Sorry… I’ve been busy!

Originally uploaded by ToriBlaine

Driving…packing…driving… Unpacking… Rehearsing… Writing… Editing… Applying… Interviewing… Testing… And, of course there’s this…

I was really involved in theater. I’ve been on stage as long as I can remember and started doing radio commercials before I was in school. My mom was an extremely talented seamstress and the costumes I had for parades and Halloween made more front page news articles than I can remember…

That’s all coming back to me now… I was at the Town Hall Meeting last night, and when I had my camera and laptop, no one was surprised that I’d only been back for a week and was already covering the local news for our paper. When I showed up at first dress rehearsal tonight for the current theater production, none of the cast even blinked that I was there to do prompting… half the cast remembered me, even tho I’d been gone for 17 years… the other half saw the way I made myself at home in the theater and, I’m sure, assumed I belonged there… because I did.

One of the young actresses dress wasn’t working for the part… and the costume lady went back into storage and started pulling out a few dresses. The first two weren’t going to fit right, so she held up the third and I gasped… it was a dress my mother had made for me to wear when I’d played Wendy in Peter Pan… 25 years ago…

There’s no question about it… I’m home…

I HAVE

I have NOT

• had Starbucks
• stayed up past midnight
• slept past 9am
• gotten used to not having FOX
• watched a single ML baseball game
• had more than one cocktail in a row
• been good at updating my blog
• seen Iron Man
• regretted my decision…

Life is pretty good… finally…

First… the obvious sign of spring… bugs & flowers…

Next… My sister’s cat.. Monduke… on my still unmade bed because I don’t have the heart to interrupt his nap.

Every Sunday I look forward to Frank posting his secrets… I never really thought I had the types of secrets that people share there, but I loved that people were brave enough to share with everyone.

Last week, I’d bought some postcards to send to friends and family to share my new address (a PO Box). I had one postcard left over. So I took a permanent marker and wrote a little something on the front… nothing TOO special, just something I’d wanted to say out loud and never did.

I put a stamp on it, and stuck it in my purse so I could take it to the Post Office. But I kept forgetting to mail it, so today, when I saw my postman drive up, I decided to walk it out to him and grab the mail while I was at it. I guess my step dad had the same idea… He met me half way… and put his hand out for me to give him the 2 things in my hand, my insurance paperwork, and my secret. I didn’t know what to do… keep it? Hand it over? I started to just give him the insurance envelope, but decided last minute to just hand them both to him…

I have no idea if he read it or not… if he did, I don’t think he’d be surprised at what it said… but now, I just feel odd… my step dad might know my secret…

OK… so yes… I usually edit EVERY SINGLE picture I take, in one form or another… either by white balancing the colors, or upping the contrast or even sometimes just sharpening the eyes or putting a slight blur on the edges… I also like to add a “vignette” border on most of my pictures… so even if a photo comes out “perfect” straight out of the camera (SOOTC), I’ll play with it… it’s a given… it’s a Tori thing…

So yes, I did play with my photo… but I did not saturate the colors at all, nor did I “photoshop” it… I did apply a hard light filter and my “signature” border (even if a zillion other photographers use the same border)… I’ll give you a few pic’s to compare…

Here is the original… SOOTC

here’s the one I posted a few days ago… hard light filter added and border…

this one is a pretty simple action that has dramatic results… I applied a simple “boost” filter… I think it’s probably a sharpen/saturate wash… then I isolated my eyes, inverted the isolation, and applied a black & white filter… my eyes ARE really blue, so you saturate that or “cool” my eyes… and/or “warm” my red hair… and it’s instant android! Add the vignette border… boom! totally different photo…

So… yes… my eyes ARE really that blue… my sisters call it “freaky blue”… because they see me at my worst… which is when they’re the bluest… usually when I’m sick or when I’ve been crying… they’re an amazing unnatural color… but yes… I do edit/play with my pictures… so… there ya have it!

but it sure looks like one!!!

I’m so busy unpacking, repacking, organizing (again), and re-arranging… along with helping mom and looking for work… I just haven’t made time to sit down and write.

That’s going to change… the local newspaper offered me a freelance job, per article (is that redundant?), to cover local happenings… I’ll see what transpires…

In the mean time… I give you a picture of my crazy big hair… I guess all the ups, downs and all arounds made it just want to BE FREE!!!!

I refuse to post the Banana Bread because it looks icky… it baked too fast on the outside (burnt) and is still raw in the middle (gooey)… I like taking pictures of the goodies… I hope you enjoy them… I’ll try and branch out a bit more with the photo’s…

Being in a new area gives me lot’s of new stuff to photo’s of… so we’ll see what happens there!

Right now I’m baking Banana Bread & Brownies…

I was up at 6am to go to my sisters house to help her get ready for one of her best friends weddings… I curled hair and did make-up and kept babies from screaming…

Then at 11am I went and took an exam for a County position… it was more difficult than the State exam… the spelling/punctuation/grammar part threw me for a loop and I hope I did better than I think I did…

I’ve unpacked the trailer, but not the back of the pick-up truck… I’ve kinda-sorta got the room I’m sleeping in and the bathroom I use situated, at least for the short term…

I just really want a job soon… so I can get my own place… being 36 and staying at Mom & Dad’s just doesn’t feel right, no matter how much I know I need it and they don’t mind…

OK… so I walked away from the computer without hitting publish to finish the Banana Bread and Brownies… they both came out all funny and not cooked right… I hate electric stoves!!! I’ve used gas for the past 17 years and it is NOT the same, even if you do go in and rotate the stuff… I guess I’ve got some learning to do!