Blog Friends

Last week I had the opportunity to meet Cari over at The Osborne’s.  Go visit her, she’s amazing!

We initially ‘met’ when I wrote my very first post for Latter-Day Homeschooling asking for donations to my “50 State Project”…. a postcard from every state (which is still a work in progress **wink, wink**).  Cari and her family just happened to be moving back to Utah from out of state and would be passing through several states along the way.  She was kind enough to collect postcards and send them to my girls who were thrilled with each postcard received. 

Since that time, we’ve emailed back and forth and got to know each other a bit.  She’s seriously the sweetest person ever!  We figured out that she and my husband actually went to school together.  They didn’t really know each other but Anthony recognized her yearbook pic, does that count?

Well, with my tax return this year I decided to buy myself a DSLR.  No, it wasn’t really in the budget but darnitall, I’m determined to someday help my family’s income.  I know what you’re thinking:  Umm, Brooke, I’ve the seen the pictures on your blog and they’re really not that great.  Good luck to ya, you’ll need it!

Point taken but seriously, if you saw my camera you’d understand.  Since having this new camera, my photography has greatly improved.  Especially since Cari was kind enough to meet up with my boys and me to teach me how to use the thing.  No, I’m not saying I’m awesome yet.  It’s a work in progress. 

I admit I was scared of my new camera when it first arrived.  Yes, I’m serious.  I might have freaked out just a little bit when C tried to ‘help’ me take it out of the packaging. 

It was something like, “Don’t touch that!!  I will cry if you break something!”  And then K laughed at me. 

Anyway, I met up with Cari at the park on a windy day (I had my boys and she had two of her three).  Boo to wind!  She taught me a few basics and best of all, I learned how to take it out of auto mode (which is actually scary at first but now I have a lot of fun with it) and how to shoot in ‘raw’. 

Can I just say that even though I understand why I should shoot in raw, it still makes me feel naked.  Yes, naked.  I don’t know why.  Raw, Naked… same thing. 

Well, the park got a little chilly and far too windy so we left and met up at the Chick-Fil-A down the street.  No pictures there but we had a good time.

I came home and immediately started playing with my manual settings.  My subject?  Bananas, of course!  What else?  

I have to say that I really enjoyed meeting Cari and I think I’ve made a good friend.  It’s not easy for me to make friends.  Maybe I’m just a bit socially awkward?  Or maybe I’m just a little bit shy… or both?  Whatever the case, I’m so glad to have made such a great friend. 

And guess what else she did!!!!!  Have you noticed my new design?  Um, yeah!  Totally Cari!  I swear there’s almost nothing that she can’t do.  She says she can’t sing or dance but I don’t know if I believe it. 

Cari totally went the rounds for me on this whole blog design.  Little did she know what she was in for when she asked if I wanted a new design… YES!  Sadly, I know next to nothing about WordPress (yeah, it was really smart of me to switch… :/) and poor Cari doesn’t use WP so she thought she was done at the design alone.  You know, pass the design along and let Brooke put it on there.

She did the whole darn thing!!  After my asking a gazillion questions about how I was to go about making the design work on my blog, she took it upon herself to figure it out for me.  On a happy note, she now knows WP.  Me?  I still know nothing. 

Cari, are we still friends? 

Oh man, I am ever so grateful to her for everything she’s done!  Looking forward to meeting again next week and hopefully making plans for more meetings!

And that’s the end of my post…

What?  You want to see pictures?  Oh, yeah, about that… they’re coming!  I’m still working on them.  Be patient.  Next post will have pics, I promise! ;)