My New Blog

As most of you know, I've become just a wee bit obsessed with photography (guilty as charged!) So, to honor my mania, I have started a new blog dedicated to my progression from total amateur to the future me - a total frakin' photo goddess who makes you weep with her amazing images.

Here is the link Birth of a Photographer


I hope to see you over there. I promise to share what I'm learning, although so far I haven't had enough time. But I will. Soon.

THE LIGHT WORKSHOP

Ok, I have been dreaming of participating in this photography workshop and I've been given the GO AHEAD!!! Creative Light workshop It looks absolutely amazing, and I'm hoping to learn so much that I'll be pushed to the next level (whatever that is!). If you look at the gallery on her website, you can see why so many people want to get into her workshop! I hope I can!!! WISH ME LUCK!!!!!

Clickin Moms Scavenger Hunt

The month of July has been deemed Scavenger Hunt month! We are right in the middle of the coolest scavenger hunt on www.clickinmoms.com, the photography website I'm a member of. Jenny, Marty, Alex, and I have been obsessed with crossing things off the ENORMOUS list. We already have about 130, but there are already some people with over 200!!! Tomorrow we are going to try to go to the center to get pictures of a garden gnome, a sno cone (we'll probably have to make this) the Main Street sign (I'm hoping they will count "calle alta" since it's the translation, and maybe, a lacrosse stick, if we're lucky!
These are some of my favorites.

A woman wearing a hard hat

A triple scoop ice cream cone

Two people eating spaghetti like on Lady and the Tramp

Here's a child splashing in a puddle (in Barcelona)

These are some of my favorites. The photos don't necessarily have to be GOOD. It's all about quantity with this contest. It's really been a blast for me, though. You all know how much I love games!

One Negative Post

Bear with me. I need to vent. I posted as my Facebook status that I feel like the universe is conspiring against us and I just want to get out of here. I feel like Dorthy stuck in Oz. Where the heck are my ruby slippers?!

Anyway, here's the sitch: About a month ago we went to Madrid so Alex could apply for his immigrant visa to the US. We were feeling like the end was near - or rather, new beginnings were on the horizon. All we had to do was sell the café, complete the paperwork, and Voilá! Home again, home again jiggety jig!

Unfortunately things aren't turning out as we'd hoped. As most of you have heard, Spain's economic condition is dreary. Our café isn't doing well. None of the businesses in our area are doing well. Now to make matter's worse, there's an association of neighbors, (we'll call them the Neighbor's Association, just to be creative), has begun to cause problems for all of the bars and restaurants in our area.


Let me back up a bit here...

The Bohemian, our café, is smack dab in the middle of the university district. With the economic crisis, however, students can't afford to drink in bars, and they still live with their parents (yes, it's common to live with your parents until wedding bells ring), so house parties are out. What do they do instead? They drink in parks and parking lots. They're loud and messy and piss off a lot of people - especially the neighbors who live in poorly insulated apartment buildings of the 1970s. So now the Neighbor's Association has complained to the city hall who, in turn, have unleashed the police on us. Hey! What a great opportunity for the local police, whose funding has been cut, to earn some money! Fines fines and more fines!! We've already received two - one for closing a half an hour late (and really, who closes on time in Spain besides banks and public offices?!) and the other for playing music in our café (our license doesn't allow us to play music, but it's fine to sell loads of alcohol). And if that weren't enough to scare the hell our of us - two of the businesses on our street have been closed down.
It's also come out in the paper that the Neighbor's Association wants to shut down any business that is operating under a false license. We have a license for an ice cream parlor. We do sell milkshakes, ice cream sodas, coke floats and specialty coffees with ice cream, but we don't consider the café to be an ice cream parlor. If the local government decides to be sticklers, they can ruin us and a lot of other businesses in our area. Plus they're talking about changing the zoning laws. How can we sell the café if they decide to change the zoning laws and makes us close earlier? We make most of our money on the weekends between midnight and two. If we have to close at 12:30, what then?? We don't know what we're going to do. We're petrified.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know what's going on. Oh yeah. I also did a voice audition for a guide bus recording in Gandia. I didn't get it. I lost it to a girl with a slight speech impediment. I'm not feeling the love right now.

This experience has been an eye opener. No matter what anyone tells you, believe me, success is not achieved solely by working hard. This is a fallacy. I'm not being negative, just realistic. Of course this happens to some people in some cases, but we can't discount the element of pure luck. Alex has worked his butt off for the past four years trying to make this café successful, and it was. It was going exceptionally well. But then the world economy took a nose dive and this whole craziness with the neighbors ensued... it is out of our control. It's made me think about how quickly life can change and about the highs and lows and especially about how we need to refrain from judging those more or less "fortunate" than ourselves because those things can be so temporary.

Luck plays an enormously large part in success and failure in this world, so let's not beat ourselves up when we do fail. We just have to remember not to let it make us bitter or afraid to try again.

I apologize for this negative post. Things have been hitting us hard lately, but I am trying to stay positive about what lies ahead. Until then, I'll keep repeating "there's no place like home. There's no place like home...!"

Squeaker

After my last post my dad pointed out that I seemed to have posted bazillions of pictures of Bella, and only a handful of Julietta. Touché, Papa. You are correct. Am I playing favorites? Moi? Certainly not I. But, I did come up with some very good excuses like: "She's an infant who's always sleeping", and - "She's partial to one position - horizontal - so all the shots of this two month stage are going to look exactly the same" (Remember I'm obsessed with photography at the moment). And when the truth finally came out: "how the heck am I supposed to chase Bella around and work on my photography while she's awake?" Well, I thought about the dilemma and turned it into a game(WAHOOO!), or a challenge if you will. I decided I'd better get my act together and start taking some cool pictures of Julietta too. We played make believe. I pretended to be a professional photographer and she was my model and we set up mock "shoots" - some on her changing table, some at the park, and some on our couch... Fun stuff. I know I made technical errors in quite a few of these, but I'm learning, little by little.

So, here is my little squeaker. I call her "Squeaker" because instead of the grunts that Bella used to make, she makes small squeaky sounds. She talks and coos and says things like "goo". She's become quite sociable lately which Bella absolutely adores because that means she has more time to read her books and lay her toys on top of her and Julietta just smiles at her big sister.

Now, remember, although she was my "model" she didn't pose for ANY of these shots. Seriously, I got absolutely NO help from her. I swear it looks like I did, though, doesn't it? Isn't she just the cutest?!


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I had to slip one in. She doesn't model either. I'm lucky if I can get her to look at the camera.
Alex was sleeping here. Otherwise he's the model in the family. I have another post with all the shots Alex posed for. He's a natural.
I know it looks like she's wearing lip gloss in this one. In a way she kind of was. It's called "drool" - nature's lip gloss.
So there you go. I hope I've done her justice. Who do you think she looks like? I'm not really sure. All I know is that she's beautiful inside and out.

A Month and a Half in Photos

Hi, Friends. It's been a while since I last wrote. You wanna know why? Because being a mommy of two is tough stuff!! Bella is going through the prime tantrum-throwing stage. She's two and really good at it. Add that to Julietta's occasional incessant crying and that makes for an exhausted mommy who would rather veg out and stare at walls than think about writing and wrestling with technology. Luckily we all sleep pretty well at night.

I have been making sure to dedicate some time to my personal interests, otherwise I'm sure Alex would find me vegged out, rocking back and forth and babbling to myself in the corner somewhere. I've spent the past month completely obsessed with learning about photography, so I decided to do this post heavy on the visual and a lot lighter on the yammer (if I can contain myself, of course).

On March 31st Sweet Bella Lu (Squirty) turned two!!!! I was in denial and put only one candle on her cupcake.
/Bella%27s-2nd-Birthday-cupcake350.jpg">During a holiday here in Spain, we went to visit Alex's sister, Irene, in her monastery. This is when I started becoming more interest in learning more about photography. The pictures practically take themselves, it's such a beautiful atmosphere.

I thought this one looked almost biblical. In reality, Bella was throwing a tantrum and Irene was trying to console her.

We went on walks. LOOOONG walks with Alex's parents. Anything to get out of our house and let Bella run around!
We went to Viveros, one of my favorite parks in Valencia. I loved this shot so much in black and white, I entered it into a contest on the Clickin Moms website, and it came in second!!! (This is an awesome forum site for anyone interested in learning more about photography. THANKS, LEAH!!) I'm still glowing about that! We went to the park to blow bubbles. I have some hilarious shots of Bella throwing a fit because she wanted to blow the bubbles herself. She ended up with an empty container and a soapy mustache.
But she did have fun!
We played.
We found a new home for our cats, Ari and Gaia at Alex's friends house near Teruel. How perfect is this place for two cats on the prowl? Now, hopefully, our neighbors won't hate us so much.We walked around the surrounding towns, Mora de Rubielos AND Rubielos de Mora. Who can keep those straight??
We went to the park (yet again) to feed the ducks. Bella was a stinker, though, and ended up eating most of the bread.
One overly aggressive duck, didn't like that one bit and got a little too close for comfort.
We held, comforted and loved Julietta as much as we could.
Bella began learning how to push the stroller around by herself. Now we have to struggle with her every time we go out because she wants to do it BY HERSELF.Bella also has been taking care of her sister. She likes to undress her, poke her in the face, hold her hands and call her "Jayta", "Letta" and "Letita". It's cute, but I've got keep both eyes on her at all times. She just loves her so much.
Last weekend we went to Albacete, Paquita's family's hometown, for their annual festival. Unfortunately, it started pouring rain and we spent the rest of the day listening to Paquita give marital advice to her cousin's husband. Can you say "akward"?.
I managed to get a couple cute pictures of Bella while we were waiting for Jesus to open the car for us.
We also spent lots of time staring at cute little Ju Ju. She's starting to "talk" and it's the sweetest thing.
Most recently, we spent a day and a half in Madrid filing paperwork so Alex could get his visa. So far so good. We're on our way! The trip was extremely tiring for a little toddler. She was amazingly well-behaved while we waited and waited in the embassy.

But there were many moments like this:
We did manage to take a little break and have a gin and tonic at Parque Retiro amidst explosive poopy diapers and incessant crying. We were more than overjoyed to be back home on Wednesday night all snug in our beds enamored with the silence.

Mommy of Two

Julietta in her bunny hat I made - 3 days old.

I haven't had much time to attend to my blog (or my emails or even Facebook!), but I know that you'd probably all like to see some picture of our new addition, so here you go.

Julietta is very different from Bella. She likes to be held ALL THE TIME. She eats constantly (when she's not sleeping). She cries a lot more as well, but I think that might have to do with her gassy tummy. Poor kid. We are tying some different remedies at the moment. It kills me when I see her little face all scrunched up in pain. She also sleeps pretty well at night, so luckily, I haven't been sleep deprived.

Julietta and her sister's hand about to poke her.

Trying to juggle both of my girls is pretty challenging, especially while Bella is going through this hypersensitive adjustment period where every little thing sets her off. A few nights ago I was talking to Jenny on Skype when Bella woke up. I had to bring Julietta up to Bella's room with me because she was awake and wouldn't let me put her down. As soon as Bella was nearly asleep, Julietta started crying which woke Bella up. Bella flipped out, ran into our bedroom and started screaming and crying. She didn't want to be near Julietta. When I finally got Julietta calmed down, I went into our bedroom to calm Bella. All was well. Bella was almost asleep in our big bed when Julietta started crying again. Again Bella freaked out, got up and ran into her room and started yelling "mama! No nos no nos!" (no nos is sleep in Valenciano). I couldn't get up and leave Julietta there because she would start crying, but I couldn't leave Bella on her own crying. See the dilemma? I fianlly decided to take both girls downstairs to call Alex and see if he would be able to come home early. He was busy, so that was out, but luckily Julietta fell asleep again, which meant I could take both of them up to bed quickly and try to get Bella back to sleep. I was surprisingly throughout the entire situation, but I guess that shows I'm learning how to deal little by little.

Bella at Fallas

Bella being her adorable self

Yesterday we took Julietta in for her 15 day check up. Since I didn't post her stats from birth, I'll post them all here.

Julietta's Stats:

Weight at birth: 3.1 kilos (6 pounds 13 ounces)
Weight yesterday: 3.6 kilos (7 pounds 14 ounces)

Length at birth: not completely clear. Apparently the measurement was wrong because she was SHORTER yesterday and we checked it twice...
I'll go with what the midwives measured her at: 51.5 centimeters (20.3 inches)
Length yesterday: (20.5 inches)

Julietta a few days ago

Oh yeah! And I haven't announced the winners of the birthday prediction post. No one guessed the date correctly, but I think the closest was Leah, who guessed March 3rd.

Here is the other info:
Birth Date: March 4th (Leah wins)
Time of Birth: 9:40 am (Hailey wins. She guessed 10:42 am)
Hours of Labor: 3am -9:40am 6 hours 40 minutes (Joyce wins. She guessed 7 hours)
Weight: 6 lbs, 13 oz (Jenny wins. She guessed 6 lbs, 11 oz)
Length: 20.3 inches (a lot of people win)
Hair? (Color and amount) a little bit of dark hair (Tammy and I win)
Dimples? no
Decibel Level when born (screaming, whimpering, crying, quiet...): quiet (Ayssa and Joyce win)

Alex and his girls

So, that's about it. We are trying to get back into a daily rhythm. I'm actually trying to make a schedule for Bella. I'm also back to meal planning (thanks for the inspiration, Michele!) We have big plans for Bella's first birthday which is next week. I will try to post as soon as possible with some cute pics that I'm destined to take.

Me and my sweet girls

Besides that, we are just trying to get used to being a family of four. I'm thinking I wouldn't mind being a family of six... I sure wish we had a housekeeper and cook right about now!!

Julietta yesterday