Photo a Day in April

Well, I did it. I decided to start the photo a day challenge for April after the last minute? Why? you may ask, as I did myself. Because. April has traditionally been so sucky that I coined the hashtag #effoffApril for it. I'm not going to recap those here. If you really want to know, you can go read my blogs from around that time and you'll get a good idea.

This year, I'm going to do something fun. I love photography, but I'm out of practice, AND I've gotten lazy. I scrapbook so I can cut out anything I don't like. Half my photos or better are for painting purposes and I can change coloring, composition, erase, etc anything I don't like and if I don't want to do either one of those, there's always photoshop. See how easy it is to get lazy with your photography? I don't have the best camera out there, but I have a decent one borrowed from my MIL.

I'm going to take pics everyday of the things they say to get back into the swing of things, or rather, OUT of the swing of things since I can't seem to hold the damn camera steady. Here are the first four days, including today's entry:

!st day-a reflection of you. Now, if I had a stash of chocolate somewhere, with a can of Pepsi and some fabrics, paints, papers, etc. I'd be all about that. But alas, the chocolate is no more. Why is the chocolate always gone??

Obviously, just the tip of the iceberg. I took others, but my hand shook too much. Sad but true.

Next up, is color. So many ideas so little time. I went with my makeup:

That was Day 2's Challenge. Yesterday's challenge was mail. That was too easy since we rearranged things.

Looking at it on screen, I kind of like it :)

For today's challenge, we had to do someone we love. Or someone who makes us smile. Now I can't remember, but my family is always a good choice either way. I took two pics. One of Edward  holding Isaac, but my hands shook again :(( boo cuz I would have liked that one for my scrapbook, and one of Patrick. Here's Patrick:

I like this one. He knew I was taking his pic and subtley changed his pose into this. I like it lots :) He's been a big help while his brothers were so sick (recovering nicely, BTW)

I hope you keep checking back and help me to tell the past April's #effoffapril as I bring happier memories into this year's April. Have a good day ;)

One of those days

I'm so very happy I had my cover art to share today. It's about the only thing that's gone right. I did manage to get more words added to the short, Traincoach of Death. Put myself at 5250 since Tuesday? Monday? No, it was Sunday, but I did some edits on The Ulfric's Mate in the meantime. I know I missed some, but everytime I tried to read it, my eyes glazed over. Hard for me to edit when that keeps happening.

I finally sent it back saying I feel like I missed something.(I just couldn't do much more and didn't figure it would be much better until I'd finished these other shorts and had gotten the story to the back of my head, but that's like 2-3 more weeks! Couldn't leave it that long!) To which my awesome editor answered. something to the effect of no worries cuz we do 3-4 of these, line item editor gets her/his hands on them, then the proof reader... OMG IT'S so exciting and frightening at the same time :D

Anyways, although we finished a few small things, I still feel like a complete waste of day. How many of you know about my #MakeoverLeona which has changed to #MakeoverMavericks? I started by selling Mary Kay to help pay for it and so I could get my discount. I'm doing a small amount of excercise everyday, NO MATTER WHAT, and I plan on doing my hair and clothes before the year's out. It started because I wanted to look good for my author photos (my last photos were taken 3 years ago!) and has transcended into at least 3 others joing me! Anyone who wants to make any sort of changes in their lives to "make it over" is free to join us! We are all changing different aspects in our lives with the goal of being happier with ourselves and our lives. And all of this has stemmed from me getting that book contract!

And now, I've smiled. Writing is so good for me :D How about you? Writing good for you? Or is it art you do? What do you do to help yourself be healthy, happy, and comfortable in your own skin? Or are you?

Funny Photos

Okay, this is not America's Funniest Vidoes. These are some photos that I'm practicing on for some scary artwork :D (Psst, if anyone has an Adobe Photoshop 7 or CS2 they want to give me, let me know! I have Elements 7, 9 and the upgrades of 2 & 3, although I can't find 2 at the moment. I also have disks Ibought with magazines that give me brushes to do what I want and they won't work withought the CS3 upgrade so I'm on a terror!) I'll probably sketch the work and then play with it in photoshop.

However, yesterday, was a huge allergy day and I could barely see the words, so I finally decided to mess with photoshop and see what I can come up with. Here are a few examples of what I did:

Bad hair day for a cowboy

Creature likes the cookie. Creature will find the cookies and steal them.

Preppy zombies

I nearly had an asthma attack laughing at the last one so hard. That is my husband and me at Multnomah Falls, Oregon. At least, thath's how it started...

As for writing, I did manage to get a few hundred words in between the sneezing hacking, watery eyes and kids taking advantage of the sickly mom :P Today, I shall get more done!! I have to cuz my CP is kicking my arse now! she did over 3k which effectively caught her up to my big day, but my little day was a few hundred short of  hers! So onwards with the words! We shall be doing the crazy train hardcore today...that sounds slightly dirty and I'm not sure why...maybe been talking to friends on twitter too much...