I totally plan to put a tutorial on here soon. I've been asked a bunch of times. Basically, for this photo I used curves, layer masks, alien skin bokeh and a highpass sharpen technique. Oh and I used dodge and burn tools.
This pic was already so nice. It was a simple fix.
Tomorrow we head off in the late afternoon to drive to Joplin, MO. My mum and her gang left this morning to get there ahead of us. Rene set up a family reunion for the 4th, and I'll be meeting my mum's dad for the first time ever. He's the only surviving great grandparent for the kids. I'm really looking forward to it.
Reflections
I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately. A few of our married friends are having troubles right now, with their marriages. It's heavy, sad and painful. We've been there and no doubt are not over the worst of it yet. I'm sure we still have much to deal with. It's difficult to watch our friends struggle with hurts and pain.
God's been speaking to me a lot about my role as a wife, and I've been thinking and reflecting on relationships. I have a theory right now, that the vast majority of relationship issues boil down to a common fear that we are going to give out more love than we're going to get back in return. It's more than simply a fear of rejection. It's like a fear of being depleted of love resources. Because we love this person so much, we are scared we'll run ourselves empty on loving them, and they won't give us a refill.
We're scared we'll be taken advantage of. That we'll end up doing most of the house work (if that's your particular love language) and won't receive help, and our gesture of love won't be received and reciprocated. Or that we won't get the physical affection we crave. Or that we'll be expected to work harder, or put more time or money into the relationship than the other person is having to put in. And we'll dry out, and be left with naught, because we weren't as loved.
And ultimately, we shouldn't be worrying about our cup of love running empty (nice and cheesy and cliche wasn't it?), because we shouldn't be expecting it to be filled by our spouse. Or else we'll always end up disappointed. I believe that if we are embracing Jesus' love, if we are allowing ourselves to be truly filled up with his love, then we'll feel completely free to love our spouses without restriction, and without fear of being taken for granted or taken advantage of. Because we have all the love we could ever desire. We are so loved. He's passionate about us and jealous for us. He died painfully to spare us. There's no way we'll end up giving out more love than we received!
Yanno what? I am so darn tired right now. I am nodding off while typing this, but I wanted to get some thoughts down. I will come back to this subject later, for sure (when I'm better rested). Sorry if this doesn't read well or seem to make much sense.
Meanwhile, I will take my camera with me to Joplin for sure. And I will take many pics and post all about it when I return. I hope this goes well! I am excited.
Is it really Tuesday already? Time for TTT. I'm looking forward to hearing what your tots have been saying this week.
Please join in, read what it's all about here, then go to your blog, type in your tot talk tuesday post, including the quote from your child and the following code in your post.
I've been trying to remember all mine this week. There have been a few. I need to start writing them down, because I forget so quickly...
Zoe had the hiccups this week. She came and reported to me, "Mummy, I have the wake-ups". Every time she hiccupped she followed it up with an exclamation, "Wake-up!" and a giggle.
Lana spontaneously told me the other day, "I like sleeping better than being awake....because you don't have to walk around so much"
That's all I can remember. I'm going to have to get a notebook to carry around... the mental note thing just doesn't work.
--- Please join in and try to leave a comment on other folk's TTT blog posts too. It makes us feel like a nice, shiny, happy bloggy family. Or something like that.
So we did coco keys on Saturday. We had a load of fun, but Lana did get overwhelmed after 5 hours and asked if we could go home.
Mr Butt Crack did in fact make an appearance again. His butt crack, however, did not this time. Should I actually admit that I was slightly disappointed? I mean, it would have made good blog material.
And now today is Lana's 5th birthday. She's excited and overwhelmed. I'm about to take off with them to grab breakfast somewhere and eat it at a park. As soon as I've cleaned up the wrapping paper. Because we're trying to keep the house clean for our guests coming later today. My mum, little brother and Step Father arrive from Scotland later today! Woooohooo! I am so excited. What a day.
I think:
Water fun, butt cracks (or lack thereof), birthdays and visitors
I thought I'd give a quick update on the garden. My container garden is doing ok, but I haven't put as much in it as I had thought I would .
My allotment garden is...I dunno. I have mixed feelings about it.
Last weekend I was ready to give it up completely. It was 100 degrees outside, I hadn't tended to it in a week and I went there after skipping my meal and not drinking enough fluids. I was dizzy, dripping with sweat, it was in my eyes and my clothes were drenched, I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, there were more weeds than I could handle and my only tool (a hand shovel) snapped. So I had to use my hands and my finger nails broke and started bleeding. I decided I didn't want a stupid garden any more.
I drove home and almost passed out on the way. Got home to the air conditioning, a cool shower and a big drink of water.
I am still very overwhelmed with the weeding. But I am excited that my garden has started producing now, and it changes my opinion. We've brought in more turnips than we could dream of eating. And tonight I just brought home 2 huge, fat zucchinis and some sugar snap peas. I have tomatoes looking big and fat, though still green. And bean stalks flowering. Some nice tall carrot tops. I'm looking forward to more food from it.
I am totally learning as I go along. I will do tons differently next year. But, I'm doing ok. And it's so exciting to pick your own food. I've grown everything from seed, and there's something magical about growing food from something so tiny.
Anyway, sorry this was a boring post. I wanted to write something down about it though.
---------
We're off to coco keys water resort in the morning, to celebrate Lana's birthday (her actual birthday is on Monday).
We went there a year and a half ago, for Zoe's first birthday. I wonder if we'll see Mr Butt Crack there again.
Plenty on my to do list between now and then so I'd better shot down the lap top.
Happy Tuesday. I'm looking forward to hearing what cute things your kids have been saying this week.
Please join in, read what it's all about here, then go to your blog, type in your tot talk tuesday post, including the quote from your child and the following code in your post.
Then come back here and add your name and the url to your post on Mr Linky below.
Try to visit other people's entries and leave a comment on their blog too. Thanks for joining in.
-----------
I've been listening out for something this week for TTT, but nothing major came up. I did find it cute last night, when Lana and Zoe were sort of tangled up together on the floor, and Lana accidentally kicked Zoe on the knee while Zoe tried to break free. And Zoe looked at Lana and said, "Hey Lana, stop kickin' my butt".
Since one of the reasons I started this was for a way to record cute things they say, which are too easy to forget - I'm going to list some of Zoe's pronunciations at 2 years old.
Sleepy = Feepeet Glenn = Ghenn Like = Wike Look = Wook Dora the Explorer = Dora Pora Swiper = Fiper Bread = bed (which has caused a lot of frustration when she asks for bread and I start taking her to the bedroom and laying her down, and she starts freaking out)
Any little girl who is not her sister = Shaylee. It's the name of a friend's little girl, but Zoe insists everyone is called Shaylee. She even names her baby dolls Shaylee. And whenever we drive away from our house, she calls out to each of the neighbor girls in turn, "bye bye Shaylee" and then to the other one, "bye bye Shaylee"
Ok, I'm editing this to add a new one which just happened
Background - last year Kaya bought a bag of beads from a yard sale. We buckled them into their car seats and I sat in the front while Rene ran back to pick up a couple coffee tables (for 10 c each). In the amount of time it took for him to cross the street, Lana had managed to stick a bead up her nose and get it completely wedged way high. In fact, blogged about it. We ended up in ER, where they got me to blow in her mouth to make the bead fly out.
So just 2 minutes ago, Lana found a bead and brought it to me and said, "Look at this bead, Mum. It's so big it would only barely fit up my nose"
I guess this is how her mind works. A good way to judge bead size is to compare it with nostril size. I of course, reminded her of that time she had a bead stuck up her nose, and why she wouldn't ever want to attempt that again.
I've learned some things recently, about the difference between chipmunks and ground squirrels. Such as, chipmunks are smaller, have stripes on their faces and tend to walk with their tales raised. Thank you wikipedia.
We have tons of ground squirrel holes in our yard and you see them frolicking around all the time. I *love* them. I snapped up some pics of some friendly baby ones who were popping up to say hi.
Posts
