Sweet Seventeen

It's the last day of May and you know what that means. Marvelous' birthday of course. We celebrated last night because today Smarty has to work, Hubby is having a team-building bowling outing, and Marvelous is off to Alabama to visit friends. So that leaves Mr. Creativity and me to eat all these beautiful cupcakes that S made and M decorated.

Box reads: Enjoy your laptop

Yesterday the girls decided to go give blood. S goes every six or eight weeks so she is used to it. I signed a permission slip so M could donate. Awhile after they left I got a text from S that M had passed out and they had to stay until her blood pressure went up. At that time it was 85/53. Our family doesn't have the best track record with giving blood. Well, their heart is in the right place. Other than a sore bum, where she fell, M recovered pretty quickly.

Climbing

Mr. C had a good time climbing the Big Rock. I haven't been out to take many pictures and barely any of the kids lately. I have to make a conscious effort to go out with my camera. When I do take it out I don't see anything worth photographing, and when I forget it I see all kinds of amazing things. Go figure.

Most of my time lately has been spent painting Mr. C's room. He helped with the roller but I wouldn't let him up on the stool. I will post some pictures when it is completed. The fireplace is almost done. The only thing left is the top trim piece. I guess since I am planning on living in this house for the next 20-25 years I'm not in any hurry to get things done. Plus I feel all the work a lot more now than I did years ago. When I feel like I just can't keep going I start singing the "Just put one foot in front of the other..." song from Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

My Pathetic Garden

I have tracked the amount of time my "garden" is getting sun. The first tomato plant enters the sun at 1:07. The above photo was taken at 4:21 and you can see that the tomatoes are already in the shade. I planted them about a month ago and they are still scraggly. I'm considering pulling them up and putting them in pots on our deck. The deck is a story up and gets more sun. Plus, I could move pots around in the sun, although I don't think I will keep up with lugging heavy plants around every day. The other option is to cut down all the trees in the backyard.

Another frustrating thing in my life is that there is a movie out that I want to see and the nearest theatre showing it is in Atlanta. If you live close to Indianapolis, you can go see it. But I'm not so lucky. Oh, the movie is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. If you get to it, let me know how it was.

Family Fun

Smarty got home late Friday. She has already gone out job hunting and found a job. She starts today, so we won't see her much this summer. The job is at Lake Winnepesaukah and they told her she could work as much as she wants to, until she gets sick of it. She is planning on working every day they are open (Wed-Sun).

Last night we went out to take some pictures and Mr. C took along a frisbee. S has a certain flair to throwing a frisbee.

Mr. C has his own style.
I can't believe that school is out (except for Mr. C who has field day tomorrow) and the long summer is wide open before us!

Delayed

S should have been home on Saturday. However, the church van backed into her car last Tuesday and it is in the shop getting fixed. Hopefully it will be done by Friday and she'll be home this weekend. The day it happened she was already sick. She had called to tell me how bad she felt, and that she was stressed out because she couldn't sleep and had finals to take. You know how it goes. I sent her out with a list of medicines to buy to tide her over and get her through the tests. When she went out to go to the store she saw the car had been hit.
On a happier note, she has all her grades and she got three A's and one B. Pretty good!

Yah for Me!

I've been told that I don't post enough on here. So here goes with more goings on in my life.

This is a picture that I have totally redone, all by myself, in Lightroom. I have slowly been going through video tutorials and teaching myself how to use my new photo software. No matter what anyone says, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. But I think it is important to keep trying to learn new things.

This is the original photo. The sun was setting and I used the flash to highlight their faces. To adjust it I changed the exposure and clarity, as well as levels of black, highlights, and shadows. Then I had to change the exposure just on their skin to darken it up a bit because when I lightened up the whole picture it made them look like they were glowing. I know it's not fantastic, but I feel like I'm making progress.

Along the same lines. I sold my first print. Someone Hubby works with bought a poster-size of this photo. I wasn't even trying to sell anything. Funny how things work out in life.