It’s been quiet around here – too quiet.  You know that means there’s a lot going on!

First, there were a lot of sick kids.  2 weeks later, I found out my two youngest had ear infections.  Before you criticize – we’ve never had an ear infection before.  I didn’t know what was going on.  Whoops.

Secondly, we went on a family vacation.  Phil had a conference in Seattle, and we decided to go with him and make it a whole week together.  It was a blast!

Third, the washer broke just as we were leaving.  I did the laundry in the tub.  It’s fixed now.

Fourth, I know I said I was retiring from business to raise our kids, but um, well, this photography thing just jumped up and slapped me in the face and, and….

I really love photography.

So now I have a photography business.

For real!  I’m no longer running under the radar as an amateur.  I do commercial work – real estate & food photography, as well as content photography.  (Please do not use any of these images for any reason – they are copyrighted.  You’ve been warned.)

This means if you’re selling your home or you’re a realtor – you probably need me.  Show and sell!   

If you are creating a recipe book as an heirloom for your children or for sale – you definitely need me.  YUM.  For quality control and taste testing, at least.  Right?  Right?

(*silence*)

If you’re an etsy seller, jewelry or clothing designer or retailer – you need me.  I can rock your catalogue!  There’s nothing like bad lighting and a photo snapped on a cell phone to kill your sales.

And I need you.  I really enjoy the creative challenge of putting places, people, and things together with light and making beautiful and compelling images.  (I do portraits, but for now, I’m focusing on commercial photography and real estate to keep demands on my time under control – however, feel free to contact me if you’re local and want portraits done.  I can be flexible and I’ll be straightforward about referring you to other great photographers if I’m too busy.)

This week, I’ll be announcing my photography website and revealing it to the world – but I have a fun little giveaway in the meantime.

Do you have someone who always wants to use your camera?  Someone small?

They need one of their own!  A Fischer Price Tough Kid Digital Camera in blue, to be exact.

And since budding photographers never seem to know which eye to keep open, this fun little digital camera lets you use BOTH.  It is a very sturdy camera – you can toss and drop this thing and it just bounces and keeps shooting.  It also comes with a USB tether and a memory card – it actually works!

Full Disclosure:  This is my daughter’s camera that she got for Christmas.  She has used it.  It is in great condition and I refuse to throw a perfectly good camera in the garbage – one, because it’s a $60 camera.  And two, because it’s wasteful.  And three, because I know some of you have kids who would LOVE this thing.  It does NOT sing or wiggle.  It does have a flash.  It beeps when you delete a file.  That is all.

So it’s up for grabs!  Celebrate my photography business by giving a child a camera.  I guarantee you’ll be surprised and amazed by what they do with it!

To enter, tell me who you would give it to. 

Comment below or facebook this link (but comment that you did or it won’t have a number!) – winner will be chosen by random number generator.  You can enter once per day.  Giveaway ends on 2/15/2010 noon CST and the winner will be announced immediately.

Good luck!

You guys missed out.

Twilight giveaway?  You rocked those comments! 

Cookie book giveaway?  Comments and a very happy winner.

Lynda.com giveaway?  Nada.

Maybe you’re overwhelmed with the choices, like me.  You have so many things you want to learn to do this year that it’s hard to pick just one.

Maybe there’s really nothing you want to learn, oh Higher Beings of Greater Intelligence Than I.

In any case, you’re too late, and now…

I get the subscription for myself!  Bwahahahaha!

Here are some of the things I’ll be learning during my subscription to Lynda.com:

1) Blogging & podcasting

2) Digital imaging, photography, and video + processing

3) CAD – I have a dream of someday designing and building my own home.

4) Typography – You didn’t know it, but I’m secretly a bit of a font snob.

5) Software and apps like Twitter, Silverlight, Flash, Dreamweaver, AIR, Picasa, Lightroom, and Publisher.

You so missed out!!

Better luck next time!

We had rats in our attic a few weeks ago.

Last week, I bought a variety of poisons and traps for Phillip to use in eradicating the vermin.

He decided the poison was the easiest method, broke up the bars, and tossed the chunks around the attic.

Predictably, the rats ate it and died.

I convinced him to go up with me the next day and look for bodies.  We were lucky – we saw a tail sticking up out of the insulation and found one.

We didn’t find any others until last night.

The girls’ room had started smelling foul – the stink progressed rapidly throughout the day.  After I realized there must be another rat carcass in the attic, I talked with Phillip about it.

My husband is a computer programmer, not a farmer, and he was born and bred in the city.  He wasn’t going anywhere near that rat.

I am a farm girl.  I was raised on one and I’m not afraid of yucky jobs.  I wasn’t going to let that rat stink up my house while my husband went to a slick glass building all day and we suffered through it.  With the way it smelled, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be hard to find.

Well, I started up to the attic and my husband was not going to be outdone by his wife, so up he came.  It’s a good thing, too, because that rat was so far back under the eaves, burrowed deep in the middle of the insulation, that it needed two people – one who could scramble over to it and one to hold the light so we could find it. 

It was a BIG rat.  And it had *yuck!* exploded.  I put it in a triple-bagged garbage sack, then put it in another garbage sack in the garbage can and threw my gloves away for good measure.

I think we’ve learned a valuable lesson.  Poison is inefficient and lazy.  Much better to go to the trouble of putting out a proper spring trap and checking it every few days to dispose of anything. 

Today the roofer has come to fix the hole and add ridge vents to our roof.  You can be sure we’ll be clearing out the growth by our home and making sure we’ve closed all the holes they’ve used.

I  will, at least.  But I bet you ten-to-one that if I go out to do it myself, my husband will tag along with me.  For moral support, you know.

Yay, it’s 2010!

And just for fun, I’m having another (long) overdue giveaway.  Remember this?

See Lynda?

See Lynda teach.

I like Lynda, and so will you.

Lynda.com offers online video training in, oh, just about any software or computer-related issue you can imagine.  Want to know how to make a blog?  She’s got you covered.  Want to learn Photoshop?  Oh, yeah!  Still trying to figure out what Excel is for?  Check!

Because I love you, I’m giving away a month subscription to Lynda.com. 

Hey, it’s the new year, and you’ve got goals!  I want to help you reach them, and Lynda does, too.

Well, I’m sure she would if she knew about this giveaway.  Or the corporate team at Lynda.com.  But they don’t – this is just me.  Nobody there even cares…

Ahem.

All you need to do is answer this question:  What would you want to learn this year?

For another entry, add a link in the comments to your blog or facebook entry where you link back to this post. 

(This giveaway will end on January 19th at noon CST.  The winner will be announced January 20th.)

Tell your friends and good luck!

Especially in pairs.