You can lead a horse to water

Poor neglected Blog! 2 months, too many photos and layouts to post and I really don't know where to start!Um, with a photo maybe.

My beautiful son. This photo had such a huge response on Flickr, my first explore Top 10 and front page! Flickr is such an inspirational place, amazing.


This one actually won me a prize! I won Childish David's texture actions in the Totally Texture pool's moody comp. I've only had a little play but they are awesome actions, really easy and have masks to remove texture from areas if desired.

So why the title of this post? You can't make it drink, nor my boy. We have struggled with his eating and drinking (lack of) since he was a baby. His paed told us to research gastrostomy tubes (tube into his tummy for feeds)because that is likely what he will be recommending. We know it is time, its starting to cause problems in his little body, more than just being small. We are ok with it, relieved even except for the surgery part. No idea on when a decision will be made, things move slowly in the bush.

Slowly isn't even the word for our subdivision. I just searched back in the blog to see when we sold the front half of our property, you think I would have blogged that, nope! Anyway it was over a year ago and we were told we were nearly there... apparantly we are really nearly there now. We believe it was signed at the titles office last week though getting hold of anyone who could confirm that is proving difficult. If it was (and we really, really need it to be), settlement would happen in the next few weeks. Its not just the house, other things are dependent on settlement. We are so lucky that the buyer of the front half wasn't in a hurry.


My second explore top 10! Parkdale, Melbourne on sunset, HDR. HDR for anyone curious stands for high dynamic range. This one is a 3 exposure HDR. You take photos with differing exposures of the same scene and then tone-map them with software. PS CS2 can do this which is what I used. You need to use a tripod really, to make sure the different exposures all line up perfectly. I was suprised I pulled this one off as I handheld it, balancing on top of one of the posts and it was bloody windy!

So I was feeling so incredibly homesick for Melbourne a few weeks ago, really, really wanted to be back there. We went down and ended up spending two weeks there. Caught up with most people I needed to, had some awesome times with my family. Jordy loved having his cousins nearby. Lots of shopping and trips to the beach. Met up with the very talented Dale
and her gorgeous daughter. I had lots of willing models for photos, my nieces and nephews especially. The 2 littlest ones just loved the camera! Stacks of photos yet to go through. We had a wonderful time, well until my boys both got sick. Soothed the homesickness for now, for a while at least.

Now I always say I'll post some layouts and never do, I've got a heap of unshared ones so I'll post just a couple.


Lisa Whitney's artsy fartsy sampler


Lynn Grieveson's Bellisimo kit

More next time. Oh yeah and on digi scrapping, I did get my Digital Scrapbooking Mag sometime ago with my Enjoy-autumn leaves layout in it. I've also had 3 more accepted by them (well one is for the web extension of the mag but they pay you the same for it, how awaesome is that!).

"Stung-ed"!

Jordan showing his eye - "Where the bee hit me"! He got 3 stings last Wednesday as did Joel, we were having a look at a tree that had just fallen near our place. Turns out he's allergic, he ended up with hives all over - that was a little confusing for him - "I haven't got hives its just a rash" he told us! He thought we were meaning bee hives! So he missed out on kinder, he didn't want to go and it was probably for the best, he was very swollen, itchy and quite grumpy.







Jordan painting earlier last week. Normally we paint outside but its been too hot. Makes for a colourful floor thats for sure. I had to laugh though, I told him to be more careful with the paint, then splattered some everywhere myself! He said "Now Mum, please be more careful you just got paint on my foot!" Ooops! He actually splattered some on my camera!



The camera had a bit of a rough week actually! He got me here too!





The exif data for the bath ones will only be on the middle one at Flickr (click them to view) because I de-noised the other two in noiseware which saves as a new file, but was the same for all of them, ISO 1600, f 1.8, 1/125s. Yeah my bathrooms dark! Although I love shallow DOF, I would have liked a slightly wider depth of field on the last one to get his hand in focus as well but I had no choice, there wasn't enough light! The focus on the bubble rather than the boy in the middle one was intentional in case anyone is wondering!

I should put some of my layouts here too but I can't be bothered now! Maybe next time.

Kinder Boy!

Jordan's first day at 3yo kinder. How was it? I am quite unsure, he and the teacher have very different opinions, she says he went well, he had a massive meltdown when I collected him and didn't sound quite so positive about it at all. Judging by the screaming, kicking, crying, throwing himself on the ground (because he hadnt been allowed to go into the empty daycare playground, which also happened last week at orientation), I would think not that well, added to the fact that he was outside on his own when I got there. The teacher said he'd only been a little upset for the past half hour or so. I really dont know, we'll see next week I guess. He is asleep now, emotionally exhausted poor boy.

So some more photos -

This one was taken in front of our glass door, worth trying for anyone who is after that high key look but cant be bothered with backdrops etc.





These where down at the river, my boy collecting pebbles, discovering and enjoying.



And after a swim!



And beautiful Bianca who started school last week! A big preppie now! We were only in Melbourne one day for an appointment and it was her day off school so I didn't get to see her in her uniform but Lisa showed me photos, so so cute in her huge dress complete with massive school bag! I got this beautiful one of her though and some more cuties of Jesse.

I think there is a few more on my flickr for those interested and now that I've discovered how easy it is to link to flickr photos rather than uploading here, I might even update more often!! If you click these photos you can see them in flickr, most of them will have the exif data on them if you want to view that, it can be helpful when learning manual to look at the settings of different photos (ISO, ap, shutter speed etc). Can give you ideas though obviously you need to go with what you need with your given light.

At lastly yes, I am now watermarking all my images for the web, I had heaps of photos taken off the web and used as someone elses own recently (discovered complete with theif's watermark!!!!) so its there as a bit of a deterrent.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!



I've been very busy but I have one spare bit of time right now so here I am, before I get busy again tommorow! Living up here means lots of visitors this time of year and we haven't been without any the past couple of weeks! First was PomPom who stayed until after Christmas. Christmas was lovely we stayed home and had a big lunch in the middle of which Jordy got his foot stuck through the back of his chair!! We couldn't get it back out so Joel had to SAW the chair!!! Other than that we had a great day with lots and lots of bouncing on the new tramp Jordy got for Christmas. Jordy and I took photos of the sunset together with his new camera which he is loving, so cute!




Next we headed over to Bendigo to Joel's Dad for boxing day. Jordy played some cricket with Dad, Grandpa and Uncle Josh. Yes I know I was game standing this close, and yes I did get hit - hard in the ear!! Better my ear than my precious camera though!!



PomPom (Joel's mum for those who must think who is PomPom, yep Jordan started calling her that and it stuck, even some of her friends call her that now!!) stayed on for the week, spent mostly at the river, friends are camping there also. She left Friday and we headed to Shep where Joel bought me a new wakeboard!! Haven't used it yet because the boat is not in the water! Joel had stripped parts of ours to build another to sell and is only now getting close to finished. Tommorow I am told, but then thats what he has been saying for a few days now... He's under pressure with it now though since his skiing mates have arrived and are also waiting! I can actually see into the shed from where I am sitting and I did hear it fire up before so maybe!


(Bouncing, we do have the nets up now thankfully, Santa was too tired to do it)




We traveled to my Dad's New Years Eve (also his birthday). Lisa, Mick, Bianca and Jesse also went on their way up here. Dad had told us there would be a carnival type thing happening where he lives and fireworks. We spent last NYE in the city and learnt that fireworks and Jordan didn't mix well with his severe noise sensitivity. So I asked him if he wanted to go and told him he could wear ear muffs like he does on the tractor. He asked for them on as soon as we got to the carnival and wow, what a different child, so so calm! He does struggle with the noise of crowded places but I hadn't thought to use ear muffs for it before. So he got to see the fireworks and absolutely loved them with the sound factor taken away. They were actually the best fireworks I have ever seen, we were all very happy!

So Lisa and family stayed this week and we had lots more fun at the river and home. We are missing them already!









So I have been trying for many months to cut Jordan's hair but he really, really didn't want too and made it too dangerous. I had been thinking for a while that we would have to do it while he was asleep but I knew I wouldn't be able to do it (I'm not much good with scissors!) So when he had drifted off the other night I got Lisa to do it. It was much harder than we had anticipated. Take one snip, he'd stir - roll over, say something to us or block his hair with his hands even with his eyes shut sometimes! At one point he got right up and said "I don't want to be here anymore I want to go to bed to sleep" quite angry with us, he knew we were doing something to him! He stormed off to bed with us laughing because his hair was in piggytails and all over the place! We did it in bursts until he was too awake or making it too impossible each time. At another point he had been saying "Mummy? Mummy?" and I had been saying its ok I'm right here, when he opened his eyes and saw Lisa (who quickly hid the scissors!). He shot her a filthy look and growled "Not you, I want my OWN Mummy". Poor child!


We gave up, it had taken too long for too little result but when he got up in the morning, we could see we would have to try again, he had a very punk looking style happening and it was just too messy! We were so not looking forward to another night of it, when a panicking Jordy came out with a battery Thomas stuck in his hair, his hair had been wound around one of the wheels. So out came the scissors and while he wasnt happy about it, he was less happy having Thomas stuck to his head, so thankfully the haircut got finished, well near enough anyway! Definately not bothering again anytime soon!

As Requested!

Shouldn't leave this so long I guess, now I've got too many photos to share! So here's just some from the past few weeks.



These are from this week in Melbourne, we took Jordy out in the pram to see everyones lights around PomPom's house. I also got a few crazy ones using bulb (shutter stays open as long as you hold it) and moving the camera around, they might be fun to use as overlays on layouts. Didn't actually get PomPom's lights coz she didnt have them up til yesterday, oh well. The globe thing in the middle picture is actually huge, you can see it behind Jordy in the side shots.




The smoke from the bushfires has been shocking, both here and in Melbourne. You can see the smoke in the above one. The fires are not near us but its scarey none the less, the smoke got so thick in the middle of the night before we went to Melbourne, we actually opened the curtains so we could see just in case there was one closer. Worries me living right next to the forest that we could have no warning if there was a fire, particularly when you see campers having fires in there when they aren't supposed to. Thinking of all those living near the current fires and those fighting them.



Got a stack more photos from Melbourne, lots of lovely ones of Bianca and Jesse





If you're reading my sister I'll put more up soon here or flickr.

So we finally got all the materials for our house (We paid NO INTEREST thanks to our solicitor finding a flaw in our contract which was a huge relief because it had clocked up to almost $10K!!!), the power pole and transformer went up today (but not connected yet so subdivision cant quite be finalised). Obviously we are now going to be delayed further by Christmas holidays but at least we are starting to see some progress. Makes a massive difference to our state of mind!

More photos (what a suprise!!!)

Some from the past week.

















The chair in the photo was just sitting at the beach all by itself, so I thought I'd try and get some of him sitting on it since it happened to be there! He didn't want to for more than a second though, no suprise there!

Annette asked what I did in PS to the pics in the Stomping lo, they were just adjusted in Adobe Camera Raw, contrast upped and vignetting, that was actually it on those (one of them is second from the top).




Was going to post a layout too but I'm being summonsed! Next time.

New Camera!

Keep meaning to update this but I've been a bit scattered! But thought I'd pop another couple of pics on. Finally got me a DSLR! The Canon 400D, love it!





Getting grumpy with the camera!


Thats enough Mum!

Jordan has been telling me for a while that I can take photos with my silver camera, not the black one (before I got the new one!). So I thought I had better get a silver camera! I think it may have been a bit of a ploy though, he knew I didnt have a silver camera. When we bought the new one he said "But I thought you were getting it for Christmas"! He must have been thinking oh no now I have to actually let her take my photo!

And a layout - everything in this one is from Yvette Keohuloa's beautiful The Lucky Stars Kit at Scrapbookbling.com.

Removed For Publishing

More than Words

I just can't seem to get any words down at the moment so I give you pictures instead.

Square One

Well we're not really back to square one, it's just how it feels today. Lots more promises, no real action yet and the house company are breathing down our necks massively (we were supposed to be ready 2 months ago and they are charging huge interest every week we are late). So more of the same for us - stress and waiting. We've been almost at the point of giving up but we are too far in financially now and have to keep going. I went down the back before to remind myself why we are putting ourselves through this and thought I'd share a peek -






This is what we will be able to see from the front of our new house (well we can see that now I guess but only through one tiny window!)
But the view from the other side is really the reason for all this, the reason we moved here at all -




The Mighty Murray. The water level is ok at the moment but actually pretty low for this time of year. No water flowed through the forest at all this year, partly because of the drought and partly because the low level was maintained while the new bridge was built (the levels along the Murray are artificially regulated by controlling the flow through the weirs along it). Its definately extremely dry up here, though you woudn't know looking at the irrigated parts of land.

Jordy lightened our moods today when we were talking about the subdivision stuff, he started saying to himself "Believe you me", repeating it a couple of times as if trying to work out what it meant, then said to us "Believe you me - thats a funny word"!! (One of us must have said it!) Well tis a funny saying but believe you me, we will get this land chopped in two, this house done and it will be worth it. And it better be soon!!!

Some layouts

The duck park near PomPom's, the idea inspired by Annette's beautiful layout with the ducks.



The one that I was trying to upload last entry!







These 2 are of my niece Emma, done the other week.Same photo I know but I wasnt sure which style they'd prefer. I made evevrything myself for them, I reckon I made a whole kit worth! (Thats the good side to not being able to sleep - you can get heaps done!)

And things are looking more positive with the subdivision today so fingers crossed it keep rolling smoothly!