Date Night

Last night Eric and I had a wonderful date.  He has been through (through?!  I think he is still *in*...) a rough season at work.  There have been countless late nights, worked weekends, and even a few all-nighters for the department he oversees.  This has been difficult on our entire family- the kids miss seeing their dad, I'm worn out from carrying the load solo, and our marriage is a bit ragged from simply not being together enough.  But, when we do get the chance, we make the most of it!  So, while my husband is at the office on a Saturday right now, we can say that we enjoyed an amazing date together and we are as madly and deeply in love as ever!

We dropped the children off with their amazing, wonderful Aunt and Uncle for a sleepover and headed to downtown Nashville for dinner at Zola.  This is my favorite Nashville restaurant!  The cuisine is really fabulous (and we all know I'm a snob after my Gramercy Tavern experience!).  I had their Brie pizza starter with mushrooms and almonds and truffle oil and the Bleu Cheese Halibut entree.  For dessert, creme brulee and Eric had a Lemoncello layer cake that was gone in the blink of an eye (I had a bite, but seriously... he loved it because it disappeared super fast!).  We talked and talked and talked and did our best to make up for being apart from each other so much as of late.

Next stop was the movie theatre for Quantum of Solace.  No spoilers, but I was less than thrilled with all of the revenge.  Unsettling.  But, I can say it was a well done action/spy film.  Eric liked it and that's all that matters when viewing action movies.  I love him, what can I say?

We came home and stayed up late and woke up when our bodies told us to.  With no kids in the house, that was about 8am.  Fabulous, fabulous rest!

Taking full advantage of the lack of little ones in tow, we dressed and left for breakfast for two (not 5... TWO!) at Franklin Mercantile Deli.  Okay, their breakfast is soooooo good.  I had a mushroom, spinach, feta omelette, croissant, fruit cup, and freshly made cinnamon roll.  Oh.  And a caramel latte.  All while staring into my sweetie's eyes and enjoying the crisp fall scenery through the window.  And, the deli is so cozy and well designed.  We don't eat out for breakfast very often- but I declare that that is exactly where we should go from now on!

Revitalizing and lovely.  Can't we just do that more often?!

Okay, now for fun (and because my husband is at work and it's Saturday and... well, I have some time to burn), I took one of the photos from last night and tinkered with it in Photoshop Elements.  My super nice husband, who tries to encourage my creativity, bought me Elements years ago so that I could play with my photographs.  I'm not the first to say it- Photoshop has a tremendously large learning curve.  It is not an intuitive program.  But, when someone offers up a step by step tutorial on how to do a particular thing, I figured it was high time I tried more than the basic red eye reduction or cropping or blending.  I followed this tutorial.

Here, is the "before".  You will see that I am in The Green Dress again.  I'm a housewife with three kids and have no need to extend my "fancy" wardrobe too far, so while its only the third time wearing it, the ensemble has been caught in quite a few photographs.  Beside the point, though, right?  You will see that the image lacks depth (the flash on my purse camera isn't fabulous), and we both have red eye.

The "After" image has a magical glow, the red eyes are gone, and the color seems more balanced and rich.  I'm really pleased and encouraged to find a few more straightforward tutorials (anyone have tips?).  Try it yourself.  It's easy!

A few months ago, my brother and I were chatting and came around to the idea of a brother sister project.  I am so excited.  1.  because I wish my brother was closer and this may help the miles seem smaller  2.  because this is so very cool that everyone with far away family is going to want to copy it  and 3.  it has something to do with photos (which I love)

This may take forever and a day, but we are going to introduce our old family photos to present day technology and insist that they make friends!!!

Albums and boxes of photos are at my dad's house.  Colin lives near dad.  I don't.  My brother is going to scan the photos, bit by bit, and e-mail them to me.  We'll then have the ability to save them alongside our current photos on our computers/ on CD/ however we choose.  But, also- and here's the exciting part- we can also make hardbound albums for the non-tech sorts in our life to enjoy!!!  

Scratch that... the most exciting part for me is getting pictures of my mom.  I have so few of my very own (she died only a year half after I got married and left home).  Most were from our family camera and I will be so happy to have my very own copies.

Anyway, Colin began trying to scan last week and is still working out the best set-up to do this at high resolution and still be quick.  I responded with something impatient like "I WANT PHOTOS" so he kindly sent me a sneek peek at a selection of low resolution beauties:

my mom and dad probably before I was born

Colin and I one Halloween

me, sometime before 7 years old (this is our first house)

A completely *gorgeous* one of my mother- I did *not* get her figure!  :-)

Another fun one of mom and dad

I'll have more coming- this is too fun to resist!

Time for Photos?

Anyone noticed that I haven't posted many photos lately?  We've had camera issues.  We own a Canon Digital Rebel, and I have a "purse camera".  Basically, the purse camera is a tiny digital cam. that I can carry around with me anywhere so that I don't have any "Gah!  I wish I had the camera!" moments.  Those still happen when I leave my purse at the house, but chances are less. The purse camera we had was a Canon Powershot Elph- model SD 550.  I say "had", because it died.  The lens made a horrible grinding screech as it came to a halt one day, displayed an E-18 error and turned off.  A quick search online showed that the E-18 error is famous with Powershot owners.  As it turns out, it gives no warning on when it might happen, and isn't directly related to misuse or impact upon dropping... it just happens!  One commenter on a camera review site referred to it as "E-18 day", implying that it was just a given in owning the Powershot.  Apart from this, I LOVED this camera.  It took great pictures, had a fast shutter speed and there was no delay in taking the next shot.  I felt that the images were true, and crisp and, in natural light, comparable to the Rebel.  But who wants to gamble again?  Thankfully, we had a Squaretrade Warranty and were refunded the purchase amount.  I can't recommend them enough.  You can, within a certain period of time, purchase a warranty on eBay items or new purchases from retail stores.  Most times, they don't do repairs (ever?) and process it quickly.  I think we had our money in a few days' time.  Eric went out an bought a Nikon Coolpix as a replacement.  We returned it due to slow shooting speed, and non-intuitive controls (it was a cool blue color and did have an awesome huge display, though).  Finally, I think we've got it settled and I'm the owner of a Sony Cybershot.

Well, with all the camera swapping, I've neglected posting pics to the blog.  I really don't have the energy to do photo essays of all thats been missed, but I will post some of my recent favorites here.  Enjoy!  (In no particular order)

The Fonts of my Friends

I have quite the passion for stationery.  As a young girl, having family and friends spread across towns, cities, and oceans, I wrote and received a lot of letters.  The handwritten word is so personal.  It warms my heart to see the slant of a friend's cursive or the haste in which they've crossed their "t".  And in a day when e-mail and telephone communication is speedier, knowing that someone took more time to drop a note in the mail affirms the value of that friendship.  In fact, I will say that it is my dearest friends that I am able to close my eyes and visualize their individual handwriting.  The fonts of my friends.

Likewise, I love writing cards and letters.  It is with severe embarrassment that I have ever missed sending a handwritten thank you note.  And sending Christmas cards is one of my favorite parts of the holiday- addressing envelopes with the stroke of my pen and adding personal notes in the margins of the card to those I don't see often enough.  Soon, that's what I'll be doing to get in the Christmas spirit!

I already wrote this on the Mamamade blog (link in the sidebar), but, in addition to the line of hand printed lino cards, I will be offering blank cards with my photography on the front.  Each are high quality prints, attached with black photo corners, and signed by me.  Making them up the other day had me wanting to run out on a photo shoot of our sweet area- finding architectural details that 'pop' and capturing textures and colors.  You can be sure I'll be using these in the near future!

Photoshop Elements

Two posts in one day? Crazy.

I'm just so excited. I've actually opened up the program that Eric and I bought when I got my MacBook. Finally. Okay, I'd *opened* it before, but never really tried to do anything.

Today, I sat here trying to figure out how I'd make up our photo pages for our dossier. The adoption agency in Utah wants a set and the orphanage in Taiwan will want a set. They are basically scrapbook pages without the hardbound book. They need to be simple (patterned pages and lots of extras are discouraged), and I need captions, but no excessive journaling (Because it will all have to be translated into Chinese, less words are better). Immediately, now that we're digital, I thought of MyPublisher or the Apple books. But, again, I just need the pages. And, I really want it quickly.

And that's why I decided to see what types of layouts were available to me with my Ultra Cool Never Before Used Program. After viewing a quick tutorial, it would seem that it is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. In fact, I'm thinking I can create the page layouts and then have them printed nicely at Kinko's. Fast, easy, and maybe less expensive. Maybe on the last one- I have no idea what their per page rate is for super high quality prints. (What type of print job do I even ask for?)