My Sweet [Fur] Babies

Quite unfortunately, I have not had a ton a time to work with my new camera due to my overload of homework. Ben and I are signed up for a photography class on August 17th, which hopefully will mean I am bit less bombarded and can play! Here are just a few shots I took of the babes. I just want to smoosh my face with their faces!!!!!

He is like a perfect stuffed animal!

Look! I figured out manual focus!

My majestic prince. <3

Who needs human babies when you can have soft, fluffy, fur babies?! 

All Work and No Play

There are men and women out there who are parents (married or single), work full time, and go to school full time. How in the name of Sam Hill do they do they do that!? I work full time and have no other obligations besides my husband and dogs and struggle to fit everything in!

My life right now.

The past month has been an up hill race to get things done for my classes.  I procrastinated in my spring semester classes due to (1) laziness; and (2) a promotion at work that was a stressful process. Therefore, I spent two weeks doing everything in those classes to have them finished by July 15th. Now I am just working on my summer classes.  I signed up for 3 - two independent studies and one regular online course. With Hawaii and finishing up my spring classes, I have gotten essentially nothing done on my summer independent studies. Thankfully, you have two semesters to complete independent studies, but I have a minimum amount of work that has to be completed by August 1st. It ends up being about half of the coursework, and so it is yet another scramble to get everything completed. 

My new favorite response to being asked to do something fun is, "No, I have homework." I can tell that Ben has been disappointed by this response on more than one occasion when he has to go hang out with our friends solo. I look forward to when August 2nd arrives and I can be more social again. I tell him it is a good glimpse into what law school will be like. Although, with law school I will not be working full time and won't allow myself to fall behind in my coursework like this, so I hopefully will be able to say "yes" more often than never. 

Ben has been truly amazing the last month. I have neglected my normal duties in our joint partnership to keep our home livable and stocked with life's necessities and Ben has taken care of nearly everything! This has been such a blessing to me and has helped to alleviate some of my stress.

This stressful time has served as a chance to learn something about my husband. Ben encourages me to work on school work and there are times I refuse. It is frustrating for him because he feels that I am resisting his attempts to help me succeed. I was thinking about it last night and I have come to the conclusion that Ben and I do not learn in the same way. (Well, duh.). Ben is able to focus. Like intensely focus. On anything. It is really quite amazing to me that he is able to do that. I cannot do that. Unless I am reading Harry Potter. If it doesn't have to do with Harry Potter, I have the attention span of a gold fish. After a couple few hours of studying my brain is exhausted and needs a break. Once I take a break, I am ready to go again. SO - when I say, "No, Ben. I'm going to watch an episode of Justified and THEN study," it is really just allowing my brain time to refresh. 

Photography: New to the Scene

I have always loved photography. When I was younger, I dreamed of growing up and having my own studio (for a few minutes - then it was back to wanting to be a princess or a mother). Since Ben and I were married, I have made it a habit to bogart Ben's fancy pants camera and make him use the point and shoot or his phone when we are out and about. This is unfair for many reasons - number one [to me] being that Ben is much better at working the camera and would likely get a much better shot than the semi-blurred, crappy version I get. Sorry, dear.

Knowing that I am a total hog and don't like to share [not JUST referencing the camera here. . . ;)], I have been keeping my eye out for my own fancy camera. This past weekend I spotted a heck of a deal on one of those Facebook buy/sell/trade groups and after discussion with Ben, purchased my own camera, lenses, bag, etc. It is a Canon Rebel T5i, and it is beautiful! 

Crappy photo - but you get the picture. 

I didn't get a whole lot of time to play with and experience my camera because I have too much homework to do, but I did sign up for a beginner's class on July 20th and found some great tutorials here. I like their videos so much, I went ahead and bought the first intro to your camera downloads and am excited to watch those and try out my new gear!

This is a purchase for me to increase my enjoyment of the photos I take and to have a fun hobby. I have no future plans to have my own photography business, but I do want to learn and feel proud of the photos I take. Here is to learning new things!