A little catch-up

Well I know I’ve been promising this post for awhile, but between home and family and work it’s been… CRAZY.
But honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve been spending way too much time being sentient lately and it’s starting to take its toll on me.
Anywho! There has been quite a bit going on, for sure!

Lets see… I water marbled Easter eggs the other day. I’m going to try some more later this week and hopefully get a tutorial up for you before Easter.

I also learned how to make nail polish flowers. If you’d like I’ll make a tutorial on this as well!

Finished a few hand embroidery projects… This one has to be my favorite. It’s made as a “house warming” present for a couple that I have the great pleasure of knowing. They lost their house and everything inside of it, including their four furbabies, to a house fire a few weeks ago. Through this mess, they’ve continued to be upbeat and courageous and I have to say, it’s awe inspiring. Where I would have laid down and cried and wailed and just given up, they’ve gotten stronger and closer together. And I love them for it!

Started another project as well. This one is semi-secret. Y’all will ever only see this part, the rest of it is highly classified.

In other news… They broke our Taco Bell. Well, to be true… They’re building us a new one. But it’ll be 5-6 months before we get to enjoy Happier Hour without going 15 minutes out of town to get it. *sigh* No more Loaded Potato Grillers

Today I dug up 50+ iris rhizomes. I noticed them along our back fence the other day when I was headed home from work. So I decided to go dig them up. I figured there were just a few plants. Surprise, surprise when I kept digging and kept finding them. I cannot wait to get these transplanted in front of the house and get to watch them explode. YAY!!!

Did some awesome conceptual shots as well… I took a picture that was taken in the daylight (the house) and then grouped together some of my lightning shots to create this awesome amalgamation.

My own little version of a Weeping Angel…

This is the same house, just at a wider angle… Used some of my cloud pictures combined with a few photoshop brushes to achieve this.

Went around scouting for new session locations and found this old school house turned church a ways from our state lake. I have always loved how forlorn and neglected it’s looked.

This day it was super windy and the old merry-go-round was spinning on its own. I really wish I could have captured that on film, but I think this does it enough justice.

I also found some milk weed pods when we were clearing out the bush next to our house. I love how soft and free these little babies are. They flew everywhere, but it was so worth it in the end.

Day Seven: I'm stuck in the elevator, get me out!!!

Went out yesterday and got some beautiful shots of the blossoming Bradford pear trees that flank the vacant school across from us. This is my favorite shot over all that I took.

And, but of course, last but not least, some of my spotting shots. I was SO excited and SO sure we were going to witness some pretty hefty weather this last week. Much to my dismay, they either formed east of us or went around us. But! Tornado season has just begun!

Here’s my son and storm spotting “partner” in front of a massive super cell thunderstorm forming Southeast of us.

Dubbed: “The Storm That Formed Over Us”, this massive mesa is just the tail end of a massive line of super cell thunderstorms that stretched at least 50 miles long, if not longer. And of course… It was north of us…

Here’s some beautiful mammatus clouds, or ice cube clouds as my sister and I always called them. These are usually tell-tale signs of a violent weather pattern on the horizon, usually one that includes hail and high winds.

So I was super excited about the cell southeast of us. Hurried home, got my camera and tripod ready, my memory card cleared off and I was ready! I was so looking forward to a major storm. But the more and more I looked at radar, the more and more I realized it was too far west for it to touch us. But I did get a some-what decent lightning show. This is my first with my new camera, so unfortunately I missed a lot of awesome shots with trying to figure out what the best setting was, how I needed my lens to be focused, etc. And it wasn’t a real prolific cloud-to-cloud lightning producing storm. Out of 400+ shots, I only got three that had any amount of lightning in them, and this was by far the best one.
So yeah, it’s been kinda boring around here lately, but I promise to have some more reviews and tutorials up for your viewing pleasure soon.