Loquacious Lady

Tom and I had a great Memorial Day weekend with family and friends.

Last night, though, after the pool trips were over, and everyone was gone, I slipped outside to look at some fireworks going on in the distance.

And my thoughts turned to those who aren’t having fun with their loved ones this weekend, because they either gave their lives for this country or because they are still serving in the military.

I am so grateful. There are just not enough words.

And I’m not just grateful to them. I’m grateful to their families for giving so much up so that those they love can serve.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Please know that there are so many people praying for you, grateful for you, honored by the choice you’ve made to protect us.

Also, just wanted to share a picture of my Mema and Papa…back when they were 20. He was stationed on the other side of the country for the Navy, and she always washed up, dressed up, and made up to welcome him home. Every day. (She told me so.)

I love this picture so much, I did a (somewhat) mirror image imitation of it for a gift for her when Tom and I were engaged.

It’s my Mema’s birthday today. =) She’s in her 80′s now, and I know she misses my papa every day.

I wish I had a picture of my other grandfather in uniform, too. He was in the Air Force when he met my Nana.

I’m so proud to be descended from people who served.

So proud of the people who are serving right now.

~Meghan

Well, Memorial Weekend kicks into high gear tonight, and I am pumped. I have a busy, wonderful schedule ahead:

Friday- Tom and I will be catching up on all our shows. That means finally getting to watch NCIS’s last episode (we cancelled cable, and use Roku, but Hulu Plus doesn’t get NCIS). And then it means Big Bang Theory Marathon!!

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We are so hooked. Everyone and their mom was telling us we would love it, and they were correct. (Sheldon is the funniest of them all, so far.) We have been getting the first season via Netflix, and I’ve never been able to get Tom to sit and watch tv so willingly before. LOVE BBT!

Saturday- In the morning, Tom and I are trekking to McDonough to check out Rachel and Chris‘s wedding venue. I’m excited to see where I’ll be shooting my first wedding!!

Then we return to Suwanee for lunch and probably some pool time. And playing with the dogs in the backyard. And time for reading for me and video games for Tom.

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He works so hard these days, and he never makes time for fun things like that for himself anymore. I’m gonna make him.  And another datenight…Maybe we should use some of our freebies for the movies and see something in a theater. Yay!

Sunday- Sunday, we have no Transit, so I will most likely skip driving all the way to Alpharetta for church and instead catch a service online.

I will also be hittin’ up Stone Mountain with Tom and some of our besties, Justin and Jenn.

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But before we leave, Jenn and I will be putting some pork in the Crockpot to make this when we get home:

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I am gonna crush that deliciousness. YUM. (I need to eat breakfast right now. So hungry.)

Then we will watch a movie, probably, and just hang out. And they’ll spend the night.

Monday- Actual Memorial Day. Pool time with J&J and Tom, and hopefully Jonathan, Lisa, and the fab. four (their many children) can join us! We’ll have sandwiches, chips, and watermelon there.

Later in the day, we and the Smiths will grill out (YUM, cheeseburgers) and might watch another movie. Or more BBT, Season 1. The Smiths are big fans of it too, and they’ve been telling us to watch it for…oh, about…forever.

So that’s my AWESOME Memorial Day weekend.

What do you have planned?

~Meghan

Last month, Will and I spent a day on his grandparents’ houseboat on Lake Lanier with his Aunt Brittany and his cousins Silas and Tristan. We had so much fun with them.

And when I was leaving, I noticed some other grown-ups hanging out with babies by the lake.

In case you wondered, yes, they did hiss at me. Not a big fan of geese. But those little goslings were so cute, I just couldn’t resist.

On another note, do you ever have a hard time seeing if your pictures are too bright or too dark in bright sunlight? I find it difficult sometimes, as you might be able to tell from the first 3 photos.

Oh well. Back to my point. Baby geese are much cuter than grown-up geese. The end.

~Meghan

The other day, I helped my sister-in-law, Lisa, prepare for a baby shower. Her friend is expecting a baby girl, and Lisa put together the cutest pink and green party. I thought I’d share.

Here’s the tablescape. The bucket on the right was to hold ice and glass bottled beverages the day of the shower.

The lanterns overhead. We took a small rod and used fishing line and pins to secure it to the ceiling. Then we tied the lanterns at various lengths to the rod.

Later (after these photos were taken), Lisa hot glued some white pom-pom fabric (like you see lining these curtains) to the rod to cover it up and make it more festive.

I love that she included the invitation. It inspired a lot of the color scheme.

The rose cake. I showed Lisa the rose design from something I saw and loved on Pinterest. (You can follow my pins!) If you would like to know how to do it, you can see how on the Martha Stewart website. It’s easier than it looks. Lisa used homemade strawberry icing. Yum!

Isn’t it cute with the tutu around it?

I think Lisa did a great job setting up for her friend’s baby shower, and I thought you all might enjoy getting a little inspiration as well!!

~Meghan

The other day, I was at my brother and sis-in-law’s house, and right before I left, Lisa and I noticed a budding photographer in our midst.

This is Violet. She’s 2.

She kept telling Lisa to turn her head to the side. Reminded me of Olan Mills portraits growing up.

But my favorite part was when I asked her to turn the camera around so I could see her picture. And this is how she did it:

Oh well. Technically, she did turn it around. She just turned herself around with it.

At least she doesn’t have to say, “Say Cheese!” to get us to smile.

~Meghan

A couple of weekends ago, I got together with Chris and Rachel to photograph their engagement session. What a beautiful couple. And sweet too.

Also, this location is hard to beat. It kind of has it all.

Yep. All of that- the gardens, the palms, the ranch, the lake, ALL of it- was one location. What sweet, generous homeowners the McFarlands are to let us borrow their property for the day. This is a tiny handful of the photos.

I’ve known Rachel since we were about seven or eight years old, and I really enjoyed capturing all these special memories for her and Chris. I had a lot of fun working with them, and I’m excited about their wedding in August!

Thanks for letting me help tell your story, you two!
~Meghan

White balance can be a difficult thing to figure out sometimes. Usually, if you set it to the appropriate light source, it does pretty well at making your picture look true-to-life with colors.

Here’s a picture of some person’s camera’s white balance options. Mine offers these as well.

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And if you don’t set your white balance correctly, your colors can be off. For those of you who constantly notice a bluish tint to your photos, that might be why. See?

For those of you who use your white balance setting, have you ever had a hard time figuring out what to set it to when you are in an area that has more than one type of light?

For example, my kitchen is not a great place for preset white balance lighting. There are windows that give some light, and there’s incandescent light as well.

Or say you need to photograph something in a room that has fluorescent light overhead, incandescent light lamps, and huge windows giving natural light. Which setting do you choose?

Well, none of them is going to be ideal. When I was at Help Portrait, a photographer there, Marcus, showed me a great solution.

The Expo Disc is a disc that you place over your lens.

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It refracts all the light in an area, so when you set your camera to manual and take a picture, it gives you a gray photo.

What you do is set your camera to custom white balance before taking the picture, and aim it at the light source (or, if possible, go to where the subject will be and aim at the place you will be standing to take the photo).

That gives you a more accurate reading of the light the subject will have on them/it. Then when you take the shot, your camera will set your white balance to the gray photo the expo disc helps you take.

It’s really simple. I wish I could tell each of you how to set your camera’s custom white balance, but there are WAY too many cameras out there for me to know how each one works.

Not to worry though, because all you have to do is Google how to set the custom white balance for your camera’s make and model. So many people have tutorials out there to show you how your exact SLR can do that.

Your camera will be perfectly set to take photos that show the true color and lighting in that space.

Then you put your expo disc away and photograph!

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Here is an example of a before and after expo disc shot.

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Don’t you think that looks so much better?

Another option is to use a gray card. This takes into account reflected light, and some people like it better. It’s also much less expensive.

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Basically, you take a picture of the gray card in the setting you need to customize your white balance for, and that’s what you set your white balance to.

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Because cameras are not as adept as our eyes in reading colors accurately in each light setting, they have to compensate by adding or subtracting gray to/from subjects. Something white will have some gray added in; something black might have a bit of gray taken out. It’s not a true reading.

So when you use a gray card to set your white balance, it takes in the light sources, and you’re set to get a more accurate color representation in your photos than you would with a white balance pre-setting alone.

Both of these are good options, and it’s a nice tool to have in your camera bag just in case you need it.

If you already do this, what do you prefer? Expo disc? Gray cards? Why?

~Meghan

I love my Transit girls.

And I can hardly believe that they are about to finish the school year. One week from tomorrow, all of them will officially be done with school and ready for the summer.

YES!

I know you might be wondering why I am excited about that. Mostly, I am thinking that we will all have more chances to get together for socials each month. Pool parties, movies, etc. So fun!!

But in the meantime, Janet, my co-leader, and I have been making the rounds to the end-of-school-year events.

I had to miss a performance of Alice In Wonderland that three of our girls were in, but Janet made it. And she had to miss a band performance and a gymnastics tournament, but I made it.

Here is Katie! She plays oboe in the band at school. She’s going to be in the 7th Grade Honors Band next year!!

She had a lot of friends and family there, and I brought flowers from me and Janet.

I was really impressed. I was worried of what kind of torture I would be sitting through with a 6th grade band, but she and her bandmates were great!! Proud of her.

Anna is our gymnastics girl. I caught this video of her tumbling pass on my phone.

She nailed it!! She got second place for that pass.

And then she won first in trampolines, but I didn’t get a video of that because I had to go to Covington and had to miss it. (boo, me.) I saw a video, though, and it was insane. SO proud of her!!

I love seeing them support each other. This Sunday, one of our girls, Kendyl, is getting baptized in Transit. We’re making signs and noisemakers to celebrate this step in her faith. Awesome.

Like I said- love these girls!
~Meghan

After the mammoth posts yesterday and last week, I thought today should be nice and simple.

I grow Gerber Daisies in my front yard, and the other day, I noticed an unusual one.

Ever seen a flower do that before? I hadn’t.

~Meghan

We have established that organization does not come easily to me. I tend to allow spaces get cluttered. Then I get overwhelmed by the clutter. Then I avoid the clutter.

If I’m that way with a desk, can you begin to imagine how messy it gets in our bathroom?

Let me paint you a mental picture (and just so you don’t have to try too hard, I’ll include pictures too):

In the cabinets and the drawers, everything gets jumbled, messy, and hard to navigate. There’s nowhere convenient to keep all the things that we need to use on a regular basis. So ALL of that junk ends up on the countertops.

Now, when the bathroom needs to be cleaned, I have to haul ALL of that stuff off the counters, wipe all of that stuff down, clean the counters and mirror, and try to put it back in a way that doesn’t look messy.

This is annoying and time consuming…so that means I don’t do it nearly as often as I should. (I’m also just noticing there is a fork on the counter. Why was there a fork in our bathroom?)

In an attempt to corral the clutter, I ended up getting a basket for the countertop, which eventually became another jumbled mess of a catch-all.

(And, I’m embarrassed to admit, this is really what our bathroom looked like. I didn’t haul more stuff onto the countertop just to make people who clean obsessively (or even normally compared to me) have a nervous breakdown.)

Then there’s the floor.

I am the queen of procrastination, which means that every time we go on a trip or I have to buy toiletries or get free medicine from dad (score!), I take ages to unpack.

Turns out, that’s because it means bringing some of the clutter back into the bathroom. And I don’t enjoy putting more things back on the counters. Or under them.

And while we’re on the floors, did you notice the towels? There was a basket that once held a neat pile of towels. It had become a mountainous heap of them. It didn’t look nice.

What’s with the humidifier? Simply put, it’s a pain to clean. And I get sick a lot. So I have one. And it ends up in the bathroom for cleaning…which never happens. Then I get sick again.

Okay. Now, I know that was horrifying, and some of you are quietly sobbing and wondering if there is any way you can remove those visions from your memory forever. Try not to judge me too harshly.

For some reason I get kicks out of showing you, online, the messiest places in my house, although in reality, I wouldn’t let anyone but Tom within 10 feet of that bathroom when it looked like that.

And redemption is coming.

First, I pulled EVERYTHING out of the cabinets and drawers, and off the countertops, and I threw away anything that was no longer good, no longer useful, or no longer in use (but still wasn’t something someone would want us to give away).

Then I cleaned baby. I cleaned it ALL. I sprayed and wiped down the insides of the cabinets and drawers. Cleaned the counters. Cleaned the mirror. Cleaned the shower, the tub, the toilet, the floors.

Then I used some containers I had bought for organizing that space, and I put everything we were keeping back in a way that made sense for us.

We have candles on the windowsill above the tub. Which would explain the (seemingly random) lighter in the drawer closest to the tub. I like a relaxing bath every now and then.

Also, like how I have 3 inhalers in that drawer? And none of them is my fave brand (ProAir) because those are in my purse usually. Seriously? Could I be any nerdier? But I like having a designated place that Tom and I know holds my inhalers for when I have an asthma attack.

And the countertops?

I bought a new space organizer that has designated areas in it. That way, I can’t be putting too much stuff in it. Tom has a section, I have a section, our flossers have a section, and the big section has my glasses, our toothpaste, and one additional item for each of us.

Other than that, we have our toothbrushes, face washes, soap, and q-tips/cotton pads on the counters. That is it.

I have got to get us more grown up soap dispensers now.

My mom gave us those, and she meant for us to use them for mustard and ketchup when we had friends over for UGA/GT games. Such a cute idea. But I was a cheapy and didn’t want to buy more soap dispensers when we got married, so we used them in the bathroom instead.

OH! The towels! Don’t forget the towels.

I took them ALL out of there, and I put 3 back. They sit on a chair, which conveniently blocks the view of the trashcan. Tom was glad to get that out from under his sink.

I have plans to paint that chair, and I can’t wait! It will look so much cuter.

I also meant to hang towels from the bar over the tub, but I completely forgot to do that before taking pictures. Oh well. Picture it with big, fluffy towels hanging side by side. There, isn’t that nice?

And just in case you wondered what was where, I’ll show you (click to enlarge):

So there you have it. I cleaned and organized our bathroom into a space that’s actually liveable, functional, and enjoyable.

Whew.

And yes, I have been able to keep it that way. I even clean it once a week now that it only takes me a few seconds to get everything off the counter and then back onto it again.

I’m loving it. And I know for a fact that my super-organized husband is loving it. I did it as a surprise for him in addition to the fact that it just needed to be done.

Let me tell ya, he was surprised. And every night for a week I would hear him in there getting ready for bed saying, “It just makes so much sense!” to himself. hahahaha Makes me smile.

~Meghan