Aperture 1.4 {focused blur}

LABEL

I have been going through old c.d.'s that as I have stated in the past have not labeled. I am finally labeling them because I can no longer stand the chaos that is my life of disorganization. It is taking a painfully long time but I must admit it is fun to go back and look at the last year.  Here is one of the gems that I have found:

  This is Cole smiling.  Well pretending to smile when I told him that, that is what his shirt says.  I got the sweatshirt  in Japan for him.

I also found this picture that I LOVE:

Grant found these glasses and he really wanted them. "Mom, I think I look amazing in these"  he said. I passed on them. Looking back I think maybe I was a bit premature.  He does look pretty amazing. Gotta love wide angle lenses.

Other than that, not much is new here.  Our car was almost broken into but Mark heard the alarm and ran outside in the middle of the night so the thief ran away and my computer crashed but Mark got it up and running again with no loss of files so for that I am grateful. Is it any wonder he is my hero?  Look at how much good he does in my life!

One more thing that makes me smile

This is George.  You might think, being a monkey he was named after Curious George of the famed books, but you'd be wrong.  He was named after our car.  Who was dubbed "Boy George" by Grant a few years ago. And no Grant still has no idea he named the car after a scary 80's singer. He just informed me one day that the car was a boy and that his name was George to which I laughed so hard I almost had to pull over.

  But this George is a very special George as his little sock monkey self was made by my sister Stephanie who is an amazing Aunt and I'm excited to say is going to be an amazing Mom!  In April!  She is constantly working on fun little projects. Isn't he adorable?  He makes me smile every time I see Cole walking around with him.

The adorable Monkey is on the left the adorable sister is on the right!

 

So, Elsie tagged me but I answered those questions a few weeks ago.  So I thought that I'd answer her challenge yesterday to photograph a few favorite things that are making me happy around the house.  I just did it and it's getting pretty dark so not to many great photographs inside.  I love our old house but it is always dark in here.

So first off are these earrings.  My Grandmother Made them!  She is a jewelry designer and I love having a little piece of her art. 

Next are these, my purse that I found at a little shop downtown called Scout.  I love that store and I love this crazy purse.  Under the purse was one of my Christmas presents from Mark.  A beautiful copy of one of my favorite books.  Our mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.

 

Lastly for the day is this bookshelf.  I don't have a scraping space and until last fall everything was stored in plastic boxes so this is a big step up for me.  My Mom got this for me for my birthday/Christmas gift and I love it.  It has metal bins that pull out so that I can put everything in by category and pull it out when I am scrapbooking. It's a little messy right now but such is life!

On a side note, I just found out that the antiques road show is coming here to Louisville.  Is it strange that I just want to go there and hang out and see all the beautiful old stuff people are going to bring?  I don't have anything of worth myself but I love watching that show and hearing everyones story.

Well, here I am again.   Things got worse before they got better.  Three of our tires had nails and bolts in them and were torn to bits to they had to replace all of our tires.  So not good when you are on a grad school budget.  But I feel blessed to have been able to fix them right away. The boys also got the flu but it only lasted 24 hours with them so I am also grateful for that!

  And now things are back on track.  This picture is the view from my backyard a few night s ago.  I was trying to figure out what to do for dinner, without the oven and I looked out and saw this and I thought, how sad that I was almost to busy to even notice the beauty around me.  So I went and got the camera so that when I see the picture later it will remind me to stop and relax a moment.

Other than that not much is new. I have had the chance to meet a few really great photographers the last couple of weeks.  The funny thing is we realized half way through that one of them had gone out on a date with my husband in high school. What a small world.  Anyway, I admire her work so much and she is such a wonderful person.  Here is the link and if you are in the Boston area she is wonderful!

http://www.rebeccamudrick.com/

It seems from the comments that other people had just as bad of a first week in 2007 as I had so I hope everyone is having a much better week now!

Candice and the no good, very bad, terrible week.

Someone out there please tell me that starting your new year on a bad note means that you will end on a better one.  Please?

  I was sick all weekend and am only now finally starting to feel better.  Because of the holiday Mark was luckily able to watch the boys on Sunday and Monday but the last two days I have been dragging myself around trying to take care of the boys.  Not mention waking up out of my stupor to realize that none of my daily chores have been completed.  And all you mom's out there know the devastation that can take place after one day of that let alone four.  You would think a tornado hit. 

  So after all that I think.  Great.  I'm awake, it's morning and I am feeling better. I'm going to clean.  I'm going to get my house in order.  Finish my assignments that are due right away.  It's going to be a good day. Not a fun day.  But a good, get things done day.  Then I get in the car to take Grant to school and....

My get things done day? Not so much.  After Driving a block I realized that I have an extremely flat tire. So, I pull over and get out.  Yeah...not so much flat as totally crushed driving on my rims bad. Plus, the real kicker is that our minivan ( yes, I'm admitting it.) has one of those really annoying spare tires that is hooked up to the bottom of the car and you have crank this thing to get it to come down.  But I couldn't get it down.  So I call Mark who just started two new shows this week so there is no way he can come.  And I really don't know anyone here who would be willing to help so I get the boys out of the car and we walk back home.  Mark called the school for me to tell them Grant wasn't coming.  But I've still gotten two calls today asking where he is and I have had to explain my non-ability to change a tire like any other person several times.  So much for my belief in girl power.  I can't even change a tire!

  So anyway, oh yes the story continues, I get home get the boys settled into some Dora the explorer put my new ipod that I got for Christmas from Mark on and start on the pile of dishes left from the last four days.  When Cole comes running and grabs my legs from behind yelling for a drink of water. I am so startled that I drop my earphones in the sink full of water and yes, they are ruined.  It's like listening to music through a fog. Nice.  Nice, nice day.

  Did I mention that our oven broke on Christmas Eve?  Oh, I didn't include that in my list of 2007 tragedies?  Well, it did.  The broiler is working but not the oven part so I have been trying to come up with really inventive ways to cook.  So far Mark has made a ten hour turkey and that wasn't because it was big it's just difficult to cook a Turkey without heat and I made a pizza that was completely burned on the top but managed to be gooey on the bottom.  I didn't want to bother our landlord during the holiday's and then I was so sick I didn't want anyone to come over.  I'm going to have to remedy that tomorrow though because I really would like to cook normally again.

  And that my friends is the end of the story for now and hopefully my luck will change soon.  I am trying to stay positive through it all, I mean at least Mark and the boys haven't gotten sick.  Yet.  Knock on wood, or whatever they say.