Pups

Here are a few pics I took of the pugs yesterday. The info about my settings is below each one.

Taken with a Nikon D60

Focal Length: 40mm

Shutter Speed: 1/200s

Aperture: F/5.3

Sensitivity: ISO 1600

Taken with a Nikon D60

Focal Length: 34mm

Shutter Speed: 1/200s

Aperture: F/5

Sensitivity: ISO 1600

Taken with a Nikon D60

Focal Length: 40mm

Shutter Speed: 1/200s

Aperture: F/5.3

Sensitivity: ISO 1600

Taken with a Nikon D60

Focal Length: 40mm

Shutter Speed: 1/200s

Aperture: F/5.3

Sensitivity: ISO 1600

I was extremely pleased with the outcome of these pictures. I found some good information here about what ISO is all about and working with exposure, composition and all those good things. I think her way of explaining things really worked for me, and these pics turned out really well in return. More to come, I promise!

McKinney Meetup

We hit the road on Saturday, headed for McKinney to see our friends the Newsomes and finally meet their precious baby Ali!

Let me tell ya...the pics on their blog don't do this baby justice. She is sooo cute and sooo good! She was only mildly fussy, and this is after going down for like an hour long nap on Saturday. And, she loved having company. She was so smiley and cute, even when strangers (us) were holding her! Then, when it was time for "bed" she slept in our arms, instead of in her crib. This girl loves a good cuddle (a gal after my own heart, I must say!). She slept in Jennie's arms for a while, then John held her (sooo cute! only wish I had a pic...) and then I held her -- and had to wake her up :{.

We had a great time seeing Thomas and Jennie, it had been way too long, and can't wait to see them again soon (football games, right??) and spend more time with their kiddo.

Jennie got an awesome new camera for her birthday and we spent plenty of time talking technical jargon (oh yeah, I'm that good) and trying out pics. I can tell she's going to be one mean photog as soon as she gets a good handle on all those dials and settings. Of course, I feel the same way about myself, so she might have a little competition (ha!).

Anyway, I hardly took any pics, but I did manage two on the drive down, but you don't want to see those, right? Yeah, didn't think so.

Hope your weekend was nice -- can't beat this cooler weather we're having. It probably won't last long, so enjoy it while you can!

A Sampler

Ok, so as I said, I'm working on my photography skills and here are some pictures that I've taken in the last day or so. I'm working on using different settings (not just the ole automatic!!) and messing with things like f-stop and shutterspeed (and yes, I do know what those mean ... now...)

Without further ado:

This honeysuckle is like 3 generations old from the Montgomery side of the fam. (as you can see we have yet to actually put this sucker in the ground)

Tree across the street from us ... looks like it's out in the middle of the country.

This pic was taken at like 9:15 or so, crazy, right?

The prettiest tomato!

Whoops-a-Daisy!

I've just realized that I start out just about every post with "So" and now that I've brought it to my own attention, I'll be making a serious effort to not do that in the future.

Just SO you know!

Eeee! Project!

So, I've always loved being crafty, but never really realized until very recently that I could actually put that love to work for me!

I've decided that after being out of school for 4 years, it's time to return and get certified in graphic design. I originally wanted to just go back to college (ya know, thinking, I've got all of my basics out of the way, it'll take, like, 2 years -- WRONG! But that's whole other post.). So, I've applied to the local technology center and pending openings will be back in the educational world learning more about the adobe creative suite and what it can do for me!

In the mean time, I've taken to scouring istockphoto.com looking for any images that I HAVE to have when I make cards/invitations/announcement cards, etc. Let me tell ya...they've got a lot of great stuff on there. I've found a couple of other sites out there with equally good stuff, but this one seems the easiest to navigate.

Anyway, I've made a decision to make our christmas card this year (I know, I'm jumping the gun a little bit, but I'm just so excited and I want everyone to see that and want me to fulfill ALL of their paper/stationary needs!). I've started on it, and that brings me to my new attempt at a hobby--photography.

John got a Nikon D60 last summer and though I've always been intrigued by photography, I'm just now wanting to really figure out what all those fancy dials and terms mean! So, I've gotten all of the manuals out and I'm going to make myself take the time and do the excercises! I mean, c'mon, I've got to be able to capture every moment of our lives if I want to keep this fab blog going, right?? Yep, I thought so.

So, whenever I have the Christmas card all finished, I'll give you guys a sneak peek, but remember, this directly coincides with my ability to photograph well...so it might be around November (perfect timing!) before you see it.

Oh, and John did NOT want to be left out of my crafting post, so tonight he took to being crafty himself and wrapped bacon around some chicken breasts and then decided to just go ahead and grill the leftover bacon. Wow! Who knew!!

Ok, I'm going to go forth and mold my hobbies!

Crafty

So, I've had these 3 picture frames for a LONG time, and I had some postcards in there, but they just didn't match the decor I was going for in our house. So, I thought...aha! I'll spray paint them and then I found the coolest scrapbooking paper at Hobby Lobby to put in there. So, here are a couple pictures from start to finish (almost, I have one more step before I hang them...).

(The pics are out of order for now, I'm not very good at this uploading pic thing just yet, so you'll have to take what you can get.)

(almost) Finished product!

Frames after priming

The original frames

Switch It, Change It!

So, yesterday I decided to change up my usual workout regimen and tried a little swimming.

I'd done a VERY condensed version on the 4th of July (c'mon, no real work out on a holiday!) and thought it would be a good change in my usual weekly workouts. So, I hit the in-laws' pool for 40 minutes.

The first 5 went by about as slow as you can imagine, but I plugged right along and before I knew it, I'd been in the pool for 25 mins...only 15 to go! By the time my 40 minutes were up, I was already soooo sore! I mean, seriously, my left shoulder was way sore as well as my left ankle...so much kicking and paddling.

By the time I'd gotten home and taken a shower, I was crazy sore, we're talking to the point where lifting my arm was a bit painful. Anyway, I took some Glutamine (fancy weightlifting/workout supplement) and by today I'm much less sore.

Needless to say, I've got swimming permanently (well, the summer anyway) in my workout repertoire! Yeah!