september photo challenge

I'm still taking pictures!!  Here's my next five days:

September 6 - Getting Ready

Emma's getting ready to make gyoza for the first time.

September 7 - White

Dim Sum for my Auntie's birthday

September 8 - I Made This

We went Girl Scout camping this summer and when I was a GS we always had 'sit-upons' for keeping out butts (somewhat) warm & dry.  Emma and I made some for us before we took off with some duct tape and newspaper.  I was pretty proud of how they turned out, especially since I am not crafty!

September 9 - On The Wall

Artwork by Emma (the penguin was when she was about 4) and a super cool comic book (Batman, of course) purse that my super crafty friend made for me.  These hang out by my desk.

September 10 - Sweet

I help out in Emma's class and when I was done stuffing homework folders Emma's class was out at computer lab.  So before I left I put a sticky note on her desk that said 'Have a good day!  I love you!  xoxo'.  When I asked her after school if she got my note and she said 'Yes, it was so embarrassing!  Everyone was laughing at me because of the xo's!'  So I told her I wouldn't do that anymore and sighed a big sigh.  The following Monday I went in to do homework folders again and when I put everything away I saw that she left me a note on her desk.  It said 'I love you Mommy!  You can do these notes again xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox'  She's such a sweet girl!

I didn't do much editing or try for some ambitious photos this set.  Most of the pictures I just edited the exposure some if they needed it, but that's about it.  For the 'Getting Ready' picture I did use a filter - Orton I think...

let's try this again

Back in July I thought I would do Fat Mum Slim's Photo a Day Challenge.  I got about halfway through and then I just completely forgot about it.  *sigh*  This time, I've added reminders on my calendar with the day's prompt to help me remember so we'll see how that works out.  Though I am feeling this more this month.  I'm getting back into using my camera and also seeing what I can do with my phone.  I also found another free editing site that's really similar to picnik for people like me who are too lazy to learn Photoshop right now.  If you're like me, check out PicMonkey.

So here's this month's prompts:

For some reason the pic I'm getting for that is coming out all crappy, but it's the best I can do!

I'm going to try to do this in fives so I've got an even number for each post.  See how I start out so organized and eager??

September 1 - Together

Got the cousins to take a picture together on Labor Day.  I think I snapped about 30 pictures and this was the only one where they were all pretty much smiling and Olivia wasn't trying to run away.  Didn't do any editing here though it could probably use some.

September 2 - My Name Begins With

'K' is for Kari & 'K' is for Kindle.  This one was edited in Instagram.  Kelvin filter with the focal shift dot on 'kindle'.

September 3 - Lines

I edited the heck out of this one.  Using PicMonkey I applied some kind of filter I can't remember and did an overlay of light lines.  It did take awhile to take the actual picture.  I set up the tripod and played around with the vertical blinds in the kitchen.  Turned off all the lights inside so it was just lit from the outside bright ass streetlight.

September 4 - Alone

Olivia waiting for Emma to get home from school.  All alone with her cute little toes!  Changed to black and white in PicMonkey.

September 5 - Forever

I took this one with Instagram and used the Brannan filter.

 Five days down, twenty-five to go!

photo a day: july 7th-14th

July 7th

Where You Are.....

At the NKOTB concert with my sister!

July 8th

Path....

To a giant mess.

July 9th

3 Things....

 

3 random t-shirts from Tee Turtle!!

July 10th

Smooth....

 My clean kitchen table!

July 11th

I Wore This!

My favorite t-shirt.  It's comfy & I love the design.

July 12th

A Bad Habit....

I stopped smoking years ago, quit biting my nails a month ago so I guess it would be sweets, but at least these are organic, all natural & GMO free!  I couldn't very well take a picture of 'being a bitch', could I?

July 13th 

4 o'clock

 

Sleeping baby at the mall.  Riding around in a stroller is tough work, people!

 

July 14th

Edible....

Spicy sauce from our favorite ramen place, Kahoo's.

And now I'm all caught up with my posting!

photo a day: july

July 4th

  Red, white & blue.....

Olivia has decided that my rubbermaid containers should go in the recycling bin.

July 5th

Love....

My love, my best friend, my favorite person

July 6th

Favorite Smell.....

The heat has done a number on my lavender plant, but it still smells lovely

photo a day: july

 
My friend Kristan posted a picture of the photo challenge that Fat Mum Slim has started for the month of July.  Actually, I think that this photo project has been going on for a lot longer than that, but this post is for the month of July so it's the perfect time to start!  I've tried doing the 365 project, but it started to feel like work and I was running out of inspiration.  These kinds of projects are great for me because there's a focus and sometimes I need that!

I meant to post on the 1st and go from there, but I slacked off for sure!  Here's my pictures for the first three days of July.

Happiness Is....

my babies laying on the couch with me

Shoes....

My favorites, tho they've almost killed me

Cold....

7 Eleven's Coke cans.  Ice turns blue when it's cold enough to drink.

confessions of a clutterer: kitchen days 3-7

The kitchen certainly took much longer than I expected.  I did take time off here and there for my nephew's birthday and other fun stuff, but I think I got most of it under control!

I was working on the cabinets....still.  I have cabinets on each side of the microwave that I keep baking stuff and cooking stuff.  Baking soda, spices, brown sugar, garlic powder, vinegar.  You know, that kind of stuff.  They looked pretty bad, but they weren't as awful as I expected.  There were some expired things and a couple of things I have duplicates of, but not as many as there were in the pantry :/

 Baking Stuff

 Cooking Stuff

 Condiments & Junk

My befores are on the left and the afters are on the right.  It doesn't look like I did anything, but I swear I did!  In the baking area I tried to keep the stuff I use more often on the bottom shelf.  With the cooking stuff I did the same thing and though it does look crowded it actually is less so.  I greatly thinned out the oils & vinegars and hot sauces on the lazy susan.  To me, it looks a lot better.

The main thing I did was make a list of everything that I have in there so I can keep track of what we have and what we need.  I find that's my biggest problem.  I can't see stuff because I'm so short so I think we don't have it and then I buy another one.  No more, my friends!

And I got these done:

Before

After

Before

After

I still have to work on the cookbooks and food magazines on the bottom shelf.  We went and bought the overlay that goes down so I can put the books up instead of stacking them.  We also got a hook for the fruit basket and I love it.  It was just hanging from the top shelf and taking up room and now it's off to the side.  I thinned out our reusable bags (again) and put them inside my spam musubi bag.  I put all of our outside toys in the bin.  Bubbles, sand toys, chalk and the such.  Generally, these would stay outside until the got infested with spiders or the chalk melted away in the rain.  Hopefully this will keep our stuff a bit longer.

So the kitchen is almost done!  I still have the desk drawer, the junk drawer, the cookbooks and the cabinet above the pantry.  I think I can knock those out in one day and then get started on the living room.  Since Ray is off this week we're taking the girls to the beach tomorrow with my parents and maybe doing a couple of other fun things, but I think I can squeeze in a couple of hours of cleaning somewhere!

what a beautiful day

.....for Civil rights.....

and Women's rights!!

Yes, it's a beautiful day!

confessions of a clutterer: kitchen day two

Even the best laid plans....

I was going to focus on the table and island today, but then I thought maybe I should save that for last.  Let it collect the stuff off of everything else that needs to be sorted and removed or taken to where it belongs.  I thought maybe I should work on the metal shelving we have.  I started that and then I got sidetracked by the cabinets.  Yeah, it doesn't make sense.

So here's where we were in the beginning:

I didn't get too far with the shelving.  With all the snacks we had on this first section I realized we have snacks and food all over the kitchen without too much order to it.  So I started going through all the cabinets.  It was incredibly ridiculous.  I couldn't believe how much expired food we had in our cupboards.  But then there was so much of it.....

The 'bread' cupboard has bread and everything else in it.

The cabinet underneath the bread nook has a ton of canned foods & snacks.

An add on pantry-like cupboard.  Everything from oatmeals, chips, cookies, drinks & snacks were in here.

These are the pull out drawers in the island.  Teas and crystal light packets on the left and pastas and other dried goods, dressings in the right.  What I didn't take picture of are the drawers in between these cabinets.  Full of pastas, lentils, dried soup packets, candy, etc.  Above the cabinets is a junk drawer and my drawer of zip lock bags & parchment paper, wax paper, that kind of stuff.

Now, I didn't get through everything.  The junk drawer is a project in itself.  What I tried to do was go through all the food and get rid of the expired items.  I had stuff that expired in 2009!  One of the problems I found is that our cabinets are deep and we are lazy.  Rarely do I go through what we have already before I go grocery shopping.  So may boxes of Wheat Thins!  One of my hopes is that with all this cleaning I will keep a better working knowledge of what's in my kitchen so I can use it up instead of letting it go to waste.

I ended up with this:

For the first time ever I oiled the butcher block!  It looks so different now!  I thinned out the snacks and got rid of most of the baking stuff.  A lot of things I will never use (I'm not much of a baker so the basics is probably all I need).  What I do use, for not I put them in a cabinet that has other baking stuff in it.  Ray wants to move the bottom shelves up so the Roomba can get under there.  Once that's done I'll figure out how to use that shelf.

This looks so much better!  I put our bags of chips that were in the bread nook on the bottom shelf with some of the snacks that I eat.  Emma's snacks I kept on the metal shelving since that's easier for her to see and get to.  The canned foods and dressings, marinades are on the top shelf, but in a way that I can spin it and see everything clearly.

The bread nook has just bread in it!  Woo hoo!  Well, bread & tortillas.

Here's the right side pull out drawer.  I took my dried goods (oatmeal, red lentils, quinoa, barley, coconut flakes, chia seeds & wild rice) and put them in some of the canning jars I have.

Ahhhhhh pantry.  Did you know that chips only last a couple of months unopened?  I didn't.  Now I do.

My plan of getting areas done in chunks didn't go exactly as planned, but I did go through most of the food cabinets.  I can get behind that.  I've got to figure out what to do about our garbage though.  Monday was garbage day and by Monday evening our freshly emptied garbage can was filled up again.

Little by little we're getting there!