Editing

I am really beginning to love Photo shop CS4. I have come a long way since I first started. I can tell just by looking at my old pictures. Granted, I'm not so vein to think that I'm great, I just notice that my edits are starting to look better as I get more comfortable with the program. Here is something I have been playing with today.

Here is the original image:




First edit: Black and white. Using gradient map, and curves for light and contrast


second edit: Vintage look. Unsharp mask, adjust color range, gaussian blur and fade


third edit: natural. Adjust curves for contrast and light. Desaturate and unsharp mask.


That is all for now. Back to sifting through pictures I think. Obviously each of the edits were cropped.

Edits

Some edits from today

Scrap booking

This is my first attempt at scrap booking so don't laugh too hard. I don't have all the fancy stuff yet. Just got some paper and stickers that were on sale.

I have only finished 4 pages so far, anyways here they are.

Flowers at the zoo

A Trip to the Zoo

Here are some pictures from the zoo today. The conductor of the train took a picture of me and the kids. Kevin is hiding :( But oh well. Normally I wouldn't let a stranger use my camera but for some reason this time I did.

Now for the food, continued

Here is the finished product. It was so good.
Cameron did nothing but complain and mutilate his food. Kevin and Emily ate pretty well given they are sick.

Now for the food,

I think this is pretty self explanatory. I'll be back later with a picture of the finished product.

New Shoes

I finally got around to replacing my shoes that have been falling apart for some time now. I decided on a pair of Nike's that I thought looked similar to Emily's shoes. Strange, I know but I wanted our shoes to match. They are not as similar as I thought. The only thing that is similar is the pink Nike sign :( Oh well.

I like my new shoes. They are comfortable. Could be a little wider but it's not bad. I am starting to think maybe a lot of my knee problems are from my crappy shoes I had. For the first time in a long time I went down the stairs to start a load of laundry and there was no pain in my knee. NONE. Needless to say, I'm surprised. I have gone up and down the stairs 5 times since then to see if maybe it was just a fluke and every time, no pain.

Now for the pictures

Old shoes, and New shoes.

Our rings

Here is one of the pictures I took of our wedding rings tonight. Some time I'll invest in some jewelry cleaner and clean up those rings, but for now they will keep their "aged" look lol.

I still have never seen someone else with the same rings we have. That is one thing I really love about them, besides that we picked them out together. They don't look like every other wedding ring out there.

What's for dinner? pt. 3

Everyone should be able to tell what dinner is just by the above pictures. But I'll tell you anyways. Maybe some people live a sheltered life. Tonight we made, or mostly the kids made piggies in a blanket. Or as Cameron calls them "guinea pigs" where he got that, I have no clue.




So the boys did the rolling of the piggies. While I stood back and watched. I decided early on that I would not be eating dinner tonight. Note the above picture. Yup you don't want to know where that finger was before it went in the mouth. Then back onto the food. Yummy.





Now they are ready for cooking. Shove into a very hot 450 degree oven. And take pictures of the silly kids while we wait for them to cook. They can't wait for the new Ice Age movie to come out. Already got the 3D glasses.



Food is done, and the end result is very yummy looking. But I'm still not eating it. Especially now that Emily and Kevin appear to have what Cameron was sick with the other day. My poor babies.



Kevin just had to sneak his head into the picture of the food lol. Silly child.

Going back to school

So after 10 years of no school I have decided to continue what little education I already have.
I have looked at a couple schools and I think I have found one that would fit me and my lifestyle.
I have started my registration at Ellis university and because of Robert being in the military I don't have to pay any of the enrollment fees and I get discounted classes. The first 4 courses that I would have to pay out of pocket are 300 dollars each. Which is very affordable.

I should be starting Aug. 17th.
1 course at a time with each course being 6 weeks. I have to maintain a 2.0 gpa to stay in the program. I'm hoping that won't be a problem.

I am going for a BA in Business Accounting. (I think that's what they are calling it) lol
Sorry I'm not completely sure.

I really like the website and I am so excited to be going back to school. I can't wait :)

Robert is so supportive and completely on board and happy for me to be going back to school and doesn't care that I will most likely be taking his GI bill. Such a great husband. Though I think he might be supporting me for selfish reasons. lol He wants me to bring in some money, which is fine with me. :)

I love my husband :)

Ok that is all. lol

My Poor Baby

I realize Cameron is coming up on 7 years now but he's still my baby. Especially when he is sick. He told me this morning he had a head ache and was running a fever. I gave him some Tylenol and sent him to school. I figured he was exaggerating how bad he was feeling to get out of going to school.

So he got home from school still claiming to be running a fever and not feeling well. I took his temp and it's 103.6 :( My poor baby, he has probably been running a fever all day. I gave him some Tylenol and an ice pack and hopefully I won't have to take him to the hospital.

He just looks so miserable it breaks my heart. :( Feel better little man.

What's for dinner? again :)

Taking pictures of what I cook inspires me to keep on getting up off my butt and cooking some more. So much of the time I would take the lazy route and order pizza, Chinese or anything else that can be delivered. So with that being said, this is what we had for dinner.



It was so yummy.

So first I started with the potatoes. Such cute little baby potatoes. Cut those up small and got them cooking.



Then I moved on to the Pork Chops. I rinsed them and cut away the bones and most of the fat, put them in a skillet and added some seasoning.



I do not add salt to anything I make. Ever. I hate salt and think food has enough of it on it's own.
lol, I just noticed that I added season salt to my pork chops. So I'll change that to say I don't add normal salt to food and I'll add season salt to meats.

Moving on, I got the veggie cooking.



Then before I knew it, it was time to mash the potatoes. I had forgotten how much work it is to mash potatoes by hand. So they ended up being pretty lumpy. I don't care, they were good anyways.




I forgot to get a picture of the gravy. It was just plain old chicken gravy out of a can.

So I got the kids' plates made up and buttered bread. Of course the children did not eat anything :( This was the main reason I stopped cooking to begin with. What is the point when no one will eat it? It can't taste that bad, I like it. :D

Well that was dinner. Yum Yum Pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn and buttered bread. With a small glass of milk for each of the kids.