Around here...

Hi there, Everone!  It's been a while since I last posted.  I've been busy with school and just life in general.  The kids have been sick so that's always fun.  I thought, I would share a few photos from the past week just for fun.

***Amendment to this post...I cannot email photos from my phone to myself!  I have attempted this three times today.  That means you will just have to live without seeing them.  Sorry.  Maybe when all works properly, I will upload them.  Maybe Mariphone lost her ability to email when she took a dive!  Really, I tried two different email accounts.  Anyhow, moving on.

I thought I would share this with you guys incase you would like to do it.  I totally failed in January with this project.  Apparently, it's quarterly so I can make it up this quarter?  I took a picture with my phone so I can remember the prompts when I'm out and about.

I have really been thinking about doing Project Life...as in Weekly.  I want to do it digitally, I think.  I also really want to start scrapbooking again, badly.  I am going to a scrapbooking retreat in April so I need to start planning pages and printing pictures.  I will share that with you as I go along.  I am almost finished up with all of my photo editing.  ALMOST!  I cannot wait.  Except, I am taking newborn photos this weekend as a favor for a long time friend.  I am going to start up with my photography officially, April 1.

I guess that's all of got for today!  Enjoy your evening!

Mariphone Lives!!

As many of you know my phone, Mariphone, is very important to me.  That is why on Sunday, I was a bit worried when I thought I killed her.  You see I had just gotten out of the tub and she was sitting on some papers on the bathroom counter...Thanks Erik.  Anyhow, I hit the papers and she took a dive.  A perfect little dive under the water.  I was actually impressed with her trajectory for a second before I started screaming.  I snatched her out of the water and dried her off.  She was working perfectly until three hours later my screen went all crazy and dark.  I believe I used the word kooky.  I was pretty worried especially about the pictures I had on her.  Alas, we placed her in a bag of rice overnight and in the morning she was just perfect.  So in conclusion, iPhones are awesome.  Oh and here are some of the pics that were on there.  They documented our trip up A Mountain, which pardon my French is a bitch to climb.  And if I never go back, it would be too soon. These were once in a lifetime photos.

 JoJo resting after making it too the top.

 One of the shrines to the Virgin at the top.

 Maddie, JoJo, and Erik coming up to the top.  I climbed my butt off at a quick pace so I was waiting.  Perhaps that's why it wasn't a joy.

 Corner of the observatory...I liked the "Clock work"

 All the boys at the top

Cell tower at the top.  Please note, I still didn't have full service on my phone!

12x12 Layout...Thanksgiving

All supplies, including the stamp,  are from the Studio Calico Monthly Kit.  Don't ask which month.

I forced myself to make this page.  I actually told myself, "Self you are not leaving this office until you make something in here." So there you have it.  A self forced scrapbook layout.  My pictures have a lot of glare as they came out of my phone that way.  I guess from the windows.  I did use the new 9x9 grids from Postal Pix to do the photo strips.  Postal Pix really is the easiest way to have your Instagram photos printed.  I just have to remember to order them before I download them to my computer :/

I am going to try and get my next photography lesson up...shooting in Manual.  Someone may/maynot have thrown a fit when they realized their pen for the tablet was missing.  All is well, the pen has been recovered.  Have a good night.

Blog Your Heart

It's time for Blog Your Heart, from Stephanie Howell's Blog.

This will be short and sweet...

1.  JoJo is driving me insane right now.  He is going through this phase of stubbornness.  I'm not quite sure where he got it from because no one in this house is stubborn.  He is making me late for work almost every Monday, and Friday.  He refused to get dressed in the morning because it's too hard.  He also won't hold his backpack and will stand in the lobby of school.  It drives me nuts.  The kid needs to grow up a little bit.

2.  I HATE my job at the moment.  The pressure they are putting on is so the worst I've ever seen in 11 years of teaching.  The entire month of January was spent testing.  The ENTIRE month.  We have a B school, but apparently we will still be audited by the district.  They are supposed to come in and judge us on 20 pages of different items.  They will rank us 1 to 4 for each item  and then interview us to ensure we are doing a good job.  I asked other B schools and they say this isn't going to happen in their schools so I'm unsure of why we are the "lucky" ones.

3.  Scrapbooking??  What is that?

4.  I'm going to be a Dirty Girl!  That's right, I signed up for the 5k Dirty Girl Mud Run.  It was a great incentive to actually work out again.  I really don't want to be lying facedown in a puddle of mud so I've been running and working out.

5.  I am itching to take pictures again.  I just have to finish up the tedious chore of editing photos.  At least I'm getting antsy to do it again and that makes me happy.

6.  Maddie loves Michael Jackson!  I mean loves him.  I can't wait to show his little opinion paper he wrote for school.  It's hanging outside of his classroom so I can't at this moment.  I am going to put it in his scrapbook (what's that??).  When he grows up he is going to be in for such a shock.  And I am going to laugh and laugh.  Plus, show the scrapbook page to his girlfriends. :)

Photography 101.3

Let's talk about the TV setting today.  TV stands for Time Value.  I believe for a Nikon it is called S for  Shutter Priority.  When you put your camera in TV you are setting the shutter speed.  The camera will set the aperture for you.

Shutter Speed is how fast your lens opens and closes.  If you want your pictures to be crisp and sharp you need to have a high enough shutter speed to freeze the movement.  Usually a setting of 100 or 200 is pretty good.  I only use TV setting when I  am trying to get artsy with photos.  Either, I'm trying to catch motion such as jumping like this:

My TV for this photo was probably over 2000.  I wanted to freeze the movement in my picture.

For this photo, I set my shutter really slow.  I wanted the movement to show in the photo.

When you set your shutter speed really slow, you need to hold really still or use a tripod.  If you shake, it will show up in your photos and your subject will be blurry.

When you shoot fireworks, you can set your shutter as slow as it will go.  Sometimes your camera will show the word "bulb" when you do this.  That means your shutter will stay open until you close it.  So you will push the shutter release (the button) expose the photo for as long as you want and push the shutter release button again.  I took these pics with a tripod and just set my shutter to expose for about thirty seconds.

Living a Life of Glamour...and a Book Recommendation

Maddie's idea of organizing the cubbies in the living room.

I am living the glamourous life.  That's right, except instead of going to elegant parties and wearing fancy clothes, I'm awakened at 3:00 a.m. to cat vomit.  That's right.  The cat vomited on Wolfie's pillow at three a.m. and he smelled like cat vomit.  I went to go take care of the mess and crawled back into bed and almost threw up on Wolfie, because he smelled.  I made him shower.  He kept turning all the lights on and woke the entire house up.  Then I laid back down on my pillow and almost threw up again because it smelled like cat vomit.  

If that ain't glamourous, I don't know what is.

I also wanted to let you know that Heart Song has been released.

It is the sequel to 

It wraps up the story.  There will also be a new book released featuring Violet's mom and dad and their love story.  That should be interesting.  I can't say much because if I do, I will spoil Phoenix Rockstar for you, if you haven't read it.