Jack Kitten - the Summer of '05

Ya gotta say it - "Awwwwwww!"

I've been scanning printed photos (or their negatives, if I still have them) from 2005. It's a tedious job but like most tasks, when I look hard enough I can usually find something that makes the work well worthwhile. In this case, I didn't even have to look very hard.

My BFF, Judy, is making me something - I'm guessing a book of some sort - using my and her emails back and forth to each other, and photos, from 2005. She has asked me for a long list of photos from that year, to go along with the stuff I wrote about in my emails. When I went looking for photos that she could use I realized that in 2005 I was still using (mainly) my Canon print camera, and was only just learning to use a small digital camera I'd gotten for the previous Christmas. (It's sad to see the very poor quality of my digital photos from that year, but at least I can see that I have since improved a thousand-fold!)

So, the days of scanning are going to be well worth it just for that, but there are other benefits, too. Since I'm a digital scrapbooker it's awesome to now have those photos in digital format and available for digital layouts. I can use them on my website, my blogs, email them to people, or share them at sites such as Photobucket or Flickr. Plus, they are now backed up on my external backup drive. If the prints or negatives get wet, or my laptop has a melt-down, no problem; I have backup copies!

In fact, I'm thinking I won't even keep the prints or the negatives. I think the negatives can be thrown away and the prints given away to whoever might want them. And....if no one wants them, I'm pretty sure I'm going to (gasp!) throw them out, too!

Yeah, a little scary, but I can't hold on to everything; my house is just too small. As long as I have digital versions I can always print out a copy if I ever want to. As I'm scanning the photos I have been tagging them with people's names, events, etc., so they're super-easy to find later. In fact, if I want to do a special layout for a specific person (or pet!) I can quickly retrieve all photos tagged with that person's name. Much easier than shuffling through piles of printed photos no matter how organized they are.

Oh, and one last bennie? Finding photos like the one at the top of this post! My guy-cat, Jack, when he was just a few months old and during one of his earliest explorations of the outdoors. Wow. Was he ever CUTE!

And since the photo is now digital I was able to bump up the color, sharpen it a bit, and then try out some creative cropping.

Bringing the focus forward to Jack:

Putting a slight leftward tilt on the photo:

And my fave, a very definite rightward tilt for a really fun look:

Jack-Jack the Jungle Cat

Can't wait to do some more scanning tomorrow!

House-Lift in Progress

Well, our house has been due for a paint job for a couple of years now and since our sailing adventure is off, Mike decided he'd get on it. I chose the colors and Mike's doing the work, heh heh. Well, he wanted to! I wanted to pay someone to do it! I did tell him I'd help with the trim, though, so once he's done with all the walls, I'll have no more excuses, dang it.

Anyway, for the last week or so this is what he's been doing:

He's got a nice little paint sprayer so the actual painting goes quickly. The prep work, however, is a different story! He's had cracks to mend (those darn earthquakes!), windows to mask, bushes and vines to cut away where they hid the walls, and I don't know what all else because I mainly hide in the house for fear he'll put me to work hauling and carrying! And in many places he will probably need to put on a second coat.

Well, I do venture out to take photos occasionally to check his progress, and to make sure he hasn't fallen off the ladder. The photo above shows the wall that's in the cat garden. The window where Mike is painting is the kitchen window (with the bird feeders), the one closer to the camera is our office, and the smallest one, up high, is the guest bathroom. Almost all the windows in our house have plastic sheeting over them right now, which makes being inside kinda weird. Even though the sun is shining the plastic gives the feel of fog. Kinda cool, especially with Halloween coming!

This is the garage; Mike is also going to paint the door to match the house. You can see there's not a huge difference in color. Our house has been a light tannish color, and the trim a strange sort of gold which I call "baby diarrhea." I've never liked it. So now the house will be almost-white, or "Cotton Ball," as it says on the paint chip.

This photo shows the wall on the side of the house, opposite the cat garden. This wall is completely painted. Doesn't it look fresh and new? I love the color. I know it's not very "different," but I've always like white on houses; they look so clean and classic.

The trim is a color called "Ten Gallon Hat." It's a medium brown but more on the grey-y side. Hard to describe. Here's a photo of a small bit of trim where Mike slapped on the paint just so I could be sure I like it. I do. I don't know how true the color will be to your eye - everyone's computer monitor displays colors differently. You'll have a better idea when I can get a photo of an entire wall with the trim done.

It's going to look fabulous!