Rain Rain Go Away

Every morning for the last twenty thousand years {or so it feels} I have opened one tired eye, and seen nothing but gray skies peeking in through my window. I feel like I'm going crazy in this never-ending rainy period of time. I feel so cranky, irritable, and generally unpleasant. I don't know how people can live in places where it rains every day. I feel like I need to wear a sign that says "panties in a wad" so no one crosses my path.

We've been trying to keep busy in other ways. Most of which involve me being lazy, eating comfort food nonstop, and getting used to my weekend uniform of unfixed rat's nest hair, no makeup, and sweat pants.



This is the closest representation of what I look like, right now. Except I'm not even wearing anything as nice as that collar.

I'm officially the homely wife that gives cute girls at the grocery store dirty looks. See what this weather does to me? I already feel my winter blues setting in, and I will take any suggestions as to what will get me out of this funk. Plane tickets to Mexico will also be accepted.



One one of the few nights this month that our patio furniture was actually dry, we tried to get some outdoor time in so I wouldn't feel so claustrophobic.
We cuddled up underneath the blankets, and lit the chiminea. When I went inside to get some water, I came back to this scene:





The saddest part was that neither of them moved when I came back. I sat down at the end by their feet.

Firewood has been soaking wet, so we've been using charcoal to light the chiminea. It's expensive, but it's not smokey, and our backyard smells like one big burger, reminding me that Summer's cookouts weren't too far in the past. And sometimes we sit around a big,



roaring.....



Space heater. That thing is serious. When it turns on, it sounds like a jet. It's in everyone's best interest to not directly look into the flame, or stand right in front of it. If you value your flesh.



We had Ashtyn and Dylan a couple weeks ago, while Jessie and Aaron went to a concert. We went grocery shopping, where I got to experience my first freakout at any germ coming in contact with my girls. I'm going to be the most psycho Mom. Maybe I'm over reacting, but I don't find many things more disgusting than the shopping carts at Wal Mart. We walked by a cartload of kids one time, and I looked on in horror as one of them had their entire mouth all over the cart rails, licking and chewing on it. Are you kidding me?! THE KID WAS LIKE SEVEN. That was the worst part!

For Dinner I mad a mac and cheese casserole I found on Martha's {my best friend, we're on a first name basis. she just doesn't know it, yet} website. I actually only picked it because it was a John Legend recipe, and I love John Legend. Here we are together a couple years ago-



What's that? Oh yah, I told my makeup artist that day that I thought my neck color was a little bit off from my face. I also tried to protest the extensions as well, but she wasn't hearing it.
Anyway, I tried the recipe because it was his. I wasn't that impressed. Sorry, John and Martha.



Michael entertained the girls while I cooked dinner.



Ashtyn painted her pumpkin that we picked while we were at Wal Mart. And yes, pumpkin bribery does work for distracting your child away from eating swine flu off of the shopping cart rails.

By the end of the night, Dylan was fast asleep on the couch, and I bored Ashtyn to sleep with educational books.



When I was little, I LOVED the Berenstain Bears. I dug up the books from the attic a few weeks ago, and brought them home so I can one day bore my own children to sleep with them. I read her Junk Food, Double Dare, and Too Much TV.



Ironically, she was watching tv over my shoulder as I read her the last one.
Oh, kids these days.


The construction on my parent's house started on the 21st.



They poured concrete, and by last weekend they had some serious work done.



I tried to convince them to go with these vaulted, open ceilings with dark stained beams. No luck, they picked a tray ceiling with an attic.



This is standing in the new giant bedroom, looking into the old one that will become a huge closet. My Mom requested that I not take any pictures of her with no makeup on, but I don't grant freebies.



a.) The old bathroom that's moving to where I was standing. b.) Looking into the new room.



a.) My Dad trying to talk her into putting a door into the backyard, like they had. b.) Her saying no, and him persisting.
I also suggested either french doors, or a giant windowseat. Like this:



No luck. My two years in college spent studying Interior Design have gone in vain.


Every year, right behind my parents house, the Monarchs come in the fall. They come through on their way to Mexico for the Winter....I always want to beg them to take me with them. Last Fall I didn't have my Canon on me, so I couldn't get any good pictures. It's amazing to see, and I wish these pictures did them more justice.



The field of flowers is right behind my parents house. There it is! I was in the kitchen with Grandma two Saturdays ago, when she told me that the Monarchs were here. I ran outside without hesitation, and I got these pictures.



"In all the world, no butterflies migrate like the Monarchs of North America."



" They travel much farther than all other tropical butterflies, up to three thousand miles. They are the only butterflies to make such a long, two way migration every year."





"Amazingly, they fly in masses to the same winter roosts, often to the exact same trees. Their migration is more the type we expect from birds or whales."















"However, unlike birds and whales, individuals only make the round-trip once. It is their children's grandchildren that return south the following fall."


Isn't that wonderful? Every year that I see them, they're the family of the little butterflies I saw the year before.
There's so many, that every time you look up, the sky is dancing with them.
There are other little creatures, too.





And as I was walking around with my camera glued to my face, I had to stop and remember to look down so I wouldn't step in piles of fire ants.


That weekend, we had a little music festival. Since the end of Summer Breeze, I have been antsy for some outdoor music. Of course that day was cold and rainy, so we decided to ditch the chairs and turn Petey into our big couch. People kept walking by and commenting on our setup. They were so jealous.



This car has been pretty conducive to our lifestyle, we even camped on him at the lake, one time.



This is me and Mr. Blue Eyes.








This was Molly. Hunter thought she was awful pretty. They sniffed each others crotches and fell in love, after he kicked up grass and yelped at her. I always thought he would be more into brunettes because of he loves his Mama so much {me} but lately he's been really attracted to blondes.


















In case anyone is wondering...



I got this ridiculously cute hooded number from Target. It's actually pretty warm. And it came in a couple colors, too. It's from their converse line.


I have been forcing myself to only shoot in my manual settings, because I want to switch to a 35mm film camera so that I can start developing my own pictures in a dark room. It will be a little bit, because I want to make sure I've got it down pretty well. But I've been practicing with my lighting, and had Michael hold this glow stick so I could try and focus on it in the dark.





He's pretty cute, even with my scarf wrapped around his head.



About fifteen hundred pictures in, I started noticing some change in his expression, and thought that he was sitting awful still for his usual ADHD self. Then I noticed he was watching tv. Glued to the tv. To what, you ask?
Well. He's a guy....and what else do guys watch...



Other than slow motion replays of getting kicked in the balls, in HD.



And then detailed explanations of what happens next. He would.




Speaking of darkrooms, I recently fell back in love with a tshirt I just kept around for memories sake.



This was my favorite thrift store tshirt from high school. That was back in the day when you could go and find the most amazing vintage tshirts, hippie skirts, and unique shoes and purses. My best friend Monica and me would skip class and do nothing other than a.) eat Grandy's. b.) thrift store shop
I had the maximum amount of absences in Algebra II, thanks to all the good finds I had.

Anyway that blue tshirt is super soft, and it says "breaking up was hard to do" on it. The reason I kept it is because of what else is on it. Splatters of light stains all over the shirt, from the hours I spent in the dark room when I was a teenager. Saying that makes me feel so old, like I'm the one that will whip out my stained tshirt from my photography days to show my kids some day. They'll look at me in confusion from behind their digital cameras, and I'll always have my tshirt to remind me that sometimes the way you learn things the first time around is really the most amazing way. I can still smell the chemicals, and feel the cold, dark air on my skin as I moved around in the pitch black, developing my pictures.

Here I am, almost ten years later, still wearing that shirt. I have to laugh at the fact that I always assumed I'd be such a different person when I got older. I realize now that as the years pass me by, I'm coming right back around to me. A scarf in my hair, and a camera in my hand.


I went walking down my street today.
I saw things I thought would never come my way.
A man sitting in the daylight, cracking all of the problems of his life.

Peering out from my new window, to all of these places
I never thought I’d go. But I’ll close my eyes tonight,
and wake up in different light.

But then again we all walk, different directions, different talks.
Coming back again, to the same person.





We have Savanna and Gavin on Wednesday nights, while Nikki is in school.



Hunter is too excited when any kids come over. He especially loves babies, and can't wait for Gavin to sit so he can come plop a big slobbery toy in his lap, and kiss his face.
Savanna said our house was "the art house" and I think I am okay with this label. When I was little, my two favorite things to do in the entire world were to create any sort of art, and play outside. I think it's safe to say I still favor those things over almost anything.



I've just been rolling out the butcher paper and letting her paint and scribble.
Michael always plays babysitter while I do the cooking.

Last week I made some homemade soup, because we've been craving it like crazy in this gloomy weather. My one biggest rule for food in our household is that I buy as little as I can in packaged food, and try very hard to not eat anything with preservatives. Canned soup is one of those confusing foods to me, because I don't get why people don't just make it. It tastes so much better when it's fresh. Savanna ate a big heaping bowl, and Gavin loved his mooshed up noodles and veggies. Up until the point where he threw it all up.



I made a heaping pot of this stuff. And it's very simple, cheap, and healthy. I just boiled a pot of water with chicken bouillon seasoning. Then I added every vegetable under the sun. I threw in chopped up red potatoes, beans, celery, tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms. I also added in the tiny little elephant ear pasta. I love love love the smell of homemade soup in the house. My Mom is another huge believer in all things homemade, and she used to make it all the time.





In the colder months, Michael retreats to his man cave {the garage} to work on whatever project he's got going. Hunter and I join him, and he'll light up the giant jet engine space heater, turn on our favorite Jack Johnson cd, and spend hours in there.



I really have no business in a garage, but we'll just talk for hours while he works away.

He was cleaning all his skateboard bearings one day when I noticed that they looked exactly like a threaded sewing machine bobbin. I went and grabbed one of mine.



He wasn't as amused with the similarities as I was.







Oh. And we also light things on fire.





I blame it on the weather.





This project was not a boredom fire. It was for a pair of gloves.
Thanks to my narcolepsy, I tend to fall asleep anywhere and everywhere.
Including on the garage floor, on my greasy 80 pound lab, wearing one hot glove to keep me warm.



This was not my finest moment. In fact, I had to delete the other picture because it was so hideous that it burned my eyes. I swear I'm not normally this homely.



Last weekend I drove with my Mom down to Texas to see Auva's 3D Ultrasound. Have any of you seen these in real life? And not just a picture, but the baby actually moving, blinking, sucking its fingers, and sticking out it's tongue in 3D? It's bananas. And I never use bananas as an adjective, but it's so necessary, here.



This is not my sister's peanut. But an example of the craziness of seeing this playdoh baby that's living and breathing amniotic fluid inside of you. Bananas.

I told her the baby looked like Shrek.



If it still looks like Shrek outside the womb, I'll have to feel guilty.



Robby was pretty cute. I watched him most of the time. Because not only did my Mom and I agree that the entire thing was borderline gross {I think her exact words were: "uh...pregnancy is SO gross, why haven't we figured out a new way to grow babies that isn't inside us, yet?!} but he was pretty cute standing there smiling like a proud Dad.
Even if his baby does look like Shrek.



This is my nephew.



And this is the heartbeat that maybe, kind of, sort of, gave me a little lump in my throat. Baby Shrek, I can't wait to meet you in two months!!

While we were down there, we hit up Sam Moon. You can't pass a Sam Moon and not go in. It's quite the experience. I couldn't take a picture inside, because I was scared.



Here's a few that I snatched online.











Need some hair?



Add about ten thousand retail hungry women, and about two hundred Asian employees, and you have Sam Moon.

I got some ear muffs, earrings, a headband, and wallet. It's everything you could want and more! And some hair.

After the ultrasounds, we went to my favorite place on earth. It's not Disneyland.



It's Chic-Fil-A.
Obsessed is a word that falls short.
I inhale Chic-fil-a.
I dream about it.
I crave it all hours of the day.

I consider myself a pretty healthy eater. But when it comes to Chic-fil-a, all bets are off.

Have you guys seen this?

I wrote it. Okay, no I didn't. But I should have....because I feel the same. In fact, if you're ever around Michael and me for more than a couple hours, you will hear one of us sing the Chic-fil-a song. We sing it to the cats, we sing it to each other, we sing it to empty boxes of waffle fries. Except we've added ten thousand verses. New verses to show our love of Chic-fil-a.

That day of the ultrasound, while I was eating my fries, I texted Michael a new verse:


Ohhh Chic-fil-a. What a temptress tasty game you play...
For you I am borderline gay, oh Chic-fil-a, Mmmhmm Chic-fil-a.


I wonder if people all over are as obsessed. My sister's friend had a giant plate of their nuggets catered to her wedding. Why didn't I think of this?!


When we were done eating, we headed back to their house.






Robby's Mom Becca, my Mom, and me painted the wainscoting in Shrek's nursery.



Oh. And I smashed my finger with a mallet when I was hammering the lid shut. Good thing I was stuffed full of waffle fries, nuggets, and sweet tea. Aka happy food for my belly.




This weather is too cold for me. I know it's only in the 60's and 50's, but I don't like anything below 70. I love Fall, but I can't help but feel a little blue when I have to put away all my cute sandals and Summer dresses. I know that flats, boots, and itchy sweaters are not too far behind.





Since it's rained for three weeks straight, I've worn my hair curly a lot. My hair is really curly. Like a perm.



I wasn't kidding.




And here I am in all my glory. How will you all accept my if you haven't seen me in my true natural state? Fresh from the shower, no make up, wet hair, glasses, and my pajamas.





I didn't even bother photoshopping any help for myself.
Speaking of Photoshop, I've had a few people ask me about editing, and I thought I'd show you guys a couple things.

I have a decent understanding of cameras, lighting, and how to use my equipment. But I also have a secret love and understanding, and immense appreciation for photo editing software. On some cloudy ugly days, you just end up with a picture like this:



I use Photoshop CS4 Extended. I don't know how much it is, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but when I bought it last year it ran you right at $1,000. Yah you read that right. Since my sister is a teacher, I got a $700 discount. You also read that right. That was the biggest discount of my life! Since I did photography for kids and families on the side for awhile, I paid that off in like one months worth of clients. So to me, it was worth it. Of course you can download any version online if you trust the software. I was just too scared to download anything online.

So if you happen to have Photoshop and want to know what I do with my pictures, here's the ropes. I always always use the same steps to edit photos. Basically what I'm working towards is my end result looking like I see it with my own eyes. Sometimes your camera isn't on the same page as you, and if you don't have the patience to mess with your settings, you can touch them up later.



These are my steps.
When I discovered Curves, my life changed forever. Then when I discovered Shadows/Highlights, it changed even more. In the first picture, I have adjusted shadows and curves. Honestly I can't even tell you how much, I just do it until it looks right. Just pull it up, and move your sliders around until it looks how you want. It takes away a lot of contrast in the photo, but that's okay, you can add that back, later.
Then I pull up curves, lighten, and add contrast to the photo.
That's all I've done by that second image.
In the third one, I turned up the vibrance, so that any color I lost along the way was restored.

I only sharpen images if I am resizing for my blog. After I resize, I just hit the sharpen tool, and it cleans up all your edges.
I cropped it down to a different shape, and:



Tada. That's all I did. It's really very simple, only a few little steps with a big difference.
The auto options work great, as well. If you're nervous to mess with the tools manually, just hit auto contrast and color, and it does a lot of work for you. But I really suggest looking into Curves tutorials on YouTube. You can watch them do everything step by step, and I learned a lot that way.




Being stuck in the house has been such a downer. How do people stay indoors all day?! I feel like I'm going crazy. I've been working on Auva's baby shower invitations, and I'm finding little blue and green and white scrapes of paper all over the place.



My one big fat bright ray of sunshine has been the old Super Nintendo. I also found it in my parents attic a few weeks ago, and this week we hooked it up and have had some mean Mario Kart sessions, since then. We also have Mortal Kombat, Donkey Kong 1-3, and ....feast your eyes on THIS!!



Oh yah. Your eyes are not deceiving you. 1990. Auva and I passed the entire game when we were little, but Michael and I started a new team this week, and we've been spending hours sweating over turtle shells, finding Yoshi, and getting the feather so we can fly to the secret areas up high.
The two of us are seriously kids at heart. I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll be the parents that steal all our kids toys when they go to bed. Monday we spent two hours in Toys R Us picking out car tracks that we wanted.

Another favorite from my childhood was Life. I always loved the house cards, and picking my career. Auva took the game with her when she got married, so we went and bought our own last week. We were excited. Too excited. You would have thought that someone had Chic-fil-a. Michael made a huge dinner for me:







Spun up a couple milkshakes out of the $2 brand new, never been used Oster blender we scored at a garage sale last Saturday.....



And we got down. About ten seconds in I realized things were different. The hills were orange, instead of green. And on every little inch, was a disgusting characterized drawing.



I had been telling Michael excitedly all through dinner how when I was little, I always loved that "Artist" was one of the careers. I gloated on and on through mouthfuls of steak and sweet potato that I thought it was such a good message to send to kids, that really they can be anything they want to be, as long as they're happy.

Of course in new Life....things are different. In new Life, you have to acquire debt to go to college, and then you get a higher paying job. If you chose to not go to college, you end up with a worthless job that makes no money. What was the first worthless non-college job we drew? HAIR STYLIST.

Okay not funny. The two hairstylists playing the game were not amused.
Even the "entertainer" made more money, which I'm pretty sure was just a stripper.

We proceeded to go through the game suing each other, having to trade up our "starter home" even though we both wanted to stay in and retire in the "starter home" it made us get rid of, and Michael went into serious debt paying for his kids college.

What the hell happened?? Was Life always this terrible, or did I just not notice when I was a kid? I missed old Life. The box I had with the early 90's family on it. Auva and I always made fun of the Mom's expression, and the girls turtleneck was hideous, but it was FUN.



No starter home, no worthless hair stylist career, and lower interest rates on loans from the bank. I texted Auva and demanded that she bring old school Life back to me. New Life will be donated to Salvation Army, so other kids out there can learn that starter homes and careers as artists and hairstylists don't get you ahead in life.




The one redeeming moment was watching Michael sweat over the college bill when he realized he had five kids to pay for. I told him life was looking pretty dim for him. He was a hairstylist making $30k a year, with 5 kids and disconnected wife who's body language and positioning of her stick body in the car led me to believe that they had a strained marriage with no communication. He said "OF COURSE WE DO, WE HAVE FIVE KIDS!!!"

I retired as a doctor with one boy and girl, in a cape cod home with a little under 3 million in the bank. Life was pretty sweet for me. AKA....money gets you places.

The irony in that situation was that it couldn't be farther from the truth. We grew up dirt poor and ridiculously happy. My parents, sister, grandma and grandpa and I lived in a 2 bedroom house that couldn't have been over 1000 square feet with chickens... and I thought my life was pretty amazing, then. Over the years I've watched people driven by money fall apart at the seams. When your only goal in life is to have a nicer car, bigger house, and more stuff than the person next to you, you miss out on a lot of really amazing things.

The best things in life aren't things. They're memories, family, laughing so hard that your stomach hurts, staying up until 5 in the morning talking to friends, slobbery dog kisses, loving your job, loving your life.

I could care less if I make lower than average amounts of money for the rest of my life. In a few years we'll be going from two hair stylist salaries to one hair stylist, and one school teacher salary. Even worse. But by who's standards? I could care less that when I stand in one corner of my little house, I can see every other corner of it. I could care less that I traded my broken down Jetta in for a car that my insurance classifies as a wagon. I bought a wagon named Petey at 25 years old. It doesn't have a dvd player, all it has is plastic interior that you can hose out when it gets muddy. And I feel sorry for the people sitting in their cars watching tv when I'm sitting in mine... driving across the country with a muddy, happy, dog in the backseat and nothing but the open road in front of me.





So here's to the game of Life, and the irony behind me retiring with three million dollars in the bank.

& Here's to the Monarchs.







"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have."