I'm not gone

I realize that I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I miss blogging. I do! I miss playing along with all the HSMSHS gang. I miss YOU!

Reasons I've been away?

1. A visit from my in-laws to prepare for and enjoy (And enjoy I did! I'm so lucky to have really wonderful in-laws!).

2. The local music festival to prepare for and participate in (tomorrow's the last day, THANK GOODNESS).

3. Old friends returned from their summer in the south (still haven't caught up properly with them, though we've called each other a few times)

4. I've started an online Photography course at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Lots to learn and absorb, and a big time commitment.

5. I'm doing a LOAD (LayOut A Day) challenge this month on Flickr (and it's not to late to join! Ask me how!)

6. I've had to shop for new spring/summer clothes for my kids. Because no matter how I beg, they won't stop growing!

7. Speaking of shopping, I have a dress fitting on Monday and have had to try to get ready for that (if only I had lost that 20 pounds!). Shoes, check. Underwear--time scheduled on Saturday. Put off that bra shopping as long as possible!

8. Oh, and a little thing called Girl Guide cookie selling

9. There was a church conference in there somewhere. We billeted people. Which was a first because we're so far from the church itself. But fun.

10. We've also had some beautiful spring weather, so I've been out enjoying it with my family.

11. My LR trial period ran out and I'm waiting for my very own copy to arrive in the mail. So exciting! After processing in LR, it's hard to be happy with just Picasa. So I haven't really wanted to post any recent photos--though I haven't stopped taking them!

EDIT: Just as I typed this, the mailman arrived! Hello LR! I love you!

Why do all of these things happen at once?

So I'm just trying to find my footing, and then I'll leap back into the fray.

Hopefully Monday! Until then, I hope everyone is well!

Friday HSMSHS

I went out and took my Friday shot but forgot to blog it. ACTUALLY--I thought I HAD blogged it, and it was only after I posted that photo from yesterday that I looked and realized I hadn't.

Probably a good thing then that I took a photo of my street so I can find it again ;)

Doesn't the title say Superfluous?

How did a week get away from me like that? I really have no idea why I've been missing the HSMSHS prompts. I haven't even always missed taking the photos, just posting to the blog.

Let's blame it on JanuFeb, shall we? I blame everything on JanuFeb. (We don't get along.)

Anyway, here's a random sampling of some of last week's prompts that never made it to post on time:






And, as it turns out, we have a LOT of carvings in our house. I didn't realize how much I like them until that prompt. I'm still finding "carve" to photograph. In fact, I just now thought of another one. So I can't resist sharing a second carve:

And now that that's clear, I'll be off on a little photo safari to catch up on this week. See you in a bit!

Wheels on the bus...

Go round and round, round and round, round and round....

Last week the wheels fell off my bus for a few days. I watched the HSMSHS bus pull away from the station without me. Actually, I watched all the buses coming and going without me, and sat and had a little pity party about it. It's winter, and despite my attempts to avoid it, depression has found me again. It's cyclical, and though I dodge and weave, it always seems to find me. Traditionally, January isn't a good month for me. Actually, I can usually fight my way through January and then February delivers the knock-out punch. I struggle back to my feet in March and we're back to normal by April. Heck, I'm downright giddy by May. Summers are awesome. Fall is fabulous. I just have to endure through January and February.

The secret to coping is twofold:

First, lower your standards. If just getting out of bed makes you feel brittle and exposed, then get out of bed. When you can. No rush. You're up! Congrats! Anything else you manage today is bonus. No guilt allowed. Guilt only feeds the depression, so it is banished.

Second, try again. So yesterday was bad. Here's another sunrise, another chance to do something right. Not everything, just one thing (see rule one above).

So with Spring only 67 days away and the sweet knowledge that I'll be kicking depression in the face before that, I'm back to playing along with today's sweet prompt: technology.

How I love technology! I love my appliances, I love my OTT-Lite, I love my digital camera and my printer...and mostly I love our computer and high-speed connection. Incidently, we only got high-speed last year, and the cut off is just past our house. We still have friends on our road with good old dial up. I never take my connection for granted. Thanks to our computer and our connection, I have sisters in scrapping, photography and motherhood. I can keep in touch with old friends and family and make new friends all over the world.

So here's our sweet technology. Purchased in 2006 when our old 'puter died, I remember thinking that no one could ever use that much memory. I was wrong, because we've already filled it up, along with an external hard drive. Now we need another. One thing about technology, it's always changing, isn't it?

Snow Exposure

Yesterday was our first snow day of 2009. It was actually a wimpy sort of a snow day, Hubby made it into work just fine and the kids spent lots of time outside playing. Of course I had to get photos of the kids outside! It was my first time bravely taking the Canon out in the winter instead of the old P&S, and I'm really glad I had read a lot of articles about shooting in the winter first.

First shot, I left the camera on the settings I had been using indoors:

Yikes! What a mess! Obviously my settings are so very,very wrong. Let's start with White Balance, shall we?

Oops, had it set on cloudy. It's definitely not cloudy out! In fact, with the sun hitting the fresh snow, it's the exact opposite of cloudy. The world is one giant reflector!

This is going to be an example of making adjustments on the run. I'm walking and adjusting...

So much better! Wow, that WB sure makes a difference, doesnt' it? A simple switch from Cloudy to Auto makes a world of difference.

Now we're still a little blown out. Does it seem bright to you? It seems bright to me! You know what's a quick fix? I'm going to dial down my Exposure Compensation, see what that does for me...

Much better! And just in time, since now I'm nice and close to the kids!

These photos are SOOC just for you (and me), to illustrate the differences and the adjustment process I made. Learning to think on my feet has been one of the biggest parts of understanding my camera and getting great photos. All photos shot using the 50mm, AV setting, f/4....ISO 800? Is that right?

Oops! Guess I should have checked ISO before worrying about Exposure Compensation. Yikes again! That's what I get for going from shooting indoors at night to outdoors in sun and snow. Now we've really learned something--check all your settings before shooting! If I had realized I would have changed that first thing!

Next lesson to learn: spot metering. Because my closeups turned out great, but backing off a bit....

Oh, how that 800 ISO is messing me up! Fortunately I shoot in RAW, and just dialing back the Exposure Compensation a couple more stops in the software that came with the camera....

Saves that one from the dreaded delete key. They're right you know, once you go RAW, you'll never go back! It can allow you to save yourself from even the most boneheaded mistakes...like shooting on ISO 800 on a sunny day.

Thanks for learning along with me! For those of you wondering where my HSMSHS is, well, so am I! Yesterday's prompt was "Homemade" and I was determined to get a scrapbook page done to share with you, but never quite got there. I'm going to see if I can do it today and post a double, otherwise I'll just do today's prompt and post later.

PS: shot of the day:

Oops

My security settings are set so that I have to moderate comments.

I had no idea.

That, and I guess I kind of thought they'd be emailed to me? Bummer.

So I'll get right on that you guys. Thanks for the patience!