An update...finally!

I have been thinking long and hard and have come to the conclusion that having 2 blogs is way too much work. I was separating my photography from my personal blog. Well, I'll be separating them no longer! I am merging my blogs back together. I will keep my other blog for the future should I break into the photography business and need a place to promote my work. For now, I am just having fun and learning and I can do that over here at Kassie's Beach. I just found that I was not posting as often over here and I feel like I have been neglecting my first love and my first blogging friends.

I have been overwhelmed this month with Christmas prep, shopping, wrapping gifts, getting settled from our move, photography assignments from the online course I'm taking...you name it! Then we have been hit with a huge storm that is lasting forever. I like the rain but, seriously, come on already. It's supposed to stick around till Thursday even. It's messing with my photography. Our house has the WORST lighting so I prefer to shoot outside. Can't do it in the rain though. Grrrr!!!

Hubs got insanely sick this past week. He missed 3 days of work and had to go see his docs. He better not pass it to me! Last weekend we were flown into Nashville for a kidney transplant checkup(we have to go every 18 months to stay on a donor list). We asked them to fly us in a day early so we could rush up to Knoxville to see our friends. The VA was happy to oblige us. We got in Saturday afternoon, grabbed a rental car and made it to Knoxville around midnight. Sunday we got to attend our old church and say hi to tons of old friends. Then we had lunch with friends at Calhouns(we don't have them here in CA) then went to their house for the afternoon. It was great.

It started snowing while we were there so we hit the road for Nashville. What a crazy drive. It should have taken us 3 hours...instead it took 5 hours. We had upgraded our rental to a 4x4 suv and we drove the whole way using the 4x4. Scary!!!

Monday morning the visit with the transplant team went quickly so we had almost 4 hours to kill before heading to the airport. I asked if we could go to the Opryland Hotel to walk around the gardens(my husband sure loves me). It was gorgeous. The orchids were AMAZING! The waterfalls...!!! I posted a few pics down below but am also saving a few good ones for an upcoming scavenger hunt. Be on the lookout!

My diet is going well. I am on a time out this week for Christmas. What that means is I'm trying to keep my calories low but I'm not worrying about staying exactly on point. I don't expect to loose this week but I'm hoping to at least stay put. I may gain a few pounds in water as my salt intake went up a smidge. I am still right around 55 lbs. I plan to get back on the day after Christmas(New Years isn't about the food for me). I cannot wait to get down to my first goal and get my sticky fingers on my new netbook.

Okay, enough talk...here are my pictures for this post...

The snow was coming down VERY hard...for the whole 5 hour drive!

In many places you could not even see the roadway.

Bokeh from a Xmas tree at Opryland.

This was of a chandelier. I love it.

I used this last week in the scavenger hunt. It's the same tree from 3 pictures up framed by a huge wreath. We had to climb many stairs to get high enough for this picture.

Flying back into San Diego. That is the Coronado Bridge.

Ahhh...home sweet home!

These next 2 pictures I took for my photography class. I just wanted to share them. This one was for Ordinary Beauty.

This one was for Imitate a Photo. I had to choose a photo and recreate it. Mine is better then the original if I do say so myself. lol

Eeeeks...that was a long post!!!

We love to camp...

So, we decided to go camping this past weekend...despite the fact that it was raining all week. We were supposed to have a gorgeous, clear weekend with a 30% chance of rain on Thursday which is the day my mom and I went to the mountains. Naturally, that 30% became 100% chance...that's our friend Murphy for ya!

We got to Idyllwild around 3:00 PM and immediately started setting up camp. We were soaked by the time our 2 tents and air mattresses were set up. We brought our chairs into my moms tent with the puppers and tried to wait it out. I was freezing. There would be no camp fire that night. After a couple of hours, we decided to get in my moms car and watch a movie on her laptop. We ran the engine intermittently for warmth. But first, when I came out of the tent I noticed my tents door unzipped. I quickly realized that the zipper broke and to add insult to injury the tent was leaking. It was an older tent!

My bedding was wet in a few spots. We had to move my bed over to my moms tent for the night and I had to try to call Chuck to bring us our other tent with him the next night(cell service was practically non-existent up there). Before bed the mutt got skerd and walked ALL over my bedding with her muddy paws. I slept horribly. I was freezing cold and slept in mud!

We really struggled to make a fire the next day as our wood was damp and the fire ring was soaked(my mom and I are both past girl scouts...it wasn't from lack of experience). But, the day itself wasn't too bad. It was Kassie's very first camping trip and she did really really well. Hubs was running late, it was getting dark and it started to drizzle again so my mom brought out her second tent(really small) and we set it up for Chuck. I decided to just stay in my moms tent. The upside, our leaky tent made a great area to keep our gear out of the rain!

Did I mention that I killed my moms battery in her car by trying to charge my cell phone? When hubs got there with our car I jumped in and warmed up with the heater blowing full blast. I slept even more cold the second night. And, when I say I slept I really mean I laid there all night long, awake and freezing!

Saturday morning hubs and I went to another campground nearby for a shower. Then we walked around the super cute town. I may or may not have spent over $50 on a blanket from a gift shop. It's a fantastic blanket though, with a double layer thickness. I also may or may not have found a camping store and bought a huge stack of hand warmers(the kind that activates with air and stays hot forever!!!). When I went to bed that night I had a hand warmer in each sock, each glove, down the front of my pants and the back of my pants, a thermacare patch on my shoulders, and one loose warmer for my pillow(I would stick it under my cheek when laying on my side). I slept a bit better but was still kinda cold.

I bet hearing all this makes you want to run out right away and go camping doesn't it? Other than sleeping cold we had a really good time.

Here is our camp site. It was quite nice.

My moms tent.

The horrible leaky tent...BOO!!!!!

Chucks tent, which I made him share with Kassie. My moms tent was really crowded with our 2 air mattresses. He had more room for her. (Yes, he got an air mattress too!)

On our last night my mom did all the cooking with her dutch ovens. Yummy, soooo good!

Check out that chicken!

These muffins were just put in to bake. They turned out so good.

Kassie's first camp trip.

She was cold too. Hubs stopped on the way up and bought her a mans sweatshirt. We had to cut off the arms and tie it to her. She handled it quite well.

Daddy, what have you done to me? Why didn't you get me PINK? Nobody better call me a boy!

"The things I put up with"!

Hubs manning the fire. We had a fantastic fire on the last day(not that it shows in this picture but we really did)!

The best part of camping is the camp fire. Too bad we only got to have one on the last day.

I, of course, took my camera with me. But, I never pulled it out till late afternoon on the last day. I was enjoying my time off from photographing until I remembered that I needed a picture for my scavenger hunt. It was my best shot taken on October 23rd. You will have to check out my photography blog on November 1st to see what my best shot was.

My Landlord SUCKS!

If you are lucky enough to own your home then rejoice. Having a landlord sucks. Having MY landlord REALLY sucks! She has gotten worse and worse in the last 6 months. I don't even know what we did to upset her. But then, we don't seem to do anything right around here.

We are good tenants. We pay our rent on time. We don't smoke. We don't drink. We don't do drugs. We are quiet. We seldom have friends over. When we do have friends over we still don't do any of the above. Our friends are good people. Why does our landlord hate us? I have no clue. She won't talk to us about it. We get notes about our ever changing rules taped to our door.

Yesterday, I parked my car wrong thinking I was going out again but changed my mind due to the torrential downpour. I forgot. Hubs came home and had to park wrong too. Oops. I asked him to fix the car situation. He wanted to eat dinner. The landlord had not been to her house in the past 2 weeks(her mom is sick and she's been staying with her). Guess who shows up during dinner??? Yup, the landlord. The note taped to the door this morning was to remind us where OUR 2 parking spots are and to NEVER park ANYWHERE else again. We live on 1 1/2 acres, by the way! She didn't even let me explain that it was a one time thing that we corrected right away.

Anyway, this has me pissed! Well, I've been angry for a while now. This just took me over the edge. I've been looking for another place to stay. My mom has offered us to live with her for a while(hopefully to save and buy a place soon) but hubs first wanted to see if we could find another rental. The problem is we have a couple circumstances that make most rentals impossible. We have a big ol' mutt! It's kinda hard to find a place that will take any dog let alone a big one. The other big problem is hubs medical. His home dialysis requires a lot of supplies. The supplies take up a lot of space. Most apartments don't even have a garage or outdoor storage space for his supplies. Rental houses are really expensive in CA. We were lucky to have found this one. Little did we know it was owned by the wicked witch of the west.

No matter what we WILL be giving our 30 day notice with our next rent check. I'm done here. No more playing nice! It looks like my mom has a couple new tenants...just in time for Christmas!

Luckily, I get to let off some steam this weekend. We are going camping. My mom and I leave tomorrow and Chuck will meet us Friday evening. It won't be very warm but at least the rain is supposed to be long gone. I'm excited and it will be Kassie's very first camping trip. I hope she likes sleeping in a tent!

Random pieces of my life...

You know, I just got over being sick a few weeks ago. It wasn't a bug but more something physical. Still, sick is sick...right? Well, Last Monday I started feeling a cold come on. By Tuesday I was toast. One of the worst colds I've had in a very long time. In fact, I am still coughing and still have a lot of congestion. That's 9 days!!!! It's all good. I'm slowly getting back on my feet. I'm hoping not to get hit with a third wave...you know, 3's a charm and all that.

Anyhoodles...

I've done next to nothing for 9 days! The past few posts I already had those pics edited(except the Friday fix-it. That's not my picture. It only took me a couple minutes to edit.) I wanted to share a few more pictures I took of my nieces and nephew. I took them the weekend before I got sick using my brand new 50mm 1.8 lens. Not only do I love these kids to tears but they are also very willing to be my practice models. Especially as I have lost my live-in model. Speaking of my niece Rose, today she turned 15!!! I feel like she was just here. We miss her. Okay, moving on...

I bought these lovely flowers at Costco last weekend. I've been enjoying them on my bar all week. I had to use my nice pitcher to hold them. They had super thick stems. I do not have a vase that would hold that thick of a bouquet. They were also top heavy so I needed something with height so they did not topple over. I really just wanted something with Autumn colors. I have Autumn envy!

I noticed the petals started falling off so I started playing with them. Before I knew it I had all the petals off all the flowers. The colors were gorgeous. I had to photograph them. My creative juices were not flowing(they were dulled by the cold meds, lol). I cut a few flowers super short cause they were pretty too...even without the petals. In the end I liked the flowers better then the petals in the pics. These are just 2 of the pics I took. The blue underneath is one of Rose's bed sheets. I thought it would make a good contrast.

On Friday I found out it was going to be a full moon...sorta. The full moon was the night before. On this night it was considered a 99% moon. I convinced hubs to drive me to the mountains to our favorite view point overlooking the desert below(and I happily wore my pajama pants as I never got dressed last week!). We got there a few minutes before moonrise. It was perfect. I took my little mini tripod only to realize that I removed the connector off my camera a couple months ago. Whoops! I would be free handing this shoot. I used my 55-250mm telezooming lens. It was super windy. What finally ended up working is we parked the car facing North. I sat in my seat and faced East, rolled the window down part way and used the top of the window edge to help stabilize the camera. When the moon first came up it was a bright orange. Over the course of a half hour it changed to it's normal whitish glow.

This is from the view point as well. We saw a gorgeous sunset. This picture is perfect proof that water sunsets are not the only glorious sunsets out there.

I was wishing I had a lens that could do this alone. But, this is a VERY cropped picture. Still, it's amazing! I didn't even edit these. I didn't want to change the original colors.

Okay, so anyrambling...

I decided it was time to learn how to texturize a photo. I could have done something super artsy but I decided instead to change the background on a rather boring dull pic. Nothing major here. I just put the 2 pics together then used my eraser tool to erase the texture from her body. It was tedious! Not bad for my first time, eh!

Oh yeah...here's the original. Great girl...boring background! (This pic is not sooc. It was edited first to even her skin tone and give an over all boost.)

Wow, are you still here? I thought I lost you a few rambles ago! Sorry about that.

I found a new great book. It is The Phantom of Pemberley. It is written as a continuation to Pride and Prejudice. I am so in love with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth that it pains me to see the story end. I always wondered what their life might be like after they married. It is written as a romantic mystery. There is a lot of mysterious action plus you get a follow up on your favorite characters...and even a few you love to hate. The sickly Anne may find her way out of her mama's grasp and into love...but with who? And will mama approve? Georgiana grows up and falls in love. But does her man live through the trials at Pemberley? You must read it to find out. This book was written by Regina Jeffers. I think she stayed true to the era and to the original story while bringing a current feel to the book. It is NOT a christian book! There are a few risque scenes between Darcy and Elizabeth...but they are married after all. The scenes are more suggestive then gross and dirty. I was not offended at all by them.

Of course, I found this book while looking for another Pride and Prejudice book. My friend Erin mentioned on her facebook status that she was reading it. Well, HELLO? It's me! The wannabe Mrs. Darcy!!! The day I saw that status I convinced hubs to take me to the bookstore. The book is called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I also found it had a prequel called P & P & Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. The first book follows the original story line but has Zombies written in. It's quite something else. The prequel is a complete new book. It shows how the Bennett sisters became Zombie fighters. Anywho, make of it what you will. I bought them all and read them while I was sick.

As a P & P lover I would recommend The Phantom of Pemberely for sure. If you are a die hard like me get the Zombie books as well. Whatevs...I'm really long winded tonight!

Leave me some love!!!!!! and don't unfriend me just cause I ramble...please!

Falling off the face of the earth...

Wow! It's been a while since I've been on here. The only excuse I have is that I was sicker than a dog. I somehow hurt my tailbone. Don't know how as I never fell on it. I never fell at all. Obviously I don't think I bruised my tailbone. I think I somehow cramped a muscle. It's the only explanation I can come up with.

Anyhurtslikeamother....

It hurt like nobody's business. I couldn't sit on my bum or lay directly on it. Bending to sit down or the process of standing from a sitting position was horrible.

We had some percocet in the house...so I took 2 when I got out of bed and 2 more around 4 PM(this was on Thursday). The problem is that I don't do well with codeine. By 5 PM  I was sicker then sick. Fun, let me tell ya!

Also, I was way under calories for the day. I am already consuming the lowest amount of calories a person can get away with. Friday I continued to purge the codeine out of my body(that reads: I slept all day). It was also the second day to be way under calories. I was getting worried about my nutrition(my water intake was insanely low as well). I broke my diet to eat something.

Yup, I broke my diet. With what? A Cobb salad with grilled chicken. How does that break my diet? Because I'm fasting!!! Needless to say, the food helped me improve very quickly. Saturday I felt much better(my bum still hurt though) and I got right back into fasting.

Today, I feel so much better. My tailbone is doing a bit better too! This is the first time for me to sit at my computer since Wednesday night. I have been using my iphone to do anything online which leaves me limited. My iphone can do a lot but it is frustrating with how small the screen is and how slow it is to type.

Anyhoodles...

It's good to be back!