Superb Relaxful Day!

I’m happy to say that my birthday was very low key this year. Well, it hasn’t been high key in a number of years, but I’m not a high key person and so I rather enjoyed doing a whole lot of nothing special today.

I woke up this morning and headed into work for a little while. Work has been very good lately, well I pretty much always enjoy work, so yeah.

After work I headed home and picked up my camera and set out to take some scenery pictures today. I found two semi good spots that I hadn’t been at before and set to work playing with the settings on my camera. It totally doesn’t help that I don’t have my favorite subject here this week and that well that no matter how hard I try to make creative scenery shots… I still need lots of practice! Ah, that is why they call people like me an amateur, hehe!

Anyways, I took some pictures for about an hour… trying this and trying that. I posted a few in my last post.

Then I came home and decided that I would try and make some ham/cheese/noodle salad. I had asked my mom for the recipe about two weeks ago, but then wasn’t too motivated to try and make it. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, I am definitely no cook! Not only am I not very good at it, I just plain don’t like to do it. I’m not a kitchen person! But alas, my noodle salad turned out. It definitely isn’t my mom’s noodle salad, but it is edible… so much so that I had it for lunch and supper. Like I said, I don’t like to cook… bring on the leftovers!

I also started Ayden’s scrapbook that I am making for his fourth year of life. I wanted to do one online and get one made up and printed, but well I lost any ambition for that. I decided that I am not going to go all out on this one, but at least put something together that he will have. So far I like it… going simple this year and it is looking good! I’m trying to stay motivated so I can have it finished for his party!

Ayden called me both last night and tonight and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me! Well he didn’t call… my dad did, but Ayden talked to me. He isn’t one for phone conversations so I was elated he did that… plus it was SO ADORABLE! He is having TONS of fun by grandpa’s house so far. They went swimming yesterday and to Bay Beach today and probably four wheeler riding tomorrow... keeping the kids busy! Can’t wait to get him back on Saturday and then starts the final week of summer vacation!

Ugh! I have to order my books yet (on the agenda for tomorrow) and I should really start studying up on everything that I forgot over the summer! Oh double UGH! It depresses me to even think about going back! Where did the summer go? I know I’ve asked that question a gazillion times already (maybe?)… but I’m serious here… it seems like just yesterday I graduated! In the last three months it seems like so much and yet so little has happened and here I am starting grad school and Ayden is starting kindergarten!

I need to stop thinking about it… bed time!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Trying out the new camera!

I took a little field trip today to the woods and was experimenting with my new camera. Laying down on the ground and looking up… this is what I got! After a colored picture, I tried out the black and white feature and then messed around with the exposure settings. I think they all lend a little some different to the feel of the photo. Maybe it’s just me… what do you think?!

   

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Me at 23!

Ah the years fly by… I’ve included a few pictures of me in the beginning! I was a chunk of a baby by four months! I may have been born just under 7lbs… but I packed it on soon there after! The quality of the pictures aren’t all that great because I was taking a picture of a picture and the picture that I was using was printed on a regular sheet of paper and not an actual picture.

Enjoy!

   

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Happy Birthday to Me! (tomorrow)

I/We splurged on my birthday gift this year… I’ve been eyeing up a dSLR camera for some time now and couldn’t figure one into our budget a couple of months ago.

I sufficed to deal with my point and shoot for a while longer. My point and shoot which is still a GREAT camera, but you know, not a dSLR and my heart was crying out for one.

It’s the end of the summer and we still have most of our tax refund yet and decided I could finally get my upgrade! We’ve also decided to try and sell a few things we have at home that we haven’t used in quite some time which will help replenish what we spent to a small extent. Not that we need to replenish anything per say, because we wouldn’t have made this purchase had we not been able to… but it gives me some incentive to put those items on craigslist sooner rather than later.

I’ve done A LOT of research in the past couple of months trying to find the right camera for me. I’ve googled, consumer reported, reviewed, tested out, etc etc etc and thought I found the right one. I fell in love with the Nikon D90, but not the price. I thought maybe the Nikon D60 would work, until I found out it didn’t do video or ‘live view’ and didn’t want a camera without video (even though a lot of dSLR’s don’t do video). So… I checked out Canon. I checked out the Canon Rebel XSi, but once again… no video. One step higher is the Canon Rebel T1i and does video and cheaper than the Nikon D90 (although not significantly so)…

…and it’s been a match made in heaven! I guess I don’t have a preference over Nikon or Canon since this is my first of either brand (I’ve only had Olympus or Sony). I’ve heard good things about both and I guess unless I had one of each to compare, I’ll just say that so far… it’s great! Jay’s uncle (as a used to be professional photographer) prefers Nikon, but his cousin bought a Canon a few months back and likes that. So, it’s all personal preference I guess.

I’m so excited to get to picture taking, ah, what am I saying, I’m always behind a camera! I’m excited to learn more and more about this one though and have already been trying out different AV values, as well as exposure times, and white balance settings! In LOVE! Hehe!

I can’t wait to debut some pictures after Ayden’s party this weekend! Doesn’t help that I get a new camera the week my little guy is gone, haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

Gone for another weekend!

Ayden and I are leaving tomorrow (probably mid morningish) for the weekend… again! Thus, I most likely won’t have access to the internet until Sunday night sometime. My mom has internet access of course, but it is a lot slower than what I am used to and really don’t go on at her house. I might use my sister’s computer a bit, but other than that I’ll be off having a good time. It feels good to not go on the computer for a few days, but also I feel like I’ve missed a lot as well. Hard to explain, but then I feel like I have to catch up on everything that happened while I was gone for whatever days. Like so and so’s status changes on Facebook actually mean something to me and what’s her face four new blog posts have this huge impact on my life. Sometimes I feel ‘too connected’ if that makes any sense. Like I feel tied to it all. Addict! But for some reason I enjoy reading other’s blogs the second they update and seeing what they are up to on Facebook… etc… it just has this hold on me. I’m sure my fellow bloggers would agree!

So, since I’m ‘vacationing’ again this weekend, I thought I would do another post for the week before I ‘get behind’ once again.

I can’t say that much has happened in the two days that we’ve been home this week. It doesn’t seem like just two days ago that we were in Minnesota. But it doesn’t seem like these last two days went extremely slow either. Weird…

Ayden came to work with me the last two days. He was SO well behaved! I worked a little less than usual since he was with me, but I still managed to get everything done that NEEDED to get done, like usual. I brought along a coloring book/workbook for him and he colored for a while. He was a great help with the copy machine and was overall pretty quiet. I was so pleased that he behaved so well and kept telling him so in hopes it would continue while we were there… it did! He’ll be coming with me two more days during the last week in August because we don’t have childcare then either. Work hasn’t said anything yet and it won’t be happening after that… they understand which is GREAT, because not every place would… in fact I’m sure many wouldn’t.

After work today we went to the park for a while and had some fun… came home and ate an early lunch while watching Indiana Jones and then chilled in the basement for much of the afternoon and then hit up the beach! I think he’s been swimming EVERY day since last Friday. Oh wait, he didn’t go on Sunday or Tuesday, but still that is a lot! And this weekend we are most likely going more! Got to love the warm weather that is allowing us to really enjoy some water these past couple of days!

My brother had surgery yesterday. Like I said before, I don’t know the specifics of what it was called, however it didn’t go as planned. Unfortunately the cyst was back so the doctor had to go in and remove all of it and I guess something else. He was able to reconstruct the ear bones, so in September they will be able to see if he has gotten any of his hearing back, but along with whatever else the doctor had to do, my brother will now have to see an ear doctor every 6-8 months for the rest of his life. I’m not exactly sure of the reason why, but hopefully at some point something will be created or discovered that will allow him not to have to do this, because well… that is a long time… he just turned 17! Whatever has to happen though, right?! At least it wasn’t worse and he’s not deaf in that ear!

Anyways… off to bed…

CIAO! LOVE ME!