Cookies

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.

Cookie


Cookie Thief


Cookie...monster.

I ain't got no stinkin bunnies!(plug for Denna Wallace Photography)

I dread February every year. I don't really like the cold, but that's not why I dread it. Usually about February I get an email about once a week that says something like this "Are you going to have live bunnies this year? Don't you live on a farm?" or maybe "What kind of Easter or Spring displays or backdrops do you do?" Oi Vey.

Ok, it's confession time folks. If you want pictures of your kid running wild, getting dirty, just hanging out and playing...then I'm your girl. If you want me to get your kid to sit still and pose? Yeah, umm, I don't know how to do that. No, really, I can't get my OWN kids to sit still long enough for a posed portrait...it's bad. I have no patience at all. You really don't want me to do this kind of stuff for you even if I offered these kinds of portraits. I'm BAAAAD at it!

But where does that leave you? Here you have spend $70 on a beautiful boutique hand smocked bishop dress for your darling, and $20 on that bow, and $50 on those cute white leather shoes, and still another $10 on them frilly socks! You have GOT to take a picture of it all together before Easter sunday when little Suzie drips her melted chocolate bunny all over it, right? I'm not poking fun of you ladies, I have a daughter too, remember ;-)

Enter...Denna! Oh you remember Denna! My October bride from 2009! Denna Wallace is one of the most patient child photographers that I know. She is excellent with kids. She can handle my kids for crying out loud!(yes, I have put her to work babysitting once or twice). Kay, so Denna has all the info over at her blog.
Now GO!

See, she ain't skeered ;-)

Sometimes they come back :-)

there are times when I go back to look through my old work. Sometimes, it's just a few months ago, sometimes it's well over a year after the fact. I never delete the edited images although I will go through about once every 3 months or so and delete all the originals(except for weddings, those are always saved and archived just in case the bride ever needs them, you can never be too careful). Anyway, I was looking through my late 2008/early 2009 portrait sessions this afternoon and saw this ONE photo of my friend Krisha. I was literally aghast! What the crap?!? Why is this so dark? Did I GIVE this image to her? It's terrible! That's not like me, why would I have the great shot and sloppily edit it and throw it on the disk. No way that happened. I must fix it, NOW!!!

My fingers worked feverishly and hard for 5 minutes, then 5 more, then a few more. Ahhh, now that's more like it. That's me.

Then it hit me...that wasn't me, a year ago. I took that set of portraits for my friend a year ago this month. Ok...so..I guess I am improving? Or am I just doing it differently? or both? I dunno. You be the judge!

The one I originally edited:


The black and white that I originally edited:


And what I tinkered with this morning:


And a vintage twist-thingy


Yeah, now I can sleep tonight knowing that I fixed that photograph that I thought, one year ago, was just great. Someone remind me to not look through my archives again. It's just painful.

There are times when I get scared of commenting on other photographers blogs :-) What if they look at my blog? What if they see how little talent I have compared to them? What if they laugh and think "Yeah, 'photography'...whatever...what a looser!" I am easily intimidated. The good photographers scare me...ahhhhh!!!

Getting personal ;-)

Well, not too personal. Just sharing some random things today because it's rainy and I am not feeling the creative juices, not one bit.

-I love the Duggar family. I know it's weird to have 19 kids(and counting ;-)) but I think they are cool and well rounded considering. Michelle Duggar is like...my hero. Not that I want that many kids, but she's just so sweet and doesn't seem frazzled very much. That's cool :-)

-The one grocery store in Cave Spring is crap. The people are precious and very sweet and helpful, the store is clean, but the selection and prices are what I am referring to as crap. They are a privately owned grocery store, so I guess I have to cut them some slack. But dude, my coffee should not be $9. That's just...not right. However, the "refill" packs(you know the foil packs that are airtight) are only about $3...which leads me to believe that the refill packs at my normal grocery store(wal-mart in Cedartown..ugh) have to be SUPER cheap. I can't believe I have been paying $7 for my canisters of Folgers and never noticed "refill" packs? I'm looking for them at Wally World next week. If they don't have them, I'll stop by Casey's to pick up 2! The refill pack filled my empty canister of Folgers well over half full. Just thought you should know that.

-Waiting on one piece of mail to finish filing our taxes. It's torture.

-Another example of torture: When friend couples breakup and you can't understand why and you can't fix it. SO SAD!!!!

-We got the vacation house booked! I will be out of town May 15th-22nd. Yahoo!

-I got some new used clothes yesterday from my friend Denna. I have been feeling bored with my wardrobe lately, but I couldn't fathom going out and buying new winter clothes in February. In a month, it will be warm(with the exception of a few chilly days I am sure). So her donation to the "Keep April from frivolously wasting money on clothes for the next month or feeling frumpy and grumpy for the next month" fund was much appreciated.

-My daughter says that we are rich because I have a diamond(my wedding ring). I asked her "Cate material wealth is not "riches", I love my ring because it symbolizes my love for your papa and his love for me. And my family and our faith and our richly blessed life is what makes us rich" to which she replied.."Yeah, but your diamond makes us richer."

-stumbled upon this quote this morning, and I nearly teared up because our kids do this and we always do it too:
You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back. ~William D. Tammeus

Ok ok, here are some pictures. Not much, but a little semi-sweet eye candy none the less.

Sean, again. Yeah, he's a rock star.



and a little pic of my Simon boy playing in his Papa's hat :-)

I love that our kids think that anything that belongs to me or Seth is suddenly cool and fun to play with.

Szia!

And now I know how to greet people in Hungarian! Thanks Flickr homepage!

Lots of things going on and I am feeling priTT-E darn chatty today so hang in there while I gabber.

Things accomplished this past weekend: Mantle over the fireplace complete and hung! It looks fantastic(umm, you click on mantle to see the pics on the other blog :-)), Family vacay dates nailed down and house picked out. We tried to book it but the website was being a PITA, so I guess mom is going to call about that at some point this week(right mom? you are going to call? Right? Huh? Are you?), total mental and emotional breakdown in an effort to get myself a little break from the kids, and successfully killing my PC once and for all. good times...

Yes, my poor pitiful PC, my bestest friend for the better part of 2 years, is not resting peacefully with all it's innards yanked out and my Saint of a husband is busy at work trying to get my data(err, I really just need the pictures). What a sweety he is! We have several spare computers, so not to worry, I will be up and running again soon, but for now it's life at my trusty Mac laptop. I love my laptop, I love working on a Mac but the poor dear is just too old to run photoshop so I am not able to work on my pictures as I'd like at the moment.

Speaking of which, my clients that are waiting on their pictures:

Cauthen Fam- Y'all are done, I have your pictures ready and will write them to a disk today. Pick them up whenever you'd like!

Boudoir Client- you know how you said and I quote because I am looking at the text message "No biggie" if the pics weren't ready by Valentines Day? Yeah, you might want to go shopping this week for a back up gift for hubby!

McGee Fam- Yeah, it's probably gonna be 3-4 weeks rather than 2 like I had hoped, but I will get them done as quickly as I can.

Constance-Well. I'll get to Caleb's pics as soon as I get the above folks taken care of. So sorry!

In other news, I just ordered fabric for the first time. When I used to kid myself and think that i could sew ok, I would pick up a yard or 2 at wal-mart. But I'm a big girl now and I know what the fabric is and what suits best for what and I ordered some yummy fabric today to start on a little decorating/sewing project that I have planned for this month. See? I'm following through on that Susie Homemaker resolution! And no, you can't see it...you can just wait until I do my project!

Old pic, from my Tybee Island girls trip back in September....but you get my drift. I am dreaming of my beach vacation and it can't come soon enough for this old girl!

Friday!!!!!!!!!

I have a tingling crazy feeling about today. Not sure what to expect, but I feel like it'll be fun! So I'm going to start the day off right by blogging on this blog, you know, before heading over to my family blog to ramble as well. Do they have support groups for people who are blogging addicts? I should start one.

Last night I had another bridal consultation :-) Oh my goodness, I just cannot believe that I wasted nearly 2 years of my time doing weddings without insisting on a consultation first. For the first 2 years, however, I was desperate for any wedding that I could book. I knew I could get the shots that I needed, but I wanted the weddings under my belt so that I could honestly say "I'm experienced". However, I got a lot of calls and emails from people that went something like this...and I kid you not: "I'm getting married in two weeks and was wondering how much you charge to do a wedding?" Wow...that's...special. I mean, I have arrived at the wedding before and had no idea what the bride OR groom even looked like. "Are you the Groom? have you seen the bride? Are you in the wedding party? Are you even here for the wedding? Oh you're the plumber...good to know! Carry on!"

Can you IMAGINE the pressure of photographing one of THE most important days in a persons life and yet...you don't know them. You know nothing about them other than the fact that they needed a cheap photographer FAST and you were it. Hey, I was always glad that I could help out, I usually ended up enjoying myself and becoming friends with the bride by the end of the day, but you really need to understand a couple to get it all right. So I am happy to say that I have had 2 bridal consultations this month and they both went wonderfully and I am super duper excited about working with these two beautiful brides in 2010. I feel totally justified now by refusing to do a wedding without a consultation. I need to know you, and you need to know me. So that's that. *crossing my arms and nodding with a 'humph!'*

Ok, ok...picture time! Yesterday I got to spend a little time with 2 of my favorite folks in the world...Constance, my wonderful sister-in-law, and my 3 year old nephew Caleb! This was long over due and I feel like a failure of an Aunt for letting us go so long between portrait sessions. Calebs last one with me was October of 2008 :-( See!?! I feel just terrible. Anyway, here are a few of Caleb around our house yesterday afternoon!









If you know Caleb at all, you'll love this one. Let's just say that stupid "Pants on the ground" song is Calebs new theme song. The poor kid has no waist, no butt, and is pencil thin...just like his daddy!




Now since we had them all together, we thought we would at least TRY to get a good picture of all 4 of the grandkids together. Umm, there is always easter...


Yes, that WAS the best one. The rest of them looked like this:


Have a great weekend everyone!

Look who came to see me this afternoon :-)

My little nephew Caleb :-) Can you believe he is getting so big? It's NUTS. I love this kid, look for more pictures of him in the coming days!

Bob Dylan

Yeah, Yeah, I know...

I forgot about this song. How do you forget that there was one song that you always thought was so great and one of your favorites? Meh, have 3 kids, you'll be AMAZED at the CRAP that you forget when you have kids! Its NUTS!



(those of you readers who know our friend will get a kick out of this. Seth and I were watching this Sunday night and we both agreed...Bob Dylan looks like and reminds us BOTH so much of Seth's friend Drew. LoL. God bless you Drew, I hope you don't look at ugly as Bob when you are old, if it is any consolation sweety, I think Bob Dylan was pretty hot back in the day!)

To my sweet babies:


May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

The McGee family

All I can say to these people is THANK YOU! This sweet family drove to me all the way from Waleska. We had originally planned to meet half way in Cartersville, but circumstances and some serious miscommunication(totally 100% MY fault!) changed our plans at the last minute and they had to come all the way to Cave Spring. Y'all, I am SO sorry for the mishap, but I was glad that you and the kids had fun at the park :-) Thanks for understanding our situation! And thanks for not thinking me too unprofessional for letting my daughter tag along, she had a lot of fun!

This is Katie. I wish I was more like Katie. She got out of the car, walked straight up to me and shook my hand and said "Hi, I'm Katie!" I couldn't imagine being that confident at her age! Most kids take at least 10 minutes to warm up to me, but Katie and her little brother Sean acted as if they had known me all their lives.















And just one of Mom & Dad, just for fun :-)

outside

I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods. Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup. ~Wendell Berry



To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. ~Jane Austen






There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me. ~Thomas Jefferson