Monday, February 28, 2011

Day 59/365 Frustrated

Went to the new doctor.  High hopes shot down again.  Don't these stupid men understand?  Why can't they LISTEN?  How the hell did they get their medical degrees?  Are they so de-sensitized to the complaints of patients that they no longer listen at all?

I had my stupid appointment with the neurologist today.  I explained what was going on.  I explained that I've had pain that has gotten continually worse over 13 years and that now I'm dizzy also.  I told him that I'm taking so much ibuprofen that I constantly wonder when my stomach is going to just go ahead and split open.  I tried and failed again.

This guy was a particularly insensitive ASS.  He told me after listening to my complaints that I had MIGRAINES.  "Oh, gee, really???  It took your high-falooting medical diploma on the wall to tell you that?????  Yeah, jerk, I knew that one already.  Yes, I have migraines.  Sometimes.  I know what a migraine feels like.  I know when I'm going to get one because I know what my body feels like when one is coming on.  I know about occular migraines, visual auras, etc. because I've experienced all of that and I'm telling you, you freak, that this is different!!!!"  I told him all of that. I stood up for myself, I told him that this pain was different and starts in my neck and I know the difference, I've been dealing with this for a long time.
He said that my body is probably having rebound headaches from all the medicine I've been taking.  Headache after headache is just running together and I can't distinguish them. He said that the dizziness is just because I'm in pain. He said that my neck could hurt because of the migraines. He said that all I had to do was stop taking the medicine and my headaches would stop.  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, that's funny you little idiot!  If I could stop taking the medicine, I wouldn't be here talking to you.  I'm here to see if you can ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING so that I'm not in pain all the time, so that I don't have to take the medicine, so that my stomach doesn't ache all the time, so that I don't have to wake up every night in pain.  But just stop taking the pain pills.  That'll do the trick.

Then.  Then he proceeds to tell me that he will stick me in the hospital for a week on a morphine drip so that I can "get off" the ibuprofen and try to stop the rebounding headaches.  WTF???  So, morphine would be better to be hooked on than ibuprofen???
At that point I burst into tears in his office and told him that this wasn't migraines and that I would stop taking the ibuprofen as soon as someone helped me.  
He suggested that we try preventative migraine medicine.
I shook my head and said that I had tried like 4 preventative migraine medicines and they didn't do anything.
He said that I probably didn't take them right and which ones did I take?
I could only remember 3 of the names and told him that yes, I had given them fair trials of many many months each but they didn't help.  And the pain has gotten worse since then.  And the pain has spread since then, and that this isn't a freaking migraine you imbecile!  My head feels like it is sitting on my spine wrong , and pain shoots from one certain spot in the back of my head/neck area to other parts.  
I hate doctors.  I hate stupid, idiotic people who suggest stupid things to me when they have no idea what the hell I'm going through here.  Oh gee, just stop taking the pain medicine.  Well, I haven't tried that approach yet.  Oh, wait, yeah, I've tried to "tough it out" over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....it usually lands me in the ER.  
I can't take much more of this.

same news

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Day 58/365 Chips n salsa

Chips n' salsa- Goes together perfectly!  Great together when you add more to it, great by themselves, but much better together!
After seeing my friend Joi present at the Working Women's Survival Show today, Paige, Jeannie and I headed to Tio Pepe's restaurant to grab some lunch.  Although I was very thirsty and sucked down 3 Cokes right away, I wasn't actually that hungry until they brought out the chips and salsa.  I ravaged through these like there was no tomorrow!  I love chips and salsa- they go soooooooo well together!



chips n salsa

Kinda reminds me of me and my girls...we go soooooooo well together too!  We can function alone very well, but stick us together and we're so much better :)  Kinda like this picture....
You'd never guess it to look at it, but this is actually 2 pictures put together to make one good picture...

Joi's Mom took 2 pictures of the four of us.  In one, I was in focus and in the other the other 3 of them were in focus.  So, I took the 2 pictures to photoshop, made 2 layers out of the different photos, put the one of me in focus on top, erased the part of the picture with Joi, Jeannie and Paige from the top photo so that you could see the 2nd photo underneath where they were in focus and merged the 2 pics.  Viola!  A picture where all four of us are in focus!  Yay for photoshop!

yayas

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Day 57/365 Reflections

reflections2

reflections

So, today has been a weird day and I guess I'm "reflecting" on it (ha ha).  I went to Forest Park to take some pictures early in the morning and only managed to take a couple.  Everything was dead looking and boring.  Joel and I went to the Mayan exhibit and then went back to his house for some lunch.
My head was pretty much killing me the whole time, and that was after waking up in the middle of the night and having to suck down some ibuprofen about 3 am and then taking another dose about 8am, 1pm, and 5pm.  I guess the neck shot high is over.  I'm in a lot of pain yet again and finding it hard to stay awake right now at 8pm.  :(  boo on that.
I am looking forward to the Working Women Survival Show tomorrow where my awesome, semi-famous friend Joi  will be presenting her mad skills.  My awesome friends Paige and Jeannie are going with me :)  I'm sure we will have an awesome time.  Hopefully some sleep and another dose of medicine will kick this pain enough to get through tomorrow.



Friday, February 25, 2011

Day 56/365 Sprinkles

So Friday nights are rough for me.  I'm wiped out from the week and after the bell rings I am DONE with everything.  Tonight was no exception.  I came home and sat down until my Mom showed up and it was time for us to go to my nephew's birthday dinner.  He turned 14.  Holy crap- I can't believe that he's that old!
So I manage to make it through dinner even though my head is swimming because I've had a pretty "dizzy" day today.  I looked around to see what was easy to take a picture of and thought of sprinkles because of a crazy picture I saw on Flickr the other day involving sprinkles.  So this is what I came up with:

sprinkles

Sprinkles.  I'm not that fond of sprinkles.  I don't think they add that much to a cupcake or cake, etc.  They make it pretty, but it doesn't change the taste and it makes a big mess.  Kind of like people- if the inside isn't good, it doesn't matter what the hell you add to the outside to pretty it up.  I like my cakes and my people to have good insides. I don't give a crap what they look like on the outside-and honestly, I don't notice that much.  I don't care if somebody is ugly, pretty, fat, thin, old, young, light-skinned, dark-skinned.  Some of my best friends are over 60 and some of them are still in their 20s.  I honestly don't think about it when I'm with that person.  I think about that person's being, their soul.  Not religious, but the essence that makes that person who they are.  I know lots of beautiful people that think they are all that but are so horrible to be around!  Give me  an ugly person any old day!  I don't want the sprinkles!!!

EXIF info: 1/13 sec, f 5.6, ISO 400, no flash, Tokina macro lens

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Day 55/365 Living room

living room


So as of today, this is my living room.  I bought the couch in the middle when we first moved into the house and I still really like that set.  But...the dog has ripped a hole in the one cushion on the couch and the love seat's back is broken, so it's down in the basement.  We brought up the basement recliners so we would all have a comfortable place to sit when we watch TV, but the kids have torn up the recliners by sitting on the backs of them and now when you recline, you go ALLLLLL the way back to the floor.  The white couch in the corner was my cousin's and I thought it was cute and had big plans to reupholster it, but that's not my strong suit, so it hasn't happened yet.  The coffee table was a craigslist find and the corner cabinet was from a yard sale.  What a bunch of junk!

Well my friends, last night we bought a new leather sectional!  It comes with 3 sections.  2 electric recliners with a table in the middle, the middle section,  2 recliners with a third seat in the middle.  I plan to put it along the wall where the couch is, with the middle section where the corner cabinet is and have the 2 electric recliners where the recliners are now.  We should still have a little walkway next to that to come into the living room.  I'm going to get rid of all of the furniture in the room and get a new pie-piece table for the triangle in the middle of the sectional and eventually some sort of a ginormous patterned chair for the corner where the fainting couch is.  Because we had to special order the leather in the color we wanted (the floor model was off white leather-ick for me) we have to wait 5 or 6 weeks for them to make it. We got it at the Tin Shed furniture store in Highland because we got their flyer and thought we should check it out.

In that 5-6 week wait we're going to go get our new carpet and have it installed.  So hopefully pretty soon my living room will be looking back in shape.  Ha!  That's what Rich gets for trying to have a man cave!!!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Day 54/365 My little slice of redneck heaven

IMG_7741 
OK, obviously this is not from today.  I've been trying to edit Monster Jam pictures today, and so here is my pic for the day.  I promise I will try to get back to actually shooting every day tomorrow.
I love, love, love Monster Jam!
The big, tough, masculine trucks, the sound of the engines as it thunders through the Edward Jones Dome, the smell of burning fuel, the gimmicks that the different trucks have to entertain the people...it's all extremely exciting to me!
My favorite truck is Grave Digger and each year, I proudly sport my Grave Digger shirt, put streaks of neon green in my hair and head out with my kiddos dressed up in their favorite truck attire.  We always eat at Bandana's BBQ and then head over to the pit party.  We head around and look at the trucks, take some pictures and buy our souvenirs.  Afterwards we head to our seat, get the cotton candy, soda, nachos, etc. and get ready to rumble!
I end up screaming through most of the show.  I'm not so excited for the racing, but when those suckers tear up everything, I flip out!  Wooo hooo!!!
Afterwards we usually get stuck in a parking lot for a long, long time while waiting for everybody to pile out.  Then, it's customary for me to wait up until midnight to buy the tickets for the next year.  Good times.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Day 53/365 My girls

OK, maybe this is cheating a bit, but I've been working my butt off on this after school, so I feel like this counts...sort of.  These are not new pictures, but I've been trying to put all of the yaya pictures I have on my computer and external hard drive in one place so that I can pull them up as needed.  I've decided to have a slide show dedicated to my best friends, confidantes, partners in crime (literally after Sunday...ha ha), shoulders to cry on, wind beneath my wings, my YA YAS. 
I love these girls with all of my heart.  I've gradually accumulated them one by one, starting with me knowing Ruthie in 6th grade.  Then I got to know Sarah in college, Shelley through Sarah, Paige through Sarah and a class, Mendy through student teaching, Joi through work and Jeannie through student teaching. 
Each of them are absolutely beautiful individuals with much to offer the world.  We all have our own talents, weaknesses, strengths, likes, men struggles and triumphs.  We have all been the center of attention at one point and the outsider at another.  We've struggled through births, deaths, sickness, health, work problems, men problems, family problems, body transformations, weird geeky moments, semi-breakdowns, parent and grandparent illness, hurt feelings, frustration, you name it you got it.  We have celebrated just as many moments: weddings, boyfriends, degrees, successes, random every day happiness and love.  We are starting to get to the age where our spirits are still young and vibrant and our bodies are not feeling it so much anymore.   We are now sometimes the caregivers to our parents and grandparents as we watch them begin to fail.
We have overcome a lot. We still have a lot to offer. We are AWESOME. 
I look forward to and need circle time, currently known as ovaltine.  Our sayings are many, and only we could ever begin to understand all of them.  I can be myself around them if I'm looking good and feeling great, or if I've just rolled out of bed and smell like morning breath and sweat. 
I love these girls.  Even when I haven't talked to one or more of them in a while, when we get together the next time, the conversation just picks up where it left off.  Here's to us girls.  I know there are many more pictures, and there are many more to come.  I'll keep adding to this slide show through the years.


Monday, February 21, 2011

Day 52/365 Orchids slide show



So I'm just too exhausted to post individual pictures tonight.  Today I worked on editing all of the orchid pictures and after that I went to watch the movie Biutiful with Joel.  I just got home at 9pm and I'm tired, so my post will consist of the slide show of the orchids from Flickr.  I haven't tried to do this yet on blogger, so if it doesn't work, the link should be:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissalbeck/sets/72157625981639397/show/
Go check it out :)

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Day 51/365 Orchids

Today I had a most lovely day with some of my ya yas at the Missouri Botanical Garden's orchid show.  The theme was Mayan this year and so I got to see some interesting mayan people made out of flowers.  It was all quite lovely and it was SO WONDERFUL to see some colors again!
After the the orchids we checked out the rest of the garden and had a peaceful time walking and chatting together.  I so needed this time. 
I went to my parents' house after the busy day so I haven't had too much of a chance to check out the pictures yet.  I'm only going to post 3 pictures tonight, just a sample of the pics yet to come.
Thank you my wonderful YAYAS for having a spectacular day with me.  I value our time together more than you'll ever know.  I'm glad we get to enjoy some of the beauty in life together while trying to get through the rough patches.


pinkbuds

whites

lilpinks

No EXIF info tonight, but I used my macro lens on all of these and I tried to stay around f 2.8-f 4 so the flash that I was using could be used on its lowest power.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Day 50/365 Sunrise and turkeys

Good morning!  Sometimes living in the country has its benefits!


sunrise

I woke up this morning about 5:30 or so and could tell that if I didn't get up my neck was going to give me some trouble.  I decided that I would head out and try to get some pictures of the beautiful sunrise that I've been seeing on my way to work every morning.
I parked in the country on the side of a road and a few people came by to see if I needed help and were excited when I said I was just trying to capture the sunrise.
It was very peaceful out there with just me and I had a great time.  I got more shots, but you'll have to check out my flickr account to see them.
EXIF info on the sunrise: f 2.2, 1/250 sec, ISO 100, 50mm, no flash

turkeys

After the sunrise, I was headed home and in the field across the street from my house I saw a ton of turkeys.  I was pretty excited to see them and hopped out of the car and chased them across the field.  They kept running from me, so the shot isn't that close or great, but it was still exciting.
EXIF turkeys: f 2.8, 1/320 sec, ISO 800, 100mm, no flash.

I slept pretty well last night.  When I lay down I could hear the sound of my heartbeat coming from the back of my head, but I drifted off without any sleeping pills and I didn't have to take any pain medication yesterday at all.  I woke up this morning and felt my neck starting to hurt a bit, so that's why I got up and it helped.  As soon as I was up walking around it felt better.  My left shoulder is achy, but not bad.  

Friday, February 18, 2011

Day 49/365 Honest Abe

penny 
I think he is probably my favorite president.  I like some of the stories about him and although I'm not too fond of pennies, I kind of like their color.
I decided since we're off for presidents' day on Monday I'd be sort of patriotic and post something about the old guys.
I think when our country started, these men were honest and wanted the best for everybody.  I don't think it was about who could give the most to their party and it wasn't about playing peoples' emotions about such issues as gay marriage and abortions.  Our leaders didn't have financial ties to other countries and need to please their leaders or be the big bully on the block so that we could have their oil.  We were just trying to be free.
I love the miniseries that was on HBO about John Adams a couple of years ago.  It made me feel inspired by these men.  I'm sure that our founding fathers were an awe-inspiring bunch.  Yes, they had faults too, but like I said before, they were more worried about the good of all.
I think that is far from the truth today.  I am not a fan of our government.  I understand that it may be a lot better than some of what is out there, but it's still a far cry from perfect.
EXIF info: f/8, 1/80 sec. ISO 200, 100mm macro lens, flash, compulsory

I don't like the composition of this shot.  I chopped off the bottom of the coin because I was in a hurry to do the shot and wasn't really paying attention to the fact that I didn't have the whole coin in the pic.  Oh well, I'll try no to chop up the next presidential photo.

In medical news, I am having my typical reaction to the neck injections.  I'm red and hot.  However, I slept all night last night and I haven't had to take any ibuprofen at all today.  I've had a bit of dizziness here and there, but not anything bad.  Pardon the break from photo talk, but I've decided that I need to start writing down all of this stuff that way I can tell the doctors definite times and dates on things.

I'm really looking forward to Monster Jam tomorrow and the botanical garden orchid show on Sunday! 

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Day 48/365 Neck shots

So I had my appointment with the doctor today and guess what, folks?  Remember that conversation with "We'll take good care of you"?  Yep, that's the one that he tried to have again.  So, when he asked if I had any questions, I asked if he thought significant dizziness was something I should be concerned with.  That made him look up over his glasses!
He asked me about it and I told him what has been going on with it and all of the new little things that are going on.  He referred me to a new neurologist.  He also did a different kind of injection, or rather injections on me today. 
Usually I have to lay on my back and he comes in from the side, closer to where the pain is.  Today, he had me on my stomach and he put in multiple shots and I could feel him in there with his needle moving around.  Ewww.  It hurt.
Anyway, when I got up, he had me go to the front desk and give them the information to make an appointment with a neurologist (My current guy is a pain management specialist/neurologist).  I looked him up and he receives excellent ratings from his patients, but his specialties are neurology and ....multiple sclerosis!  Well, of course, me and my Web MD degree started to flip right out on that, so I had to check out what MS was.  I'd heard the word before, but I never really knew what it was.
Turns out that one of the big symptoms of MS is dizziness, so I'm assuming that is why he referred me to this guy.  However, most of the other MS symptoms don't fit my symptoms, so I'm going to have to hope to heck that I don't have this disease.
After recovering in the recovery room and taking care of the referral information, I had lunch with Joel.  He is freaked out about all of this and has his medical family members who are at SLU on my case checking things out for me. It's always good to have him on my side.
In non-medical news, I tried to upload my pic today and it said I was out of space on here!  WHAT???  So I had to delete some of my former pics in order to post this one.  If you try to look for earlier pics, ya won't find many.  Anybody got a solution for this???
EXIF info for my lousy pic today: f/8, 1/80 sec, ISO 200, 50mm, flash, compulsory

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Day 47/365 Pain

Tomorrow I am off for another neck shot.  I'm getting very fed up with the fact that nothing seems to be working anymore for my pain and so I've put this off for a while now.  The doctor is going to greet me with, "Hi Mrs. Beck.  Wow! It looks like you have really been doing well with this injection- we haven't seen you around here in several months!"
No.  No, you idiot, I'm just sick of owing you all the money that I do and getting so few days relief and sleep from my neck pain.  I've told myself that I'm not going back because it doesn't seem to be helping, but then a few months later when I am at my wits end with pain I make the dreaded call again.
My problem seems like it started about 13 years ago.  Yup, 13.  Richie was 4 months old and I experienced the worst pain I had ever felt in my life (thus far) in the form of a headache.  I thought I was going to die.  That kept happening over and over and I got it checked out and was diagnosed with migraines.  OK, that was fine, they gave me some medicine and it seem to help and I was happy for a couple of years.
Then, I wanted to get pregnant with Stephen and had to go off of the medicine because it would possibly harm a baby.  So I tried chiropractic adjustments.  They helped somewhat, and somehow I got through that painfully long pregnancy after the 4 month bed rest adjustment.  I was downing Tylenol like nobody's business while I was stuck in the hospital, even though that wouldn't have been on my chart...
After I could use my medicine again, I started to use it and then had some very trying times where my neck may have been damaged a bit.  Long story.  Around 2002, pain started happening in the base of my skull where the head meets the neck and shooting up the side of my head.  I still thought it was migraines, and continued the medicine, but had it checked out again just to see what was going on.  According to an MRI I had an oddly shaped neck that curved the opposite way it was supposed to.  One disk was starting to degenerate and I had a bit of arthritis.  They said that might be causing the new pain and gave me some medicine to stop the inflammation along with the migraine medicine.  Around this point in life, ibuprofen became my new find because a friend lent me an 800mg tablet of it and it helped the pain quite a bit.  That would be 4 regular ibuprofen.  That's what I started using and helped for a while.
I can't remember exactly the dates on some stuff but between 2002 and 2007 or so my pain went from head and neck pain to almost daily headaches, pain at the base of my skull, pain in the left side of my neck, and some shoulder pain.  I was sucking down ibuprofen non-stop along with migraine medicine on occasion.  I had several ER visits when the pain lasted more than 3 days straight with no relief.
Somewhere along that time I had another MRI that showed cervical spinal stenosis.  That's where your spinal cord is narrowed because disks are bulging in on it.   The doctor referred me to a neurosurgeon.  That neurosurgeon referred me to a pain management center because he said that the stenosis wasn't bad enough to warrant a surgery.
The first pain management place I went to helped after a few injections. Because the injections were helping, the doctor decided he wanted to burn my nerve and sever it so I wouldn't be able to feel it anymore.  I had to psych myself into that one and went in one day ready for the procedure.  I was so very nervous, afraid that they would sever the wrong one and I'd be paralyzed or something.  When I went in, he asked what my pain level was and I told him not too bad.  I had been up sick with my neck and head the night before popping ibuprofen left and right and so the pain had died down.  He told me that he wouldn't do the procedure since I wasn't in pain and I tried to explain that I had pain the night before.  He wouldn't listen and told me that if I would lose weight my problem would go away.  I stormed out of his office and slammed the door and refused to return.
I found a neurosurgeon that was supposed to be specialized in my area (cervical spine) and went to him.  He sent me to "the best" pain management guy.  One that had a "specialized procedure" that he felt would work.  I've been going to him since about 2007.  Those injections did help for a while and I was very happy because I was getting relief for about 2 months at a time.  Finally, some sleep!!!
After a while I felt like they weren't really helping and my pain had shifted to now shooting pain down my left arm, constant popping sounds in my neck any time I moved it, absolutely no sleep because any time I lay down I was in pain.  I've tried several different pillows, positions, etc and laying down really puts me in pain.  I've gone pretty faithfully for the shots and each time it seemed that it helps a little less.  I am also having weird reactions from them.  By the time I'm home from the shot, I'm red and hot.  I stay that way for about 2-3 days.  My stomach hurts with crampy sort of pain and I'm usually kind of nauseated.  I kind of feel "flu-like" for about a week and then I'll have about a week of relief and I'm back to square one.
I had an MRI about 6 months ago and it showed that now cervical disks 3,4,5,6 and 7 were degenerative, but they were not causing any more stenosis.  The stenosis was still mild.
My latest symptom has been going on for about 3 months.  It started one morning when I got up for school.  I sat up in bed and the room was spinning.  It went away after a little while and I carried on thinking that it was odd.  That happened for about a week when I would move my head or wake up.  It went away for a while and I didn't think about it until about 3-4 weeks after that.  I would be sitting still and it would seem like the room was moving.  I would wake up and be dizzy.  It wasn't constant, but I thought it was weird.  When I had a general checkup I asked the doctor to check my ears thinking it might be an ear infection or my sinuses or something.  No, the ears were clear and he couldn't see any sinus drainage.
Then my jaw started to hurt where my jaw meets the back of my head on the left side.  Not horribly, but enough to be annoying.  The dizziness has gotten worse.  I'm dizzy almost every day now.  The other day, I woke up so dizzy I had to hold on to furniture to walk in to the other room .  I was dizzy the entire day and it was so bad I had to call in sick.  I was having horrible pain in my neck and head, same spot.  I was taking ibuprofen and percocet in alteration.  Percocet to get rid of some of the pain, ibuprofen to settle the inflammation down a bit.
I have my neck shot appointment tomorrow.  I plan on telling him about all of the dizziness and constant pain.  He will probably just say, "OK, we'll take good care of you".  Ugh.


Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Day 46/365 New lens


I have had a pretty traumatic 2 days, so not too much to say tonight.  I'm excited because I got a new lens, the "nifty-fifty".  That's the only good news I have right now.  I don't know the exif info because I'm too tired to care right now.  These aren't even that great of shots, and I'm sure it will do better once I get "in the zone" with it.  I do plan to use it at the orchid show Sunday :)  I'm looking forward to it.
Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Day 45/365 Burnin' down the house



I hate today.  I hate this holiday.  Now, I almost burned down my kitchen.
I thought I'd show a picture of a heart on fire, I took a candy heart and tried to do the alcohol thing again, it got out of control after the second shot and Richie grabbed a towel.  Instead of trying to smother the fire, he started hitting it with the towel and scattered alcohol all over the counter.  The flame shot  down the counter.  I tried to put it out with the faucet hose, and it took about 5 minutes before I got it to go out.  I was left with crappy pictures, a soaked counter and floor and one more crappy thing today.


Sunday, February 13, 2011

Day 44/365 Music lover



I've been wanting to try the drop on the cd shot for a while now, so I figured I'd try today and keep it with my Valentine's theme.  I just put some drops on the cd and shaped them into hearts with my finger. 

EXIF info: f 6.3, varied between 1/60 sec and 1/100 sec, ISO between  100 and 400, no flash

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Day 43/365 Heart shaped bokeh

I guess this pic is just OK.  I wanted to attempt making shaped bokeh, and it "kinda" came out looking like hearts, but I think I'm going to have to go buy the scrapbooking shape cutters, because my heart was not perfect evidently. 

To do this, I made a "shaped bokeh filter" from a piece of black construction paper.  I cut out a heart about the size of my pinky-fingernail from the construction paper.  I got out the Christmas lights, strung them up on a doorknob.  Then I cut a white heart from a piece of paper and taped that on to the end of my broom (you can see that a little in the picture if you look).  I propped the broom up in front of the camera and focused on the white heart.  Then, I slid the "bokeh filter" over the lens and steadied it with a hair scrunchie slid over the lens.  I turned out the lights in my bedroom and I could see the bokeh just fine, but the white heart was too dark.  I grabbed a flashlight and held it on the heart so that it showed up and used my shutter release cable to snap the pic.

That doesn't sound too hard, but it actually took me quite a few tries.  At first, I was having the kids try to hold the heart up, but as normal humans do, they couldn't hold it still enough to avoid camera blur.  Also, trying to slip my home-made bokeh filter on, sometimes I would adjust the focus and have to start again.  I know they sell them where they snap on the end of a lens like a normal filter does, but I don't have those yet. I think I might want to get some because I do like shaped bokeh now and then.

Anyway, the shot is OK, interesting but not exactly what I wanted.  I'll keep playing and try to get some interesting shots with this.

EXIF info: f 2.8, 1/10 sec, macro lens, no flash.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Day 42/365 You melted my heart

OK, this is a photoshop deal right here folks.  It started out  that I was trying to make a sparkler heart around the candle heart, but I couldn't ever seem to get the sparkler heart centered right, so I just photo-shopped the candle into the shape of a heart to give it some interest.

Not my favorite picture, but it'll do for tonight. 

I hate Valentine's Day and pretty much always have, but since it's right around the corner I figured I'd start a VDay theme, but I couldn't quite give up the fire yet...

EXIF: f 5.6, 2 second exposure, ISO 100, no flash, tripod.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Day 41/365 Back to the flames


So I'm back at it today, burning things up, taking pictures. I still have a lot of pain and dizziness going on, but I stuck it out through school and now I'm at home in my PJs.  At least tomorrow is an institute day for us, so I can just sit there and absorb (or drift away, depending).  

This picture is four matches, stuck in a styrofoam paper plate and put in front of a black background.  I like it because it reminds me of two different couples.  One, on fire together, hot and passionate; the second, standing alone with flames keeping them apart.

Evidently, I love fire.  The colors, the challenge of catching the picture before the flame goes out or burns down my house, the excitement, you name it.  

EXIF info: Canon T2i, 100mm Tokina lens, f8, 1/2 sec, ISO 100, no flash

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Day 40/365 Too sick to pic


These are not my pictures, they are PBs from last night at the Fox watching 9 to 5 the Musical.  We got to meet Diana Degarmo- runner up to Fantasia Barrino on the 3rd season of American Idol.
I just haven't been able to get up today to take my own pic- my neck is totally screwed up today and I called to get a neck injection and they can't get me in until the 17th :(
I won tickets to see 9 to 5 through Facebook and thought it would be a little cheesy, but it was pretty cool.  I didn't realize Diana Degarmo was going to be in it until PB told me so.  Then, during intermission, they brought out cast party tickets for afterwards, and I knew I had to meet her!  It was a good think PB brought her camera! I never bring mine when I'm going places like the Fox, the symphony, etc.  I guess I need to start!  Anyway, the cast party was interesting, and we left as soon as we met DD because we are all teachers and tired.  I am entered now to take a tour of the Fox with 5 friends, so hopefully I will win that too because I would love to go back and take some awesome pics of the whole theater and a private tour would give me some opportunity to do so!  Wish me luck.
Great pics PB!