Damn I'm Good!

I LOVE Photoshop! Best tool in the entire world and we're lucky to have it at our disposal! Just check out what I was able to do with one of Jill's photos. I adjusted color and contrast and made it EVEN better (in my opinion of course) - please share opinions on if you think it's better or not! I'll probably continue posting more examples as I continue re-learning Photoshop (it's been years since I used it last for major photo editing).

Original Photo
Retouched Photo

Free Photography!

For as long as Jill and I have been friends we've always wanted to have our own business together. I've wanted my invitation business for a while now (I've blogged about it in the past) and Jill always wanted to do something artistic - she is very talented. For as long as we've been friends she's been taking pictures of us together non-stop! Almost all of the pictures I have of myself were taken by her. The one at the top of my blog is one example ;)

So the time feels right for us now to start making things happen. We're going to start out getting her photography business going. She's already good but of course everything can be improved upon. With the help of Ramin and Chris we're going to build a website but first, we need photo examples to put on the website! Jill is good with outdoor location settings so that's what most of her photos are so far. Eventually we'd like to build a studio in either her house or ours, depending on she moves.

Anyway, we're offering free photo sessions to anyone that is interested. We need to gain experience and hone the skills needed to do this professionally! I'm learning Photoshop again in order to retouch and enhance the photos and Jill will be doing photography classes. We are both totally serious about this. Eventually, once I can afford to buy a nice printer, we'll add in the invitation side of things to our business. So we can produce both wedding photos and invitations!

We've already got one family lined up to take some pictures with (thanks Becky!) and hopefully we'll get some more through word of mouth. I'm using the power of Facebook to advertise this venture as well spreading the word around work! Jill is doing the same with her friends and family!

Wish us luck cause we're in for a long ride! It will be fun though!

Here are some examples of Jill's recent photography!

Sellin some stuff...

If you or anyone you know likes Lia Sophia jewelry - please check out my auctions on eBay right now! I've got so much Lia Sophia that I've never worn some of it! So I'm selling the stuff I never wore :) It's all new and comes in boxes. Check out my auctions by clicking HERE!

Here are my items:

Happenins

Holy crap! Can Lady look any cuter?!?! We were out in the yard this weekend and she decided to sit on the porch and watch over us. I love her feet hanging over the edge! And yes, she has her sweater on still because she shivers in the house after we got her groomed a few weeks ago. She's an old lady with poor circulation now ;)

We cleaned up the East side of the backyard this past weekend. What a MAJOR difference. This side was A LOT harder than the West side because it had more weeds and rocks in it. It took us about 2 hours but it was totally worth it!

And then we have our tree! It's hard to tell from the picture but it's at least 12 feet tall now. I remember early last Spring of last year that I showed it to my mom and Bob and asked if they thought it was really a tree. I remember Ramin really didn't think it was but I knew in my heart that it was a little tree. It was only about 6 inches tall at that point. Now, just a little over a year later it's fully growing! I trimmed it up a few weeks ago and ever since then it's just exploded at the top growing all kinds of leaves and branches. I'm so excited because I LOVE watching things grow! It's kind of in a crappy place in the yard but I dare not risk moving it hehehe. We think it's some kind of maple tree :)

Hmmmm

I read the paper every Sunday. I usually skim through it for stories I'd like to read. This morning I found one right away, right on the cover. I recognized my philosophy professor on the cover this morning and I read the story. The class I took with her last semester was an Applied Ethics course called Drugs and Justice. Because I was the only philosophy student in the class (it was a large class mixed with many majors) I got the opportunity to work with her one on one to develop a very interesting paper. She worked with me after class every week helping me think about issues and come up with interesting topics I could potentially write about. In the end I ended up writing my paper about entheogens, or religious use drugs, as I've already blogged about of course. She gave me insight and help about this topic. As I met with her every week we usually say outside after class as she'd eat her lunch and we'd discuss. People would randomly come up to her and ask how she was doing and I always got the sense that she was coping with something difficult. One of my previous professors came up to her once and they had a long discussion as the other professor recently lost her mother. I listened as they both talked about life and death and how they each coped with it. I knew Professor Battin (the current professor) was obviously dealing with something but I never could figure it out and I wasn't rude enough to really ask. I also admit that during each of those sessions with her I was always in a rush as I wanted to hurry in to work. I will also admit that I could have done a LOT better in that class than the B+ I got at the end, but I figured it was my last semester and I just didn't have the energy.

Well today after I read the article in the paper I feel rather odd about things. All this time she was helping me and she had this HUGE issue in her life. It amazes me. It says in the article that she continued working in order to keep herself grounded. This is amazing to me. I really did learn a lot from her during that class and it was one of the more enjoyable classes I've ever taken in my life. I just wish I could have had more heart in it. I guess hindsight is 20/20 now. I'm going to keep the article from the Tribune, I'm not really sure why. Maybe one day when I need some help coping with something I can pull it out and see her strength.

Here is the link to the online version of the article: Click Here

I highly suggest at least watching the little video clip of her speaking. Very thought provoking.

It makes you think, in a good way :)

I wonder if I should send her an email and say something, but what do I say? I'm of no significance to her life, but I somehow want her to know that my experience with her will stay with me forever. I dunno...I'll think about it.

Good Chick Flicks

So I had a chance to watch some good chick flicks this week. Tonight I watched "Rumor Has It" with Jennifer Anniston and Kevin Costner. Man was it good. It was funny and sad and kinda makes you think about your own life - I like movies like that. Sure it's a chick flick but what's a chick flick really? It's a movie about relationships. It doesn't have action or suspense (usually) but you can relate to it and think about the story. That's why chick flicks are good. I think they really help women understand themselves in a certain regard. The other movie I watched this week was "Waitress" with Kerri Russell - also very good movie. Quirky, funny and a bit sad as well. I always cry at pretty much any movie so it might not be sad for everyone. Here are the trailers for the movie if you're interested in checking them out. And if you're a guy, I say don't shy away from so called chick flicks, especially the good quirky ones, cause those are usually the ones that actually have meaning and shed light into the human experience ;)





And here is one other movie that I've always loved for a LONG time "The Good Girl" - it also has Jennifer Anniston in it but I absolutely LOVE this movie and have seen it many times!

Plants and Such

So when I started this blog a little over a year ago, I mainly wanted it to be a place to show progress of my "garden". I don't know why but I LOVE taking pictures of my plants and comparing them to older pictures and seeing the progress. I just love watching things grow and change. So here are some updates of the current state of our yard, pots and garden ;)

This is our snowball bush out front. Last year it was pretty weak and bloomed nothing like it has this year! I see these bushes around a lot at other houses and these things can get HUGE! My mom even has one in her backyard. We will have to watch this as it grows and keep it in check. It sure is pretty though!

The completed side yard complete with new English Boxwoods, Firebushes, Lilac bushes and a small evergreen tree. There are also some red pointy plants we found that we love - can't remember the name right now. I think it will be neat to see how all of this fills out NEXT year and compare it to this picture right here!

Some of my potted plants on the front porch. I cannot believe how awesome the petunias are doing. Everywhere I planted them has been excellent. They just explode and fill out wherever they go. These plants have only been in their pots for about a month. I can't wait to see how they progress over the summer!

These pots are all in the backyard. I added in some of those cute small purple/blue flowers. I don't know their name but you see them a lot in manicured flower beds so I figured I'd see how well they do. They do like a lot of shade so that's why I planted them out back, we only get morning sun up close to the back of the house.

This is probably my favorite plant! It's my delphenium. We found this plant late last fall at Lowes. They were trying to get rid of all of their last plants and it was only $5!!! It only had a few flowers on it at the time and it was very scraggly looking. I knew I could take care of it and so we got it. I had no idea how awesome it would be once it started blooming! Right now it's in the pot on the porch, however I will end up transplanting it soon I think. I need to research whether it would be better to place in the backyard or someone in the front, it depends on how much sun it needs. Right now it is getting full sun all day and it seems to like it :)

This is one of two hanging baskets on the back porch. Ramin was nice enough to hang them up for me. In fact, he bought me these baskets a few years ago for Valentine's Day I think when we lived in our townhome so I could start my little potted garden. I love hanging baskets! I kind of wanted to do something different with these but I had so many petunias left that I had to put them somewhere :) I literally used all of my pots I had to accomodate all of the petunias I bought! Next year I want to try some Creeping Jenny in the baskets - it's an AWESOME plant that has long tendrils that flow over the side of the basket - I had them once before and loved it.

So here's where we get to the big surprise! The picture above is our East side of the backyard. You can see how horrible and overgrown it is. Well, on Saturday while Ramin and I were doing yard work out front, our neighbor who lives 2 houses down came over to offer some advice about our grass. We gladly accepted it and got to talking with him for a long time. He took us over to his house where his wife was doing some gardening. These people have a GREAT front and back yard - they took us back there to check it out. We were very impressed! The wife does a great job with the flower beds and has a ton of cool ground covers that she maintains fairly often. So she gave us a whole bag of newly pruned ground cover and told us to use it, which we loved! So that night we decided it was time to start doing something about that back yard. We thought it would be so much work but honestly it was WAY easier than we thought. When the previous owners did the whole curbing thing out back they actually put in awesome planting soil. All Ramin had to do was hack out the grass and break up the dirt with his pick and then I went over it all with the metal rake. Yeah there were some big rocks but we just thew those to the side and now you can really tell the difference it made in the bottom picture. The bottom is the West side of the yard after we did the work. It used to look like the East side! And all of the greenery in there now is all of the ground cover the neighbors gave us! I can't wait for it all to fill in and spread so I can transfer some to the other side :) What a difference eh?

So I'm done talking about my plants and such. I just love watching progression. Now that I have time to focus on things I know I'll gain more enjoyment from it. The last two pictures are just random ones I thought I'd share. Here is Lady and Belle and being cute. They lay like this a lot when Ramin and I are both in the office :P

Chris got a new toy called Bucky Balls or something :P They are super magnetic balls that you can shape into many things. Here we made Chris wear a headdress :P

A New Goal

Ramin and I have had some long talks lately about what the future holds for us. Now that I'm done with school we can really start focusing on what we want to do. Obviously we'd like to get married, but we feel that we should get much of our debt paid off before we do that. I've got the bulk of the debt thanks to years of credit card use and school expenses not funded via student loans (those are a whole other ball of wax). So, in order to accomplish this goal I've decided that I need to start getting serious and be strict with myself. We're going to consolidate all of my debt onto one of Ramin's cards that has no interest until August 2010. So that will give me about 14 months to pay off all of my debt. I won't give the exact sum, but let me just tell everyone right now that I won't be doing anything extraneous during this time. When I hang out with friends I need to curb the shopping and eating out to lunch. Instead we need to do free things like going hiking or walking or riding bikes (this is also good for the fitness goals). Now that we've laid out a pretty clear path to be debt free, it will be easy for me to stick to I think. I just have to be focused. I need everyone's support in this and it will be great. I still will have money to buy necessary groceries and such, but the fun stuff is out. I've decided I don't need anything more for the house (at this time) - it's decorated enough and we have all necessary supplies. All of our big purchases have been made for now. We are quite comfortable in the current state so I don't really forsee this as a problem, instead I look at it as a challenge. I've heard of these people who have challenged themselves not to buy anything other than necessary food for an entire year. Many of them said how liberating it was to be out of the "rat race". I think this is how I'm going to look at it. No more clothes, shoes, jewelry, hobby stuff (already have enough supplies to last a while), movies, etc.

This will be a challenge but I hope come next year we'll be in a better position for everything!

Random Stuff

Last week of sabbatical...today I went grocery shopping and to Michael's where I bought some crafting supplies. I like tole painting and painting ceramics. I have to order the good ceramics online but I bought some silly little wood things to paint :) I laid outside in the sun for a bit and read a magazine...that was fun...the dogs enjoyed it too.

I'm waiting right now for Chris to get off work - we're heading to the Jordan Parkway trail. I went on the trail last week with Lisa - it was AWESOME! Chris and I are going to try and go twice this week and I may go again this weekend with Lisa now that she has school again. I love biking along that trail because it's about naturistic as you can get in the valley - otherwise you'd have to go up to the mountains. I also want to try and hike up City Creek Canyon this week too sometime - probably with Chris.

Let's see - the neighbors next door moved out last week. We only have neighbors to the west of us since we're on a corner lot. I made a comment about their yard looking crappy when Chris and I pulled up to the house the other day...that's when I noticed they had a sign taped to their door. I knew they were gone so I walked up and read it - apparently their house is going up for auction. I assume they are in foreclosure. In a way it's sad cause they seemed like nice people. They didn't really ever come talk to us but they did keep their yard nice last year and even made a cute little fountain/pond thing out front. On the other hand they were kinda trashy :P We always had trash in our yard from them cause they had a ton of kids there. I used to pick up trash in their yard sometimes too when I'd be out picking up trash. All I know is that I hope a cleaner family moves in :P

That's pretty much the update. Tomorrow I am going to try and get my graduation pictures mailed out to everyone, yes this does include the grandparents :) Be on the lookout near the end of the week for pictures.

Painting

I had a very productive week this week! I am very proud of myself! Ramin left for Connecticut on business Thursday morning and I decided it would be a good time to get some painting done while he was out of town. Originally I had wanted to paint the office, both bathrooms upstairs and the main wall in the family room, however, after painting just the office and the master bathroom, I think I'm done painting for a while :) Here are the progress pictures!

The office was hard to paint because the desks we have in there are HUGE and cannot be moved easily unless they are taken apart. Instead of doing that I just decided to work around them and paint individual walls and shift things around.

Because of the shifting I was able to paint some of each side of the window wall, however my desk was still in the way at this point so I couldn't paint it all - this picture shows a nice contrast between the white and the pale green color I used called River Reed.

I did use drop cloths, although I'm a good painter and didn't drop any paint. The drop cloths were pretty much just annoying :P I did a good job of taping up all of the trimming as well.

The living room looked like a disaster area for the past 3 days because it was the holding place for all of my junk from the office while I was painting. You can see all of my books :P

Ramin's desk in the completed room. I reorganizing everything and felt good to be able to clean things up and dust everything off!

My desk in the completed room. Again, you can see the contrast of the paint with the closet doors. Keep in my mind that I chose this color not only because it's a soothing color for an office, but also because this will be a nursery when it's time to have kids....so I was thinking ahead ;)

And my newly organized bookshelf! I'm so proud of all my books! I have recently purged some books so the ones left are the good ones. Ramin has a little section of the books in the lower right hand corner of the bottom shelf :P He has like 4 books.

Ok, bathrooms SUCK to paint! All of the little crevices and corners, PAIN IN THE NECK! I don't think I'll be painting the other bathroom up here - it's just not worth it. Also, the color we chose for the bathrooms and living room is a light almond color, VERY subtle and I'm kind of mad I didn't get a test sample first. I of course notice the difference because I pay attention to color, however, most people probably wouldn't.

The bathroom is finished now, but it's not worth taking pictures because you can't notice anything different :P So I've only included the contrast pictures from when the job was in progress.

So, painting was hard and I don't think I want to spend the last week of my sabbatical doing it. Instead, I plan to get lots of sun, catch up on some good reading, create some scrapbook pages and organize my music on my computer. The past 3 weeks have been a whirl wind and I'm kind of ready to just spend a few days at home lounging around....after all, I am on sabbatical right?!?!