Usually I have a lot of ideas for each theme.  For some reason this one was a little difficult for me.

And then it dawned on me the last minute when I saw this photo that I took  last night.

When it comes to Religion, I am a very private person.

Here is a little internal prayer.  It’s minimal.   I have a lot more to say.  But that is in between God and I.

Dear God,

From the bottom of my heart….

Thank you for my life.

Thank you for my abilities.

I will try to help more people with what I can every day.

Amen

And of course, in my faith, no one is more powerful than God.

Please continue the circle to Michele  to see her take on this theme!

It’s a great song and I think of it often.  It reminds me that no matter what, To live in the here and now.  It’s no use to get frustrated over silly things (or things that are not so silly).  Some day I’ll look back on this and just smile. 

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012.

Throughout the day, I had a certain song in my head.

Both boys woke up sick.

Washing Machine that is only 2 months old decided to flood.

I had a mini freakout on the phone with Sears.

I will be without a Washing Machine until Friday.

Every towel in the house was used to soak up all the water. We are using small dishtowels and wash cloths when we shower.  (it’s actually pretty funny)

There is damage to the house because of the flood.

There is a mess in just about every room in the house.

The kids refuse to clean up.

The kids decided they were going to wear multiple outfits today.

Chris HATES getting his picture taken.  Constantly putting his hand up, looking/running away, blocking himself every time the camera comes out.

Kids get better so I took them out to test out a new location (for five minutes).

Of course, Chris pouted the whole time.

When I try to take a photo of Chris while he’s not looking, Mikey photobombs it.

There’s always toothpaste in the kid’s sinks.

I can never get them to make up their beds.  I don’t even try anymore.

You know – it doesn’t really matter.  I love my kids, my husband and my life.  It’s really not so bad.  (It’s pretty great actually.)  The kids will grow up.  I’ll miss the toys all over.  I’ll miss the pouts and constant complaining from Chris.  As do all kids, they grow and change.  And they will move out of the house.  Have their own families, kids, toys, mess, complaints.  And I will miss it.

 PLEASE GO HERE TO VIEW MY SLIDESHOW FEATURING  – Trace Atkins – You’re Gonna Miss This.

Then come back and GO TO CLARA’S PLACE to see her always to pretty imagery!

Once we had the grey paint up on the wall, I put one of my black white canvasses that I had already owned against it and loved the way it looked.  I KNEW I wanted to cover that wall.  It’s a front room in our house – so as soon as you walk in, it’s a very visible space so I focused more time and expense working on this wall.

I’m a very flow with it type of gal.  Terrible at planning.  I already owned the square canvas of mikey’s closeup and the one of him jumping superman style.  I ordered some more canvasses from CanvasOnDemand thinking I would arrange them once they came.   Not very logical – I know.  Numbers don’t compute in my head, so I didn’t really measure very well.  (I order all my canvasses from CanvasOnDemand – and am so giddy when they show up!  It’s a bit of an obsession with me!)

I documented a little of my process for one of my 10 on 10 personal projects.  These images didn’t make the cut for my 10on10, and I never thought I would need them.  So glad I did document this – I had no idea the questions and attention would flood in about this project.  Again – I’m very flattered!  I’m not in business, so I don’t really put myself ‘out there’ on the web.  I do want to answer all the emails individually, but I figured I would post this first then will get to the emails (if that’s ok with you?)  Thank you so much!

First I laid them out on the floor -

Then rearranged, brought in some others that I had…..

Once I decided on some keepers for the wall, my sweet husband begrudgingly hung them.  He really dislikes hanging picture (and curtain rods).  I’m soooo thankful that my new cleaning lady’s husband is VERY handy and I now hire him to do all the little honey do’s!  (my husband is thankful too!)

I do wish I took images of the middle of the process.  Instead – after hanging a few, he was tired and we had THIS  little fun session with Mikey.   I’m glad I documented that one at least.

Once the canvasses were partially on the wall, I did measure the existing space and ordered them accordingly.  If you look above – two of those canvasses on the floor did not make the wall.  I do have them in other areas in the house and am pleased.  I’ll do another blog post on one of my hallways where I hung images/painted and got new lights – so keep a lookout for that one soon. 

Ok – Sizes of the canvasses:

Left side  – From top to bottom

Top left – 31×30 – Chris’s face looking at camera

Left #2 – 17×30 – Mikey looking off to side

Left #3 – 16×30 – Two boys

Left #4 – 16×30 – Mikey

Middle

Top Middle – 30×40 – Mikey superman style

Middle – 35×35 – Mikey’s closeup

Right

Top Right – 20×30 – Chris looking off to the side

Right #2 – 20×30 – Two boys

Right #3 – 24×30 – Two boys

Right #4 – 15×30 – Mikey lashes

I do feel bad that I have more of Mikey on there than Chris – But I do have plenty of canvasses of Chris elsewhere in the house.  And quite honestly, he does not like having his picture taken.  I’m sure many of you can relate – especially if you have BOYS! Right?

Any help on what do do with all those cords would be greatly appreciated!

Sorry about the repost of some of these – Just in case you missed it the first time.

Since my last blog post about this office transformation, I’ve also had a lot of inquires about the furniture.  Table and Bookcase are from Nadeau .  I really love that store.  Not sure how the other locations  look and work, but in Dallas, you walk into a very pretty warehouse (as pretty as warehouses can get) and gather  your ‘sold’ stickers.  Once you decide on a piece, you put your sold sticker on the item’s tag , basically to claim your item so no one else nabs it.  So if you are a bargain shopper like me, I highly recommend this store.  Beautiful antique looking, high end mostly wood furniture for great prices.  I’ve been sending all my friends to that store – seems like a really great secret that not too many people in my area knew about!  I believed I paid $300 for that table and the bookcase had a small crack in the back, but was still structurally sound.  The discounted price on that goodie was only about $187.  The colors of the legs actually match better than how it appears in this image.  Lack of attention in processing on my part.  Hope you can get an idea.

I really like arranging art and have helped several friends with what to do with their walls.  I like to consult – don’t ask me to hang though!  lol.  If you are interested in a consultation on what to do with your existing artwork and/or what to purchase for a space, send me a message.  (locals only please)  I also love consulting on rearranging furniture, space planning, etc.  I’ll post some more on my house soon.  It’s a process.

Again – last minute nellie (I’m sounding like a broken record) – after school today – took out the camera with the kiddos and the dogs.  Here is my temptation post…

Oreos – A Big Thing in our house – YUM!

And of course Mikey gives into temptation to get in on this one……

Yum…..

Ut Oh – Watch out for Duke!!!!

Naughty Doggie!  Love how he looks at me while sniffing – pleading…..He SO KNOWS he’s NOT supposed to be doing that!

Here little Abby is getting into the action too!

Duke is eyeing up some crumbs – I think I’ll let him have them…

Now Please head over to see what gorgeous images CLARA has for us today!

Today I am asking you to do a favor.  It would mean so much to me.

The fabulous Bloom Team is having a ‘Face 2 Face’ workshop here in Dallas.  I went to the first one and it was fabulous.  I also took two of the Bloom Online workshops a couple of years ago, and learned sooo much.  I am an active member of the Bloom Forum with a fantastic group of talented and generous photographers across the world.  I would LOVE to attend the next Face 2 Face workshop not only to learn a lot, but to see and meet in person some new fantastic photographers – all who are Bloom Forum members who I am online friends with.  However, I did go to the first one, and my funds are limited these days, so I had to opt out.

However, the opportunity came up where Bloom posted a ‘Model Call’ for this workshop.  I did not at first submit my boys.  The reason being, the models are voted – and the winners are the ones with the most votes.  So basically it’s a popularity contest. That made me sad, so I did not even try.

But then Bloom contacted me and ASKED me to submit my boys – or at least one of them.  So I did.

I’m asking if you could do me a favor (pretty Please) and go HERE to vote for my mikey.  Chris is there also – but he doesn’t really like having his photo taken where Mikey tends to thrive on it, so I’m pushing for Mikey.

This is him.  I take a gazillion images of him, but have no recent images where he is looking directly into the camera.   So he’s the only one looking in another direction.

Thank you soooo much for this.  I don’t really like to ask, but I would really LOVE to go watch and meet some great people!

Again – Please go HERE to vote.  Thanks!

So it occurred to  me that I had started my office ‘project’ just about a year ago, and aside from curtains, I am close to done.  However, knowing me, I’m sure I will be rearranging a few things.

I had decided to move our beloved piano from the ‘music room’ to the livingroom, giving myself an office.  If you are interested in reading more about the actual piano move- you can go HERE.   ( I know you will be hitting  that link b/c my life is just soooo interesting!  lol)

Withing this past year, we painted this room,  (a huge THANK YOU to my cleaning lady’s handy husband, he painted this room in addition to nearly the entire house for a VERY good price,) adopted two retired racing greyhounds, took a well needed break from the photography business and got my sanity back. 

May, 2011.  The End of a ‘music room’ that was never used.

May 10th, 2011.  The beginning of my new office and the beginning of that Gallery Wall.

So fast forward a year, we repainted the inset a grey color and the main walls a lighter white/cream.  ‘Cooled’ down the color temperatures, and finally finished that wall.  Sorry about the pile of cords on the side.  I’m not perfect. 

These are all 1.5 inch canvasses from CanvasOnDemand.   If you are interested in sizes and how I arranged them – Please go HERE -

So after the wall was finished, a got that chair from Pier 1.  And my boys have ‘their’ office upstairs with Ikea chairs.  Some day I may paint those cabinets.

Table (that I use as a desk) and bookcase are from Nadeau.

Knowing me,  I will most likely find a new home for those canvasses some day.  I tend to do that a lot – rearrange things.   That chest of drawers is from my grandparents house and I just love it!

What’s really nice about this transformation, is we now have a nice bright room in the front of the house that not only gets used A LOT, but it allows me to be with my family more.  I used to work in a room in the back of the house (the dungeon) and that just wasn’t good.

Warning  – Mommy Goggle Post!!!!

And he had just fell off the swing from doing his typical stunts – so there are some scrapes on his nose and forehead.  I cleaned the scrapes but did not want his hair  to get on his forehead scrapes so we put a do-rag on his head to keep the hair off.  Most of these are taken like that – then we put some Neosporin and a big bandaid after the photos.  With the do-rag,  he was acting all gangster!

Here we have a cheek…(And grey hair due to my lack of attention when processing…..)  Poor kid is aging too quickly!

When he squints – I love those little six year old wrinkles…..

His Eyelashes…

Enough!

Seriously  – enough  Ok – as the mommy – I see crinkles, teeth, mouth, the feeling and expression (and dirty fingernails!)

tongue and eye

Nose and mouth…

smile

tongue and cheek….

Please head on over to see the pretty images of CLARA .  !!!  I’m sure you will love them!

Now please head on over to Clara to see her take on the theme -

So after putting all the shoes out ‘for sale’ he got a little bored, so he put on his favorite pair of boots and started acting like himself – a total goofball -

I love him so much!   He literally makes me laugh everyday!  Now please head on over to Clara’s post to see her pretty images!

Before photography, I used to paint.  Somehow, my paintings became popular and long story short – within a couple of years after I started, quite by accident, I got an agent at the Dallas World Market and he sold my paintings (and my business partner’s) to many high end home decor stores thoughout Texas, Louisianna and Oklahoma.  Mostly small stores, but a few larger retailers bought the paintings.  I had a group of artists who worked for us recreating our designs on canvas to fill the orders.

Market crash, and the paintings stopped selling quite as quickly – and quite frankly, I was starting my photography interest at the time, so I had welcomed the change and put more and more effort in teaching myself photography.

Sometimes I still like to paint – and lately I’ve been experimenting with different colors, more of a modern look, different than what I was doing when before.  Maybe if I get a good amount of canvasses done, then I’ll contact my agent again to see if he wants to sell them.  But then, it may become a ‘production’ thing again instead of creating fun art.  (He starts coming in with ‘orders’ from stores).  I shouldn’t complain if it does, but I stopped doing photography as a business – so obviously it’s the ‘business’ part that doesn’t fit in my life right now.

Well – here is something I’m not quite finished with yet.  I work on it when I’m watching TV or in my spare time.

I think I’m done with this one – Didn’t varnish it yet – not sure if I’m going to.  If it stays in my house – I can do whatever I want with it.  If I sell it – I will varnish it first.

One of my babies.

Boy play.

Ok – so I cheated a bit this month – I really was enjoying this next series – so it was hard to pick just one to document this playtime.

The twins next door just turned two, so they happened to stumble into some pretty light in their party clothes and balloons – Perfect photo op – so I grabbed the camera and shot a few.

Now please continue the circle to Pam Parisi to see her pretty images!