We've moved

It's our 3rd week in the new house & we're still settling in. Still lots of boxes in the living room & curtains still to be hung, but we're already comfortable here & it feels like home.

We still have a few projects to complete but things are slowly coming along. On Friday we FINALLY got our bathroom sink installed & the light fixture put up in the dining room. Chris's dad helped with both.

Here are pictures of the chandelier. You can see my pretty red wall I painted. I love red.


And here's the new sink & faucet. And you can kinda see the towel ring. We have a matching towel rod but it hasn't made it in yet.

Next, I will give you a list of things that have been broken in the last 3 weeks. Glassware: watch out!

1st weekend after moving:
Doing dishes by hand in the sink & I broke a plate
Me: 1, Glassware: 0
Unpacking antique plates & putting them in my china cabinet, had 5 in my hand & dropped a little one from the bottom.
Me: 2, Glassware: -1
Unpacking miscellaneous things wrapped in newspaper, glass votive candle holder rolls out & falls onto other glass candle & breaks.
Me: 3, Glassware: -2
Adjusting Afton's bib while he eats in the dining room, mirror that is leaning against wall falls forward hitting me in the arm (if I hadn't been there it would have landed on Afton's head!), bruises my arm & a piece of the mirror falls out, but does not break.
Me: 2, Glassware: -1

A few days later:
Glass piece that fell out is laying flat on buffet & suddenly falls by itself behind buffet, breaking on the floor.
Me: 3, Glassware: -2

A few days ago:
Afton is eating off a porcelain plate, is "done" & throws plate on floor.
Afton: 1, Glassware: -3

Last night:
I get out of shower, am minding my own business & glass light fixture falls off light & shatters into sink.
Me: 4, Glassware: -4

Just for those of you keeping tabs on shards of glass you may or may not be likely to step on in my house...

We're moving!

Not too far, but about 1/2 hr from where we live now in Midtown KC to Lee's Summit. We will still be renting (broke our contract w/ the apt) but my uncle owns the house and .... it's a house! NOT an apt! Yay! No more noisy neighbors & being subjected to their music/tv/yelling/middle-of-the-night gun shots/middle-of-the-night clamoring up the fire escape & waking us up cuz they locked themselves out/cats/dogs/drunkenness/cigarette smoke/pot smoke/bad food smells/fighting for parking spaces/etc etc. Whew!! That's a long list of "negatives" we'll be leaving behind.

In the new place, we'll have a big yard (fenced in the back for our doggie, Blue) & a basement with a real laundry area with our full-size washer & dryer, and a 2 car garage (= storage space & no scraping ice off the car on winter mornings). Privacy, quiet & even though we don't own it it's still a place of our own where we can make a cozy safe home that's way more conducive to raising a child & having a happy dog.

But, we're moving this weekend & we're not even all the way packed yet! There has been a lot of work to do at the house getting it ready to move in. We painted the dining room & kitchen & will paint the bathroom in the next couple weeks but we just put up new tile in the shower/bath & tile on the floor & a new pedestal sink & matching accessories. I should have taken before & after pics but maybe will take some after pics anyway. I always take pictures of our new places right after we move in & get settled.

When we move Afton will finally be moving into his big boy bed & the crib will be no more. He got Cars bedroom stuff for his birthday so he is really moving up in the toddler world. ;o) He's also starting a new daycare at a place just down the street from us and shortly (& with their help during the day) we'll be starting potty training. Mama will be glad not to be buying/changing diapers anymore but it's a process that could take a while so we'll see how it goes.

What else is new? Our jobs are both going well, so thankfully there's really nothing to report on that end. ;o)

I think that's it for now. As usual it's been a long time since my last post on this blog. But I figured this was a big enough event to note it here with a post. :o)

Hope you're all doing well!

Same old stuff

Not much is going on lately other than working a whole lot which is why I haven't posted much recently.

Chris has a new boss at work that seems to be pretty cool & they're getting along really well. They've been really really really busy this week because Garth Brooks is in town performing for 9 days straight. He hasn't performed like this in 10 years & chose KC of all places to get back on the scene which is pretty darn cool. He said he couldn't think of a better place b/c the fans here "get it." He also didn't allow anyone outside the midwest to purchase tickets (which were pretty cheap at $35 a pop) b/c he didn't want the whole "Hannah Montana" scene that happened weeks before with people selling tix on ebay for thousands of dollars. So, that's why he's having so many shows, so more people can get in at a reasonable price. He didn't even allow St. Louis to buy tix though (& he's not even planning on performing there). You had to be from anywhere else in MO, KS, NE or IA in order to get tix. So, anyway, it's been a really busy week & it doesn't look like Chris is going to get a day off till the shows end. But, then there will always be another show coming up that will get them busy again.

I'm still keeping busy with pictures & biz stuff. If you've checked out my photo blog you'll see that I just took the steps needed to make my new website live. It's in a transition period getting on the new hosting server so you can't see it yet but it's supposed to be just 2 days at the most so hopefully by tomorrow at the latest you'll all be able to see it. It's a Flash site so it's much easier to use for both me doing updates & for visitors to navigate it. I bought the template & got all my images saved according to their required sizes & dimensions, dropped them in the galleries & pages & put my text in. Did a few other settings & it's ready to go. It was so easy I wish I'd done it this way last year. Oh, & I got a nice discount on it too so it was only $150 to set up (worth the hours & hours & hours of time I spent making my last site myself that also took ages just to update the slightest addition to my galleries) & I pay $17 a month for hosting. A little pricey by my standards compared to what I'm used to paying ($5/mo) but for the ease of use & excellent customer service they have it'll be worth it I think. Everyone who has one of their sites (it's thru BIG folio) swears by them for the benefit it does their businesses. They're also just geared toward photographers, so that's how all their templates are set up, with the pro photog in mind. I can also have music on my site but have yet to find any royalty-free music that I like well enough to purchase at $60 a song. Most are no-name artists that sound like crap. Even the instrumental stuff I'm finding is horrid. So, if anyone knows of any good sites w/ royalty-free tunes to buy & download please let me know! I've gone through about 5 or 6 sites & have found nothing yet.

Well, here I am talking business on the personal site. I need a life! ;o) But this is what my life consists of right now other than being a mommy & a wife & not much is really new in those areas.

Chris had a dream last night that we bought a house. Hopefully it's a dream that comes true! We of course wanted to last year but it just didn't happen. The lender told us then that some things needed to age more on our credit & to try again in 6 months (from last July) & they'd approve us then. So, we'll try again this spring & hopefully have better luck. We've been talking to a really great realtor (Stacey's cousin Sherri!!) & we're going to work with her when the time comes to start looking at the end of March or beginning of April. Our lease is up June 30.

Anyway, I can't really think of anything else going on. Not very exciting, I know! :oP But I hope you're all doing well!

Halloween!

Here's our Halloween pics with Afton trick or treating at Chris's sister's house. The one holding him in this top picture is his cousin Mikayla. The Ghost & other girl are Mikayla's cousins but not related to us or Afton. But we all get together & go trick or treating together. Mikayla's brother Calvin was also there but I didn't get a picture of him b/c he was too busy running around getting candy (I am pretty sure he was already on a sugar high) and Afton's cousin McCullough arrived a little later too. She was Dorothy & super cute but I never got her pic either. :o(

Anyway, in this top pic Afton is ready to escape Mikayla's hold. He doesn't like posing. You have to just catch him when he doesn't know you're taking a picture. ;o)

Here he is in his cute Polar Bear costume!

I love this one...

Already digging through his loot after the 1st house!

What a big boy! He knew what the whole thing was about & even knocked on people's doors himself & when the opened it he went straight for the candy bowl!

Everyone thought he was really cute in his costume... I've gotta agree!! :oD

It's been forever!

I've been crazy busy the last few months & now the fall rush for pictures has started. I booked up for Oct by mid-Sept & have still been getting requests for October dates! I don't know how many more I can fit in but I will try because I know that once November & cold weather hits business will be pretty dead until Spring. You can find the link to my photo blog a couple posts below this. There you'll find Stacey & Justin's teaser slideshow of their wedding photos from the 29th in NC. I can hardly watch it without tearing up!

So, since my last couple posts lots has happened besides business picking up. Chris got a new job as a chef at the Hilton President downtown. They're really getting super busy lately too b/c of the Sprint Center opening up & all the new stuff going in down there.

Afton has a new sitter he's been with now for about 5 weeks. She has a daycare in her home in Merriam KS. It's a bit of a drive but worth it because she's really great & caring.

So that's 2 bullets dodged we'd been worrying sick about in mid-August.

We just got back from vacation last weekend that we took after the wedding. We went to GA & FL for a week & went to two beaches (Tybee, GA & Clearwater, FL), saw 2 lighthouses in GA, saw Fort Pulaski in GA, went to Homosassa Springs in FL AND to finish off our trip we took Afton to Disney World our last day in FL. He LOVED it! And we had a lot of fun too, despite the torrential rain. Hey, it made the lines way shorter!! ;o)

But, I am at home today b/c Afton is sick with something he must have picked up on vacation. So I'm taking him to the Dr today. Hopefully they can give him something to help him feel better. And flu shots aren't even till next month! :o(

Well, I'm going to be very busy the next few weeks. I will put up some vacation pictures after I've finished editing all the wedding photos. So hang in there! Don't give up on me--I'll get them up before too long hopefully. :o)

Look who LOVES corn!!

It's summer so of course we had to get corn at the Farmer's Market. Yum yum! And look who is a big boy eating it right off the cob! Don't mess with his corn--he gets vicious! ha ha!

Nerves

My stomach is all up in knots this morning. Here's why: Chris just found out yesterday that he's being laid off in 2 weeks. He's got 2 weeks to find a new job while still working the current one. He hasn't even been there long enough to get benefits yet so he's pretty sure that's why he's getting the boot. But, I guess we can at least be thankful that he has some notice. This is also the last week we have our babysitter. Which is good & bad. She's been flaking out on us lately & has overslept the last 2 days she was supposed to work. I called her house to see what was up last Wed & this morning & woke her up both times. So, me being over an hour late to work each time has not been cool. Afton sleeps till nearly noon everyday so it's not like it's a hard job to get up for. All she has to do is show up & sit on her butt all morning long. Anyway, the daycare that we've been on a waiting list for since February, who first said there was a spot opening in May (which didn't happen), who then said in May there was an opening in August, now doesn't have an opening this month either & is saying there's not one till Oct 1st. Which leaves us with no sitter or daycare for a month & a half. When Afton turns 2 in Dec he will move up to the 2 yr old room where there are plenty of openings at just about every daycare for 2+ year olds. But, getting to that age group is quite a task. Anyway, this week is our sitter's last week with us because she starts school so my MIL is coming up next week to watch Afton so Chris can job hunt. ::groan:: I should have a degree is balancing plates... maybe I'll just join the circus. :oP Such is the life of the working mother. Don't get me wrong though--I LOVE being a mother. It's the full-time outside-of-the-home job part I don't like.

New Blog Launched!

I just launched my new photography biz blog at http://studiopphoto.blogspot.com if anyone wants to check it out. I'm not linking to it from here or vice versa because I'm not keen on the idea of potential clients reading all my personal rants, etc. ;o) You all are just the privileged ones here who get to listen to that. Don't you feel special?? :o)

Anyway the new blog links from my website now instead of the landscapes. Nobody really seems to pay much attention to those so I broke the link to those galleries & replaced it with a link to the blog.

I've been keeping busy lately but only a couple portrait shoots here & there...which you can now read all about that stuff on the new blog. I'll just reserve this one for personal pics & some silly stuff of Afton, which you're probably more interested in seeing than some stranger anyway, right? ;o)

Well, Chris is home today & I just got back from a maternity shoot & baby shower & Afton's taking a nap so I'm gonna jump off here & go vegge (sp??) for a little while.

Midwest Kid's Fest Coming Up!

My mom & I are sharing/splitting a booth at the Midwest Kid's Fest next month, Aug. 25-26. It will be lots of fun & we're hoping for some good bookings & a good turnout to the Fest. It's at the Overland Park Convention Center & there will be lots for kids to do, give-aways & things for parents to check out too. It's benefiting the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

If you're in the area & have kids, check it out at http://www.midwestkidsfest.com

Playing With New Borders

I'm just having fun today playing with some borders I found...

Family Portraits

Last Saturday I had a family photo session at the Nelson-Atkins Museum and these are some of my favorites. They liked the more traditional shots best but I managed to get a few that were a little more creative. It was SO hot & humid I thought I was going to pass out while shooting but we made it & they didn't look like they had a drop of sweat on them, whereas I looked terrible. Good thing I'm behind the camera! They were a really nice family and so gorgeous & pulled-together it made my job a little easier. :o) Grace, the one daughter who found me online & hired me to get the family portrait for her mom said that they all really enjoyed the session & that her mom had a lot of fun.




Can't decide on this one below if I like it better in color or b&w:

Not so fast!

Well, my winning glory lasted about 5 hours before Miss America was stripped of her crown.... Or, you might say, before Al Gore had the presidency stolen from him by those darn electoral votes.

That was me Friday afternoon just after 4 PM when I got a call from the other co-chair of the Art @ Work exhibit telling me that she'd gotten a call from someone in HR who told her that the votes had been calculated wrong. And, to re-do it & "fix it". Which meant that after a re-tally that I hadn't won 1st place after all and she had to send out another email correcting the winning art works. Sucks to be me. The one who had gotten 2nd originally was now 1st. And the 2 that had tied for 3rd before weren't in the top 3 at all. There was another completely different winner for 3rd.

"How could this be?" you ask? Well, the voting, not the tallying, wasn't done right from the start. It was supposed to be by category. But someone in HR (same person that called for the re-count, like it was a darn presidential election) didn't think that everyone in the firm would understand how to vote for their favorite photograph, their favorite 3D piece & their favorite painting. Duh! Just dumb it down for everyone, why don't we. Go against the rules because you think we're all mentally retarded. It's only a firm full of people with law degrees, for Pete's sake! So, before the show as we're setting up, I ask "Aren't we hanging & displaying things by category?" when I noticed things were just being hung randomly & all mixed up. This person says to me, "No, it's a better idea to just vote for the top 3." "Out of the whole show? What happened to the categories?" I ask, trying to figure out what the change she's talking about making will really mean for the whole show. "Well, we don't have enough for each category."

Well, that shouldn't make any difference. So what if we only had 1 or 2 for a couple of the categories. Good for them! Less competition! We're still supposed to have one from each go to Union Station. Should it really be their fault if nobody else in the firm entered something in their category??

And, it's just even more unfair that only 1 of those top three would go to Union Station (because suddenly people could vote for 3 photos & nothing else if they wanted to), rather than one from each category like how it was supposed to be. And in even further unfairness, each of those 3 votes were weighted, rather than just being 3 plain votes. The 1st vote counted more than the 3rd. Thus, when the winning person received 20 votes for #1, and I received 16 votes for #2, it wasn't that I received 4 less votes. I'm actually not sure how far behind I was in #1 votes. who knows? But I was the one who had the most #2 votes. If this makes any sense. I still had most votes overall with 43. 43 people wrote down my number, #11, on one of those 3 lines on their ballots. I was still 9 ahead in overall votes. 43 people still liked my work well enough to put the number down. Versus only 34 people overall voting for the "#1" winner at some point on their ballots. The weight of the votes is screwy. If it had just been done by category everything would be fine & fair. And, the #1 winner was still a photograph. Someone said to me (though still thinking the whole thing stinks), well, if it was by category then it doesn't mean that you would have won in that category still. But, that's not the point. At least it would have been fair for everyone & I would have been okay with that. I wouldn't have gone through half the day thinking & believing I'd won! My feelings wouldn't have been hurt. I'm a big girl. I didn't even expect to win to begin with! I wouldn't have been a "sore loser" if it had been done right from the beginning & I'd lost still. So, that's not the point at all. I feel bad for the person who did the mosaic plate. They would have, and should have, gone to Union Station because they were the favorite in the 3D category. They won more votes than any of the other entrants in that category, and originally, got 3rd place even out of votes overall. It's just not fair for anyone else either & I feel equally as bad for them.

But, even thought it's a big deal for us artists, it's not a big enough deal for the rest of the firm to do anything about it & make it right or stick with the original vote count, so we just have to let it go. And I'll just try to get in a real gallery on my own. Where things are admitted based on their artistic value or because the artist is talented, not by office politics and Human Resources sticking their nose where it doesn't belong, deciding for everyone what our mental capacity for voting is. The Art @ Work really was a great concept, but unfortunately our firm is incapable of pulling something like this off without making it more complex than it should be. They turned a really fun thing into a big mess.

Wait. I need to prepare my speech...

You can now call this an Award Winning photograph:



The votes were tallied this morning from the Art @ Work exhibit held here at work yesterday afternoon and I won the best in show People's Choice award for First Place! I had even been griping the other day because they changed the way the voting would be done. Since we didn't have enough entries for each of the 6 categories to vote for best in each, they just had everyone vote for their top 3 favorites in the whole show. So, photographs were pitted against fiber art, sculpture and paintings. We had 34 entries total for the firm. And I feel even more surprised and proud that I beat out all the other entries...and there were some really great things! I had convinced myself last night that I didn't stand a chance and that a painting would win for sure because that's all anyone seemed to be making great comments about. I heard maybe a few (I was a co-chair of the event so heard everyone as they came & went for the duration of the exhibit) comments about my 3 entries, so I was just preparing myself to not win so I wouldn't be disappointed. But after all that, I ended up winning, which I feel even better about winning because it wasn't voted by category, but rather overall favorites.

My photograph above, titled "Live Oak Sprawl" received 43 votes. 2nd place was also a photo and got 34 votes. And there was a tie for 3rd place, each with 24 votes; one was another photograph and the other was a glass mosaic plate. No paintings won at all which really surprised me. Someone also took a picture of me by my tree photo yesterday at the end of the show so I'll get a copy of that from HR & post it here also.

So, in August my work will go to the Art @ Work exhibit at Union Station for judging by a panel of well-known artists and members of the art community here in Kansas City. A lot of other corporations and firms here in KC participated also so I'll be anxious to see all their People's Choice winners too when that time comes. The first place winners at the Union Station exhibit will go on to be in a booth at the Plaza Arts fair in September. Wahoo! :o)

Saturday's portrait shoot

This past Saturday I did portraits at Loose Park of a co-worker's two kids. The girl is 3 1/2 and the boy is 18 months, just one month older than Afton. So, right off, I pretty much know what I'm dealing with with the 18 mo old since I am shooting pictures of Afton constantly and I know how difficult he is. So, I felt like I was starting off on a bit of a good foot. But, then the weather intervened. I had checked the weather forecast the night before & it said no rain. Then as soon as we pull up to Loose Park... you guessed it, it starts sprinkling. Then rained the entire time. We were confined to a very small space under an arbor by the rose garden. We also had to share this tiny arbor with 3 other photographers who were doing very grown-up engagement shoots. And here I am running around after a 3 year old and an 18 month old, trying to stay out of the rain, while also attempting to get a picture of the two little balls of energy together looking at the camera and smiling nicely. I didn't have the advantage of being able to sit them down anywhere because everywhere was wet. And getting an 18 mo old to stand still is like....impossible. But I did my best and I think I got some pretty cute ones of them in spite of the weather. I think they're cute & very relaxed looking.

Here they are: