Clutter Bug

Stayed pretty busy this weekend with fun things. It was a nice break from what I'd been doing the rest of the week. I swear, I watch one episode of Oprah and it takes over my whole life. She did a show on de-cluttering your house and that's all I've been doing for a week straight! But it sure feels good, especially since we are in a smaller space. Our closets always seem to be bursting at the seams. I still have a couple more things to go through, but so far I'm getting rid of 10 bags worth of stuff! It feels like its a little easier to breathe now.

On Friday night, we went out to dinner at CPK with the gang and then bowling. It has been awhile and I barely broke 100, but it was a lot of fun. On Saturday, the girls got together for shopping at the outlets. That's always a treat, since we don't have girl time very often. And yeah, shopping. Good. That night we had some sushi and the guys played poker while I watched Wall-E. On Sunday evening I went with hubs to CA Adventure. Had to use up that free pass! It was a good date night. The weather was nice and we ate some yummy food and ice cream and went on like 2 or 3 rides. He's so fun to hang out with.

Now on to a new week (not to mention a new month?!). Nothing major going on, but I do need to go get some supplies for my class tonight. The de-cluttering tour will also be continued (and hopefully wrapped up!)

My Photography Classes

I wanted to share a little about the photography classes I'm taking right now since they are bringing me so much excitement! I seriously love them. The classes are at Burrough's High School here in Burbank (where my hubby went to school). They have one of the top 10 dark rooms in the country with like 15 enlargers and a whole fancy set up, including a real life studio. I have never heard of a high school with equipment like this, but I'm glad its one that's close by!

Advanced Black & White Photography:
The first class I started was Advanced Black & White Photography. It is so super fun. In the last three weeks I have 1) developed a roll of film that I shot 2) made proof sheets and 3) printed an 8x10 in the dark room! In the next 3 weeks, I'll be printing more 8x10's as well as adding Sepia tone to a print of my choice. It's amazing to see how this stuff was done before the digital revolution and Photoshop. It really gives a whole new perspective on how much work the real, legitimate photographers had to put in. I've learned how to burn/dodge and heck - even just loading the film tanks in the complete darkness is a work of art in itself!! I am so proud of myself when I do THAT right. This class is short - only 6 weeks - but I think I'll probably take it again since its just so much fun.

One of the first B&W pics I ever shot (about 6 years ago?) I made this into an 8x10.

Intermediate Color Photography
I have only been in this class for one week, but already I love it. The teacher used to be an NBC staff photographer. She has shot Johnny Carson, for heaven's sake. So its cool to learn from someone who has the experience as a working photographer. I know all the ins-and-outs of my camera (like white balance and shooting with the manual modes), so the functional stuff is just review for me. But the exciting part is that we get assignments every week and we'lll be printing and mounting our photos to make a nice little portfolio. We also get to shoot in the studio (yay!) and work with our images in Photoshop, so I'm getting the exact kind of experience I want. It's a 14 week class, and I have a lot to look forward to. I'll take the Advanced Digital class after this.

Just playing with color...

Photoshop for Photographers
I have been using Photoshop for a LONG time - probably around 10 years. So I wasn't sure how much I'd learn from this class. But it was 50 bucks and designed specifically for photographers, so I thought I'd give it a go. We are working with CS4 and I am kind of in love with it. It's not all that different from CS3 (which is what I use now), but just has a few little advantages. And the nice part is, there are so many ways to do one thing that I'm actually learning some new tricks. There are some cool girls in my class too, so its been fun in more ways than one.

Before and After - notice her slightly improved waistline & boobs in "After". My new favorite tool in Photoshop!

Thank goodness for adult school, huh? I don't ever remember them telling us that once we were out of high school we could do stuff like this. I didn't even know trade schools and things like that were an option. It was like - either college or nothing. So I got a job right out of high school and figured I'd just wing it the rest of my life. But these schools offer so many different types of classes, that now I may just expand my knowledge for the heck of it. Why not?

COLDPLAY

I am super excited. I just bought our tickets for Coldplay and we are on the FLOOR! I thought I had reached a point in my life where I didn't really care where we sat. Really, it's more about the music and sometimes being farther back is better because you're away from some of the crazies. But this is so awesome!! I haven't been this excited for a show since I had 4th row DMB tickets like 8 years ago. These aren't 4th row, but heck. It is still rad! The concert is in July, so I still have like 5 months of anticipation.

YAY anyway!!

Hollywood

This weekend is the Oscars. I always like to go over to Hollywood a couple days before to check out the setup. They close down Hollywood Blvd. and have all these tents and lights set up for the Red Carpet. You can't really SEE much, but it always give me a little tingle of excitement to be so close to the action. In this pic, you can see the setup to the right...

I used to work in Hollywood every week and one thing I loved about it was that I ALWAYS saw something new. I mean, the people are crazy. You wouldn't believe the things I witnessed from my work mini-van. I sort of miss that. I live only about 6 miles away, but don't get over the hill much. Yesterday I saw this guy and automatically assumed he was insane. He was dressed up as Jimi Hendrix, playing his guitar on the sidewalk for money. I laughed inside at him, but it turns out he's a really nice guy! I made a donation to his pot, asked if I could snap a couple photos, and he played me an awesome Jimi Hendrix cover. And he was really good. We talked for a quick minute but he would've played for me all day if I had time to stay and watch. I wonder how much money he makes hanging out there.

When people say that Hollywood is so glamorous, they don't mean the actual city of Hollywood. If you have ever been here, you know what I'm talking about. They mean the Hollywood LIFESTYLE is glamorous. Like if you are a movie star. Otherwise, its just another touristy city with a bunch of weird stuff to look at. I still love it, but even the Welcome to Hollywood sign is pathetic.

As for the Oscars this weekend, I haven't been very good about my research. The only Oscar Nom I've seen is Slumdog Millionaire. It was great, but I still want to see the others. I will definitely watch the show and when I'm jealous of that glamorous red carpet, I will try and remember that its just a bunch of bleachers and curtains hung in front of the Gap and Forever 21.

Foiled Again!

Valentine's Day is one of those days that Hubs and I always enjoyed celebrating as a new couple, but as the years go by, it seems like more of an annoyance than a special day. I think it was 2 or 3 years ago, we decided to stop buying each other gifts for Valentine's Day. Honestly, its meaningless! Nothing special ever happened for us on that day. We'd much rather celebrate our Anniversary, since that day is much more memorable.

We haven't given up completely on the idea of Valentine's day, so I made heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast and he had a little surprise up his sleeve. When you live in Southern Cal and you buy a Disneyland ticket, you also get to come back another day and go to California Adventure for free. Since we went to D-land for my birthday, (and it was Saturday so we had some time to kill) he thought it would be fun to use that free pass and go to CA Adventure for a couple hours in the evening. We could walk around, grab some dinner, maybe hit a couple rides. Of course, when I heard this idea, I thought it was brilliant.

So we fought the traffic and arrived at CA Adventure around 4pm. We strolled up to the gates, passes in hand and - surprise! My season pass is blacked out on Valentine's Day and they had to turn me away! I honestly had no idea and never even thought to check that before we left the house. I felt so bad because we had driven all the way out there for nothing.

Since we had just paid $12 for parking, we decided to make the most of it and just hang out at Downtown Disney. We tried a couple restaurants, but of course it was Valentine's Day so everything was PACKED - another reason we avoid celebrating this day. Finally we decided to go see a movie (He's Just Not That Into You) and fill up on junk food. So we ultimately still had a fun day. But Disneyland - how could you?!