Long Awaited

The other night after work, I visited my friend, Michele at the hospital - she had a baby last Wednesday. He's so cute, see?

Ryan Michael - 7lb 9 oz, 18.5 inches arrived on 8/27/08 @ 1:42am.

I took that photo with the available light in the room, no flash. ***Note to self: hospital lighting is horrendous. I shot this photo with my Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. I was holding him and when I felt my arm going numb from it, I put him down so that I could take his picture. Thankfully the sheets were white, giving me a little more light towards his face.

I had Michele dim the lights because it was obnoxiously bright after she turned the lights on and here I was thinking I could shoot a decent shot from the ambient light of a lamp. Yeah, ok.
I didn't take too many pictures (which I should have) and I didn't have my tripod on me, so many of my photos ended up with camera shake. PSE6.0 to the rescue...
If you have a slight OOF that cannot be sharpened, try converting to black and white - it makes the OOF less obvious (I think). OOF or not, for someone who had a baby nearly 48 hours before this photo was taken, I thought Michele looked pretty darn great!!! This edit was done using the mocha and vignetting actions I got from EZActions.com. They also have a chocolate action -
Michele's not a chocolate fan; she'd rather white chocolate - I think an action titled white chocolate would convert a picture into (in this case) a normal exposure - definitely making OOF more obvious. Sorry, Michele.


I couldn't decide if I liked chocolate or mocha better, so I converted the same picture of Ryan into both, even though the colored picture was fine.
This is Ryan in chocolate.

This is Ryan in Mocha.

Last month, Michele's family threw her a baby shower. While I didn't get too many pictures of Michele (she was busy opening gifts and entertaining people), I got this great shot of her sister, Christy and her baby, Kaitlyn:
Poor baby, she was sick that day (I think she may have been teething). Michele got a ton of gifts - at least 2 laundry loads full!!!

I know she'll be reading this - Michele, we'll miss you at work - have a wonderful leave with Ryan. A big shout out to big sis Mikayla and to the original Mr. Mac & Cheese, Mike!!! Will see you soon (with my camera gear in tow)!!!

Holy - it's been too long since I blogged!!

I tend to put in a lot of hours at work - this week's adventure included back to back 11-12 hour days. I could barely drag myself out of bed this morning, but unfortunately, I'm a dedicated, hard-working employee of HarborOne Credit Union - and so off to work I went early this morning.

I got home and we went to Providence Place Mall in Providence, RI. I wanted to go to Lush - a store that sells all handmade cosmetics. I spent about $40.00 on stuff for my face, much to my husband's dismay. When my parents came to visit, my mom had brought me some shampoo and conditioner (which I love - thanks mom!!!) and coincidentally, this week, Lush made news this week by staging a protest against the overpackaging of products - they had their employees spend a day wearing just an apron with signs that said, "ask me why I'm naked". The employees in the store up here in Natick, MA ended up having to wear underwear (by order of the Natick police) but I guess the Providence group go to go completely commando under the aprons. Love how green they are and are encouraging the world to be...they have even invented solid shampoo so that it doesn't need to be packaged in plastic bottles.

We came home, did some laundry and then Dylan and Adam went outside to practice a little hockey...I took these:

In this photo - most everything is in focus - except for the end of Dylan's stick and his feet - those things were moving. He was in the middle of spinning around after scoring against Adam when I shot this. I know that I wasn't moving for 2 reasons - I was using a tripod and most of my subject is in focus.
I PSE6'ed this photo - I vignetted it - which I'm thinking is my most favorite thing in the world to do with my pictures. I also blurred Adam and the rest of the background from Dylan who was completely in focus...

I love this guy - I just cropped vignetted him - he actually posed for this picture which is a rarity all in itself - I think he was just trying to be nice to me after I felt guilty for buying facial products today. We don't ever fight about is money but I have a major guilty complex about buying things for myself - except of course if it is for scrapbooking or photography...

I took all of the above pictures with my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 - it's a good mid-range lens. This was a birthday gift from mom and dad. I'm hoping someone else (check out the guy in the picture above) will get me the new Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5 for Christmas...I'm not sure how much it is but I'm sure it's probably expensive - (I just checked - $399.99 - not as bad as I thought). If I get this someday, I'll have to sell my Canon 75-300mm - just because I won't need it anymore...sigh, someday....

After a couple more hockey shots, the girls wanted to get in on the photo action:

I hate hard candy - this is Angelica sucking on a baby bottle pop...yuck - I know, she needs a haircut.

Melody couldn't keep still enough for a decent shot this time - so I moved onto the mums that my "Mum" got us...when she sees this blog, she's gonna kill me for not yet planting them - Mom, get mad at Adam, I don't plant - he's the gardener around here.


These 2 photos were taken at 7:00pm in macro mode (denoted on most cameras by a flower) - Macro is one of the auto modes - you don't get to pick the aperture, ISO, shutter speed or whether or not to use a flash - all these things get determined by the camera.

These 2 photos were shot moments later in AV mode without the flash. To my own surprise, I like both the flash and nonflash versions. I haven't flashed anything in a while - pictures, I mean.

I'm off to do - what else? - clean my scrap room - it's like the neverending abyss of sorting that needs to happen...my scrap-a-rrifc friends know what I'm talking about - hope to take more pictures tomorrow...Dylan's skating tomorrow - I'll bring my tripod, make some adjustments and hopefully get some good shots. We'll see....

Where am I in life?

I ask myself the above question at least twice a week. I don't do it with wishes or regrets in mind. I do it to make sure I'm on track. I attended a training class on time management and one of the things the instructor had was her goals written on paper. There's something about having them written that makes them real, she said.
It got me thinking - and I get to really thinking about things when I'm on vacation. I decided that I'm going back to school - because my first time around, things didn't go as planned. I went to Boston University - it was an ok school. I wasn't really prepared to face what I did there. I'm big into academic integrity and by that I mean actually doing the work, studying hard and getting a good grade - not spending all my free time, buttering up my TA's for questions on the exams. I also think that grading on the curve completely sucks. It was way too big - I came from a tiny private girls' school in Midtown Manhattan...Dominican Academy - graduated with 44 girls. I would venture to say that many of them graduated college and some even completed their advanced degrees. Some of my former classmates are now doctors, nurses, financial analysts, physical therapists, organic farmers, magazine editors - by no means as underachieved as myself, an Assistant Branch Manager. And while Massasoit Community College is a far cry from where some of my classmates graduated: Fordham, NYU, Harvard, Barnard, Columbia University - I'm gonna at least get my two year degree and take it from there.

While on vacation, I also think about my home life. I'm married - have been now for 8 years, to quite possibly the best man on this side of the planet. He's the best thing that has ever happened to me. Together, we have the best 3 kids anyone could possibly wish for. I looked at my calendar and saw that one of my childhood friends (and Angelica's godfather) is getting married (finally) in less than 2 weeks. My best friend from high school (and Melody's godmother) is getting married in March - she just had a baby in July (I'm little Claire's godmother - she'll be christened in Novemeber). My other friend from high school, who has been married longer than me, is having baby #4 (any day now if she hasn't had it already).

Life is so full - so rich - so good for pictures....


That's my newest goddaughter - Claire Paige. She's so cute - she liked me....gave me a kiss - she was probably rooting to nurse (sorry, baby - these girls are dry wells - go find your mother).

These are Claire's parents, Mike and Agnes (whom I affectionately call Booger - it's a high school nickname and no, it didn't evolve from a nose residue incident, just a spelling debate). She will probably kill me because I took this photo 4 days after she had the baby and 2 days since she had slept more than 15 minutes at a time. She told me that if I had any pictures of the 3 of them where they didn't look like shit I could post them...I think she looks fantastic after having a baby 4 days ago - heck, you can tell that she showered that day (I can't remember how long it was until I took a shower after having the babies - I mean, I did at the hospital and then when I came home, I just can't recall!!) This picture was taken with auto flash - I had to - it was too dim to take the picture without suffering from camera shake. Camera shake is inevitable when your shutter speed is less than 1/50sec - even if you are completely still, your blood flow can cause camera shake at less than 1/50sec. I didn't bring my tripod so I cheated and used my flash...still a great picture...I don't think it was their first family portrait (I didn't make it to the hospital) but it makes me happy to see them together.

According to the timeline of my life compared to my friends' lives - I married pretty early at 23. Had my first baby at 24. Had my second baby at 25. Bought at house at 26. Had my last baby at 28. Some of my friends are in their late 20's/early 30's having their first or second kids; some married, some not. Some have achieved much personal growth in their careers that I strive for everyday. Some have their advance degrees and no families of their own - yet. We've all taken many different paths with many different results.

I love my path - I love that I can steer my way through my path - I love where this path has brought me today - I love that this path is long and scenic and that stops along the way help me to grow and shine. I just need to make sure that I stop and take more pictures of my path...hope to post more this weekend - gotta go school shopping - all I have gotten so far is a notebook - and that one is for me.

Light is a photographer's best friend

Light is the most critical thing that a photographer needs to take a photo (besides her camera and a decent lens). Without it there isn't gonna be a picture. And there is no such thing as ideal lighting conditions when it comes to taking pictures. Every kind of lighting situation is challenging. For example:
I took this picture of Angel yesterday during my Tastefully Simple party in our backyard. She was eating a strawberry that she just dunked into the Key Lime Cheese Ball (I made it into a fruit dip). It was about 3 in the afternoon - the sun isn't directly overhead (both she and I were in the shade) I thought that this lighting was great - except that when I uploaded this picture into my computer, all I could really see was the blurry background. I brightened Angel in PSE6.0 by magnetic lassoing her and then adjusting the highlights and shadows by 25%. She still came out not so great - any greater than the default 25% and it would have looked like I lifted her from a different picture and put her into this one. I think if I was just a bit in the shade and she was all in the shade, this picture would have come out exposed correctly. My camera measured exposure for my background which was considerably brighter than where we were (as you can tell by the super sunniness on the back of our house.

Today, we did a lot more running around. We cleaned my car (ok, it's a Dodge Caravan - when we found out that we were having Melody we had to trade in our practically new, 1 1/2 year old Hyundai SantaFe - not enough room for 3 carseats - Melody is 3 years old and I'm still resentful that we had to go soccer mom vehicle - if I had any coolness about me, it was all gone when we traded that puppy in). After I took a 15 minute power nap that ended in a huge headache, we scrambled up some lunch, dropped the girls off at mom and dad's and took Dylan to his first ice hockey team practice. I hadn't shot photos in there for 2 1/2 months and I really didn't have it in me today to take a good shot at the rink - not to worry I'll get many chances this year at the rink to take pictures...we have hockey practice 3 times this week, 3 times next week and then after school starts, we have practice 4 times a week and this isn't including games. I did take some good shots of Dylan last year when he was just learning to skate and play hockey.
I discovered something last hockey season when I used Dylan's practices for my own practices - my camera shoots dark (I'm talking strictly without a flash). I have a Canon Digital Rebel xTi that I am in love with. It's standard zero exposure is more like a -1/2, so pictures tend to come out a little bit darker than I like even when set to a zero exposure (making my photos a bit underexposed). You can see that in the some of the hockey photos above where the ice looks a little gray, it's pretty slight.
One of the hockey dads I met had a Nikon D80 (wow!!! I'm a Canon girl but I can admire and respect any camera). His camera (and lens) took incredible pictures. Nikon's standard exposure seems to be more correct at zero than mine - he took some wonderful pictures of Dylan and his boys playing hockey (if I can get in touch with him and ask him if I can put his pics on my blog, you'll see them soon).
The lighting in a hockey rink is horrible - between the amount of florescent lighting and the reflection of the white ice, it's a nightmare shooting situation. Where my camera takes dark pictures, they come out not so bad at zero exposure. If you have a DSLR, you should be able to adjust the exposure compensation when you're shooting in a creative mode (one of the letter modes not the automatic modes). And you can't adjust it if you are using a flash. If you adjust to a positive number, your picture will come out brighter. If you adjust to a negative number, your picture will come out darker. Pictures with these adjustments to follow.

Back to the lecture at hand - light. I do some really crazy things, like take pictures at stop lights.
I took this one today while I was driving, when I was stopped at a stop light.
I turned around and shot this photo of Melody - it was about 5:15pm and the sun was on Melody's side of the car (she sat right behind me in the mom-mobile, sigh!). No editing was done on this picture. This photo was taken with nearly direct sunlight from Melody's left side. Our slightly tinted windows helped filter out some of the light yielding us this great exposure.
If you're gonna use the sun for a light source, there is so much you need to be wary of. First of all, the worst sunlight to shoot in is direct overhead sunlight - anywhere between 11-3pm depending on where you live. It is harsh and too bright and relatively unforgiving when it comes to shadows. If you have to shoot outdoors during those hours, find some shade for your subject and shoot from just outside that shade if you can.
Sunlight is great at sunrise and sunset...two totally different lighting situations but way easier to shoot in than in the middle of the day. The photo of Melody above, wasn't taken at exactly sunset but we got a good exposure for a number of reasons: first, the sun wasn't directly overhead, but it was directly to the left of us. And the tinted window helped immensely, so Melody isn't squinting (a good hint that there is too much sunlight). Also, the light from the windshield played a part in this photo (we were stopped at an intersection where the crossroad runs west to east and at this point in the day the sun was in the western sky).
This picture was taken at the stop light prior to the one above:
Melody is queen of the funny face. She is also, of my 3 kids, the most willing of subjects. So taken about 1 minute before the last sunny picture, you can see there is a difference in lighting. We're still in the car, and we're both in the same positions. There are shadows on the right side of her face, sun was still to the left of us, but we were at a side street intersection (that even though that crossroad ran west to east, there were buildings and trees blocking light).
***FYI, that greenish mark on Melody's face is not boogers - she had her face painted at a street festival earlier in the day and that was the last of it. You wouldn't honestly think that I would take a picture of Melody that dirty - of course, I would...but just so my mom doesn't think that I would publish my daughter's boogie face, it isn't boogers, mom.

Lowlight situations are pretty difficult to shoot in...so many factors are critical to taking a good exposure in that situation. ***we're still talking about shooting without a flash.
You need to have a lens with a pretty low f-stop capability. A low f-stop number indicates a wide open lens. If you would like the analyticals, lenses have measurements called f-stops. These numbers tell you what your aperture is - simply put, how wide your lens can open. The smaller the f-stop, the wider your lens is open. I have a Canon 50mm f1.8 - that 1.8 is the lowest stop that lens can go, allowing a lot of light in. I can decrease the width of my lens, by increasing my f-stop. If I have an f-stop of f32, I should have a lot of light available because I'm closing my lens to have a narrow opening. It took me the longest time to remember this and even now, I still talk my way through it. Adjusting your aperture (f-stop) also affects your depth of field. We won't get into that now, we'll just talk about light.

This photo is of our Christmas tree, taken last Christmas. It was shot with my Canon 18-55mm @ f32. Notice the lights flaring and looking starry. Remember, my lens opening here is narrow, so those little lights are traveling into my lens and struggling to get in because of the narrow path (thus the flare).
Same photo at f5.6. Totally different - with a wider lens opening, the little lights aren't flaring because that lens opening isn't so narrow.

We'll talk more about lowlight situations in a later post too.

In conclusion, light can be a photographer's best friend and her own worst enemy. Every lighting situation presents different challenges - too much light, too little light, light from the wrong direction, mixed lighting...I love it - I'm up for the challenge.

A Huge Thank You

Just wanted to say thanks for the following peeps who made it to my place for a Tastefully Simple party:

Barbara - your presentation was great! I think everyone enjoyed it - me included.
Linda - nice to see you, have a great school year!!!
Aunt Nancy, Aunt Sandie & Grammie Maureen - hope you had fun, thanks for being here!
Mom - hope you capitalized on your chance for Sweet Pepper Jalapeno Jam, thanks for the table and canopy!
Laura - wish Scott could have been here - you should have one of these parties up at your place!!!
Jess & Jen - thanks for coming (better late than not at all)
Kim - don't forget to invite me to yours - thanks for coming!

Adam, Chris, Eric & Dad - you could have joined us but I'm sure you didn't want to appear too interested...thanks for letting us be girls on the other side of the backyard. Adam, the backyard looked the best it's ever been (thanks to you and dad).

Melody was the dirtiest I have ever seen her. She was pretty gross - she left marks on Chris's shirt after a hug.
Yuck! Melody thinks nothing of digging up the dirt under the swings of our playground. Some days, my dogs are cleaner than she is....and until they were groomed the other day, they were pretty disgusting.

I was lucky enough to get to go last night to the Scrapbook Cupboard for the Circle Journal crop.
Small group - just Susan, Kim, Kerriann and Traci - too many laughs and giggles to mention here. Can't wait to get together again!

terms and definitions

So here I am, blogging away, thinking "this is my photo blog and if my visitors come to see the pictures, I'll be thrilled!!" Of course, while I'm blogging away, I'm not thinking about people actually reading it and trying to understand what I'm saying. My buddy, Kim pointed out that some of my lingo is like a foreign language to people who haven't had any formal photography instruction (not that I have - I've taken two photography workshops - Karen Russell rocks every house!!!). I guess it's time to have a few terms defined. (some of these definitions are in my own words...anything marked with an asterisk is taken straight from the PhotoNotes.org dictionary)

1. SOOC - Straight out of the camera - a completely unedited photo.

2. OOF - Out of focus - could be the whole picture or just a part of a picture - blurry.


3. Vignette - darken the edges and corners of a photo - this can be done a number of ways, but I do it with PSE6. Example: the photo on the right is vignetted.















4. PSE6 - stands for Photoshop Elements 6.0 - the lastest Adobe version of a really good photo editing software that's still affordable (my parents got it for me last Christmas making it even more affordable for me...hee hee).

5. Composition - what your shot is made out of - ***The art of arranging elements of a scene or image in such a way that they are visually pleasing, emotionally moving, etc. Good and bad composition are utterly subjective concepts, about which get photographers very excited. (I only get excited about good composition...I get agita from bad composition).

6. AV mode - Aperture Priority mode on your camera - this setting allows you to adjust the aperture - the how wide your lens is open to light - while the camera will choose the ISO and shutter speed to get the correct exposure.

7. backlighting - light coming from behind your subject.

8. front lighting - light coming from in front of your subject.

9. Emotionally Perfect Photos - this is a completely subjective phrase. A photo is emotionally perfect for you if you can say, I love this picture because... It doesn't have to fall into the definition of #10.

10. Technically Perfect Photos - Everything that you did to take this picture, is technically perfect.

11. ISO - In digital photography, ISO is the measurement of how sensitive your camera's light meter is to light. ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization who regulates the coordination of every kind of international standard. In film photography, it was a measurement of the speed of your film.

12. Noise - **In digital photography, noise is the appearance of random dots or changes in colour value in an image - much akin to the “snow” that would appear on old analogue televisions. Digital cameras use sophisticated error correction systems to minimize the appearance of noise, but most are increasingly vulnerable to noise at slower shutter speeds or high simulated ISO film speeds. (eg: at ISO 100 most cameras can take fairly clean photographs, but at ISO 800 or 1600 most digital cameras suffer from noticeable noise).

13. Shutter speed - how long your lens stays open to let light into your camera - you can control this in shutter priority mode on your camera; your camera will choose ISO and aperture for you.

Is summer really almost over?

I love summer - I think I always have and just really didn't appreciate as much as a kid. I'm sure my kids love summer but don't appreciate it as much as they should while they are young. This summer seemed to fly by so quickly that here we are with about 2 weeks until school starts - haven't started school shopping and this year, all three of my kids will be in school.

Yes, 1/2 day nursery school - 4 days a week - counts. Melody will tell you that it is real school.

My job requires me to take 2 consecutive weeks somewhere during the year and what better time than the summer, when all the kids are home to drive me nuts? Since taking up photography I have learned to soak up and revel in the moment - even if it's the one that will drive me to drink. (Don't worry, parents - I barely drink...I swear.)

As a person obsessed with documenting individual moments, I find value in nearly everything that happens, bad or good. And not just the big moments - even the little ones. For instance: One day last September, after a good rain, the kids went out the backyard to play on their playground. All of a sudden, we hear the PAIN cry coming out of Melody's little mouth...and Adam finds her like this:
This was taken in the bathroom, right before I gave her a bath. This picture is hilarious!!! Melody looks like she's growing a goatee. Adam was kinda annoyed that I stopped to take this picture instead of giving the poor kid a hug - "for goodness sakes, she just took a header off the swing, there's no need for a photograph." he said. I'm not a horrible mom, I did ask Melody if she was ok and she said yes...there wasn't any blood or broken bones...just a whole lot of dirt and grass on her face. Look, she was fine, 2 shots later:
...still I'm glad that I took these pictures - they still crack me up!!!

Big moment pictures are a must, right? I don't know who took this picture of Angelica, but I know that it wasn't me as I was the 5 month pregnant (with Melody) Matron of Honor for a friend and Angelica was her flower girl:
...I do know that this picture wasn't taken by a professional (I'm gonna go out on a limb and say maybe my dad took this picture). What a shot - check out the lights in her eyes (proof of a flash for certain because that church is as dark as pre-dawn with their lights on). I'm thinking the same person took this picture too:
...those lights in Angel's eyes, pretty cool. In this picture she's 2 and Dylan is 3. He was the ring bearer. They walked into the church right after I walked in and Adam stood at the front of the church to wave them in his direction and keep them walking. It was all going well until they got about half way when Angelica saw all the guests who kept awwing, and stepping into the aisle to take their picture. So she dropped the basket and high tailed it to the back of the church, crying, prompting Adam to run up the aisle to get her and leaving Dylan to walk the last half of the aisle by himself, waving at people, nearly running at me with the pillow in hand.
Since big moments are not readily available (not a bad thing), I take pictures of everyday things. I love taking pictures of people but I love practicing on things too:

Flowers and slow moving animals are great practice subjects. Either they are still or move slow enough for you to adjust your focusing (or for your auto focus lens to make the necessary adjustments).

Keep practicing - I am - it will take years for me to be the photographer I want to be. Ask any pro photographer; it took them years too...

I love this picture because.....

With a title like that - this may be my longest post yet....


...Melody climbed onto the back of Meghan's chair and called her name. So Meg had to look up to Melody who then just said "hi". (Originally there was some kind of insect on the towel - I took care of that in PSE6 with the clone stamp tool.)
...Angelica can have a thousand different smiles, but she has only one pout...
...because Adam is still my hottie - even after 10 years - even though he'll only let me take his picture when he isn't looking...I love this picture even though there is a giant house going through the back of his head...

...Dylan is the sweetest person I know and it always shows...
...Melody and bubbles are a staple in our household...
...this moment is why we had 3 kids...it only took 13 tries before I got this shot - this was the last one...
...while this is one of the most poorly taken pictures, compositionally, my kids are all laughing at the same time - maybe I had a booger hanging or something, I'm not sure....
...she is so pretty...even when she isn't looking....
...he's growing up so fast, and I'm so glad that I was there to see his first 2 wheel bike ride....

...they'll be friends for life even though they live 200 miles apart...next to Dylan is Andy, my nephew who lives in NYC with the rest of my family...

I could keep going but I am still trying to clean my scrap room. My mom called me today and told me that they might not be making it up here this weekend...even if they don't come, I still can't leave my scrap room looking the way it does - I did get some stuff done last night - only a million pieces of things to sort and store instead of the trillion I had before I started last night...it's progress...sometimes, that's all you can ask for.

More on the Butterflies

Some people take pictures with the intentions of editing them to be perfect. I try to take pictures that with no editing would be perfect. That's not to say we shouldn't or can't ever edit to make pictures perfect - I just want to take the SOOC as close to perfect as possible.

The other day when we went to the MOS in Boston, I didn't take nearly as many shots as I should have to get the number of good shots I wanted. TAKE A GAZILLION PICTURES!!!! The more you take, the better the chance of something coming out the way you want it to. Also, all bad shots teach you what you don't want to do the next time you take a picture. I did not follow this rule at MOS and am so glad that I can go again soon with the membership that my parents got my kids.

Editing - I think I'm into it for the artistic value it can bring...I got the Color Select action from EZactions.com. Using this is as my main action - I got this:

I had to convert the original picture to chocolate and then chose color select. I also painted with light, making the butterfly a deeper orange. All these actions and more are available at EZactions.com. That website has actions good for PSE6.0 for both MACs and PCs.
I used the same set of actions on this picture:

Taken with my Canon 75-300mm on my mom's porch in NY. It was a colored photo that I converted to chocolate, vignetted and then color selected.

I love color select when you have one object with either one or two colors...any more and I think it might get goofy looking.

I cheated when editing this photo - instead of lightening the background, I magnetically lassoed the butterfly and lightened that instead.

I could have probably lightened up that butterfly even more but then it would have looked like I drew it there. Here's when I should have taken more shots so that I could get it perfect SOOC. Oh well...

I'm off to clean my scrap room before Adam divorces me - on this I probably couldn't blame him - it's not pretty in there - but it better be before my parents come to visit on Saturday. So if I don't blog for more than a day - you know I got lost in there.