Leopard Spots

Sick Mac

I was all about to begin blogging about the Chicago trip. I turned on my Mac the screen lit up, but there was NO display!

I brought it to the MOA Apple Genuid Bar and it's a hardware problem. Luckily it's still under warranty so I took it home to back it up and today my Mac is on the way to be repaired.

So only a little blogging for the next week. We'll see how brave I am, maybe I'll turn on my PC!

If you must know what is going on in my life I'll be Twittering as always! See y'all in a week!

My Favorite Photo

I have shared with you all most of my photos from San Francisco but I have saved my favorite for last. 

Amazing? I think so. 

This is a photo that I wanted to do something with. I couldn't just let it sit in my MacBook while I figured out what to do with it. I've always wanted to get a photo on canvas. I've spent so much time scouring the interwebs for places that print photos on canvas and they all have one thing in common.

They are expensive! With prices starting at around $50 for an 8x10, it just wasn't gonna happen. At least for awhile. But then, thanks to my amazing Twitter network, I love my Twitter friends! I found @photocanvas and all he does are canvas prints and for half the price of those other places!

My 8x10 just arrived in the mail...and it was amazing! I immediately put the print in a place I will look everyday, in my room amongst all the photos of my little leopards. 

This photo can't do it justice. The flash washed out the vibrancy of the colors, the sharpness of the print. If you want to know what it looks like, just take a look at first photo posted above. Fabulous. 

The best part is that their prices start at just $25 for an 8x10 canvas print. And on top of that they are amazing photographers. The care and attention to detail that is put into your print will far exceed the care that is put into in a one of those other photo "factories." So if you have that really special photo that you've just been waiting to do something with. Order a canvas print! And the best part is, they come ready to hang, so you don't even have to search for a matte and frame! 

Photo Friday

On Friday morning I was greeted by the fact that I am not immune to hangovers. This after taking Advil before, after and that morning. 

One would think that I had learned my lesson the night before. 

Not quite. 

But I have the whole day to get to that. 

Lunch at Loui's. A great little breakfast place between the Seal Rock Inn and the Cliff House.

Yumminess.

Then off to Starbucks. Because lets face it. This girl needed some espresso. Stat. 

Which completely explains why I got a Say Chai Latte.

Yeah, sometimes I can't explain myself either. 

Then on to a Bay Cruise. 

Being hungover and on a boat don't mix. Just in case anyone was wondering. But I did fine. Took some really cool photos. 

I dislike digital photography in its pure form. Too sterile. Very much returning to film photography for art, but otherwise running my digital through Photoshop. 

It was actually a beautiful day on the bay. Not too windy and not too cold. Loved it. 

Met the Captain who was into photography as much as I am, so we talked about what we liked, disliked. It was really cool to meet someone who like photography as much as I did. 

After the bay cruise we drove around stopping and I took a few more photos.

I'm working on getting a body of work together. I've not been taking photos for myself for ages. And it's a blast to create again and figure out where I am as an artist and more importantly who I am. 

Some really cool and interesting results were a result of Friday. And even though Big Brother didn't like most of what I produced, it was a great day for me. At least. 

He liked this one. 

Then it was nap time for the adults. 

As an adult I totally appreciate nap time. What was I thinking as a child?!?!

I will be back tomorrow with Friday nights festivities. (This is the part of the trip where I lie my pants off!)

Taking a look back...

I have the big migration from PC to Mac complete! Right now I am just going through all of the photos I have ever taken of the little leopards and editing and organizing them. iPhoto organizes a lot differently than a PC in that it actually organizes for you! That being said, I had this elaborate file system set up on my PC. It worked quite well and I was very organized. When it comes to digital photography file organization I'm actually quite good at it. But when I opened iPhoto it had imported each file I had created into a different event! Omigosh! I had over 600 events that I had to organize. Additionally, my earliest digital camera lost the date stamp in the file so I had literally thousands of photo files with the date stamp of Dec 31, 2000!

Right now I am down to 46 "events." They are all organized by month, or a group of months. I've also gone through and gotten out the blurry photos. I've gone through every single photo I have taken of the girls in the last couple of days! Omigoosh! What an amazing experience. Cub has kept all of her priceless looks throughout her life. She has always been Little Miss Serious apparently! 

So I will share with you a few photos. Starting from when Cub was just an itsty-bitsy, little 5 pound wonder!

That is a standard issue bouncy chair and those are 0-3 month clothes!!!

Spring 2004!

June 2006

Going down the big slide at the Corn Maze!

I can't believe how she has grown so much! 

Holga Love

First off, I am so behind on blogging. This week has been CRAZY!!! But it's almost over and I have the weekend off! YAY! 

That means I have to catch up from everything I have not done during the week!

Anyhoo,

last week I got my Holga photos back! 

I just got a Holga camera a couple of months or so ago and have been quite anxious to get them developed. For those of you that don't know a Holga is a medium format toy camera that is fantastically lo-fi and yields really unique results with blur and light leaks among the qualities that appear on the photos you take, it adds to the appeal!

It's been almost surreal going back to film from using digital for so long and I think I'm going to have to find a different place to process my photos but it's all a learning process!

So here is yet another sneak peak at the photo project I am working on...

Got YouTube?

I like YouTube. 

I'm not sure if I like it more or less than other people, but I do and I thought since I like it so much, why not share...

So I'm starting another blog just for YouTube videos!

Check it out, Video Hunter!

Also, I am looking for contributors, so if you want to just click on the "email link" under my photo and let me know! 

Thanks all! 

A little break...

I'm currently trying to subsist on very little sleep...I can't stay away from the computer and more importantly PHOTOSHOP!!! I'm very diligently working on my next photography project, and that's all you get. For now. In a couple of months I will share with you all, but I am trying to get the majority of the work on this done now. So enjoy this photo and I'll be back in a bit. 

I can only stare at Photoshop for so long...right???

Of things to come...

I've spent my day working on a little project while the little leopards have been busy with various activities. I'm trying to enjoy the last day of fall, and am dreading the apparently incoming snow. Groan. 

Here's a preview.

Back to Reality

Today is going to be a busy day. 

As in I have a lot to catch up on, but absolutely no motivation to do so. 

There is a mountain of laundry to fold and a ton left to wash still.

I really need to run to the post office and mail some stuff and buy some stamps.

But I've already been out once this morning and there was frost on the ground...and it was cold (well, duh) and I don't like the cold and neither does the baby. I thought maybe this year she would start to get over it but on the first really cold morning of the season she was wandering around crying about how cold it was outside.

I'm not sure how to explain to her that crying and being outside in freezing temperatures is NOT a good combination!

Most upsetting this morning was that the battery in my remote start key fob died over the summer so we had to get in a cold car this morning. That was beyond uncool. And I'm still cold just thinking about it.

So I'll stay in the house today and I know I'll have a huge mess to clean up as the day goes by. 

The baby lost my camera just over two weeks ago. I've have not seen it since. It's somewhere in this house, at least I'm pretty sure. But I have looked high and low and cleaned and gutted. But have not found it.

I my last desperate attempt to find this thing, I am going to unleash the baby and let her make the mess of her dreams, hoping that the camera will magically unearth itself in the wake of her terror. 

That last sentence should be evidence that I have completely lost my mind. 

Did I mention it was cold out? And that I'm sure I'm entering the first stages of "brain freeze?" 

Ode to Diapers or "I Hate Diapers!"

I'm a blogger. I check my blog stats. All of us cool bloggers do...it's how we watch the lurkers (cue creepy music now...)

So the other day I saw that a google.com search led some fantabulous reader over to my sight (ahhh, that's so sweet). I clicked the link and what did my dear humble reader type into google?

"i hate diapers"

The found my pirate undies post.

Since most of the other links included in the results were for information regarding cloth diapers, I assume that is what they were looking for. But let's face it. No matter what you put on your child's butt. It ain't gonna make what is coming out any prettier or better smelling. 

I'm just saying.

I have no views either way about either. I simply used disposables because it was easier for me at the time. Plus, honestly, I just didn't want to have to clean or deal with diapers any more than I had to. So my hat is totally off to you green mommas that do the cloth diapering. 

Way cool.

So in honor of my high google ranking and the fact that Kitten has peed on the potty twice in the past week. I'm so happy! I thought I would take a look back at my life with diapers and nothing has changed.

I HATE DIAPERS!!!!

I remember when I was first pregnant with my dearest little Cub, how I looked forward to being the mommy of an adorable little leopard.

And the diapers, they were SO TINY!!! Surely something this small, that fit into something that small. It couldn't be dangerous at all. 

I was wrong.

Umm...no one told me about the meconium...

Gross.

I've dealt with gross.

That was not cool.

Diapers and baby butts and poo do not go together.

Just saying. 

Some of the best advice that I got when I was pregnant was, "Poop flies."

I didn't know what that meant.

Until I say poop fly.

And so it was with two children and what will be a solid six years of butt changes and wipes and rash cream and stinkiness and leakage and overall grossness.

I HATE DIAPERS!!!

And I will not be sad to see them go. 

So goodbye diapers, and the stinky first one of the morning. And the little kid that takes the diaper off in the middle of the night. Thanks for that Kitten.

And goodbye diapers and the thought that my sweet little leopard could not have produced something that foul smelling. Surely, something must have crawled into her diaper and died.

But nothing has ever died inside my children's diapers.

Except for my will to smell.

And goodbye diapers, every once in awhile I think about all the diapers that have wound up on my children's booty-butts and am mildly terrified as to what I have personally done to ruin the environment. It's why I use reusable grocery bags...that and the air of superiority I get. 

Oh, back to hating diapers. 

Goodbye diapers, surely you will not be missed. Not even your cute little designs and the way we pretty them up to give to new parents. Last I checked, diaper cakes were not edible. I am not cool with inedible diaper cakes!

Sorry, diapers. I don't like spending oodles of money every month on you. Nor do I like spending the money on wipes or butt cream or anything.

So bye diapers. Hopefully, I will never see you again!!!

I HATE DIAPERS!!!!