman did not even want all the money, just whatever we could give him. He really had to be in town no matter what...what a nice guy! Well, that was my little adventure.
Our bathroom is totally gutted, the pipes are moved, new wires pulled, a new sub floor put in, new joists, since the old ones looked a little chewed up.

My guy is really a hard worker, he is here every day all day long. He was carrying bucket after bucket of cement and tile down the steps and he is not the youngest. Anyway, I am excited about getting it done, I think it will look pretty.

Yesterday we found a mouse. It was sitting on the wall on top of a pin board frame. I have no idea how it got up there, but it just sat there, it seemed terrified. Of course Rachel saw and squealed with delight. She had to get Gabby to look at it and that was the end of the mouse's freedom. We dug out the old aquarium and now the mouse has a new home with food and a little bed. It seems perfectly comfortable, as you can see here

you have to admit it looks utterly adorable all tucked into the little towel. I can understand the kids for wanting to keep it. (it's better having it contained anyway)
Always some excitement in this house LOL.
Here are some more pages I have been working on. The second week for 2011:
and some other stuff..






not a whole lot of pages this time around, but of course I wasn't here for days... I was there! See those people on the rocks up there? This is the part of Vegas I like the best, the desert is gorgeous! Well, anyway, just a little update. I hope everybody is doing well, talk to you soon and I'll try to have some more Vegas pics next time (if I remember) 



Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Oh my!

I really thought I was going to do better with keeping up with my blog posts, but no, look at how much time has passed! Christmas is long gone, it's a new year and new beginnings...
I finally finished the last of the 365 pages for the year only to discover that most of the months ended on the left side of the pages (think of the book format), so now I will have to make filler pages for those, maybe just a full bleed photo page, don't know yet. I also didn't do a cover yet. I have a groupon for Blurb, so I think I will give them a try this time around.
This year I decided to do double spreads for the week, I really like the look so much better and there is more space for journaling. I started out with Jan 1 + 2 on one page and from then on I will go Monday through Sunday

I tell you what, it felt really great to scrap something other than those December pages after I got done with that book :) And even the 365 pages were getting old...this year I am all for simple and clean, I figure I will have an easier time sticking with it, if it's simple

Here are some other pages I did










My biggest news is that I am getting a new bathroom!!! I can't believe we finally are going for it. The guy started ripping tiles down today, the shower is gone already! It is a lot of work, all the tile is laying in concrete, but his gentleman is a hard worker! I saw this cool picture of a bathroom I just love

I love the way this shower looks (not the sink, not practical with three kids) I am excited about the project, our shower was 1926 material and nothing worked anymore. So for now we all have to use the master bathroom, yikes!

I have been working on my website a little bit, have to find decent pictures to put on there. I was taking pictures of our piano teacher the other day. She wanted some of her with her 2 St. Bernards. It was gorgeous out there, lots of snow. Of course I didn't consider the fact that it was snowing like crazy and all the photos are full of flakes. Everywhere! Lots of them! Yikes. We'll have to redo them. The photos are cute and nice, but nothing to write home about, that's for sure.

Okay, gotta run for now, hubby is calling :)

Never say Never!

Well, here I am creating my very own blog! I was always very sure I would never get into this blogging "thing", but here I am. I hope you will enjoy finding out a little about my not so interesting life!