Sitting... at my desk in the game room, for the very last time as it relates to typing out my monthly status report. Next month, assuming I remember to post a July Status Report, I will be in our new house, sitting in a new place.
Feeling... super anxious in all the good ways.
Wishing... schools would not jam-pack all sorts of field trips and events into the month of June. I don't know why they do this but they certainly don't take into consideration families with more than 1 kid. In the last couple of weeks I've had upwards of 10 different field trip permission forms to fill out. $5.00 for this one, $11.00 for that one, $4.00 for the other one, and on it goes. Of course I don't have to give permission and pay for every single field trip but... I do, because I don't want the kids to miss out. It's just ridiculously expensive planning for these June things. It would be so much more manageable if the schools would stagger them throughout the year instead of stuffing them all into June.
Looking forward to... the feel of the new house/neighborhood. For the first time yesterday, I went to the house by myself to move a van-load of items. I parked, got out of the van and the quietness, the peacefulness of the neighborhood immediately struck me. All I could hear were birds chirping, and lots of them. Our new house is only two streets over from a grade school so when recess lets out, the sound of birds is mixed with the sound of squealing, giggling children. Honestly, I don't know if there is a more pleasant sound-blend than kid-giggles and song birds singing. I guess we could toss a bagpipe in there and it would be perfect.
Excited about... cupboards and counters. I know, who gets excited about such a thing? ME! In our current house, everyone is struck by how big the kitchen is in this ancient farm house. What they don't have to try and deal with, is that in this kitchen there is 1 small counter (and 1 electrical outlet) and 1 food cupboard. That's it. I guess that was enough for busy moms preparing meals in the late 1880's when the house was built. We've had to purchase 3 pantries, and 4 shelving units just to hold all the normal stuffs that go in kitchens. In the new house, there's a huge counter, and tons of cupboard space for everything to go where it's supposed to go. Yes, I'm excited about a neat and tidy kitchen!
Wishing (part 2)... someone would have told me about "hidden" costs when buying a home. I mean, someone might have actually said something in passing about it, but I really wish someone would have sat me down and said "okay look, there's the down payment, PLUS there will be all these other costs that you need to budget for" and then listed them off one by one. That would have been super-duper-awesomely helpful. I probably should dedicate an entire post, all it's own, just to detail it out for someone else.
A little surprised by... the fact that June 2013 marks the 9th year I've had this blog. Nine years of blogging. I think I've probably said everything I ever wanted to in that nine years, and probably said some of those things more than once.
Well, that's about all I have for today. I have a load of stuff that needs to go to the van so I'll sign off, and wish you a super-fantastic day!
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Home Sweet Home - Almost
Well, our house closed today and for the first time, the kids were able to see the inside and see where the next chapter of our lives will be played out. The votes have been tallied and they all love the new house as much as we do! Kev used his cell phone to snap these pics so they're not the best quality in the world but I think the looks on the kids faces really says it all:
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| We got our keys! |
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| Welcome Home! |
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| I think Rachel approves... maybe? |
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| Yep, we're good! |
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| Jordan approves as well! |
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| I don't know why Samuel's in the shower, but he seems right at home! |
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| Ruth loves her new room! |
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| Kevin Rolfe - happy first time homeowner :-) |
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| Rachel, checking out the cat's room. |
Monday, May 27, 2013
Ethics 101: Monsters Among Us
We live in a sick and twisted and sometimes horrific world. I think we all know that. I also think that we do our best to make it an awesome place for our kids, and ourselves, despite what's really going on all around us. The crimes and the exploitation and victimization that happen outside the four walls of our homes (and schools) we talk about but we keep outside and try to keep our own homes happy, peaceful, safe refuges from "that" stuff out there so our kids feel safe and protected. We're parents, it's just what we do because we love our kids.
I'd like to bring your attention to one of these horrific things today by asking you to read THIS and then THIS and then THIS In that order. The first article is from the newspaper, the second from a local radio station and the third is their FB post today on the same case. To summarize:
"The Thames Valley District School Board is defending an elementary school principal whose husband was convicted of child-porn possession, amid demands from parents to reverse a decision to transfer her. Linda Carswell has served as principal at Woodland Heights since 2007 and is now being moved to Stoney Creek."
Many people are voicing their opinion on this. I've even commented at the latter two links Some are defending the teacher, saying she shouldn't be held accountable for her husband's actions. Some are outraged they never knew anything about it, or that she's coming to their school in the fall. Some are saying they've seen or been told this woman's husband visits her current grade school on a regular basis. I read the news and listen to news radio every single day and I never even heard about it until today on a morning news show.
I want to know what you think. If your child attended the school where this woman was the principle (and please, read the links first to get a better background), would you be the least bit concerned?
I'd like to bring your attention to one of these horrific things today by asking you to read THIS and then THIS and then THIS In that order. The first article is from the newspaper, the second from a local radio station and the third is their FB post today on the same case. To summarize:
"The Thames Valley District School Board is defending an elementary school principal whose husband was convicted of child-porn possession, amid demands from parents to reverse a decision to transfer her. Linda Carswell has served as principal at Woodland Heights since 2007 and is now being moved to Stoney Creek."
Many people are voicing their opinion on this. I've even commented at the latter two links Some are defending the teacher, saying she shouldn't be held accountable for her husband's actions. Some are outraged they never knew anything about it, or that she's coming to their school in the fall. Some are saying they've seen or been told this woman's husband visits her current grade school on a regular basis. I read the news and listen to news radio every single day and I never even heard about it until today on a morning news show.
I want to know what you think. If your child attended the school where this woman was the principle (and please, read the links first to get a better background), would you be the least bit concerned?
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
How To Have a Fake Photoshop Face in 6 Easy Steps
A few days ago I was reading the news and saw one of those links similar to "stars without the makeup" slideshows. Because apparently, we all need to see celebs without their makeup so that we can all get on with our lives. I have to confess though, I do click them once in a while just to see the comments the site puts with the "before" pictures. They're usually very kind and full of honey, such as "atrocious" and "needs some time in the sun". It's amazing to me how many times I've seen nasty remarks about fresh-washed-face celebrities, especially when much of the time they actually look like regular, everyday folks, without the glam. This one was a little different though because it was a slide show of celebrities who's photos were totally made over in photoshop to make them look flawless.
Seeing this, I was inspired me to do a little experiment of my own using my own face! Now all I have is the basic photoshop elements, nothing at all like what the magazine editors require for their glitzy publications, I'm sure, but it worked out okay anyway. So, here's what I did:
No scrolling ahead or you'll be cheating. Just follow through with me as I explain step-by-step how you too, can be a photoshop fake. Okay? Here we go:
Step 1. Don't put on any makeup (like me, who almost never wears it) and go outside in the natural light and get a selfie of your face. Yes, this is what I look like almost every day. No makeup, t-shirt, crazy hair pulled back in a pony-tail. Now, when you get your selfie, don't edit it AT ALL except maybe to resize it. Leave it exactly as it is so it's really the real, real you.
Step 2. Open in photoshop. Using a tiny eraser brush, zoom in and remove every single wrinkle. You probably know your face better than anyone so you can start wherever you like, but I started at the forehead and worked my way down my face. I don't have a ton of wrinkles but I have them like anyone else my age so I *poofed* and they were all gone. I also saved myself a ridiculous amount of money on anti-aging creams. Remember the key here is to be SUBTLE, using small brushes and teeny tiny edits so you don't end up looking like plastic-face.
Step 3. Using the same brush, wipe out all the moles. Or pimples, dark spots, red spots, purple spots or whatever color your spots are. This is critical because the fake you, just like the fake magazine cover models do NOT have any spots or pimples or moles. Unless you're Cindy Crawford but you're not, so you can't have moles. Get rid of all of them. More *poof* (remember, subtle, small brush)
Step 4. Now this is the tricky part. Find the one feature on your face that you dislike the most and fix it. Bonus: no anesthesia, surgical procedures, recovery time or outrageous costs. The downside is, you can't actually walk around with the fixed feature on your face, unless when you're done, you print out the photo and tape it to your head. Odds are however, most people will be able to pick up on it right away, that this isn't really you. You decide if you think you can pull it off, and if you think you can, more power to you.
For me, the feature I dislike the most is my right eye lid. It droops down and actually impairs my vision and I dislike it more for that, than for the way it looks, really. I mean, I've never actually had someone walk up to me and say "hey, your eyelid is freaking me out man, you need to do something about that" so I suspect I notice it far more than anyone else does. On the other hand, I have in fact (for years, and years) had people ask me why I'm mad or why I gave them or someone else a dirty look when in fact I didn't or I'm not. They assume that because I have a Grumpy Cat mouth that naturally turns down at the corners and makes me look like I'm scowling or mad, when I'm not. It totally works for the cat, but not so much for me so with the smudge tool I nudged it up a little on both sides and gave myself a wee touch of color with the burn tool. Just a wee touch. And just a wee nudge too. Too much and I would have looked like Heath Ledger as the Joker.
Step 5. Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed! Okay, if you have a tail, ignore all these steps and report straight to the surgeon's office, as photoshop cannot help you. However, if you really want to look younger and skinny like a model, bright eyes are the way to go. It's true, go to google and type in "bright eyes make you look" and see what auto-fills in there. Google knows stuff. So make your eyes stand out by giving yourself a little subtle eyeliner & eyebrow liner with the burn tool (remember, teeny weenie brushes or you'll end up looking like Alice Cooper and really, I don't know anyone that wants to look like that, on purpose, do you?), then use the dodge tool to brighten the whites of your eyes. Use the burn tool again after, to really make your irises stand out. Because outstanding irises are critical to getting that whole "young and skinny like a model" thing going on. Okay now, here's the last step:
Step 6. Using the filter option on the entire picture, reduce the "noise" because you're probably pretty noisy. Be careful though, because if you reduce too much noise you'll look like your skin is made out of silly putty. Literally. Play around with it until you have that "oh, look at the soft, pretty, youthful looking skin that I don't really have in real life but do now, with photoshop" look. You'll get there, just play around with it.
You probably can't see a huge difference in the film-strip graphic I posted there, and that's sort of the point. Only because I knew exactly what I did in each picture can I see the difference but I was intentionally subtle so that it wasn't too obvious with each step. I didn't look at the before/after pictures side by side until I was all done:
And that's when I lol'd for real. Outloud. Sitting here all alone except for the cat (who already knows I'm a little weird anyway, so it didn't really matter). You can click that if you like and see the full sized real me/fake me. What made me laugh is that while there isn't really that much of a difference (and that's partly because really glamming it out the way they do for magazines was just too much for me - the "total glam" version would have really made you laugh too) this is the kind of fake picture you see online and in print all the time and you probably don't even realize it until you see the unedited version, like in those slide shows plastered all over the net. I witnessed this first hand once, when at LAX I ran into a celebrity who had a hit show on prime time tv. On the show she was gorgeous, but in real life, she had very unhealthy looking skin, and a mustache. It wasn't a subtle girl-stache either, it was pretty manly. And, her hair did NOT shine. Not even a little bit. I was honestly rather shocked to know how much fakey-fakeness even tv cameras can pull off. If someone didn't know me, or never saw me in person, I could easily doctor a pic and post it as "me" and have everyone think that really is me. Unfortunately if they met me in real life they'd go "whoa, who ate your face?" I do have that pouty mouth. I do not have eyebrows, and I have wrinkles and moles and spots and bags under my eyes.
Now I admit, it would be nice to roll out of bed in the morning being all bright-eyed and non-Grumpy Cat mouthed but hey, that's not going to happen. I'm actually pretty okay with the way I look most of the time, and the fact that I'm generally too lazy to even put make up on before I leave the house to run errands, proves it (not to mention the fact that I plastered my "before" face for the world to see, lol).
So the moral of the story is this: don't waste your time photoshopping your face. Not only is it not really you, but you probably look just fine the way you are. No, you're not a magazine cover girl but guess what? Neither are they, without the tons of make-up and hours of photoshop airbrushing. Without all that, most of those celebs look like regular, ordinary, every day folk. Just like you, and just like me. If you don't believe me, just google it for yourself and take a few minutes to look at some of those slide shows.
The illusion of "beauty" and the standard in our culture, is 100% fake. Just like my face in the after pic.
Seeing this, I was inspired me to do a little experiment of my own using my own face! Now all I have is the basic photoshop elements, nothing at all like what the magazine editors require for their glitzy publications, I'm sure, but it worked out okay anyway. So, here's what I did:
No scrolling ahead or you'll be cheating. Just follow through with me as I explain step-by-step how you too, can be a photoshop fake. Okay? Here we go:
Step 1. Don't put on any makeup (like me, who almost never wears it) and go outside in the natural light and get a selfie of your face. Yes, this is what I look like almost every day. No makeup, t-shirt, crazy hair pulled back in a pony-tail. Now, when you get your selfie, don't edit it AT ALL except maybe to resize it. Leave it exactly as it is so it's really the real, real you.
Step 2. Open in photoshop. Using a tiny eraser brush, zoom in and remove every single wrinkle. You probably know your face better than anyone so you can start wherever you like, but I started at the forehead and worked my way down my face. I don't have a ton of wrinkles but I have them like anyone else my age so I *poofed* and they were all gone. I also saved myself a ridiculous amount of money on anti-aging creams. Remember the key here is to be SUBTLE, using small brushes and teeny tiny edits so you don't end up looking like plastic-face.
Step 3. Using the same brush, wipe out all the moles. Or pimples, dark spots, red spots, purple spots or whatever color your spots are. This is critical because the fake you, just like the fake magazine cover models do NOT have any spots or pimples or moles. Unless you're Cindy Crawford but you're not, so you can't have moles. Get rid of all of them. More *poof* (remember, subtle, small brush)
Step 4. Now this is the tricky part. Find the one feature on your face that you dislike the most and fix it. Bonus: no anesthesia, surgical procedures, recovery time or outrageous costs. The downside is, you can't actually walk around with the fixed feature on your face, unless when you're done, you print out the photo and tape it to your head. Odds are however, most people will be able to pick up on it right away, that this isn't really you. You decide if you think you can pull it off, and if you think you can, more power to you.
For me, the feature I dislike the most is my right eye lid. It droops down and actually impairs my vision and I dislike it more for that, than for the way it looks, really. I mean, I've never actually had someone walk up to me and say "hey, your eyelid is freaking me out man, you need to do something about that" so I suspect I notice it far more than anyone else does. On the other hand, I have in fact (for years, and years) had people ask me why I'm mad or why I gave them or someone else a dirty look when in fact I didn't or I'm not. They assume that because I have a Grumpy Cat mouth that naturally turns down at the corners and makes me look like I'm scowling or mad, when I'm not. It totally works for the cat, but not so much for me so with the smudge tool I nudged it up a little on both sides and gave myself a wee touch of color with the burn tool. Just a wee touch. And just a wee nudge too. Too much and I would have looked like Heath Ledger as the Joker.
Step 5. Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed! Okay, if you have a tail, ignore all these steps and report straight to the surgeon's office, as photoshop cannot help you. However, if you really want to look younger and skinny like a model, bright eyes are the way to go. It's true, go to google and type in "bright eyes make you look" and see what auto-fills in there. Google knows stuff. So make your eyes stand out by giving yourself a little subtle eyeliner & eyebrow liner with the burn tool (remember, teeny weenie brushes or you'll end up looking like Alice Cooper and really, I don't know anyone that wants to look like that, on purpose, do you?), then use the dodge tool to brighten the whites of your eyes. Use the burn tool again after, to really make your irises stand out. Because outstanding irises are critical to getting that whole "young and skinny like a model" thing going on. Okay now, here's the last step:
Step 6. Using the filter option on the entire picture, reduce the "noise" because you're probably pretty noisy. Be careful though, because if you reduce too much noise you'll look like your skin is made out of silly putty. Literally. Play around with it until you have that "oh, look at the soft, pretty, youthful looking skin that I don't really have in real life but do now, with photoshop" look. You'll get there, just play around with it.
You probably can't see a huge difference in the film-strip graphic I posted there, and that's sort of the point. Only because I knew exactly what I did in each picture can I see the difference but I was intentionally subtle so that it wasn't too obvious with each step. I didn't look at the before/after pictures side by side until I was all done:
And that's when I lol'd for real. Outloud. Sitting here all alone except for the cat (who already knows I'm a little weird anyway, so it didn't really matter). You can click that if you like and see the full sized real me/fake me. What made me laugh is that while there isn't really that much of a difference (and that's partly because really glamming it out the way they do for magazines was just too much for me - the "total glam" version would have really made you laugh too) this is the kind of fake picture you see online and in print all the time and you probably don't even realize it until you see the unedited version, like in those slide shows plastered all over the net. I witnessed this first hand once, when at LAX I ran into a celebrity who had a hit show on prime time tv. On the show she was gorgeous, but in real life, she had very unhealthy looking skin, and a mustache. It wasn't a subtle girl-stache either, it was pretty manly. And, her hair did NOT shine. Not even a little bit. I was honestly rather shocked to know how much fakey-fakeness even tv cameras can pull off. If someone didn't know me, or never saw me in person, I could easily doctor a pic and post it as "me" and have everyone think that really is me. Unfortunately if they met me in real life they'd go "whoa, who ate your face?" I do have that pouty mouth. I do not have eyebrows, and I have wrinkles and moles and spots and bags under my eyes.
Now I admit, it would be nice to roll out of bed in the morning being all bright-eyed and non-Grumpy Cat mouthed but hey, that's not going to happen. I'm actually pretty okay with the way I look most of the time, and the fact that I'm generally too lazy to even put make up on before I leave the house to run errands, proves it (not to mention the fact that I plastered my "before" face for the world to see, lol).
So the moral of the story is this: don't waste your time photoshopping your face. Not only is it not really you, but you probably look just fine the way you are. No, you're not a magazine cover girl but guess what? Neither are they, without the tons of make-up and hours of photoshop airbrushing. Without all that, most of those celebs look like regular, ordinary, every day folk. Just like you, and just like me. If you don't believe me, just google it for yourself and take a few minutes to look at some of those slide shows.
The illusion of "beauty" and the standard in our culture, is 100% fake. Just like my face in the after pic.
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