My fun with Photoshop

So it's been over a week. Maybe two? I lost track. I ended up finally going into labor unknowingly. Fortunately, I have a friend that made me call the doctor after having contractions all morning. Then the hard part was do I call the doctor first or take a shower or finish my part-time hours before calling the doctor? I opted for taking a shower, then finishing my daily hours, then calling the doctor. In all honesty, I didn't think it was that big of a deal. The contractions weren't really that terrible to deal with and weren't getting any worse or closer together. At least, I didn't think they were. By the time I got to the hospital, I was 5 centimeters dilated. Oops.

So my husband and I spent some time watching Dragnet (I love that show) and teasing the nurses for blowing out so many veins in the multiple attempts to insert the IV. Turns out that I wasn't insane and my contractions were not normal in the least bit. They were not regular nor getting as painful as what they probably should have been. Yep. I'm a freak.

So our baby boy was born by 6:33 pm that evening. I got bored in the hospital a lot, so I took a lot of pictures. It took me a few days of being home before I got to editing them. I kinda love my befores and afters. They aren't spectacular nor professional, but I love them and that's what matters.

Original

Basic editing

A lighter B&W

B&W

Greater Than Gatsby has some fantastic actions. I recommend looking into them if you use Photoshop.

Any newborn is going to have skin coloring issues during the first few days. I prefer to use black and white for those reasons alone. The darker black and white takes away all the redness to his skin, but the lighter black and white plus a Gaussian blur adds an interesting blend to the mix. I have more pictures to take, but for now I have a couple hour nap heading my way before this little one's next feeding. Ciao, loveys!

Hair, hair, whatever shall I do with thee?

I'm that person. The one that goes all through Pinterest and finds all these fantastic hairstyles that I absolutely adore and pin to my heart's content. Then, I actually try to re-create the hairstyles only to discover that my hair isn't long enough, not curly enough, not short enough, the layers aren't right, too fine, or just not thick enough.

Not only am I cursed with thin hair (it's always been a problem for me), but it's also very fine. My hair will fall out of a simple braid. There are types of hair clips that I cannot use because my hair is simply too fine. It freaking sucks.

My daughter is also cursed with fine hair. I recognize all of the signs when I see them. We have a hard time brushing it out after a bath because of all the tangles. Every morning when she gets up, it looks like she took up break-dancing during the night and spent eight hours practicing spinning on her head. This means she is going to have difficulty maintaining hairstyles and a hard time getting her hair to do anything that doesn't involve stick-straight hair.

FYI, she just randomly shouted at the dog "No! I don't want to hear your piggy noises!" The dog is asleep underneath our coffee table three feet away from her.

I digress.

I know we need to change her shampoo/conditioner deal and I already explained to my husband what we have to look forward to when it comes to taking care of her hair. She's almost four. I can't expect her to take on that responsibility this young. I'm the one that doesn't want to cut it, the least I can do is properly take care of it. I told him what kind of shampoo/conditioner we will need to get, how we will need to wash her hair, what we will have to look forward to in the future (she will not be able to use 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner combos when she starts school), and how we will have to maintain her how for the time being.

One of the measures of preventing the major rat nest from forming in her beautiful tresses is to just put her hair up before bed. My child does not like having her hair up if she feels like she will be lying down at any time. It bothers her and she will want her hair down immediately. So, I sat her down after her bath and explained to her that she will just have to start putting her hair up before bed so she won't get knots. She seemed receptive, but we weren't going to start that night. I like to take time introducing changes to my girl because she will get very upset if you don't. She likes to be involved.

The next night, I reminded her that we were going to be putting her hair up so it wouldn't get all tangled and she still seemed game. I told her we were going to do two braids, just like Doc McStuffins. She normally fights me on this hairstyle (she's quite partial to just pigtails), but was actually quite eager to give it a try. We braided her hair, had a final conversation about her sleeping with her hair like that, and off to bed she went.

She got up the next morning and we took her braids out. Huzzah! No tangles or knots! I was also pleasantly surprised to see wonderful little waves in her hair that seemed to stay all day. They did fall a little as the day wore on, but they were still there. I decided I would share it with whoever actually looked at this thing, or just to remind myself of how it looked.

Morning after braids (ignore the Christmas pajamas)

Soft waves

I Multitasked!

Headaches when contracting are the worst. You don't want to take anything for the headache out of fear that it will dull the pain from the contractions and then you'll have no idea if they are getting stronger or not because what if the Tylenol is actually quite effective?

I did some housework and creative stuff at the same time! Speaking of which, I need to go start that load of laundry...

The other day, in my attempts to walk this baby out, I dragged my husband to a bunch of antique stores in town. I managed to find two skeleton keys, a beautiful blue beaded necklace, an apron, and a jewelry box. I bought one of the keys for my daughter to play with and one I plan to make a necklace out of. More on that later.

Today's project was cleaning the apron and jewelry box.

I love this apron. The colors, the style, everything about it. $5. What you can't see is there are a few stains on the apron. No problem, I'll take care of those. I mixed up a solution of 1 tablespoon baking soda, 1 tablespoon blue Dawn dish soap, and 2 tablespoons peroxide. Then I just drizzled it on the stains, using a fork (I don't have a good brush to use) to rub it in really well, then let it set for an hour.

During that hour, I worked on the jewelry box. Yeah, it looks pretty gross. No way I was just going to throw my jewelry all willy nilly in there. I wiped it down and used a wet washcloth to wipe down the velvet liner. Luckily, the stains were more surface stains so I didn't need to do anything more than that to get rid of them.

After that, I uploaded all my pictures on my SD card and edited them in Photoshop. I eventually ended up here. Since it had been an hour, I threw the apron in the washing machine with a load of laundry and am washing them using warm/cold water. That should remove the stains easily. If I wanted to show you a before and after picture of how well this stain remover works, I would have done it a few weeks ago when I was washing the baby's stuff. The swing cover had a huge stain on it and it would have been perfect for a before/after shot. Alas, I didn't think of it then.

That's all I have for now. I'm currently folding laundry so I can have an empty basket for the load in the washer (I do have more than one basket, but I only allow two baskets to have clean clothes in them to prevent myself from feeling overwhelmed by laundry). Then I shall continue to somehow get this kid out of me. I've tried walking him out and spicy foods. Tonight, we try White Castle. Don't ask, it was suggested to me.

Starting Fresh and Sparkling Clean

That's right, I took a shower.

I'm joking, of course I shower on a regular basis.

Or maybe I don't.

I got tired of looking at my own ramblings. To be perfectly honest, I just wasn't feeling where this was going. My problem is I go through phases. Sometimes I'm in the mood to read and I read a lot of books, sometimes it's movies, and sometimes it's video games. I can't predict what kind of mood I will be in for what and when. That leads me to a lot of spaced out time in between posts if I continue down that path. I can't focus on just one thing because there's just too much going on inside my head to slow it down long enough to grab a concept and run with it.

I have a plan for my next post, but it requires pictures and work. I also have housework that needs to be done and contractions working to evict this kid out of me. It's a matter of prioritizing. Fortunately for you, my nesticles are still in full swing, so I will probably begin with my project before I do anything else. ::shrugs:: It sounds more fun and appealing than laundry.

People tend to get fed up when they realize that no one is really as interested in reading what they have to say and everyone is a blogger, so not all bloggers stick around for very long. Some get all snippity and have an attitude when they realize that truly, no one gives a ::insert profane word here::. Here's the thing. I don't actually care if I have "followers". I have a huge tangent I could go off on right now about people being sheep and describe all of the ways society tends to act like a flock blah blah blah, but I digress. I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for me. For my own reasons that I don't have to explain to anyone.

We've had snow stuck on our ground for weeks now and I swear it's never going to go away.

So that's my opener for my fresh new take on life.

This thing is about life right? What did I say in the beginning this was about?

Oh, whatever. I'm going to go dig my camera out of my hospital bag and take some pictures. Then probably edit some pictures before I get to the point of beginning my new post because I absolutely cannot upload pictures and NOT edit them.

A 4 year old trying to whisper in your ear is quite amusing.