|
May 29, 2007 - how you know when the
shoot's done
The baby tears down your backdrop and
crawls away!
May 28, 2007 - studio with bounce flash
More experimenting yesterday - see them all
here.
May 25, 2007 - lovely, lovely bounce
flash
Experimenting with bouncing my big flash off
of ceilings and walls to produce more natural-looking
lighting.
Bounce flash
Natural light (below)
Bounce flash (below)
Bounce flash (below)
Natural light (below)
More bounce flash in the basement on the
CaitieBug.com website.
May 22, 2007 - mommy moments
I am so in
love with my daughter. Every day she inspires me and
amazes me. I often find it hard to do what I need to do in
a day because I'm so busy observing her, seeing her learn
and discover everything in the world around her.
Just today she learned how to use her shape sorter,
that you can put the shapes in the little holes and not
just through the big main door. She only knows how to do
the circle so far, but I know the rest will come soon.
She watches me, too. Yesterday I was putting on hand
lotion and she was watching me do it, and she carefully
put her chubby little hands together and imitated me
perfectly, twisting one hand inside the other to evenly
distribute her imaginary hand lotion. It was amazing to
see her do it, that grown-up ritual of women everywhere -
and at 14.5 months old, she's got it down.
Yesterday, too, she stacked her tube stacker perfectly
for the first time, with the tubes in the perfect order -
blue, green, yellow, orange and red. For a couple of days
she's learned that if they don't all fit on the vertical
at one time, you have to rearrange them until they do. But
yesterday, she nailed it. She did it!
We're still working on walking independently, but she
gets a little bit closer every day. She's getting so
brave, pushing herself to standing and then letting go of
her support for brief seconds at a time. Sometimes I can
trick her into taking a few steps when I've got her headed
towards a couch or wall, I can let go and she'll keep
going. I know she can do it. She just needs to work on her
confidence, because she certainly has the strength and the
balance.
It makes me so proud to see her grow and learn, but it
makes me sad at the same time. That's the mommy moment in
it all ... that you can feel such joy and such sorrow at
the same time.
One of these days she's going to grow up and not need
to come to her mommy for hugs and kisses dozens of times a
day, she won't want me to kiss her owies away when she
bumps her noggin, she won't crawl into my lap to tell me
she needs a diaper change and she won't bring me her
stuffed toys for us to cuddle together.
My heart is already breaking.
May 21, 2007 - content cat
Dogs and cats around the ol' homestead are
very happy today after receiving plenty of attention from
nieces and nephews. Spoiled animals!
May 19, 2007 - more cool stuff
Downloaded a free version of noiseware today and I'm in
loooooove. I'm going to buy the real version tomorrow;
this is totally going to change how I proof photos.
I purposely used this very grainy, crappy photo to see
what noiseware could do. See the difference? First,
straight off the camera:
Run through noiseware:
May 19, 2007 - goddamn ducks
Anna, the supposedly-livestock guardian dog, LOVES
water. Even on cold, windy, rainy days like today, she
goes swimming. Today she was after ducks. Apparently, she
thinks ducks need to be barked at. A lot.
And as a comparison, here is the same shot three ways -
how it came off the camera, then with a color pop action
run, then with a moody black and white action run on top
of the color pop.
The uninspiring original
The kind of cool color pop
The moody black & white ... with frame
ala Jenn.
May 15, 1007 - tim mcgraw
Just
watching a bit of the ACMA's tonight - caught Taylor Swift
singing her debut single and hit song, 'Tim McGraw.'
I have a real soft spot for this song. And if I was a
17 year old girl right now, this song would be the
soundtrack of my life.
As it is, the soundtrack of my 17 year old life was
Strawberry Wine, by Deana Carter. It was a poignant song
for me at that point in my life, not necessarily because
my life paralleled the lyrics, but because the emotion in
the song paralleled the emotions I was going through.
To this day, I love Strawberry Wine. But my new
favorite song? Tim McGraw, by Taylor Swift.
Gilmore Girls ... not the way I wanted it to end. I
like definitive endings. I don't like to be left waiting
for the Happily Ever After moment. When Lorelei told Rory
they had a stop to make first, I wanted that stop to be at
a little chapel where they were meeting Luke, so that Rory
could be there for their wedding.
Sadly, there was no Jess in the picture for Rory, so in
my head I'm just going to imagine that they hooked back up
at some point in the future, when Rory landed a job at the
Times and Jess was being his hot literary self in New York
city.
And in my imagination, Luke and Lorelei got hitched and
had twin boys and then a couple of years later, a little
girl.
Because really, that's the way it should have ended.
Should we take a moment to recognize the careers
launched by Gilmore Girls?
Alexis Bledel (Rory)- Starred in at least one movie
since the beginning of Gilmore Girls.
Milo Ventimiglia (Jess) - star of Heroes, also played
Rocky's son in the latest Rocky movie
Jared Padalecki (Dean) - now the star of Supernatural
Adam Brody - played Lane's boyfriend a few seasons
back, then got his breakthrough role in The O.C.
Lauren Graham (Lorelei) - played Billy Bob Thornton's
girlfriend in Bad Santa, also played the principal in The
Pacifier.
I'm sure there are more, but really, that's a
phenomenal list of successes from one wee little show.
Adieu, Gilmore Girls - I'll miss you. My Tuesday nights
won't be the same without you.
May 15, 2007 - in full bloom
Our
cherry bushes are in full bloom right now. So pretty - but
very buzzy with all the bees!
May 13, 2007 - sexy beast
Murphy's a sexy stud dog. At least that's what he told me.
May 13, 2007 - happy mother's day
Today marks my second mother's day. Again, Husband did
nothing to recognize or celebrate the day - though I
suppose it's still early. Here's hoping, right? A "Happy
Mother's Day" would be nice.
To personally celebrate it, I will ... do what I do
every other day. Except perhaps I will not feel guilty for
taking some time to sit on my butt and have a cup of tea.
Baby is recognizing the day by throwing little tantrums
for no good reason - gee, I love it when she's teething -
and by making me a poop. She's so generous with the poop.
Makes a mommy feel needed. She did sleep through the
night, so I suppose that's a nice bonus.
May 12, 2007 - the blog begins
I've stopped and started this blogging thing several
times. I step away, only to come back. And when I am away,
I find myself missing it, this online journaling of my
life. I will write blog entries in my head that are
absolutely brilliant, only to realize I no longer have a
place to put them.
So I'm back. For now, anyway. I'm hoping this new
format - hosted on my own website - will encourage me to
keep coming back and writing a little.
Truthfully, I need to write. It's a stress relief, a
creative outlet, a place where I can go to share my
crackpot theories genius with the world.
I have opinions on such random things that sometimes it's
hard to know where to go with them, what to do with them.
Now they'll go here. For as long as I feel like keeping
this thing going, anyway.
This week I am a little sad that this coming Tuesday is
the last episode of Gilmore Girls. I loves me some Gilmore
Girls. I might cry a little come Tuesday night when the
series wraps up.
Maybe it's the writer in me, but I love the snappy
dialogue. I love that there's so much of it. And that's
probably why my husband hates the show with such a passion
and inevitably disappears on Tuesday nights - you have to
really pay attention during the episode and know what
happened in the previous episode to be able to follow the
storyline.
Last week's episode was interesting. And based on that,
here's how I'd like to see the show end.
Since Rory broke up with Logan, this opens the door for
Jess to return. I LOVE Jess. I love his bad-boyness. I
love his literary mind behind all that bad-ass image. I
love to look at him, and I love the chemistry between him
and Rory.
I want Jess to come back, or for Rory to go to New York
and find him. I want Jess to hook her up with a job at the
New York Times, since he's a New York literary type, he'll
know someone inside the paper. And then I want them to
shack up and get married and live happily ever after and
have lots of little literary babies together.
I want Lorelei to be happy. I don't care if it's with
Luke, or with the realization that she's just fine on her
own, that her true love is Stars Hollow and the people in
it. And if it is with Luke, good, because I love Luke. I
like him because he's crusty but incredibly caring, that
there's more going on beneath the surface than he lets on
initially. I love that his discovering he has a daughter
has changed the path of his life so much and really his
whole outlook, as it should.
Yes, I loves me some Gilmore Girls. So don't be
surprised if there's another lengthy blog post about the
series finale next week - if I can get over my sadness
long enough to write about it. |
