Some quick Lightroom work

OK so after I composed my last post and I mentioned that I wanted to work with Photoshop more I took some of my pictures and edited them in Lightroom. Lightroom is a program that helps photographers manage pictures and perform post production work. I have not used Lightroom since this summer so I thought that I would export some pictures and see what I remember. Here are some pre and post Lightroom pictures. There are so many interesting and different affects that Lightroom and Photoshop can perform on pictures and I only know a little bit about each program. I would love to learn more but at this point I only know the basics.

Pre edited picture. Notice the bluish color.

I adjusted the color temperature and the picture looks ten times better.

Pre-edited picture.

I used a standard Lightroom preseting to change the look of the picture.

Pre-edited picture

Post-edited picture. I darken the picture, increased the color concentrations for some colors and I do not know what else I did. I know it does not look that different but I can tell.

Anyway it was fun to experiment and I need to do it more often. These programs can transform pictures and I just don't have the knowledge right now to do it.

I am watching it lightly snow outside. Yikes.

Pumpkin Patch

On Thursday I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch and we had a great time. The kids played for a long time in the blow up toys, the hay maze and the corn box. The girls loved the hay maze because it was tricky to follow and it had hidden slides in the middle. I liked it because I could see over it so I knew where the kids were. The corn box was a great idea, it was basically a sand box except that it had corn in it. It was a lot of fun minus the sand in the shoes, diapers, pant cuffs, etc. The pumpkin patch was actually a bust since all of the pumpkins were rotted but the kids had a fun time running in the field.





I was really attracted to the barn at the pumpkin patch. It was an old barn covered in old barn wood and I took a bunch of pictures of it. I wish I was more proficient in Photoshop because I am sure that there are some special effects I could add to the picture. Maybe I will work with it in my free time.




Our craft for the week was making slime. It was so easy to make. It only contains glue, water and Borax. The girls played with it for a long time. They made pizza with it, played doctor with it and cooked with it. Nathan was not too thrilled with it. He did not like it when it was sticky. He threw it around the room. We made it on Tuesday and the girls even played with the slime this morning. It was a great project and one we will make again.



Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Nathan saying "Mama, whereareyou"
-Mallory saying that her new rented Barbie movie "was so beautiful".
-smelling the dogs after a much needed bath

Nathan's breathing episode

Well I put Nathan on the potty again after he woke up on Tuesday morning because he pooped all over himself and I was going to give him a bath and he peed in the potty again. It was so exciting. However, since then I have asked him several times if he has to go potty and he says "yes" and so I put him on potty and nothing has happened. So we had those two days of success and many days of nothing. That is usually how it happens and like I said before I am not the least bit ready to really potty train him but he still enjoys sitting on the potty and pretending so we will continue to do that.

On Tuesday night Nathan was coughing a lot in his bed. He never woke up or wanted me or but he did cough quite a bit. Mallory had a cold the past week so I figured that he was getting her cold. On Wednesday morning he was not really coughing excessively so I sent him to school. I went running with my neighbor and then the school called me and said that he was "belly breathing and was wheezing". So I picked him up and took him home with me. I thought that maybe he had bad congestion and that it was not too bad. When I got him home it kind of got worse and he was really breathing from his belly and he was wheezing. He was also laying on me a lot and I must stay that Nathan never lays his head on me. He has never been really sick where he lays around all day or just wants to snuggle with me. So I called the doctor because I was actually starting to get worried. We went in about 1:40 p.m. and he ended up getting a breathing treatment, steroids and Motrin. The doctor said that his cold probably triggered the labored breathing and she was not calling it asthma but when kids have a lot of these reactions then they classify it as asthma. So this was his first episode. The breathing treatment helped his wheezing but not his deep breathing. We were sent home with a nebulizer and extra steroids. We used the nebulizer once that night and gave him one more steroid pill. The next day he was much better and we did not give him anymore treatments or steroids. So hopefully it will not happen again but with all his allergies I think that it probably will. She thinks it probably occurred because he had a cold and it just moved to his lungs. I know that there is a strong link between severe eczema and asthma so we will see over time. She said that if it happens a lot you can try to figure out the triggers and be more proactive before it happens.

So anyway that was Nathan's week. It was hard for me to see him like that since I still in the back of my head think that "we don't have kids with allergies". I am pretty much in denial of him having any allergies or that his body is not working properly. Both D and I don't have any allergies and the girls do not have any but I know that he is different and he does have allergies so we just need to be aware of those and accept them. I even hate that he takes Zyrtec at night. But I know that he itches less during the day when he does take it so I am slowly excepting that he has to take medicine everyday. On the other hand I am thankful that all he does have is allergies. He could have other more life threatening/debilitating illnesses so I am glad that he currently only has to deal with this.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. The kids went to Mimi's house on Friday and I cleaned the upstairs and rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the basement, TV room and porch carpets. It was nice to be able to do all that cleaning without the kids to get distracted or to get frustrated at. On Sunday D ran the Columbus Marathon. He did an excellent job, enjoyed himself and was proud he ran steady race. We cheered him on from the 20 mile mark and at the end. We were all proud of him and his accomplishment.




Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-knowing that there are medicines to help Nathan breathe better. He was much happier after he had his first breathing treatment
-having a day to myself and having a night with D
-running with a new friend
-Julianne understanding why I could not see her class play and her saying that she just wants Nathan to breathe better

Potty news

Last night I gave Nathan and Mallory a bath and after the bath Nathan was playing with Mallory and me in his birthday suit. I was playing in Mallory's room throwing him up and down and then he said "pee pee". So I said, "do you have to go pee pee". And he nodded so I took him into the bathroom and set him on the potty and he actually looked liked he pushed and he peed a lot in the potty. It was so funny and amazing all at the same time. I have put him on the potty only a couple of times after we have talked about it or the girls have gotten off of the potty. It seemed like it was not an accident, like he really tried to pee. I don't even think he is ready nor am I going to think he should start using the potty now. So I am just going to continue to talk to him about the potty when he seems interested.

He was really excited and the girls made a big deal of it so it was nice to see his face. He was really excited.

I don't have things I am grateful/thankful for since this is a short note and I have to go.

Walk for Autism

On Sunday we all participated in the Autism Speaks Walk Now for Autism. It turned out to be a great event with over 9,500 participants raising over 500,000 dollars. It started with a short walk and ended with many games and activities for the kids. Julianne got her face painted and the girls played on the many inflatable toys. The weather was perfect and everything ran smoothly. I know that my stepmother was very happy that it was such a success and I know that she is glad that it is over since she was co-chair of the event.


Here is Julianne and Nathan with "Freedom Brutus". They had about two dozen or so Brutus sculptures around the basketball stadium and all of them were different themes. I was really intriqued by them and wanted to see all of them but I did not get to. For those of you who do not know but "Buckeye Brutus" is the mascot for The Ohio State University.


Here is Aunt Lisa and her belly. She is due December 31st.

Here is the whole entire gang. Disclosure: I did not take this picture, it is a little off. We had some nice person take a ton of pictures so I am sure he was a little overwhelmed and did not know how to operate all the cameras he was given.

I caught Nathan in our backyard the other day getting into our lavender bush (I actually don't know what kind of bush it is I just made that up) and he was actually trying to touch this bee. I tried to get him away but every time I left to finish cleaning up the lunch mess he was in the bush trying to touch this bee. I don't know if you can see it from this picture but he actually has the bee in his hand. Yikes.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to participate in family events
-seeing a community gather for a common cause
-having a great supportive husband

Updates

I can't believe that the last time I updated my blog was last Thursday. That is probably the longest time I have gone without writing anything. I was telling D last night thatIi have not been sleeping very well and I think it is a combination of not writing in my blog, us having a busy couple of weeks and some upcoming events, helping my former employer financially constrain the Long Range Transportation Plan, having a job interview and working on my sister in law's pillow. I have been pretty busy working with my former employer financially constraining the upcoming 2009-2034 Long Range Transportation Plan. Right now they are in the early stages where they need estimates on how much transportation related income and expenses will occur within the next 30 years. So I am now projecting the revenues based on the previous 5 years expenditures and then projecting the cost of the transportation projects to see if the area can afford to fund all the projects they want to. It is a pretty long and daunting process especially when we have over 120 projects and many jurisdictions. However, I have gotten much more sofisticated in using Excel and now I have If/Then statements and future value functions in the speadhseets which have helped in reducting the number of columns I have in the spreadsheet and will help tremendously when I have to update it or switch projects around from year to year.

Additionally, I had an interview with the Federal Highway Administration for a full time Community Planner position. I was not too thrilled about the job since I want to get away from getting higher in the spending federal money bureaucracy. However, the salary was significantly higher than most planning jobs and I knew that the benefits would be good. What I would be doing is checking local and state transportation planning agencies' plans and programs to see if they are following federal regulations. I would not be producing plans or programs I would just be checking them. I think that the interview went well. I answered all their technical questions well, since I was familiar with the process and transportation planning, but I was not as excited about the job and they might have sensed that. I did like the people I interview with. They seemed pretty laid back and causal and they said that they believe that the organization is a pretty relaxed and fun place to work. I think it would be interesting to work on the federal side of transportation planning since for so long in my career I was the one submitting my work for Federal review. I would have to travel a lot to the local transprotaion planning agencies but they try to divide it up evenly between the planner. So we will see. The job add was listed nationally so I am sure that there are other qualified applicants. I was suppose to hear by the end of this week and I have not heard from them but I am thinking the later I hear I probably did not get the offer.

I halfway completed my sister in law's pillow. She is getting it monogrammed and then I am going to sew the back on so that it can be a pillow.


We took advantage of the great weather last weekend and visited a Metro Park. We had a picnic and went for a short hike. the kids always have fun when we do this and it is a great way to visit all the local parks in our area.





During this past week we made colored rice and transformed the colored rice into mosaics. I get all my ideas for other blogs so most of my projects/crafts are not original. I don't really have the "kid craftiness gene" so I steal ideas for other blogs. I have several blogs that I get my ideas from and I will share those on another post. We took rubbing alcohol and food coloring and made colored rice. We let that dry overnight and they glued them onto post cards to make mosaics. We had a great time and Nathan even enjoyed mixing the rice and feeling the rice. I put the leftover rice into a Tupperware container and hid objects in it for Nathan.



Mallory's fish, Rainbow, died on Thursday. It was not doing well for the last couple of weeks, it refused to eat and the water was getting very murky very quickly so I knew that something was up. She was actually very sad about it and said that she loved the fish and that it was so beautiful and colorful. So after school we buried it in our backyard and she drew a picture of it. She is doing better now and is already asking for a new fish and I told her we were waiting a couple days in order to grieve our lost pet.




Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-reading Dove Chocolate's little saying inside the wrapper. Ex. "Forget the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey instead!"
-getting all green lights when I am in a hurry
-seeing a rainbow while running first thing in the morning
-Mallory saying she just can't help water running from her eyes when she is sad
-Catching Julianne reading to Mallory in the morning before we got up
-Seeing Nathan sweetly give a ball to another little girl during reading time at the library

Busy week

I have had a busy week and have not really had the time to update my blog. My usual time to update the blog is between 8-10:00 pm. after the kids go to bed. D has been working from 12:00 pm. to 8:00 pm (it really ends up being from 9-10 am. to 8:00 pm) on Monday and Thursdays so those days I am pretty exhausted and I do not feel like blogging. I went out with some new neighborhood friends on Tuesday night and D went out with a friend last night so my nights have been busy. Plus I am trying to finish my sister-in-law's pillow which is becoming more difficult as I get to the ribbons. I worked on it last night from 8-10 trying to miter the ribbons edges and then sew them onto the pillow. I will have to take pictures the next time I have it out. It will be really cute once she gets Lexee's initials embroidered onto it. So basically, during the 8-10 pm. time slot is when I have time to really get stuff done that I really want to do. My choices are watch TV, check out the Internet and update my blog, begin/finish sewing projects or spend quality time with D (of which I do that while I am watching TV and sewing). So today I let Mallory watch a cartoons while Nathan is sleeping so that I could update my blog. The girls barely watch any television anymore, which I fully support. They really play with each other or spend most of their time playing outside with the neighbors. I get chances during the day to quickly check and respond to e-mails and to do other short household activities that I have to get done but nothing where I need to concentrate or need a couple of hours to conquer.

D figured out what was wrong with Mallory the last couple of weeks. To rehash, she has been very clingy, not wanting to play outside with the neighborhood kids, very whinny and kind of sad. He talked to her and she got really upset when Julianne wanted to play outside this weekend and Mallory chose not to. She told him that she really missed Julianne. He challenged her to go outside and to play with the other kids and not to avoid those situations where she used to play and have fun also. Mallory recognized that Julianne still loves her and that she is just choosing to play outside more. Mallory would be just as happy to play pretend inside with Julianne, however, Julianne really loves to play outside with the neighborhood friends. So Mallory has been playing outside more with Julianne and the neighborhood friends and is not avoiding as much. She still may chose to play inside by herself sometimes but at least she will not be so sad about it.

Here are pictures from our neighborhood ice cream/pizza social we had on Sunday. It was really fun and the kids just thought of creative activities to play with. They made parachutes out of napkins and string and used pretzels as the weight. They played with them for about an hour. The adults had fun talking and thinking up ideas for the 4th of July festivities. We may try to do a float this year for the parade or just have everyone walk as a neighborhood. Nathan now has a secret crush on a neighbor dad. He held him for the entire picnic and loved sitting with him.





Mallory, Nathan and I played with our abundant sand bag (from my brick paver project of which I bought too much sand) and made some traditional glue and sprinkle art. I also used some dried herbs from our kitchen to add some color. Mallory really liked the project and made several pieces of art. Nathan just liked throwing the sand and getting glue on his hands.





Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing Nathan and Mallory holding hands in the car after Nathan initated it (so sweet)
-having great friend support (thanks Jess and Jill)
-going out and meeting new SAHM's in our neigborhood