Photoshop Elements Fun (again)!!!

I’m enrolled (happened to find a free class) in an online photo editing class for Photoshop and here are some of the creation that I’ve made since learning some new techniques. Even with the few lessons that we’ve had so far… I’ve learned SO MUCH! I mean, who would have thought that Photoshop Elements would have come WITHOUT a users manual.

Anyways, I’ve googled and youtubed so many things now and am falling in love with Photoshop all over again! Hard to believe I’ve had it for almost a year now and am just finding out about all of this stuff!

I’m stoked to find out what we are going to learn next week in my class! It is just a two week free course, but totally awesome! These few techniques have opened a whole new world for me! A world that has put the burn for a DSLR camera on the back burner for a little while until we can afford one… and let me really revel in my point and shoot because of all of the post production stuff that I can do… ENJOY!!!

 

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Caved...

A few months ago I wrote a post 'saying goodbye' to a very dear friend of mine. I wrote it on here because I wasn't going to send it, but needed some outlet because I was feeling pretty upset about the whole situation. I mean, from my stand point, I was losing a friend. And in all respects, I pretty much did. After that 'goodbye' I did not hear from said friend for over two months, and this was not a mutual decision.

Given the circumstances of the situation at the time, when my friend said he would write, I expected that he would write. I waited and waited for said letter... and it never came. Anger boiled when I knew he was capable of writing, but wasn't. I rewound time and fueled my anger at him with how he reacted when we lost touch four or five years ago. I justified my anger with the fact that he was just the same person as then and in fact nothing had changed. Our entire friendship was a ploy and I'd been had AGAIN! But I refused to let the anger bring me down to a point where I would retaliate. I kept myself calm and said over and over that this was how it was meant to be. We were apart of each other's lives when the time counted and there was a specific reason for it. As each day went on, I stopped hoping for a letter or even a phone call. I was enjoying life to the fullest and often went days wondering what my friend was up to. (I mean you can't just stop wondering about someone you called your best friend.)

So, what happened? I caved...

I decided that for my own piece of mind, I needed to write my friend one last letter saying goodbye. Not something to post on my blog for everyone, but said friend because he doesn't read this, but something personal to him. I wrote... but my letter was not all nice and cheery. It was three sentences long. I said that I needed to write for my own personal goodbye and the rest was in his hands. I needed to know that I just didn't give up, and that if he wanted to get in touch at a later date, he had the means. I also wished him the best with what life was to bring him.

I wasn't expecting anything back, nor did I really know if I wanted to hear back. But I did... I got a letter in the mail a couple of days later saying that we needed the time apart to focus on other things and while in retrospect I agree that there were things in our lives that we each need to focus on, I do not agree with the fact that one person in a friendship can just decide to call it quits for a while until they feel the time is right.

Probably against my better judgment (heck, I probably shouldn’t have even written in the first place) I wrote back… twice now. Both letters have been void of anything personal and relatively short. I will not jump back into this friendship like nothing happened. My friend stated that of course he was not going to throw me to the curb and that he had every intention of contacting me soon. I call his bluff, but of course I’ll never know. I cannot say if I want to be best friends again or if we will be… as always the future is unknown…

Part of me wishes I wouldn’t have caved… part of me wishes the whole thing away… part of me is sad for all that was lost… part of me longs for the friendship that used to be that will most likely never be the same…

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Long Weekend

We had a great super awesome long weekend! Jay ended up having most of Friday off which was really nice. He had to go in for just a few hours to water some grass and that was it, which left the majority of the day for us to do whatever.

Of the three day weekend we had, I’d have to say that Friday was probably the lazy day of the weekend. I did two loads of laundry (about the norm these days… two loads per week with the bigger washer and dryer) and hung them out to dry. It takes longer to hang the clothes out, but it also saves on energy!!! And me, I’m all about saving energy, lol, well at least when I can!

I also was able to con the boys into letting me take some family pictures earlier in the day. I got some good ones to say the least. They aren’t professional, but they will do for me, besides… they were free! I haven’t finished editing them yet, but when I do, I will be sure to post some. I talk like I am some professional picture editor or whatever. Me and my amateur photoshop elements skills… hey, I can try, can’t I? And besides, it is really addicting!

Saturday and Sunday were both long days, well more so long nights, but you know what I mean. The mornings were spent lounging around the house. Wait, I take that back, we were actually out of the house by 11am on Saturday. We were going to to go Walmart to pick up a few things and got about halfway there when we decided that if we were going to go to the city parade that we should turn around and go. A quick stop at home for some chairs and downtown we went! The parade was short, NOTHING compared to my hometown Father’s Day parade, but it was nice. Ayden got some candy and it gave us something to do for a little while. We went to the city festival (Riverfront Rendezvous) after the parade and got some food from the food tent and had a picnic lunch. It was yummy and because we didn’t have to pay to get into the festival, we didn’t feel bad about spending our money on some food. And the food was really reasonably priced so it wasn’t all THAT bad.

After the parade and lunch we got our stuff at Walmart and went home for a couple of hours before heading back to the festival around 5ish. We wanted to go to the concert at 9:30 and wanted to get good seats, lol! Okay, that and well we felt like since the weather was so good and it was the weekend, we should at least be spending it outside! We packed some blankets, toys, stuff to keep us busy and headed off to Riverfront once again. We listened to three different bands Saturday night and it was a great time! Ayden rocked it out! He was such a GREAT little boy the whole night long! I was so proud of him! He was also at his first country concert as well.

A late night lead to a later wake up call, which was fine… most of the day Sunday was spent around the house doing some cleaning and what not. We were waiting for Jay’s parents to get here because they were going to come to the fireworks with us. It was another longish night for Ayden, but once again he was SO well behaved! I couldn’t believe that I got that two nights in a row! The fireworks were pretty good, definitely enjoyed the finale more than anything and we had pretty decent seats. Getting home was the hard part. We had a really good parking spot, but we didn’t expect the road that we parked by to be closed when we got back to our vehicle. The police or rent a cops or whatever who were directing traffic just didn’t know what they were doing and thus caused everything to take a LOT longer than it should have. Thankfully, Ayden fell asleep and Jay and I just waited patiently until everything pretty much cleared out and we could leave.

Overall, it was a really good weekend. Relaxing to stay home and the weather was beautiful!!!

Tomorrow I am meeting up with my girl friends again… this time at the beach downtown. Ayden and I went there today and had fun. We are having another picnic and then letting the kids swim! I’m excited for Ayden to have someone to play with tomorrow because although he had fun today, I know he likes to play with kids his own age better. I try to be a fun play mate, lol! It will be good to catch up with my friends again though!

And then it’s off to Sugarland on Wednesday! This week is just going to fly by me! It’s already 9pm and I have so much that I want to do. Well only really because I thought of a cool idea for Ayden’s birthday this year. I have a lot of his first two years regular scrapbooked and made a powerpoint slide show of digital scrapbook pages last year (when I first got photoshop elements), but this year I want to make some digital scrapbook pages with some of the free kits that I’ve downloaded and then get the book printed. That way I will have an actual book of the pages and them not just sitting on my computer. I’d love to do some actual scrapbooking as well, but I’m not really that motivated right now when I can do it on my computer and be creative that way, lol. Anyways, I’m excited to make my creation and get it printed and have it be out for his birthday party.

So, I’m off to the world of photoshop for a while!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

We’re going to MINNESOTA…

…come you know what or high water! I booked the hotel room tonight!!! It feels so good to have something solidified into place that means we are taking our first out of state family trip. (Because Jay has determined that we’ve gone on family trips before- well of course dearie, but always with other family.)

So this will be just us three hitting up good ‘ole Minnesota for three days in August! Well, probably more like 2 1/2 with the driving included, but fun none the less and cheapish, lol!

I’ve scheduled three things that I would like to do while we are there, pending on Sunday we cannot make it to the golf course with Jay’s friend JT. Jay and JT could most definitely go golfing alone, but that would leave Ayden and myself alone in Red Wing, MN with nothing to do. I have no doubt that we would get along with JT’s family, as Jay has met them and says they are great, however I told Jay that I will not spend four hours with someone that I’ve just met while also trying to keep Ayden entertained. I would not mind going with them on the golf course and just reading while Ayden golfs with them, but JT is not sure if the course would allow that or what they would charge us for that. I will not pay to sit in a golf cart watching someone golf.

If golfing is not in the cards, I’ve decided we can hit up the Minnesota Children’s Museum in St. Paul for a few hours on Sunday (we are going from a Sunday thru Tuesday in August because we are hoping the places won’t be too busy at the beginning of a week) before reaching the hotel in Bloomington. I was stoked to find a good deal on expedia.com for a Days Inn right across from the Mall of America. I’ll admit, they are not five star quality, but they will suffice for sleeping arrangements as we don’t plan to stay there for much else.

On Monday (btw, praying for good weather)… I would like to visit the Minnesota Zoo and on Tuesday the Underwater Adventure/Lego Land/anything else that looks fun in the Mall of America and then head home.

The three places will run us about $130 for admission and parking which when figured out is about $14/person per place… considering the places, I guess that is not too bad. The hotel for two nights was just over $100 (thank you expedia- well I checked hotels.com, hotwire.com and travelocity.com and all had good rates… regular priced rooms for hotels around there were over $100 PER night!)… and I factored in another $100-150 for gas/shopping/food/etc… so about $350-400 for the trip. If you think about it as $400 for a three day trip, that sounds kind of expensive… but for a family of three who cannot afford to fly anywhere, much less afford to stay anywhere longer than that and do anything, I think it is okay. Plus, I reason, it IS our first family trip and want to have fun without going TOO overboard!

I told Ayden about it and he asked if we were going tomorrow. Part of me wishes yes, and a HUGE part of me wishes no because that would mean July is OVER and half of August and right around the corner is the start of my first year of grad school! Lets not go there, lol, not yet!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Insert Title (of your choice) Here

Written yesterday… posted today because the video at the end wasn’t loading last night and I just said oh well and went to bed…

It has been a pretty lazy week thus far. The weather is cooler, which makes wanting to go outside and do anything not really on the top of my priority list... that and I've just been tired in the afternoon. Both yesterday and Monday I ended up taking a short nap in the afternoon while Ayden has been playing with his legos. He was super great yesterday afternoon, but then got a little attitude towards bed time.

Ayden has been playing the basement a lot more often by himself lately which is what I am liking. I want him to feel comfortable in any room of the house by himself and that is what is starting to happen. I am really liking this 'stage' that he is in. He still loves his mommy and daddy (well most of the time), but he is old enough to comprehend a lot more, I can trust him playing alone while I am cleaning, working outside, etc... Obviously, I still check on him to see how he is and what he is getting into, but for the most part, he knows what he can and cannot do. Being the semi overprotective mother that I am, I probably check on him more often that someone else would, but that’s okay.

We went and fed the ducks today… twice! Both times we had them eating out of our hands! These ducks were wanting some bread and bad! They were so excited to get some food that they were literally running over our shoes, they were THAT close! It was a lot of fun and we went through the bread in the blink of an eye.

We also made a quick trip to Walmart where I found some shirts for Ayden on sale for $3. I had probably 7 or 8 shirts in the cart that I wanted to get for him since they were all super cute, but told myself that I could get four. Ayden helped pick out of the four that he liked best, and actually one was two shirts, so I got 5 shirts for $12. Not too bad! I’m planning on taking some family pictures this weekend and he needed a shirt that matched the ones that Jay and I are wearing and I found two/three possibilities. I’m happy about that and even happier about the price tags. We haven’t had any family pictures taken since about Christmas time and I love setting up the tripod and getting some good ones and Jay isn’t even trying his hardest to get out of them like usual, lol! So yeah!

Oh, and I got the okay from my boss to take off for our Minnesota trip and Jay did as well… so it time to book a hotel! I found a Days Inn that is right across the road from the Mall of America in which we can get rooms for about $55/night, however the hotel only has mediocre reviews. I don’t need a five star hotel, nor do I want to pay for one, but I do want a clean room to sleep in. I figure we will most likely only be in the hotel to sleep so it will probably do. Just need to discuss it with Jay. Once we get the rooms booked, it will seem more real!

I finished my first book for the summer… It was called Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell. I love her books and have read a lot of them! Well mostly because my mom and I (since we share our books) have most of them.

I’ll leave you with a short video of Ayden feeding the ducks this afternoon, the very end is the best part! Like I said, they were some hungry ducks! Enjoy! 

CIAO! LOVE ME!