Easily Removing Unwanted Clutter From Your Photos

I have discovered the most fantastic Photoshop tool known to the human race! The Clone Tool! It’s basically the easiest way to remove unwanted objects from otherwise lovely photography. I was always eluded by how to make photoshoped images remain natural and flawless and now I know how thanks to a great tutorial over at Photoshop Buzz. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re interested in sprucing up some of your “almost” favorite photos. The photo bellow I took in 2007 on U.S. Interstate 80 somewhere in Nevada… or maybe Utah and I always loved it but could never make it just right. As you will see above with this new tutorial and about a half hour I was able to make it into the photograph I always dreamed it could be.

I don’t know if this was just me or not, but at first I didn’t understand the clone tool. I thought you were copy and pasting from one place to another one click at a time. When really you’re setting a location to clone from and that point moves evenly with your brush as you cover an object in another location. Good Luck!

Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment and/or ask questions.

Read Full Post »

Weekend Reading: The Adventures of Pinky the Giant Orange Clothes Pin

The Adventures of Pinky the Giant Orange Clothe Pin is a clever new blog that follows a giant orange clothes pin through it’s travels and day to day life. Told from the perspective of the clothes pin it is a lovely refreshing take on objects in the first person. Pinky takes trips to the park and has play dates with his best friend Dinky (the giant yellow clothes pin) and I’ve heard from an exclusive source that Pinky is headed to San Fransisco with his good friend Pirtle (the giant black clothes pin) this weekend. Sure to become one of your weekly blog favorite keep your eye out for Pinky’s Adventures!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Read Full Post »

Baby Cavys and the Sequoia Park Zoo

This week we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to see a pair of Patagonian Cavy Kits at our local Zoo (The Sequoia Park Zoo). Only a week old they had just been released into the display enclosure!

Sweet Little Nursling

Our resident Red Panda woke up from his nap just long enough to watch us walk by.

A Black-Headed Ibis in the open air menagerie preens it’s feathers

The Pink Flamingos got a little feisty as we were about to leave. All in all it was a wonderful visit!

Read Full Post »

When Enough Really Is All You Need

During the last few weeks my husband and I have been trying to unpack a spacious two bedroom duplex into a cozy (yet totally fantastic) one bedroom apartment. It’s a big job but after almost a whole month we’re really starting to make some headway.

When we first got married my husband was a Sailor in the U.S. Navy stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii. We lived in spacious, climate controlled base housing and had an incredibly disposable income. We’d go out to eat a few times a week and saw almost every movie that ran through the theater.

Then my dreams came true and we found out we were going to have a baby. Suddenly the military didn’t seem like the best choice for us. My Sailors first enlistment was almost up and I knew that with his second enlistment we wouldn’t be so lucky as to get to spend every day together like we had. He’d have to be on a ship and away for months and months at a time and most importantly he would be away during the birth of our daughter and that just wasn’t an option for us.

So we moved back to California and put all our things in storage and lived in my childhood bedroom at my parent’s house. It was wonderful to have so much help with SweetPea when she made her arrival, and the knowledge my mother shared with me during those first few months of my own motherhood were indispensable, but as months went by it became time to make our way back out into the world and stand together as self sufficient, independent adults.

So here we are. In a one bedroom place just big enough for the three of us. No more eating out and we rarely take in a movie. After leaving the Navy the job market was rough. We’d hoped and dreamed of making more money, or at least the same money, but those dreams fell short and made way for new dreams of making “enough” money to pay the bills and eat. But even with the budget cuts and the relocation there’s nothing sweeter that having your husband come home every day and be a part of raising your child.

So today as I shuffle through the boxes and try to find a bowl for my breakfast I consider it all and instead of sighing in frustration at the state of chaos, I smile to myself and think how lucky I am to have “enough” and how being with the ones I love is worth more than any job could pay.

And I tip my hat to those women who do it alone, because I don’t know if I could and I am so Grateful I don’t have to.

What have you had to sacrifice to be with your family?

Read Full Post »

Blessings in Disguise: My Daughter Hates the Car Seat

After SweetPea was born when we were getting ready to leave the birthing center I strapped her into her car seat for the first time; She didn’t much seem to care and she slept the entire 2 hour drive home despite me poking her every 3minutes to make sure she was still breathing.

It went on like this for the first few months. Every time I put her in her car seat she would instantly fall asleep and not wake up until we reached out destination it was lovely.

But then one day on the way home she didn’t fall asleep instead she cried the whole way, and then it happened again, and again until I began to dread taking her anywhere that involved a lengthy car trip.

My first solution was to start leaving the house right around when she’d take her first nap of the day. I’d fill her full of breast milk, strap her into her car seat and hope that the 2 miles of bumpy dirt road would lull her to sleep; this worked almost every time, but once we made it into town and she woke up the rest of the stops were agony and the ride home was filled with the sound of sad screaming baby.

Last week my Hubby and I took SweetPea to visit his parents who live 3 hours from our home. I knew I could count on SweetPea to sleep for the first hour of the drive so I set up a playdate with a friend who lived in the first town we pass through, after crawling around on the floor and having lots of fun we headed out for the next leg of our journey and she was so exhausted she fell asleep almost immediately, and continued to sleep until we were about a half hour from our final destination. Now normally what I would do in this case is stop for a minute, check her diaper, fill her tummy and put her back in her car seat. Sometimes this works, but most of the time she starts getting upset before I even have her buckled in.

But this time when we pulled over we were at a beautiful beach park and I decided to try something new. We got out of the car and watched seagulls and waves crash for a while before changing her diaper and having a snack. When I put her back in her seat she was happy and made it the rest of the way with only a few unhappy outbursts.

Prior to SweetPea’s birth we would always drive from point A to point B only stopping when absolutely necessary, and always trying to make the best time possible, but with a 7 month old baby getting bored and restless in the backseat we very quickly learned that this was no longer possible.

So we went to the beach everyday of our trip, and didn’t stop there. Since finding out how helpful it is to stop and wear SweetPea out before continuing on our car journeys we’ve seen so much more cool stuff than we every had before. We saw Lions, Tigers and other wild cats at Great Cats World Park, we road in a gondola through the redwood trees at the Trees of Mystery, and we even stopped at a Medieval Festival on our way home the other day when previously we would have just passed it by, and thanks to our new found need to spend time out of the car we got to watch men in full armor jousting on horseback. As sight we would have other wised passed by.

Thank you for reading.

Read Full Post »

A World of Fish

Checking out the fish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, CA

Thanks you for visiting. Please feel free to comment

and check me out on Facebook.

Read Full Post »

California Isles

California mountain tops float like islands across the endless sea of San Fransisco fog.

Please feel free to Comment. Thanks

Read Full Post »

And The Winner is…

I recently held a Pole on my blog to decide which version of a photograph was best to accompany a previous blog entitle 2,387 Miles.

And the results are…  23% of you believed that I should leave the photo as it was, an astounding 77% believed it was best after editing

23% as is                                                 77% with edit

A special thanks to everyone that participated, and the updated post can be seen by clicking RIGHT HERE

Read Full Post »

Little White Truck

I recently wrote a post entitled 2,387 Miles where I featured a photo of an airplane through the terminal window of San Francisco International. I got two different responses to this photo. One being that people loved it just as it was, and the second being that people thought it would be a better photo without the little white truck that appears in the middle of the left hand side. So I edited out the little truck, but I want you my readers to decide which photo should be featured in my previous blog.

With Little White Truck                                  Without Little White Truck

Read Full Post »

2,387 Miles

In a world so full of technological advances I often find myself overlooking how amazing things really are. I forget to stop and appreciate the incredible wonder, and massive convenience it is to be able to wake up in California and be in Hawaii in time for lunch. In five hours I can fly the 2,387 miles across half the Pacific Ocean while sitting in a climate controlled environment, next to a complete stranger watching movies and television shows that aren’t even out on DVD yet.

So take a moment… Take a moment to appreciate Travel, and how easy it really is. You can start your day anywhere is this world, and you can end your day almost anywhere else.

Simply… Amazing!

Read Full Post »