Making things beautiful

Yesterday, after logging into youtube I noticed that I had 2 ‘youtube’ messages waiting for me.  Normally these are of the spam variety and I quickly delete them without reading.  I’m so thankful I stopped to read these two. 

In his email a guy named Jeff tells me he’s a communications design student and he’s currently working on a project in which he would like to use one of my videos of Nolan.  He directed me to some of his work and I was super impressed!  I won’t tell you how he’s doing it (he wants me to keep it our little secret) but it’s super impressive, here, check out a sample piece for yourself:

How cool is that?? Here is the original video to look at, for reference sake. Jeff has picked the video of Nolan saying "Guess what mom!" and I’m dieing to see what he does with it.  Jeff doesn’t know that I also studied graphic arts and I’m also a watercolour artist, which would explain my intense interest in his project.

That has been my excitement for the day, today was supposed to be my post about all my new favourite music but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Take it easy,

~jen

Another Late night… sort of.

This is another one of those weird nights that I have been asleep for about 4 hours, woke up for a bathroom break and can’t go back to sleep.  The kids are both sawing logs in my bed so I thought I’d spend this time writing a blog post, in complete and absolutely uninterrupted silence.

We haven’t been up to much, keeping the kids busy, you know, the usual.  I’ve been spending more time than usual with Suz.  Since they may not be next door for much longer-it’s neccessary that I get all the visiting in person while it’s only a few steps away.  Believe it or not we spend a lot of time on the phone and MSNing… and we are close enough to shout out our kitchen windows at each other.  So not much is going to change…  It’s going to be hard for me to adjust at first.  really. fricken. hard.

There are many hugs and lovelies I need to give my husband.  Much more than the usual dosage, why you ask?  He won 1000$ playing poker and bought me my new camera.  Last year he got me a new camera for valentines day, and a little over a year later he bought me another one… how does he love me?  Let me count the ways…
The new camera is a DSLR, A Canon 30D to be exact, it won’t arrive until the 2nd of April along with my in laws who are bringing it from my Sister in law’s house in Washington where I had it shipped (much cheaper).  If you can believe this, I won the auction and paid for it at midnight on wednesday and the parcel had arrived at my sister in law’s house on Friday morning.  How awesome is that????  The USPS is bloody awesome, Canada post should take some notes. 
So, You know what this means right???  Yes, more photos of my kids and all of my friends kids- it’s going to be awesome.  There is going to be a little learning curve (okay, BIG learning curve) to get over but I’m a smart cookie… shouldn’t take me long.  I’ve got plans to set up my living room as a photo studio and have people in to have their photos taken.  Don’t worry, you’ll be reading all about it and seeing photos, many, many photos.  This is the start of something great my friends, I know it and believe it.

The things Moms do

Some of you may be wondering what the heck I’ve been up to… well, I’m going to tell you.  Last week we were in the land of sicky sicky.  Only Paige and I really.  She had the stomach flu and I just had a head cold that nestled itself firmly into my lungs.  The flu was gone just in time for My brother and his fiance’s visit.  We had fun, I always enjoy a visit from my brother.  I designed their wedding invitations and had Misty (bro’s fiance) help me put them together.  She had some great suggestions and it really made them special, they are done in a ‘beach’ theme so the underlying background is a mixture of swirls and shells that I designed.  By the time we were done, I would never have guessed that they were 100% hand crafted.  I did promise an art piece in my next blog post, so this is it: (click on the photo to enlarge it)

I’m hoping to have some work of the paint and canvas variety soon- I have people waiting on me!!

My new camera is on the horizon as well.  I’m dreaming about it nightly and all of the beautiful life i will be capturing with it.  I have a definite feeling it was what I was MEANT to do and everything that I’ve enjoyed and fostered in my life until now has prepared me to be a brilliant photographer.  Life is so exciting right now!

Taking a walk down the street of Sesame.

The other day i was doing my usual aimless wandering through the Internet when I came upon the most charming photography website.  If you have speakers, turn them up.  Do you recognize that song?  If you were a child in the 70s and early 80s and you watched Sesame Street you probably do.  It’s called ‘Ladybug Picnic’, and this is the original clip from Sesame street that I remember so well:

When I clicked upon Jinky’s site and that song played it made me so happy. A happiness I could feel in each strand of my hair and in every single toenail. There aren’t too many things (besides my kids) that bring that kind of feeling out in me… it’s awesome. While browsing youtube I also found this clip which is the only other song from the original Sesame street that I remember:

By the way the newer version of ‘Ladybug Picnic" is by a gal named Elizabeth Mitchell and it’s available on her website.  I purchased one of her albums (You are my Sunshine) through iTunes and it was only 9.99 (or .99 per track), such a great deal, and the songs are so precious.  There are a few audio clips available to preview on her website as well (in case you like to listen before you buy).  If you’ve got kids that like music and you are sick of Barney tapes… you gotta go and take a listen.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my flashback for the day.  I’m going to go and rest my weary head.

Next blog… I’m going to try and have some ART to show and tell.

I know, it’s exciting isn’t it??

~jen

The good the bad and the ugly.

That has to be the most used and cliche blog titles ever.  But there you have it.

I am not a HUGE fan of TV.  I usually have one show that I watch and if I happen to get hooked on another show, the first fave show suffers.  For instance I’ve been addicted to ‘The Office’ since my hubby got the entire first and second season on DVD.  I was able to sit down at my leisure and watch a couple episodes (sans commercials) at a time.  So far it’s been okay recording the office on our dvd recorder but then American idol started.  The last few seasons i didn’t start watching until they were down to twelve contestants ( or something like that) but this year I’m hooked.  The office has taken a back seat.  It’s even gone so far that I’ve been putting the kids to bed well before 8 o’clock so I can watch in peace and quiet.  This has been totally awesome, first of all because they have been STAYING in their beds and actually falling asleep!!  Secondly I have some real adult time to do the things I want to do without disruptions.  It’s been nice but I have found myself basking in the glory of silence a little too long, and bad part about getting your kids to bed early is the whole waking up part.  They have been getting up at 7.  SEVEN O’ CLOCK.  Which means that I have also been getting up at 7 o’clock.  I’m not very productive for those first 2 or 3 hours, my brain and body are still trying to figure out why they aren’t in bed.  I’m seeing if i ever get used to it but so far coffee and tea and a smattering of Diet Pepsi have been helping me out of the tired stupor that hits around 2 every day.

Wish me luck folks, in the meantime I’m going to really really enjoy my American idol shows in peace and quiet.

~jen