A Few Things I Learned This Week Via My Iphone

1. I can handle the cold and the snow but I need the SUN. Need it.
2. I will never get sick of taking pictures of cool, old buildings.
3. Essay writing for 2'nd graders? No thanks.
4. Restaurants with cars in them are pretty cool.

5. My boy would be really cute in the marching band.

6. Vintage horses are really expensive.

7. New antique stores are never a bad idea, impossible.

8. I haven't been getting my big camera out nearly enough lately.

9. I  really, really need to stop cutting my own hair and get a new hair dresser already.

10. There is just something about a girl and her daddy.

11. One day before I know it that little girl looking at herself int he mirror will be a teenager :(

12. Putting on a shirt that was way too tight to wear last time and this time...it's NOT is a 

really good thing.

13. Pine forests = the best babysitter ever, I had to drag the kids out of there.

14. Cousins really are the BEST thing in the world.

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And those are just a few of my favorite iphone pics this week.
That is just a fraction of them, trust me.
Are you on Instagram?
You can follow along with me here.

** most pictures here i took with the hipstamatic app, one of my most favorites.

Thinking Outside The Box....

So I think I am totally used to the kids being in school now.
I think this is the beginning of Week 5....I think.
They are loving it and all is going well.
I am not walking around in a complete fog wondering WHAT to do with myself.
Well, wait-- I kind of am but not because of the kids not being here but because I am trying to figure out what on earth to do with myself.
I need a job.
I know I said that here in this post, that I thought I needed to work to keep myself sane and not
be inside my cukoo-crazy-head too much but now I really need a job, as in I need a little income.


Up until a couple of weeks ago I worked about 4-5 hours per week in the evening, just two nights a week after Eric got home from work.
I never talked about it here because I worked alone in a building by myself after dark and although I
am not super-paranoid, I do watch TV and I knew better than to announce to the world wide web that I was alone in a building at night.
Now that I am not doing that anymore, which is for the best, I am definitely missing the extra bit of income.

So, the big question is...What to do now?
It's tough.
It needs to be super flexible, just a couple of days a week.
I need to be able to help out at school, and be here to get the kids to and from school.


I do not feel like I am ready to go back to my "real job" which was working for the school
district in more of an outreach/human services kind of job....or when/if I will ever be ready for that again.
Here's the thing-- and I feel a tiny but guilty admitting this out loud because I have a lot of compassion for those in need,
especially children and mothers in need/crisis, but I realized after I stopped working that I
was really getting burned out on that job.
The people and the depressing circumstances and the families we were supposed to be helping but when it came right down to it you never
really knew if you made a difference at all or not....
it's a lot. I needed a break in a serious way.
That being said, I do think there is a good possibility that I will eventually want to do something like that again, but maybe not just yet.
But who knows?

So, I am trying to think outside the box and come up with something that would fit the bill for all
of the above.
I am open to just about anything-- just about.
Okay- maybe not anything : )
I am also brainstorming things I can do here at home or with my shop because I feel like the timing could be a really good
opportunity for me....yikes... so much to think about.

Anyone else currently in this situation?
Any advice/thoughts/ideas?

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Happy, happy Monday!

Favorite Iphone Apps :: Part 2

Hey there.
Happy Wednesday to ya.
That means the week is almost half way over and we are looking forward to a long holiday
weekend.
So today I wanted to share a few of my current favorite Iphone photography apps.
I say current because my favorites change all the time, there is just so many fun apps out there.
I talked about some of my favorite Iphone apps a few months ago here; Part 1.

Pixlromatic
Free
Tons of filters, frames and options
Super easy to use, not complicated... this app might have my favorite filters on it.

Magic Hour Lite
Free
Check out the textures and frames on this one.
Love, love, love it.
This ferris wheel pictures is one of my favorites, the color and texture really adds something to
the photo that really makes it stand out.

IncrediBooth
by Hipstamatic
Free
LOVE this photo booth app so much
There are a bunch of these out there but I like this one a lot because you can save the whole photo
strip to your phone or share in instagram/facebook/twitter, etc but you can also save just one of the
pictures on the strip like this extreme close-up of me below. Yikes.
I love that it saves you the time of going in and cropping out a single picture if you want.

The photo strip above I just put into a collage frame with PicMonkey.
I love those shots of my silly little niece and I really love the black and white.
Again, this shot of me below is a single photo from a photo strip of four.
How fun is that?

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I love that all of these apps give you so much creative freedom.
When I take "real pictures" with my Nikon I do not normally do a whole lot of editing to them
but with my iphone I love to add texture, frames, play around with the filters, etc.
It's just a cool, easy and different way to capture all the little things in your day.

So what are your favorite photo apps?
Which ones do you use the most?
I'd love to hear.