blood.

Here's a sneak peak to some photos of Jonathan's injury several days ago. 

After learning the very basics of Lightroom, I've become a little bit too proud to use the very basic editing tools that come on iPhoto, so I'm not sure when the edited versions will be done.  Probably next week sometime, depending on how many hours I work.




And yes, I strongly believe in editing.  Before taking my traditional darkroom class, I thought truly good photos didn't need editing. Now I realize how much "editing" has been done traditionally and think it is part of photography.  To refuse to edit is like painting with only one brush.












I had fun taking these photos.  Injuries are painful to the victim, but fascinating to me as a photographer (a very amateur one, at that).  I very much enjoy observing and trying to capture the wide variety of reactions to blood... if only camera lens didn't fog up.

sex offenders

My discussion question in my family violence class this week asks if current sex registry laws and neighborhood notifications are effective in protecting children from sexual abuse.

While I haven't finished my response, my immediate response is "no."

Why?  Almost 90% of sexual abuse against children is committed by family members or acquaintances of the child.

I think the registry makes people paranoid for naught.  Most offenders aren't going to grab children off the streets.

What do you think?

the problem of the weight

My sisters are such cuties.  My brother is such a darling.  I can't help but want to squeeze him and smother him with hugs and kisses every time him every time I see him.

One of my amiable sisters and I have recently started keeping tabs on each other's diets/weight.  It's kind of fun!  I think long distance sibling relationships have some advantages, the main one being that neither of us can get annoyed at each other for anything the other one is doing, and thus the lines of communication are consistently open.

So far she's lost 6 pounds (high five!) and I've lost about 3.  We've both been eating more vegetables and have been watching our portion sizes

I would blame my weight gain on being newly married, but I know that's not true.  I actually lost a few pounds the first two months of marriage (after gaining on the honeymoon, haha).  However, I've gained about 10 pounds since October. . . not July.  I think I know what's to blame (okay, besides my lack of self control when it comes to food).

Since October, Jesse and I have been helping to do an internet and in-house broadcast of the basketball teams.  At every game, we get pizza.  Tons of pizza.  We usually have two and a half leftover pizzas, plus bread sticks.  At first it was delicious, but I got tired of it.  But you see, I have this bad habit of eating when I socialize, especially when everyone in the room is eating.  So even when I was tired of it, I just kept eating.  Plus, the smell of it is just amazing.

At the basketball games, none of us practice self control.  Instead, we dive happily into the pizza to satisfy our stomachs and stress.

After my pants started getting a little tighter, I started to wonder... but didn't link the pizza to anything.

This semester I am still helping out with the basketball games, only I did a little research in the pizza company's website.  Each piece of pizza had nearly 300 calories in it.

Last semester, I had been consuming anywhere from 2-4 slices of pizza per game, plus a bread stick, plus garlic bread squares, plus whatever other snacks were around.  Plus my other two meals a day.

I'm pretty sure that was the downfall, because I've noticed myself more easily maintaining/losing weight now that a) there are fewer basketball games and b) I've limited myself to two pieces of pizza per game.

I'm glad I'm still young and it's relatively easy for me to lose weight.  It's not as easy as it was when I was 15, however.  Does it get harder every year?

babies

This is the little girl I get to hang out with a couple times a week.  Isn't she a cutie?

I've become an aunt for the second time.  I look forward to meeting my new niece (the first on my side of the family!), Kenna Michelle.

snow, snow, everywhere

A few days ago we got dumped on with an inch of ice and 6 inches of snow.  It might snow again tomorrow.  And Sunday.

I actually don't mind the snow, but I just don't like it in the places I've lived.  Why?  Because there's absolutely nothing you can do with it.  I mean, beyond the snowball fights and the snow angels and snowmen.  That's only fun the first day.

I love the white powdery stuff.  It's beautiful.  I just wish I lived somewhere I could actually enjoy it - like Colorado where I could snow board, or northern Minnesota where I could snowmobile.  Just... not in this flat, boring land.  Here it's just an inconvenience because our states (and vehicles!) aren't equipped for snow storm (like, where are the snow plows?).

However, I definitely still like the winter better than the summer. :-)

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Here's something interesting I spotted on a friend's facebook:

• Go to Google Translate
• Type in "fun ghoul"
• Translate to Russian
• Translate the Russian back to English
• Laugh

How people find things like this?  I haven't a clue.