More Photography

I thought it was interesting to find this Gatorade bottle half filled with dirt among the dead branches here.

  It seems that all I've been doing lately is photography. This class is so much more intense than the last class, and so much harder, so all I've been doing is working on my assignments just to get them turned in on time. Well, that and a fifth grade biography project that we've been working on every day for the last three weeks, but I digress. These photos are for my second Flickr assignment that we had, and I really liked some of these images. This is an area I found near my house and I loved just finding all this stuff out there.

I thought this was really interesting with the building falling down and the sink in the middle, like this building has just been left to return to nature.

This I thought was interesting because it's just this big slab out there with no building around it

I really liked the color here and the end of the railroad tracks.

This was my favorite. I love how the stick is coming out of the pole like a "tree" and the colors were just beautiful. It had a great sense of irony with this one.

Mom update

I haven't posted in awhile because things have just been too chaotic around here for me to keep up. I've been out to So Cal twice in the last four weeks to visit with and help take care of my mom as she recovered from the surgery to remove the tumor in her colon. She recovered really well from it and has been in really good spirits, so that's been really nice for us. After biopsying all of her lymph nodes around her colon, however, the doctor updated her diagnosis to stage three because of the amount of lymph nodes affected. This means that she will need to have chemo for longer than we originally anticipated. And while she was hoping to return to school shortly, she has had to make the hard decision to be off for the rest of the school year and having the principal tell her class about her condition. I know that she cares very deeply for her students, so this was a really hard thing for her to do, but I hope that it allows her to concentrate on her own health and recovery. This weekend I took the kids out to see her before she began chemo and she decided to go ahead and shave her head now (she has been reading that it is much less traumatic to shave it versus waiting until it falls out), so she had fun allowing her grandkids to do it for her, and of course, with the two of us being scrapbookers, we documented the whole event. All in all, I would say that as we gear up for this next chapter in her healing, my mom is doing very well and is in really high spirits. She knows that all the prayers on her behalf have really been helping and she is grateful to everyone for thinking about her.

The first assigment of the semester

Well, this is the first assignment that has to be turned in anyway. I'll have to post our first official assignment later as its due date isn't until next week so I haven't finished editing it yet. Anyhow, this is what I did for our first assignment this semester. We were given the choice of anything we wanted to do, it just had to fall into the category of fine art and not include pets or animals.

I was really challenged by the idea of not having an actual assignment, so it took me a few days of thinking to figure out what I wanted to do. I finally decided to do oranges for two reasons: they're visually stimulating and they have meaning throughout my life. When my grandparents first moved to where I grew up, it was orange groves everywhere you could see. As a child, I loved to eat any kind of fruit and oranges were in my top five favorites that I could eat whenever. The childhood home that I have the most fond memories of had an orange tree in the backyard and I remember going out there to pick oranges only to get stabbed by the thorns more often than not. We have some distant relatives who own an orange orchard and so every few years we end up with a ton of the most delicious oranges and I just can't get enough of them. Now as an adult, trying to lose weight and be healthy, I have discovered a kind of orange that I'd never heard of before (Cara Cara) and have fallen in love with this sour sweet variety. I probably eat at least three oranges a day right now, and whenever I'm craving sour candies, I can eat one of these to satisfy these cravings. Sour patch kids have nothing on them.

So with my idea settled, I had to figure out how I wanted to photograph them. I had decided to do a series, but I think you can see I was torn between two ideas and so one photo doesn't fall into the category of what the majority of them were and it doesn't fit. Although my professor didn't seem to like my second idea as much, when I have time I might have to edit some of those images and throw them up here to see if it works as a series. If I had more time, I might have tried a few more things so that all five fit the theme I was going with, but I ran out of time. At some point in the future I might try to add to the series of four I have here with other fruits and play with them to make beautiful still life photos with them as well, but that idea will have to go on the back burner for now. I also have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the one on the bottom simply because of how the orange looked when I cut into it. I shot what I wanted before class and then got feedback from my professor and there were a couple I needed to re-shoot, this being one of them. Well, the orange I used the first day to shoot was beautiful inside (it's the one right above it), and I really didn't think I would have a problem getting this shot. I had to purchase more oranges because I'd eaten all of the ones from the first shoot (getting my teased by my class mates about eating my props!). So I purchased more oranges and cut into them with that result. I thought that was pretty odd, so I cut into another one sure I would get a good looking orange on the inside. Same thing. When the third one I sliced into looked the same, I gave up and used the first one I had cut into (mostly because I really didn't think I would be able to eat four oranges in a day and I didn't want them to go to waste).

This shoot was a challenge for me for sure since I was just using window lighting. Whenever I used the flash, it blew out the orange, but in order to get the detail I wanted (especially in the really close up one), I had to really close down my aperture setting so the camera wasn't getting a lot of light. And then I had to figure out how to maneuver my tripod close enough to the table so that I could get super close to the orange in order to use my macro lens. The best part about it being a challenge, though, is that I learned from the experience and that is really all it's about for me right now is just learning as much about photography as I possibly can. I knew after the first day of class that this semester was going to be a huge challenge, but I also know that it will just make me a better photographer in the long run. Here's hoping anyway.

More play time before school

These days I have to get my play time in when I can, between school assignments, my kids, and a husband working more than 60 hours a week. So when I made the cards the other day, I knew I had to follow it up quickly or I was going to lose that creative spirit. This time I used one stamp set that has never had ink and then another that has had little ink. I've also been trying to use my markers more just to get more practice in. On the second one I really tried to get out of my comfort zone a little with the embellishments. I'm not sure I really like them, or that they add to the value of the card, but it's different from my norm, so that's good. Regardless, I had a nice day stamping yesterday. And today it's back to the grind...

Stress Reducer

Sometimes life is so stressful that it makes it difficult to be creative. Lately I've been so wound up that instead of taking the time to make cards or scrapbook, I've just sat around and done a whole lot of nothing. Well, this weekend was really stressful with my mom's surgery on Friday, but I forced myself to start something at least to take my mind off the worry, and I'm really glad I did. I always forget how soothing it is to create something. I don't have anything in mind for these cards, just that I haven't made cards in forever and my card supply is getting pretty low. But I've had this set for awhile and haven't inked it up yet so I thought it was about time to change that. I love the simplicity in these cards but they're still cute. And I really love changing up the colors and getting a card that's a little more whimsical, definitely more my style. Now I think I need to go be creative again so I don't lose my mojo.

Practicing avoidance

I'm really good at avoidance. It is very easy to assume the position of an ostrich with my head in the sand when life gets hard. It's especially easy when the problems are occurring for family members who don't live nearby; since we don't have to see them often, it gets placed in the back of my mind and pushed to the way side. But there always comes a point where you can no longer avoid reality and it all comes crashing down. That moment began for me last night. At the beginning of December, my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer. She is scheduled for surgery this Friday to remove the tumor and remove the lymph nodes for biopsy which will determine how aggressively they have to treat her after the surgery. Schedules being what they are, I pretty much only talk to my mom once a week, and other than the days that she's had that have been really bad, it's been pretty easy to avoid thinking about the implications and get on with my every day life. And now, of course, with the surgery so close, it's become too difficult to avoid and I'm discovering all these emotions that I had buried.

My mom and I didn't always get along. Like most teenagers, I really detested my parents. At the time, I was angry at them for not being perfect. That all changes when you have children and you struggle to do your best. It definitely gave me perspective on all that my parents were able to accomplish with the five children they had. My mom was responsible for a lot of the good things about me: my intelligence, my foundation in my beliefs, my compassion and drive to be a good mother among other things. Of course she also passed on the scrapbooking gene, so I definitely have to be grateful for that. I know from talking with her that this journey she is on has really shown her how much she is loved. I may not be as eloquent as I would like to express how I feel about my mom, so I will just keep it simple. I hope that she knows that I love her with all my heart.

And now a request. I would ask that you keep my mom in your prayers this week. We may not all believe the same things or practice the same religion, but I believe that our Father in Heaven doesn't care how you come to Him, as long as you do. My family is going to be fasting and praying for her on Friday for her surgery to come out well and for her to recover quickly both from the surgery and cancer. If you feel so inclined, please join us. I know that through faith all things are possible and I have the greatest faith in my Father in Heaven that my mom will be cared for and will be restored to full health.

Christmas

Christmas this year was fairly difficult for me. I'm normally pretty enthusiastic all during the month of December, going all out to decorate and doing a bunch of fun things with the kids. This year I just didn't have it in me. We decorated a little, but definitely not anywhere near what we usually do. As we approached Christmas, it seemed to bother me more than normal to have the kids start talking more and more about what they were going to get. Every time Jason asked me what I wanted for Christmas morning (since I'd already gotten my big gift), I would get irritated at the thought of him buying me anything else. Finally I came to the conclusion that what I wanted most for Christmas was for him and the kids to make something for me; I wanted them to really put some thought and effort into it. At some point I will have to photograph what he came up with because it was really great, and I'm really lucky to have such a wonderful husband. The kids attitudes got much better and so Christmas morning was really enjoyable. As we were going to bed the night before, I told the younger kids that I didn't want to be woken up until 7 am at the earliest. Well, my alarm went off at 7 and right behind it I could hear my door banging open and Lindsay telling me it was time to get up. Jason and I got up a few minutes later but Bailey was a little harder to persuade. The kids had a really tough time entertaining themselves while waiting for their pre-teen sister to rouse herself out of bed.

 
 
In our family, the kids aren't even allowed to go downstairs to see what Santa left them until they're all together and mom and dad are ready so they're always pretty anxious before then. Finally they got to come down and open their stocking gifts and I popped our traditional Christmas breakfast into the oven--cinnamon rolls. After we ate, we had to hurry up and get ready for church were I really enjoyed the program that morning. I've always been inspired by music so hearing our wonderful choir sing Christmas morning was a great treat. After sacrament meeting, we were heading out the door when the relief society president pulled me aside to inquire about my mother, and poor Lindsay had just about had it. She was just beside herself in her desire to get home and open her gifts she was literally pulling me away from the conversation.


I think when it came down to opening gifts, she was not disappointed as our kids each received some pretty cool gifts.

 
 
Jason had also received his Christmas gift before Christmas, but I had a few little things for him to open and then had each child make something for him that I framed so that he could have things from the kids on his desk at work. Lindsay illustrated a picture of our dog, Charlie, begging for food. Cole made Jason a Star Wars comic that was short but funny. And Bailey took a photo of her dad and put a troll over his face which had him almost in tears he was laughing so hard.

 I think my favorite part of Christmas is getting to spend the time with my family goofing around with each other. Another of our traditions is that we put silly names on the gift tags, so before someone opens a gift, they have to read the names on the tag out loud. This is the first year that I had the kids come up with the names on their own and it was pretty entertaining. One year I really should write down the silly names we've come up with because it is pretty hilarious sometimes. We also try to be funny with our gifts. For instance, the last few months, Bailey and her friends have begun watching a "My Little Pony" cartoon on television, so of course we've been teasing her mercilessly about it. As I began wrapping gifts, I found some old "My Little Pony" Christmas wrapping paper that I had bought years ago for Lindsay and wrapped all of Bailey's presents in it. And of course I gave her Pinkie Pie, her favorite pony from the show. I know that all too soon my kids are going to be grown and won't be with us each year on Christmas, which makes me enjoy these days so much more to just laugh and be goofy with my little family.