It’s me, the blogger.  The photographer.  Remember how I used to write stuff here sometimes?  Remember how I showed pictures?  Yeah, I’m still alive.  Just in case you missed me …

Whew, I cannot believe I abandoned my blog for an entire month. Here we are, first week of September and my most recent post was August 1st. Pathetic. I have thought about my blog a lot during the last month, but thinking seems to be the best I could do. No actual posts made it out of my head and into the world wide web …

So, I have a lot to catch up on! Mountain pictures to share, new products in the shop, lots of portrait sessions to show you … and of course the last installment of the Photography 101 series.

So, for those of you who haven’t forgotten about me in the last month, there is lots more to come this month!

For our 2nd weekly date night, I tricked Brian into doing something creative by calling it “date night”.  (Just kidding, he had fun.  He’ll do most anything as long as there is beer involved, so he’s not that hard to trick).

We did something called light painting – and we will totally be doing this again with the kids.  So fun.

So, here’s how it works.  Get some flashlights (or some other light source.  Sparklers, off-camera flash, little LED lights, etc.)  Maybe some colored cellophane for variety.  Then you need your camera and tripod.  You have to be able to hold your shutter open for a long time – so break out your camera manual and figure out how to set your shutter speed to bulb mode (which means it stays open until you tell it to close).  You also need to have a remote shutter release, or you need to know how to set the timer on your camera.

You need to wait until dark, and then find an area where you can move around a bit.  We did some outside, and some inside our living room.  The process is pretty simple.  When it is completely dark, set your camera up on the tripod, and then use your timer or remote shutter release to open your camera shutter.  Use a flashlight to “paint” words, patterns, etc. in the dark.  When you are done, close the shutter on your camera and see what you came up with!

In the top image we wrote the word “love”, of course, with the flashlight against the wall.  Below you can see my red “J” – I just covered the end of the flashlight with some red cellophane. And below that is our amazingly artistic smiley face in purple.

I think next time we do this, we won’t do it inside.  We will go outside and stand in the middle of the yard or something so that you don’t see the texture of the walls behind our “artwork” … And I think a couple of different sizes of flashlights would be fun to try.  Also:  this is a great technique to use with sparklers during your 4th of July or New Year’s party. Also (again): There are much better, more explanatory, and less lazy-like tutorials out on the web for light painting.  Like this one or this one.  And go look at the fancy-schmancy light painting examples here!

You can see all of our date-night ideas by going to the 52 Date Nights category.  And don’t forget to head over to Simply Modern Mom for tons more creative date-night ideas from other participants.

A little side-note for anyone keeping track – I’m behind in posting our date nights (of course, what else would you expect from me?).  We did this one a few weeks ago – and we’ve had some other, less blog-worthy date nights in there too.  We actually remembered our anniversary, and got rid of the kids for a night and went out for drinks … but since we didn’t do anything extremely creative or out-of-the ordinary, I won’t bore you with those details.  More creative date night posts to come in the future!

Dump Truck Original Painting by PickledPumpkins

My studio is currently torn apart for construction (ok, just adding some shelves – but there is enough mess for a huge construction project!).  I will return tomorrow with the next in my Photography 101 series and more fun content for the rest of the week.  For now, go check out Pickled Pumpkins – a little Etsy shop with THE CUTEST artwork – great for kids’ rooms!

So, last week it became pretty apparent that Brian and I needed some couple-time.  Um, yeah.  It’s getting pretty bad around here people.  I posted this little story for everyone to make fun of last week on facebook:

We haven’t had the time (or taken the time, really) to talk to each other about anything more meaningful than who guest-starred on Sesame Street today and how much it sucks that people schedule 8 am meetings on Monday mornings.  We haven’t had a meal that didn’t involve bits of food being tossed at us from across the table, or fights about who is cooler– Tony Hawk or Michael Jordan?!?

So, I came across an idea that apparently all the cool bloggin’ mommies are doing out there … 52 date nights.  (I think it was started by Simply Modern Mom, but I found it on a local Idaho blog – Doin’ it All, Idaho Style)  I think it originated as a new year’s resolution kinda thing, but since we all know I don’t like to rush right in to anything without procrastinating carefully weighing my options, we are just starting now.  Mid-June.  (actually, I didn’t discover this idea til last week, so technically I didn’t procrastinate.  I’m not late this time … ANYWAYS. I digress.)  So, the gist of it is this:  52 weeks in a year, the goal is to have a little mini-date with your spouse once per week.  The idea is that they are free (or really, really cheap), usually at home after the kids are in bed, and very simple.  But, you have to actually plan something and make it a little bit special (I’m thinking me falling asleep on the couch in front of the tv at 9:00 pm while Brian is forced to scrunch into the corner of the couch because I’m hogging it all is not gonna work for “date night”).

Cell phone pic we took on our date night

When I shared the idea with Brian, he was excited to try it out, so we planned our first date night for this weekend. We have a little fireplace thingy on the back patio, so we had a little campfire and drank a few glasses of wine.  I can’t say the subject of Sesame Street never came up at all, but mostly we talked about grown-up topics.  It was simple, easy, and so nice to just spend some quality time with my husband.  I kinda like that guy.  It’s too easy to get all caught up in day-to-day life and forget how much I like him – as more than just a dinner-cooker and diaper-changer.

Want to join in the fun?  You can find some romantic ideas here at Simply Modern Mom, and at this cool blog Love, Actually which has tons of romantic ideas.

Edited to add:  You can see all of our date-night ideas by going to the 52 Date Nights category.

*Print by cutpasteprint on Etsy*

I decided to join in the weekly writing challenge over at Sunday Scribblings (which I found through the amazing Kelly Rae, of course) …

This week’s prompt was “mantra“  (ok, that was actually last week’s prompt – but you know me, I don’t like to rush into anything.  Better late than not at all!).

Lately the mantra that keeps me going is “just do one thing” …

I kinda have a lot going on in my life … full time corporate job, 3 crazy kids, house and husband, and this little photography business that I’m trying to build.  It’s a lot.  I’m a total crazy person.

There are so many times when I come home from work and I’m so tired that I want to do nothing but turn on the TV and veg out on the couch.

Or I think of all the things I want or need to do and I get overwhelmed … I want to do anything but face that ever-growing to-do list.

But watching reruns and taking naps doesn’t make me feel any better about the craziness … I know this and so my self-motivational speech to myself lately is “just do one thing”.  Jessica, just get off your ass and go do ONE productive thing to grow your little business.  Go edit a photo, go write a blog post, go get some of that dreaded paperwork done.  Just ONE thing and you can come back to trashy reality TV.  See how ambitious I am?  My goal every day is to do one little tiny thing.

But the thing is, it seems to be working.  I totally trick myself by saying I only have to do one thing … but once I get started that one little thing turns into 5 little things, one medium sized thing, and part of a big thing.  I end up falling into bed late at night after getting several hours worth of photo-related work done and no trashy tv-watching done.

These magical ninja mind-powers have been helping me slowly get caught up on my backlog of crap on my to-do list.  And when I start to get caught up, I start to feel better about life in general.  Funny how that works.  Too bad it took me 30-something years to learn these super-duper fancy ways of tricking myself into being productive.

But you know, better late than not at all, right?  (Apparently that is mantra #2 …)

1. This picture is new in my shop tonight, and I have also entered it in the greeblepix contest! Yay for spring blossom photography! I’m addicted. Until the blossoms are gone, you can count on seeing eleventy million pretty flowery pictures around here.

2. I bought the book Best Easy Day Hikes – Boise to give us some ideas of where to take the kids on excursions this spring/summer. (I know I’m a dork for buying a book about where to hike in my OWN HOMETOWN. But this way we don’t have to come up with any ideas, we just have to pick something and go! Less planning, discussing, deciding, more GOING! Anyways.) I took a little mini-walk from the book at lunch yesterday, and I am excited to take the boys out hiking and exploring this summer.

3. Speaking of walking … Rachel finally started walking this weekend! YAY! She just stood up and started, like it was no big deal at all … like we haven’t been telling her to WALK ALREADY YOU LAZY GIRL for months. And then yesterday afternoon she did a faceplant on the sidewalk and scraped her face up. 24 hours of bravery before her first injury … doesn’t seem to have slowed her down today, thank goodness. Still walking all over the place. Our scraped up baby girl (this was last night – she looks worse today.  Hopefully she heals soon!):

Happy Tuesday everyone!

This time of year is so optimistic, hopeful, happy.  I love making New Year’s resolutions.  I always feel like anything is possible.  I can do or be anything next year.  This year is done … no matter how good or bad it was, NEXT year will be THE YEAR, I just know it.

I have a lot in store for the new year … first up is a bit of a website re-design, to come in the next couple of weeks.  Some new pricing on portraits, and new art photos to share …and my abandoned 365 project from last year is making a reappearance starting tomorrow.

And personally, I plan to join the millions of other people throughout the world who plan to lose weight!  30 pounds by my birthday, to be exact.  Brian and I are headed back to the gym!  And to celebrate, on my birthday in May we are going to run in a 5k.  This is huge for me.  I don’t think I’ve ever run a mile in my entire life.  Even in high school PE – I was totally walking in the back with the chubby kids.

But – I know I can do it this year!  THIS is the year!  I have my workout plan all in place and my shoes are ready for my first walk in the morning (gotta start somewhere, ya know?)

We really had a great year … and here’s hoping 2010 will be even better!

Cheers,

-J