10 june 2011

I filled up a trash bag full of stuff in my office. Not even a dent. I hate throwing away things that are still good, but I know I will probably never get around to organize them. These are bits of pieces I either have as leftovers or samples I got when I was in business. Stuff I can sell is going into baskets and boxes.

I did POTD. I was sleepy this morning and had no idea what to shoot.

I finished organizing 2007 photos. Now onto 2008. I thought they were organized. And they are for the most part. They are rated and key worded but file names are not consistent.

I took a survey and won a collection pack from Basic Grey. How funny since I don't use paper anymore. I could ask for a digital kit but am going to give it to Bonnie instead. She is off scrapbooking this weekend so I won't hear for a while.

I made a digi card.

I had leftover pizza for lunch. I heated it up in the oven. Times like this I wish I had a toaster over but we have a microwave instead. No room for both.

I have been looking at online classes for scrapbooking. I really don't need them. I like the challenge of getting things done. I need a clean your space challenge like I did years ago on Two Peas.

09 june 2011

At the pool. Hot in the sun. Cool breeze in the shade. Crowded today.

I worked on my 2007 photos. They are mostly done. I am renaming some to be consistent. Klean Kanteen is having a photo contest. I brought some legos and my small orange Kanteen. I also remembered my camera. I am sure I probably looked like a dork with my macro lens and flash. And I may not even enter since the contest runs through Facebook. (The photos are OK, I will process them tomorrow.)

We forgot to bring in the pool bag on Tuesday. Things were still damp bit not stinky yet.

When we got home yesterday, it was about 2:00. I Checked the mail and the box was empty. Today as we were leaving, I noticed the box on the stool next to the front door. I forgot to look there yesterday. It is my layouts from Persnickety Prints. I can start a 2011 album. Ryan wants me to start 2008-2010 first. (The photos look good. I will order more when I win the lotto.)

I am noticing Ryan notice girls. Especially pretty girls.

We did our lunch and grocery thing. The boys helped bring in the groceries. Actually, they brought most of them in. They are becoming more helpful.

My friend came over to use the Internet and I ordered pizza. Andy ate most of a medium cheese pan pizza by himself. We talked and all of a sudden it was 7:58 and Andy was wondering why Savi was still here. I went to take care of Ryan and she left.

I did a quick card and POTD posted.

08 june 2011

I probably give Ryan too much authority in this house. But it makes more easier living. At least that is what I keep telling myself. Every morning he bounces back into bed at 6:30 in order to wake me up, kick me out and watch tv. And most mornings I ask him what we are doing today. His typical answer is "stay home." Today he surprised me. He said he would tell me in 10 minutes. He left the bedroom, went out into the garage and intro the van to get his atlas. After a few minutes, he came back and said Alafia River State Park. OK. We have never been there. It is south of Plant City. I just looked it up and it is mostly for off-road biking. It should be interesting.

2006 is done. I had some trouble with LR crashing every time I tried I tried to look at two specific images. They weren't great so I deleted them. Everything worked fine after that. I have key-worded and organized over 1800 photos. I threw away a lot. I think this is enough for now.

I did some Lego shots then we got ready to go. The park is about an hour away. It is mostly a park for off road bike trails. Ryan wandered a bit and took photos. Then he complained that there weren't any trails to walk. I explained that there is a multi-use trail but he wouldn't go on it. He said he wanted to just go to the playground. Then he saw a sign and went off to read it.

The following is from my notes that I typed while all of it went on. I am nerdy that way. And it kept me from showing how upset I was to Andy.

12:05 I am so angry right now. Ryan took off on his own. I do not know which direction he went. I do not know if he is OK. For someone who must obey the rules, he disobeyed a big one. He has no map. No water. No ID. I do not know how long the trail is. I do not know if it is safe. There is no park ranger here. I want to beat him for making me feel like this. (I say I want to beat home a lot. I never do. I am all talk.)

It has been about 20 minutes. I hate waiting. Not knowing.

There are two picnic pavilions. They are nice. Their roofs are metal and they have ceilings. So as the metal heats up, he expands and makes a sound like thunder.

There are 3 horse riders going on the trail. They are going to freak Ryan out.

I hate this!

Just saw one ranger who couldn't get off the phone to help. Another ranger came up and said the trail would "take a bit." What the f*** does that mean? She finally said about 45 minutes. She and the guy on the phone finally went driving down the trail.

Ack. I couldn't even remember what Ryan was wearing but I looked at the photos I had and saw the striped shirt. I showed Catherine. Signals are weak here. Hope the phones will work.

I have a headache.

11:43. Rangers came back without him. They have gone off on foot this time. Biker has also gone back. This really sucks.

11:49. A third ranger showed up. He showed more urgency. He took off in his truck on the trail.

11:58 Third ranger came back alone. He seems like an ass. He is standing at the trail head.

Wish I had someone to call. I have to be calm for Andy though he knows I am upset.

12:01. Two rangers. No Ryan. I want to cry.

12:15 Finally went to the car to get something to drink. Catherine said not to worry. Easy for her to say. The trails are marked in the trees with red. I didn't know and I doubt Ryan does. They say it is easy to jump from one trail to another. Catherine also said we should stick with country parks which have paved trails. (D'uh!)

12:25 Ranger 3 came back, his name is Coy. They are trying two other ways. If no luck then they call EMS. Awful dread... They found him.



Actually he came back on his own. He got mixed up and was on the bike trail (the trails are NOT marked well). He saw some bikers who said they were looking for him. Then he saw the ranger as he neared the trail head.

I tried to stay angry and calm at the same time. I needed Ryan to know how wrong he was. But I couldn't yell or it would get Andy upset. All Ryan cared about was his iPod. I said he could have it back after I calmed down. He kept asking about which made my ire continue. We went to get lunch in Brandon.

I finally gave Ryan his iPod when we stopped at Chick Fil A. I couldn't stand to listen to him complain. I wanted to yell but knew it wouldn't help. A few (dozen) deep breaths and I did feel better.

I came home and uploaded photos. There were less than 100 and only about a dozen I wanted to keep. I did the first half of a layout and also a card for my nephew.

07 june 2011

A day at home. Ryan went out to get the trash can on his own. I love that my boys are finally getting the hang of chores.

Last night I came up with an idea for a back to school Lego shoot. But had to struggle to come up with something for today's POTD.

I keep running out of podcasts to listen to. I subscribed to 2 new ones but I am on the fence. Both are from Maximum Fun. The first one, My Brother, My Brother & Me is not my style. Too many voices and I can't tell them apart. Stop Podcasting Yourself is a bit better but maybe because I picked episodes where I know the guests.

I had planned to work on my Disney photos but felt like I wanted to get 2006 cleaned up. I am purging more unsharp photos. I really thought I took more photos. Going through these photos, let's just say 2006 was the year of the slob. I am almost done with 2006 photos.

Dinner was salmon salad and really sweet tomatoes. Yum.

I have to stop eating so much cheese. Enough said.

06 june 2011

Ryan has been looking through my layouts. I sat down with and noticed some bent pages. On further investigation, the glue failed to keep the layout on the page. I have also seen failure of cardstock to cardstock. All using Creative Memories glue. I am disappointed and feel even better that I have switch to digital. Ryan wants me to catch up on layouts. I pretty much stopped at 2006. The 2007 layouts I have done were for Hillary's One in 48.

I sent 16 digi layouts to Persnickety Prints for printing. Their prices are a lot cheaper than Mpix. I hope the quality is good. They already shipped my layouts!

I am finished organizing 2005 photos. They are tagged an starred and put into collections. I will move on to 2006 before tackling the earlier years.

We are at the pool. Andy is swimming. Ryan is checking out the area. I think he is looking at rocks. I had forgotten my camera ready and still forgot to bring it. This time we were half way here and I knew Ryan wouldn't want me to turn around.

Ryan brought his thermos to the pool. He just brought it to me and said it ha to be taken back because of the rules. I said it was 15' and the line of tables were set back so they would be far enough away. He got out his iPod touch to measure. That was too hard so I grabbed a beach towel which is 6' long. Turns out the table is only about 13' away. I said he could keep his cup to the back of the table. This wasn't good enough. I said he could move to another table farther from the pool. He moved to the farthest table in the smoking area without shade.

Earlier today, I came across the photos of Ryan walking along the rail at the cottage. He would never do that now and didn't even want to look at them. Now that he knows the rules, he will not deviate from them.

Lunch was the usual, McDonald's then Chick Fil A. I did stop at FedEx to ship a package to my goddaughter. We saw several orange painted bikes along Bruce B Downs. Another reason to remember my camera.

We went to Target for groceries. I didn't go over to the general merchandise side. I didn't need anything. Ryan left me at the beginning to walk over but returned before I got halfway done with the groceries. Target has stopped carrying many of our favorite items. Last year it was the Lender's Cinnamon Raisin bagels. This year is it the Entemann's Popems and now Juicy Juice. Publix is more expensive and I would prefer to shop at Target.

I saw my friend Lianna at Target. She lives down the street but we don't see each other much. She is busy with homeschooling and such. Her kids are just younger than mine and they love to be left home. Yet, she feels bad leaving them there.

I took nap to try to ignore the cramps.

I woke up in time to make dinner. Then I made a card and edited the photos from Andy's field trip to the bowling alley. Tomorrow I can work on Disney photos.

I decided I wanted a logo or badge for these posts. I came up with one but was not in love with it. I tossed the first away and did another. We'll see how long it stays.

05 june 2011

24 april 2005 lowry park zoo

Waffles and sausage for breakfast. I did my POTD and then made a layout with some really old photos. I looked at the other posts on the capture your 365 blog hop and now want to redo all of my layouts. I think too much. I got the photos done for ESE talent show. Now to work on bowling and special olympics photos.

Dad won't be home for his June 23 dentist appointment. He did emphasize that he will be back. I asked him to bring back as many photos as he can fit in his car.

I did not sleep well last night. I started coughing so I moved to the chair. The computer was awake all night and woke me up at each hour. I had to nap today.

I am still getting used to feedly. I like the look but don't like the lack of features that I am used to with reeder. I tried listening to NPR for iPad but the app crashed. This was after a clean install.

Ryan has been looking at my scrapbooks. Many of my layouts are falling apart. This does not make me happy especially since I bought into the hype of Creative Memories. I believed them when they said their glues held. They did not. And now pages are slipping and getting bent. I am glad I have switched to digital. I do not have to worry about heavy pages nor glue failing. And even then I can print out another page.

I made a digi card then I wrapped up presents for Mary Grace and got the box ready to ship. I also put in some goodies for Bonnie. I wish I could just ship a crate to her and get my living room back.

I am not sure I am buying the whole photo freedom thing. I do like scrapping chronologically. I think Ryan prefers looking at that way too. I do know I have to start printing out some of the digi layouts so he can enjoy them.

04 june 11

No plans to go anywhere today. I made a card. I did my POTD. A little lazy in the inspiration department. I am in the organize mode right now and want to work on photos.

Savi came over and got her stuff. The hard disk still works. She went through my photos and picked out photos she wanted of the boys. Then I started picking out photos to put into a photo book for father's day. I have way more photos of Andy than Ryan. Andy is more cooperative and Andy does more like CBIs and field trips and special olympics.

Most of my photos from 2005 are poor at best. Is it because they got manipulated so much and lost info? When I zoom to 100% and see tons of artifacts. I think I have scrapped these photos but I don't like that I probably cannot print them again with good results. Many more of the originals are gone and I only have thumbnails. Since then, I have gotten better at saving my photos multiple ways.

Tomorrow is our blog hop for Capture Your 365. I used to be very relaxed with photo of the day. I didn't worry if the photo was captured that day, my rule was to process and upload a photo of the day. This year, I decided to capture the photo and post it the same day. Many of my photos were taken with my iPhone. Then Katrina Kennedy started Capture Your 365 and now I am doing more deliberate photography. Sure, most of it is just macros of my legos. But I set up a shot, take multiple exposures and sometimes angles, then process the one I like best. And post it as well. Because of CY365, I started gathering those photos and scrapping them, one week per page. I would like to print them in a book at the end of the year. And like everything else, I procrastinate until forced by a deadline. Today I did four weeks of photos on 4 layouts and posted them on my blog. They are scheduled for 8 am EST so that is 7 EST tomorrow morning.

I watched another episode of Dr. Who. I just started the first season from 2005. Ryan watched a bit and was getting upset with the earth dying. I had to explain it wasn't real. He had to process that. Cartoons are easier to understand that they aren't real. Well, the old cartoons.

03 june 11

I came across this photo today taken in May 2006. It makes me smile. Boys are too cute wearing plaid shorts for Ashlee & Brad's wedding. They look like they are posing for their mug shots.

I told Ryan we needed to go to target today. I needed to refill some meds. He complained. I said he could stay home. He said he couldn't. He doesn't feel safe so I won't push it. He complained about having to go out every weekday. This isn't something I can wait on. So I gave him the choice of what time. He said 1:00 pm and only to Target.

I told Ryan that the family is asking when we are going to go up north. He said, "It's too cold." I agreed. "We prefer the warmness of our hearts." I laughed. "And the coldness of our minds."

This boy cracks me up.

I spent most of the day working on my Lightroom library. I thought things were pretty well organized but I was wrong. Files from before 2007, when I think I switched over to Lightroom, were in a big mess. This was partially the fault of iPhoto. iPhoto save several sizes of photos and I had many duplicates in different sizes. The rest was my fault. I thought I was being clever by combining folders and not caring about the dates so much. As well as being inconsistent with file naming. It was a big mess. I think I have 2005 and 2006 cleared up and ready to go through for Photo Freedom. My goal is to leave the folders alone and use only collections.

My friend Savi came over to use the internets so I used her to watch the boys while I went to Target. The boys were happy that they didn't have to go out. Savi stayed all afternoon backing up to a hard drive. This drive wouldn't work for her before but today it did.

I finally opened some of my Thin Mints Savi gave me for my birthday. I keep them in the freezer and had forgotten about them. They are so good, especially right from the freezer.

I feel better being properly medicated.

02 june 11

First day of summer break. Also first day of Finding Photo Freedom. Instead of starting on that, I went to the pool. It is Thursday and that means swimming lunch and Publix.

I did get dome things done like digi shopping and POTD. I have new characters. I spent time collecting old tires and plane parts and not of that shows in this first scene.

Ryan opted not to swim and so did I. I think I am going to order a swim shirt so my fat, pale arms do not need to show. They are need cheap at least in chubby girl sizes.

The clubhouse has a new pool deck. It was just replaced a couple of years ago but they had problems with it. This one is faux tile. And not a good job at the "tile joints". The tables have also been resurfaced and look cheesy.

I didn't bring my camera today. I remembered when I got in the car. Ryan said I should leave it until next year. Brat.

The weather was nice. The sun is warm but the breeze is cool. All the rain we had yesterday helped. The ladies exercise group is still going. Andy showed no sign of joining them until they neared the end. He didn't get too close and even did some of his own exercises on the pool deck.

Ugh. I forgot how bad the signal is here at the clubhouse. The wifi only works inside the clubhouse. You have to leave the pool area to go in. I really dislike what they have done to this place. It is not friendly at all.

Ryan grew bored and annoyed that Andy was still swimming at 11:15. Ryan only swims for about 45 minutes when he does swim at all. I told him he had to let Andy swim for an hour. I said he could stay home next time. Then I realized that he doesn't even know how to use the phone. Neither boy has shown much, if any, curiosity about the phones. They will look on the caller ID to see who is ringing, but they don't know how to answer the phone. Or make call. I will have to fix that soon.

We did our lunchtime run to McDonald's and Chick Fil A and then to Publix. Ryan did better will pushing the cart than he had on Monday. But he still managed to crash into another cart. I cannot see this boy getting his license in 4 years. Or ever.

Years ago, the boys would whine or make some noise if I was in the "wrong" lane. We are all creatures of habit that they knew the routes and routine better than myself. Today, Ryan's arm kept getting closer to me and I could sense he wanted to steer. He said I needed to get over. But we still have 3/4 miles until I needed to turn. Once I told him the schedule, he was OK with my driving in that he knew where I would be driving. He is a back seat driving in the front seat at the age of 12. And he complained that he could not read the air bag warning on the visor since it was partially covered up by a cd holder. I explained the warning and told him about air bags.

The afternoon seemed to drag on. Probably because I didn't nap. I made a layout and a card and worked on some photo editing. my brother sent me a text to land line message. What an annoying piece of crap that it. The call comes from "unknown" and the computer speech is awful. You must recognize the number or else you will have no idea whom the text is from. It is very bad and takes way to long to go through. I told him to email me. But he doesn't have a smart phone. Ugh. He wanted a recent picture of me and the boys. Double ugh. Thankfully not one exists that I know of.

9:28 pm

Quiet with Ryan asleep and Andy soon to go to bed. He won't go to sleep until after 10, maybe even 11:00. He is a night owl. But he knows to stay in his room and be "quiet" after 9:30. I will probably go to bed soon.

Only 80 more days to go.

bowling for fun

Andy had a field trip at Pin Chasers. Mrs E said they would be there at 9:30. I was there (on the phone with Bonnie) and the bus showed up at 9:50.

The kids were told they didn't need to change their shoes if they had sneakers. That made things go quickly.



They were only allowed to play one game. We got done about 10:30. Then the kids paid their dollar and we walked over to Ci-Ci's. It was not open so we had to wait. Andy was fine because he had his new iPod Touch and was shooting videos.



We had too much pizza. We left about noon and went to Publix we took our groceries home and went to Chick Fil A. Andy had two lunches.



We went to McDonald's to get fries for Ryan. Andy said he wanted fries too. Really? He didn't finish his lunch from Chick Fil A. I got the fries but he didn't eat many. At County Line he burped and said, "I do that on the toilet." Huh? Oh he meant get sick. are you going to get sick? "No." but he sat hunched over and did not eat any more fries.



Later, he went into the bathroom like he was going to throw up. But he had diarrhea instead. He didn't say anything and tried to clean himself. But the stink came out into the room and I knew he needed help.