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Basketball season is upon us. That means practice four nights a week and at least two games on Saturdays.
Coley's team is called 'The Deniers' (which is a spin off of the coaches last name.)
Courtney's team is called 'The Fireballs' (which has nothing to do with the coaches last name.)
I heard the coach is pretty hot though.
That's what three kids look like after spending an entire day anticipating an evening of bowling, only to find there were no lanes open at either one of the bowling alleys in town.
And to answer some questions:
1. The white paint color in my living room is called Betsy's Linen from Valspar.
2. I kind of got my PDF problem taken care of. When I select 'print' and then 'save as PDF', it maintains the original blue color that I want (but in my experience, that option isn't compatible for some students on the 'print it all up' page of my website.) If I choose 'print' and then 'PDF-X', it desaturates the blue color. Again, my blue looks great in RGB but CYMK looks bad/desaturated so I don't want to convert to CYMK. (Thanks for all the help and if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd appreciate it!)
3. If you signed up for my online photography workshop that starts this week and haven't received any emails about it, please contact me right away at karen@snapshotsofagoodlife.com
4. I know there have been lots of questions about how I shoot at night in my house but it's not a simple topic and it's a topic that requires a certain foundation of photography information to understand. Right now, I'm working on a Making the Shot issue for my past/current students that covers this exact topic. Not sure when it's going to be done though.
5. I've taken quite a bit of grief for not offering Making the Shot to the general public but am continuing with my decision not to for several reasons:
- Haven taken the workshop, my students have a similar foundation of photography knowledge and Making the Shot is written in a way that builds on that foundation (so it may not make complete sense to someone who has not taken the course.)
- I have a lot of amazingly loyal students and I want to return that loyalty by offering something exclusively for them.
6. I did make a blog button for past/current students. Just log on to the website, select the class you were in, then 'resources' and 'misc.'
7. I feel like I'm missing something. (Sorry if I am!)
Hope your week is great.
ETA: I can't create the same shade of blue in CYMK - I think it's out of the range of what CYMK can produce.
And I'm on a MAC.
Many of you know that I'm not the most computer-savvy girl in the world so I'm in need of some help.
I'm putting new cover pages on all my lessons for The Photographers' Workshop in Word. (Word for MAC, 2008) The documents are full of text and photos but the new cover page is something I designed in Photoshop (RGB in an sRGB color space) and am inserting into the Word documents.
The cover page looks great in Word but then, when I create a PDF for it, the blue color in the cover page design gets horrifically desaturated. (It's the same blue I use on my website.)
I don't know if this will make sense but that shade of blue displays well in sRGB but it looks it looks like I converted it to CYMK (but I didn't!) when I create the PDF. (Again, it looks washed out/desaturated.)
But the other colors look fine.
From Word, I create the PDF by selecting 'print' and then in the PDF options I choose 'save as Postscript' and then I used Acrobat Distiller to create the PDF. (I had to use this process in order to make my PDFs compatible with my website.)
I can't create the PDF from Photoshop because it's a Word document that has images inserted into it.
Anyone have any suggestions? (Thanks everyone for your comments so far but I still haven't figured it out!)
The image on the left is my Word document and the image on the right is what I get when I convert it to a PDF.
Anyone have any suggestions?
A few months back, I started getting the kids up an hour early on Fridays so we could hang out at the coffee shop before school. We always get scones and hot chocolates (chai tea for me), do practice spelling tests, work on bible verses for school, read devotionals and hang out.
And while it's a drag trying to get everyone ready and out the door by 6:30 a.m., it just feels worth it.
That's the devotional book we're reading out of right now. (It's great.)
I have to admit I feel kind of embarrassed including that picture after my little hissy-fit (see post below.)
Perhaps there's a section in the book on learning to turn the other cheek???
Have a great weekend.
A comment from the other day: "Finally a picture without Annie in it, no offense really like your work and your blog but it always seems to be pictures of Annie and her life and this & that about her, kinda thought that was odd that your so focused on her and not your other children. Great."
Why is it that people always say, "No offense." when they obviously have no intentions other than to offend?
No offense taken.
Really.
These two were first introduced to each other when the were three (Courtney) and four (Coley.)
They're 19 months apart in age, one year apart in school and light years apart in temperament.
They've never gotten along.
Something changed recently though.
I walked into Cole's room one day, a few weeks back to find Josh, Cole and Courtney talking. I won't into details (because they're getting to an age where they want to keep some of the details to themselves) but there was a break-through that day.
I kind of expected the breakthrough to last for the afternoon and then for everything to go back to normal.
But it hasn't.
I'm shocked by it.
I think they're shocked by it too.
They hang out. They talk. They ask to sit by each other at the dinner table. They pray for each other at night. They help each other with things. They offer each other encouragement.
It's crazy.
I've even heard them say "I love you." to each other on more than one occasion.
And when I walked upstairs the other morning to find Courtney doing Cole's hair before school, I just stood in the hallway for a few seconds, taking it all in. (And then I asked them to holler for me the next time it happened so I could be sure to get a picture.)
Oh, and Coley's arms are polka-dotted because he contracted (pretend) Small Pox in an Oregon Trail project he's doing at school.
The kids had a day off from school last week and Josh told them if they were particularly good for me, he'd have a surprise for them that evening.
Well, they were particularly good and his surprise was a wrestling match. Not just any old, wrestling match though - but a wrestling match complete with costumes, names and an announcer. (Me.)
He said the match would begin at 7:23 pm (because he always makes up random times like that) and the kids weren't allowed to see him until the match.
At exactly 7:23 pm, the announcer hollered, "Are you ready to Ruuuuuuuuuuuuumble?!?" introducing each one of the kids as they came downstairs.
On the kids team was "Courtney the Crusher" (who did her own hair and make-up.)
"The Slayer" (who had the bright idea of using a Sharpie pen to draw those lines lines.)
And "Annie the Annihilator" (who surprisingly, still fits in the flower-girl dress she wore three years ago.)
After being introduced, they sat in one corner of the living room, waiting for their menacing opponant to be announced (and for their mother to take a few pictures.)
Turns out, their opponant was indeed, menacing (and wearing a jock-strap over his pajamas.)
He went by the name "The Joshtrich" (which was an inside joke for the kids because he always rolls down the windows and locks them when we're at Wildlife Safari so the ostriches can stick their heads inside the car - making all our kids deathly afraid of ostriches.)
And then the match began (but in all the excitement, the announcer forgot to adjust her camera settings and ended up with a bunch of really blurry photos.)
I have a feeling there will be a rematch.
I haven't been shooting or editing much, so I don't have a whole lot to share (other than this shot I took of Coley & Annie watching T.V. on the couch a few weeks back) but I did want to answer a few questions:
1. I spent the last few months re-branding and redoing the website for my online photography classes and the new site finally launched this weekend. (My favorite things is how the photos in the negative strip change each time you refresh the page.)
2. I've got a new class starting a week from today and I'm getting really excited about it.
3. I also changed my blog banner and am wondering if everyone can view it ok?
4. The measuring stick in my pantry (from my New Years Eve post) is an old surveyors stick I found at an antique shop.
5. The island in my kitchen (best seen in the Christmas Cookie post) is an old baking table from the early 1900's.
6. The girl's cute green & blue shirts (also from the Christmas cookie post) are from Target and I think the were only $8 (which makes them even cuter.) I was there the other day and they still had them.
7. Yes, I'm still training for a triathlon but still struggling with the swimming part. (I can swim just fine - it's just the lack of oxygen part that I'm struggling with.) I'm taking swim lessons at the YMCA though and feel like I'm (slowly) getting better.
8. I haven't lost any more weight (I lost a total of 15 lbs. over the last six months) but then I kind of plateaued.
9.The Object of his/her affection, loved the ceramic elephant bank that my anonymous child gave him/her.
10. If I missed any questions, just leave them in the comments section.
Hope your week is great.
She looks adorable with perfect hair and fancy clothes, but for some reason, I love it when she looks like a ragamuffin...
And her Daddy loves it when she wears Beaver-gear.
Took these shots back in September for Little Skye.
I'm not shooting for their catalog anymore - just at a point in life where I need to have fewer things on my schedule.
I'm thankful I did it though because I ended up with a whole lot of portraits of Annie I would have otherwise never taken (in an abundance of adorable clothing I don't own.)
And maybe I'm not catalog-material because my favorite shots are always the ones that are not catalog-worthy.
