Photos.....

For those of you who take time to comment, thank-you...I appreciate it. It always makes me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy. Anyway, to answer the question of Lightroom....yes, I have been liking it a lot. It is a lot faster and easier than photoshop and I feel like I have a lot more control...maybe because it seems easier to understand, not sure. I took a little course here.... www.kelbytraining.com which helped a lot with learning how to use it. Anyway, last week I was scrolling through a bunch of images and picked out some of my favorites....here they are. Have a lovely day.

A photo of Bella a few years ago

My momma's flowers...this was actually taken a few years and camera's ago =)

This boat was taken at a nearby lake...the picture actually was pretty unimpressive, but I jazzed it up a bit in Lightroom and really like it now

Bella a couple of years ago

The next 5 were taken in Cambodia last summer.





The girls a year ago...need to be taking some more of them soon.

Miss E. last year.

I love this one cause it was completely spontaneous...not staged at all.

stuff in my yard

4th of July x 2.


A lake in Minnesota.

And the lovely flower again.

Some more pics....

These pics were from the Renaissance Festival a few weeks ago. Bella looking all cute....

Me and Emma boozing it up....that's a joke by the way. It is rootbeer. But before we got some ourselves, the girls wanted to know why all the kids were drinking alcohol. Anyway, that is all I have for now, disappointing I know. More later.

2 days in a row.....

What is this world coming to? Just a picture tonight of a flower in my yard. Been playing with Lightroom a bit, am liking it. Have a lovely day.

Hello....

Not sure if anyone stops here anymore.....but in case there is someone around, I have another layout for the scrapfaith site.

I have a few projects in progress that I am trying to finish...so perhaps if you keep checking in, I will complete those sometime soon. I have some photos to post from this weekend too as soon as I edit them. We went to a Renaissance faire on Saturday...was interesting, okay fun...not really into that sort of thing, but the girls enjoyed it I think. Back off to work tomorrow, my partner has been gone on and off this summer so I am very busy...which is good...but I could also use a break too. Anyway, hope everyone is well....until next time.

First Day of School

Miss Bella started school on Monday....4th grade....hard to believe. Here she is in her 1st day of school rock star garb looking super cool.




Emma started Kindergarten on Tuesday. Hard to believe. She was very excited and still is. Seems to be much better than preschool, which she didn't like because she had to nap.

And finally the obligatory getting on the bus picture.


One more thing, my layout from scrapfaith the other day.....
That is all for now, have a lovely day.

State Fair

Not a huge fan of the state fair, but I suck it up every year and take the girls. We went last night for a few hours. Here is the highlight of our trip....a picture with Lloyd the 11 ft long Burmese Python. The other two didn't want to hold the head, so I got it...lucky me =). Very strong snake. The picture was a rip off, but oh well...it is not often we snakes draped around our necks.

Tomorrow the Scrapfaith site will be updated. I'll have a layout over there so check it out.
The girls are enjoying their new wii...playing wii sports a lot and rockband of course.
Emma, who starts kindergarten on Tues, continues to crack me up. We were watching the Olympics tonight and I asked her if she wanted to play beach volleyball at the olympics and she very adamently said "no, I'm going to cut up dead people when I grow up, I'm going to be a pathologist". Interesting child, huh? Anyway, that is all for now. Have a lovely night.

Finally...

Some pictures from our recent vacation in the land of 10000 lakes.
Bella with a fish...

My lovely emma (on the right)

And me with a fish that I caught....

What else have I been up to. Listening to old blind melon over and over again (Have I ever mentioned how I love love love 90s "alternative" rock? Nothing better). They kind of remind me of the band my lovely brother is in Trent Wagler and the Steel Wheels (nice new website by the way B.) Blind Melon is a bit more rockified than their music, but there are some similarities (hope you are not offended by that B....love Blind Melon). I espcially am connecting with this song....In fact I am listening to it so loud right now that I will probably soon be like my Grandpa Cleo, unable to hear anything.


Change ---Blind Melon

I don't feel the sun's comin' out today
It's staying in, it's gonna find another way.
As I sit here in this misery,
I don't think I'll ever, no lord, see the sun from here.
And oh as I fade away,
They'll all look at me and say, and they'll say,
"Hey look at him, I'll never live that way."
But that's okay, they're just afraid to change.
And when you feel your life ain't worth living
You've got to stand up and take a look around you
Then a look way up to the sky.
And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
Keep on dreaming, boy, 'cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.
And as we all play parts of tomorrow,
Some ways we'll work and other ways we'll play.
But I know we can't all stay here forever,
So I want to write my words on the face of today
...And then they'll paint it
And oh as I fade away,
They'll all look at me and say, they'll say,
"Hey look at him and where he is these days."
When life is hard, you have to change.
When life is hard, you have to change.

And no, I am not depressed. I'm fine...so Dr. M in ID you don't need to call me, but if you'd like to, I'd happily take your call. 
What else...Got my T.V. up for the wii that I got the girls (and quite honestly me too). I love RockBand....I'm hoping to keep improving my (fake) drum skills so when my brother is ready for a drummer, I am the girl =). This post seems to be all about my Bro for some reason, but I am also learning lightroom inspired by his suggestion that I would love it. Still nursing my bum leg...never thought it would be so hard not to run. I ran today even though I wasn't supposed to (according to mr. trainer). I have lost a LOT of conditioning over the past 6 weeks or so with this stupid leg thing, makes me a bit sad. Well that is all that I can think of, have a lovely day all.

Update to come soon.....

editing a bunch of pics from vacation. Will share soon =). Have a lovely day.

Layouts

The excitement of my life....

Yes, the excitement of my life has come down to me coming home every evening and watching what my friend the groundhog is doing in my backyard. Here he is tonight. I haven't named him yet...any suggestions?

In other wildlife news, my least favorite pet is still doing well.

A couple of pictures of the girls from the 4th of July weekend. Thought they were cute. I'm missing them now. They are with g-ma for a few days and then off to S.D.'s house for 2. Who is S.D.? Anyone who guesses the correct answer wins the honor of naming the groundhog. What a prize...don't wait, you don't want to lose out on that opportunity =). Have a lovely night.

Hello again....

I think I had and recovered from a minor midlife crisis (yes...sad to say but I think my age qualifies me for that). Seriously. I think it started when I took a week off from the gym due to some pretty good muscle fatigue and lack of being able to recover in a timely fashion from my workouts...then a week later went back and still felt like crap and promptly injured my right hamstring doing what? don't know. But it hurt. Bad. Lacking the natural endorphins that my body has become accustomed to on a regular basis I promptly started feeling sorry for myself. Feeling sorry about my life situation...you know doing the single mom thing 99.9% of the time by myself, taking care of this big old house and yard by myself, supporting my girls 100% by myself, being just plain old completely and absolutely exhausted...physically, mentally, emotionally.... everything. Wondering what the hell I did to deserve this load of crap that has been dealt to me. Then I would of course start feeling guilty for feeling like my life was crap as I am extremely blessed. I'm healthy (except for the stupid leg...but I have a leg none the less), my kids are healthy,smart,kind, beautiful little people, I have a great job, I have some great people in my life, I'm smart, I have a lot going for me....and yet....blah, blah, blah. So no, I didn't buy a new convertable sports car, or find myself a 21 year old hottie, or tatoo or pierce myself in odd places. I almost sold my house, but decided to not do that at the moment (i did decide to try to finish my painting projects just in case I got the overwhelming urge to sell again, I will be ready). So how did I come out of my funk? Being the rebel that I am, I put red in my hair...seen nicely in the sun here....

I also bought this necklace here . It is blurry here, but it has 2 little initials on it...an "I" and an "E".
I splattered some paint on some paper (not seen here), but decided that making a mess with paper, paint and glue tends to make me a happier person.


Thus a scrapbook page, seen all cockeyed here.


















Then I decided to go see the chiropracter who told me I was inches away from my pelvis twisting itself in circles and my neck falling apart (so i'm exagerating a bit). She pounded on me a bit and told me I needed to spend thousands of dollars coming to see her so I could be all better. I then went and saw my trainer and he stretched the crap out of my legs which are incredibly tight. I hate stretching. Always have. It was almost worse than giving birth. I was feeling a bit better, but still in a funk. I turned the t.v. on one night and looked at my dvr'd stuff, randomly put on a joyce meyer show (group I went to cambodia with last year) and it was about feeling sorry for yourself. Had to laugh. Decided that I was just plain stupid for feeling sorry for myself and that I was not going to let any human being make me feel bad about my life or myself ever again (yes, i know that probably won't last but right now it is working for me). And so, I've been pretty good since then. Having fun with my girls, painting walls, painting random papers, taking pictures, reading, going to a big old art festival tomorrow, looking forward to a much needed vacation in a few weeks. So that is it. The story of my life the last month or so. Hope it was an enjoyable read. I'm hungry, going to go have a bowl of cereal (my new food obsession...) Good night.

It's been a while

Didn't realize how long it had been since I updated. Been having a little flooding around here. Luckily, it really hasn't affected me other than I have lost one of the routes to get to my house...here is what it currently looks like.

We all got our hair cut on Thursday. Emma was very adament that she was getting it cut short. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wanted nothing to do with it, so I decided to let her do what she wanted. When we got to the hair salon, she looked through all the magazines and picked out her favorite and chopped off about 8 or so inches. I about cried. Bella, who was just going to get a trim, also got into the spirit of hair cutting and chopped a ton too. Here are the results.... I wasn't so brave and still have my long hair. Have a lovely day...will try to post more often.

Scrapfaith Layout

Here is my layout for the Scrapfaith site (can't seem to make the link work so go to the sidebar for it). Go check out the other girl's layouts also. The topic was what 3 spiritual truths do you want to pass on to your kids.

That is about all for now....except.....SOCCER IS OVER!!! Doing a little happy dance here. Last game was Saturday, we kicked some buttocks...Bella scored 2 goals and had about 4 assists...was a good game.

Yes it's true...

She still scrapbooks. This isn't even what I had planned. Those pictures didn't arrive so I found some others laying around and did them all last night and today as I was on call. Can't really do anything else on call, so I scrapped in between phone calls. Anyway, enjoy.....


Don't really have a clue what to do with the team photos....I always end up hating these =)

Bella having fun at Grandma's

One of me taken by my brother or SIL...not sure who.

Miss emma exploring...

Don't know if this even counts as a scrapbook page, oh well...

Me and my girlies...

My grandma and grandpa...

That is all for now, have a lovely day.

I suppose it is about time.....

that I blog again. Soccer is finally winding down, and I almost feel the sweet relief of no extracurricular activities for several months. I have some scrapbook projects in mind, didn't get around to making them this past weekend, but I did order photos....so I am getting much closer.

Emma graduated from preschool last week. Here is a picture that I took of the momentous occasion. She passed with flying colors =). I think she is well on her way to med school. This morning she wanted to open the head of a dead bird that Betty the crazy Idaho cat brought us as a gift. She thought it would be interesting to see what it's brain looked like and then she wanted to know about the bones too. I am hoping she will chose Dermatology so she can keep her mama looking young...oh well, maybe I should just let her start kindergarten first =).

Photo number 2: from my photo a day quest....chives growing in my yard.

That is all for now. Have a lovely day.

Up to nothing...

Hello all....still alive here. Haven't been up to much of anything. Just the same old stuff....soccer, soccer and more soccer. Thankfully it will be ending soon. Been enjoying my camera, working, pretending to train for a 5K (i say pretending cause it is highly unlikely I will run in one, but I'm running like I'm going to =). Spent $70.75 on gas today, that would be a record. Luckily for gas purposes, I don't really drive anywhere so I only have to fill up once a week. Anyway, here are some pictures to keep you entertained for a bit. I'm getting a mild urge to scrapbook again, so maybe I'll have a layout or two to show you in a few days. Until then, adios.

My very cute Emma looking at something...not sure what.

















Me and my girlies...



















Another one of me and the girls...




















And Emma playing soccer....she is being so aggressive this year....very proud of my little meanie....=).

all apologies to Bella who is very underrepresented in these photos...not done on purpose.

Catching up....

Well, I gave in....I realized that my Norton upgrade happened around mid month and that to get to 70% of my upload limit would take forever...so I upgraded my internet package. I'm sure they probably did that to me on purpose cause I just don't spend enough each month on that stupid satellite. Anyway, here are the last two layouts from scrapfaith. Check out the site www.scrapfaith.blogspot.com to check out the other's work.
April:


May: (in honor of my mommy...happy mother's day)


ETA: I just realized those two layouts look very similar....strange, didn't do it on purpose =).

What else....
After months of thought, touching one at bestbuy (that was the turning point in my very futile effort to avoid buying a new one...although I lasted a month after that), playing with my SILs camera...I upgraded my camera to the Canon 40d. It makes me happy. I have had it for about a week. I'm having fun trying to figure it out...shoot more in the manual modes. I've joined the masses that are attempting to take a photo a day for a year (yes I know I am almost 5 months too late in starting, but who says you can't start April 27?)...I've got 8 days worth taken so far...kind of fun. We'll see how far I'll get. Not too stressed about it, if I make it cool, if not...oh well. So far I've gotten some cool photos.

I'm sure there is more to talk about, but we'll leave it at that. Have a lovely day.