Today's walk...puddles

We are having a super-warm day here today! It was 48 degrees when we went out this morning before school. It was wet from the rain and the girls held hands the whole way. I had to insist the girls didn't take a huge leap right into the biggest puddle, but Natalie was ready for school and so we couldn't just throw caution to the wind. I think we could go farther and do more, but I also think the key to the success is for me to know how quick and easy 20 minutes really is. And that in this case less is more. It leaves us wanting more...looking forward to tomorrow's walk, and itching to get out again.

Did you take a walk with your kids today?

#seethegood

So have you seen them? Everyone's Facebook posts promising one thing a day to be grateful for in November? It is a cute idea, and I even created a crafty approach to giving thanks this month for my KC Parent blog yesterday (photo above). It is a quick and fun way your children can participate in learning about gratitude, too. And it even works all year long.

But, my new favorite way to show gratitude is through photography. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. I am planning to take a photo a day to show what I am grateful for. I hope it'll inspire me to be more focused on seeing -- I mean really seeing -- all of the beauty and the love around me. While at the same time, I can expirement more with my camera, and feel like I have things to shoot that aren't my children. I love taking photos of the girls, of course, but my interest in photography goes beyond that. And without a specific project in mind it is sometimes hard to grab the camera and just go!

Will you join me? I am creating the hash tag #seethegood for Twitter, and would love for you to tweet your photos (or links to where your photos are published), and add #seethegood so that we can all have the opportunity to see what we're grateful for, not only at Thanksgiving time, but always! I can be found on Twitter @laurenau. Won't you follow me? I'd love for you (and others!) so see all of the good you have to offer the world!

Ethan the Great!

I'm sort of a minimalist when it comes to photo editing. It is sort of like hairspray -- a teeny tiny amount goes a long way. But, tonight I started playing in photoshop, and well, I am guessing I crossed the line from a spritz to a sticky mess. So, here it is. What do you think?

Annabelle Molly

So my first shoot from this morning highlighted two things: 1. Our new dog is super cute. 2. I have a lot to learn. I need to find a community of photographers (or create one!) to really get to the bottom of this. I do think I might sleep with my new camera under my pillow tonight. Again, two reasons: 1. I love it. 2. I think I will learn everything about it by osmosis while I slumber. That's how it works, right?

The "term dark ages" means way way back when there were darkrooms.

It's no big secret, I am going to be 40 this year. 4. OH! Yep, it is true. Well, and not even really this "year." It is actually next month. And I am not a grumpy birthday girl. I'm really not. And this year as everyone else (mainly my parents, brother and younger husband) were all freaking out that I was going to be 40 I continued to insist it is really not a big deal. Puh-lease, it is just a number. Right? Well, as the days get a bit closer, I've been getting a bit more antsy. Kinda irritable. A little mid-life crisis-ish, one might say?

Well, my parents really wanted to get me a super-nice gift this year, and even though I kept thinking about how much I would LOVE and really NEED a DSLR to be a decent art director, parent and let's face it, creative human being, I couldn't stand the idea of how much those cameras cost. Think of everything you could have instead? And yet, I couldn't go one more day, right!?

Being that I am turning 40 it is obvious I grew up in the dark ages. And that means back when there were darkrooms. And yes, I spent quite a bit of time inside of one or two of those. I can still remember the sunny days lost spent inhaling chemicals in the darkness, with entire rolls of film underdeveloped and streaky, drippy photo paper highlighting every flaw in every photo shot. I know, I am supposed to say that's when I fell in love with photography, but it isn't. I never had the patience for the darkroom.

It was when I was out shooting that I loved photography. My dad would chauffer me from one Kansas City landmark to the next, sneaking down to the banks of the Missouri River, capturing one barge after another. Understanding composition, lighting, and mastering the techinicalities of my old Minolta...film and all.

So, it is fortunate for me that the new digital cameras have taken the dark room out of photography, and here I am, as of today, back in business! I am armed with my new camera, and I am ready to go! I can't wait to start creating, to get that piece of me back again. I hope to share my photos and what I hope I'll learn as I go.

I've been borrowing a very kind friend's DSLR for the past several weeks, and had a chance to get my feet wet. I already shared a couple of my Gracie photos here, but I will post them again: