You are currently reading the General archives.

Mommy Geekology 3.0

Got a new site design up. If you’re reading the RSS feed, you should really click over.

Let’s do a little Q & A, shall we?

Why a new design?

Yeah, I’m a tinkerer. And a web designer, apparently. :) Anyway, I was sick of the old design and I wanted something new, and also something that would be more of a lifestream.

WTF is a lifestream?

It’s basically taking all my shit awesomeness online and putting it into one place. That’s why the homepage here has an excerpt of a longer post, a full “microblog” post, my Facebook page stream, latest tweets from both accounts and my Flickr stream.

Wait, you have a microblog?

I do now. A few weeks ago I started trying to post more frequently, and part of that was a microblog – aka the stuff that isn’t quite long enough for a “real” blog post, but that I still want to get up here and discuss or share.  Posts in the microblog category will only be in that category – it’s like an exclusive club for the little bits of my brain :) I could have used Tumblr, but Headway and WordPress make integrating a microblog into one site so freaking easy, and it’s just one place to manage instead of two. Woot!

So what else is new?

Well, the navigation is all new. I am using WordPress 3.0 menus to easily link up my other profiles and websites on the ‘net, and to help you navigate to other places on the site. For example, the Social navigation item is a drop down that shows you – with cute little icons! – all of my social media profiles & links you directly to them so you can connect more easily with me.

Theoretically, with the microblog, the “big girl blog” – the longer posts – and all the social media integration, I’ll post more often and I’ll connect with y’all better. I am working on a blogroll, and I’ll have a post up about it soon. I want to do something dynamic, possibly integrating commenters and people I interact with in social media as well as the folks I read, instead of just a list of URLs.

So, what do you think? And what’s new with you?

A Day in the Life – Photography Project Results

Last Monday I posted about a photography project I wanted to try – something that @tyronem and I dreamed up. I just wanted to take a day in the week – any day – and take pictures all day to see how my photos might differ from his, or yours, or theirs. I wanted to try to paint a picture – a day in my life – for you via these photos.

Here are the results! I did not do any post production work on these; they are what they are. Eventually I’ll take some of the shots I like better and do a little work on them, but for this post, I’m gonna tell it like it is – or, rather, show it to you as it is!

I did have a bit of a #fail – I didn’t take any pictures after work. I took some last night after work though, and I might share those later.

The slideshow below shows the pics, and you can see them with descriptions in the Flickr set.

If you took pictures – or even if you just have some that you want to show as an example of a day in YOUR life – please link it up in the comments!

A Day in the Life (A Photography Project)

I was chatting with @tyronem on The Twitter the other day, and he said that he felt like he was going to kick some serious ass that day. I was all for it – and hell, I thought, if he was gonna kick ass, I wanted pictures.

Then a little teeny lightbulb went off above my head. Wouldn’t it be cool if we did a little photo project? Just take photos of everything, anything, all day, for one day. I wonder what that would look like? I wonder how my day would vary from his, or yours?

So, this week, pick a day. Any day. Take your camera and photograph everything and anything you want, for one day. Then, however you want, edited or no, post those photos online for us to look at :)

It’s like driving by your house when its dark and you have the lights on, and creeping up to the window and hiding in a bush and watching you, just because we are fascinated with the way someone else’s life is similar or different than out own. Except less creepy.

We are going to post our pics on Friday. Are you in?

Superstitions {GTT}

When I first set off the write this post for Girl Talk Thursday I said to myself, “Self, you are not a very superstitious person. What are you going to write about?”
But as I started to think on it, I realized that I do a have a few superstitions. Examples!
1. I think Friday the 13th is a lucky day. In fact, I think 13 is a lucky number in general.
2. I don’t think you should ever go to bed angry, it invites disaster.
3. If I have a bad feeling about a place or situation, I avoid it like the damn plague. I would rather be wrong and look like a fool than be right and regret it.
4. I think you should wear something borrowed, blue, old and new on your wedding day.
Superstitions I don’t believe in!
1. I don’t think it affects anything one way or another if you tell people you are pregnant before the second trimester.
2. I don’t think throwing salt over my shoulder will bring me luck or ward off bad luck.
3. I don’t believe fortune cookies.
4. I am not concerned about broken mirrors, black cats, or the position of a ladder in relation to my path.
What about you? Write your own post and link it up, and make sure to read every else’s posts. Read Colleen’s post! You just might find something new to be paranoid about!

The bathroom clearly had a history of break-ins …

image

How to Get Better Pictures – Post Production {BlogHer}

Description | Speakers

If you believe taking great photos is the end of the line, think again. Any great photographer will tell you that it’s not enough to know basic photography rules – you’ve got to know how to edit those photos to make them really “pop”. Whether you’re using the latest version of Photoshop or a freebie program online, Pauline/OHMommy, Amy from The Bitchin’ Wives Club and Ryan Marshall from Pacing the Panic Room will walk you through basic editing using brightening and contrast, color enhancement, adjusting hues and saturation levels, artistic additions, cropping, blurring, watermarking, editing file sizes and more.

PanicRoom – Bottom line is to just take good pictures from the start. Know your camera, and don’t rely on post production to constantly try to make a bad picture look better.

PanicRoom – “Just be careful that you don’t get caught up following trends … come up with your own ed’iting philosophy, you’ll never find your own style if you’re just chasing trends.”

PanicRoom – His first pictures were all vingnette, he was stuck in that trend. Months of vignette and he missed opportunities, it didn’t make any sense with the picture.  “It [vignette] was something I learned to do, and I did it for every picture’.”

PanicRoom – “I shoot everything in RAW”, and he brings it into Adobe Bridge, which formats it into a JPEG, but a point and shoot won’t shoot RAW.

PanicRoom – “Sometimes your kids are running around and they aren’t in the perfect light or the perfect setting” – you have to take the picture anyway. You can’t miss that moment.

PanicRoom – Shows us a finished image. A picture of his wife balancing on a bike, but there is no kickstand. It’s layers – two images. Her brother is actually holding the bike up, but he removes the brother in post production.

PanicRoom – He plays with color balance first – it’s very subtle changes, and depends on the photo. Play around with it.

PanicRoom – He’s searching for the photo he wants to show us; it’s clear that he’s taken over 40 versions of the picture of his wife on the bike to try to get it right – seems we need to take more pictures! They key is to just keep on shooting for that “good” picture, rather than taking one and hoping it’s right.

How he took the picture:

Set up on a tripod, so that nothing moves! You need two nearly identical pictures.

1st picture: Wife on the bike, brother on left holding it up.

2nd picture: Wife holding bike on the right, no brother.

In Photoshop, lay the two images over each other, wife balancing on top – and erase the brother. When you erase the brother, the other photo shows through, and the background looks seamless.

Talks about color correction, and goes to the color balance and gives the photo just a little tweak here and there to adjust the way the light in the background, and his wife’s skin tone in the light, look.

Once you have the picture at a great point, lock the layers, make a copy of that, and keep it as a “backup” layer. Gives you a chance to go back to a good point if you make too many tweaks and go too far.

PanicRoom – Then gives an example a picture he took yesterday of another blogger. He applies the vignette affect on a new layer, then adjusts the opacity so that it’s more subtle. Then he applies the fuse blow, and it looks ridiculous at full strength, but brings it down to 7% or so and it looks more natural and glowy, but not ridiculous.

PanicRoom – “It’s all self control” – figuring out what the best combination of effects and at what intensity or level works best for each photo and for the story you are trying to tell. “Just learn self control.”

PanicRoom – “You don’t want to ruin these moments, these memories, with bad editing … in editing you should be trying to enhance a photo, not save a photo.” There are times when you’ll need to save a photo, but it shouldn’t be the norm.

OHMommy – She’s going to review Photoshop Actions to “cheat.”  Photoshop is expensive, but nothing compares. It’s much cheaper on a student license. And Photoshop Elements has much of what you need, and will allow for Actions, so that’s key.

OHMommy – “What are actions? Essentially they are pre-recorded steps that you can use over and over again.” They are time-savers, and help you save the exact steps that you used.

OHMommy – Shows a photo straight out of the camera, then the after effect – after applying two simple steps — or actions.

OHMommy – The sharpen action can make a huge difference. There are lots – and you can download them to your computer. The download provides a file that you can use in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to enhance your photos. Some are free and some are paid.

To Install:

1. Save the file to the appropriate location in the Photoshop directory on your computer.

2. Open Photoshop

3. Click on Windows.

4. Click Actions and they Actions list appears.

OHMommy – When in doubt, it’s always better to “underexpose your image” – rather than overexpose. Underexposure is easy to fix in post production.

OHMommy uses the “downsizing” image to make sure her images are not a great quality so that no one bothers to download it and steal it, because the quality is poor. What it does is that it sets the DPI low – to 72ppi.

Note that PPI is not reflective of the image size in pixels on your blog or website. PPI stands for pixels per inch – how many pixels are packed into an inch in a photo, or how high the resolution is.

OHMommy – “Make mistakes often and find your style. Everybody has a different style.”

OHMommy participated in the daily photo challenge for a year and then turned the results into a great keepsake for her family – great idea!

BitchinWife – Talking about online editing and storage and organization. There are three ways to manage your photos: “Edit, edit, edit.” Go through your pictures, delete, edit, make sure what you’re saving is what you want.

“Upload to Flickr” – buy the PRO version so you have unlimited space – $20 per year – and upload everything either automatically with something like an EyeFi card or using a program once you import; it saves the images in full size and you can download them from Flickr later when you want them, you don’t have to store copies on your computer. {Editors note: I don’t recommend this. There are no guarentees that Flickr won’t lose or corrupt your photos. I’d recommend using an external backup drive of some sort – which is her third recommendation.}

BitchinWife – She organizes all her photos by date, so that she can find a photo by having an idea of when she took the photo.  This is easy on a Mac using iPhoto, it basically does it automatically. She says don’t be lazy about organization! It won’t get easier later, it’ll just be harder.

Dear Abby 2.0: Giving Advice in the Blogosphere

What makes them the experts?

Becky: “I am a nurse, but please don’t send me pictures of anything!” She can give medical advice, but that’s now what the site is about. “If I don’t know the answer, I can find someone who knows the answer.” She sayd the real advice comes from commenters.

Wendy says they aren’t experts, they are know-it-alls. Often, the advice is just stating the obvious – “pull your head out, this is what you need to do.”  They’ve asked therapists, mothers, friends and add that “validation” to what they have to say in response.

Marinka: There’s a disclaimer about seeing your therapist and the site (mouthy hosuewives) is meant to be humorous. Sometimes the questions are too serious to answer or address.

Are you afraid of answering it wrong?

Becky: had a question once about possible child abuse, and Becky’s site is entirely anonymous; she wanted to send something back but couldnt. She feels that it wasn’t something that should have been submitted due to how serious it was, but edited the question and posted it with an answer with links to “real” resources. That was an instance when she was concerned, but otherwise no, not really, since its designed to be humorous.

Wendy: They will email the serious questions privately.
Marinka: “I never worry about giving the wrong advice.” (laughter)
Kelcey: “Once you get going, every other question is about mother in laws” – they get the same question over an dover again, how do you come up with fresh new ways to deal with those questions?
Marinka: “A lot of it is spacing” – you don’t want to have the same questions over an dover again in one week. hopefully there’s some sort of twist with each of them. “all questions are basically good, you can hold onto them for a while.”

Wendy:  ”We’re fortunate that we have four writers and guest posters, so you can get a fresh take on things”
Kelcey: “Often the commenters have the answer, and it’s like oh, DUH, that’s what she should do…”
Wendy: Interesting google searches… Marinka says, laughing, “don’t look at the stats”
Susanne Henry – Late Bloomer Bride – People started asking her for advice, she’s married for the first time and is over 40. “is it better to give advice, or is it better to encourage our community to give advice to each other, and are we liable for that content? or is a hybrid better? how much do you lock it down?”
Marinka: “A disclaimer is always a good idea. commenters and response is very organic and always a good thing on a blog.”
“An advice column on the internet, one of the great things about it is that it can be like a conversation … and then it’s like “oh, everybody pees in the shower, is it something I should be doing?”
Becky – a little wary of forums. “Once you start a forum thing – there’s a good thing about a community but once you hit a certain … limit, you start getting the “forum people” and they are scary people.” “I think there’s a hybrid thing you want to hit … encourage your community contribute.” “I wouldn’t want a forum ….people get militant … they’re scary.”
Emily from Wheels on the Bus – her blog touches on parenting, the environment. “I don’t mind the environmental questions because I feel like I know a lot about it … but I don’t like the parenting questions because they feel like I am some sort of parenting expert and I’m not. ” Any thoughts on that? — She wants to know if they have advice on what to do.
Wendy: “It’s very flattering tha tpeople think you are a parenting expert… they are responding to what you are writing about parenting… they respect you enough to ask your advice … if you dont feel comfortable just say thank you for asking.”
Kelcey. “I have lots of friends who ask me a questions for parenting, and I don’t know anything about parenting… but then I just go full force ahead and answer the question anyway.”
Audience Member (I didn’t catch her name) “I get lots of questions from women who recently found out they are expecting but they are full time students or working and trying to decide if they should keep the baby or not” — she kept her babies after getting pregnant in grad school and kept her baby, so her answer is obvious, but she doesn’tknow how to answer it for someone else.
Marinka: “[Reaching out to you] isn’t the sole basis for them making the decision… hopefully… you don’t have to answer the question if you feel uncomfortable.”
Becky – “My advice to anybody out there who asks a question you dontt want to answer is: you don’t owe anybody on the internet anything. it’s not your job.”
Kelcey: Advises that you respond with ”this is what I did” and “bring it backto you and your own experience and don’t make it about them, and they can glean what they want from that.”
Editing is important – some posts are way too long. “just something about there being space…” “and if you can work Bruce JTenner … or Bieber …”
Wendy: “I write my first draft, then I go watch the Real Housewives of New York and then come back and read it again.”
Becky: “I don’t edit. Ever”
Kelcey: “That’s just a different approach!”
Becky: “because I write  magic.”
Favorite questions?

Wendy: A woman wrote in and would update their facebbook status whenever they had sex with “I had an orgasm” and they recommended she update hers with “I just faked it!” (laughter from audience)
Weird which questions get lots of response. like a question about whether you take your shoes off in someone else’s house – they get a major social response and everyone has different cultures and customs.

Ramblings

There is a patch of skin on my left elbow that is so dry it hurts. I’m not loving it. Severely dry skin and psoriasis run in my family, I wonder if I’m finally getting it? That would suck. I keep putting Lasinoh on it hoping that will help. It does, for a little while, but I need to be more consistent about it. If you see me at BlogHer, please don’t recoil in horror at my dry elbow. *snort*

Speaking of, as you all likely know, BlogHer is this week. I am leaving on Wednesday. On Tuesday night I am picking up KAT! and I am probably going to make a scene in the airport with my joy. My cup overfloweth.

My house is a fucking mess and I have no energy or time to clean it up but I know I should. Also, I have mountains of laundry to do that must be done. That’s actually DaddyGeek’s job tonight. Oh, and that’s his Twitter. Follow him and shame him into tweeting more regularly. @reply him with things like “What, too busy to Tweet, you pansy?!” and “Stop falling asleep at your desk, asshole!” That should work.

I’m buried in work – I took on two “emergency” clients before BlogHer, which in hindsight was not my best move, grateful though these individuals are/were. LOL. BUT, I do have some clients who are not responding/are away, and some that are not incredibly urgent, and all of them are incredibly understanding. I love you all. Thank you.

I have been drinking water today like nobody’s business.

Oh, and I will not be wearing any of these dresses even though I bought all of them, because none of them fit. The purple one is built for someone with much, much larger breasts than I, and the other two are a bit too small. I can zip up the cherries dress, but when I did, my husband said “Uhh, that’s not supposed to look like a corset, is it?” Uh, no honey. It’s not. BUT THANKS, ASSHOLE. You might as well as “Hey, that’s not supposed to look like sausage casing, is it?”

The red one won’t zip up at all. Le sigh.

However, Jenny is lending me two dresses, and I found one passable dress at Marshalls, possible two, and one nice little black dress. Between that and my regular wardrobe, I hope I’m good. I’ll be returning the other dresses, and I plan to use that money getting drunk and eating chocolate. SO THERE UNIVERSE.

I am nervous about being away from my kids, not because they won’t be cared for – they probably won’t even miss me. That’s actually the problem. They are going to have a freaking blast with their grandmother (even if it kills her, she’s determined!) and I’m sure they won’t even care about me when I get home.

There are people at my work who suck. That is all.

I can’t wait to see some of you in New York. And I can’t wait to see the rest of you online at various points this year. Though, *AHEM*, I can’t interact with LURKERS! ;-)

If you think I suck because I haven’t visited your blog, you should comment. I’m trying to visit and get my RSS reader nice and updated this week. On top of everything else. Oy.

String Around My Finger

I think I am becoming a better mom.  I know that I am trying.  I know that my relationship with my oldest daughter is improving.  I know that I am finally making up for mistakes made early on in motherhood.

I am proud of myself.  I am proud of her.  I am proud of our family.  I think we’re doing OK.

But today I am feeling glum and dejected for no reason.  I am getting my period.  So I am reminding myself.  We are a pretty happy family.  We are a lucky family.  We love each other.  We are trying.

We are not perfect.

We don’t need to be.

We’re OK just as we are, and it doesn’t matter if others do not agree.  I am happy to listen to anyone’s criticism to see if there is a way that I may improve.  But that doesn’t mean I will change anything.

And that’s OK too.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember.

Indescribable …

… The way my mouth tastes when I smell artificial watermelon; it is sharp and tangy and tingly and something else entirely.

… The feeling of pure triumph when I solve a technical problem

… The serenity of my sleeping children.

… The helplessness I feel when confronted by someone else’s pain.

… The friendships I have made, and lost.

… Puppy love and how it felt to be a teenager.

Web Statistics