The craziest family I know...

I couldn't remember the last time my family had taken professional pictures together. The last picture that had everyone in it was taken at Christmas-time, on my grandparents couch, and I believe I was in my early teens. Oh, and my cousin was sticking out her tongue. But that was back when you had to develop pictures before you could see them - so when she stuck out her tongue, we took a second picture. She looked beautful. And half the family had their eyes closed, or weren't looking at the camera. So tongue picture has hung ever since.

I think fate randomly brought my sister AND my uncle to Columbus Ohio. Sure you could point out that Jessie was in a wedding that weekend, and John came down because him and my Aunt were in Cleveland helping her family... I say fate. So we decided (without really telling those two... ooops) that we were going to take family pictures.

The five siblings


There were four dogs at the house this day. Three of them are in this picture!


My sisters and I


We got the images by me setting up my camera, on a tripod, and arranging everyone except me. I'd jump in, and my sisters good friend was kind enough to pull the trigger for us. One of my favorites? Friend John says "Ummm, I think somethings not right... its set up for something different" We start laughing because we know what happened... I took a series of pictures of the three sisters, and then just added my parents in without thinking. Resulting in this:


Nice.

We also did something I had seen done at a Sandy Puc seminar. She took individual images of family members against a solid backdrop, and then spliced them together later in the computer. I thought it looked neat, and was a way that I could individually direct each family member to look their best (Plus it's a neat size, so I know it'll get hung) The result?



And the individual of my sister (who I hate for looking so gorgeous- curse you Jessie!!)


And one final one to share... John yelled out, lets do a silly one! Which I will now do with everyone. Because the silly one is my favorite!

Where have I been???

So I'm behind on about... mmm... four blog posts. That will get posted in the next couple of days. There was the beautiful Baldwin wedding, which I shared two images from on facebook, but I have a few more I want to show here... The FedEx Nascar car came to my terminal, and I took some pictures of it... we trashed Amber's wedding dress... and Claire got a haircut.

But I got delayed. Here's what's been going on...

I planted a bunch of stuff a couple weeks ago. I planted strawberries, and grew a huge one that I was really excited about. The day I went to photograph it - something had eaten it. I was irked.

Those ones are the ones growing right now. Don't let the image fool you - they are teeny tiny. Smaller then my thumbnail.

I also got a Dahlia flower, and planted it in my Tiki God planter. It look so funny and cool! Waited a couple days to settle, and went to take a picture of it.

I think whatever ate the strawberry also ate some of the plant. All the petals are gone. :( But there are some other buds on it, so hopefully I'll new flowers to photograph.

Really the only thing I've planted that's truly thrived is the bleeding hearts.

Of course they're in the back where I rarely go right now. Bummer.

So then, I developed spots. Everywhere the sun don't shine.

Waited that out until one of them got itchy, and finally went in to a doctor. Found out I have eczema. Excellent. So I'm like a leopard.

Back to gardening. I decide on Sunday to rip up what we call the Back 40.

Oooooooo, scary. It's just weeds after weeds after weeds. Spend a couple hours back there, then get over it and go in. Shower, shop, move on with life. Wake up Monday with some more spots. I (stupidly) assume it's more eczema, and scratch away, because I have a hard time resisting scratching.

A story about me and poisen ivy.... Up until Monday, I was not allergic to it. I know I wasn't because when I was in my tweens (which it wasn't called that when I was that age, but whatever) my mom and sister and I all cut down a stump in my moms backyard. I remember my sister helping because she had to, but I wanted to help because I got to use a very large ax. So the three of us spent an afternoon hacking away at a stump until it was gone. And my mom and my sister both got the worst case of poison ivy ever. I got nothing. Not so much as a hive. Which amused me, because frankly I'm allergic to everything that grows naturally - so I liked having that one thing about me that was different.

Flash forward to a week ago when I develop eczema... turns out, once you have it, your body becomes sensitive to stuff that it might never have been sensitive to before.

So Monday I'm scratching away like and idiot.

Tuesday the rashes are bigger and itchier, and I've figured out that scratching is making it worse. Stop scratching.

Wednesday I want to jump out of my skin because I itch so badly. Get home from work that evening, and see that its now spread to my face. Make Tim call a doctor in the morning.

Thursday go to my second doctors appointment in two weeks, to learn that I have a bad case of poison ivy.

(forgive the fact that I look like crap... I kinda feel like crap)


(on my tip-toes so you can see the tops of my feet)

So I still have the eczema everywhere the sun don't shine... and everywhere the sun does shine, I have poison ivy. The worst places I have it are in the webbings of my hands and feet... my fingers are so swollen, I can't wear any of my rings.

But I'm on the juice now, so baring any 'roid rage, I should be able to update with some pretty pictures.

Last Day to Give!

Tomorrow's the walk for the March of Dimes... shirt is washed and clean, camera gear all set... we're ready to go!

There's still time to give - donate on my March of Dimes page:
http://www.marchforbabies.org/h1908700

Realizations about myself

I haven't blogged in forever. It was a needed break. I'm burned out on blogging - not on photographing! Just blogging. And I have a confession to make. I don't want to share all of this years 365 day project on the blog. I know, I know - but if I blog it all, I'm just going to get burned out again. Plus, while I enjoy this 365, it's a little boring. Heck, my kids aren't even changing clothes anymore!

I have a bad case of the winters. I mean, it is one heck of a case! The girls are cooped up, which of course makes me batty. I can't get outside to photograph as much as I like because its so cold. And January/February/March are just bad months at the job.

So I've been bored. Bored and burnt out. Last weekend, in an attempt to get out of the house, my sister-in-law, Claire and myself all went shopping. It was great to get out, and complain about how much we hate being cooped up. I had a bit of an epiphany about myself while we were at Kohls.

So we walk past the shoes. I have a new love for shoes. I love heels. They have to fit well, or else I hate them, but when they do I just love them! And of course never ever wear them. So we're at Kohls, and I'm coveting a pair of heels that I would barely wear, when Wendy says to me "I could never be one of those moms that chase after their kids in heels." I sighed and said "I'd love to be."

Fact is, I would! I mean, heaven forbid I ran into anyone I knew that day at Kohls! I was wearing an ancient sweater thats all kinds of stretched out; baggy jeans; and my hair pulled back with one of my kids ponytail holders... I was a sight! And I hate being like that.

I was never the kind of girl growing up to care about how I looked. I could give two sh... well you know... about what other people thought about how I looked. I still can be that way. But I'll be honest, I do that because I would hate to put the effort into looking nice, only to have it not be worth it.

Well, I decided in that Kohls in that moment, that I wasn't going to be like that anymore. On TLCs "What not to Wear" they say to dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Well I'm dressing for the life I want.

First on my list - stop biting my nails. That one sucks. A friend recommended just getting acrylics to get myself out of the habit. Its not a bad idea (if I could just get over the dang prejudice I have about acrylic nails - sorry, I just find them a little frivilous)

Next - I want to try wearing my contacts again. One thing I covet more than shoes... sunglasses. I've never owned a pair that I could wear. I've bought some, just for the fun of it - but I can't see without my glasses, and prescription sunglasses cost too much. Now, I don't really like how I look without glasses. I've had glasses for 20 years, so I kind of identify myself with them. So most likely, I'm going to be taking a lot of self portraits, to get myself used to seeing myself.

For now, I'm going to try to blog weekly. Any time I have a session, that will go up, in addition to a weekly post. But I'm not blogging daily again for a while. Probably the first few will be self portraits... any maybe some Valentines of the kids ;)

Since I hate having a blog with not pictures, here's some pissy pictures of me. I glammed myself all up to take boudoir photos, only to realize I couldn't find the remote to my camera. So I got mad, took a couple snapshots, and then took a shower and went back to normal.

Three hundred and sixty five days ago...

... I thought this project would be easy

... I concidered myself an awesome photographer with little to learn



Three hundred and sixty five days later I have learned...

... that every time I take an image, I improve

... that I can see a project of this magnitude to completion

... that a small mishap like missing a day won't completely deter me

... that I love photography

I started this project on January 1st, 2009 with this self portrait.


and it comes to a close today, now officially January 1st, 2010 (image taken on the 31st)

365 of 365: a new year


Thank you to everyone who has supported this project. Today starts my new 365 day challenge... yes I'm going to do it all over again. If I grew this much over one year, imagine what could happen with another.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Going to bombard you with images...

...because I need to get caught. I don't just want to get caught up... I need to... because I'm leaving for vacation in five days, and I don't need images hanging over my head. So sure, my next few blogs will be long with images that don't always go with one another - but it means that next week when I'm in NYC during Thanksgiving Week (Oh yeah, Macys Day Parade folks!!) I can blog while I'm there, and not have to come home to show other images out of order. So without further adeu, I give you eleven days in a row.

303 of 365: Candy


304 of 365: Aren't you going to feed me?
Poor fat Jo


305 of 365: Stallions
Found this neat statue while taking Ellens senior pictures. Its the mascot to the school who's track we used for some of her images. Not her mascot - actually a rival school. I should feel bad for using this as my day - but I think the statue is cool.


306 of 365: Witch!
I love after Halloween sales, because you get cheap stuff to use as dress-up. This year the girls got witch hats. I was kinda dozing on the couch, and Olivia walked up to me with a dress-up dress she hadn't worn before... I put it on her, she scampered off, and Claire appeared in my face with a dress of her own. The actual outfits are old dance costumes of one of Tims cousins. Curious, I went to see what the girls were doing, and found them brewing some witches brew with their hats on. Too cute!


307 of 365: Fall
I'm going to be sad when Fall is officially over. It's my favorite season


308 of 365: never ending M&Ms
Tims dad works for Mars, which means we can have all the M&Ms we want. And we sure got a ton for Halloween. And they were good!


309 of 365: burnt
I think I burnt the chicken because I was too busy taking photos of the smoke coming up from it. The smoke was pretty cool!


310 of 365: sick
I wonder how many images there are of my couch? I slept for 20 hours straight this day. I woke up feeling fine, so whatever it was that made me feel terrible just needed sleep to go away.


311 of 365: outtake
Wendy got me this great lip gloss, so I was going to photograph just my lips to show it off... I think Olivia had just run outside and was asking me what I was doing or something, and I looked off at her... so even though this isn't the great photo I was looking for, I like it better then the rest.


312 of 365: What was that??
If you have cats - don't you hate it when they startle, and then stare into the distance. Creeps me out!


313 of 365: My Family
It was really nice out, and I wanted to try to get some family portraits of my own family. Most turned out ehh. I love this one. Since I've started doing this with other families, I've been wanting one like this for my family... I'm glad I was able to do it.

Oh how the time passes

I had a set in my Flickr account from last years adventures at Circle S, but I had to dig around in my storage to find our very first trip in 2007. I'm glad I looked, because I can't get over how small Olivia was!!! Time just goes by too quickly! And since Circle S stays pretty much the same every year, I have a lot of images that are similar to one another (which I LOVE!) So here's a fun comparison!

First, the one thing that's the same every year...
2009

2008

2007


Gotta love Olivia's obsession with Chickens

There's tons more, and I'm sharing it all!




Even though Claire's only been twice (and the first time she was stroller bound) she even has one thats similar! Look at that face!



The year and a halfers have a similar hay throwing style



The lighting was almost identical!



Dumb luck that it was the same cut-out!












Love that the girls look equally pissed off in both images



And while there is no other image like this one, I had forgotten about this pic, and I love it


Hope you enjoyed the flashback!