color

I don't know if you know this, but you are supposed to calibrate your monitor every couple of weeks.  That seems really often to me.  But, I think it's like getting your oil changed or something.  I have never done it.  I know Mark has done it a few times, but like someone who can't tell if something is out of tune... I never really saw a difference.  Now that I'm editing photos with the expectation that they will be at a professional level... the minor becomes the major.  I have been spending days and days and days trying to tune it just right.  There are expensive tools you can buy that will do it for you - but... I'm not big on buying things unless there is no way I can do it on my own.  Well... I'm not sure how well I did or how much tuning is still left to do.  So, I'm going to use this post for tests so I can view them on different monitors.  I only have so many monitors to cross view, so if you can let me know if what you see needs correction.... dark/shadowy, orange, blue, washed out, overly contrasted, highlights too blown out, skin is red/blue, black is gray... whatever you see that I can use to get a better final print -- Feel free to chime in with comments!

 

first day in NY~!

Quotes from the last few weeks:

- Mom, stop singing.  It's annoying. (zola)
- Skinny girls freeze to death faster. (random bumper sticker that made my day)
- I would survive all of 4 hours in the apocalypse (mark)
- Oh, this is happening. (hilary)
- Mona, help me.  Melanie is pouring water on me IN THE HOUSE! (mark)
- She's pooping, genius.  (zola)

On Self-Employment

I have encouraged Zola to start collecting aluminum cans to help her learn about money.  She has been dilligently doing so and got her first full trash bag full this past weekend.  I took her down to the place that buys cans and she earned her first $1.50.  (I think the guy overpaid her because she was adorable doing this by herself.)  She is so proud of herself.  We put her money in a savings jar and she gets to play with it for 5 minutes if she behaves appropriately and listens to instructions.

I am going full out on the idea of starting a side-business of newborn photography.  I am taking pictures, researching, and obsessing every free moment I have.  I have bought some equipment that is making a huge difference in quality and am lining up a few more free sessions in the next month or so to hone my craft.  I have tentatively lined up two babies for the next month.  And I'm realizing that I already need business cards because I'm marketing myself everytime I see a pregnant lady!  I'd love to drop off some cards at maternity boutiques, etc. and build my business a little.  Even if I only do two sessions a month, I wouldn't have to cut into our current budget to fulfill a dream of mine... a trip to Italy for our 20th anniversary in a few years.

On Photography

Since I've been investing in my camera equipment and knowledge obsessively, I've been taking a lot more pictures and trying to up my quality.  So, here are a few from this month.  For some reason, they are mostly of my crazy one.  Zola needs video at this point, because her talking is beyond hilarious.

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hobby freak

I guess I only post when I'm excited about a new hobby these days.  My latest is taking newborn pictures.  Here are a few... (thank you parents for allowing me to share)

1/6 playscale fun

I am trying to hand-craft a dollhouse and furniture for the girls before Christmas, and I'm trying to make pretty high quality stuff with mostly just my ingenuity. So far, I have quite the little living room going, and am trying to decide whether to do the kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom next.  It's been really rewarding as a particular piece of furniture can be finished in a day or two where the work on our real house is much slower to get results on.

When I cut the components for my miniature coffee table with my full size table saw, I really felt like I was putting my fingers at risk.  It made me wish these exist.  And they do.  Aren't they adorable?  Now somebody buy them for me! :)

3-1/8" Mini Miter Saw

4" Mighty-Mite Table Saw

I think I am basically obligated to build a playscale garage to build a doll wood working shop in so I can put them away there when I'm not using them.  I just die.

Favorites

So I can turn you on to good stuff...  I tried to populate these recommendations with things you might not otherwise consider.  The mainstream popular choices that I like but assume you already know are excluded.

TV SHOWS

Lost
Battlestar Gallactica
Arrested Development
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Breaking Bad
The Wire
Once Upon a Time
Dexter
Big Love
Mad Men
Community
Weeds
Chuck
Modern Family
Heroes
Prison Break
True Blood
Wild Palms
Eureka
Dollhouse
Star Trek: Next Generation

MOVIES

Saved!
Life Aquatic
Fight Club
Donny Darko
Truman Show
Royal Tenenbaums
Little Miss Sunshine
Triplets of Belleville
Eternal Sunshine on a Spotless Mind
Amelie
Kick-Ass
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Usual Suspects
Memento
Hard Candy
Chum Scrubber
American Beauty
Spirited Away
Dark City
Matrix
Capitalism: A Love Story
Baraka
Fog of War
Princess Bride
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

BOOKS

Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Not Without My Daughter - Betty Mahmoody
The Massacre at El Mozote - Mark Danner
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
Good In Bed - Jennifer Weiner
Wicked: Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West - Gregory Maguire
Helter Skelter: The True Stories of the Manson Murders - Ann Rule

ACTIVITIES

Watch YouTube to learn how to make/do something and do it
Skateboarding (Never too old)
Rock Climbing
Beer Home Brewing
Sewing (Plushies, doll clothes, and other quick, forgiving single sit projects)
Simple Scrapbooking
Upcycling/repurpose crafting
Toy making
Cycling/Spinning Class
Baking (Breads like cinnamon rolls, pretzels and pastries)

MUSIC

Do, Make, Say, Think
Radiohead
Django Reindhardt
Mogwai
Jenny Lewis
Blonde Redhead

DESTINATIONS

Haarlem, Netherlands
Bryce National Park, Utah
Brugge, Germany
Jerome, Arizona
Gent, Belgium
Solvang, Califonia
Portmeirion, North Wales
Tamarindo, Costa Rica

FOOD

Thai Yellow Curry
Chicken Paprikash on dumplings
Indian Pav Bhaji or Dosai Masala
Rubios Fish Taco
Great Lakes Dortmunder Beer
Chicken Shawarma
Pork Roast with Sauerkraut and Apples
Fried Chicken and Waffles
Grilled Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwich
Sangiovese and Valpolicella Wine
Pickled Mango, Pickled Turnips, Pickled Cucumbers, Hot Pickled Cauliflower, Deep fried pickles
Corned Beef
Homemade refried beans with bacon
Diet Coke (if you drink regular, just keep drinking it -- you get used to the taste and never go back)

i want to be a general contractor in my third career

I had to do a lot of crappy work at the farm and around the house growing up.  I remember laying cement, hanging drywall, framing the garage, digging post holes, and all kinds of non-traditional childhood memories.  It totally sucked.  I hated it, and the only reason I did it was because it was punishment for all the misbehaving I was doing at the time.  I didn't get grounded, I got put to work.

Fast forward to now.  I have my own house and the weird thing is that working on it feels like the ultimate crafting project. It doesn't feel like work at all.  (It is, don't get me wrong. My muscles, lack of skin on my finger tips, and 3rd degree bruises on my legs testify this.)  I just love it.  I love it so much that I keep giving us progressively more difficult and crazy projects -- things that we never thought we would be comfortable doing ourselves.  At yet, here we are.  So over confident that we are probably going to do something wrong and burn our house down.  But whatev. It's fun.

So, I have been obsessing over the right path to take with our fireplace for months.  It's really out of place in the room now that the floors and paint have transformed the style.  And frankly, the genius who put in the top shelf was like... dang, these window seals are in my way.  Oh well, I'll just mount it at a severe angle.  Wow.

It wasn't in the original budget to redo it, so I wanted to keep it small and cosmetic.  Nothing fancy.  Then we got our tax refund and threw some money at it with the AMAZING 485 pound mantel that I posted about last time.  It arrived and we got so excited about installing it that we started logistically planning how it was supposed to fit up against the existing fireplace when we realized it couldn't.  So we (ill-planned) ripped out the brick on the face of the fireplace back to the wall.  Wait?  There was another fireplace behind it.  Weird.  The behind one is really cool.  But the demo left a gaping hole to the outside and now we have birds living in our chimney, our project has quickly spiraled out of control, and we have to call off intalling gas logs to pay for the masonry needed to line the firebox with firebrick and install a new damper and whatever we might need in regards to whatever a "flue" might mean.  And we have soot EVERYWHERE in the house.  It's in the cracks of the wood floor and constantly resettling places so no matter how much we mop and dust... the kids feet are black and they are jumping on the couch.  A bad combo.  Thank goodness these are our "potty training couches."  It might sound like this is a nightmare.  It isn't.  I kind of love the puzzle of figuring out how to fix things.  And like my favorite scrapbooking pages, they always start with some kind of mistake that I have to figure out how to improve on.  I know this fireplace is going to be the striking centerpiece to the room that it should be whenever I figure out what the heck we are going to do.  For now, I decided that as much as I love laying brickwork, we'll call in a pro for the firebox replacement.  It's hard, because I know how to do it and it's not that big of a deal.  But I keep thinking, if it's not sealed properly and we are having a nice Christmas fire and burn down the house... I'll probably feel pretty sheepish (among other strong emotions.)

On the upside, I got to pour the cement pad to mount the hearth on.  That was a blast.  And I feel like Rosie the Riveter.  I'm a rock star.

 

modern family fireplace

So, we only watch TV on Netflix, so we are just now making our way into the show "Modern Family."  Funniest show I have seen since Arrested Development was taken off the air.  I just love it.  I guess I must have been subconciously influenced by the show, because I just realized that the fireplace we bought over the weekend matches the one in Mitchell and Cam's house.  Well, then.  I guess you could say I have the taste of a set designer fashioning a room for a gay couple. Nice.

go pee pee?

Remember this little girl?  This old picture of my little tiny sweetheart that used to wet herself?  She's GONE!  Replaced with a savant at toilet use.  We put it off and put it off, because it just seemed like more work than it was worth to train her, even though she seemed willing.  The few times we tried only yeilded a baby in diapers and a couch that smells like pee.  (Sorry if you have to sleep on my couch any time soon.)

A while back, we over spent on fun... so when it came to buying diapers, instead of going over budget, I suggested Mark give it another try with panties while J was here to help.  And so the mopping started on Monday.  But by Thursday and two bags of M and M's later, we have a kid that had her first full day AND night with no accidents.

california

Here is an old picture from WAAAAAY back in April.  These are my sweeties chillin on our favorite park bench.  They are so adorable.  I spent seven days away from my family on a solo trip to California a week ago on business.  It was both wonderful (to take a break from the screaming toddlers and see my besties) and horrible (to find that I'm spending all my time missing my kiddos.)

While I was there, I attended a series of team-buildling activities... among them, MB2 racing.  These cars go 45 miles per hour, and it's pretty serious racing.  Very fun.  Very.  And we had a couple of very memorable happy hours as well.  So it was not all business and boring.

 And then I got to attend Madhuri's surprise baby shower.  I was so happy to be able to spend some quality time with her, see our mutual friends, and eat all my favorite Indian dishes.  I definitely felt spoiled. 

Off to SFO to spend a day with my Nancy.  Man was it great to see her.  We had a romantic date on the bluffs of the bay, drank wine, did a little Martha Stewart canning of spicy pickled vegetables, and chatted up a storm.  It was hard to say goodbye to my old friends. 

While I was gone (of course), Viola started talking.  Up to then, she has been a single syllable whispered or non-commital gut scream, but as to actually making sounds that add up to anything meaningful, she's been sort of shy to try it despite being able to comprehend at least 75 words.  When I got home, she ran up to me, grabbed my legs, and said "Momma!"  What a welcome home!  She has about 30 words or more now that she can say within a meaningful context (Milk, ball, duck, that sort of thing). 

the teen room reveal

This is almost the before... we had some of the extra furniture from all over the house in here at the time we took these pictures, and only the bed and book shelves (not pictured) stayed in the room.  The room was pretty bare, with drab, dirty pink walls, ugly everything. 

This room will be our office/guest room; but for the time that Tyler lives with us, it will be her bedroom.  So for now, much of the "office-y" stuff is in the attic or basement and we have the extra tv, wii, and dvd player in there for her use (so we don't have to watch "Switched at Birth" and such.)

 The most complete room in the house belongs to Tyler. She contributed a lot of the sweat equity in order to give herself her own space, and we were happy to see a room come together so quickly. We really worked hard.

We already had a foam mattress top, so we found a used twin bed on craigslist for $20.

First we found an old but cute dresser and headboard on the curb. We sanded and prepped them, and modpodged lace to make them a set. Then we painted them both with glossy "Beluga" gray. Wow. Talk about awesome transformation from trash to treasure.

We special ordered some drawer pulls for the dresser to complete the look. (Okay, we attached the two easy ones, but got lazy when we realized we needed to drill holes to attach the other ones, so Tyler just leaves her drawers open an inch. Zola loves this because she keeps snickers in her bottom drawer, and Zola can reach in there.)

We got coordinating green floor lamp, black rug, green and black floral bedding set, big green chair and wall art at Walmart. I already had a black and white damask footrest we weren't using, which matches the look well.

Here is the pallette.  Most of the colors are from the Behr collection and were semi or hi-gloss.  But the green shown is an approximation, because we selected the color from the Martha Stewart pallette and I couldn't find it online to show you guys.

We (Tyler) painted the walls a light grey, with one darker "Cement" grey accent on the wall with the tent-window seat. Most of the trim was painted ultra bright white, but the baseboard was painted Beluga. We got silver switch plates to match the dresser pulls. We still need to paint the ceiling ultra white. 

With the left over three colors of accent paint (Beluga, Green, and Cement) we projected and traced a print out of some wall vinyl we found at Target to create a hand painted mural of tall whimsical lollipop flowers on one wall.

We also had some corner shelves that we wanted to mount on the walls, so we got some scroll brackets and glossy bright green paint, finished them and hung them. (Okay, we hung one, got lazy and never hung the other and now Tyler likes having it at bedside height for her alarm clock, so we just left it there.)

We washed the lace curtains that came with the house and converted one of the bedsheets that came with her bedding set into a balloon valance.

It is amazing how much better it looks in there.  These pictures do not do it justice!  But, here it is, the final REVEAL... dun dun DUNNNNN>>>>