AngelBQ

I just recently posted the much postponed final food fest adventure in the post below this. So if you are interested, scroll down.

Anyway, I have a lot to share today and I might not finish today. Just preparing the images and uploading them took a day (not literally whole day though). By the way, do you like the new look? Just had to do a quick banner since the default banner reminded me of the QOTC entry. I put the figure I made in the LO and I change the title of the blog to “I am a Sponge” since most of my entries in the blog is about learning and also absorbing life.

I tweaked the template to conform with my preferences. The only problem is getting the link titles to conform to the same class as the rest of the sidebar and also spacing in between each link category. I also wished the hierarchy of the categories with sub cat. and main cat. to be visible.

I wanted to change the theme, because I was getting a little bit tired of the other and I also wanted to be able to post larger images. I don’t want to use so much time to learn how to tweak the former template to expand the layout design.

:::Annoying day (last friday):::

Friday was a relatively bad and annoying day for me. Coming to class was annoying and some stuff with being in class that day. I won’t go into details. When class was finished, I called hubby and I almost got ran over by car. The honk scared the living daylights of me. A couple was shaking their heads, and I snapped at them. Alright, I get the point. I was wreckless. It was raining. The umbrella stood in the way and the celly distracted me. My fault. I am not a child. I do absorb things. I do learn from my mistake and I won’t cross any road again with a cellphone in my hand in a thousand years. Would they be shaking their heads if I was actually ran over. Would they say I deserved it because i was wreckless.

I was annoyed by the rain that had to come now that the weekend is here and on this point of time where i was annoyed. I was annoyed that a lady who worked in the cosmetics store made me do a dumb purchase. She made me think that 50 ml is the biggest aqua di gio eau de cologne there is. I bought this as surprise to hubby. He has been perfume less in a month or more and I am missing his scent.

I was annoyed at the twitching I felt from my midpart to the spine that was almost uncontrollable. Twitchy and itchy. yeikst.

I was annoyed that in the other cosmetic place that had MAC, didn’t have prices on their products when I was drooling at their eyeshadows and eyeliners and accessories (brushes and sponges). And then I asked the saleslady if they had at least a price list I could see, and she said none. And why didn’t she as a saleslady follow up with an assisting question that if she could help me find the price for the product I liked. Snobbish made up Barbie girl.

I was annoyed that hubby was so sleepy from his night shift that when I wanted to surprise him by spraying myself with his perfume, he didn’t recognize it. And I had to go around with male scent for no use.

Before coming home though, I had two pleasant salespersons. One was the very accommodating saleslady from another branch of the store I bought perfume from, that allowed me to exchange the 50 ml to the 100 ml and even filled me in on the exclusive size of 200 ml that is ordered once in a while. We usually buy this because it cost almost as much as the 100 ml.

And then I went to the camera store and someone approached me and asked if I needed help. I was supposed to say no since I wasn’t planning to buy anything as of this moment, but he was so nice. I mentioned that I wanted to eventually upgrade to Nikon D200 in a while, and they didn’t have it in, but he discussed some of the features and that Nikon D80 is almost the same and that D200 could be an overkill for a non pro. I found out that D200 had no preset modes like the night portrait, macro and sports among others. Nikon D80 has better battery time than D200. Both models has a front knob for the aperture just like the back knob for shutter speed. He also made a point that I didn’t give so much thought in. The weight of carrying around the D200. He also let me try the D80 since I was curious in the depth of field preview. It had a good grip and nice weight. I also got to see the 11 point focus as opposed to 4 points focus of the D50. My D50 starts at 200 ISO, while the D40x and models above, starts with ISO 100. Not fair! It was fun to chat about cameras now that my passion for photography is growing.

:::QOTC result::

But I am happy now. One thing that is cause to be happy about lately is being given the title runner up in the QOTC contest. I am therefore the princess, and my friend, Ellen, is the queen and Laura Kaye got the third. I love both these girls and I am so happy to be on top with them.

Thank you again to everyone for believing in me. I am so happy for this title.

I used the prize money to RAK’s and some photography stuff.

And I just got the GC for honorable mention awards at DST from Joedee at elementalscraps and got me the action that helps create pages for Shutterfly. It’s created by Wendyzine. I am using it for my other prize which is a Shutterfly 12×12 book. The only thing I have to pay for is shipping fees and then I think I will add 30 pages to the default 20.

I organized and renamed my psd files for my LO’s and decided the first book will contain the me pages, the hubby pages and the me and hubby pages. My second book will contain family, friends and relatives LO’s. After that I might start making theme albums and start making layout based on album theme instead of making albums based on layout.

They had a promo that I missed. 30% off on second book, but Shutterfly usually has promos in regular interval and so I think before I finish preparing the LO’s and uploading them to the album via their webpage, there will come another great deal and so maybe I can make a second album in one shipment.

The only thing with Shutterfly that confuses me is the area between the trim and live area. It is supposed to be an allowance for folds, but the folds is either to the left or right and I think Shutterfly should put this in consideration in their templates and specifications.

:::Layout share and other digiscrap stuff:::

I don’t know if I got a bit drained from the contest, but scrapping comes really hard for me nowadays. I am sure it has also something to do with me falling behind in organizing my stuff, me having so many things to catch up on (study, household, etc.) and me being so interested in photography. My attention is so diverted, but yet in the last days, I have been working for a method behind the madness and it’s going fine. Slow, but still effective and efficient most of the times.

I saturated the photo a bit too much on purpose to suit the stuff I used.

Credits:
Ida: blue paper, yellow paper formed as heart (erased with soft brush), doodle alpha and tag from her Mediterranean summer kit
Mossa: Black paper from her black and white paper pack
Joana Carvalho: doodle brush beneath the “o” in love and journal strips from her new Little fish boy kit
Danielle C.T: Tiny torn alpha
Catrine: Swirly doodle from Doodle me Crazy
Syrin: star from brave girl and doodle heart from I heart U
Other: Black stitch on the torn alpha from Jackie Eckles’ quirky stitch pack, swirly painted frame from Kim Christensen, glitter crystal shapes from Dani Mogstad, stitch around paper from Michelle Coleman, star brad (blue) from Amanda Rockwell and
metal star from Amber Clegg
Font: Cathie’s hand and Bodoni MT
Action: Itty bitty

I have to give a shout out to the generous Darcy and Rachel Young for RAKING me with their goodies, and both thanks to Kaboodle. I got two wonderful collections of fonts from Darcy and “Good things to come” papers from Rachel. Thank you!

I also have to give a heads up to Erin aka chickypow who left such a nice comment for me during the QOTC result and you have to check her freebie kit in her new blogsite. It’s called baba kit and is found on this post.

In other digi news, Mo jackson has her stuff for sale to the general public now. Check it out.

In CT news you must check the wonderful summery foliage by Birgit.

:::Photo sharing:::

I am sharing some images I took when sis in law asked my help to document their seminar on interpretation. They are running a translation firm. I will not post the pics with people in it as I don’t want to do so without permission. It was a very vintage building with nice details.

and here is a before and after

and then some images from the last football match I went to

And some sunny days ago, I got these images from the camera.

Grained in photoshop. Looks like the character Santa Claus:

Can you see me?

My friend took this of me. This was before I bought the circular polarization filter. If I had it then, you might see the nice display behind the reflection.

and another picture from recent that I like. I kinda hear the phrase “other half/better half” in how this turned out with the focusing and composition.

:::Photography progress and sharing tips:::

I am learning a lot in photography. The time that I am suffering from scrap mojo, I have been learning about photography for myself through the web and this new book I bought. I haven’t managed to come so far in that book with cleaning, blogging and studies sharing my time.

Since my post is long, I will just put some pointers of my learning progress. I am using my own words here, so if any terms are incorrect, I am sorry.

• First step in learning photography is to know your equipment. I am using my magazine like manual I bought in a mag store. Much better than reading the dull grayscale manual that comes in the box. I have learned to expand my menus to detailed menus. I have learned to silence the focusing assist beep. I have learned locking aperture. I have learned that if you focus with let’s say a flower with the middle focus point and then reframe and move the camera so that the flower is on the side, the focus will still be the flower even if it’s not in the middle anymore. How light metering modes work (matrix, spot and center weighted in Nikon) and how presetting can work against the pictures. Too much saturation in vivid mode can sacrifice details. keep it subtle in the camera and do the adjustment later in the editing software. I learned how to set the camera to continuous numbering. I had problems with this before as I would have more images that had same filename and I couldn’t have them in same folder until I renamed manually.
• One thing you should know in the task of improving your exposures and the digital darkroom part/post processing is understanding that in a picture you will have different tones. Highlights/the whites, midtones and shadows/the blacks. The histogram (they just posted this. nice timing) helps in achieving a nice picture based on your understanding of the metering system and your exposure settings.
• These tones are considered in the adjustments; levels, curves and burn/dodge among other things. This assists in selective area/pixels adjustment. In the same manner, you can use RGB (red, green, blue) or CMYK (Cyan, yellow magenta and black) for selective adjustment. Using drop down menu and the drop tool, you can also use hue and saturation in selective areas.
• I am understanding levels and loving it. Next stop is curves which is more precise, but maybe a little bit harder to understand.
• I learned converting to black and white using channel mixer and the total of the RGB should be 100%. In CS3 it adds it up for you.
• Because of an image that might be exposed good in some spots and not so good in other spot (related to the light metering), you might have to do a more meticulous post processing (dodge and burn can help) and do selective area editing. So it’s best to have good shots straight from the camera
• In line with this, I discovered why the histogram chart and the highlights preview is useful when you’re previewing images you have taken. It helps you evaluate your light measurement and exposure to consider for next image. Ideally the histogram should stretch from extreme left to extreme right.
• In the digital dark room you should have a workflow and I need that now since i am in an organizing mode. I made 4 sets in my actions. Basics processing, basics color and effects actions, basics b&w and basics old/antique style. Then I duplicated my most used actions and dragged them to the appropriate set. My processing basics include vignetting, web sharpening, frame, dodge and burn, defog and much more. Having a lot of actions makes me lose sight of some of the awesome stuff and they wind up neglected and unused.
• My workflow is usually rotate if needed, crop if needed, defog (always!), layer adjustment, then some other variable effects, then flatten, sharpen and resize for web (I tweaked this actions from itty bitty to conform to my web size and added an export to correct folder in the end). Then watermark through droplets and then posting to Flickr.
• I also created my own actions. Create adjustment layer mask and a flatten image so I don’t forget that before framing, otherwise it will frame a layer mask instead. That will look weird.
• The benefits using snapshots in history palette; history brush (which is one of my my musts in post processing), for comparisons or point to return to.

I want to demonstrate how these tones and histogram is working. This is a photo I took that was very underexposed. The histogram palette shows in the right side, that represents the whites, that not a lot of its pixels contain whites. It is even flatlined in a long area on the right side. So I opened an adjusment layer of levels to adjust (In lightroom, you can just drag the histogram to stretch it to cover areas left to right).

While you change a picture, the histogram palette shows changes. In this example i have just moved the middle slider which represents the midtones. It looks very unnatural, although lighter. We should have whites for contrast.

In this image, the histogram in the histogram palettes shows a better distributed histogram chart that stretch all the way to the right. This is achieved through sliding the right slider till it meets a point in the chart that shows pixels. That area in the layer from the black slider to the white will be your new area. This stretches out the histogram and that’s why it looks scattered like that.

See the images processed here. Note: In levels, what I usually do is stretch the sliders with a level adjustment layer mask to be more distributed first, then I will move the middle slider (usually to the left; make lighter) and then I would further tweak the left and right sliders for added contrast, constantly watching that I don’t get burned out spots or too dark shadows that hide details (unless I want that on purpose). Another thing worth noting is that adjustments are better as layer masks. That way:

a.) you don’t need to apply it to the whole photo, same as b (if you know how to do selective colorization in non destructive way, it uses the same principle. It’s forgiving and you may fine tune the areas better and when you want regardless of history state.)

b.) you can put the mask using the paint brush on areas you don’t want the adjustment to be applied to or remove the mask in the place you want visible. White is visible area, black is the mask or not visible area. You would use the opposite colored brush depending on what you want and whteher you started with a black or white layer mask.

c.) you don’t do anything on the photo itself. Like in digiscrapping, when you want to use a brush, you usually make a separate layer for the brush stroke, otherwise it will be hard to reverse that later if you painted directly on the digipaper. This is a non destructive method, in other words.

d.) you can still adjust the adjustment later since creating layer mask contains the adjustment setting and the mask.

e.) you can minimize the effect by reducing opacity of the layer mask or you can just delete that layer if you decide not to have it after all.

Original underexposed:

Tweaked with defog and levels.

Further enhanced with noiseware and selective saturation.

Another post processing I made below using also dodge and burn concept among other things:

I posted this image before, half body with original background and black and white. I tried with a black background. I made a mistake and wasn’t able to go back, so instead of filling the white with black, I had to do extraction. I used the magnetic lasso. Was a bit lazy to do it meticulously.

Before

After

This is my fave post processing, although there are some faulty stuff. I love how I was able to remove that thing in his lips with clone tool and then burn to make it more natural. I also used directional light filter for added drama in light. I shot this in my living room quickly since he just wanted to see the output of the camera. He was awkward standing model for me, but I love how his expression came out.

In our accounting course, we are in the process of learning the accounting software visma. Our teacher encourages us to use shortcuts and avoid the mouse. So far I only use ctrl+s and esc (save and exit). In using CS2, I would save time on learning shortcuts. So far, I customized the resize brush to a practical key in the keyboard to the left area opposite of my rigfht hand that use the mouse to brush with. It’s hard to find a keyboard shortcut to replace since most keys are already taken by the program. I hope I someday will be efficient through shortcuts. Not just in CS2, but in most softwares.

I am so happy to be able to take photo with available light and without flash. This was my great frustration in p&s. I always wind up with blurry or too red images just to avoid that flash. Those days are over and I am glad for that.

By the way, when I saw this competition in bludomain’s (a popular web hosting firm that is used my a lot of photographers) blog, I just wished I could join. I think it’s meant for those who have sites with them. They are giving away a shootsac and totally rad action in one of the contest. I have the actions now, but I would still love a shootsac. There is even a flickr group on shootsac that shows off and gives honest reviews on the beauties.

I have to refer you to a wonderful wedding photographer who specialize in photo journalistic style. Huy Nguyen of f8studio.com.

:::Photography buys and more tips:::

I splurged a bit on camera stuff with a small return from tax and besides we got vacation money and what’s left from QOTC cash prize.

I bought a circular polarization in fotovideo.no that has most choice of products in photography and video here in Norway, but Japan photo also has a great selection and a bit cheaper. I was tired of blown out skies and was wondering how other people can keep the details of the skies in their pictures.

Anyway, in their webpage i saw they had a Nikon Circular polarization filter and it turns out they don’t so I got a cheaper one, but i still like the output and I saved some moolah. Almost half.

When you buy a filter, you must know the diameter of your lens and buy a filter for that diameter. The tip I read from photographers is to buy a big size filter and then buy a step up ring you attach to the lens that attaches the filter on the opposite side.

That way you can use a 62 mm filter on a 52 mm lens. I didn’t know about this before I bought and since there is no step down ring and 52 mm is one of the smaller diameter in a lens, I won’t be able to use it if I decide to buy larger diameter lens like the 85 mm f 1.8. So far all my lenses are 52 mm.

Basically, this filter is a tinted glass with frame attached to the lens. The circular version which I bought of this filter can be turned as the tint is gradiating throughout the glass area. I read that to use this, the subject must be in a certain angle in relation to your camera and the tint should also be ideally turned to maximize the effect. This filter helps eliminate reflection in windows and waters (non-metallic surfaces), maintains the details and colors of the sky and also boost the colors.

Since it is tinted, the camera might think it’s darker and it will affect the light metering and subsequently your exposure setting. That is why it can also function as a neutral density filter. A neutral density filter allows you to have larger apertures in very bright days.

Let’s say you want to take pictures of flowers in a bright sunny day. And you want to shoot with a large aperture to achieve a shallow depth of field blurring out your background and isolating the flower. But with larger apertures, the lens opening gets bigger, allowing more light to pass through. This results in not having any available shutter speed to compensate for the vast amount of light. So even in your fastest shutter speed, you might still get an overexposed picture.

So the neutral density helps in this as it filters the light coming in minus the other effects on a circular polarization filter (removal of reflection and color changes).

I bought the Cokin brand and here are some samples of the effects on their pages.

Polarization filter

Neutral density filter

I tested it out and here are my results (no change in exposure settings and metering mode)

-SKY-

before

after (notice that it also corrects and boost the colors on the treetops as well as the color of the sky)

-REFLECTION-

before

after

before

after (notice even in the area behind the curtain, you can see the computer)

-COLOR AND DETAILS-

before

after (notice the branches of the bushes is shown more and the purple flowers too)

Other stuff i bought:

The gorillapod for zoom. The largest of the 3 sizes available with biggest capacity in load. Can take dslr with zoom lens.

The thing with gorillapod is that the thing you attach the camera to, doesn’t have a mechanic to be able to rotate the camera. So in this setup in the picture where i attached it to the table legs, if I attached my camera to it now, the camera would be facing the floor. So you have to take it into consideration when setting it up. You can always buy that knob thingy.

I can use this now and take self portraits with the tripod on the table. It’s also excellent for traveling. It fits right above my bigger camera bag.

And speaking of self portrait, I won’t need to use the self timer with this infrared remote.

A flash diffuser for the built in flash.

A camera only bag from Lowepro that I can carry in my shoulder or round my waist (this would be nice combined with the lens bag of Shootsac)

The bill for all these things was small, but they are all really useful and good buys.

And on another day, I finally caved in and bought this book (written in Norwegian by Norwegian author). I read the first chapter and it’s wonderful. Just enough information I need. Not more, not less. After the basics book, I can go to more advanced books and books specializing in different areas of photography (portraits, landscape, and so on). By the way, I learned that books are not only cheaper, but easy and fast to order in Amazon. And books are exempted from the value added tax here in Norway. Dangerous discovery.

By the way, I just bought a new item, but this is more on the post processing side (digital darkroom)

and I have played around with it a bit.

I like how the conversion and vignetting removed the distraction from the carpet that competed a bit with the fleece cover in the original photo.

I used the antique tone in these pictures, vignetting, technicolor dream world, a b&w conversion with lowered opacity to get that pastel look on one of the pics and the wonderful pro retouch for skin retouching (although babies have fair skin already). Added my own steps with defogs and levels.

I love this action set because:

1. Highly flexible to suit your photos (layer mask plus you can always lower opacity to lessen effects)
2. Not overly done. They are subtle, yet the impact is great. Like in the pro retouch for skin, it doesn’t remove fine wrinkles, moles, freckles and other very noticeable skin stuff. This way the effect is not overly blurred face. It looks more natural and you can always use healing brush and clone tool to remove these imperfections later.
3. Low learning curve. It’s easy to use. You just have to have an idea of layer and mask to be able to optimize the actions on your photos. Besides, the pdf file that follows is so clear in instruction and a great addition to the set.
4. Detailed fixes. Sometimes the layers are put in groups, so you can fine tune certain aspects of the actions. Especially useful in the pro retouch action which he elaborates more on his blog.
5. Variety on old look and modern look
6. Variety on the functions; color, b&w, other effects (glow, grains) and production (vignetting, sharpening, dodge and burn, etc.)
7. Nothing in this action can be thrown away. I can certainly use it all and the list doesn’t make me dizzy.
8. Consider skin in actions. Our skin have red color pigments, and so some actions can cause unwanted results. He has provided a mask to “paint” back the better skin. Like in technicolor action.
9. “Forgiving” action. When you paint on the layer mask, the change is subtle and gradual, not sudden, so you don’t need to be so thorough in stroking to avoid suddenn and visible changes.
10. Alternatives. Some of his actions has two versions. A fast and one not so fast. Of course the fast has a lower quality than the other but it’s not that noticeable.
11. His vignetting action is much more easier to use than vignetting with a burn tool. I tend to vignette overkill with the other method. You don’t need to do anything on his vignette actions, but you can for example reduce opacity to have a lighter vignette.
12. The layer created in the actions are grouped. If you want to remove the effect of a whole action, just trash the group or put it on invisible instead of rolling back the effects in history, or finding out which layer masks are part of the action.

Interested. Buy them here. You can also see samples there.

:::Other buys:::

I bought two pair of shoes in that sale storehouse (the one where I shot the mirror above. they had up to 70% off on Nike, Puma and Adidas as well as other brands). One for myself and one for my nephew. I love that mine has no laces and use zipper instead. I also love the graph style and the color. And of course for the brand. I love Puma. I think I saved half the price.

And this cute pair for my nephew.

I also bought some makeup brushes from Bodyshop for eyeshadow. A smudger/blender and a slanted one. I also got convinced to buy this bodyshop card that will give me 10% off for each purchase and the fee that I paid for the card will “come back” to me when my birthday arrives and I get that amount in reduction on my purchase that day.

All I need is a foundation brush and a flat blusher brush. I also fancied Chanel’s levres scintiallantes lip gloss. So nice colors and shimmer. And Mac has a wonderful display and so many choices. There are some bold aquas and turquoise and pinks and shimmering dark red/brown I liked in single palette eyeshadows. In shimmering and matte versions. A liquid metallic glossy eyeliner that I just have to have and some make up accessories like triangular sponges and primer base for make up on face. I also saw a wonderful pink blush in Chanel and I also would want some bronzer and YSL touche eclat for concealing and highlighting. And it’s too bad, but Id bare escentuals line isn’t available here. I really want that.

I am glad I have Kaboodle. It gives me a shopping satisfaction when I add it to my list even if i haven’t bought it yet. Don’t know why. I am also glad that I don’t live in USA. Many stores I fancy doesn’t deliver here, like Anthropolgie and Sephora.

I have also been buying house stuff to make the place cozy as I throw away outdated stuff. Bowls and stones and floating candles. Runners. Hanging plants for our boring, not maintained terrace.

The second is a bit messy and might buy a new one. The one with lots of small purple blooms that is not spread wide open. I got those both for half price.

It’s sale season and Mango has even up to 70 % off, not to mention Oasis. But I just have to turn away my eyes since I am on a prioritize scheme so I will end up with things I can benefit from and which I will actually use. Even cheap stuff I fore-go if it’s not high on my list. So with the other cosmetics stuff I mentioned, I thought first; do I really need this right now/can it wait/how will I benefit from this/will I use it even in the future. I might go buy one item for an upcoming wedding though.

By the way, this is bit retro, but I want to share a few finds from my Philippines shopping.

From that cool store in Alabang Town Center that carries Prada, Gucci, etc. They had a big sale when I bought these.

Tea cups, milk foamer and coffee press (last is from Bodum in Starbucks. they re much more expensive here in Norway)

He found his ideal winter jacket in Philippines. So ironic.

I found this cool and unique. From Greyhound.

From Rustan’s. I think it’s JLO.

Love Nars. (We don’t have it here. Wish we had Shue Uemura, Nars and Bobbi Brown here in Norway)

Lose powder, foundation and sponge from Shue Uemura.

Love these hair products. The green is a a conditioner that leaves your hair really soft and the other is against frizzy hair and it feels so light and not greasy for an oil based product. Feels like silk.

I also bought tops, accessories and other clothes from Sari Sari, People are People, Zara, Tango, JLO and LuLu bag in Rustan’s and that formal dress place named X something.

:::Household stuff:::

Ever since the whole miscarriage thing, lots of stuff was neglected. Spiritual, household, binding with other people, myself and other stuff. I am now, in tune with my organizing scheme, bouncing back.

I used 3 days just on the toilet and bathroom and I am so proud of the result. I even bought some new items to display there and it’s squeaky clean (I’ll try to post some pictures after I am finished with the whole house).

Here is the laundry I finished and even folded. I am finished with the whole pile of dirty laundry except for some new one that came yesterday after my hubby’s soccer training.

The other day

(used external flash on the picture above bounced in the ceiling. I managed to get a good exposure on the clothes without the flash, but the lamp always got over exposed and it irritated me)

Today

There is still 40% of our clothes remaining in the closet and so I don’t know how to fit it all, other than start throwing. I am not so good at throwing things even if the clothes are so out of the loop trendwise. Seems like I have to learn now with our shrinking space and growing collection of garments. So before this leaves the living room, I have to fix the closet (which I should have done today).

Now with the emptied laundry basket, I can start washing clothes more often and with less load each time. We have a combined washing machine with dryer, and with less load, the clothes comes out so wrinkle free and I just love that. Although I miss the scent of clean laundry drying up in the hanger. The scent disappears a bit with the drying method. Unfortunately I don’t have time to hang them and wait for them to dry and the space to put the hanger.

Another thing I enjoy in cleaning is stainless steal, it can go from a bad surface to ultra polished in no time and effort. Call me quirky, lol.

But this doesn’t make me happy

A tinted dish washing machine and the stuff loaded in the machine. And here is the culprit.

We put in the weaved basket after discovering that the fruit flies has inhabited the basket. The fruit flies are also something I am not fond of. They became more and more and we didn’t know where it came from until we moved the basket and then the swarm just flew from there. So we threw the content of the basket and then put it in the machine on highest heat, not thinking so much about the consequences, although we had that moment of doubt if it can tolerate the machine, but the color factor never came to our mind.

Anyway, I ran a washing program with a bottle of dishwashing machine cleaning stuff. It removed the tint from the plastic tray, although the powder chamber is still blueish. After that, I washed again the tinted items and they vanished. I thought I had to buy a new oil scent burner. Although we had to throw this wood thing that holds hot foods. Wood absorbs the color unlike glass, porcelain and steel.

The fruit flies are vanishing. Removing the source is the reason and besides I put platters of apple cider vinegar mixed with dishwashing soap. The soap makes them stuck and they can’t fly away. Believe me this method works, but the house does smell sour of vinegar for now.

Another hate thing in cleaning is hair. My hair falls everywhere and plenty. It’s so frustrating.

A week before attacking the toilet and bathroom , I fixed the papers. I am the type that have to have all papers put in folder with dividers and categorized. And I also started cleaning the 2 bedrooms. Most of the time, the kitchen and living room looks descent, but the bed room is sacrificed asince I use it as temporary storage now that we sleep on sis’ bedroom while she is away. While i was cleaning, I used the cd player. I haven’t used that in ages after the”computer era”. Felt old school. Weird.. Some years ago, it was so hip. I listened to Beyonce’s first hit solo cd which brings me back to a certain summer.

:::Organizing my life:::

All my efforts in getting better is paying off slowly and surely. The house is beginning to look nicer and that gives me peace of mind. A chaotic house gives me a chaotic mind. I feel I am losing control and overview every time that happens.

In my organized life, this new tool I found, makes a great difference. It’s called Evernote and I found it thanks to Connie at digiscrapinfo.com. It’s genius and a must have for a list girl like me who is trying to sort life out. Check out the link and go to the quick tour for a great flash explanation. And it’s free. Google has something similar, but I hear this is much better.

Categorizing happens almost like Acdsee and you have different list types and text format to chose from. You can also add web clips (portions of an active web page) or the whole active web page and it will make a link back for you.

You can install button to your explorer toolbar to easily add stuff to your Evernote and it will also install an option in your right click menu. So when you are viewing websites, you can highlight/mark a portion you want marked and then right click and chose add to evernote.

You can also add excel clips, word clips, images (the link back will be to where it is located in your computer) and you can compose text yourselves (using text templates, like to do list-there are different type of to do list too, expense list that adds up expenses, shopping lists, contact and so on). So anything on the web, the local computer and from your mind is available there.

The program came just as I was finding a way to go back to making to do list. I was thinking of Outlook which I used before. This is sooo much better!!! I have everything in one place. And it’s free!

You don’t need to go to your bookmarks and find the page through a list of saved url’s, and then in that method you would have to scan the whole text to find the portion you are looking for. Like in the case of tutorials and tips I used to save in bookmark folder before. It got me lazy to go back to it since I can’t find the right tutorial in this old method without using a lot of searching and scannning.

Here are stuff I use it for:

Clipping images that I find inspiring (the photo in the image is taken by Mimi and Karl of fotogra.ph that has been bitten by the Rox bug-Jesh de Rox textures. I want one too. I found out they have been to Vegas and met Becker’s, Jessica Claire, Jesh and other photography blogger celebrities. wow…Dino Lara and Paul Vincent has also been bitten). I also have a folder for digiscrap images that inspire me.

A list of my fave galleries. If you can see the “Go to Source” link in the sample below, you just ctrl+click and the page will open in your internet browser. I have a fave galleries too in Kaboodle, but this makes it easier. Kaboodle also makes the browser slow when lists are long (although temporary only till the whole list is finished loading).

I just right click one of their images from the gallery, and add to Evernote. Then I add a small note on why I love that gallery.

This is my photography shopping list. I wanted to have this list besides from Kaboodle, because as I mentioned Kaboodle has temporary hang ups in case of long lists slowing down the whole browser. And I also want to have all my must haves in organizing in one roof. This also helps with prioritizing buys. Instead of the quantity, I write priority order.

You might notice that there on top it is stated which categories it is listed under. It is under “photography stuff” and “To be printed” list as well. When you print, you can chose to print only one of the entries or all the entries on that active page. I made this category in case there is a bunch of entries and lists spread in different categories I want to print in one print session.

Of course I need a “to blog” list when I accumulate so many details to blog about. I write a new text entry for each blogpost and I also made a category now called “blogged” to transfer to when I have posted the entry. Besides from my list (you can make a basic note and add check box through ctrl+shift+c.), I also add a whole article or images to help me remember what to blog about from things i have seen in internet or other stuff. In the sample below, I compresed the entry but you can easily expand it back.

I also add ads image clips if the designer has posted one for a sale, otherwise I just highlight the part that mentions their sale in a text.

I added “tutorials” category. This will be so awesome when I finish compiling. Will complement well with my reading books offline.

So no more notes spread all around the house and in the computer.

Here is the part of my hierarchy I often use

It really helps me to prioritize and make me not lose sight as when I have things everywhere. Like for example I have a “to kaboodle” list. Now I don’t do it immediately when I find new stuff. I collect them and when I have time to spare I organize them to my kaboodle list online. I also accumulates to answer from pm’s, emails, comments in my blog, comments I want to make to entries in another blog.

My usual surfing habit before was just open up pages. Leave pages open of pages I am not done with. So I have many windows open for different purposes. If it’s a forum I am in and want to read more or a tutorial I would like to read word for word, if there is a blog entry to comment on, email inbox open, etc. Now, I can set my phase. Have a period to answer, have a period to Kaboodle, have a period to browse fave galleries, etc.

Also with regards to my blog comments, I receive them in my hotmail inbox usually and then I move them to my email folder called blog comments. Problem is that I found two comments lately that didn’t land on my inbox and this helps me take note of them.

It is useful also, like when I am interested in one thing like Fong’s lightsphere. I clipped important info from his page to my “photography stuff” shopping list category that will add as a complementary information that can help me evaluate shopping for them and things to take note of. Like I clipped Becker’s example on images he used Kubota actions on to my “photography stuff” shopping category as reference when i want to evaluate if I should buy the Kubota actions later.

Besides from my Evernote, I also made a budget sheet in Excel for control on our economy. It’s complete with formulas for automatic computation, income statement and accountability of discrepancy of bank account balance per bank statement in internet/nettbanking and bank account balance per accounting sheet.

I also used color coding in the categories to help me see what kind of expense I am dealing with as well as help me write down in right column without scrolling up to see the category.

Horizontally, I get the sums per transaction. vertically I get the sums per category. The sums vertically is then inputted in an income statement that will help me evaluate which expenses we can cut down on. On the right bottom corner of the main sheet you will find

1. total income added with balance from last period
2. total expenses
3. and of course the total remining balance deducting the two from each other (which will be the balance transferred to next period).

The color coding as I mentioned helps me put amount in right cell even though the categories are no longer available in the screen. Another advantage which is actually the reason why I set up this color coding, is to keep track of which payments I have to be attentive to when it comes to due dates. Check especially the monthly bills in sample below.

Efaktura is the electronic bills that will arrive in my internet banking. The electronic bills reduces paper for filing, good for the environment and reduce the fees. Paper bills have a bill fee sometimes for the paper, paperwork as well as stamps to send it off.

Most business has it available in their billing services. I still get the breakdown provided for by following a link.

There are two types of e-bills. One automatically deducts on due date or given date and one that requires your activation to deduct it. I have the second. So for this type of bill, I still have to be attentive on dates.

Other stuff that are tools for me here is notes that is shown in red marks on upper right of a given cell. These infos are not included in that cell as regards to formulas and such, but good for reminders and extra explanations, and they pop up like flash when you hover beside them. I usually put due dates there for next bill or if the bill has extra fees due to late payment (this is tax deductible in Norway), if paypal has been prepaid with a fixed charge so that actual and accounted will have discrepancies or any other relevant info.

The income statement is like the color coding that classifies the expenses, but more specific. I can for example see how much goes to just debts for that period.

Besides from the Excel to help us with economy stuff, I also found out a cool thing about banking through internet. Me and bizzi has same banks and after logging myself in, I just clicked on some buttons and input national identity number or personal identification number and voila our banks are linked. No more logging on and off (since we can’t be logged in simultaneously in same computer).

So if I get a bill, I can chose his account to pay from in the drop down menu. And I have access to his latest transactions. I usually need this when I put on excel what he has used in his account so he doesn’t need to present receipts to me all the time so I can file it in our budget.

So these are the added stuff and tools that help me get organized besides from the things I listed in a previous entry. I also have the important sites to visit as click-able buttons in my toolbar to avoid going to every single spot that interests me. You’ll see catscrap ct forum, phpdigiscrapper, dst, sub with bloglines button, accounting course forum, Flickr homepage, and not visible (appears when the arrow on far right is clicked) is disctalk radio, digital photography school forum and yahoo groups. You can also see an add to Kaboodle and an add to Evernote on the same line as google search.

Even my blogging has a workflow. I run action on my photos to frame them, resize and sharpen for web, watermark in batch through a droplet from CS image ready and drag the whole lot to a flickr tool/software/widget that uploads to my Flickr account.

I can in that process already categorize it. The uploading tool in Flickr.com’s site itself, doesn’t categorize in the uploading process to your chosen set. You would have to do this after you have uploaded.

And this software/widget also allows me to upload a lot of images (don’t know the limit) in a session. I used to upload 6 at a time on the web before.

Yahoo has also a widget that allows uploading to flickr as I read on this blog article at digiscrapinfo.com.

After uploading images, I write my entry in my free Zoundry Blogwriter that skips the whole code thing for me and you basically just copy and paste and/or click and it even has a spelling check. Also open in the time I blog, is my Evernote. I check the items I have blogged about. Then I save the entry in Zoundry (not as draft, but as saved as you would in a word document) and continue again when I have time.

I am glad things are not so manual anymore. These things really help me out do the most of my time and do it systematically. My next wish is that blogwriting happens in a voice recognition fashion so I can just dictate, lol.

So this organizing for me all boils down to focus, prioritize and control. Maximize my time in a fashion that makes me in control and not lose sight.

:::Life:::

• I still have down days although things are generally looking brighter. I am still having abnormal sleep and absences as a result, but I managed to vent to my teachers and they were very understanding. The other day, I didn’t sleep so I could go to the course. I ended up sleeping when I came home. I woke up. It was light outside and I thought it was 10 am. Turns out it was 10 pm only. I got a bit disoriented which left me confused. When I came home that day, I had bought those plants I posted above and I arranged them and temporarily laid my bag in the table in our porch/terrace. I went in, slept and totally forgot it. Good thing this is Norway and I am generally safe.
• I have gained a little weight and a small bulk in my tummy. This despite my once a day eating. Must be my metabolism and for eating junk and ice cream. We eat too much outside. It’s costly and not a good habit, but besides from my mental state, the fruit flies also discourages me to make food in the kitchen (luckily they are almost non-existent qand exterminated this date). We ate by the way in this Greek restaurant the other day. It’s rare to see a open restaurant at 2 am. Usually it’s the night open burger places and kebab/shawarma places that are the only open dining places. The food was good.
• And there is a new complex in this very ethnic part of town. We saw something that was a chicken place. We don’t have KFC, Kenny Rogers and chicken place at all here, so this is a nice addition. Most stores are Indian/Pakistani owned. There was even this canteen style. I miss those cheap “turo turo” place and Pares. There is also this nice eye candy interior detail store that has a shabby style. We ate at this Turkish place and I loved my mixed platter and freshly squeezed juice. Definitely a place to come back to.
• The other day, I got a phone call. One of daddy’s buddy. He asked something about the killing in our area the other day. The husband killed the wife. I didn’t get it before we hang up that he actually might have thought that it could be me and just checking if I was fine. I didn’t know if I was to be insulted in behalf of my husband or understand him since he was just concerned and actually be glad someone cares. Nowadays anything is possible. A guy might look like a lamb in social settings but beats his wife at home or vice versa. The wife can laso be the abuser.
• Another day, I was so irritated as I noticed someone dropped a water balloon to our porch. I went out to check and then Bam, it hits the woodwork and bounced water on me. I saw where it was coming from. A small boy was peaking barely on the top floor. Pumped with adrenaline, I climbed upstairs and talked to the dad asking if a little boy lived there and explained what happened. First he and one of his girls looked like question marks, but then a light bulb sort of came and he got his kid. The kid tried to explain that he dropped it by accident. I said it was twice and with intervals. So the father interrupted him to sort of say; no excuses and asked the kid to go with me and clean it up. I said it wasn’t necessary. Water would dry anyway. I just wanted him to learn that it is wrong. I also explained that I sometimes go out with my camera and it could have been damaged with water.
• When it comes to the metabolism testing, I decided to postpone it till mom and them comes and when I am taking care of myself. Still if I see topics of miscarriage in TV shows and TV series, it would still bring me to tears.
• This is very fresh as I write. I just found out Wanda also experienced miscarriage. Just the first sentences triggered my tears. Her post kind of reminded me of my own experience. She found my post on my miscarriage helpful and I am glad to be able to help her out in a confusing, painful and scary time. I just hope that we get preggy at the same time next time, and hopefully we can share happy notes instead of the sad occurrences Keep up the hope girl. Please leave her love here. Dianne, a fellow scrappy bebot, also lost hers recently. You can leave her love here.

:::Music:::

Petra (aka Milo82) talked about Esmee in her blog. I am hooked. She is a youtube user that got famous because of youtube. But she totally deserves it.

Check her here.

And if you haven’t heard James Morrison and Corinne Baily Rae, prepare to be dazzled by these voices here and here.

:::Hodgepodge:::

• I am not sure why, but my sensitivity to scratchy and squeaky sounds has intensified. I can’t stand people turning their pages of our spiral bound text book in our subject. Incoming subway trains is also a headache when they pull their breaks. Even certain musics with certain riffs sends shivers down my spine. I didn’t use to be like this before.
• The other day I came across this tv ad for this cellphone game. The worms. They emphasized that it is more violent and more bloody. Oh gosh, now they are blatantly using that as a selling point. And who are their target market? Usually young people. Sick.
• Cheche wrote in her blog about this guy and his story really touched me. He is a handsome guy who was successful, lived in a beautiful house with parents, scholar and worked in Nasa in USA. He gave that up to go back to his roots in rural Philippines. He now lives in a small simple house with wife and kid.
• There is a new cool bakery downtown (United Bakeries, Norway). It has railings in the ceiling that lead to some storage room. The railings transports bread basket. I must take pictures of it. Cool concept. And they ahve a chocolate fountain too.
• My wedding video from Jason Magbanua is finished. Sister’s comment was that it was a bit fast phased but that I should see for myself and maybe I like that phase. Other than that she liked it, but she didn’t want to spoil anything. Dino’s album should also be finished very soon and ready to be taken with them.
• Bizzi forgot to pay for gas the other day. A photo was taken of him. We had to pay with added fees and he was embarrassed about the whole affair.
• Hubby remarks my sitting in the bathtub when showering. I guess it’s a filipina thing. I used to sit in these low plastic chairs while I use a bucket collecting the water from the faucet and a water scoop (?) to pour water over my head.
• So weird how computer is a regular habit that in my daily life I almost forgets that I can’t undo, I can’t copy and paste on my cellphone and that the other day I was reading and I went to the toilet or something and coming back to the living room, I automatically went to the computer chair even though I was meaning to go back and read.
• We have a table fan now. Never thought I will have a table fan in Norway, but it was so hot a period. Although the latest weeks and days it has been pouring. Though I am glad that we don’t have the floods that are going on around the world right now.
• Apple’s Iphone is launching tomorrow. I think there are many who are anticipating this.
• I am planning to set up a flash gallery using web module in Lightroom and free flash templates (here and here) outside of the program. I want to have a nice presentation of my images.
• Uploaded our Boracy pics. See here. The sky is wonderful in Boracay:

My family with my nephew is here in less than a week. I am so excited that I don’t even have words. In line with the title, I am laying low now and make room for more important things in my life like straightening myself up and enjoying my loved ones. I’ll try to update with some of the highlights once in a while.

Phew, i am finished. This is a record I think. It’s so long and so many topics that I almost use all my blog categories.

ETA: I just parted with my camera. It was borrowed for the weekend to Sweden. I can lend everything with no problem, but the camera is something else. Just hope that it will come back to me in same condition. I feel so empty not being able to grab it when I need it. I guess I became very attached to it. I am absent today too at school. Not good. My classmates will be having a social affair after classes and I won’t be able to join. I’ll just sleep it off. Man am I tired.

Have a nice weekend and thanks for dropping by!