some mornings are slower than others

After waking up, Kaemon Ze brought out his pillow, a blanket, and Daddy's pillow and proceeded to talk Dad into laying in the hallway with him. :)

fun with ps5

I'm learning to use Photoshop 5 and enjoying it immensely!





















The shot on the left, above, is my original low-res iPhone shot. I was so excited to see what I had captured (I have an older iPhone with a not-great camera) and figured I could really get it to "pop" using the faux HDR software in Ps5. The photo on the right is the result. I tell you...the end result makes my heart ache. It think it brought out a lot of emotion in this photo.






















I used to only shoot in .jpg format, but my sister-in-law told me to shoot in RAW.
However, b/c I'm inept at using RAW (for the moment), I'm shooting in both formats (luckily my camera allows me to do that). That way, I can play with my .jpg images until I get cozy with RAW.

(These shots, though, are from my iPhone, not my Nikon D40.)

one thing off the garden to-do list

In an effort to have some colour and beauty greet us at the door, I planted peonies in most of the hanging pots and a flower box a few weeks back. They are so bright and cheery.

Around the same time, I painted all of our toenails green...yes: me, son, and hubby. We are ready for spring, even if it's been too wet to do much of anything in the garden and yard.

I have noticed the grass is coming up and have asked my hubby to put down grass seed. He's been hesitant citing not wanting it to become bird food as his main reason. I may have to take matters into my own hand...and he suggested as much yesterday when I mentioned it again. :)

But there wasn't time for that. Our goal was to reign in our marionberry vines. Once we snipped off the dead vines, there wasn't much left (typical) but several long, new vines. On a garden tour last year (or the year before?) we spied a series of berries one couple were growing -- in a circular fashion. GREAT space saver! Today, the first day of spring, we braved the wind and the cold and tamed our vines into a circle (see photo, above). Hopefully it'll work out for us.

The onions and leeks I left in the ground are growing nicely overwinter and I noticed the strawberries are showing lots of green leaves.

We have big plans to reconfigure the front and back gardens. One year (maybe next year?) we'll be able to just start planting and sowing without having to do so much moving, lifting, building, carrying, placing, drilling, etc. That will be nice.

But for now, there's change afoot to take advantage of the best sun lit areas of our spaces.

The boxes in the back will be moved and stacked against the fence. We may add one or two more along the fence and will give some thought to what we want to do in the place where the boxes are now (center of the garden). I'm hoping the strawberries will be amiable to the move and will keep producing.

In the front garden, we're doing away with the idea of a rain garden. Right where we thought we'd put in a rain garden just happens to get the best sunlight. Here in the great Northwest, getting as much sun as possible is rather important. We'll expand the veggie garden to where the rain garden was going to be as it gets the most sun. That means removing some of the rock path and re-setting it elsewhere. Whoa boy...that's going to be a lot of work. :)

Oh yea, then, we want to relocate the two (full) compost bins near the potato boxes -- on the opposite side of the garden. It'll be work, but not too bad as we'll have emptied them out and turned the compost into the garden soil anyway. There are a couple of benefits to this: 1) the bins will be in direct sunlight which will mightily help the composting process and 2) the bins will be far away from our neighbhor's house. They've never complained, but once or twice a year when it's really hot, those bins do not smell good.

The garden worktable is located next to the compost bins and I'm looking forward to moving them to the other side of the garden as well (to where the large green window is hanging). My hubby wants to thread the grape vines over that area, so it sounds like it'll be a nicely shaded area in which to work.

Where the worktable and bins are now will become a nicer BBQ area...maybe with reclaimed brick set into the ground - hopefully we can find some, maybe on CraigsList.

A lot of work, but it feels like putting paint to canvas and I am looking forward to seeing what we come up with and how it turns out.

Happy Spring!

hilarious

Funny Talking Animals - Walk On The Wild Side - Episode Three Preview - BBC One
- Watch more Funny Videos at Vodpod.

to the big park!

He found a buddy. :)
The boy brought nice, metal cars and promptly put them in the sandbox.
He was eager to share and luckily, Kaemon Ze was right there. :)
(Above photo: they are both contemplating the tube slide; neither went down.)

saturday, mid-morning at la casa feliz

busy boy

Playing in a fort Daddy made him on his bed. :)
They have finger lights from sent from Papa and Grandma Bunny.
Sweet!

run big boy, run!

On the way home from picking Kaemon Ze up from his Gramma's, I asked him:

Me: Did you on a walk or go to the store with Gramma today?

Kaemon Ze: "I didn't. I did the other day, but today I did not."

Which is true...he did go to the store 2 days ago and told me about it when (when I asked). He told me they bought cat food and he got to stomp in puddles. His vocabulary just amazes us!

The morning rains made large puddles...and brought visitors. :)

date night!

i had a visitor at my office today...

a day of adventures!

"I want to touch it?"

:) A fun find at the toy store.
No, I didn't buy it.
But I wanted to.

After the toy store. :)
His new dinosaur: a velociraptor!
His grandma Bunny told him to have his parents buy him one - her treat.
That was back in January.
The toy store had to special-order it...from France.
It finally arrived!
He keeps kissing it.

While he napped, I worked on my float painting.
(the helicopter is not really part of the painting...)

After he woke up, we went to visit a friend who recently had surgery. While we were there, the sun popped out and we enjoyed standing near her garden, backs to the sun, while Kaemon Ze enjoyed our shadows.

Once we got home, JoyBoy wanted to keep playing in the sunshine. We walked through our back garden and and said he wanted to "eat that." I think it's a chives (but it could be a bunch of miniature leeks). I told him he could.

Later, I had to carry him away from the chives...! He was not willing to go on his own. He wasn't upset or anything, but he just keep macking on them.

Once we got in the car with Daddy, I offered him a piece of gum to freshen his breath. :)

We went to (dinner then to) a fund-raiser for an elementary school where Chris Haberman was showing. His fellow artist, Jennifer, was there too. I just love how she paints giraffes.

What does JoyBoy find, practically immediately?
He's such a boy!
(No, he did not get to keep it).

Enjoying hot dog art.

More giraffes.
Giraffes always make me think of Bairbre.

My favorite shot... love this!

A current, local joke.
"Put a bird on it and call it art."

There was an art activity room!
JoyBoy and daddy are making what I call, "alter boxes"...the school called them something similar but different.

Every chair in the art room was different...this one was a cartoon...a rather disturbing cartoon, I might add.


Nothing like being in school again...






We brought this painting home as well as this hand-drawn shirt. :)

visiting laura at the chocolaterie again :)

"I want a T-Rex chocolate, please!" Lucky for him, Laura had one on display!

After he finished his chocolate sucker, he found the suckers...

He was pretty ambivalent about the flavour of sucker he chose (cotton candy) and moved onto a ladybug cookie.

Before you have a heart attack for all this sugar, do know that the only thing he finished was the chocolate sucker. He had a few licks of the sucker and a few licks of the cookie's frosting. About 15 minutes later, he was asleep on me. :)