What do you do?

What do you do when the wind chill is below zero and you live out in the middle of pretty much nowhere, where there is nothing to do after 7pm except go to Wal-Mart and your dogs are tired of you chasing them all over the house with the camera? You take your butt to the basement and see if there is anything worth practicing your depth of field, focus, and metering skilss on down there.

Now, let me tell you, there is lots of good stuff in our basement...exercise equipment, an archery shooting setup, loads of out of season clothes and decor, my little candle making corner, and even a little living room area. But photo worthy stuff? Not so much. So far, this is all I've got.

I own a Six Million Dollar Home!

For a countryfied city girl, I sure do own a nice home. A home any discerning taste would appreciate. A six million dollar home to be exact. It's posh to be sure. You can check out the builder's website here. They did a fantastic job.

Here is a picture of my new home. I hope you like it.

P.S. In case you didn't get the joke, it's my new camera bag. Hee hee. But honest to goodness, it really is called a Six Million Dollar Home. Sadly, it will be the only million dollar anything I ever own!

Monotone Kitty

This is the same photograph I posted Saturday of kitty Angel. I played with it a bit in PS tonight with different color conversions. This is my favorite out of what I came up with. I did a mocha toned black and white conversion and bumped up her eyes so they would stand out in the brown tones. Angel looks good in brown, no?

The January Party

On my 21st birthday, my brother, sister, significant others, friends and I went out in St. Louis to party it up. We started with a Blues game to ease into the night and then hit it hard down on the riverfront at Morgan Street Brewery. It was a night full of extreme drinking for me and the only night in my life up until then, and since then, that I have ever puked from consumption. I pride myself on holding my liquor, but they got me with those 21 shots in two hours. Whoever thought 21 shots in one night was a good idea was W.R.O.N.G.!

Since that birthday was such a success, my brother has hosted a January Party for our combined birthdays ever since. You see, my brother, sister and I were all born in January. Yes, our parents really liked the month of April! April showers produce snowbabies! Every year since it's inception, the January Party has grown. This year was no exception, with roughly 40 people in attendance. Inappropriate humor, raunchy redneck songs courtesy of my man, and a ratio of 1 person for each bottle of liquor present equals a great time had by all. We are still waiting for our livers to recover.

Angel Eyes

This is my brother's other cat, Angel. Her name implies that which is not true. She isn't really a lovey, angelic cat. So, Angel is more like her stripper name I suppose. She was named after a Budweiser model my brother met in college, so what do we expect right?

Angel was much more cooperative than her brother, so I do believe her picture turned out much better. For this photo, I touched it up a little in Photoshop to bump up the curves. I also ran an action on it called SuperDrama, which was a freebie from a girl named Tara on the ILP board.

Here kitty, kitty...

I apologize for my lack of adoration for the feline species. It is nothing personal. They are fine to look at, but touching them sends me into an allergic fit the likes of which I never care to repeat. So, it was with a little trepidation that I agreed to (attempt to) photograph my brother's cats this weekend. You see, I only have one lens for my fancy schmancy new camera. It is a fixed focal length of 50mm. So to get as close to the kitties as I needed for a good shot, put me in the danger zone. But, luckily for me, my brother is a doctor. So, at least someone will know what to do if my face turns into a big red balloon from the kittiexposure (again).

Tonight was my attempt to photograph Dryfus. He is as good as a cat can be in my eyes. He just wants to lay on anyone available and be petted, but he does listen when he's told to get the hell off me. Hee hee. Poor cat thinks I don't like him, which just fascinates him further. Strange cat psychology at work there. At any rate, he didn't really want me to take his picture. He just wanted to scale my leg and sit on my head---because that's exactly what I didn't want. So, this is the only good picture we ended up with tonight.

My other place of employment, aka

my husband's shop. He is a marine & ATV service technician at Superior Adventure Center. When I'm not shuffling paper and taking phone calls from everyone and their dog and cat at the good old law firm, I help out around here. I do paperwork for them mostly...the odd bookkeeping, inventory and interior design jobs they throw at me. I originally started working there last fall to pay off some protective gear I needed for our trip to Utah. It has been a good trade off. The boss gets the help he needs, and I get the stuff I need. Everyone is happy. I wish my other job was so easy!

Fizzy Orangey Goodness

A special treat this afternoon as a reward for drinking my required 64 oz of water today.

He's so very, very unimpressed

Bo Dawg, that is. He kept giving me this pitiful look that said, "Stop with the camera. I'm like, so totally over it."

Pirates ahoy matey!

My nephew was Captain Jack for Halloween this past year. I thought it would be fun to try to make a custom background in PS for one of his pictures. This is what I came up with. Apparently, I need to rework it though, because I just noticed that there is something up with his right arm. It looks like I need to refine my cloning tool skills. Oops.

My first PS template

I like to pretend like I know what in the heck I'm doing when I open up my Photoshop CS2. However, I actually know nothing. But, thanks to this wonderful book, I'm able to fake it pretty well. Oh, how I do love that book. I think I'll sleep with it tonight. You know, see if osmosis can leak more of it's goodness into my brain.

But in the mean time, here is my first attempt at using a PS template. I was fortunate enough to come across this pretty frame on the I Love Photography forums. Thanks to my friend, Kerri for hooking me up with that site! The photo was taken at my parents' house over the holidays. I used the burn tool a bit to get rid of some distractions in the photo and use a few freebie actions I found on the internet to soften the colors in the photo. Originally, my niece's shirt was a super bright fuscia.

New Sidebar Pic------->

Of course, I got a pink hat for my birthday today!! It's a Packers hat, in case you couldn't tell. But, hubby figured I'd get more use out of a pink hat, instead of one that was green and yellow. Good call!

I must be getting old

because sometimes, my idea of a perfect Saturday night is sitting at home on the couch with a dog on my lap, one at my feet and a husband nearby...just watching a movie and doing a little something crafty. Tonight, it was knitting. I was binding off this baby blanket that has only taken me 1.5 years to complete.

Meme from Hotfessional

Her highness, the Hotfessional tagged me for a meme! Yay! My very first tagginess.

Here are The Rules:
Link to the person that tagged you. Done!
Post the rules on your blog. Done!
Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. Done!
Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. Done!
Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website. Done!


So without further ado; six quirks/habits about me that are just plain strange:

1. I wrinkle up my nose in a snotty way, even though I conciously try not to.
2. I gained exactly 7 PMS pounds every month.
3. I think I like playing Barbie as much as my 7 year old niece does.
4. I watched the Little Mermaid 3,647 times. I probably would still watch it at least weekly if I hadn't worn the VHS out.
5. The smell of gardenias and vinegar (separately or together) make me throw up without fail.
6. I visit my favorite websites in the same order every morning.


Tag You're It!!
Pioneer Woman
Iam Bossy
Redneck Mommy
365Amanda
Scrapbooking Ali
Dooce


Spread the strangeness.

Working Girl

Since neither this blog or my budding photography pay the bills, I have to keep a day job. For the past four years, I've been a litigation paralegal. My days are spent answering client's seemingly endless questions about whether their case will ever, EVER, E.V.E.R. settle. For some people, that frustration is well earned. We've had some lingerers (?) hang on for over 7 years. And trust me, no one wants to regularly be chillin with their lawyers for 7 years on end. But, I do my best to soothe their anger, sadness, and whatever other emotion might come up. When I'm not on the phone, I'm photographing accident scenes, client's injuries, summarizing medical records and sometimes even going to trials. I rarely have the same day twice; things are so varied around here!

So, I have a pretty nice corner office, with a real door, two desks, a credenza and everything! The only not so great part to me is the TEAL carpet. Not so much a fan. But, as it turns out, the carpet compliments my Mexican watercolor collection nicely. Said paintings were purchased on my senior trip after high school, so they beautify and remind me of a couple of very good weeks in my life. So I think I've made the best of a bad thing underfoot. Throughout our offices, there are lots of built in bookcases full of lovely old law books. Some are over a hundred years old. Now that everything is accessible online, they don't get used much anymore. But their beauty, and the wonderful history they are full of will only grow with time.

Pinkie the Archer

At the lengthy pestering of my husband to give it a try, I took up competitive indoor archery a couple years ago. As it turns out, I LOVE shooting. Sometimes it's fun to imagine that I'm aiming at my boss's head. Funny how I always seem to be accurate at those shots. Anyway, today's picture is of my arrows. Being the pinkie that I am, I insisted on having pink feathers on them. At least I didn't make him buy me a pink bow. Yet.

Dog gone it...

They're all I have to take pictures of! The dogs, that is. If the weather was any nicer (read: more than 20F), I would venture out and take some random nature pictures full of winter beauty. Or something like that.

Instead, here is my parents' indoor beauty, Misty the Weimaraner, aka Queen of the couch, aka Queen of the Master Bed, aka Queen of, well, everything at their house. Hee hee.

My Weekend's Work

I got the pleasure of spending a few hours with my 2 year old niece this weekend. She is such a terd, according to her big brother. While my sister and mom were in a photography class (we all got new Rebel XTi cameras for Christmas), the short one and I headed to a nearby park to run off steam and attempt to take some outdoor pictures. I must've taken about 100 shots, but only 10 really turned out the way I was hoping. The circumstances weren't fabulous, with it being harsh afternoon sun and that 2 year old attitude.

Mom, I'm hopelessly devoted to...

...slurping your face at 6am so you will take me out to potty.

...sloberring on your work pants, first thing in the morning.

...drinking 3 gallons of water and then throwing it up on the dining room carpet.

...shedding more hair than you ever thought possible, because I know you love to vacuum.

...wiping my butt on the carpet, because I know you love to shampoo the carpet as much as you love to vacuum it.

...and best of all, adoring you with my whole heart and following you like the little lost soul that I am.

Love you,
Bo Dawg

Inspector Lucky

Since he has already been the subject of many frames in my new camera, he was bound to get over his aloofness and get curious at some point about this THING that keeps beeping at him and blinding his eyes.

I'm such a Rebel

lover! My new Canon has arrived. I was drooling with excitement as I tore the box open to reveal my shiny, new toy. It came yesterday, in fact, but I wasn't smart enough to remember to buy a memory card yesterday, so it was kind of hard to play with it much! Derrrr!

These are my first offerings to my Pic-A-Day challenge to myself. I am really going to delve into learning how this camera works (since it's smarter than I am) and how to take good quality photos. That is my 2008 goal. That, and losing the last 15 lbs to get to my goal weight. But that is another story for another time.

Meet Lucky Dog. Aloof, scared, lovable, kissable, and always sleeping.

Youv'e got mail! Yay!

Ok. So I don't have mail yet. But, with any luck and competence on the part of the USPS, I will get mail very soon. Very important mail, very soon. I have purchased a new digital camera, and let me just say, welcome to the Jeffersons', because we're moving on up! I cannot wait to get my grubby littles hands on my new Canon Rebel XTi.

P.S. Totally impressive picture posts are pending its arrival.

P.S.S. I had Starbucks and Cold Stone Creamery in the city tonight. I am in sugar overload Heaven.

Happy New Year!!!

Hubby's band played at the tavern in a neighboring town. We love that place. Good pizza, cold beer and a great band!! Pay no attention to the quality of the photo here. I had consumed copious amounts of Grey Goose by this point.

And here I am rocking out with my c&*k out before I passed out with my a$3 out! Wheeeee!!