Oh, my aching head

Um, yeah...

Should have taken the computer, web design classes at the end of my college career.  But even that would be outdated at this point.

Building a website is turning out to be difficult.  I can't even get word press to work for me.  But I suspect and error with the web hosting site I am using.

Patience would help right about now.

This is life

It's just about 8 in the morning.  I am starting another load of laundry that I won't get around to putting away.  Everyone around here has clean clothes they are just wrinkly. 

Kids and I are fed.  Coffee is being consumed. 

Gym is going to be attempted.  But first I have to pack a lunch for James.  He has to eat lunch before he goes to school.  School starts at 11:00.

Come home put baby down for nap.  Take shower that is needed after gym, but can't be taken while baby is awake.

Pick up James at 2:25.  Take Hannah to ballet at 3:30.  Chase Caroline around lobby and listen to James whine for 45 minutes. 

Start some kind of dinner.  Clean rooms (fight with children about cleaning rooms).  Baths and good night sweet children.

Get ready for the Senior pictures I am taking on Wednesday. 

Do it all again but a completely different schedule on Wednesday. 

3 baskets of Laundry that need to be put away. A very helpful baby wearing hand me down Jammies.  A poor dog that needs to go on a run.  This is life and it's all mine.

Ballerina Hannah

Hannah has started ballet classes.  Cutest thing ever.  I forgot my camera the first day.  But I captured some of the action today.

School Days

They are a coming.  I am mourning the end of summer.  Well summer days that is.  Heaven knows we have plenty of summer temperatures left. 

This week has been busy already with school.  Wednesday we had open house at the preschool.  Today was new parent orientation at the preschool.  Tomorrow is meet and greet at the elementary school.

With my new job at the preschool as membership chair.  I got to run the orientation, it was fun for me.  I have lots of paper work to do.  Filing and inputting every new child's information including their immunization records into the computer.  I will make it work. 

Next week is the first day of school for the kids.  James starts Kindergarten on Monday and peanut's first day of preschool is Wednesday.  I am kind of a wreck inside thinking about my baby boy starting Kindergarten, yet I am so excited for him. 

Peanut is really lucky because she will have had all three of the teachers at our preschool. Not many kids get to do that.  Makes me smile thinking about it.

 My days are going to be a bit hectic with two different schools.  I might be in my car a whole lot more than I want to be. 

M:  PS  9 -12   K  11-2:25
T:                     K  11-2:25
W:  PS 9 - 12  K 10:30 - 1:30
T:                     K 11-2:25
F:  PS 9 -12     K 11-2:25

Not to mention Peanut will be starting Ballet on Tuesday.  I am so excited about that.  So is she.  We will try to get James into some type of Soccer program.  I was looking into Golf today but he wouldn't be able to start until February.  What the heck why not bite off more than I can chew. 

Have I mentioned Mush is straight up crazy baby?  I brought her to open house but I wasn't able to watch her because I was working with the new parents.  She was running around with one shoe, eating crayons, climbing playground equipment and getting a lot of laughs.  She runs that place, I guess.  She is going to be so ready to be the one at preschool next year. 

So the annual first day of school interview is coming soon.  It's sad how absolutely fast it goes.

How does color please your eye?

I seem to be drawn to warm colors.  I am finding as I play in photoshop I enjoy warming up my photos.  I think that's how you develop your style.  The blogs that I like the most have the warmest colors.  I need to print my pictures one of these days to see if I have taken it too far.  I wonder if the computer screen and printed images have a different look.  Here is one picture that I played with 3 different ways. Trying to enhance the colors of the grass and Caroline's skin in different ways.

First one is the original.  Followed by a skin and light enhancement.  Then I only adjusted the saturation of green in the picture.  The last is a color curves action that does all the work for me. 

The Business

I have been thinking, pretty much non stop about jumping into the photography business.  I got a higher powered camera and have been practicing on my poor children 24/7.  I read blogs, twitter, and facebook posting by other photographers, the work out there is amazing.  There is a ton of photoshop and actions to go with it to brighten, pop and enhance my pictures.  Finding the time to figure out how to use it all makes my head spin.  I wake up in the morning and grab a book.  I move out make coffee and grab the computer.  Then when I am not reading or looking at something I am planning in my head photo shoots.  We we drive I am looking at the scenery sizing it up for a back drop.  On the way out to the Balch Park I saw this little ranch that had an awesome barn, an old truck and a fence covered in shiny hub caps covers and I thought wow that would be a great location for pictures.  My head wont stop spinning and moving.  I will be setting up a website, a blog, a facebook and a twitter account all for this business.  I just have to get out and start taking pictures of other people besides my children.  The one thing stopping me right now.  The heat.  Yuck.  Who wants to go out for the best sunlight when it's 100+.  I don't, but I need to see which of my friends and family do. 

Is it over yet?

This year this challenge is tough. I am not witty or creative. I don't have much to say and I don't have much time to say it.

This blog is for me and this is how I will remember this time in my life. Hectic.

For instance, today I was at Trader Joes buying some food for the family. I get home and I am unloading the groceries. I look up and I see that we are the snack helpers for school tomorrow. This would have been nice to have noticed before I went shopping. So I scavenge to see what I can throw together for a class of 16 plus 3 adults.

The menu:
Mini bagels
String Cheese
Mandarin Oranges
Raisins
Milk

I had to steal some cups from the birthday stash and they get little paper plates. I really, really, really, didn't want to make another trip to the store.

Last year I put such effort into snack. Oh well. We have snack again next week. Maybe that one will be better.

book review

I got a library card last month. Woo-hoo, some of you are saying. However for us it has been a bunch of fun going every week to check out new books. Because personally I have read our library over and over again.

A series that I picked up today is the Skippyjon Jones, which I hadn't really heard of before. To some of you who have read this book you know what fun this little character is. I was cracking up as I read it to the kids. There are some Spanish accents that I just don't do justice to, so it made it even more fun. I know I will be checking out more in the future.

The other book that I am reading now is The Seven Stages of Motherhood. I am currently in the first stage in the book and living in the 1st, 3rd, & 4th stages. So far its really good and as I read more I will update you all on if you should pick it up as well.

By the way, I love reading. I am implementing a reading hour in our house. I hope my kids pick up a love of reading as well. Too bad my love of reading doesn't help my grammar or spelling skills.

not exactly

James is learning sign language in preschool. Its fun and cute and sometimes he surprises me with things. Like today, he was flipping me the bird and telling me it was the letter F. Me wishing I could remember the letter F was telling him, no, not quite that.

"who taught you that?"

James cracking up, "Miss Holly."

"I don't think so"

James is in hysterics now. And I am wondering which kid in his class taught him that, or if simply enough he is just confused.

The real letter F.

preschool

I signed James and Hannah up for preschool for next year. It is a coop preschool where the moms work at the school and it is just preschool, no day care or other programs. I wasn't planning on starting Hannah but it just made sense. She and her brother will be in different classes but going on the same days. I am really excited because James is really excited. He loved it when we visited the other day so much so it was hard to get him to leave. Mid August is when we start, yeah!

School is Cool

What a day. It was a ton of driving but definitely worth it. Jerry found out his class is going to be cool. My guess is it will make him wish he could be an engineer too. All he has to do is come in and listen to guest speakers talk about their Field of engineering. Next week no class but the week after that he has class and its a 4 day er. So maybe we can stay over night instead of cramming it into one day. While Jerry was at class I took the kids to Cuesta park to play. There was this awesome playground with no kids. We were the only people there. Kind of sad. So we got bored after a half an hour and went to go get Dada at school.

It was totally surreal walking through campus with my Hannah in a peanut shell and James holding my hand. I don't think any of the walks through there when I was a student I would have ever imagined walking there with my kids. Plus I am a full 10 years older than the freshman class. Super Crazy. I still love that place. We had Firestones for lunch and drove home. A quick trip but I am so Happy that Jerry is getting his degree I almost can't put it into words.

Back to School

Tomorrow I am taking my hubby back to school. He is going to take a seminar class at Cal Poly to get that last unit for his degree. In 10 weeks I will be married to a college graduate. For those of you who don't know the story here is a refresher.

Jerry was finishing his last quarter at Cal Poly when the fire department hired him. He had like 4 weeks left or so. Since he had been working so hard at both becoming a fireman and a mechanical engineer he had a big decision to make. Plus he had to leave me. I had already graduated but I was working on my credentials at the time. I was in my last quarter of school before I student taught the next fall. It was a hectic time. So anyways, Jerry dropped everything Cal Poly and forged ahead on becoming a firefighter. He failed a lab that he was taking. It stinks because it was taught by a grad student and had Jerry been able to convince him to give him a D he would have graduated. So anyways he failed the class and is one unit short of becoming a college graduate.

We kind of put off getting the class done. We had started up the procedure a couple of times and got busy with life and what not so it hadn't gotten done. This last trip to SLO he emailed a department head and met with him while we were in town. The prof basically said. If you can take any class anywhere close to the ME lab you were taking I will accept it and get you your degree. That was pretty cool so Jerry was looking into it. A few weeks later his brother Jason was at Cal Poly and stopped in to visit an old boss in the Engineering advising center. She looked up Jerry and discovered he only had this Spring quarter left on the catalog that we started college on. Makes sense 10 years ago we were in our first year of college (CRAZY). So then she talked to the same professor and got him to agree to a 400 level special problems class. That prof said you can either study something job related and write up a report or come to a seminar I am doing Monday's spring quarter. We chose the seminar. I am hoping I get to go with him every week. I need more adventure in my life!

So my nervous husband had me pack a back pack for him. I put some filler in there so he wouldn't look like he was caring around an empty back pack with one binder in it. So we will be driving to SLO tomorrow and dropping Dada off at class. I am just so happy he is doing it. He is going to get that degree and we will have a graduation celebration for him.