Candle In The Wind

Driving in my minivan stock filled with groceries the other day, Elton John’s Candle In The Wind came on the radio. As I drove home, I digested the lyrics. It wasn’t long before I had tears welling in my eyes.

Now, I have heard this song many a time before, and yes I am hormonal and un-medicated. And yes, Marilyn’s story is tragic and harrowing. But it was more than that.

These lyrics struck a chord with me:

And it seems to me you lived your life  
Like a candle in the wind

Because in that moment, I realized that over the last eight months I had unbeknownst to myself accepted a grain of truth. 

My grain of truth? I am strong. 

Strong willed, strong hearted, strong minded, strong.

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More of my life has been lived as a candle in the wind, than not.

In my teen years I dealt with suicide attempts, debilitating depression, a near fatal car crash, drug addiction and overdoses, dropping out of school, and struggling to find my fit.

As a young adult I moved myself over 1,500 miles from the only home I ever knew. I moved by myself, not knowing a soul in the town I moved to.

I got married, carried and birthed two sons, and accepted my sons leukemia. All the while dancing with my beasty friend bipolar disorder.

I have always been a self doubter. A person that feared success and failure. I doubted my capabilities as a person, a wife, a mother. I viewed my mental illness as a weakness, not a badge of strength.

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But something shifted in these last eight months. I am persevering through something I never in a lifetime thought I could handle, my sick son.

My old way of thinking is gone, I no longer think: I couldn’t handle that, if that happened to me. Instead I think: If that happens to me, I will handle it.

I no longer fill my thoughts with anxious self doubting notions. There is no longer a negative Nancy in the back of my head, holding me back from personal success.

I don’t doubt who I am anymore. I don’t doubt my morals, and my beliefs. I don’t doubt what I am capable of doing and being. I am no longer hiding in a cloud of self doubt.

Because it seems to me, I have lived too many years of my life guessing, faltering, grasping, and doubting. And it seems to me, it is high time I acknowledge the inner strength and fortitude I have, and have always had.

While I hate Ezra’s cancer for many reasons, I will forever be grateful for this gem of truth it helped me to reveal.

So today only, I thank you cancer……

Because I have nothing else to blog about….

I am subjecting you to cute pictures of my boys….

The weather was amazing yesterday, so we headed out for some fun and bubbles. Yes, Ezra is still in a pajama top…he’s half dressed, that counts for something! We did not put the boys in this chair, my husband and I turned the corner to find them sitting like this. Of course, I had to run and grab my camera!

They really are best friends. See..? Aren’t they sweet?

This next picture is just really neat, we had the bubble blower on, and I love the bubble bokeh in this picture.

 

Happy Wednesday!

Bloggography Challenge, Aperture

Each week, Lolli and I  pick out our favorite entry into the previous challenge, go check out Lolli’s blog to see who she chose. I chose Joanne’s entry from Thru My Eyes. This is a fantastic action shot! Great job!

Now on to the assignment! This week we asked you to take a picture using your cameras aperture priority mode. I added the extra challenge of taking a picture of something pink or red for February. Here is my shot. Pink and brown Cons, yes I have a Converse obsession.

And since I can’t leave a picture alone, that is the edited version. I added some color layers and texture.

Here is the shot before I edited it.

About the shot: f/4.5, ISO 200, 1/100

Here is the same shot taken with a larger aperture.

About this shot: f/2, ISO 200, 1/500

I prefer the first shot because more of the shoes are in focus.

We'll be posting some of our favorite shots from this week's challenge in two weeks. Will we pick yours?

Don’t forget to grab a button or link back to Lolli and I on your post . And make sure you add your picture to the Flickr group as well. You don’t even need a blog to participate, you can just leave the link to your picture in the Flickr group.

The MckLinky will be up for one week, so you have plenty of time to take a picture still!

Don’t forget to go check out my co-hosts picture!

And now for the sharing of photos!

i heart faces- hands

Ezra’s chubby little hand on my leg……

3 Months….

Look! I can still see my feet! I am not much bigger than last month so I thought I would try a different perspective. Although taking a picture of your pregnant belly with a wide angle lens will make objects (like PG bellies) appear larger than they seem!

Only a little more than a week left until I am through the first trimester, if only the other 2 trimesters went by as fast as the first… I can very slowly feel my energy increasing. I pee 40+ times a day, waking at least 4 times a night. I think I have been feeling little flutters here and there, but that could be side effects from my cravings. I crave things that cause heartburn like salami, hot banana peppers, tomatoes, lemonade, and Tabasco. What can I say? I am a glutton for punishment.

Much to my surprise I got to see the baby yesterday!

I got to see it moving it’s little hands around, and it’s heart beating strong. I was speechless, my eyes filled with tears. I was just expecting to get to hear a heartbeat, but they said it can be hard to hear the heartbeat yet, so they just do a quick ultrasound to put mom at ease. So I wasn’t prepared to get to see the little jellybean in motion.

Seeing our baby stole my breath. It was nothing short of amazing…..

In 8 more weeks I get to have another ultrasound, where they should be able to tell us the sex of the baby. I asked the tech today if she saw a penis…she just laughed at me.

I am so excited!

Your Pictures

I asked and you listened, you all sent me some great pictures! Some of them were a lot more work than the others, but I accepted the challenge. I didn’t get to all of them that were sent to me, but most of them. Some of them turned out better than others, but most of that had to do with the quality of the image to begin with.

All pictures were edited using Photoshop CS3, and I am now offering this as a service, incase there are any of you out there that want some pictures edited. Details can be found here.

Connie from The Young and Relentless.

Before                                                             After

Lisa’s pic from Let’s Talk Babies.

Before                                                                    After

Jenna’s pic from Newlyweds.

Before

After

Anna’s pic from The Hat Junkie

Before

After

Jen’s pic from The Enstad Family:

 Before                                                             After

Nicole’s pic

Before                                                           After

Mandee’s pic from Raising My Four Sons.

Before                                                           After

Nalene’s pic

Before

After

Kim’s pic from Diaries of a Coach’s Wife.

Before                                                           After

Emily’s pic from I don’t shine, if you don’t shine.

Before

After

If I edited your picture and you would like me to email you a copy, let me know.

Thanks for all the pictures!

Home Sweet Home

Ezra was finally released from the hospital today. He really does so much better at home, but I have to think any child would. He was busy playing, smiling, running, and being very somewhat difficult.

He looks a little paler than usual, which is hard to believe, I know. He will be treated another ten days on antibiotics for the ear infection. They have also changed his oral chemo dosing. He was on 100% chemo dosing, but they lowered it to 50%, they don’t want his counts to bottom out again, they will check his counts soon and hopefully slowly increase the chemo back up to 100%. His oncology team said it is typical for kids to bottom out in maintenance when he did. His ear infection didn’t help his counts either.

It all still seems a little surreal at times, like when I read back what I just wrote and words pop out at me like oncology team, counts, and chemo. It all became a part of our reality so quickly. I am not going to lie, our lives had started to seem some what normal lately. This last hospital visit very rudely reminded me how far from normal our lives truly are. I don’t know that our lives will ever really be normal again. And you know what? I am ok with that, if you know me at all, I am not very good at normal….

We are so glad to be back home! Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers.

Aperture, a Bloggography Tutorial

What is aperture?

Aperture is the hole inside of your lens that lets light in. Different lenses have different apertures. A lens of f/1.4 will have a large hole where as a lens of f/4.5 will have a smaller hole.

Aperture is measured in f stops. Lets say you have a lens that has a maximum aperture of f/1.8, when you set the aperture to f/1.8 the hole in your lens will be at its largest, and will allow the most light in ( this is called “shooting wide open”). Now lets say you switch the aperture to f/22 that same hole will become much smaller and allow in less light.

So the smaller the f stop number, the larger the hole in your lens becomes, and vice versa.

Which aperture to use?

There are a few things to consider when choosing an aperture. First off you want to look at the lighting you have available, if you are shooting pictures indoors where lighting is limited (and you aren’t using a flash) you will want to choose a large aperture (small number). I often shoot at f/1.8 when inside, or the largest aperture my lens has. Remember the larger the aperture the more light you are letting in.

If you are outdoors or in a well lit area, you can vary your aperture for different effects. When you make adjustments to your aperture you are also going to effecting the depth of field in your picture. The best way to illustrate this is with examples.

A large aperture will give your picture a shallow depth of field. Meaning that only what you focused your lens on will be in focus and the area around it will be blurry. Like this:

Shot at f/1.8

The smaller you make your aperture the more of your picture comes into focus. Like this:

 

Shot at f/5.6

Even smaller, and even more becomes in focus. Like this:

Shot at f/11

Can you see in the first picture, that the whole branch isn’t even all in focus? Notice also, how the branch in the background becomes more in focus as I use a smaller aperture.

Where is my aperture?

If you don’t have a DSLR, look for a lady’s head symbol on your point and shoot.

Things to remember/know about aperture:

- the smaller the f stop number the larger your aperture is

- when shooting in low light choose the largest aperture available

- shooting with a large aperture may only put part of what you are trying to focus on, in focus. Like a nose will be in focus, but the eyes won’t. Check your shots, and adjust your aperture accordingly.

- AP (aperture priority) mode is a great mode to shoot pictures of children in, I almost always take pictures of kids in this mode. It is easy to switch apertures quickly, versus manually adjusting everything in manual mode.

The Challenge:

Use your camera’s aperture priority mode to experiment with different apertures. Take a picture with a large aperture, and try taking the same picture with a small aperture.

Need inspiration? Since February is the month of love, try finding something pink or red to take a picture of.

Come back next Tuesday to link up and share your example of aperture.

If you have more questions about aperture, or even your camera, please feel free to ask any questions in the comments. They will all be answered!

Save me from boredom, send me your pics!

(google images)

It looks like Ezra will be in the hospital a few more days, he is still running a fever and has little ANC. So I will be up there the majority of the day tomorrow, I get really bored sitting there. There is only so much Farmville a day I can play.

You all know how much I love to play in Photoshop, so in efforts to stave off my boredom send me one of your favorite pictures, and I will edit it for you! Now, I am not a miracle worker the picture does need to be in focus, and not completely blown out or under exposed.

So if you have a picture you would love to see edited by me, please send it to my email at manicmotherme@gmail.com, with the title “picture”. Don’t send me a picture unless you are comfortable with me posting it on my blog and linking to you.

I am also going to start offering this as a service soon, for a small fee, more on that to come!

Not So Happy Valentine’s Day….

I am up with Ezra at the hospital now, he is glad to see his Mama, and thankful for his teddy bear. Teddy has magical healing powers.

Ezra was running a low grade fever on Thursday, and it continued on until Friday. We weren’t too concerned as the same thing happened last time he went off his steroids. On Friday the fever finally peaked to the point of concern (100.4 in the case of leukemia patients.) So I brought him into clinic, where they determined he has an ear infection. Which would have been treatable at home if his ANC (immunity) wasn’t so low. On Friday it was 256. Anytime a child with leukemia has a fever and an ANC below 500 they are admitted. So he has been receiving some super duper antibiotics to help kick the infection.

Today Ezra’s ANC was 56, that is the lowest it has ever been, he basically has no infection fighting cells at all right now. So we are stuck in the room. We were told there is a chance the infection could develop into a bacterial infection since he has no immunity. So we wait for his blood to cook in the lab, and as long as nothing shows up we should be going home in a few days.

So we will do what we do best, persevere. And in the meantime I am here holding sweet boy’s hand.

Heartbreaker

I have been trying to go through the 1,000’s of pictures on my computer and get rid of a bunch of them, I stumbled upon this picture of Ro that was taken late this last summer.

I think I am going to be in trouble some day….what do you think?

In other news, if you follow me on FB or Twitter, you likely already know this, but Ezra is back in the hospital. He should be just fine, but we are looking at a few days in the hospital. I am going up there later today, and will work on getting a blog post up for all of you asap.

Holy Grail of Macaroni and Cheese

I have been on the quest for the perfect macaroni and cheese recipe for quite some time. Macaroni and cheese is one of my favorite foods, it has been ever since I was a little girl. This was probably my 5th attempt at making homemade mac and cheese. Every recipe I have tried before just isn’t right, its too dry, it separates, its too bland.

I have should have known to start with the domestic goddess’s recipe right from the start. This is Martha’s recipe for mac and cheese, I just changed a couple of things.

Drool…..

Ingredients:

• 5 tablespoons butter
• 3 slices white bread, crusts removed, torn into 1/4- to 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 3/4 cups milk
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 2 1/4 cups grated sharp white cheddar cheese (about 9 ounces)
• 1 cup grated smoked Gruyere cheese (about 4 ounces) I used smoked because it was all the deli had, and I think it made it even tastier.
• 1/2 pound elbow macaroni

Double this recipe for a 9x13 pan

- Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Place bread in a medium bowl. Melt 2 tablespoons butter. Pour butter into bowl with bread, and toss. Set breadcrumbs aside.

- In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, heat milk. Melt remaining 3 tablespoons butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat. When butter bubbles, add flour. Whisking for one minute.

- While whisking, slowly pour in hot milk. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick (about 5-7 minutes) It will look like this:

- Remove pan from heat. Stir in salt, nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne pepper, 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, and 3/4 cup smoke Gruyere, set aside.

- Fill a large saucepan with water; bring to a boil. Cook until almost done 6-7 minutes.   Stir macaroni into the cheese sauce.

- Pour mixture into prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining cheddar cheese and Gruyere and breadcrumbs over top. It will look like this: (yes I have a purple Pyrex, I heart purple)

Bake until browned on top, about 30 minutes. And cool for 5 minutes before serving. It will look like this:

Drool……

This really is the best mac and cheese I have ever had. Try it, you’ll love it too! (not responsible for calories consumed while eating this dish)