SERIOUSLY!

This is to remind myself not to take life too seriously and to lighten up :)

Sometimes I find myself thinking about some pretty serious and heavy stuff and I need to remember that it's good to just be silly once in a while.  Worrying about stuff is only gonna give me grey hairs and wrinkles :)

The Little House



my favorite childrens book



Is it possible that a childrens book could inspire me to alter the way that I think about a home?  I remember reading this book when I was a little girl and I snagged a copy of my own a few years ago at a used book sale.  Thus began my love for the charm of an older home. (that and the fact that my parents have a love for remodeling and renovating)  The idea that you can take something that was well built, but neglected, and make it new again is what made me descide that it would be best to stay in out first home and make it what I wanted, instead of building new.

Watch The little House short movie here

Our little house story began in 1939.  Waaaaayyy back then the government would give you money to put in a basement.  Most people would live in the basement (with a roof) until they had saved enough money to add a main floor to the foundation.



Our home circa 1952

In 1944 the Mayhew's finished the main floor.  The home was kept in the family until the mid '80's and it was sold, and then sold again a few years later (housing prices were going up and up)  We bought it in May of 1996 shortly after Paul got a job just down the road at Chromalox.  He spent two weeks driving from Providence in Cache Valley and had had enough.  We spent one weekend looking at homes with a realator and hadn't found anything.  The next weekend Paul was busy doing yardwork at Grandpa King's home where we lived in the basement apartment, but sent me down to find us a house.  I picked my Mom up and said a prayer that I would find something.  I descided that instead of looking in Ogden I would drive around where I thought it would be nice to live.  We drove out to North Ogden.  I felt better out there.  Then we went out to Pleasant View, where there wasn't much in our price range.  I continued on down the road and near the end I spotted a for sale sign and pulled over.  After going through the home I called Paul.  This was it.  This is where I felt like we belonged.  The house wasn't anything to be crazy about.  I mean, I studied Interior design in college, but I could tell that this little cottage had potential.   It had only been on the market for three days, and there was someone else who had put an offer on it.  So I bought it without Paul even seeing it.  Oh boy what did I get myself into.....alot of work!

Our home about 1997

Two are better than one

My sweet husband got me a new flash for our anniversary (kinda a nerdy way of saying that I light up his life, I guess)  This one will talk to my other flash and I was so excited to try taking photos with it.  Now, I had a problem, I had a Bridal sitting on Monday, and between other sittings, Family stuff, and celebrating our anniversary, I did not have time to go to Salt Lake to buy a new flash diffuser/reflector.  The new flash is a little too big to use my "shell" brand reflector, and I still needed to order flash brackets with an umbrella holder or softbox. (I still need to do that)

Horray for the internet... I found a tutorial showing how to make your own out of fun foam, adhesive, and velcro.... all available and inexpensivly priced at the local Wal*Mart.


Lewis the cat




Yep it's fun foam



I was so excited that I immediatly drove to Wally-World and picked up the necessary supplies and in less than 15 minutes after I had returned home I had my very own flash reflector.  It even comes apart and folds flat.  Now I needed a test subject.......THE CAT!!!

Well the cat doesn't have very much patience and he won't hold still for more than a couple of shots.  Oh well.  It was time to head to the bridal sitting.  It was at Ivy Lane, which is a beautiful arts and crafts building with many windows.  It was a rainy day, so I was kind of excited to be able to photograph inside while still capturing the outside.  It took a little getting used to placement of the off camera flash, but I think that we got some good shots despite the fact that I was fumbling with my equipment and the Bride was recovering from the Flu, and had to sit and rest every once in a while.

I was able to get pretty good skin tones and more modeling of the facial features.  I am so excited that I want to go out and shoot some more.  Isn't it funny that new toys can sometimes inspire you to do more and be more creative?

19 years

  Our Local temple, the Ogden Temple is closed, because they are building/remodeling (I'm not sure which).  So Our Ward was assigned a time slot with the Logan Temple at 10:00am.  That was what time we were married 19 years ago. (In the Logan Temple)  So, of course, we had to go.  What a beautiful morining it was.

How lucky I am to have such a great husband

Fun with light

The older two kids were out for the evening so after Paul went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary, we went outside with the younger two and played with light.

                         Click to make bigger It was fun to see the ideas that everyone came up with for their light drawings.

The Trouble with Technology

In order to refresh my memory, once in a while I go into Photoshop CS3 and try to do things that I don't do everyday.  Yesterday I took a few minutes to try to make a GIF image for my blog header and ended up frustrated.  Possibly because I can't place a GIF image as my header, or I need to pick another gadget in order to do that.  So in my frustration I just made a silly GIF of the cat and here it is:

Spring Break Fun

                                                      Click image to make bigger

GROW!!!

So spring might be on it's way (even though it has snowed/rained nearly non-stop for the last three days)  I got some colorful pots and planted some herbs.  Hopefully they will grow.  I really do like to garden, but haven't done alot of it the last couple of years, because we were always waiting on something to be done with the house/yard.  The kids and I planted the garden boxes a few weeks ago and I am so excited, because this is the first year that I will have water for those early spring veggies that I like thanks to my husbands ingenious plan to collect, store and pump water.  When our secondary water does get turned on in mid-May I just have to flip a valve and I can fill the tanks with that.  It makes it so that I can water anytime instead of just the two days a week that we have a water turn.  This makes me happy :)

:( no spring break to Moab :(

So in a last minute rush I was able to somehow find a 4-door Jeep to rent with all the lift and lockers and swaybar disconnects that Paul likes AND since nearly all of our extra money is going to home addition and renovation projects our friends graciously invited us to share their condo.  Unfortunatly my Natalie got the flu and we felt like we needed to cancel and not expose everyone to the Flu.  There was alot of dissappointment, but hopefully we will be able to come up with some fun things to do.