It's Not Fair

I got a call from a local photographer Friday (about something too complicated to go into here), and she happened to have the county fair director in her studio at the time. The fair director saw my website and got on the phone and asked if she could send me the book and application for a booth at the fair. I already planned on doing a booth, but it was cool to get to talk to her directly and sort of be invited.

So, now I'm really getting even more excited about the opportunity to become more visible in the community through the booth this year. I've been planning on doing the fair since last year, but now my ideas are changing from my original design plan. I have a lot to do to prepare. I've changed a lot over the past couple of months (pricing, packages, etc.), and I have to make sure I'm satisfied with my marketing materials in time to have enough printed for the fair.

There is so much that I'm trying to take care of all at once right now. It's overwhelming.

I heard a story about something bad that happened to someone recently, and it just has me feeling sad. Life sure seems unfair a lot of the time.

Parker went to a birthday party with his Daddy tonight. He was a good boy, and he had fun playing with our friend's little girl who is a year old.

I'm posting a couple images from my first "twin" session a couple weeks ago. I haven't had time to take pictures of our kids lately. Plus, the girls are hardly ever here! (I think I have 3 children.)

These two are a month younger than Natalie (5). They are from Tulsa but were in town visiting their Nan (Grandma). We did the session in her backyard by her pond where they got portraits done when they were a year old.

I like this one for some reason. He did not want to smile the whole session. I caught a couple laughs out of him. I think he was being a frog in this one - and I don't think frogs smile much.

That's all for now. I'm kind of in a depressed mood. Maybe something super happy and good will happen tomorrow. Well, the girls should be back tomorrow, so maybe that will help cheer things up for me.

Bunny Hop

A couple days before I left for Vegas, I found a baby bunny that Chicken Nugget was trying to eat outside. The bunny had some cuts from Chicken's teeth, and one pretty good slit across the back, but it was not hurt enough to need to be killed. So, I wrapped it in a towel and brought it into the house and put it in a tall storage bin. It didn't move much, and it was scared, of course. I had to leave for a shoot later that evening, so I tried to figure out what to do with the bunny before I had to leave and Billy would be home and just shoot it or something. I called the pet shop, and because they wouldn't be able to tell how old it was for sure, they would just use it for snake food. I called the animal shelter, and they didn't know of anyone who breeds rabbits. So, I decided to wait until after my shoot to figure out what to do with the bunny.

Billy actually didn't try to shoot it when he got home. He thought it was cute and fed it some fruit. The bunny didn't eat it, though.

While I was away from home at the shoot, I decided that it would probably be best just to release the baby bunny back into the woods - far away from Chicken Nugget. When I got home, Billy asked if I had come back home and taken the bunny while he and the kids were gone. I hadn't, of course. Apparently, while we were all out of the house, the not-too-badly injured baby bunny had jumped really high out of the storage bin and hidden somewhere in the house. We still haven't found it. We can't smell it, yet, either. It probably hid behind the equipment in the laundry room where we can't quite see everything, but we expected to be smelling it by now. The search continues. Poor baby didn't realize he was killing himself by escaping from the little bed I made it in the storage bin. If only it had been patient a couple hours, it would have been released and had a chance for survival.

The girls left Wednesday to spend the night in OKC with Ninny and Papa and then pick up their new boat and take it to the lake Thursday morning. I just talked to Olivia a little bit ago, and she's having fun. She was excited to tell me about swimming in the big swimming pool. She always asks to go in the big swimming pool, and I always tell her she will at the lake, because I don't want to take her in the big one here. So, I think she was really happy to finally get to go in the big one at the lake.

Update: The book design I had almost completed before the computer "crash" will not import into the program, so the design is lost. It's actually 5 book designs - 5 books lost. The software doesn't recognize it's own format from the export it did to save it before. It's weird. Anyway, I started the big project one all over again a couple days ago, and I hope to have it finished by Wednesday of next week. It just doesn't seem like it's as good as I had it before. I worked so hard on all of the text for the project, and it's hard to try to remember just how everything was. Now, I'm under a big time crunch, and I don't think I'm getting it all as good as I had it before. I just need to get the big project out of the way, so I can focus on other really important projects - personal and professional. (Also, I need to finish the project so I can get paid and book our flight to Phoenix in January.)

Oh, the other day, the kids were playing with a mesh pop-up hamper. It was a bird's nest, and Olivia was a bird laying eggs. Natalie was helping the bird take care of the egg (little orange basketball) by wrapping it in a towel and holding it gently and keeping it warm. Natalie was talking to the mama bird and telling her to stay in the nest with the egg until it hatched. She was trying to help the mama bird be excited. She said, "Stay in the nest with your egg. You might have a little girl."

Then, Natalie was placing towels and little blankets over the "nest". Parker was over there kind of messing it up. She told him to not take off the stuff she was putting on there. She said, "I'm camouflaging her. She has eggs to protect." I just thought it was such a big-girl thing to use the word camouflaging in the correct way.

No photos with this post today. (I didn't have time to take a pic of the baby bunny I tried to save. I thought I could do it when I got home.) I'll try to fit in time to post a couple photos of some kind tomorrow.

Oh, one more thing.....Chicken Nugget is expecting again. I think she's about 4.5 or 5 weeks. She'll be getting spayed after this litter.

Happy Weekend.

Mini Blog

Parker has an ear infection, so I don't know if he'll go to Mother's Day Out in the morning with Olivia. Olivia won't want to go by herself. I'll decide in the morning if Parker is feeling well enough to go. I really need them to go, so I can work on some business stuff.

I think this was our first night there.

Already very tired from not sleeping about a week before the trip.

Looking toward the North Strip from the skywalk between New York New York and MGM.

What Happens in Vegas...Mostly.

I don't have time to post everything about Vegas in one entry. I'll post a few pics here and there over the next couple weeks, probably.


There were a couple highlights from the trip. Overall, I had a good time. There was one especially bad night and one especially good night, so I guess it evened out. I learned a lot about the best way to travel around the strip and the best places to eat and stay. My next trip will be better.

I only got to see my niece, Cristina, one time...just after we arrived in our room. We went down to meet her and her boyfriend and some friends for just a little while. We kept expecting to get together for dinner and some shows, etc., but it just never happened. We weren't able to coordinate our activities well enough. It takes a long time to get from one end of the strip to the other, unless you take a taxi every time, which is more expensive and only worth it when trying to reach a show in time.

We saw the Phantom on our last night there - kind of a last-minute decision. It was so good. The sets are spectacular. I cried. One of my roommates in college was obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera, and she played the soundtrack all the time. I hadn't heard all of the music since college. Music is so powerful.

I missed out on a few places that I really wanted to visit. There were some things that I've seen on Travel Channel a bunch, and I knew I wanted to see them in person there, but it didn't happen this trip. It will be nice to have Billy with me the next time I go.

Anyway, here are a few photos to get started. I didn't get to take as many as I wanted to, but I will next time. It was a lot of guess the metering and point and shoot. I did have an extra lens with me, but it was hard to take the time to change out every time I wanted to. It also would have been nice to have a perspective control lens with me for some of the buildings.

Oh, I'll try to backtrack and post 4th of July stuff this next week, also. I'm so far behind on stuff for the business. I just finally posted the gallery from last Friday's session before I left. Then, I have a session Sunday evening, and I'm trying to finish updating my program with my new pricing and packages, and I have a deadline set for next Friday for a big project. So, I'll do my best to keep a little something interesting coming to the posts.

....I'm the gingerbread man.

I feel like I've been running from one thing to the next without stopping for a couple weeks. - Just a quick update...

I leave really, really early in the morning Sunday for my little mini-vaca as my friend's traveling partner in Vegas. It's a really bad time for me to leave, and I just found out earlier this week that a training I really, really wanted to attend has been scheduled for Sunday (when I'll be gone). So, I'm not looking forward to the trip, yet. I'm sure I'll be feeling okay by the time we land there and I realize that I have a few days away. I'm taking a few things I need to work on, but I won't "beat myself up" if I don't get to them. I just have a lot of catching up to do when I get back. (I am really excited about seeing my niece who just happens to be visiting Vegas at the same time, along with her boyfriend and his whole family. So, that worked out really cool that we'll get to see each other there. I only get to see her every 2 or 3 years.)

I'll post a few pics here, but I'll have to do my 4th of July blog and some other ones when I return. I'll be back the 17th.

Oh, I got my photos and docs from my old hard drive, but the book designs won't transfer into the new program for some reason. That represents so many hours of work. I'm going to try something else later today. Maybe it will work. If not, I have to do them all over again.

Parker was riding around in his underoos, and his battery was almost dead. I sent Nat down the hill to help push him back up toward the house.

So, who ended up having to push? Poor baby gets suckered into so much work by those girls.

Super Boy!

Of course, Natalie is angleing herself for the camera. She's always aware when the camera is out.

Oh, that reminds me of something Natalie said yesterday. Gigi found a bunch of old disposable and film cameras in a closet the other day, and Natalie came home with one she was using to take pictures of stuff. She came in from outside and was in between the living room and dining area, and I heard her say, "I'm gonna have to work with the flash in here. It's pretty dark in this area." So proud of my future award-winning model/photographer!

The Glass is Dirty

I took my computer to a tech guy in Pauls Valley. He is fairly hopeful that he can retrieve the data from my messed up hard drive. He insists that it's not really a true complete crash of the drive, but an impending loss of all of the data. So, hopefully, it didn't get completely messed up when Billy was on the phone with the tech guy all day Sunday, and the guy had Billy trying different things. Anyway, I guess I will find out by tomorrow afternoon if this guy is able to retrieve anything. Either way, I'll have to make the drive back there to pick up my computer, and I'm really hoping I will be heading there to pick up the CD's holding my "lost" files when I pick up the computer.

I'm really concerned about one session that I can't find on my back-up CD's. The family hasn't ordered yet. If I can't find the CD tomorrow, and the man calls and says he can't retrive the information, I will cry and freak out. One of the CD's in the pile I checked today didn't work, but it isn't a big deal because that one had photos that I have stored on my other computer for sure. I'm just hoping I didn't have that certain family's photos copied onto that CD. I'm pretty sure I didn't, because it wasn't labeled that way.

Anyway...worry, worry, worry...even though it doesn't help at all to worry.

The girls both got to go to the movies this evening, with Ninny and Papa. They had fun.

I'm still up, partly because I'm always up late and unable to sleep, but mostly because the kids all went to bed late. Parker and Olivia are always so happy to see Natalie home, when she's been gone to spend the night with Gigi or Ninny. I hate to tell them to go right to bed, when they're having so much fun playing together. We had a good evening. The chore chart is back in effect (or is it affect? - too tired to think about it), and it was quite successful tonight.

So, as I was putting Natalie to bed, she suddenly realized her ear is aching. She hadn't been able to focus on it and realize how much it hurt earlier in the evening, because she was having so much fun playing with her brother and sister. (Parker was actually sitting with me most of the time, because he doesn't feel super great.) Anyway, she started crying about her ear, so I found the prescription drops and also gave her some decongestant. Poor thing just stays so congested, it seems like. She's always stuffy in her nose. Anyway, I think I got her calmed enough a minute ago. I found a soothing guitar-music CD and put that on for her next to her bed. I think it will help her relax and fall to sleep. Hopefully, her earache will be much better when she wakes up.

That's it. I'll update tomorrow after I hear the verdict on my business documents and photos. I may be crying.