Chainsaws and Wisteria

Matthew and I participated in Disaster Relief and Recovery training yesterday and today with the North Carolina Baptist Men (despite the name, you don’t have to be from North Carolina, be a Baptist, or be a man to participate). From their website:

The purpose of the North Carolina Baptist Men (NCBM) is to help Christians share the love of Jesus by praying, giving, going and becoming actively involved in missions with their time and talents. NCBM strives to make Christians aware of human needs and to provide opportunities to help meet those needs wherever they exist. 

Matthew and I have been really seeking God out on how to serve Him in missions work. We were seriously contemplating a trip to Zambia this summer, but after reflection, felt that, while it was a good trip, it wasn’t the best fit for us. When the opportunity came for us to get involved with the NCBM, we pounced. While the organization offers a lot of different opportunities to serve in a variety of ways, we focused on relief and recovery operations after a disaster happens, such as Hurricane Katrina. In fact, the NCBM has spent the last two years in Gulfport, Mississippi rebuilding over 700 homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. And while they did that, they shared the love of Christ with disaster victims. NCBM is active all over the world, from just around the block to the other side of the world in Sri Lanka. Matthew and I can’t imagine a better fit for us- combining humanitarian work with missions.

So, for the last twenty-four hours, we’ve been learning about proper chainsaw operations (trees tend to fall down in hurricanes), conducting a “mud out” (when it floods, a lot of mud, grime, sewage and the odd snake tend to run right into homes), and roof wrapping (high winds = roof damage). We also got to see how the NCBM does a mass feeding (they have the capability to serve 30,000 hot meals a day) as well as their laundry, shower and command trailers. And this ain’t no small operation. Matthew was floored at how well set up and gigantic it all was.

We did have to sleep on the floor of a church (Matthew sweated it out on the guys wing while I slept nice and toasty in my sleeping bag in the icy ladies wing) and eat food prepared in bulk. Although we did sneak down to Chik-fil-A late last night. And to Starbucks this morning. And to Panera for lunch. Hey man, they were all within walking distance. We had a great time, met lots of cool people and walked away with a certification in disaster recovery. We even got nifty photo id badges! So when the next disaster strikes, we’ll be ready to roll.

The weather around here has been crazy. I think somebody forgot to tell North Carolina that spring is here. Yesterday it was 80F and today it is 45F and rainy- we even had to cut our chainsaw activity short due to some hail. But, that was a-o-kay with me. I plan on leaving the chainsaw work up to Matthew anyway.  I plan to just look pretty and wipe the sweat from his brow while serving him an ice cold sweet tea  (blech!) in my pretty apron. I’m KID-ding.

When I came home this afternoon, I was greeted by a riot of color from the wisteria vine “growing” (aka killing) on the trees in front of our house. I couldn’t resist getting a few photos:

 

I know, photos of flowers, lame, but they’re so pretty!

Alrighty, off to watch this movie, eat some avocado and salad and catch some rest. I’m feeling a little beat after sharing a room with a couple of octogenarian chics last night!  It must be true that you need less sleep as you age- those ladies went to bed late and got up earrr-llly! And they go on mission trips to Africa. And shower in cold water. And laugh at bugs in their bedrooms. Tough old ladies…

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100

Well, this is it, the 100th post. It took me a little under a year to get here. Some people do that many posts in a month. Not me. I like to take my sweet, old time.

I’ve been thinking about how I would mark this blog milestone (You did know this is a blog milestone, right?). It’s popular among bloggers to post 100 things about themselves. I don’t really like that. For multiple reasons. Do I have 100 things to say about myself? Do I have 100 things I want to say about myself that I want the public to know? Does the public even want to read those 100 things in the first place? To all of the above I say a resounding, “No, please and thank you!”

I also considered giving something away to someone who leaves a comment, but, we all know that I like to make promises of giving stuff away and then never really follow through. You don’t hold me accountable people! (Oh, and Lindsay, I didn’t send the card, BUT, I’ll be sending me in less than a week! Will that do?)

So, instead of posting a laundry list of dirty laundry (the little voice inside my head warns me that what is recorded now will come back to haunt me in my presidential future, right Hillary?) or making promises I won’t keep, I’ll just say thanks, y’all for reading. I’ve enjoyed the blogging process so far and plan to keep on doing it. Even though this blog was born out of an idea to track a Yankee’s perspective on Southern life which then morphed into keeping track of home renovations and then to photo logging, I’ve comfortably settled into just writing whatever floats my boat. And people still read. Even more than when I had a “plan.” You like me, you really like me and for that I thank you!

(Oh, and I L-O-V-E olives- any and all, shape, size and color are of no consequence. They’re all good fruit to me and thus the little muses for my photo above. Plus, they’re part of a little side project I have going on, but I won’t talk about that for now.)

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Who knew pirates were so popular?

A long, long time ago in the the blog galaxy, I wrote a post about talking like a pirate. Who knew that six months later, that term “pirate” would draw the most views to my blog. 556 views to be exact. Pirates (90 views) and Will Turner (70 views) don’t even come close to touching the 500+ figure of “pirate”. And hey, I knew Pirates were cool- Matthew and I both were pirates for several years in fact. But that cool? I bet just by writing this post, I will only perpetuate the pirate fanaticism that has proven to pay off immensely for my little blog.

While not so popular, there have been other intersting search engine terms that have drawn views to my blog.

My favorites include: Pointy Ears (21 views) Dressed like a lady (12 views) Fat Suit (8 views)

And the obscure: Women who cut firewood with chainsaws  (1 view)

And the “People please!” category: Fat Sex (1 view)

That last one perplexed me when I first saw it. I was pretty sure I had never written about s-e-x of any kind and particularly not fat s-e-x on this blog. My father reads it for cryin’ out loud!  It took me a minute to realize that the term “fat” on my blog was usually in reference to the Hairspray review I did and then realized that I said it was nice to go to a movie without profanity or sex in it. There you go. Fat sex. I’m sure the person who Googled that phrase didn’t expect to get directed to my blog and I certainly didn’t expect them!

In other news (and I use that term very loosely), my new haircut is so much easier functionally speaking. Thank you for all of the nice compliments. It was a big step and I feel rather sheepish that I broadcast it to the world, but, like I said, it was a big step and for those of you who’ve known me for any length of time know that short hair is not my thing. I do like it, I really do, but it has me feeling a little exposed. The back of my neck hasn’t seen the light of day since I was three years old (with the exception of ponytails and up-do’s). It feels a bit vulnerable. Don’t wild animals go in for the kill on the back of the neck?

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How-To: Photoshop Elements

I got such a great response to the photos that I posted last week that I thought I would write a little how-to post to explain how I went from the “before” to the “after”.

So here’s the urn that makes me heart go pitter-patter with it’s outrageous colors:

The “before” shot wasn’t too bad on its own. Really, without the “after” next to it, I think it could have stood alone. However, compared to the “after”, it’s a little lackluster. Here’s how I went from a to b:

1. Open the photo you want to edit in Photoshop Elements (duh!)

2. Create a duplicate layer from the background layer. You can do this by right clicking on the background layer in the layers palette on the bottom far right of the screen.

3. Once you have a duplicate layer (it should have opened up above the background layer in the layers palette), you can set it to a new layer type (it should be set at “normal” as the default). For the picture above, I changed the layer type to “hard light” from the drop down menu.

4. Since the hard light layer was a little too dark, I duplicated that layer. This made the photo even darker since it duplicated hard light on hard light. To adjust, I changed this third layer type to “color dodge”, which made the color much more vivid. However, it was a little too vivid and blown out in some of the lighter/white areas. So, I adjusted the opacity, which is found on the slider bar right next to the drop down layers menu.

5. I played around with the opacity on both the “color dodge” layer and “hard light” layer until I got something that I liked. Once I had this, I just “saved as” to preserve the original photograph. Bravo!

There is probably an easier way to do this, but since I’m largely self taught when it comes to Photoshop, this is as good as it gets. If you want to try this and I left something out or confused you to the point of madness, just drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do to set the world back to right.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Easter. As a Christian, this is the most important celebration of the year. It’s not about bunnies or chocolate, but about the miracle that the tomb was empty, Christ is alive and each of us have the opportunity to know Him personally if we will only come to Him. I like how Peter Marshall said it:

“It was when the disciples saw the empty tomb, that they believed. We must see not as the watch-maker who peers through his magnifying glass. It means to see with inner light that leads one to conclusion. It is perception, reflection, understanding – more than sight. Do you see? It is to see, as one who reasons from the effect to the cause. And when John and Peter reasoned from what they saw in the tomb, they arrived at the unshakeable, unassailable, certain conviction that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.

There is no death to those who have entered into fellowship with Him who emerged from the tomb. Because the Resurrection is true, it is the most significant thing in our world today. Bringing the Resurrected Christ into our lives is the only hope we have for making a better world. ‘Because I live, ye shall live also.’ That is the message of Easter.”

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After

Eleven inches later…

For Locks of Love.

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Before

Snip, snip, snip…

Tune in tomorrow for the after- buh-wah-ha-ha!

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Philatel-what?

I read a lot of different blogs regularly. According to my Bloglines feeder, I’m subscribed to over 100 blogs at the moment, ranging from craft blogs, friend’s blogs, tech blogs, house blogs and even some blogs of old classmates who probably don’t even know I’m reading their posts (In the blogosphere, that’s called lurking, and it’s what all of you who read my own little blog are doing by not leaving me any comments. I see the stats, I know you’re out there! J). I have to admit that I love the connection that I can have with someone living thousands of miles away whom I’ve never met just through writing and posting of photos. I also have to admit that I like the slightly voyeuristic side of blogging as well. What better way to keep up with all those old classmates? It’s like being able to get into that diary that you always wanted to crack open as a kid.

One of the reasons I love so many of the blogs that I subscribe to is because of the stories they tell, particularly the ones about their childhood. There are a lot of good writers out there who have me rolling out of my seat laughing with their tales. It’s not that I can always relate to their experiences. They just have a way with words that is so expressive and frankly, hilarious. All those dirty little secrets of childhood coming to the light of day make for some good lunchtime reading.

I, on the other hand, haven’t posted too much about my past. Here and there I’ve mentioned it, but for the most part, this blog has focused more on the here and now, so that our family and friends, since they are such loyal readers (with the glaring exception of my husband), can stay caught up with life in general since we picked up and hauled down to North Carolina from Michigan three years (!) ago.  But, to make a long story short (I really must be a writer, heh?), I started thinking about my childhood after I took this photograph:

Childhood secret number one: I was a philatelist as a wee one. A philatel-what?! A stamp collector- but doesn’t philatelist sound more impressive? Sort of makes me sound like I was some kind of child prodigy, which reminds me of Doogie Howser, MD, the concept of which fascinated me as a kid (childhood secret number two).

Anyway, when I was in elementary school I lived for stamps. I’ve always been a collector at heart, so what’s a more fitting role for a collector than a collector of stamps? I’d get them from all over the place: grandmas, aunts, my mom’s coworkers, pen pals (Childhood secret number three: At one point, I had over 50 pen pals from around the world. I was just using them to get their stamps.). I can remember saving up my allowance to buy big bags of thousands of unsorted stamps from all over the world from the bookstore. I would go through all the stamps, convinced that I would find an Inverted Jenny or some other stamp that would make me rich, rich, rich! Okay, so I wasn’t a purist, collecting stamps for the sake of the stamps themselves.

I never did get my big break, but I did have fun going through all of the stamps and looking up the location of their country of origin and wondering about what kind of letters the stamps helped get across the world (that sounds like a neat idea for a children’s book), which leads to childhood secret number four: reading the encyclopedia for fun. I loved World Books!

I stopped collecting stamps in middle school. I can’t remember exactly when, but it probably came around the time that I realized that wearing “funky” clothes and homemade jewelry was not helping me fit in, which was definitely not good for a middle schooler.  I must have realized that stamps didn’t exactly get one elected class president.  So, away went the stamps.

It wasn’t until we were cleaning out our storage unit (after hauling boxes around for four moves in the last three years) that I came across the stamps above. I was given these after my grandmother died and I think they belonged to my uncle. So see, even if it’s weird, I can blame it on my genes- and everyone blames their oddities on their genes. Most of the stamps are 50-75 years old and in fairly good condition since they were kept in books for the last half century. Unfortunately, tape was used to adhere them to the pages, which, due to the acid content, has left brown stains on the stamps. Not a big deal though since the most valuable one is worth…drum roll….ready….$8.00!

It’s been fun to look through all of them. They’re from all over the world and many of the countries are no longer in existence (Ceylon, anyone?).  There are even several with Hitler’s profile on them.  I plan to use them for crafts (Not including Hitler. I don’t think that’d go over well with the audience I’m trying to attract.) since they really are little pieces of art all in themselves. I think that must have been what drew me to stamps in the first place. Right, art, not fantasies of striking it rich.

I know you all thought I was cool. Now you know better. But, keep reading my blog, pretty puh-lease!

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I Love Photoshop

Since I had so much fun with the green chair before and after photos yesterday, I decided to play around with some photos I took last year while visiting Tryon Palace in New Bern, NC. I really like how by using just a few different layers, I’m able to really make the colors pop. I think the “afters” below would look really nice as postcards or even framed.

 

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Green Chair

Before

After

Even though I’ve had my Samsung GX 1-L and Photoshop Elements (PSE) for over a year now, I’m really just beginning to figure out how to use them together to get great photos. Not that I think this is a particularly great photo, but when compared with the before, I think it looks 100% better. The thing I like most about both my camera and PSE is how easy it is to use them. I do have a photography class in manual, 35-mm format under my belt and have played around with PSE’s bigger brother, Photoshop CS, so I appreciate how simple it is to find a subject, take a shot, upload it to PSE and then play around with the layers. All I had to do with the photo above was duplicate the layer, do some creative cropping, change the layer to Color Burn and voila! What was a very ho-hum shot of an interesting chair now pops! I think this would make a neat postcard or even look cool framed in a black frame with white matting. My goal has always been to use my photography as art in our home. Maybe I’m starting to get there.

I made this great ziti recipe for dinner tonight. Since we have church in the morning and then Matthew jets off to work afterwards, I like to make something big on Saturday night that he can easily heat up for a quick but filling lunch. I didn’t add enough sauce, so it’s more like an Italian mac and cheese. I used cheddar since I didn’t have mozzarella on hand, which made it a little drier due to the water content of cheddar being lower than mozzarella. I also added hamburger sauteed with onion. My hunka-hunka burning husband can’t have a dish without meat in it!

Have any of you been to I Can Has Cheezburger? I’m probably the last person on earth to discover this website, but I have to share it. It’s hilarious! I’ve also been getting a good laugh at the new blog Photoshop Disasters. Very funny!

Off to my ritual of watching Jane Austen adaptations and crafting. Good night!

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Stepping into Spring

It was beautiful here today, warm seventies and sunny. The great weather combined with an extra hour of light made me want to prowl around in the yard. So, while my Anniversary Chicken (which was excellent and oh so easy) was cooking, I took my digital SLR and Kodak Duaflex to try out some more TTV shots. Most were no good, but I liked the one above enough to post. Those little purple flowers (name, anyone? Periwinkle? Thanks Aunt Susie and Jayne!) are all over our side yard under the trees. It’s the only color we have right now, but I’ll take it as a sure sign that spring is on the way.

Now, I’m going to go park myself on the coach to enjoy the bliss that is LOST. I’m going to start working on the 15 ATCs I have to make for a swap I signed up for on Swap-bot, too. Sounds like a good night to me!

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