Cold Spaghetti

Will and Kate share a bedroom, which means that we must remove one of them from the room each night in order for either of them to fall asleep.  Tonight Kate wandered to our room while I read bedtime stories (apparently she was not interested in hearing Will’s insults to my French accent).  She crawled in bed and went to sleep with little fuss.

We should have known something was up.

A few hours later, Paul comes to get me from my computer… NOW IN THE BACK IN THE NEW STUDY… where I am working.

“I tried to move your daughter and she went ‘crunch.'”

“What do you mean, crunch?”

“I think you need to come and see.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know.  She just went crunch.”

I walk in the room and Paul says, “this is what I felt when I picked her up.”  He hands me a pile of this:

And we turn on the light to find this:

Explained by this:

And this:

All done by this:

Note to household: this is not a good time for a papercut.

Important business, this reading Heifer International’s newsletter.

No, really, Mom.  Did you know you a flock of chicks is only $20?

Thanks, Heifer.  With YOUR help, we’re just one pants-less morning away from Potty Trained.

Kate: “I look silly!”

Kate: “I love it!”

Cold weather accessories taken out, as a rare necessity.  Also necessary: modeling them.

(The glasses influenced the Photoshop actions.)

I must be feeling a bit down.  That last post included the word “tight” twice with copious pictures of Paul working on the outbuilding, and yet, I let that golden opportunity pass.  Tight?  Golden? … aye, my heart’s just not in it.  So much for my reputation as the internet source for home improvement porn.

As I try to rev up for this year’s Mardi Gras season (we’re still working the Devo theme, despite Will’s ever-changing cast of character requests: Spider, Cowboy, Knight, and Luke Skywalker), I’m attempting to clean out my Aperture folder and properly archive and organize the photographs.  But you know?  It’s way more fun to play around studiously learn Photoshop techniques.

Remember Kate’s New Year Tai Chi?  Where she is terribly lit in intense direct sun?  The moves are so classically Kate that I wanted to see if I could improve the quality of some of the pictures.  Work with the captured moment, so to speak.

Here are the originals:

Then I decided to try and soften the harsh light and overall brightness of the image.  I played with curves, brightness, dodge and burn, and levels.  What I should have done was used one set of commands that I liked and then just applied the actions to the rest.  I didn’t.  I just went all willy-nilly and did whatver I liked as the mood struck.  Don’t expect anything earth-moving.

Yeah, I know.  Is that all?  Then, because I’m reading all of these artsy books about black and white photography, I decided to play around some more.

I think I like these last ones best.

Here’s hoping I get around to backing them up before Mardi Gras!

Carry berries to mountain and wish HAPPY NEW YEAR!