#11 Photography : Pregnancy Announcement

In August, I had the privilege of being the photographer for my older brother and his wife for their pregnancy announcement photos!  

I love those smiles!

Being a bit of a Pinterest junkie, I had a lot of fun sharing and discussing ideas of poses and shots. There's such a fun, never-ending supply of portrait ideas on there. They already had most of their ideas set though, and I hope I was able to help them capture what they wanted!

I, personally, have a bit of a soft spot for baby shoes, and may have gone a bit overboard in getting baby shoe photos 8-o 

This was my first attempt to do something with photography for a project other than just personal enjoyment, and I had a blast! I would love to do more photography like this, especially if I had better editing software than the automatically loaded Microsoft photo program (if y'all have a free/inexpensive editing program that you love using on your computer, let me know in the comments! I'd love to get some ideas!).

Story time!

I am overjoyed for these two! They've been working towards this for a while, and it's so beautiful to see them achieving this dream of theirs. I can't wait to be an aunt and... have a legitimate excuse to buy *all* of the baby shoes ;-) 

"Behind the scenes," before we went inside (there's a baby!! yay!) 

KJets

#13 Garden

August Update: Although waaaaaaaay smaller than I was originally intending, I have created a little herb and veggie garden for myself on the back deck. I have successfully *not killed* at least half of the plants. So, I consider this a win for this year -_^

The herb garden started off as mint, basil, and sage, but when the sage died I tried lavender (which then, also perished). I now have mint (top) and thyme (bottom). I'm learning that, for now, I need to keep trying until I find a plant I can really jive with. Like, some plants take way too much care that I can't give them, and others are resilient enough to survive my negligence (I'm getting better! I've started getting into more of a routine for watering and checking on them. Everything takes practice, right? -_^). The basil has been revived more than a few times. I keep forgetting to water it on these sunny, summer days. I am pretty impressed with the plants that have survived.

My veggies have been peas and tomatoes. My pea plant got root rot, but did not officially bite the dust until after it produced its first pea pod. So, I count that as a partial success with a learnable moment: make sure that you put rocks at the bottom of the pot before putting in potting soil; the drainage is apparently absolutely necessary for plant health. My tomato plants were grown from organic seeds, and have been really flourishing, with very little assistance from me. Somehow it keeps getting caterpillars though... not sure how that happens on a screened-in porch. I have had several cherry tomatoes at this point, and have a couple more maturing now. Not necessarily a bountiful harvest, but it's been more than I've ever been able to cultivate in the past. Huzzah for progress!

KJets

#14 Compost: Boss 1 Defeated!

Quests for Skills

Boss 1 of the Compost Quest has been defeated, huzzah!

Mom and I put together a compost bin which I ordered off of Amazon (through AmazonSmile, so that my purchase benefits my January charity, Corral Riding Academy). We got a Yimby Tumbler Composter, and so far, I would recommend it.  However....

Sliding door with two, separated compartments for your composting needs.

...the Amazon reviewers were correct: this was a bit of a beast to put together. I'm sorry now that I didn't get pictures of the struggle, but it was real. Part of the problem was that the diagrams and font sizes were so small, but mostly it was because the instruction booklet just straight-up didn't have explanations for the diagrams. Definitely a two-person endeavor.

Isn't it a beauty? -_^

In the end though, it really was fine. It was a good team-building activity for mom and me, and now we have a working, rotating compost bin sitting outside our shed. Let the decomposition begin!

KJets