Worst garage sale. EVER.

Grand total: $15. No. I'm not kidding.

Kitten.

This is one of the kitties that my MIL was babysitting over the weekend. This one Jake named Shiloh and I named him Skip. Pete wouldn't let us keep him though, dang it! Megan just LOVED them all. She'd go up to the little pen they were in and say "Awwwwwwwww!" it was so cute. I had to watch her close...she tended to be like Lenny in Of Mice and Men and she'd squeeze them! yikes!

Stich.

Pete cut his leg with a chain saw up at the ranch on Friday. He's ok, could have been a LOT worse, but he ended up with probably about 50 stiches. I DO have a picture and was planning on posting it for the POTD BUT when I uploaded it today, it is just nasty. Not only the cut, but his hairy legs! No one really wants to see that. I'm going to see if I can approach this subject a different way and come up with another shot somehow. One fit for public viewing! LOL!

i Spy numbers.

And they just keep rising. gah!
I realize this pic may be a little cliche for this challenge, but it truely captures life. Today. As we're living it. Which is my main goal with this blog.

It's the cheesiest.

I am not a huge fan of the mac-n-cheese. But I picked this up a Target this morning knowing my nephew would be here for lunch and there's only like 3 things in the world the kid will eat. Anyway, they didn't have the regular old .77 cent blue box, but they had this for $1.14. It's so worth the extra change. It was really good. And everybody asked for 2nds. We ate the entire box which never happens.

Ak!

The dog ate my potd!

Fort.

One of the best things about being a kid.

Project.

Working on a project today. Didn't quite turn out how I expected, but it was fun anyway!

Flip Flops

I just love flip flops.

Kid Bokeh.

he's all blury, but i kinda like it. his little smile is so cute :)

i spy shoes.

New shoes :)

Did you know?

This is not a POTD but I like to pass on information about photography and photo editing as I find it or if I think it would be helpful to my friends. As I try and learn more about my camera, I also try and learn more about processing my pictures. I've learned that it is all part of photography and photoshop (in my case Elements) is a tool. Photoshop is basically a digital photographers dark room. In my search for knowledge of digital photography and finding what I don't and don't like...I found that i REALLY, REALLY like a vignette to finish of my pictures...especially portrait style pics. Vignetting is basically a darkened edge of the photo. Or in some cases, a lightened edge.
I'd been searching for an action I could use in PSE for this effect when lo and behold......wait for it......PSE has a vignette tool built right in! No kidding!
Go to Filter> Correct Camera Distortion. A window pops up and you'll notice some sliders on the right. The first one is Vignette. Move the slider to the left for darker and right for lighter. Hello! how easy is that?!
Here is an example of one of my favorite shots. Left is SOOC. Right is sharpened using the unsharp mask at 25/50/0; increased color saturation and then the vignette tool.
Hope this information may be useful to some of you! :)

Growing.

This was supposed to just be my little herb "garden". But Jake wanted in on the action too. :)

Pink Camo.

New hats sporting the ranch logo. Girl style of course :)
Don't worry, we have ones that aren't pink.

Memorial Day

Best I could do for today. :)
Thought I'd make it look all vintage-y

Rain?

not a great picture..but I hope you can see the sprinkles on the ground. last week 150 degrees. Today I turned the heater on.
Spring in CA.

A piece of me.

Coffee Cake.

Have I mentioned I like to bake?
I have food issues!

Lunch guest.

This is the bear Megan has been carrying around all week. He just had to sit with her at lunch today too. :)

21st Century

I was sitting here reading emails when I stopped and looked at what was around me. The scene just kind of cracked me up. Do you see...there are THREE phones sitting here. At one point I was reading a text message on one and talking at the same time on the other two....and reading blogs on the computer. What has the world come to, huh?! I thought the other random stuff you can see here was a good slice of life too.
If only I had a sound bite to show you the screaming child in the back ground. For some reason Jake is running from one end of the house to the other screaming as loud as he can. And yet I just continue to type.