Sorry

About the disappearing act that is.  First the holidays, which were great.  We had an awesome Christmas.  But January was a wash.  At the beginning we learned that my father-in-law, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, was not doing well so we planned a short notice trip to Michigan.  Rob, Gabe and I fly out while the other three stayed with my sister, Jamie. 

We had a great visit in Michigan.  Bill perked up a bit with us there though it was clear that the cancer was marching on.  Then the state of Washington got blasted with snow and ice.  Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Ever.  We lost electricity in addition to many limbs from all of our trees (major sadness).  We were out for three days others were out for a week or more.  We did fine at home though.  It was cold but we have a gas hot water heater so we had hot water and a gas stove so we could cook hot food.

Then just as I thought things would settle and normalize (ha!) we got the call just hours ago that Bill may not make it through the night.  Rob already had a ticket to fly out tomorrow night but he’s found an earlier flight out in the morning.  We’re hoping Bill holds on until he can get there.

On a happier note, this morning before we knew that Bill’s health had deteriorated so drastically, I had a mini-photo shoot with my boy Gideon.  He is so, so funny and enjoyed giving me some faces for the camera.  His only fee?  Getting to see the back of the camera.  He reacts like he won the lottery every time “LOOK!  There I am!”

That is all.

Excited! Excited!

If you’ve seen Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs you can say that in your best Steve the monkey voice, that’s how we always do it in my house. ha ha ha

I haven’t been posting that much here lately despite a lot of really good photo days and fun with the kids but I think it’s for a good reason.  I waffled on what I would write here or how much I would reveal because making a full announcement would tie my personal and business lives (i.e. my “real” identity) together maybe a bit too much.  But who am I kidding?  I am me, after all, and that means oversharing.

So without further ado, I am announcing that I’ve made it official and gone into the photography business.  Not how you are probably thinking, I don’t want to get hired to photograph your family (who I’m sure is very lovely), that doesn’t appeal to me AT.  ALL.  But what does appeal is taking photographs of the beautiful world God has given us and making those photos available to anyone who wants one.  (For a price of course or it wouldn’t be a very good business.)

I have an online gallery where some of my photos are available to purchase and I would love for you to stop in and take a look.  Go here:

Finding Beauty

So, what did you think?  I am offering a discount to celebrate, if you make a purchase in the month of October you can use the coupon code GrandOpen to receive a 10% discount. 

You may notice that I will create a custom photo-scripture pairing on request.  I also intend to make the photos available as cards and possibly other products but am still deciding whether I will make those products available somewhere like Etsy or on the zenfolio site.  So keep checking in for future updates!  In the meantime, if you are interested in a card set with a photo(s) I have on the site feel free to contact me and I’ll get you a quote and put something together for you.

And it’s Fall.  Isn’t that just awesome in itself.  Yay!

Lastly, you may notice, if you are a regular reader, that my photo challenge posts have disappeared.  I will be posting those to my new photography blog, Finding Beauty Photography (still in the design process), and rededicating this one to my family.  No guarantees that I’ll be posting a ton in the near future but please know that it’s only because I’ve got this exciting new endeavor going on and I’ll be back soon!  Blessings!

Sweet Shot and Texture Tuesday

We are settling into a new schedule and with that comes more regular opportunities for me to choose sedentary activities (my favorite).  Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself while the boys are down for nap and Zion is finding a quiet activity.  Today I am choosing to spend a little time blogging and what better spur of the moment topic than a photo challenge (or two).  Especially since I just spent the weekend on a little getaway with a friend and have a ton of pictures.  Most of which I haven’t had the chance to look twice at but I do have a stand out or two.  For today, my sweet shot:

We were truly blessed to find this cross standing at the very spot we found to pull off to photograph the rainbow.  Wow, just wow. Thanks, God!

OK fine, I’ll post another.  After I picked up my friend we stopped at a camera store.  It’s the one I like to go to but a bit far off and not at all kid friendly.  I had some money set aside for a lens or maybe two and I wanted a chance to shop. I came home with a 50mm 1.8 and a 90mm 2.8 macro (sweet!).  While my friend and I had lunch before heading for home I took this one because she’s got great eyes and I couldn’t help myself:

Please go check out more Sweet Shots at My 3 Boybarians!

And for Texture Tuesday, hosted over at Kim Klassen’s Café (LOVE it there – go check out more!).

This one was taken with my new macro (I am SO in love with that thing, it makes my heart sing – funnily enough I wrote that line before I discovered that Kim had made this week’s Texture Tuesday theme “love”.  I’m so glad I did because now I can join in with the theme and feel like I’d intended that way, LOL) as we were walking around the grounds where we stayed.  We found a few snail shells placed randomly on rocks and in the flower beds, this one was partially buried.  I added a layer of Kim’s Corrugated Crack with soft light at 100%, adjusted the levels a little to brighten it, cropped it and added a light vignette around the edge. 

Eat Your Veggies!

How many times have you heard that, right?  Or said it?  A million times probably if you have kids (like mine).  Well after weeks/months/years of Rob and I talking about how we are going to start eating better we finally joined a CSA.  If you aren’t familiar with that term it stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it’s essentially a farm share.  So once a week we go to the farm and pick up our box of fruits and veggies.  We are super lucky that the closest CSA to us is FANTASTIC!  I thought I’d like it but I LOVE IT!

Not only do I get the box of fresh picked produce but I can also wander the grounds and cut my own flowers and herbs and pick other produce that they have in abundance like kale and swiss chard.  They also have an area where they have produce that you can buy in addition to your box, today we bought two containers of raspberries.  Not sure why but as soon as the kids saw them they went nuts about them.  OK, so the kids are freaking out about raspberries like it’s candy so am I going to say no?  Heck no!  They had cups of berries for an afternoon snack and they weren’t pestering me for treats.  Hm, things are going well already.

Here’s what we got in our box:

That’s lettuce, romano beans (that stuff that almost looks like pasta), cherry tomatoes, strawberries, summer squash, onions, watermelon, peaches, kohlrabi and beets (I forgot to put the herbs and flowers I cut in the picture).

Let’s take a closer look at those strawberries.

They were the BEST, SWEETEST strawberries EVER!  Seriously, no exaggeration. 

And another great thing about this CSA is that they have amazing recipes on their website.  How else would I have found out what to do with kohlrabi (which is a root vegetable and raw tastes a bit like jicama in case you are a veggie newbie like me).

That was some AMAZING soup, let me tell ya!  Kohlrabi, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes… do I need to continue.  I don’t think so.  yum!

And the farm itself is so beautiful.  I asked the owner if we could come back later and take some pictures and she said sure so we did. But we missed the good light by a few minutes and the sun was already behind the trees.  Still, I got a few… (and we plan to go back tomorrow)

And then on the way home my sis and I were like crazy tornado chasers trying to find a good viewpoint for the gorgeous sun.  Turn here!  Go there!  U-turn!  We stopped in what turned out to be someone’s really long driveway and naturally they came out just after we started shooting.  Drat, had to move and find another spot.  The sun was not waiting for us, what is it’s problem anyway?

This photo does NOT do it justice.  The sun was RED.  Really red. 

I know people always say fresh is better and I always knew it but I just really didn’t understand how much better.  I know the few things we have grown tasted better but still … AMAZING!

Crazy Days–Summer Finale

I just learned about the big finale today and am going to throw up some of my favorites.  It’s going to be tough though, I tell ya!

My most recent favorites from this crazy summer from my crazy baby boy.  I love the saying that the definition of “boy” is “noise with dirt on it”.  He definitely fits the bill.

Because I don’t want the post to go on for a mile and I don’t have time for a collage I’m going to stick to our vacation for the rest.  Here ya go (p.s. I had 233 “favorites” from our vacation, I will not post them all):

THE END!

Except you should go check out more entries and maybe even enter yourself!

Texture Tuesday–Orange

Ah, I had one of those days were I got a ton done and doesn’t that just feel grand?!  Then I saw that Kim’s Texture Tuesday was orange themed which was perfect because I had just taken a bunch of photos of Zion juicing oranges the other day.

I textured it with Kim’s “granny’s cupboard” twice (both with the soft light blend mode and one at 100% and the other at 62%) and then desaturated the colors using a brush on all three layers (the two texture layers and the hue/sat layer) over the one orange to make it bright again just for fun.  That’s it. 

It’s nice to be “back in the saddle” and do a photo challenge for the first time in a little bit.  If you’d like to join in or see other photos in the challenge check out Kim’s blog here:

p.s. Orange is my favorite color!

Hair Cut Day

I don’t know about you but our family is getting geared up for school to begin.  I know so many others have already started and that thought always astounds me.  It’s still summer for cryin’ out loud!  (Even if we don’t exactly have summer weather many days, it’s been a very weird summer here as far as weather goes.)

Gabe starts 2nd grade next week and Zion starts PreK the week after that (which is more like what I experienced growing up, we never started school until a few days after Labor Day).  I still haven’t shopped for clothes or supplies.  *yikes*

But today at least I got the pre-first-day hair cuts done (which I’ve been telling myself to do every day for more than a week now).  Zion and I will go for a hair cut together on Saturday after Rob gets back in town from work travel (blech, darn work travel) and Elias doesn’t need a hair cut so that really left only Gideon and Gabe.  Oh how I wish the boys didn’t have such fine hair.  It shows every mistake, every imperfection in a hair cut – and when I do it it’s guaranteed to be imperfect.  Still, they pass and they’re free so whatcha gonna do, eh?

Here’s Gideon’s before":

Of course I didn’t realize until after I’d taken the pictures and started cutting that his face still needed washing after lunch.  He insists on doing it himself and I sometimes forget to double check after he’s done it.  Silly mama.

Here’s Gideon’s after:

After I took the photos I went and cleaned up the back a bit more, didn’t mean to make such a severe line there.  And for the second time in my haircutting history I knicked an ear.  Gideon shouted “Ow, Mama, you hurt my ear!” in his adorable Gideon voice that cannot be described in words.  It went straight to my heart, I felt so bad.  Luckily it wasn’t too bad and I know the trick for getting things to stop bleeding (dab on flour, now you know the trick too) and now he’s fine and I feel better having confessed.  Phew, that is good for the soul!

Here’s Gabe’s before.  Which does not do this mess justice.  He looked like a Muppet.

And the after:

He’s not nearly as disgusted with me as he looks in the left one.  I just surprised him with taking one last photo when he thought I was done and as it turns out it was the best one of his hair.  Gabe’s cut is easy and I didn’t nick his ear.  What a relief!

On a different note, I have a new blog and store in the works.  I have a few knitting patterns now, a couple free ones and one that is nearly done that is good enough to charge for and I plan to get some photo items ready for sale and needed a place to do it all.  That’s a big project for me and since I’m a slow mover who knows when it will be actually up and running but I thought I’d share the exciting news anyway.  I’ll still blog here of course but I’ll have a link to my other blog and I’ll probably move a lot of my knit and photo talk there.  More on that later.

And with that I’ll leave you with a recent favorite.  Gideon yesterday.  I’m thinking about what lens I want to add to my equipment and a friend let me borrow her Nikkor 50mm f1.8.  What a nice lens!  And what about that LITTLE BOY!  This is one of those photos that shocks me into knowing how fast time flies by, he’s not a baby anymore.