Not so new photos

I have been wasting time tonight and realized I haven't posted some photos I took a couple of weeks ago. These are of a friend and her family at their new home. I was really pleased with the results and am anxious to do some more. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. I know that is all it will take.

I am getting more adjusted to my camera and the settings that I should be using. I am not, however, as comfortable getting people to relax and just be themselves. I am sure it also will come with practice.

Feel free to be critical, I need to know what you like and don't like about my photos. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

       

       

Wednesday Weigh-in #4

It's time for the Shrinking Days of Summer Challenge weigh-in. This is week 4. I've not blogged about this prior to today, but am going to attempt to return to my blog with updates more consistently. I logged in to post today and see that there have been two posts I began and never finished. One being week #3's weigh in.

Okay enough of that. Here's the are the numbers. ding ding ding... 138.6.

<< BUMMER >> My weight is up slightly again. I am fluctuating up and down like a roller coaster. Where the heck is that descending hill to the end goal?

Since I haven't posted any numbers previously here (and am still a little freaked out to post them) I'll face the music.
Week #1 - 138
Week #2 - 141
Week #3 - 137
Week #4 - 138.6

It's interesting. The big jump up was a cycle week as well as a race week. I felt puffy all over. I feel better, but it would be so nice to be back down about 10 pounds. Photos just don't look good. My eyes are dark and I just don't look like me.

I know my body has taken a beating over the past couple of years. (for those of you reading this and who don't know my story -in short I gained 80# with my pregnancy and after the birth of my 10lb 4oz son was finally diagnosed with Hypothyroidism almost 2 years later.) Now that my hypothyroidism is finally under control, my body has been a priority for me, though responsibilities have consistently gotten in the way. I manage a couple of weeks being gung-ho for working out, and getting IT ALL done, and then crash pretty hard. It takes me a couple of weeks to recover and then I have to start all over again. I am not sure what the right answer is, but if anyone knows it - definitely let me know!!! I wish hiring a nanny and a housekeeper/cook or personal assistant were options for me because I would jump at those solutions in a moment.

Since a personal trainer and all that other stuff isn't in the budget, I am once again attempting to Get My Shhhtufff Together. I have been working pretty hard at watching what I eat. But it's not enough, it's definitely important to get the workouts in. In effort to get back into the swing, today I got up and worked out before work. It wasn't easy to get up at the crack of dawn, but I managed. It felt pretty good. These creaky bones do not like the am workouts. I didn't have as long as I would have liked, but 27 minutes of cardio is better than none! Tonight I took my son to the pool, so got a few walking laps around with him. AND that kind of cardio is way more fun for me. Looking forward to some more workouts like that.

Okay, time to end this if I am going to make it up again tomorrow morning!

Ready to roll

The Zooma Annapolis 10K is coming up on Sunday. It's too soon!!! I am not prepared. Mentally or physically. I am hoping for some kind of epiphany by the time I hit the starting line. I will do my best, but as of today, things are not looking very good. 

Yikes! Time to change the subject and stop freaking myself out. Can't wait to get through that.

Today was fun! A coworker and I signed up for the rollout of the Chick-Fil-A spicy chicken sandwich. It seemed like it was just a coupon for a new sandwich. And I am always game for spicy food. More like a sucker for it. My friend and I slipped out for lunch thinking, we'll be in and out of there in about 15 minutes. No biggie. It says you have to dine-in on the coupon. Sounds okay, right? What we were not expecting was the red carpet, balloons, hostess, waitress, or the table cloths and the real looking plastic silverware! Our server was fabulous. Christina (or was it Christine) was wonderful. She took our order brought it to us, took our payment, brought back our receipts, refilled our drinks, got our to-go bag, and then she and the hostess actually took our photo to post on facebook. How funny is that? I think Chick-Fil-A is such a fabulous company. Hmmm. Thinking that the fact that this young lady had a badge that said she had worked for them for a year is a great sign. She was enjoying her job waiting on people, we felt that she really was happy with her job. Would it be insane that a career with them is sounding quite luxurious right now? It wouldn't be the craziest idea I have ever heard of?! And notice, I said career, not just a job. I want to work with the fun people that make the cow calendars and make the cow ads and billboards. Hanging out with some creative people would be so nice. People that want to give critique in the designs I do. 

Lastly, I finally broke down and bought some presets for Lightroom. Trying to learn to use LR properly, and smarter. I have lurked around this fabulous website, Pretty Presets. There are some amazing photographers out there. It's kind of intimidating to me. So, then I tried out some of the free presets they have available on a couple of photos. They worked so well, that when the site offered a special discount yesterday, I decided to take the plunge and not just buy one set, but the combo pack of Pretty Presets Collection I and II. I had one new photo that I had taken on Saturday and used it to test a few of these presets out. Here is the photo I decided I liked best. 

This photo used Deep Blue.

He's following in his mommy's footsteps, and I am not going to fight it!

Right now Pretty Presets is offering a giveaway. All the rules are on their website. Of course I am entering the contest. I want all of their presets now. I am officially hooked! 

A Year's Worth of Goals to Achieve

This week has been a bit of a roller coaster.

One minute things seem to be rolling along, kind of easily, then it takes a sharp turn and leaves me flailing my arms in the air wondering where the road is taking me.

With that, I decided it was time to put the goals in writing. Set them with a serious goal in mind. I thought I was doing that signing up for a race that happens to be next weekend. I did not stay serious about it. I need to stay the course on this new list of goals.

The first goal I began working on was taking a photo every day. I want to start with a month, and see how I go. So far I stuck with it for a week, up until today. I could get up and put my battery back in my camera, and may still do that before I head off to bed, but I would rather take some time and update my blog. (since this isn't posted yet - you should know I didn't get a shot taken, instead I took about 300 photos Saturday and Sunday - tomorrow will most likely have me hitting about 400.)

I have been enjoying the process of a daily photo which entails finding something different to take photos of (instead of my son). It kind of reminds me of college photography classes. The exercises the teachers assigned us to go out and take photos of (minus the darkroom time and film expense). What is the most challenging about this project is finding the time to post the pictures. I am going to have to figure out how I can get them posted and which website is going to work best to help me continue with the 365 photo challenge. I'm going to post some shots at the end of this post. I am really pleased with them all, and even more excited to attempt to take pictures tomorrow at my sister's dance performance. I am even planning on taking a tripod (haven't done that in years) to see what might happen. If you are just logging into my blog, I have a serious L.O.V.E. for my camera. I just can't even express how happy it makes me.

As for the year of goals - it is really more like this: I signed onto the Day Zero Project website. What is that? It is a place where you log in and put 101 goals into writing and are committed to making happen in 1001 days. Yikes, right? Yep!!! 101 goals. I have posted 18 so far. I need to put something about finding time to make my list! That will need to be goal one.

Well, I never finished this post Friday as planned. It's now Sunday night, late. I hope to get some more photos up from the Saturday performance, which were great - for what I had to work with. I also found out today that I had changed a setting and the at some point my settings got shifted and my images are not shot at the highest resolution. Maybe that is a sign I need to start trying some raw photo shots? What a change that would be for me. Hmmmm...

Okay, this is a long post. Hopefully I didn't bore you and you enjoy the photos! I am now getting it posted live so it doesn't continue for 3 more days before it gets live. Happy Memorial Day!

écarté dance theater 
Spring 2010 Performance. 
The Path Forward 
Choreographed by Natasha Ramminger
Performed by Melani Coles and Natasha Ramminger.

Biggest Loser, and Big Goals

Tomorrow is the finale for Biggest Loser 9. I am so excited. I think each season I seem to get more emotionally tied to the contestants. This has been a great season. To the point that I really don't know who I think should win. It's a hard call. I am sure we'll all love the outcome. I think the reason I liked this season so much is because it was a team effort throughout. It wasn't so much about ME ME ME, which I think is why we disliked those that really just wanted to win. The rest of the contestants wanted everyone to be the biggest loser. It has been a great ride with these inspiring people. I am going to be very sad to see it end, however I am excited to see Jillian's new show. I hope it is just as inspiring. I work hard to keep Tuesday nights all about ME and getting myself back in shape, and really want to keep it that way, besides, I will miss all the twitter about!

Speaking of getting back in shape. I have been having some physical limitations again, and with that, I have put off working out as much as before. It's amazing how quickly weight comes and settles in when I don't workout. And then it is twice as hard to get moving again. But it's time. I am going to have to work through the pain. As much as I would rather not. It's kind of hard -it's my spine, which obviously is huge when it comes to working out. It's really hard when you are signed up for a race that you know you are no where near prepared to run and it's only a week and a half away. (YIKES!)

Regardless of pain and all that, I am now the proud owner of EAS more workouts and am very excited to get using it. I started yesterday with the first of the 6-week challenge workouts. I went ahead and used the low intensity mode, but mainly because it was pretty late. Tonight I boosted it to medium, then did a few extra boxing workouts to see which I liked best. So far the workouts are good. I like the warm up and cool downs. I am a huge fan of the boxing, hence me adding more of that in later. I hope that as I progress, the workouts change up and get faster.

Other than that, I am working on a new challenge for myself. Not that I really need to add anything else t my list of challenge, but I was already thinking of taking a photo a day or something like that. I realize that those have been done, so I keep trying to figure out how to change it up a bit. One blog I ran across tonight has a challenge on it where the goal is to take a photo of yourself with your kids. I think that would be really hard for me. I LOVE taking pics of what is going on around me, HATE taking photos of myself. Wonder if that is why I should try that one? I am going to wait a bit longer before I set my goal. I just am not ready to commit to this one just yet.

What I am ready to do, is get fit!

Flowers & Faces

It's time for Flowers and Faces at iheartfaces, and I am officially sending a photo in for this week's contest.

I took these photos early Sunday morning as my son excitedly told me I had to "COME" he had something to show me. It was a sweeping vine of blossoming honeysuckle. They are perfect for picking right now, it's been a while since I have seen a plant so 'juicy'. He had a blast tasting it's nectar. Here's one showing the dripping, our fingers got quite sticky! I love spring though I am quite thankful the allergy meds are working this year!

If you haven't seen some of the beautiful shots or contests on their site, you should check them out now at iheartfaces. I get lost for hours looking at the beautiful photos there. There are always great tips and submissions on their site. 

Amazing

Seriously - amazing.

I have blogged about this before, but I really must say it again.

Tonight I made Spicy Shrimp from The Pioneer Woman (I originally found out about this recipe through a favorite website A Year of Slow Cooking. Her recipe was called CrockPot Barbecued Shrimp.)

I was nervous switching recipes. Whenever I deviate from a version I know we like, it never tastes the same, but there were two reasons I decided to try her way.

1. The Pioneer Woman's recipes have never failed me (try her cinnamon rolls 101 for example), and 
2. It was seriously faster her way. (10 minutes vs 2 hours)

My son assisted with tonight's meal, he's 3 and a half. His job was to inspect the wonderful and helpful pictures on TPW website and let me know when my dish was looking the same way as her's. So helpful! I must have done it right though cause, Oh. My! It went fast - and that I made 3lbs of shrimp. For the two of us.

It didn't matter, this is all that was left. (for the record, this was my plate, my husband's was piled much higher!)

That was not on the list of diet foods, but I don't care!

Thank you to both of the ladies that posted these recipes, it is a keeper! I really hope everyone that reads this will try it, you will not be disappointed!