“Helping the ugly since 1988″

… with my Nikon that is. I finally got the chance to see him. It was the one with the tag in his ear so he wasn’t very afraid of me when I got close enough to get decent shots (and that was with my 55/200 lens). I do wish I could have gotten better images but I’m still learning how to set this camera for low light. Check him out ….

Smile for the camera!

Here’s my rose photo.  I did take the one I spoke about with the rose across the piano keys but I wasn’t too happy with the way that one turned out.  This one, however, I’m quite happy.  I used available light and the camera flash to capture the reflection off of the black lacquer of the piano.

Sound exciting? Actually, it is. My roses are doing very well and while browsing favorite photographers I saw an image of a rose laid across piano keys and thought I’d try my version of the shot. Lately I’ve been very into black and white but recently saw an image where they brought out the color of a tree against a black and white background and I may try that technique. I’m thinking a red rose would be the most dramatic but I also have white, yellow, orange and pink out there.

I’d have to say my favorite color of rose is white with red being a very close second. For my photograph, red will be more dramatic so I’m hoping one of my red roses is in good shape for what I’m after.

It’s interesting what the different color roses represent. My favorite rose, white apparently stands for “innocence” and when given to a sweetheart means you think they are “heavenly”. It stands for romance. My second favorite, red, obviously means “love”.

Speaking of roses, I’m expecting a flower delivery any day now. The husband ordered them for my birthday. It’s a bit early but it was sweet. 1800flowers.com (Proud Sponsor of the American Rose Society by the way) has a great selection of roses. With the meanings there on their website, any guy can find the best combination of roses to send. Guys need that kind of help sometimes, don’t they?

I’m waiting for the best time to take my photo and I’ll post it here when I get it just right. I’m thinking I’ll use a warm filter and perhaps a soft blur. I just wish I had some champagne to add as a prop. All this writing about roses and champagne, I’m thinking I need a night out.

It’s 1 o’clock in the morning and I’m sitting here watching the Brady Bunch. Too much caffeine today I guess, luckily I have tomorrow off.

I love this cartoon. Click on the duck over there on the right to see all of the cartoons. This one was one of my favorites.

Last week I bought a ring at an online auction that I ended up with for a steal and it got me thinking about starting now for Christmas shopping. My parents anniversary is coming up too and they had a few things that looked like they would make good gifts to send out to them. That’s what really got me thinking about just doing the Christmas shopping online this year. If I start now and spread it out over the next 4 months it wont seem like a huge chunk out of our finances in December.

I actually like online shopping. Today for example, I considered driving all the way to Borders for a couple of books on photography that I wanted. I had already searched the library (online of course) and they only had one of the books I was interested in. Borders may or may not have even had what I wanted and I’d have had to wait until the kids homework was done, spent the money in gas…. got dressed (you get the picture). I found the books I wanted online and don’t mind the wait on shipping. So why not Christmas gifts?

Considering the rush on black friday, it makes more sense to be prepared. Black Friday Online has a ton of information and has actual circular info that you wont find anywhere else this far ahead of time. And it’s free. I rarely get out on black Friday so I’ll be watching their online specials that favorite stores like Best Buy will be putting online before the big shopping day. That’s where you’ll find me, online in my pajamas.

I’ve decided to go ahead and set up a room for portrait photography. We have a decent sized storage room with high ceilings that should suffice. Ebay has some decent buys on backdrops and I’ve ordered a couple of books on portrait photography. If I spend the winter gaining more experience expect to see quite a few shots of the kids on here.

If you register with the intent to spam my blog you may as well not even bother. First of all, comments are moderated and I have to approve one manually before it gets posted. Second, I look up each and every email and user name and if I find it listed anywhere with a relationship to spam and/or advertising you will be deleted. I am the only one who will be doing any advertising on here and only companies that I approve of. Considering I am very picky you can be sure that any link you click from here will not lead you to a site that will be damaging to your computer or take it over, as the last attempted “users” link did. I use Askimet for spam and 99.9% of any spam comments are immediately filtered and don’t see the light of day, the few that slip through I delete myself.

The only registered user’s I’ll allow are friends and people who appear to have legitimate email address. Just FYI.

My mustang is gone. I’m not exactly happy about it but it was needing work that didn’t quite fit in with our schedule. It was such a fun car to drive. I told my husband that mustang was my mid life crisis vehicle. Something I could put a little money into and have my fun red sports car. Considering all that was needed it would have taken an Auto Loan to do it, mainly for the engine but after that the only other thing it really needed was a new top.

So now I’m missing my mustang and looking at different cars online that I’d love to replace it with. I’m a few years away from doing that but Apex Auto Loan has quick and easy online approval and an Auto Loan Calculator.

I’m thinking Jaguar. (I’m also thinking I’d better think cheaper)