crossrhodes

I’m so amazed by this, I have to share. Look at the perfect composition and clarity of this (un-retouched) photo. The group is centered, no red eye or cut-off heads, and the subjects’ eyes lie exactly on the top line of the imaginary Rule of Thirds grid.

Would you guess it was taken by a 5 year old?

My nephew has yet to enter kindegarten or write his name in cursive, but he takes perfect pictures nearly every time! I trust him with my camera, too. In fact, he was trying to give me a few pointers.

“Hold it like this, Auntie,” he says, demonstrating the right way to grip a camera to keep your hands steady and fingers off the lens.

“That’s too white,” he says of the first shot. He steps back so his subjects are within the ideal flash range and shoots again.

I would’ve taken him more seriously if not for the teddy bear print pajamas he wore on our photo shoot :-)

Something’s wrong with me. Alright, there are LOTS of things wrong with me. But one of them surfaced last week and I’m sure it has a clinical term and probably a little purple pill for it, too.

Everyday last week I went clothes shopping for our upcoming cruise and back to school for James. It’s hard to find summer clothes this time of year. I had to search high and low in the dishevelled clearance racks and that makes my head ache… literally! After about an hour or so of shopping, which I already hate to begin with, I felt my temples throbbing and this halo of pressure around my head. Then I get cranky like the irrational, hormonally-charged kind of cranky. And I can’t wait to go home and be alone.

But when I come home, I’m greeted with more clutter, saw dust, tools, and metal pipes of all shapes and sizes. Don is “re-wiring” the air ducts everywhere in the house. Although I appreciate that my engineer husband knows what he’s doing, living in a construction zone really affects my mood.

This WAS my scrap room. Right now I have some essentials in a rolling tote downstairs in the dining room. But I have to keep running up and down to get stuff while I make back-to-school stuff for the kids. It’s good exercise, I guess.

James’ room was gutted when he left for summer camp in June. School’s starting next week and he still can’t use his desk. And until it’s done, he’s “living” in the living room… PJ’s, blanket, and all!

I’m kinda glad he tore up the downstairs powder room because I wanted to redo it anyway. The ladder has to go, of course.

I’m somewhat relieved that Don is starting to make this project a priority. We’re hosting his family for Thanksgiving this year. In which case, we WILL need all the restrooms in working order :-)

Anyway, I just can’t stand clutter. Maybe it’s a form of OCD or something. Who knows?!?! (Can’t wait to have little kids with millions of little toys on the floor!)

Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. “Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness.” -John Wesley

Just wanted to share a couple of cards I made for my dad and brother’s birthdays. Masculine cards are tricky. Can’t just plop a flower here and ribbon there like I do for the girls. But I liked the way these turned out. They have a J.Crew and Polo vibe like my dad and brother’s wardrobes.

My sister and family “dropped by.” I love that they can sleep over anytime, even with a 9 month old baby. And I love how my sister is on a diet everywhere else but in my house :-) And I love that my older niece is also a shutterbug, otherwise I wouldn’t have many pictures of me coz I’m usually the one behind the lens.

Speaking of which, I’m really, really itching for a dSLR already!!! I told myself I’d hold off until I graduate or pass the board, like a carrot on a stick for the next 2 years. But the prices have come down so much, I’ll settle for a gently used Canon EOS 350D Digital Rebel XT this Christmas.

I love my size-of-an-altoid-can point & shoot Canon SD400. But look at the difference in these 2 pics, both taken indoors with flash. My friend, Sean, took the first photo. The other I took w/ my point & shoot *AND THEN* photoshopped to get as close an exposure as possible. Still have “flash face” and will never get the same depth of field.

Anyway, I happened to surf by this shutterbug dad’s website.  And I’m thinking to myself, this is exactly how I envision photographs in my mind.  I just don’t have the right tool to make it happen.

He’s not physically built for it (at least, I don’t think so) nor does he have experience beyond the neighborhood playground, but he begged and begged and begged to go to football tryouts until we said yes. I even mentally prepared a comforting, post-rejection speech but I never got the chance to use it. The so called “tryouts” was not an audition or trial of sorts, but merely a roll-call of warm bodies to fill the strings. Basically, they’ll take anyone with a doctor’s clearance for contact sports.

And so we’re back to playing taxi to and from football practice, his part time job, and home. The good news is, come September football practice is immediately after school and on Don’s way home from work. Unlike marching band rehearsals, I don’t have to chauffer him back to school after dinner and pick him up again 3 hours later.

I was really disappointed when he quit marching band the very next day. I preferred him being a big fish in an award-winning championship band than a benchwarming guppy for a washout football team. But he seems to have something to prove and is die hard on turning his rice paddy farmer body to some beefcake, meathead, he-man. (I’ll tell yah, I’ve never known anyone so excited to gain a whopping 3 lbs!!!)

As a parent, I have to support him. But he has been forewarned — the first time I have to take him to a doctor for a football injury will also be the LAST time!!! That’s my deal breaker! There is no health risk worth the popularity factor in a varsity jock jacket. Knowing James, he’ll probably let himself bleed to death without telling me just to stay on the team :)