Snow Monster

{Backtracking –January 28, 2010}

There’s a new monster in our house.

Sorry you have to listen to me laugh through the whole thing. I just can’t help myself.

A new monster was born in our house the other night during an innocent game of “Mighty Martha.” Eleanor calls it the Snow Monster. There’s no explaining where she comes up with these things. I love how they look like they’re really being eaten. Yes, I am a mom who loves watching her children being eaten by monsters. Don’t you judge me!

Complaints and Gratitude

I feel like I should be blogging. I have wanted to blog more often. I just don’t feel like posting pictures because all my pictures look horrible (if only to me). See, we had some issues with our laptop, so some technicians came and switched out a bunch of the parts to my laptop. One of those parts was the monitor. After a while, I realized there was something wrong with the new monitor. We tried and tried to calibrate it, but that didn’t fix it. Everything is over saturated –way too much color! We called them about it, and they are sending technicians to replace almost every part of my laptop besides the hard drive and monitor (because the problem they set out to fix in the first place is still a problem).

“What? They aren’t going to replace that lemon of a monitor?” you ask.

Nope. They think something might have happened to the GPU, so they’re replacing that instead. They had better be right! We also have to reinstall the OS to see if there was some corruption causing the problem. Meanwhile, I can’t edit photos for my photography homework, and I have no desire to post new pictures to the blog, not knowing how they’ll really look on a decent monitor. (Grumble) Also, there’s no point in saving photos on the hard drive since we’re going to have to relocate all our files to start over anyway. I’m rather frustrated with the situation, and I hope it is all resolved soon.

I also haven’t blogged quite as much as I would have because I’ve been floundering around with file types. People in my class made me worry that JPEGs weren’t the best option. So, I switched to RAW files, I’ve been downloading and converting to DNGs, dealing with XMPs, and saving as PSDs. Basically, I’ve been trying to organize it all, decide which is the best method, and trying to keep back-up copies somewhere at the same time. It’s left me feeling rather dizzy. I’m still not sure if I’m doing it the best way or in a way I’ll be able to keep straight in my head, but I’m working on it.

I took a ton of pictures for my various photography assignments over the weekend. We actually had decent weather and a little bit of time when I wouldn’t have to be the only one dealing with the kids. I’ve mostly used the kids and my own family as subjects for my photography for my assignments because they are what mean something to me. They are what make me want to take better pictures; they’re the whole reason I’m doing this. I want to capture these little moments, expressions, and phases that are so fleeting. Kids grow up so fast. I can’t count the times that I’m watching my girls and just wishing I could gather up some of the feelings and sights I have right at that moment and put them in a jar to save for a healthy dose of sentimentality someday. But I’m starting to feel like I should branch out a bit for my class. I know that pictures of my kids don’t hold much artistic appeal unless they’re done really well. I really only like taking pictures with people in them, and my family are the people who are most readily available to me. I have a hard time taking pictures of landscapes or still life. I don’t think I have an eye for it. I suppose that’s why I ought to practice it more.

I printed a copy of this picture of the girls on the fancy printers they have at school, and I’ve had it in our family room for a few days. I have loved looking at it, and I even got a little teary-eyed one day because I realized how much Grant has given me. He gave me two beautiful daughters who bring me so much joy, and then, as I have expressed the desire to be able to capture them with more quality, he has supplied me with an amazing camera, lenses, and a tripod. I am still learning, but I am getting such better images of my sweet children. Each time I look through some of my favorite photos, I am so grateful for such a caring and generous husband.

While I am on the subject, I wanted to post about this so I would remember. In January, at the end of a very awful week, Grant handed me a bag and told me he knew it had been a really rough week for me and the kids, and he knew it was hard on me when there are times he isn’t home as much (we’ve decided I’m a quality time “love language” type of gal). In the bag was an unopened copy of Photoshop CS4. We had talked about getting Photoshop Elements since it was more affordable, but we hadn’t made any decisions. Grant was able to avoid spending money on an expensive computer program for one of his own classes, so he used the money he saved to surprise me. Having the program at home has also allowed me to skip out on my late night photography lab most of the time so I can come home to him earlier. I love Grant. He. Gets. Me.

Eleanor

{backtracking 10-29-09}

Eleanor gets a kick out of helping. Sometimes, I have to wonder if it's because she's so starved for entertainment that even work seems fun. She loved stacking the wood that Grandpa dropped off this month. I let her help me sort our huge laundry pile last week, and since then, she has asked me if we can do laundry. She learned quite a while back how to fold washcloths, and whenever I fold towels, she quickly confiscates all the washcloths so she can fold them. Besides that, she has watched me fold other things and is learning how it is done. She can fold shirts, panties, pants, and hand towels. I let her fold whatever she wants to try, and I encourage her and thank her for helping no matter how sloppy it might look. She is the critical one. She is the one who will look at how she folded something and compare it to how I folded another one and decide she doesn't know how to fold that item. I'm just glad when she asks me to show her how instead of quitting; it all depends on her mood.

She has been begging Grant forever to go to work with him. When he leaves in the morning, she begs him to take her with him. When we visit him at work, she tells me I can go home without her. She tells me not to worry, that she will be good for Daddy. At first, Grant said he should check into if they have a bring your daughter to work day, but she kept asking. Grant decided he would have to just take a day off and go into the office with her, and since she was asking him about it more and more frequently, he didn't delay. She got to go to work with Daddy. She kept busy, helping him "work hard." She even met the president of the college. She didn't get bored, and any time I would call to check on her, she would tell me, "I don't need to come home yet." Grant took some pictures of the big day. I'll have to post them soon.

Such a Big Girl

Phaedra has grown up so much lately. She now insists on standing on the stool in the bathroom just like Eleanor does. After several scuffles, I moved the less-used stool from our other bathroom into the main bathroom so they each have a stool on which to stand. She stands up there, barely able to reach her chin over the counter, and she brushes her teeth back and forth the way she sees us do it. She wants me to hold her up to spit in the sink just like Eleanor does. She reaches to rinse her toothbrush off when I turn on the water (of course, after rinsing, she slurps the water off the toothbrush).

The jeans she’s wearing in this picture are 18month. There only barely a little long, but the mostly look like they fit. I can’t believe it. I don’t think Eleanor actually wore those jeans until she was almost two. More and more I am realizing lately that she’s not a little baby anymore.

Love is in the Air

One of my goals this year was to do crafts for my family (at least one a month). I already messed that up for January, so I’m hoping to get more than one thing done this month. We’ll see.

I found this idea and thought it would be fun to do with the girls. It turned out to be a bit of a trial of my patience to keep them from getting destroyed before we hung them up, but it was fun. The simplicity of it should hardly put it in the craft category, but I’m going to allow it. I get extra credit on my own personal scorecard for letting the girls help. Once they were done, the girls loved blowing on them to make them dance. Even now, if I stare at the picture long enough, I swear the hearts look like they’re moving. Three of the hearts were yanked off before Valentine’s Day, but it was still fun to have decorated a little.

I’ve been meaning to blog about my new table. When we had my family over for dinner on Christmas Eve, it occurred to me that our small table would be rather cramped with everyone trying to sit around it. When I mentioned my concern to my mother, it was the straw that broke the camel’s (Gary’s) back. This table had been in their garage for some time, and Gary had been using it for a drawing table. He really didn’t need a table that big, and my mother had been trying to convince him to give it to us. Long story short, we traded him for our smaller table, and we got this lovely table and chairs. Eleanor has been thrilled not to have to worry about the chairs folding underneath her anymore, and Phaedra has been climbing onto the chairs and table since we got it. Keeps me on my toes!

We had a nice Valentine’s celebration. Studio Grandma and Grandpa offered to take all the kids and do a little party with them on Saturday night. Even though I was sick and sniffly, Grant and I went out to dinner, to a store, and went and got hot chocolates. Grant brought me flowers after work on Friday. I usually take pictures of flowers he gives me so I can hold the memory longer, but between feeling a bit burnt out on photography and exhausted by this cold, I haven’t been able to bring myself to take pictures. They’re pretty, and it was so sweet of him to surprise me. He always treats me so well.