I think you all know I have IBS. No rhyme or reason, no cause, just effect. You know never know when it will hit you, what food will do you in, or where you will be when it strikes.

My digestive system is just ridiculous. You know, you never hear anyone say that they love their intestines. You know why? Because if they work well you take them for granted! You only hear from those of us who hate our guts. And whose guts hate them back.

When my gallbladder up and quit on me I thought my “issues” would get better. And they did! I could eat salad again! Seriously though, a piece of freaking lettuce used to send me running for the loo. I don’t have to play I-Spy a restroom every time I walk into an unfamiliar building anymore. It’s soooo much better. Except when it’s not.

When you have your gallbladder removed, all of a sudden you have no bile regulation. Your liver continues to spurt that acid out on a regular basis, but without the gallbladder there to send it on only when you need it, the bile just goes straight to your stomach and sits there waiting for food. When you sleep at night or otherwise fast for a time the acid really builds up. Stomach acid + say, an egg in the morning? Well, they don’t play well together. I’ve learned simple coping things, lots of whole grains/high fiber, especially in the mornings, make a huge difference.

The problem is, I have other triggers, hidden triggers. I’m still finding them 3 years post surgery. There are the obvious ones, fried foods, high fat foods, high sugar foods, and too many raw vegetables.

Then there are the less obvious. The most recent discovery? Splenda.

F…&%*$#

Ahem.

It’s really hard to try to lose weight when you can’t have any artificial sweeteners. Nutrasweet (aka aspartame) gives me migraines and now Splenda (aka sucralose) gives me diarrhea. Massive cramping, leave you on the floor in a fetal position, diarrhea. Awesome.

I’m going to drink some stupid plain water now. Humph.

Anyway, I really wanted to show you all some of the best photos I got with just my iPhone. I haven’t even had a change to LOOK at the photos we got with the other cameras yet. Between all of the cameras we had with us we probably have close to 1,000 images to wade through. Eek! If you’re friends with me on Facebook you may have seen a couple of these, but not all of them.

We had perfect weather for most of the trip – and this sky? Was UNREAL.

Wupatki Pueblo. This was an unexpected detour on our first day of driving and one of our favorite spots of the whole trip.

I’m so happy we made time for that!

Then we headed up north to Monument Valley Utah the same day. We made it there close to sunset and it was crazy beautiful.

Crazy.

Beautiful.

Next day we headed back south a bit to Page, Arizona. Page alone was worth the entire trip!

This is Horseshoe Bend, on the Colorado River. Seriously, my photos just don’t do it justice. Google it y’all.

You need a wicked wide-angle lens to get the whole thing in one image. What you’re looking at is a 1,000 foot drop to the river. We had to crawl out onto a ledge to get the photos. As I said on FB, it was the scariest damn thing I’ve ever done. I swear I almost threw up watching other people just stroll out to the ledge and look down. I was sure the wind would blow someone right off! And then, if the fall doesn’t kill you, the hike back to the road will – 3/4 mile uphill on deep shifty sand at 4,200 feet. My poor sea-level lungs! Even so, this was mine and Josh’s favorite place out of everything we saw.

Our other stop in Page was just as good but completely different, Upper Antelope Canyon. (I wish we had stayed and extra day and gone to Lower Antelope as well!)

I have hundreds of photos of just this one place. It was truly unbelievable. It was Damon’s favorite spot on the trip, and a close second for me. Antelope Canyon is what’s called a slot canyon, with the light coming in from above. You walk along a path naturally carved out by periodic flooding. We had a fabulous Navajo tour guide who clearly had respect and reverence for it. I wished we could have stayed much longer and watched the light change throughout the day.

The next day we headed for the Grand Canyon itself, and stayed there for a couple of days. I don’t think I need to tell you how gorgeous it was.

First glimpse.

Morning.

Sunset.

After this we wended our way (on Route 66) over towards Las Vegas. On the way, we made a last minute change of plans and stopped at the Hoover Dam. It’s almost impossible to get a good photo of it, it’s so huge! This is taken standing on top of it, looking down. I just like the texture.

I did get this one I liked of one of the support towers.

Then Vegas. Blech. We only went because we were flying out from there. I thought it would be fun but compared to everything else we saw that week it was just garish and gross. If I could do it over again, I’d skip that part, and would have flown back out of Phoenix so we could have spent more time there, and could have gone back through Sedona. Oh well! It still was the trip of a lifetime for all of us and I’m so glad we did it.

Did I mention by the end we drove almost a 1,000 miles? And our rental car was a red Mustang convertible? This isn’t one of my best photos, but it is one of my favorites.

Man, that poor car looked like we’d gone mud running in it by the time we were done.

Here’s the thing, when you freelance it’s really hard to say no to work – you never know when the next project will come along (maybe months) and if they give this contract to someone else, well that someone else might just get asked first next time. Paranoid much? Yep. But sometimes I take on more than I can reasonably do. Oops.

Anyway, the lure of extra cash hooked me and now I’m working 12 hour days, including weekends, to keep up with it all. I don’t have a moment to spare for anything. Not groceries, not sleep, not cleaning, (oh, darn!) not even Words with Friends (gasp, I know!) I didn’t even go to that one day conference last week after all. I didn’t cancel the babysitter though, I basically paid her to play Monopoly with my kid while I put in headphones and pretended they weren’t there.

It’s going to be like this until the day we leave for vacation, it will be like this again starting the day we get back, and it will last until sometime near the end of May when all four projects come to a close. So if you don’t hear from me until then, you know why!

Oh, and this boy? He turned NINE almost 2 weeks ago and I didn’t even have time to tell you. Sheesh.

In case you noticed my lack of internet presence, I’m completely swamped with work right now. As great as it is to have plenty of contracts and a good chunk of money flowing in, it makes my life completely insane. I never want to be someone who complains about work though, because oh, would it suck to not have any. This is just me saying, I miss you guys!

I really want to be a better blogger though, so in light of that, I’m going to Blog Better Boston in a couple of weeks. It’s just a one day thing, but I suspect I’m going to get a lot out of it! I’m really looking forward to the food photography course I’m taking there. If you’ve ever tried food photography you know it’s wayyy harder than it sounds.

I also decided I’m going to go to BlogHer 12 in NYC this summer. I’ve haven’t been to BlogHer since 2009, the timing just hasn’t been right for me the last few years. I’ve heard it’s gotten sooo much bigger and intimidating but that’s okay with me. I have a pretty good idea of what to expect, I want to spend some time seeing the city through my camera lens, and I have a fabulous roommate who I know will let me tail her like a puppy when I don’t know what else to do with myself. Will I see any of you there?

Okay, so speaking of photography, we bought the cutest camera you have ever seen! It’s small like a point and shoot, but has interchangeable lenses. I’m kind of in love with it and kind of afraid of it! I’m really hoping someone will buy me a macro lens for it. And teach me how to use it??

Soooo, that brings me to the reason we bought the camera – because we’re going on our first “real” vacation EVER. I think every vacation we’ve ever taken has been either to visit family, has been part of a business trip, or has been a staycation. Since we managed this one car thing for so long, and are planning to continue it indefinitely we decided to use some of the savings we would have spent on a second car and go on a trip to the Grand Canyon.

You guys! The Grand Canyon! This is truly a trip of a lifetime for this New England girl. It’s something we’ve always wanted to do but never thought it would happen. I’m sure I’ll have much more to tell you about it as it gets closer. Or hey, no promises, I might not have time to blog again until after it’s over! Either way, I guarantee you I will have a million and one photos to share with you. Heh.

I hope y’all don’t mind if this ends up being a photography blog!

Hello Spring! So glad you’re almost here!

So who else had one of THOSE weeks??

• Josh has a cold. Now I’m getting a cold. When I get a cold I tend to snore. (Don’t we all? Please say you snore when you’re sick too!)
• When I snore I don’t sleep well. Hence desperation for a nap mid-day, every day.
• I’m on so many deadlines I can barely breathe much less take a nap.
• Yesterday I was wide awake at 3:30 am. For the day.
• By 1pm I couldn’t take it any longer. My brain was non functioning so I gave up and laid down on the bed for a quick nap.
• I didn’t even get under the covers or turn on a light. I just sorta fell there, then the cat curled into my armpit and we zonked.
• When I awoke I couldn’t figure out why my clothes were wet. No, I didn’t pee myself. No, the cat didn’t pee on me. No, I wasn’t in a feverish sweat…
• Wait for it…
• I was laying in CAT PUKE.
• Apparently not long before I went upstairs George had been in the bed by himself and horked everywhere. Like projectile baby vomit, but worse.
• I slept for an hour in it and didn’t know!!
• I think I’m cured of ever, ever, needing a nap again. (Or not.)
• And I might just have to buy a new bedspread.

Yeah, you better hide your face.

That was just ONE DAY. How was your week??

You have to make the decision!
Are you going or not?
Maybe make the decision while stirring the pot!

What are you going to do?
Make the decision while tying your shoe!

You have the power!
Make the decision in the shower!

What is the day today Dad?
Is it a weekday which is totally unrad?
Should I go to school?

NO! IT’S A SATURDAY!
Yay! You say.

* I came downstairs this morning to find Josh had written a completely awesome poem and of course my first question was, can I blog it? So I paid him $o.50 to publish it. It’s my first paid content!

Except. Do you know what else is happening on Pinterest? Massive amounts of copyright violations.

I’m personally really struggling with this. In real life I’m a photo editor. I find publication quality photos, I contact photographers, I sign contracts with them, and I PAY them for the use of their images. It’s my job and my eyes and brain are trained to look for copyright issues.

In some of my spare time I go online, hang out on Twitter and FB, read blogs, take photos and share them on Instagram. A few weeks ago I realized Pinterest wasn’t one of those social media sites that flames quickly and then dies. It’s going to be around for awhile, so, I caved and joined. And loved it. So PRETTY! SO ADDICTIVE!

Then I took another look. Deeper into where these gorgeous images were coming from. Who shot them? Who do they really belong to? Who is getting the credit? The link love?

And then I started to squirm.

I followed trails back to original sources. A few were linked to the actual photographer. Great! PIN AWAY! Some pins were from Tumblr sites or other blogs that had pulled the images from Flickr or the like. If the original photo was listed as creative commons, well fab, but what if they weren’t? Some of the pins I looked at were actually watermarked with copyright information but there was no link back to the website clearly on the watermark. Just as grievous – that many pins are pulled directly from Google images, a clear violation of any copyrighted image.

SO MANY of these are stolen photos my friends. Stolen from the photographers who took them, some who make their living off of them.

This is not okay.

Pinterest does address this issue in their Copyright section. I suggest if you haven’t read it then you should before you add any new pins or repin any existing ones. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

So, here’s the part that really bothers me:

If you are a copyright owner, or are authorized to act on behalf of one, or authorized to act under any exclusive right under copyright, please report alleged copyright infringements taking place on or through the Site by completing the following DMCA Notice of Alleged Infringement and delivering it to Pinterest’s Designated Copyright Agent. Upon receipt of the Notice as described below, Pinterest will take whatever action, in its sole discretion, it deems appropriate, including removal of the challenged material from the Site.

This puts the onus on the PHOTOGRAPHER to make sure none of their images are on the site without their permission. Really? How the heck will they ever know?? And if you do find a photo in violation, and jump through the hoops to get it pulled or properly linked, how do you keep the next person from pinning it yet again? You can’t. It’s impossible. So copyright infringements will proliferate.

Now let me be clear about this. I think that 99% of the people who pin stolen photos don’t do it on purpose. Most people just don’t think about it at all. They just pin or repin what they like, without any concept of copyright law. People think twice when it comes to copying WORDS – well everyone knows that’s plagiarism! Except the same is true for photos!

If you are a blogger, or a photographer, (whether professional or amateur doesn’t matter) how would you feel if you found one of your images pinned directly from your blog or your Flickr account or wherever? Great, right? Someone really liked your work and you get the clicks and everyone is happy. Now think how you would feel if if you found one of your photos on Pinterest but the link went to some other blog post that someone created using your image with no credit back to you? A little different right? Yeah.

Clearly Pinterest is not going anywhere any time soon, and neither is this rights issue. So I ask you, please,  if you are on Pinterest, please be mindful of photographer’s property. If you are uncertain about a photo’s original source, try to find it and if you do, pin it from there instead. Most of the time it only takes a few extra clicks to pin from the actual owner, instead of from the person who knowingly or unknowingly stole it from them. At least give the copyright holder the credit and the click-throughs.

Anyway. I’m so busy looking at the path I’m on that I miss so much else around me. I forget to look up at the hills and trees, down at shadows and patterns on the ground, and right next to me at rock formations and little ponds. I’m trying though. I’m making my husband crazy in the process, stopping (!) every 10 feet to take another shot, but I’m trying!

Look up.

Look down.

All around. **

* Maybe this should be my new LIFE mantra, not just when I’m taking pictures?

** And now you have that song stuck in your head, don’t you? You’re welcome!

This was 8 years ago.

This is today.

Can I cry now?

His attitude hasn’t changed much.

I found the old shirt. We decided it was good luck since the Pats beat the Panthers that year.

We put it on a stuffed bear but that wasn’t nearly enough fun.

So we put it on George.

No cats were harmed in the making of this post.

Mostly he just wanted to lie down.

Or rip my face off.

Best photo shoot ever.

Fingers crossed the Patriots win this one!

I think it’s making me a better photographer if only because I’m noticing the world around me more. I always have my phone with me, so it’s easy to snap a shot when I see it instead of wishing I had a camera. I’ve been focusing on playing with patterns, light, and textures so I’m doing more close ups. Eventually I’d like to get a real dslr and learn how to do all of these cool things by messing with f-stops, shutter speeds, and different lenses instead of relying on filters but for the moment the apps are helping get the end product I want without the frustration.

I’d love to know what you all think of these, and if there is one you like best.

Stairwell in an old mill building, from below.

Conveyor belt close up.

Wooden railing.

Zakim Bridge in Boston. (No, I wasn’t driving, and yes, we were stuck in traffic.)

Granite wall.

Filler on paved road.