Completion

Finally I am putting together everything I am learning from Stephanie Lee's Homesteader's Metalsmithing class to make something of substance. I have so many more in various stages of completion but here are two I can share with you today.

A Message

When I have a quiet moment, I am currently making my way through Liz Lamoreux's book, Inner Excavation. Loving it! You can imagine how my heart felt when this message fell out on my chest while reading in bed. What a beautiful special thing she did sneaking these in the books before she shipped out the pre-ordered copies. Thank you, Liz!

On being a Mom

This is how we spent our night last night. Watching our daughter, Hailee, in a hospital bed and waiting for tests. (Yes I really am crazy enough to snap the moment on my iPhone).  Thankfully she is fine and we are all home resting today. Sometimes being a parent means making intuitive choices, and sometimes those choices are made out of just plain old parental worry. Last night was of the latter for me. I'm thankful I was wrong. Now we just get to wait for the virus to run its course and I hope to avoid being barfed on anymore this week.

Endless Possibilities

This is my second week playing with fire and already I am getting better. Taking Stephanie Lee's class was something I never in a million years thought I would be doing. In fact I would even venture to say it is out of my comfort zone. Way out! I had a few moments of panic buying the supplies thinking there is no way in the world I am going to enjoy this or be able to keep up using all of the tools. But here I am. Filing, cutting, heating and sometimes burning things. It has been more fun than I could have possibly imagined. My pieces aren't perfect but I would rather think of them having that rustic earthy look. I think it is fun to take a look of my progression in photos so when I have my completed pieces in the end I will see just how far I came. They really do have their own unique beautiful looks in every stage. Also a side note: I may not share all of the completed projects on here until after Christmas because a few people that read this blog may just get a little hand-made something under the tree this year.

Unravelling

This is my final week with Susannah Conway's Unravelling, Ways of Seeing Myself e-course. It has been such an incredible journey with a group of amazing and supportive ladies. Not to mention getting to hear stories and insights from Susannah herself. Also I can't help to say how much I enjoy listening to her videos every week because of not only how down to earth and real she is but also because as an American I am enthralled with her accent.

I haven't shared much, if anything, from the past 8 weeks about Unravelling because it is a mostly private, inner journey but did want to share a few photos with you from it all. This course has truly helped me reacquaint myself with...myself! From here on out I hope I can continue my journey of self discovery and reflection. In addition, I plan on registering for Unravelling  2 next Spring. If you have any interest in taking one of her courses, I highly recommend you take the plunge and go for it!  The connections you will make will be powerful and the discoveries you will learn about yourself will be meaningful.

A Message

A Quiet Moment

Calendar Winner!

The handy-dandy random number generator picked a comment number for me and we have a winner! Congrats to Sarah from Sarah Jean Photography! I'll email you soon to send off your calendar.

Vintage Love

I never really had an interest in vintage cameras or instant cameras until this year. I'm not sure what planted that seed but now I truly have the start to a proper collection! This SX-70 is the first of my vintage cameras I have working and the first that I have added film to. Thanks to the Impossible Project, that really is possible again. I was hoping to have a photo to scan in for you from the camera but so far all I have are two very interesting looking abstract shots. The film is highly sensitive and has to be protected the moment it emerges from the camera so in my haste to cover it I messed up the first shot and the second was under exposed. I am thinking trying them outside on a cold blustery day like today was also not very intelligent. I look at it as another adventurous leaning experience for me. Now off to play some more.

Calendar Giveaway!

I adore blog giveaways! Really though, who doesn't love free stuff? I have been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of few myself. Now it is time to pay it forward with a little something fun. I will be giving away this set of 2011 calendar pages to one person drawn at random here on the blog next week.

The lovely ladies at Shutter Sisters provide this free calendar template every year on their site. I selected photos that I have shot through out the past few years that are my personal favorites. The size is meant to fit perfectly into a CD jewel case but you can also fasten them together with a binder clip to hang on the wall if you prefer. I just kind of love the idea of the CD case because it is handy and a great way to re-use it! All you have to do is take off the hinges and reverse the case so it stands up.

To enter just leave your name and location in the comments below. If you aren't registered on the site please make sure to leave your email so I can contact you if you are chosen! I will draw one name from the comments on Monday, November 15 at 10:00pm EST.

Fourth Time's a Charm

Or close anyway.

This week I started the Homesteaders Metalsmithing class from Stephanie Lee and today I fired up the torch for the first time. The very first time. Scary stuff. Thankfully I did not burn myself or the house. Only the metal. Progressively I got a better hang of it. They don't look like much yet but I think they have the makings of something fabulously imperfect.

Monday Musings

5 Games on my wish list this year. Yes I am a self-proclaimed geek and proud of it.

• EA Sports Active 2 - The first one for the Wii really blew the Wii Fit out of the water in my opinion. Now this one in combination with Kinect is sure to be even better!


• Dance Central - Guaranteed to embarrass the snot out of me and prove to be highly amusing for others to watch I am sure.


• Rock Band 3 - My Rock Band 2's band name is Miss Moon. Pretty much everyone in my household plays. I just refuse to sing.


• Bananagrams - My husband and I play Words with Friends on the iPad/iPhone all the time.


• Wii Party - For when the entire family wants to play something together. I like to make sure we get games that my daughter can enjoy too.

Picture Fall Recap

When "Life" Happens

I am finally on the mend after a week of illness. Sometimes life is really good at telling us to slow down, if we listen. With all this reflection time and digital purging I have been doing it got me thinking even more on what I want my web presence to be. I have been toying around with the idea for weeks to do away with my photography website. My thoughts on what needed to happen kept coming back to one word: simplify. I do not need to keep updating two websites. So this is where I will be from now on. I plan on continuing on the path I have been and also sharing some of my photography here as well. I really look forward to continuing on with a creative blog and a more diversified path. I know this is where I need to be in this moment.

My Dad also mentioned to me this weekend that I am behind on my Project 52. This is also something I am choosing to let go of right now. I already did a Project 365 a few years ago. I took a picture every single day for a year. I did not miss one day, though there are some I wish I did in looking back at the quality. Trying to restart another yearly project was something I thought I could handle a few months ago but it is becoming a chore already and not something that is helping me creatively. I want to genuinely WANT to shoot art, not to squeak out a sub-par photo just for the sake of getting something done that week. So I am tabling the project for now and I feel that is OK. I am not going to beat myself up about it or be disappointed. Instead I am going to continue on being creative and try not to over schedule myself so darn much!

Detoxing

I'm not feeling well today so it seems entirely appropriate to talk about detoxing my life. Susannah from www.susannahconway.com posted this week on her blog about going through a Digital Detox. The idea is to set aside some time this week to declutter your digital life. In some ways I have already started doing that this month. There have been a lot of heavy emotional things going on for me at home and I genuinly have been working on making myself into a better "me."

I think we all have those certain people whether on Facebook, Twitter or just in our every day lives that just get under our skin. We can do one of several things in my opinion. First we can continue to let that person bother us and affect us negatively, we can change our outlook about that person or situation, or lastly we can just plain eliminate that person from our lives by trimming the fat so to speak. That is what I worked on earlier this week. Quietly "unfriending" a few people that I honestly did not know personally and every time I saw a comment from them I felt the negativity rolling off them. So that is where I started.

Susannah also talks about trimming down emails, blog subscriptions and other websites that generally are no longer adding to your life. I think it is a fabulous idea to unsubscribe to the email messages that show up and are usually automatically deleted in my case. Shopping advertisements are another great thing to trim. I get at least 20 a day in my inbox and most of them are never read. So starting today I am going to be hitting the "unsubscribe" link to those sites that are clogging up my inbox on a daily basis. Most websites thankfully make opting out a very simple process to do.

I want to add that I think this is something that can be done gently and with care. It doesn't have to be brutal and with a "Delete it all" attitude. There are so many great blogs that I do generally enjoy reading even if I don't get to them every day. There are so many great people out there that add something to my life and that I want to continue to connect with. Detoxing doesn't mean starting over, it just means trimming down a bit to make things more manageable and creating a more positive space around us.

If you want to see Susannah's invitation to participate in your own detox, click on over here.

Monday Musings

5 things I am thankful for in this moment.

• Hot Tea...lots and lots of hot tea, sweetened with sugar. Lots and lots of sugar.


• That my husband is in town this week to deal with my daughters tooth extractions. I don't do teeth.


• Finally getting my new road bike after 3 weeks of waiting.


• Hearing my daughter say: "Thank You" at every house we visited trick-or-treating.


• Warm fuzzy blankets and piles of new books to read.