I'm Back

Well, I had planned to do some whiny little post about the "Summer of My Discontent" where everything went to hell in a hand basket.  They combined three hospital;, my niece ran away from what we now call her insignificant other, arriving back east with her things, two dogs and a two year old; my filly had a hideous hock injury which went from being life threatening to performance squashing, to healed completely with no ill effects, and oh yes, my mother broke her pelvis.  Gee can life get any more fun than this? Oh I guess this a whiny little post.  Oh well.

Anyway, some nice things happened out of all of this.  I lost ten pounds, have gotten into really good shape, and have started writing again.  Who'd a thunk it. Well now on to the point of this post.  It's fall and the light and color really won't get this good again until April, so make the most out it. I took these shots with my walking around camera and edited them in PS and PicMonkey.  OK Vaquero Girl stop laughing right now.  I know what I said, so now I'm taking it back.  Don't I get some credit for fessing up? So here's what I like from this week.

So now on to my very first book review.  Something that I'm not very good at, but oh well.  The book is Dixie Divas, by Virginia Brown. For those of you who are serious, intellectuals and like books featuring torture, neurotics and tedious amounts of introspection, you can walk away now, this book is not for you. But for the rest of you, first a piece of advice:  DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IN A PUBLIC PLACE WHILE ENJOYING ANYTHING LIQUID, if you don't want a totally humiliating experience featuring said liquid and your nose to occur, it's that funny.  If you laugh like a hyena, you might want to skip reading it in a public place period.

Now what is this book about. It's about a group of ditsy middle aged women who enjoy life immensely and solve a murder.  I've given some thought to whether only southerners would find this funny and the rest of you, after a chapter or two; would toss it away, thinking to yourself, "only a superficial wombat would like this book,and Maia what does that say about you!"

Well that's all for now.  Stay tuned.  If I can get away from the hospital, the barn, and the ongoing soap opera featuring my family, I will be back next Sunday.  About the soap opera, I'm having a real hard time deciding which one of them will get the Betty Davis award this year, for the most over the top dramatic performance by an actress in a tortured role. 

Mercury is Retrograde

Is all hell breaking lose around you?  Are your cars breaking down, your camera's malfunctioning and well is just whatever can go bad heading in that direction.  You can blame it on the retrograde.  For a very good definition of this lovely little mess up time, go to www.astrologyzone.com. 

So, from now until August 4th, whenever things go wrong, just take ten deep breaths and tell your self, "self Mercury is retrograde, so what did you expect?"

Here's a list of what you should not do during the weeks of retrograde.

1.  Buy a new car, or anything else electronic.
2.  Schedule surgery, unless you have a life threatening condition that demands immediate action.
3.  Send your manuscript, painting, ect to an agent.
4. Sign a contract.

This is a great time to clean your closets.

Anyway, that's all for now.

I'm Back, Sort of, Kind of

I recently received an email from an old friend who follows this blog wondering where in the world I was.  Well, here's my story.

While all of you were being brutally honest about your trials and tribulations with your horses, yours truely was slinking around in dark corners, thinking to herself, I'll talk about this problem later.  I bet those guys out west will have some great advice.  I'll just tell them about tomorrow. What am I talking about.  The nightmare of weaning Jolie.  Or as the husband says, "My you have interesting horses. Who knew horses behaved like this.

So here we go.  When Jolie came back from New Bolton, I decided to be proactive and take the weaning bull by the horns.  I scheduled for Kitt to go to a really wonderful trainer, to be taught western dressage. So Kitt was supposed to go off property in mid November.  In the beginning of November I contacted the trainer to set up the removal of the mommie horse, only to be told she had the great, good fortune to be able to train a wonderful young stallion. So could I wait until January.  "Sure," I said, "why not."

Now we fast forward to late November and Kitt is acting like Jolie is plucking her very last nerve.  So the barn owner and I discussed it and we decided to move Kitt in with the other horses in the far field, where she would not be able to see Jolie.  The day came.  We led Kitt out.  She walked away and didn't look back. Being incredibly naive about this process we gave each other the high five and thought, "my this was easy. What's all the whoo hahh about weaning.  This is a piece of cake."

One weak later, we found out what all the whoo hah was about. Kitt had had her vacation and wanted back.  Her way of demonstrating her displeasure with her new living arrangements was to go on a hunger strike. After three days of her not eating, your's truely caved and put her back.  After all January wasn't that far off.

Fast forward to January.  Guess who's still at the trainer's barn? The stallion that's who.  So Kitt can't go there.  We asked every barn owner we knew if they'd take Kitt for awhile and there wasn't anybody who could. I also asked all of my experienced horse breeding friends and they said to just wait it out.  If she gets hungry enough, she'll eat.  They obviously don't know Kitt.

In late February, we decide to try again.  She lasted for two and a half weeks.  She did not eat for most the last week and did not drink for the last day. She was so weak and out of it, that I decide to put her back.  My equine vet was furious.  Kitt was skin and bones.  Her pulse was weak and her heartbeat erratic. Just about at the time I decided that Jolie would probably be nursing when she was ten, the trainer said she could take Kitt in early April.  So instead of being taught western dressage, she was frantically trying to find ways to fatten her up and get her healthy enough to be ridden at all. She stayed there almost two months.  And for almost two months, yours truely was shuttling between two barns.

So now I have Kitt back home, gaining weight, and acting extremely jealous if I spend one minute with Jolie. And to make matters worse, the hospital system I work for has decided to play 52 card pick up, blending hospitals together and closing some. In short I have 8 plus hours of high stress chaos and work and now that it's 100+  degrees, my horse activities consist of hosing down horses and franticaly applying fly spray.   There's no time for anything.  But I promise to try and be a bit better moving forward. 

Oh yes, I had a lymes flair up. It was just lovely. Anyway, I'd like to leave you with my favorite shots from this chaotic time

Have a great 4th of July and I do promise to be better.

PS:  PicMonkey is basically Picnik.  It does some things well, but if you want to take it to the next level. you are going to have to learn PS.

RIP Picnik

Well it's gone and I for one am going to miss it.  It allowed you to do interesting things really quite easily. Sigh.  What do I use to process pictures?  Full blown Photoshop with several plug ins and actions.  They really do make life easier.

The question you need to ask yourself when thinking about a new photo editing tool, is what do you want to do with your pictures?  If the answer is take nice snapshots that will allow you to remember life's better moments, then any free service will do fine.  I'm serious. There's no need to spend any money at all.  I haven't checked them all out, but Picassa comes to mind as one that would do the job.

However, if you want to do better.  If photography is something that you really want to explore and excel at you are going to have to buy a version of Photoshop.  There really isn't any other choice right now.  Elements is much cheaper and easier to understand than the full blown version, especially if you get Scott Kelby's book, "Photoshop Elements for digital photographers."  Just take a look at Karen, over at the Rough String Ranch's work.  She has grown so much, she could go pro and sell her work in a gallery.

Here are some of the things that you'll be able to do in PS Elements that you can't do anywhere else.

1.  Save your file for the web and other devices.  Pictures are optimized for the web in a way which is different from the way you should save them for print jobs. 

2.  Sharpen you pictures effectively. 

3. Work with levels and curves.

4. Work with layers and actions.  This is not scary stuff.  I'm sure picnik was using both in some of their neater effects, they just didn't call them that.

This is just some food for thought.

My Favorite Shots from a Clinic I Photographed

I really like these pics and I thought I'd share them with you.

Have a great week.

At Last

Well folks, I finealy have a cowgirl.  It's only taken me twenty three years.  Her mother went "ooh, I have poop on my shoes," when I tried to introduce her to the wonderful world of horses. So I figured ten was too late to make introductions. Not wanting to let that happen again, I decided eighteen months was just about right.  Here's what happened when I took her to the barn.

As we were driving up the driveway, her eyes got huge and she started jumping around in her car seat, yelling "hoses, oh hoses."  She could hardly wait to run up to the fence and here's what happened when I introduced her to my other little girl.

And she didn't want to leave.  We almost had to pry her away.  Oh yes, her first word, after mama, dada and the ever popular, "no" was hoses. That's pronounced with a soft o

Maybe it's too soon, but I think I've got one.  Oh yes, to continue the excitement, I intend to take my phone and skype at the barn.  Red hair and loves horses. It just goes to prove that if you're willing to wait, you sometimes actually get the whole enchilada.

Cropping with the rule of thirds

Ok, here we go with the infamous rule of thirds. Whenever you crop in PS or PS Elements, you will see a grid. These lines are the thirds and you want your subject or in the case of a portrait, the eyes, to be on or near a line or where the lines cross.  Here are a few examples:

This automatically creates a more pleasing image.  I don't know why, I just know that it does.  Also it works well if you can have something to anchor the shot in the bottom right square and space in the top left.   So when you're shooting give yourself plenty of room to crop.  The picture is in there, just let the grid lines help you find it.