"A Wink and a Smile"

It's been nearly 5 years since I was gifted a lovely camera . I love my camera and I do believe some great pictures have been captured with it. When I first started to use it, the automatic feature was all that I used. Reading the manual was something that never really happened beyond a few quick glances. 3 years later, I did take a basic SLR class at our camera store. I went to about 4/6 classes and did walk away with the ability to use my P mode and not that easy automatic feature. It's been very clear to me that FLASH is not my friend and working with light in the correct way makes for so much nicer pics. Manual is where I want to go ... ALL THE TIME. It's been terribly intimidating to me, but after seeing my husband use it a few times, I know it makes for some great quality pictures. Yesterday I snapped the turtle picture in manual, but please don't ask me what the settings were because I likely used the ones that my husband used last. I love looking at photo...

It's true! Last year, after nearly 14 years of marriage and letting my husband take on the job of mowing the lawn, I decided to have him teach me the ways of the LAWN MOWER. There were two reasons for this. One being that I felt as a strong woman, that I needed to KNOW HOW, and the other being that many times my yard was looking less than pretty. When you live next to a person with a pristine yard ; one that is completely well maintained (by outside folks may I add), it does add a bit of pressure to keep up so to speak. What I found about mowing the lawn was that this was a job that would require hours of my time. No, I do not live on acres of land, but I do have a corner lot with a fairly large front, side, and backyard. Any time I look to do the yard, it will certainly require an uninterrupted block of time. Did I just say uninterrupted? Why YES! I did say that. This leads me to my favorite part about mowing the lawn. It means that I need time to myself to accomplish the...

So it's been another week where I haven't checked in. Can I get by with the busy excuse? It is, however, the end of the school year and I KNOW some of you can relate to the chaos that comes with these days.As I recall (as much as my memory can), this past weekend was Mother's Day . For some moms that may mean a relaxing day ... one that may involve pampering or even a bit of solitude. I'm guessing that for most that would not be the case. It certainly wasn't for me. Who invented this holiday anyway? I spent my Mother's Day doing what I do most other days ... being a mom and watching my girls SWIM . Before we headed to day 3 of the swim meet, I MADE my girls take a picture with their MUTHA (that's my mom's NY accent). Some looked happy, but some looked like they were in a hurry to get to the swim meet. Anywhooooooooo, it is an okay picture with all of my babies. I really wanted to take a bunch of pictures at this swim meet, but like so many of th...