Turkey Day, Cameras and Craziness ....

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. And as surprised as I am - I survived!

A conversation between Gary and I on Monday night (paraphrasing - but as near as I remember it):

Lori: In five days it will be Friday and Thanksgiving will be over.

Gary: Yes?

Lori: And I am assuming that I will have survived ...

Gary: And why wouldn't you? You are not even in charge of dinner - I am making everything.

Lori: And aren't you the most wonderful husband in the entire world - thank you. But I am still rather Mentally Unhinged and holidays just make me crazy ... who knows what is going to set off my urge to kick puppies and swear like a drunken sailor?

Gary: But ... its JUST THANKSGIVING. *lowering his voice* I haven't even brought up Christmas and decorating.

Lori: *Swearing like a drunken sailor*

Gary: *smart enough to shut up* Sigh ....

********


Things went rather smoothly. Gary tentatively put me on Stove Top Stuffing Duty - which I immediately botch. Put the water and butter on to boil - and then - with that being ever so taxing - went to sit down. Gary called me in when half of it had boiled over onto the stove ...

Sort of started over - it worked out - but still - these days I cannot even make Stove Top Stuffing - that pretty much sums up my life - but in what way ... damned if I know ...

Gary got everything ready - something I seem incapable of doing: multitasking and figuring out when to start everything and how long it is going to cook and just typing this is sending me into a panic attack!

The "Turkey Doohickey" popped up about 45 minutes early so we were not doing what we have been doing in past years - waiting for the "Doohickey Popping" so we all wouldn't die of salmonella poising or the Ebola virus or whatever it is you get from uncooked turkey - so this was a happy event!

He carved it while we waited for Ryan to pick up Alessandra - his girlfriend while trying to keep Jessie out of everything.

Gary pulled his lovely baked pie out of the oven. 'Marie' was kind enough to make it for us - we just had to pop it in the oven ....

Jessie ran around the entire time vacillating between hugs, kisses, telling us "Happy Thanksgiving Day" and "I Love You" - it was lovely, really - but after 500 of each it sort of feels .... wearing ....

Alessandra tried - but Ryan does not smile on camera unless I catch him off guard:

The beautiful couple:

And then?

Well - we had a LOVELY dinner - with Jessie and Alessandra eating us all under the table. Ale must weigh about 90 pounds soaking wet and can eat - seriously 10 times what I eat. You would think that I would hate her for it - but we all love Ale too much - we LOVE the fact that she loves to eat! She said at dinner that Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday. I told her that did not surprise me!

But I totally forgot my camera after that.

Gary took Jessie and Charlie to the lake to feed the ducks while Ryan and Ale took the rest of the meat off the turkey.

I put away the rest of the food, loaded the dishwasher and was in the process of washing the big stuff when Gary and Jessie arrived back home and noticed that I had sweat pouring off me, I was shaking and rather incoherent - not really that weird for me - I just cannot do too much.

I hurriedly finished what I was doing and went to lie down and listened to Jessie keep saying "Moms shaking" and Gary trying to shush her while they watched a movie. It is sort of a blur - which for the most part is a good thing - it makes me forget and do stupid things yet again. I remember everyone got pie - I was just thrilled that I had stopped sweating and shaking and could pick up my kindle and focus enough to read to distract myself.

And there I stayed for about 48 hours other than to get up when Ryan came in to tell me that Amazon's Black Friday included cameras.

Spent thousands of dollars without a thought (I had it in my fun money stash - so not an issue) I have been looking for a new large camera - a DLSR with a new feature - "Live View".

DLSR - as opposed to a "Point and Shoot" camera does not give you a view on the back screen of what you are taking a photo of - you MUST look through the eye piece to 'see' - and you are actually seeing the actual photo you are taking - as opposed to a Point and Shoot where that is not the case.

But - there are many times in a crowd or other circumstances where I have wanted to use my DLSR but I needed to hold it over my head to clear the people, reach what I am shooting or other some sort of reason - and I am shooting blind. With the Live View - the screen - which has an articulating arm so I can pull it out to the side, turn it to the front, point it down, or up if I am taking a photo where the camera is sitting on the ground will show me exactly what I am taking a photo of. It is something shorties have needed in a DLSR since they came out.

The fact that it has a HAND HELD HDR feature (where it takes three photos at different exposures to create what is called an HDR photo - and has a distinctive look) and a HAND HELD LOW LIGHT feature (where it takes four photos and builds a photo that looks like you took it at twilight - they had example shots and they were amazing) plus about 17 other cool, fun features - this girl is going to be happy with her camera for quite some time to come.

The specs excite me more than I care to admit: 18-megapixel CMOS (APS-C) sensor, DIGIC 5 image processor - which enables continous shooting up to 5 fps (frames per second) and it has an extended ISO range of 100 - 12800 (expandable to 25600 in H Mode!)! I know - weird but IT IS SO EXCITING TO ME!!!! I have NEVER DENIDE that I am a very odd person - it seems to work for me and I really don't care, so there is that ...

I bought replacements for my little baby Canon workhorse, my camera I keep in my purse at all times (a baby Nikon) and the exact same one for Gary since his broke when he dropped it on a bike ride.

I then set about buying lenses for my DLSR which don't come cheap - ($700 - $2000) but decided it was time for a wide-angle for my DLSR - whenever I need to take a wide angle shot - I have to take my little Canon workhorse out of my pocket - it has a wonderful wide angle lens - but still ...

And I have ALWAYS wanted a Macro lens to take photos of very small objects. Who knew they would be more expensive than a Wide-Angle? Eeek!

Cut myself off after buying spare batteries - but forgot to get the 'ahem' rather expensive GPS doohickey that fits on the accessory shoe - but it was unclear which one was for my particular camera and my brain was getting fuzzy.

It writes your longitude, latitude and altitude in the meta data (which includes date and time and all sorts of other stuff) and is used in many of the programs I own.

The main one being Lightroom 4 - which will map out your entire set of photos on a global map - alas - all 90,667 photos that are sitting in my Lightroom 4 right now do not have that info - but I have tagged EACH AND EVERY ONE of them with the location of where they were taken - but not to within an inch of where I was standing.

Alas I will never be able to fix that - but if I get my doohickey - those days of 'lost' photos are over!!!

Since this is not Christmas - just my 'fun money' when it arrives next week I can start to play.

I am getting a new dishwasher for Christmas and Gary is getting a new Grill. Yes, exciting isn't it? Both are needed - but Gary wanted some new woodworking tools, I wanted new cameras and we both were not willing to wait for Christmas - so the utilitarian stuff will be Christmas.

We feel very clever ....


Hope your holiday was good.


Me? I had a wonderful time - but with that sick feeling that I know what comes next ....


Here's to hoping no puppies are slaughtered, I don't offend another sibling so badly that they never speak to me again, and all the other things I am so adept at during the month of December ....



Wish me luck!!!