Photography, Teaching, and Writing Oh My!

Goodness sakes, I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I last updated.  I'm trying to get on a schedule with my blogs so that you can expect updates on certain days.  Right now things have been a bit crazy.  I have a bit of a long update, so bear with me and I hope you enjoy it! :)

I have my first photography "job" today!  I am going to be photographing my brother's wedding.  I'm so excited, but also nervous about getting the perfect pictures. :)   I have been looking up other wedding photos to get some ideas of what I want to do and how I want them to look, but I also have a lot of ideas of my own.  We'll see how it goes! 

Speaking of photography, here are some pictures that I have taken for the Let's Do 52 Challenge. 

3/52 Every Day Tools

Television remote :) I would love feedback! I used Picnic to edit with the Gritty effect.

6/52 Chaos

Let the chaos begin... Julius is plotting.

When your cat jumps in the trash can after shredded paper, you know it's going to be a chaotic night.

Now on to teaching things.  I have uploaded a couple more items to my TeachersPayTeachers account.  One file includes all 30 spelling tests for the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Treasures for CA.  It is all formatted to use with the Renaissance Responder and AccelTest system.  I am still working on transferring all of the vocabulary tests to that format as well.  I am also working on some Math tests using ExamView.  On a more creative side, I am working on my Creative Writing PowerPoint that will include several different writing prompts complete with graphic organizers. 

As far as my story goes I have added a bit more to it.  I'm kind of jumping around going on to whichever part I am inspired to write.  It's still a work in progress. Here's an excerpt from it though.

“No!” I yelled as I jumped out of my seat.  My heart raced in panic… embarrassment… fear…  Did I really just shout that out?  Am I really doing this now?  My chest tightened as I looked across the room.

Our eyes met.  Everything seemed to stop.  No one else seemed to exist.  There was just him and me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life is full of firsts.

First steps.

First tooth.

First loose tooth.

First crush.

First love.

First loss.

First broken heart.

First act of craziness from said broken heart.

This is a story about my firsts.  I’ll save you from the beginning firsts and we will begin with my first love.

First Love… 

I’m not talking about high school crush who you stare at across the grounds hoping he pays attention to you, and then suddenly your attention shifts to another guy.  I am talking about true love, where you think about the person day and night.  You cannot even begin to picture your life without this person.  You speak to them every day and feel giddy as if you were back in high school.  The butterflies in your stomach start to flutter when you see him.  Your skin tingles when you hold hands and there is no way of explaining how wonderful he makes you feel to be around.

This is about my first love.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment! :)

<3

Sarah

End of Week 1/52

Evening guys!

Well it's another late night over here, for no particular reason.  This is not necessarily a good thing considering that I have to be up early for work tomorrow.  It will be a slam back to reality when the alarm goes off at 5:00 am.

Anyways...

I am participating in the Paint The Moon 52 Week Photo Challenge.  It's a really cool challenge.  What happens is each week you are given a choice of two themes.  The themes are open to your interpretation.  This past week the theme was All Natural or Sharing.  I really had not decided on which theme I was going to participate with.  I figured that I'll know it when I get the right shot.

All week long I took pictures of my animals naturally and sharing.  Then my niece came over Friday night for a slumber party.  We were raking leaves in the front yard and she was so excited to jump in them!  She lives in an apartment that has gardeners so she has not had the opportunity to play in leaves like this.  We raked them all up in to a huge pile and she went nuts.  Then it hit me.  This was perfect.  She was being a natural kid!  I ran inside to retrieve my camera.

I just kept snapping pictures, figuring I would get at least one good shot.  I ended up taking over 100 pictures, but they turned out so cute.  Here is the one I finally decided to submit:

What do you guys think?  I used Picnik.com to edit the original photo.  I really did not do much to it.  I increased the saturation to make the colors pop a bit, then I used the Cinemascope effect... mainly because I'm in love with that effect LOL

My goal is to post twice a week to this blog.  I'm not quite certain which days yet, but I'm thinking something along the lines of Saturday night and maybe Wednesday night... Like I said I'm still debating on it.

On a different note I was totally inspired to begin a new story!  Here is the opening:

                “No!” I yelled as I jumped out of my seat.  My heart raced in panic… embarrassment… fear…  Did I really just shout that out?  Am I really doing this now?  My chest tightened as I looked across the room.

Our eyes met.  Everything seemed to stop.  No one else seemed to exist.  There was just him and me.

So... what do you think?! :)  Well this is it for me tonight.  It is now 11:20 and I really should be getting to bed.  I'm actually a bit excited to go back to work tomorrow. I get to share with my kids about their 2 Donors Choose projects that got funded.  They're going to be so excited!  If you can, my class would be very grateful, if you would take a look at our Donors Choose page. The link is on the right hand side of this page.  If you are not able to donate you can still help just by spreading the word.  Thank you so much!

Good night guys! I hope you guys have a WONDERFUL Monday!

<3
Sarah