beat it

i'm sitting here at the computer editing photos when henry walks up to me and asks to watch the video where they are fighting with knives. i ask, "what?". i am completely perplexed. he tells me the video where the are fighting with knives, but not really, they are actually dancing with knives. (this doesn't help). i send him off to ask matt - maybe he knows what this child means. i hear matt say something about michael jackson and 'bad'. turns out henry wants to watch the 'beat it' video. random? absofreakinglutely. i have no clue where that came from! i'm afraid to ask to be perfectly honest.

so we go to youtube, type up our demand and before i can hit play henry is excitedly calling for the "lego one, play the lego one!!!" and sure enough, there it is.



and the whole time he's watching it, he's telling me that this is the lego set he wants.

i love this kid.

beauty for good.

as we all struggle to wrap our minds around the terrifying effects of the catastrophic events that have and continue to occur in japan it is easy to feel helpless. while i was sitting here feeling stunned and heartbroken reading the news, my friend erika was putting together a way for all of us to help those who can provide some relief.

erika has a gathered a small collection of prints from a handful of photographers to be auctioned off with all proceeds to benefit the relief efforts of the ICRC (international committee of the red cross). each photograph is 8x12 with a borderless lustre finish and printed on archival paper. your purchase will ship directly from costco professional printers in order to cut down on shipping costs. there are 8 prints to choose from (see above) and at $20 each they make an affordable way for you to brighten someone's day (maybe even your own) and do a good deed all in one go. the prints will be on the auction block until saturday, march 19.

i feel fortunate to have friends with such giving hearts and am humbled that erika invited me to contribute to this project. i would be honored if you helped us in this effort to show some compassion and love for our fellow humans who are facing struggles and hardships that really are beyond my comprehension. it truly is a small world and every bit of kindness helps.

for more details you can visit here or go to the erika ray photography facebook page where you can get a larger view of the available prints.

this might be long winded.

but for some reason it needs to come out, and i haven't visited this space in months so i'm just going to type and leave it at that. it just feels kind of nice to be back here.

i am horrible at organizing and editing my photos. i upload and run. i rarely delete. and i've been this way for 4 years now. this behavior adds up to a lot of crap photos taking space on my computer. apparently a lot of space. so, i've been slowly working on organizing my photos with the intention of then going back through the folders and tossing out the junk. and oh my, is there a lot of junk. i mean how many photos of baby food or carpenter bees do i really need? and the blurry ones? thousands and thousands of photos of blurry children run rampant on my hard drive. (have i mentioned that i've also never backed up my photos?)

so, i go to upload some photos and they won't upload. i'm out of space. then weird things pop up saying there was an error in trying to save my photos in iphoto though i don't even have that program open. panic starts setting in and mass deletion (on my part) begins. i'm trying to go ahead and delete the tens of thousands of photos i don't deem worthy of taking up space before i back everything up. which i really am going to do. i've lost photos before (though i think they could be lurking in the trash somewhere. i don't know because iphoto won't let me open it). dealing with this task has been a bit of burden in my mind and putting it off has been my way of (not) dealing with it. anyway, rambling here . . .

and here i get to the tissues sitting there on the desk. going through this many photos and reviewing them has been extremely cathartic. at one point i didn't feel like i was emotionally capable of going through certain folders, like ones from thanksgiving where there were so many photos of my grampa, or all the pictures of the kids with our dog mason (who passed away in september at the ripe old age of 15). i had to stop several times because i was a blubbering mess hoping that i didn't wake up the kids from their naps, but i kept going (and i didn't wake them up). i still have a lot more pictures to go through, but going through these en masse i'm also figuring some things out. for example, i don't need to take any more photos of carpenter bees or baby food being made. or that i've come a long way, baby. it's a big deal to me that i'm more comfortable shooting in manual mode than any other mode. i would not have even thought that possible two years ago. maybe two years from now i'll be impressed with myself for having a decent organizational system for my photos! who knows?

so, that's what i've been doing the last couple of days and will still be doing for the next few days. if you don't see me around too much in the next few days, you'll know i'm busy hitting that delete button with no regrets. unless i mess something up somehow. because that is very possible too.


and hey! i remembered my blogger password. that's something!