Oh snap!

Wow, I'm cheesy.

A year and a half ago, we made a big decision to drop a big chunk of change on a big camera.  Well, not really because we had a lot of Best Buy reward points and birthday money, making it free to us, but still.  We could have done other things with the points/birthday money.  Like buy a TV.  Or a computer.  You get my drift.

Anyway.  We got a Nikon D5000 and I've loved it.  I just haven't learned it.  The straight-out-of-camera shots are great, as is the auto setting.  But I want to do more!  I want to learn to edit and adjust the aperture and ISO and shutter speed and take really cool pictures!

So I am.  Starting yesterday.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an article that really spoke to me (wish I could find it now to link to, but I can't).  It was essentially about how SAHMs spend way too much time online: on message boards discussing their children's poop and tantrums, on facebook (sometimes inappropriately discussing poop and tantrums: guilty!), etc.  We've replaced real life, face-to-face friendships with online ones.  I don't think it's a terrible thing to get social interaction online, but I do way too much of it.  I'm on facebook a lot.  I'm on my message board a lot.  I have to admit, I really miss the working world for this reason.  I miss that daily social interaction.  These days, I find things like this coming out of my mouth:

Take that crayon out of your ear!
No, we cannot go outside in the foot-deep snow barefoot.
Please don't pick your sister's nose.
If you eat this pea, I will give you a cookie.

And so on.  But getting sucked into hours of facebook isn't exactly good for anyone.  Not me, not my marriage, not my kiddos.  So I decided I needed to find something to do with my free time.  Because when both kids are sleeping and the house is clean, I find myself jumping online for lack of other things to do.  I was going to learn how to sew.  But honestly, since I don't have a sewing spot, the idea of dragging my machine and all the supplies out to the kitchen table every day and then putting it back before Ben is up just sounds too draining.  By the time all that is done, that leaves very little actual sewing time.

So I'm going to learn to take pictures!  Real, quality pictures!  And to edit them!  I'll probably suck, so don't laugh.  But I'm going to have fun doing it.  

So anyway, that explains the blog layout change.  I'll be posting my pictures here, so I needed more room for bigger pictures.

The end.  Sorry if I just wasted five minutes of your life with that brain dump.