My birthday was in June and I had shown one of my coworker’s a cool camera lamp photo a couple of months before. She happened to draw my name for my birthday and I was so surprised to see that her and her husband made me a camera lamp. I just love it and wanted to share it with you. I did change the lamp shade. Hers was really cute, but I wanted a plain and simple shade and I already had one that was perfect for the lamp.
It is so perfect. I love it.
I wanted to stop in and share about my summer vacation and let you know about some bad news I got recently. Let’s start with the good.
We decided to go to New Braunfels this year for vacation and we go the bright idea to buy a used boat and take it with us and sell it when we got back.
We picked such a popular boat we sold it in New Braunfels and didn’t have to bring it home. We have been in a severe drought in Amarillo and our lakes have gone almost dry so no reason to have a boat around here.
Izzy loved the boat and tubing.
She also liked going on the kayak.
And she loved going to the restaurants with outdoor seating.
It was so good to get away and spend time together relaxing and having fun.
Then I had to come back to reality and face some tough decisions.
I have been diagnosed with a cancer gene called BRCA2. It is what Angelina Jolie has only hers is 1 and mine is 2. I am facing a hysterectomy and the decision to do a mastectomy. I have an 85% chance I will get breast cancer. Those odds pretty much suck.
So I will be busy with doctor appointments and one maybe two surgeries. I will let you know what I decided to do and how it all goes.
I got an email and I can’t find it in my stack of other piled up emails asking if I was ok. I am and it felt good that someone cared. I have been really busy with my photography business. I have been doing graduating senior sessions and I love them. I am using some of my projects I have posted about on my blog.
I have used my suitcases I have painted.
I buy chairs that I don’t have room for because they fit in my car and can be carried to a field.
I have to throw in an Izzy pic for those of you that miss seeing her. She is sitting on a cool chair I found.
I use my chalk board I made as a prop.
I use my camera skills I started learning when blogging to do cool pics like this.
And this.
So that is what has kept me busy. I JUST took down my Christmas décor from my porch a week ago. That is so not like me. I am itching to do a few things this summer when it slows down a little so maybe I will have something good to show y’all.
Oh I have also been doing lots of working out and I can finally do a pull up! I am so proud. My house looks like crap, but my biceps are getting bigger. Too bad there are only so many hours in the day.
Oh one more thing. Look how I caught Izzy sitting the other day. Cracks me up. I love that silly dog.
A couple of photo groups that I am in on facebook posted a self portrait challenge. I have tried this before and it was pretty tough. I have since learned that back button focusing is my friend and makes self portraits way easier or you can just manually focus. I used a stuffed animal where my head would be and then took a few photos of myself. There never seems to be a good time to do this. Even though I woke up early and threw on some clothes and makeup without showering or brushing my hair, I picked today to do my challenge. I also had cried moments before watching a sad movie. Despite my lack of effort I thought my photos turned out pretty decent. I used window light and a reflector.
Have you tried to do a self portrait? Did you think it was tough? If you don’t own a reflector then it should be your next purchase. They are really cheap and can help you put light on a person or a project and really help you get a better photo. I used a big one that is really inexpensive from Amazon. I don’t care for the silver or gold side. I just use the white.
Go here to check it out.
I am taking some Valentine photos next week and worked on a prop that I had in mind. I had Izzy pose while I did a test shot. I had to share the cuteness.
Last May I painted my bar and it never looked just right. One reader commented that my bar stools needed to be replaced. She was right. I really wanted to get industrial ones. I even bought a set of 3, but my son really disliked sitting on them because they were uncomfortable. He spends most of the time sitting on them so I decided to take them back and bought some he wouldn’t’ mind sitting in and I wouldn’t mind looking at. The seat is a little bigger than I like, but they do look better than the ones that came with the house and have been here since the 70s.
Here’s the new ones.
I am thinking of painting the dining chairs black (NOT the new bar stools) to break up all the oak chairs.
Here is a shot of the old bar stools.
What do you think? Much better? Should I paint the dining chairs black.
