Archive for the ‘Poggy’ Category

I think I’m more than a little bit in love with Adobe Lightroom 3.

For the first time in days my heart wasn’t beaten down with clouds by 9am. Disappointing doesn’t even come close to describing the glorious blue skies I have been waking up to every morning transforming into grey shrouded skies by the time the school run is done. I need sun.

This morning Paul and I went location testing, just in case, you know, I ever pluck up the courage to photograph some kid not related to me.

And the sun kept on shining.

So much so the photographer bit of me sought some shade.

My boy was a 6 star practice model. 7 even.

Most of the time…

He’s a monster!

No he’s not…

So yeah, Lightroom 3. I am 7 days into a free 30 day trial and already fretting at the thought of losing it. I tried Lightroom 2 when it was new and wasn’t really impressed. It took me ages to get my head round the (lack of) filing transparency – but I think my Windows 3.1 head finally got over all that when we bought the Mac Mini last year. I almost don’t care where things are stored. Almost.

So what do I love about it?

I love that I can edit a photo, tweak away til I’m happy as a proverbial pig then go to the next photo and hit ONE button and apply the exact same tweaks to that photo too. When taking a lot of photos in the same conditions this is, frankly, big time shawsomeness…

MrW tells me it’s only £65 education price so that’s calmed me down. If you have kids you usually qualify for education price – yay!

You’ll have to find you’re own gorgeous model though – this one’s taken…

When I get me a full copy of LR3 I am so going to bore you all with my learning curve – it’s powerful, affordable and perfect for both beginners and professional photographers.

And no this is NOT a sponsored post – I’m just so in love with LR3 I feel the need to share.

Later peeps!

Swing

Swing

Gotcha

It’s a boy thing isn’t it?

They do things really well…

Like raising one eye-brow for instance

Until you ask them

Then?

Then they’re just handless

Dishes

Yeah they’re like that with dishes too

Have I already mentioned he’s a muppet?

Relax

Stand up straight

And for crying out loud woman get the front step tidied up a bit before August!

We’re off to Paul’s new primary school to meet the teacher today.

No he doesn’t have to wear the uniform.

In fact I made him take it off just in case we lose him amongst the big boys.

I undid his (too big borrowed from Andrew) tie and he waved it in the air crying “FREEDOM!”

I think he’s going to be trouble….

As for me? I’m already shedding a tear at the thought of him starting school

Another pile of shirts to iron. Meh.

Two weeks ago I was a hair’s breadth away from home educating. I was that close.

Then I said no to a request from Paul for a Wagon Wheel breakfast he yelled that he hated me, thumped out and slammed his bedroom door (yes – four years old and slamming doors before his teenage siblings). I came to my senses.

The whole artificiality of school screams at me “Don’t do it!!”. If you were to observe our society from afar, rounding up its young and locking them inside high security buildings, filling their heads with information, lining them up, marching them in, marching them out, dressing them the same, testing them the same, controlling their access to anything outside school for most of their waking hours, well you’d be forgiven for confusing our offspring with our convicts.

Strangley the first thing most people point out that Paul would miss if here were to be home educated is the “social side”. What social side? There’s nothing natural about being forced to only interact with people born in the same 12 month period as yourself. Even now, at 43 and having left school 25 years ago, I STILL do a wee sum in my head when I meet new people and place myself and them according to our ages. Not hierarchically, there’s no implied power structure to it, I just do it because school categorised us thus from age 4 and it’s difficult to stop.

Just when I was almost settled on the notion and about to start looking for local home-ed groups, we had our placing request granted. We just made the cut-off date in applying. I’d seen some icky stuff at the local school earlier this year, nothing particularly terrible, nothing awful, nothing anyone but me would have complained about. But enough to make me realise that despite years of training and experience, there are just some people you wouldn’t leave your children with.

So he’s going to school in August (eeek!). Given that he won’t even listen to me when I try to stop him walking into immovable metal objects, I’ve decided for his sanity and mine someone else can teach him harder stuff than walking and talking.

I have now landed myself with 7 years of getting him to the other side of Perth over 3.5 miles away.

Did I once say I wouldn’t find something to moan about?

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Whenever I point the camera at Paul and tell him to smile this is what I get.

Muppet boy.

This week at iHeartFaces it’s “smile please!”

When Paul was 3 he discovered his scrotum.

It was a Saturday.

Not one to keep a new discovery to himself the conversation went something like this….

Paul: “What’s this Mummy?”

Me: “That’s your testicles, quite a difficult word isn’t it?

Paul: “No silly! It’s my other brain”

Never a truer word spoken.

On Sunday morning he woke up with a touch of conjunctivitis. Another new, and difficult, word.

It came out something like “conjunkyitis”.

Quite cute for something that oozes yellow gunk from your eyes.

I kept him home from playgroup until it had cleared up, not more than a couple of days, but long enough for him to practice his two new words.

Everywhere.

Often.

We returned to playgroup a couple of days later once his eyes had cleared up. He was very pleased to be back and the playleaders, naturally, asked him if he hadn’t been feeling well. At which point, in front of several other Mums, my darling little boy announced, nay proclaimed, to all within earshot and several farther away who no doubt wished they were deaf……

“I had testicles in my eyes!”

If you are going to introduce two new words into your child’s vocabulary at the same time, be careful which two words you choose.

That’s my advice.

For what it’s worth.

What do you mean I only have ONE brain???!!

Ready, steady, ink those eggs

I have to say, the older they get the more ghoulish the eggs get

Well the boys do

We drove around looking for a hill… or at the least a parking place close to a hill

After going in circles and narrowly missing a little lamb enter the world

(if there had only been a parking place!)

we ended up at our old haunt, Scone Palace

Our favorite posing ground

Running, climbing and stomping ground

We found a grassy hill to roll the eggs down… then chuck the eggs from

Still they refused to crack, so we bounced them down the steps

Resulting in satisfyingly smashed eggs which we washed off and devoured salty

And that was Easter

How was yours?