mish mash

I spent two hours in the dentist chair on Thursday. The only redeeming thing was that I got to watch Pride and Prejudice. I had them start a bit into it so I could see all the good stuff at the end. I watched the BBC version of Sense and Sensibility on TV on Friday night. I had never seen that version but totally loved it. I am on a real Jane Austen kick lately. In the last month or so I have also watched Becoming Jane, the whole BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, two versions of Persuasion, and the Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility. I think it is time to bust out the books again too.

I got a new camera! I couldn't justify spending $1800 on the Nikon d300. So I saved myself a thousand dollars and bought a used d200 instead. I still have to figure it all out. I've taken some great pictures with it but have also had times of little success. A friend of mine asked me to take pictures of her girls at a performance they were in. Not one picture turned out from my d200. The ones from my other camera were much better though. Event photography is definitely not my love. I also took pictures of my friends boys on Saturday. I did half with my d200 and half with my d50. I was hoping I would see just a huge difference in the pictures but frankly I am still liking the d50 pictures more. I really hope it is because I just haven't really learned how to use the d200 yet. I really really hope so.

Dave got a new toy too. A new 46" TV. He has been looking for months and finally found one that met all his criteria. However, once he got it home he found that it is not perfect and there are a couple of things that are bothering him. Consequently he is back to looking. Ugh. My mom called Dave a shopping stalker. He focuses in on one thing he wants to buy and then looks and looks and looks for months. He is usually let down when he actually does buy something because that means the hunt is over. I'm telling him to just keep the TV already and move on but he isn't convinced.

I'm taking three different on-line classes right now. I'm working really hard to stay caught up but not totally succeeding. The first is Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I took the class last year and they allow alumni to retake it for free. I am mostly just following a long and doing assignments when I can. I am still completely in love with her philosophy of scrapbooking and photo organization. I really hope I manage to completely implement it sometime soon. She is brilliant really. The second class is also a Big Picture class called Art That Happens to Be Your Life. It is a photography class taught by Allison Tyler Jones. And finally, I am also in the Digi in Deep class with Jessica Sprague that I have talked about before. All the classes are great. It probably wasn't such a great idea to do them all at once. At least, I can save the material and work on it later if need be.

Well that is a lot of words without pictures so here is one of Sawyer just for fun. Say cheese!