Picture time!

Yesterday I spent some time driving around and taking pictures, but not at the same time. I drove up into the mountains a little ways to an area that had a little park and a bunch of hiking trails. I spent about an hour or so just snapping pictures, which was a lot of fun. It's amazing how many different angles you can take a picture at and every angle makes the subject look different. Anyways, when I got home, I put them all on my computer (all 118 pictures) and now I can't figure out what to do with them. There are too many of them to print out and some of them were mere experiments anyways. So, I figured for now, I'd just post some of my favorite ones to share with all of you!

I was high up enough that this was the view from my car.
I wasn't even up on the high part of the area.

This is the pavilion at the park. It doesn't look like it gets a lot of use.
This was a bridge at the park. For some reason it was an interesting subject for me and this is just one of many that I took of the bridge.

This is what was underneath the bridge.
I'm not sure if there's usually a creek here or what, but obviously it's dried up right now.
I found this paint tray just sitting there almost in the woodsy part of the area.

Looking up at the mountains.

On one of the trails.

The view from a bit higher up.
(You can also see where I took the first picture from since you can see my car.)

It's always fun to play with the focus.

Definitely an experiment.

New and Improved

The other day, my in-laws brought over the rest of our bedroom set. We already had the bottom of bed, but not the headboard or the other stuff. It's really nice to feel like we have an actual bedroom instead of a room that just happens to hold our bed. So, here are some pictures of our new and improved bedroom, but first, the before pictures. I think you'll agree that it's a big improvement.

Yeah, just a little stand for the TV. Not much to look at I know. We did add some pictures later though. So, it didn't look so plain for too long.

Here is what the rest of our bedroom looked like before.

This is our new dresser. The mirror that goes with it is the thing beside it (it folds out).

This is our new headboard and side tables. The whole thing is actually five pieces. The side tables have two pieces, a bottom square piece and a corner piece that goes on top.

I'm so HAPPY! (and not because of all the cookies I've eaten in the past two days)

So, today, after a long 4 years of waiting, I've finally received my diploma! For those of you who are confused, let me explain. I graduated since Aug. 14th, but I finally got my diploma today in the mail. I've been a little anxious every day for the past 4 weeks waiting to get it. And now that it's here, I've only got one thing to say. It's so pretty! I think I stared at it for about 10 minutes.

So, now my task is to frame it before someone ruins it. Yeah, I'm talking more about me ruining it than Ashton. We all know who the klutz is...no need to point fingers. If I had known that I'd be needing a frame, I would have picked one up while I was out running errands. Teach me to check the mail on my way back home instead of on my way out.

Anyways, I just wanted to share the good news! Oh, and we're rearranging a few things in the house so look forward to pictures on that soon.

Inheritance

I inherited a camera a few years ago. Well, the one catch to this inheritance is that in order to use it, I had to fix it. Quite the inheritance I know.

It's an older camera, a film SLR. Yeah, pretty old technology, but still a good camera. I used it while in high school when I took a Black and White Photography class and it worked fine during that time. It wasn't until I was using it some months later that it decided to break. The shutter wouldn't work and every time that I used the advance lever, it would not only advance, but it'd release the shutter. A kind of 2 for 1 deal. Definitely not how it's supposed to work. That was when I inherited it.

I sure didn't know what was wrong with the camera or how to fix it. I had every intention of taking it to get fixed, and even tried to get other people to take it in after I'd left for college. Didn't happen and it ended up just sitting around for a few years until I went back last month. I had been thinking about it for a while and decided while I was in Maine that I should bring it back with me to get fixed since it wasn't happening while it was sitting on a shelf. So, it made a nice trip back to Utah. We must have looked pretty silly carrying two cameras around the airport with us. Probably looked like we couldn't share the same camera. His and Her cameras. How cute.

So, I sat down yesterday trying to think of stuff to do and thought of the camera. "Hmmm can I fix that on my own?" I consulted what Ashton calls "the guru," AKA Google. I actually found quite a bit of information and it seems like I'm not the only person who has had trouble with the shutter although I saw nothing about the advance lever doing double duty. I read forum type websites where people would ask a question about how to fix their camera and it was amusing to see that the first step that everyone suggest was, "check the battery" or "buy a new battery." I do have to wonder how many times that someone thought that something was wrong with the camera and all it needed was a battery. Are these people speaking from personal experience?

Well, the battery was fine, amazingly so since it's been in there for who knows how many years. Had to wait for Ashton to get done work though before opening up the camera. I tried to open it myself, but couldn't because the screws were so tight. I have a bad habit of stripping screws so I figured that I should wait so I'd have someone else to blame in case that happened. How bad would it look to walk into the camera repair shop and have them look at it and say, "It looks like the screws are stripped."

"Umm yeah. I tried to fix it myself. Couldn't get past the first step." I can just hear the repair person's next thought, "Stupid girl can't even use a screwdriver."

Yeah, it sounds much better to blame your husband. "Yeah. My husband tried to fix it himself. I wanted to bring it in, but you know how guys are."

"Ah, yes. That explains everything."

In the end, it took Ashton using tiny screwdrivers and pliers to get it undone and no screws were stripped.

It was fun to see what was in there and in the end it appears that the plastic cover for the circuit board had caused the problem. How do we know that? Well, we moved it, put the battery back in and it worked. We put the cover back on how it was and it didn't work. Simpliest operation every preformed. Didn't have to mess around with any wires and it didn't cost any money to fix.

Just Keep Swimming

School is starting up again, just not for me. Sadly, it still plays a huge role in my life with Ashton still in school. It's a lot less stress to have only one of us going to school, but it's still stressful especially since Ashton will be also trying to work full time. We've dealt with that before, but not with Ashton having to take so many classes. Usually, he'll only take 1 maybe 2 classes, but this time he has to take 3 for a grand total of 9 credits. That's a lot for him to take on top of working 40 hours a week. He'll be at work or at school from 7 AM to 7 PM every day, well except for Friday when it'll probably be from 7-5. He only has classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but he'll have to work 12 hour days Tuesdays and Thursdays just to get his hours in.

Even though the same thing will probably happen next semester, too, I know that it could be a whole lot worse. He could be completely gone for the whole semester or he could have a longer schedule, although I'm sure when he has projects and tests, he'll be gone for longer. At least he's working for home still, so I'll kind of get to see him. Well, have him in the house anyways. (I try hard not to bug him while he's working, but I'm not the best at it. It's too tempting to go in and see how he's doing, ask him questions, etc. )

Even though I know it could be a whole lot worse, it's still going to be hard. Although I seem to need my alone time, my time to think, I also need time to be able to talk to people and do stuff with other people. Usually that other person is Ashton, or it has been. That's not going to work so well with him being preoccupied from 7-7 and then after that probably having homework to do or needing to have his alone time.

Shouldn't be too hard to figure out something to do. I mean, there's always the house cleaning/organizing that never seems to be finished, scrapbooking to catch up on, wedding presents to make that I haven't gotten around to, and on and on. It's mostly just getting up the motivation to do some of those things and then finding something more fun to do. Like anything else, it's just something that we have to get through.