The random that is me.

Oh hello kiddies, hello???  Is anyone left out there?  I know, I know, I haven't been around much, dear Blogger, but you know what it's like, the holidays, the cold weather telling you to just stay under the covers, instead of write, people to visit and a fricken million different things to make.  You know the usual, winter bullshit.  It's been so long that I've been on Blogger, it took forever to load for me.  Punishment, I'm guessing.
Well if you're writing today, you can head on over to Miss Impulse and Shawn, both of these wonderful ladies made me feel better about my lack of blogging in their first paragraphs, by letting me know, I'm so not alone.  They're super rad like that.  They also host a no rules, just like I like it, blog hop today.  Go check it out, I double dog dare you.
Speaking of double dog daring, is anyone else out there, as anxious as me to watch 24 freakin hours of A Christmas Story?  Or see Elf 75 times before Christmas.  I own both of these movies, but for some stupid reason, it just doesn't seem like Christmas, without the commercials.  
Oh oh oh, and another exciting thing that's going on is, my older and her fiance' set a wedding date.  Next September 29th, not as far off in the future as I'd hoped, but I'm still really excited for her, and I'm loving helping her plan for it.  I'm so excited about it, that I'm getting ready to take on a HUGE project and try and make these for her, me and the Maid-of-Honor aka my younger.

These shouldn't be toooo hard to make, right?  Oh sweet baby jeesus, what did I get myself into.

And possibly a cake like this.

By the way, today's blog is brought to you by, Completely Random Crap Going On In My Life.  Invading peoples lives since 1973.
In two weeks, I, will be getting up on a stage, in a bar, and singing a song with a dear to my heart kid, that's turning 21.  He belongs to a long time high school friend, who just happens to be in a band, who just happens to be playing a gig the night of the birthday.  I asked the kid what he wanted for his birthday.  "For you to get up on stage and sing a song with me"  Hmmmmm....."Okay dollface, anything for you."  I ask him what we'll sing and he says this song.  I'm terrified.  I love this song and don't wanna butcher it.  Better take a couple shots and a Valium before singing.

I should say, that my Turkey day was good, although I got very mixed reactions when I wished people a "Happy, sorry we stole your land and killed your people, but here some land and a casino to make it all better, Day"  People either loved it or hated it, I didn't care.  To me Thanksgiving is just a day to make a feast.  You should be thankful EVERY day, for the things you have, not just some Thursday in November.  And I find it hard to celebrate the starting of what is a very tragic part of history for the Native Americans, who probably view us white people as the original illegals. 


Hmmmm, I should probably wrap this up.  I know, how bout a couple pictures to say farewell for now with.  Here's my little hummer, Theodore McTwitch.  Winter time is our time, because I make sure his nectar is always thawed out, and he lets me get super close for some amazing photos.

Not to toot my own horn, but, BEEP BEEP on this one. 

I want to love him and sqeeze him, and hug him and snuggle him, George.

He's really not scared of me anymore.  I really dig that.

Colorful little bugger, ain't he.

Now, go link up, fer Pete's sake.


Who is Pete, and why do we care about his sake?


Bye!

Peckers lead to Hummers

Get your filthy minds outta the gutter.

Pervs.

Wait....I love pervs.

Nevermind...go ahead and crawl back into the gutter.

While your there, take a look at my pecker.  He's a little pecker, but he sure has heart.

This is Smalls.  He's the tiniest pecker I've seen around here.  I want to carry him around in my pocket.

 And of course, while I was out  playing around taking pictures of my pecker.  Along comes a hummer and decides to sip some syrup and give me a chance to get a picture of him in my favorite tree.  I love the way the colors range from green to red in the leaves.

Back off bitch, this is my feeding station.

Now, it's back to work, looking for work, which is a lot of........................work.

Until tomorrow,
Rock on!
Marisa

Editing fun.

I love taking pictures, almost as much as I love editing them.  I mean I love editing pictures, almost as must as I love taking pictures.  Okay, I guess I have a passion for both.  As much as I love the rawness of an unedited photo, I'm seriously becoming infatuated with editing and distorting those same pictures.  Here's a few of my most recent edits with their originals.

Here's the original, with a high aperture setting.  I liked it, but thought it could use a little more.

And this is what I did.  I like the faded background, it makes me feel warm.

This one was highly contrasted so I wanted to accent on that.

So I just boosted the contrast a bit and put a vignetting on it.

I like the contrast of the green background with the red leaves, but it was a lot to look at.

I cropped it down, saturated the color a bit and added a soft texture.

It's supposed to be another hot and sunny day here in WA, so I'm hoping to get to the lake and get some shots of the eagles.    They always make me happy.  Don't be afraid to go wild with editing, it can make a great picture, even more outstanding than before.  Just remember to always keep an original so you have a back up.

Rock your Monday!
Marisa