” ‘Twas the Tuesday before Christmas

and all through the blog

not a creature was stirring

not even a … frog?”

I’ll have to work on that.  But while I think about it, here’s something I know is properly enjoyable and Christmasy!

My husband’s grandmother gave him (& his sister) an ornament every year.  You know the ones?  That are special edition and are released every year with the same theme yet a new ornament?  Well, for a while he got planes.  I love them. : )  Which is why we put them on our little tree… Before the airplanes, he got rocking horses (which, though I love the airplanes, I love the horses even more)… you’ll have to wait a few days to know why that’s relevant. ; )

4 Days till Christmas!

So, this image makes me think of the quote from Ecclesiastes 1: Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. Of course, that’s mostly because of the brand name (which is fabulous brand, so don’t get me wrong).  : )  Anyway, I was loving the shadows on this image.. and then, of course, as always, the nice little bits of texture. : )

It’s getting closer & closer to Christmas.  Chris and I set up the Christmas tree yesterday & wrapped presents. We went shopping together for each other’s presents this year, which we haven’t done before.  It felt a little like cheating, but it was fun because I actually managed to drag him to a store with me. : )

Well, more Christmas shopping to do today. I hope everyone’s a little further in their Christmas planning than me, haha.

Happy Tuesday!

When I was little, my parents shared a little pond with the neighbors & it was surrounded by cattails.  They were so cool & they made puffs, something like dandelions, only bigger & fluffier.  They’re gone now, since the pond dried up & then they got ploughed down.  But I still remember winding through them as a child. They were awesome!

Well, a few weeks ago, my husband bought me a pretty bouquet of wild flowers (which are undoubtably my favorite) and in the midst of them is a cattail. Yay!

As you can see, I’m still loving the grunge on images… and this one has a LOT of bokeh (also known as Depth of Field – which means all the blurry unfocused-ness). I just love bokeh. It’s so pretty & creamy. : )

Happy Tuesday to all!

I’m a bit behind on posting (again) but in my defense, it’s holiday time & my husband’s final crunch time (for at least 2 weeks) and I’ve been trying to help him get his work done. I’m his “typing bot”, haha, because when he gets his ideas going, he dictates to me & I avoid his love of typos. : )

Otherwise, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my husband’s side of the family (I’ll have a picture or two of the cuteness that is my nephew Tyson to post soon). Yummy turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, that’s right, all of the goodies.  And my pumpkin cheesecake came out right this time! : ) I also got to try some Apricot White Chocolate bread… it was awesome!  Thanksgiving is a wonderful time for food.

Also, on Saturday & Sunday, we got to see my side of the family when they came back through for a bit.  Noah has gotten bigger, for sure. 3 months already. And he opens his eyes up *really* wide when he’s watching something specific – including the wall.  It’s so cute!  I can’t wait until he starts to talk… (I admit it, that’s one of my favorite ages, who can resist those half-formed words?)

Well, I have a paper to proof for my husband (on Thomas Aquinas, yikes!)…

Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday!

Squares.  I like square images.  : )  I’m so used to shooting rectangles (exactly 4×6) that its nice to sit down & look at a picture in different proportions.

I felt like playing with Textures a little bit this morning, too.  : )  Although not Thanksgiving-related, I think prickly pears are pretty awesome (in fact, I like most kinds of cactus as long as they keep their distance).  And, if the Pilgrims had landed in Texas instead of Massachusetts, we’d probably have a traditional dish of Prickly Pear Jelly instead of Cranberry Sauce.  ; )

This afternoon, I’m going to make my second attempt at Pumpkin Cheesecake (from scratch).  The first one was a bit undercooked & my husband & I ate around the edges where it was cheesecake-y but the middle was still too raw & with un-cooked eggs, I went ahead & threw it away.  But I’m doing it a second time & will up the cook time (I’ve started to wonder if my oven is a little colder than other peoples?  Most recipes need me to add cook time or the center is a little gooey).  Otherwise, all the other Thanksgiving cooking is going to be managed by my sweet sister-in-law who is much braver than me, since I’m still a bit too afraid of my kitchen to take on an entire Thanksgiving meal!  : )

I won’t be posting anything else this week, since I’ll be with family.  Hopefully, you’ll be busy too & wouldn’t be able to check it anyway!  : )

I hope everyone has a yummy Thanksgiving!  : )

Well, last self-portrait!  : )  I spent some time with my tripod out on my mom’s property.  I hope it’s a good ending.  I wanted to make sure I got in a shot of my face (not just my eye) so those of you that don’t know me didn’t feel like I was cheating since you never got to see my face.  Here you go!

I’ll be sharing my 2nd Inspiration: Self-Portrait post later this week.  My husband looked over the first one & immediately asked me: so you only found 3 guys’ portraits you liked?  The answer is, no, there’s another installment coming. : )  And, besides, I had to split the number of pictures (somewhat) evenly & still not post too many images!

On Saturday, I went to a choir concert here in Abilene to listen to my cousin Ryan, a Lubbockite.  Well, while looking over the program I was so pleased to see Emma was also singing!  It was a fabulous concert (and I’m not overly knowledgeable about music & choir).  : )

In other news, I did update my prices recently.  I know, I pushed them through just a little earlier than promised, but with the pre-holiday rush over, it seemed silly to wait, since November & December are full of family events (for me and you, I hope!)  : )  Besides, if you had discussed a particular package with me before this week, your prices are locked in.  That’s only fair. : )

Thanksgiving is coming!  I hope everyone is so very excited!  I love Thanksgiving, it’s a good thing we only have it once a year, all that food is so tasty.  : )

Have a happy Tuesday, everyone, mine is looking very busy!  (good busy!)   : )

I made a Polaroid for myself!  Of myself!  : )  Unfortunately, I don’t have a Polaroid camera of my own, so I took the advice of Rita over at CoffeeShop Photography.  Her site is so helpful & the amount of work that she shares for free is just astounding!

The coloring of the Polaroid, I’m very proud of. : )  I’ve been practicing making photoshop actions for myself & this is one.  I ran through the vintage tutorial over at Veerle’s Blog & then did some adjusting of my own and made a nice little action.  Of course, I haven’t run it through enough testing on my own yet to truly love it, but I may have created a keeper.

I still get a little perplexed when trying to be on both sides of the camera at the same time.  (Partially due to my camera’s moodiness when I tell it to focus early in the morning!)  ; )  As usual, though, practicing & learning is the best way to get better at something.  I have one more week of “forced” practice for this blog series & then I’ll be moving on to something else… but what?  ; )  I know, most of my faithful readers have already shared their suggestions & I love that!  I have an idea of what to do next month, but I don’t make up my mind officially until I do that first post, so if you’re just dying to see something specific over the next month, comment!  I’ll read it, I promise!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday.  Mine has laundry in its future. : )

Installment 2 of the Self-Portraits.  Cowboy-boots.  My dad’s old camera.  A frame my husband’s grandmother gave us.  My Bible.  His Bible.  Our back-steps.  And, of course, in the corner, my favorite cardigan (which I wore until I took the images since it was a little cold out).  : )  I’m pretty pleased with the image.  I hope everyone enjoys.

If you keep up with me on flickr or facebook, you’ll see a few more of these.  They’re a little similar (more so than images would be for a portrait session) since it’s hard to move the camera around too much when I’m on the other side of it.  : )  But I’m learning this self-portrait thing.  It’s fun.

On another note, I’m sharing a little news. : )  I’ll be updating packages & pricing in January of 2010.  Don’t be too scared, but if you know you really like one of the packages I offer now, book before I change it on you. ; )

I think that’s about all the news I have for this Tuesday.  My husband’s birthday is later this week & I still need to wrap his presents, but they are hidden here in the house. : )  And for the rest of today I have an album to design (which is just peachy with me, I love design!)…

I hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday.  I’m planning to. : )

Okay, I’m going to brave it. Though I adore self-portraits, I’ve yet to get very good a them since I got an actual tripod for the first time less than a year ago. And I maybe just a little too used to being able to see the shot I’m composing. But it should be fun all the same. A wonderful challenge at least. : )

I just couldn’t avoid texturing the image up a bit.  I’m way too fond of it.

I hope you have a lovely Tuesday.  I made pot roast (in the crock pot) last night & the smell is permeating the house.  So I’m pretty happy this morning.  : )  I hope everyone else’s Tuesdays shape up as lovely as mine is.

The word “rubbish” makes me laugh.  I always hear it said in a British accent in my mind.  Weird, yeah?  I’ve never told my blog, but I love accents… they’re so fun… which makes me very happy to have a good solid Texan accent, but I digress.  We’re here for the final & oh-so-grungy vintage Tuesday.

I’m not announcing the next set,  yet, so throw your votes in before you loose your chance to have as close to instant gratification as it gets (on my blog).  : )  It’s sure not a microwave over here…   My point is that if you haven’t given your vote for the next 4 Tuesdays’ set, leave me a comment & I’ll be taking a tally.  Of course, I won’t lie, the deciding factor will be my whimsy, but I’ll choose between those options listed in the comments.  You can even repeat someone else and try to sway me by a quantity of votes (of course, quantities of votes aren’t very big here, yet, but we’re growing!)

Now for Image time!

I hope you readers have enjoyed this set of 4 as much as I have.  I love textures & used them heavily in my interpretation of “Vintage.”  : ) If you want to get some lovely textures to experiment, check out NinianLif on flickr, StruckDumb on DeviantArt, or go to my list of Freebies & check the sites I’ve listed.  All include free textures. And free textures are beautiful, beautiful things.

As always, check back on Friday or Saturday.  I’ll have Kat’s Senior Session up (finally, right?) and it’s just so unbelievably fabulous!  I get excited just thinking about getting to share it!  : )

Have a lovely Tuesday!

Oh, PS, if you want to get a sneak-peek of Kat’s pictures, take a look at my flickr account.  There’s a helpful little button on the sidebar to the right that will link you right up.