New Years Eve

Misty Sunrise

This was the view from the balcony this morning at about 6:15am.  Made my 5:50 wake-up a little less painful. 

Thinking about 2012

Shauna Niequist linked to an interesting blog post this morning: Mastering the Art of Living Meaningfully Well by Umair Haque

 "What we've got plenty of are wannabe-bankers whose idea of a good life goes about as far as grabbing for the nearest, biggest bonus — what we've got less of are well-rounded people with the courage, wisdom, and capacities to nurture and sustain a society, polity, and economy that blossom."

This made me think of my great-grandfather. He was a successful business man - the vice president of Swift & Co. and the head of the Board of Directors for Libby Canned Food Co.- but he was also an alter boy (altar man?) at his local parish, the vice president of Catholic Charities of Chicago, drove his grand-kids to school every morning, and served as the President of the Chicago Public School System for several years.  He was committed to his local church, his family, and the city he lived in and he gave back immeasurably more than he took.  Our nation would not be in the position it is in today if there were more men like him directing the goings-on of Big Business and Wall Street. 


I am proud of and inspired by my great-grandfather and thinking of him always makes me consider the life I am living. Am I shuffling along, as the blog post says, or am I living courageously? I am not a courageous person, but I am a person of faith, and faith in action is in amazing thing. I want my 2012 to be a year of faith in action.  What are some of your hopes for 2012?  

Bathtime

This is a series of pictures I took before Christmas and I already posted one when I was talking about photoshop but I wanted to post the others as well because they make me smile!

Earthshine

Earthshine is when sunlight reflected off the Earth's surface dimly illuminates the dark side of the moon and we've been experiencing some really good earthshine lately so I tried to take a picture from Mom's balcony tonight. Unfortunately I only had my 50mm lens with me, not ideal.

And here's the picture I took before I figured out I should probably narrow the aperture a bit! I think this was with the shutter open for about 5 seconds.  Almost all of these stars were invisible to the naked eye.

Noisy Visitor

I let Piper out on to the balcony this morning and a couple of minutes later heard a loud (like really loud!) chirping. Afraid that she was terrorizing the birds that like to come and eat the berries off the trees out there I went to check. Nope, Piper was lying on a chair cushion, minding her own business, and this brave little guy was on top of the tree just a few feet away telling her to get lost! He wasn't bothered by me either, even when I pointed my big telephoto lens at him!

Merry Christmas!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas. Our first Christmas in Vegas! Last year I would never have imagined that we would be able to do Christmas in Vegas and still be with family. We are so blessed that Aunt Melody and gang included us in the Christmas Eve and Mom and Dad were with us on Christmas! (The eve of Christmas Eve was pretty great too, but that will have to wait for another post.) And Ross has the week off so the merriment continues!

Photoshop cont.

Ok, here is a more dramatic example of action magic because the photo was taken by me instead of a professional. I took this last night while Rem was in the bath. Thought it was a super cute face but didn't know what to do about the awful white balance and exposure. Applied Whiten Brighten, Cream, Gentle Eye Sparkle (for the bubbles), Studio Pop and a little of The Eyes Have It. Love it!

Photoshop and Nostalgia

I bought some new Pure actions for Photoshop yesterday. It is the first time I've ever paid for actions but they were just so stinking awesome and they are on sale through the 31st so I just kinda had to.  Many of the actions in the pack are designed for studio photography, which I don't do, but I had fun applying them to one of Remy's 1 year birthday pictures taken by the very talented Amy Mildren. She is fabulous and gave me professionally edited pictures but, knowing that photography was becoming a hobby for me, was sweet enough to give me the originals to play around with.

So above are the before and after. Nothing too dramatic but very pretty.  As usual as soon as I was done I wondered what Steph would do differently. Editing is such a subjective art.  Well, I guess most art is subjective, isn't it?  And lets not forget the very talented model. Brilliant cake smashing, little buddy!

Between working on this picture and exploring Facebook's new timeline feature yesterday I am feeling pretty nostalgic for Remy's baby days! Seriously, he is going to be 20 months old in January! How did this happen? It is fun and exciting to watch him growing up, but I hope there will be another baby in our future some day.

My fabulous Aunt Billi painted this!

Wishing my family back in Illinois (and elsewhere) a very Merry Christmas! We love them and miss them.

What's Up

My mom and I attempted to bake today with mixed results. We did manage to get one good batch of fudge for our sweat and tears. Tomorrow we will try again. Here are some cute pics of Remy I took over the weekend. Yesterday was a Sunday but we stayed home from church because, as much as I love our church and wanted to see Ross playing, I couldn't risk Remy picking up another virus when he still hasn't completely gotten over the last one. No sore throat and runny nose this Christmas, if we can help it!