That one moment

when you bug everyone with pictures to prove how handsome your kid is.

And not to be left out, the baby of the family, Lu:

I know you're all extremely happy I flapped my digital bragbook all over you.  You're welcome.

And I leave you with the one where I ended up rolling on the ground, trying not to wet myself.

Elvis Lives.

paradox.

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts 

there can be no more hurt, only more love. 

~Mother Teresa

beauty.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meets in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impair'd the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress

Or softly lightens o'er her face,

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent.

~Lord Byron

Lu.

The most beautiful girl I know.

I don't know
How I survived
In this cold and empty world
For all this time
I only know
That I'm alive
Because you love me

When I recall
What I've been through
There's some things
That I wish I didn't do
And now I do
The things I do
Because you love me 

~JoDee Messina/Because You Love Me

dreamer.

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, 

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn

before the rest of the world.” 

~Oscar Wilde

fields of gold.

Many years have passed 

since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run 

as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold

You'll remember me 

when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun 

in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold

~Sting

Clouds. And shoes.

Look to the Clouds
8/21/12
“Suddenly I have this feeling
Tasting copper in my mouth
I look to watch the clouds for my last breath…”

  ~The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, Copper Down

We've had some crazy good sunsets lately. I think it's the weird but lovely cool-ish weather we've had. KNOCKING WOOD HERE.  (Ok and yes, this Oklahoma girl is calling 93 degrees cool, but it's the truth.  WAY better than the 115 or better we saw this time last year and the year before. Lord, that's practically FALL temperatures).

Anywho.  Pretty.

I've been taking one picture a day for 16 days (well more than 1 on most days), some of which you've seen and several you haven't.  I added my flickr badge back to the right sidebar though, in case you want to follow along. I'm participating in the 365 Project.  (1 photo a day for 365 days).  I'm placing them in a set, so they're all in a nice, neat package of photos.  A couple of bad cell phone photos, but I've been having fun trying to come up with new and interesting things.

This is more difficult than it sounds since I spend most of my time looking at the sky and/or clouds when I'm outside.  Expect lots of cloud photos over the next year. ha.  

Also, I just ordered another pair of trail shoes, this pair by Salomon. I meant to get green ones (hot hot lime green) but hit "one-click purchase" while it was on the bright purple.  Whoops.  So...now I'll have 2 pair of bright purple running shoes.  These have more support and were a tiny bit more expensive than my last pair (which didn't end up having enough support in the arch).  TMI?

And...more Pretty.

Wow.  I just noticed that it's after 10 pm.  I'm back in teacher mode during the day but it sure is hard to retrain my sleeping habits, which seem to be stuck on SUMMER. 

Summer, how I loved thee.

joy.

We are shaped by our thoughts; 

we become what we think. 

When the mind is pure, 

joy follows like a shadow 

that never leaves.

~Buddha

flash of a firefly.

“What is life? 

It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

 It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

 It is the little shadow which runs across the 

grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

~ Crowfoot

spectacular.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm 

we had crossed each other's way: 

but we made no sign, 

we said no word, 

we had no word to say.

~Oscar Wilde 

~~A beautiful storm last night...but not enough rain.  There may never be enough rain at this point.~~

dustbowl.

"Houses were shut tight, 

and cloth wedged around doors and windows, 

but the dust came in so thinly

 that it could not be seen in the air,

 and it settled like pollen 

on the chairs and tables, on the dishes."

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Oooooklahoma...

“Can you see the sunset real good on the West side? 

You can see it on the East side too.” 

--S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

Supermoon.

Did you catch her??

May 5, 2012  9 pm CST, Oklahoma

peachy.

The peach trees are blooming in my backyard!






Spring's here! Woot!

late bloomer.

Look what was waiting for me in my (currently) bare patch of flowerbed this afternoon when I got home:


She's beautiful, especially against the gorgeous fall colors in my front yard.

This is the tree in all its glory (not even fully turned yet!)


These colors are amazing.


Happy fall!

mooned

Was it as spectacular where you were?

The colors were incredible...but it's even awe inspiring in B&W.

Photoshoppin'

Yoohoo... Heidi....this one's for you!

I see lots and lots of pricey extras you can buy for your photo editing program (namely Photoshop in it's various formats.) Usually these are the form of actions: a set of pre-programmed steps that Photoshop will perform on your photos to glam them up.

Some of these are pretty pricey ($150 and up). Some are free, and really good. Usually though, I've found the techniques to achieve the effect of the action are so simple to learn that you'd be better off just to LEARN them!

Since there's no sewing going on today I thought I'd share a couple of tricks. We're going to do a popular look in photos right now...color pop and vignetting. You might also see a similar effect called "Lomo" (that's a whole other blog post that I'll just leave you to google for the sake of time.)

Ok, so we're going to take a photo from just "good" to "smashing artistic interpretation of good". Or, you know, thereabouts.

So, step 1: open up a photo and duplicate the Background layer (Right click, Duplicate in the layer's palette.) Always work from a duplicate of the background! That way if you totally hate it, your original image is safe. I also never save over my originals. I'm using a perfectly decent photo of Lu:


step 2: First let's punch up the color in this one. It's a bit washed out. To do this, we're going to play with the levels in this photograph (how dark are the darks and how light are the lights). In Paintshop Pro, you Right Click on your layer and choose New Adjustment Layer > Levels. Looks this:


step 3: In the Levels dialog box, move the input sliders on each side in a bit. You can play with these to get the perfect contrast for your photo.


and here's what we have now...don't worry. We're not done.


step 4: Now we're really going to get art-y and boost the saturation. This will really pop the colors of our photo. In Paintshop Pro, click on your duplicate layer and choose Adjust > Hue & Saturation> Hue/Saturation/Lightness from the menu:


step 5: We're going to leave the Hue at 0 and the Lightness at 0, but bump the saturation to 20. By all means play with these numbers as much as you like! Every photo is different. 20 is a good starting point though and you should see pretty saturated coloration now.


step 6: Now that we have a nice "color pop" to our photo, we're going to enhance that effect a bit by adding some vignetting. This is where the real "Lomo-effect" comes in! Add a new Layer above your Levels Layer. (Layer > New Raster Layer, or just click the little Layers button in the palette)

step 7: On this new, blank layer we're going to add a gradient fill with the Fill Bucket. Make sure you have the Fill Bucket tool selected and go to the topmost color in your Materials palette. Click on the color button and you will have 3 choices: solid, gradient, or pattern. We're going to choose the middle one: Gradient


step 8: Now we want to change our gradient to the spherical gradient. You'll have to click on the foreground swatch (the top one) to open the Gradient dialog box. Choose Black & White as your Gradient from the little dropdown arrow.


and choose the Sunburst gradient type. Before you click OK, check to make sure your Sunburst Gradient is Black on the edges with White in the center. If not, make sure the Invert is checked.



step 9: Fill the empty raster layer with this Sunburst Gradient. Don't Panic!! Yes, your picture is hidden, but only for a second.

step 10: Change this Layer's Blending Mode by clicking the down arrow next to "Normal" at the top of the Layer Palette. Down near the end of the list, choose "Overlay" as your blending mode. Yes, it's magic. :D


step 11: Wow, aren't you impressed with yourself now? As is, the picture should be pretty exciting now. But since it maybe a little "tooo" saturated and "toooo" vignette'd, we can change the Opacity of the Gradient Layer and the Saturation Layer as needed. Try to decrease either one (or both) to about 80-85%.

And Voila...here's our finished, color-popped, vignetted photo. Not too shabby, huh?


Final step...Once you're satisfied, Right Click and Merge > Merge All (Flatten). I recommend saving your photo with a new name so that you still have your original saved without all the fancy PSP footwork.

Now go! Play!

Between Games!

What's been keeping me running (& occupied NOT sewing) the past couple of weeks...


Some of you blogger girls remember my Lu is a softball fanatic and we spend most of April through June at the fields. She was smoking hot last night!

And here's my nephew on the left (he's 11) and an opposing player (ALSO 11!!!!) Would you LOOK at the size of that kid? He looks like a grown man! In fact, he's almost as big as the 6' grown man standing next to him. Wow.


Also a big birthday shoutout to my BFF Buffy! A visit across the Okie state was in order this weekend so I could bring Texas Sheet Cake and gift cards. Oh, and smooch the heck out of this:

Doll Baby

Two more games this week then a bit of a breather next week before things pick up again, so maybe I'll get some sewing time!