Camera phone

We had a beautiful week-end. We pretty much skipped spring and went straight to summer, with temperatures in the mid 20s celsius and a beautiful sun!

So we've been taking rides and walks and spending a little time on the deck.

Went we built our house, I made sure there would be lots of windows in the open-concept main floor, adding a high window in the south wall and choosing a windowed front door. All that to say that the lighting was great for my photo of last week's P52!

The prompt for last week was "camera". I used to have a cute point and shoot that was small enough to carry around easily and did everything I wanted. Then I lost it... and my awesome hubby got me a new one (summer 2012) which did the same things and more.

Then, still awesome hubby got me a iPhone. I had been using a cheap flip phone, and as I didn't work, there had been no strong reason for me to have a smart phone. But everyone else had one and I guess he could tell I's like one too. It has been amazing for me.

Of course, I waste a lot of time playing silly games. But the Calendar app has changed  my life, I use the Notes app everyday for my lists of things to do, hubby and I text instead of calling (which is easier and more efficient for him), I use the Clock app for potty training our son, I use the Music app and the Podcasts app to listen to audio books and podcasts while I clean and cook, and the reason that led me to tell you all this, I use the Camera app to take photos of our everyday!

And that camera is so good, it takes better photos than my point and shoot did. For someone like me who knows nothing of photography, it is absolutely perfect:

- I always have it with me,

- I can transfer, email, facebook, ... my photos,

- it is very fast and therefore I can take many shots of the same thing hoping one will be good (with an autistic hyperactive son, you don't know how precious that is!!),

- the photos are truly good quality and I end having to retouch them less for scrapping,

- I was able to personalize it with a Gelaskins hard case (HP inspired scrap... I'm a nerd).

For all these reasons, since I got it in March 2013, I haven't used anything else and it's funny that was last week's prompt because I just gave my old camera to my mother-in-law!

So here's me with my "camera", probably the way I look to my son when I take photos of him:

Hope you like it!

This week's prompt is sunshine, so let's hope the clouds go away...

Deux

This week started with a holiday. Monday was Victoria Day, which we call May Run, in Northern Ontario. Both Dave and Cedric were off. We took our time, relaxed, took a ride. It was a good way to start the week.

I then worked two days in a row. Tuesday, I spent the day with two grade 8 classes, which went pretty well. Wednesday, I was at the high school and my last class was depressing. The lack of motivation and work done was just sad and they really pushed their limits. It's the curse of the supply teacher! I was grateful for a supper with my girl friends for which I dressed up (we went to a pretty classy restaurant) and which allowed for relaxing and venting (and some caramel cheesecake). The rest of the week has been uneventful :D

Now, from one fancy supper to another, last week was our anniversary! Ten years!!

My in-laws watched our little man and we went out to another nice restaurant where we had venison, and yummy desserts. And the prompt for P52 last week was "two", so I figured a little photo of the two of us on our anniversary was perfect.

The lighting was bad, though, so the photo that the waitress took makes us look very dark. So once again, the best shot is an end-of-arm couple's selfie. And thank goodness for hubby's long arms :D

But then, I saw these "two"...

... and that's an even better "two". My two guys sharing a moment of love :D Cedric is in a very strong Dad loving phase and I don't mind one bit. I still get lots of love and I really enjoyed seeing my little one so happy to see is Daddy get home and giving him hugs and kisses.

Now, while I have your attention, let me show you a couple of digiscrap layouts I made this week!

My new desktop, with Everyday May by Jen Yurko:

This one is a very cute collaboration between Jen Yurko and Triple J Designs, called Bad Hair Dayz, which allowed me to journal the nightmare that is haircuts... Cedric hates them!

The experience is horrible, but the layout turned out pretty cute :D

Finally, I scrapped another photo from our xmas Florida vacation. Cedric and I in front of the iconic Hollywood Studios. I used a template by Jen Yurko and A Little Baby Boy by Mel Hains Designs, a gorgeous baby kit that can be used for much more ;)

Thanks for looking and have a great week-end, everyone. The sun and warmer weather are finally here, so hopefully, we'll enjoy ours too!

Two weeks of photos and scraps

*Something strange happened with this post... I thought it was posted, but it seems it remained a draft... so it was written last week, but posted today*

I was going to post last week's photo on Sunday, but I had the pleasure of going to a baby shower in the afernoon, and as it was Mother's Day, I spent the rest of the day enjoying my little man's presence.

Therefore I once again have two weeks of P52 to show!

The first one was "messy". I have a lot of messy places in my house. Every closet is messy, both spare bedrooms are messy, the garage is messy, ... But it was super depressing to imagine taking a photo of those messes and showing them to the world. So I opted for a totally different photo.

On Thursday morning of that week, we had a meeting with the therapists in charge of our son's specialized program and what she said made us rethink some things (I won't go into detail). I came out of there questioning things, feeling emotional, constantly thinking and rethinking our next step.

So I decided that what was "messy" was my brain, overwhelmed and too full, and I capture it like so:

Hope you like it :D

The following week's prompt was "sign". On Saturday, Cédric went for the first time to a 5 hour respite program out of the home, called Extend-A-Family. I was nervous but excited and I thought I would take a photo of the program's logo as our sign:

We were in a hurry, so it's a horrible looking picture, taken through the car window, badly centered, ... but I will fix it in The Gimp :D

And while you're here, why don't I show you some of my latest scraps!

I'm still working on my photos from our xmas Florida vacation. The first two are in Downtown Disney, having supper on two different nights at the Rainforest Cafe and the T-Rex.

(Both made with the kit Boys Will Be Boys by Jen Yurko)

The next one is at a Brazilian restaurant in Orlando, celebrating my birthday.

(Made with Bloom Where You're Planted by Jen Yurko and Tamy Miller Designs)

This next one is just a random photo of my little dude sleeping. He's sooooo adorable:

(Made with Good Morning 2 U by Artgal Style)

Thanks for looking :D

Whirlwind of a week

Wow, last week went fast! It was super busy and it felt like I had no computer time.

Hubby was out of town all of Monday and Tuesday, so I had to plan everything well and conserve 

energy for when my little dude is home.

Wednesday morning I worked, until noon, then cleaned a little because someone was coming over, and in the evening we went to the library to read to the therapy dogs and then to the grocery store for a few things.

Thursday started with a one hour and a half long meeting about Cédric's program, how things are going and where we need and want to go with it. These are time consuming, but also overwhelming as they trigger all sorts of thoughts and feelings, and then I had to go clean the house quickly before teaching 7th grade French immersion all afternoon. And when I got home, it seems like I didn't stop until midnight, cleaning, packing, preparing, and doing some scrapping that had to be done before our week-end escapade.

On Frriday, we flew to Toronto. The plane left late, so I had to go to the embassy to renew my passport without eating lunch, then we met up with friends until supper, which was with a business partner of hubby's followed by the highlight of the day: the Lion King musical. I absolutely loved it! The voices were amazing and the songs were great (most from the movie and some added). But the greatest part was definitely the costumes and decor. It was just beautiful. I did really well and respected the no-photo rule. Plus I had promised myself I would enjoy it in real-time rather than try to take a million photos to remember it and therefore not be really present. It would have been impossible anyways as nearly each second is a piece of art!

And on Saturday, we had a brain and body explosion with about 10 hours of Gracie Jiu Jitsu within a 12 hour period. It was great to meet Rener Gracie and his protégé Brian Ortega and to learn from them.

Our flight was leaving at 8am on Sunday so after a short night, we got back home and tried to enjoy the nice-ish weather and stay awake.

With all that, I didn't post my P52 photo for last week... So here it is now:

The prompt was "a favourite place".

It's actually two photos. Timmins is not really pretty, and most of the year, being outdoors is not an option for us as we don't like the cold. So one of my favourite place is not due to its beauty, at all, but to what it represents: date-night with hubby! We try to go at least every other week, and most of the time we end up at out local Montana's steakhouse, which is fast and always really good, followed by a movie. We both love watching movies and it's a great way to relax and not think og anything else.

Our movie theatre really does not look good, so I chose a photo of us in front of the screen: more representative of what I like about it:

So there you have it! Last week's prompt was "messy" which was sadly way too easy with way too many options... I'll be back with it later!