SUMMER RED!

In the interest of equal time to my “beans”, Noah graciously modeled RED for today’s Kim Klassen Beyond Layers challenge!  For some reason my flickr page would not load onto the Kim Klassen page today for color red shots...sigh....somedays it is a crap shoot to get it to show up without that little blue bird and other days it is no problem...
anyway....i am in the process of making 2 sample books to showcase my portraits....and so i have no time to futz with it right now.  Hopefully by sending it though my blog will make it show up!  More than one way to peel a banana (i just made that up because i hate the “skin a cat” phrase....i am a crazy cat lady at heart!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/captured_echoes/6862308156/in/photostream



Hope you all have a vibrant, RED hot Friday!! WOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!  The weekend is upon us!!

Victoria Blue :)

©2012 Susan Ogden-All Rights Reserved Images Thruthelookingglass



I love blue flowers~ This little wild flower is probably a huge nuisance to a whole bunch of people who take pride in their lawns around here, but when it takes over an area in the spring, it is simply stunning!  It is such a clear, beautiful shade of blue. i have no idea what it is though.  Just found out it is “Victoria”.  (That’s my sister’s name!)
Even though i love blue flowers, mainly because true blue is hard to find in flowers, most tending toward purple....i have finally decided that my very favorite flower is the Sunflower.  They make me smile, they make my heart happy!  I have begun to make a tradition of buying myself some when i go to the beach, to put on my kitchen table there.  all i need do is look at them and i smile!  They just have such an upbeat look about them....like sunshine on a stem!

Hope your Faux Friday was wonderful.  i had the best day of the whole week so far...the eels were much better behaved today!  Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!  OH, i DO love Friday....May you make the most of YOUR lead in to the weekend!  I do not even care that it is going to rain! :)  it is spring in NJ...and at least it is not the S word!!!

HELLO YELLOW!

Well, Hello Yellow!!!!   Spring has sprung with a vengeance here in Northwestern NJ...and i could not be happier!  The Daffodils are up and awake...and after the past few days in the 70’s the forsythia is popping! Yellow seems to be the first color to wake up.  The Orchid shot was taken today after work, since i needed something YELLOW for the Beyond Layers class (Kim Klassen....love her!!).  I did try and make it easy on myself and take a shot of the school buses lined up in the parking lot at school....but i was not fond of them soooo....off i went to the Orchid Greenhouse to find me some yellow there!  The other shots are archive shots.  i never realized how many yellow shots have taken, until i began to look through my flower folder!

ANOTHER busy day tomorrow with my grandbeans in the morning....and eel herding in the afternoon...due for another gorgeous day in the 70’s and sunny.....oh, how “sunny” makes me smile. i treated myself to 3 bunches of sunflowers today, and as i was driving home, i decided that they are OFFICIALLY my favorite flower!

I hope you all had a great day chasing yellow....can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Face Your Fears!

©2012 Susan Ogden-All Rights Reserved Images Thruthelookingglass

View on Black

Challenge... Day 16 Kim Klassen/Beyond Layers

Face Your Fears: Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pa. processed with Nik Silver Effex Pro, and added fonts: You Murderer and Skullphabet from dafont.com

I love this scary challenge of facing fears. I, much like Kim have had a cojoined twin called FEAR, for far too long. This past year, with the help of some incredible angels i have had the pleasure of calling friends, and who have walked by my side without ever even knowing they were doing it, my constant fears are almost gone! Thanks to them, with all their confidence in me and love for me, i AM facing my fears, and i AM winning! I honestly think they were each sent to me at the exact moment i needed them most, from God. My biggest achievement this past year has been learning to believe that i am a person in my own right. I am more than a mom, a wife, a sister, a daughter..... I am talented and good. i am worthwhile, and capable. I have value....and YES....i DO have talent that deserves to be nurtured, praised and encouraged. This came as quite a shock to me....but i am doing my best to embrace what i have been born with....craziness and all! The difference in me in the past year has been met head on with negativity, but i am forging ahead....i am believing i can succeed and it no longer matters to me that “maybe” i won’t succeed and “maybe” i will fall on my face.....because the fact that i now believe in myself is the best prize of all, i am happier than ever inside. The only failure is not to try.

wHiSPeR!   Thinking of the theme for this week’s challenge....these came to mind....new baby and lack of sleep kind of whisper, and asserting her two year old self roar, when a whisper would suffice.
Fortunately when Noah Jacob finally falls asleep, even Lileigh Grace’s roar does not wake him....i am sure the angels are softly singing to him so he doesn’t notice!
Having a new baby invade her space has Lileigh Grace asserting herself over her domain.  EVERYTHING is hers....and i do mean everything down to the fixtures in the house!
Life is a balancing act and she is learning....sometimes the hard way! She is used to everything BEING hers....her Mama, Daddy, Mmmm-ma and Poppy, the dog, her toys....the world has been her oyster and her’s alone.  This little interloper has tipped the scale here, and it is no longer in her favor alone! I am doing my best to let her know that even tho Noah as arrived ....and is here to stay....she is still my baby, and i adore her.
when changing Noah, she helped me, doing a great job....then when i had to carry him back downstairs, she had a fit!  She wanted me to carry her,,,,usually she fights me to let her do the stairs herself!  i had her climb on the bed and i picked her up onto my left hip, baby Noah in my right arm and carried them both down.  We sat on the sofa and she looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said “Mmmm-ma have 2 babies!” and her face just lit up like the sun!  Yes indeed....Mmmm-ma has 2 babies that she adores.....unconditionally!
Hope your week is going smoothly....it is a full moon week and “herding eels” has been a challenge at school this week.  i need a hot rock massage!!  Yes i do!

Had issues with loading the PW actions....finally just caved and used Aperture to do the B&W conversion with the intent of loading PW actions to CS5 instead of Elements9....which will then FORCE me to begin learning CS5!  Must be a sign of some sorts that i have procrastinated long enough with that!!

Share your Smile was done with my handmade Brush, using Pea Noodle’s Girlfriends font and Pea Jokilyn Doodles.....i love those fonts and doodles!  When i get my tablet out and learn how to make my own pictures i will be ecstatic....but until then, Pea Noodles are fun fonts and doodles!
What would you become....is a quote that fascinated me.....mainly because i have always been under-confident and fearful of being a failure....and now i see that there is no failure, other than not trying at all.  It is a great question to ponder and i think most folks would become anything they wanted to if the fear of failure were removed.  working on that fear has been very fulfilling and i am astounded at the doors that are opening before me!!
Have a wonderful smiley mONDAY!

It has been a long week.  The retreat last weekend, and helping with my daughter and the beans this week has put me a bit behind the 8 ball.  THIS is my 10 TRUTHS, as challenged on Monday by Kim Klassen for the Beyond Layers class. It ran right into my next challenge...given to us on Thursday...which i am having fits with, because i am SO abysmal at the tech part of the computer.  I am very VERY close to paying someone to load the actions for me, because i have spent the better part of this morning before work (I was late, because i was SO determined to load them myself, to no avail.) trying over and over to do it.  i wrote to Kim (rephrase that to i BOTHERED kim, begging for help!) and sweet as she always is, she wrote right back with a link to learn how to do it....which i now have been TRYING to do since 2:45pm this afternoon....it is now time to start dinner and i am only a wee bit closer to figuring this out....Is being a computer tech related in some way to being good at math....because that could explain my extreme difficulty with what should be a relatively easy thing!  Maybe i am just making this way harder than it seems...but then to me it seems REALLY hard!

OK....i am going to do some deep breathing and make some dinner and come back....so i can get all wound up again!  SIGH..........i am determined to get this before tomorrow morning, so i can play with the new challenge.  :)

Bonus to my 10 TRUTHS....i am relentless!