Catching Up Part 2: Photography

I reaaaalllly  want one of those SLR cameras.  But I really want a lot of things.  And the fact that I say "one of those SLR cameras" without having any idea exactly what kind of $1000 camera + lens I want doesn't make me feel, deep down, like I should be running out to purchase one just because I reaaaalllly want it.

What I should be doing is research and learning.  Learning how to use the features that my camera already has and researching what kind of SLR camera I want.  I haven't gotten too far on the research part.  But I did take a stab at using my camera to see what I could get.  Here's some of the highlights of the past few months.

This is my darling cousin who wears pink glitter shoes, picks grandma's flowers behind her back and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS has to have her purple purse.

Here is two variations of the same picture.  I was pleased with my artistic prowess :)  This is from a weekend in early September when we go pick my grandma's apple tree.  That's grandma.

 Here is one of my cousin beating up a girl at his Brown Belt Ceremony.  She looks utterly terrified!

And this one of him sparring with his teacher.  Or dojo or sensay or whatever.

The karate shots, not that you could tell, were tricky.  Because a the lighting was all wrong for autofocus.  I adjusted that all my myself!  Ok - I picked the incandescent light setting, but still, I had to knooooowww to pick that.  Also to get the good action shots I used the multi-shot setting.  I got probably about 25 with my cousin and instructor and a few of them were perfect!  That was slick.

I feel that my shots in general have been improving.  I've been looking at  a lot of baby pictures online because I want to capture that perfect, creative photo of our child to put on the announcements.  I've been noticing lighting, angle, backgrounds, poses....just trying to do what I can to identify what I like about a photo so I can recreate it.  What I usually like most about each photo is just the baby.  I'm ready to see our baby!!

Catching Up Part 1: Baby News

I want this baby to be here!  Most people I hear start saying this towards the last 2 weeks when things are unbearable and they can't take it anymore; I'm at 33 weeks.  I just want the baby here because I can't wait to stare at it for hours and hours!  I can't complain about pregnancy.  98% of the stuff I read and hear others talk about as changes and side effects happening hasn't happened to me.  I could do this for a whole year! (mothers out there, ask me again how I feel towards the end of January)  Except I want to SEE THIS BABY!


I never got into prenatal yoga.  I never got into anything physical really.  I'm starting to see how this whole labor thing is going to be a big endurance test.  How long can you be exhausted and tolerate the pain.  Can't I compare birthing to running a marathon even a tiny bit?  I'm not saying easy-peasy just because I ran, but somewhere in me I like to think that I've learned how to dig deep, to persevere and just. keep. going.  So hopefully some of what I've learned running coupled with all the birthing classes we've done has prepared me the best that one can be prepared for something that's no less then an absolute miracle.  Still, lesson learned - keeping up some sort of physical regime to maintain stamina will prove indispensable.


First we started with Hypnobirthing and I cannot say enough how much I loved this class.  Get past the weird sounding "hypnosis" stereotype that you may be thinking about (I was) and it's really this wonderful way of relaxing and just letting go.  Breathing, visualizing and remaining completely aware of your surroundings and body.  The only con was that I thought they portrayed "medical births" in a somewhat negative light; like the big bad hospital will make you do it this way!  On the other hand, knowing the most drastic scenario helps us prepare for anything.  When we got to the hospital classes on childbirth, they actually start with, and cover in length, natural child birth and a lot of the same techniques: breathing, relaxation, visualization.  The impression I got was that they offer choices including being supporting of natural child birth plus  any number of options for those who wish to start with interventions (epidurals are interventions).  Hypnobirthing was just the how-to of what the hospital also recommended.  


Not to get on too much of a tangent, but I've just always thought I would do the natural thing.  At any rate, I'm glad we have learned about all the options, so I can make informed decisions when things don't go according to plan.  The only thing I'm 100% sure of is that I don't know how things are going to go down, but we will be able to make the right choice at the time even if that means veering from the plan.