Balloons make me happy.......usually

The season of festivals is upon us. At least in the Columbus, Ohio area it is.  Our weekends stay booked up with all sorts of cultural festivals and harvest activities. So far we've done the Irish festival, Latino festival and a balloon festival. I plan writing little blogs about all of them. I just can't promise them in the order that they were attended.

I was so excited about going to the balloon festival in Marysville. I've never been to one and I've always loved  hot air balloons. There are several in the area, but we choose this one because it was the shows 35th anniversary and they were advertising an all out extravaganza. So we head out to rural Ohio to eat some fair food, watch balloons and possibly ride in one.

The festival was held at a small rural "crop duster" airport. Pulling into the city we should've  gotten an idea what we had in store for us. There were no signs directing us which way to go, thank goodness nav. Also there was no traffic control and every idiot within a 100 mile radius was going to the same festival. It took us almost an hour to go 1/2 a mile. That never starts the event off well, and my hubby had flown in earlier that day after being in Memphis all week working third shift. That's kind of like shaking a can of soda right before you open it. No matter what you do it's still going to explode when it is opened. I'm just glad that Sage slept through that part. Well we finally were parked, and  watched them blow up some of the balloons. I wish I could've been closer, but the hubby was already peeved, and my photo taking can open that can of agitated pop real quick.

The set up was cool, but I think they underestimated the number of people who would come out. The place was quickly packed to the hilt. So much so that the 5 food vendor (yes I said 5 food vendors) and one ticket line for the kids inflatables couldn't keep up. Unfortunately we had planned on a healthy ;-) meal of fair food, that unfortunately didn't happen. So we went over to the kids play area with the kid bouncy things, but they were $3 for 5min. So you had to stand in a line for 45 minutes to get a ticket and another 45 minutes to play. Not really sounding like a fun time for all. We had been at the show for awhile and everyone was getting cranky from being hungry and bored. So we decided to wait for the hot air balloon ride, they were suppose to start at 6:30pm and it was 8:30 so we though it would be in full swing. But alas they hadn't started running the rides, and when we went to get tickets we were quickly told Sage was too young. Arrrgh.....

So we walked around to see if there was anything else to do besides watching the bad Journey/Bon Jovi cover band (creatively named Bon Journey). We did find a couple of crop duster to look at, but that was it.  The mood of the boys was going south quickly. Sage was bored and all over the place, and Danny was cranky due to a lack of sleep, food, and the abundance of idiots and my camera. Danny decided to wait for some food and Sage and I set up camp for the balloon glow.

We watched the glow, and left. Most of my photos were snapshots that I took while waiting in line. Or when my hubby had left to do or get something.. I think I've mentioned my hubby's animosity toward my camera before, and with the disappointed of the Balloon show he was about ready to thrown in away. Thank goodness for photo editing. Hopefully one day soon I can start bringing in some money with this so, he will relax a bit more with  my photography.

There is so much potential at this festival, but the planning was horrible. Someone spent so much time on the 25 page magazine, that they didn't plan or organize anything else. They did plan some, but it was a bit half-assed (excuse the language to those of you who offend at such wording). I don't know if they had a bigger crowd than they expected or what, but it is more important have some entertainment and food that a magazine. They spent more time getting ads for the magazine than they did getting food vendors. I'm sorry 5 vendors at a festival is a recipe for destruction. Next year we'll go to Grove City instead.

The next entry will be in a better mood. Going through a rough patch... so is life.....I never promised a rose garden, I only promised that I would photograph it.

 I would like to thank The Punkrock mom for the I love your blog award. I would post the button, but I can't get it to show. I'm in Wisconsin on an explore right now so hopefully I will get some great shots for her challenge, I am going to put this into Artistically Amy's Color splash Sunday. I know it's not Monday, but this blog has been done since Sunday and it's burning a hole in my drafts box.

Up, Up & Away

We went to a hot air balloon festival in a small town just west of Columbus in a place called Marysville last night. I was left a bit underwhelmed. It's the weekend so I have a lot to do today so I'll have to relay the events later. Wow!!! I've fallen behind I have three festivals that I need to write about and we're going to a fourth (the Tomato Festival) tonight. Hopefully on the long drive to Madison, WI Monday I can get some more writing done in the car. At least till my laptop battery dies.

Until then here is a SOOC shot from the festival. The Gremlin (Sage) was being a complete spawn, and Danny was annoyed with the event parking, hat always starts the day off wrong, so I had two unhappy dudes. This always tend to quash the creativity. It's hard to believe that with all these colorful balloons and a cover band called Bon Journey playing in the background, but alas so was the case.

K.C. Skank Kitty

I was out trying to snap a portrait of our adopted kitty. Her name is K.C. (that is short for Kitty Cat). She strayed up the day we got 2ft of snow in a few hours. We felt so bad for her that we took her in and let her sleep in the garage. Well, at that point we got a new cat. We didn't think she had long for this world because something had taken off her nose and it was slit up to one eye duct and mid-way up her tail was dead. We pretty much thought that we were just giving her some comfort in her final days. That was three years ago. The dead part of the tail has since fallen off and the slit as healed quite a bit. She still doesn't have a nose and she sheds worse than the dog. We have resisted keeping her in hopes that she would return where she came from. After all she was fixed, and knew how to use a litter box so at some point she was someone's cat. We really didn't want another cat, but last week she had her first vet appointment and received all her shots. The vet surprising said besides some ear mites she is in great health.

 She really is a sweet cat and has become a playmate of Sage's. So I wanted to get a photo to put with the dog and our other cat Solstice. It's just hard to get a pretty photo of a cat with no nose. So this is what I got. I thought this would be a nice change from my usual bugs and flowers.

Working in the Closet

I've been busy getting posting done on eBay. Besides a crazed photographer and new to the blog world, another major love of my is thrifting. I have found a way to marry need for retail therapy with a way to make a little cash. A Sage Closet started as a way to rid myself of Sage's old clothes, but they went well so I began to expand to girls. I've always shopped second hand for Sage. It's my way of being green. There are so many wonderful designer clothes that still have plenty of life left in them, sitting on racks not being appreciated. I love digging through racks of clothes I have found some gorgeous pieces. Of course I always think about how the piece would photograph. I do all the digging for you. The worse part is the laundering after I get them home. Stain checks, spot removals, wash, line dry (when possible) and iron. I like to make sure my customers get fresh clothes. You can browse my photos of my son and get an idea of my style. Think of it as a sneak peek of future merchandise.

This month eBay is running a special beside the 100 $.99 free items they are giving another 100 pieces free at any price. So I'm trying to push to get some of my fall jackets and winter wear posted. Also Buckeye season is almost here. I see script Ohio in the clouds. So I a large collection of Buckeye wear to put out. So I've been busy in the Closet today. Check out my auctions at.
http://shop.ebay.com/sagecloset/m.html?_nkw&_armrs=1&_from&_ipg&_trksid=p4340

Like us on facebook by clicking the button and get sneak peaks at upcoming auctions.


On that same line it's time to change A Sage's Profile photo. So I thought that I would use that for Pixel Perfects Before and After. Nothing special, I just can't leave a blog without a photo.

Check out more before and afters at

Sorry everyone it is late tonight, I will check everyone out tomorrow after I pick up the hubby from the airport. I need to get the internet on my phone so I can keep up with everything.

A bit more...

{one} who’s the funniest person you know? That's easy...My friend Dani. She is always in stand-up mode. There have been nights that she has about made me pee in my pants. 

{two} were you a michael jackson fan? LOL!! The person I was just talking about is a huge fan and he pasted on her birthday. I was a huge fan until about high school when the New Wave/Goth kicked in. I've always had admiration for his talent. Put it this way, Micheal as an artist is  great, but Micheal as a person( from what he and the media put out there) over powered the talent.   

{three} what was your favorite book as a child? Really young I loved the Little House on the Prairie series. We watched the show faithfully. I also loved Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. 

{four} what’s the most delicious meal you’ve ever eaten? That's a hard one. My hubby and I were both in the restaurant business and worked in 4 star restaurants in Atlanta, Ga, so we've eaten a lot of great food. The most memorable dish I've ever had was before I met my hubby, back when I was living and studying in German. One night I treated myself  to a dinner at a fancy Indian restaurant by my dorm. I had never eaten Indian food before, and being from rural Arkansas I wasn't really keen on new foods. I had meet this really hot guy from Manchester (The guitarist in a band) and he raved about Indian food. We past by it one night and he commented on how wonderful it smelled. One day I was having a horrible day and as I walked by the smells of curry totally lifted my mood. So I had to try it. I had the Matar Paneer. It was absolutely delicious. It was expensive for me at the time, but once a month I would treat myself to the delight.  You would never think a curry from Indian would become a comfort food for a small town girl from rural Arkansas.

{five} if you could eliminate on thing you do each day in the bathroom so you never had to do it again, what would it be? Yeah I'm with the shaving thing. I totally hate doing it, and really try to avoid it. 

{six} if you could ask barak obama one question, what would it be? I honestly don't have much to say, or ask him. I don't need the razzle dazzle. I'm underwhelmed. I'd just smile, and  say "What an honor to meet you" (because let's face it how often to you meet a president.)

{seven} what’s the best place near you to get a drink? We don't have a local bar we go to, but there is a fun little Hole in the wall that we frequent named Brewstir's. Pool, darts, karaoke and one of the best OSU game day parties off campus. They cater to the Lost Boys crowd. (I mean Peter Pan not vampires)

{eight} what kind of music can you just not stand to listen to? MMmmmm....... I appreciate all kinds of music, but I have to say I have a three way tie sexist rap, death metal  and twangy country. 

{nine} who and when was your first kiss? I was in junior high, he a friend's cousin. Nothing magic or memorable unfortunately. The sad fact was that it was at a wrestling match, with Jerry the King Lawler (he was the wrestler who body slammed Andy Kaufmann on Letterman). My best friend was totally into it (remember this is rural Arkansas in the 1980's). I was not. I actually remember almost getting beamed by a metal chair coming out of the bathroom. I saw him one other time. Just nothing in common.

{ten} what 3 things do you think will become obsolete in the next ten years? Home phones, cd's and dvd's.

All this talk about my roots in rural Arkansas made me think about  about bad hair bands of the 80's. Of course when my hubby found a Jaguar at bargain basement prices he had to have it. This was before the little one. Every time I ride in it I can help but hear Whitesnake  in my head and see Tawny Kitan slithering on the hood. I have to chuckle.  Then I turn the radio station to the local alternative station.

For other great B/W photos check out

Popsicles-Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Mandatory break.

I've been absent for the past few days. My hubby finally stepped up and said enough, and asked me to close the laptop for a few days. He usually travels during the week so I have all the time in the world for facebook, fliker, my ebay store, photo-editing and blogging. When he is in town my time is cut down to 1/8th of what I usually have. I pretty much have when he is asleep, on eBay himself or when he's with his friends to play on my laptop. It's worth the trade. He is gone so much that it is nice to spend time together with limited tech interruptions. Cellphones will call and photos will be taken. This week I was asked to put everything up for awhile, so I did. You can imagine my surprise when I came back and saw my vacation photo of Sage in Pittsburgh at Trinity Cathedral was #7 The Trendy Treehouse Shutter Love. . Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

We did go to the Latino festival this weekend. I got a few shots, but those will come out later. For now I'm going through older photos and trying to organize my files. I don't know If I'll ever get these things in order. This is a I took at COSI (Columbus science museum) when Sage and I were just trying to get out of the house so that Danny could sleep. Sage and I can be so loud as to keep a narcoleptic awake.

We usually head into the kidspace because he can run like a wild child and I don't have to worry about him escaping. On this day he wasn't letting me take his photo or even play with him for that matter. He was more interested in playing with the other kids at the water tables. In fact when I tried he would splash water at me, so I took my cue and left him alone.

I wish I could say I took a bunch of awesome photographs, but alas I didn't. I spent most of my time trying to capture a cool water shot at the water tables. This was the best one I got.

Since it's main color is yellow I guess I will enter it in the Mellow Yellow Monday challenge. If you love yellow head over and check it out.

Also during this time I've been revisiting my early portraits and refined them, since I have been working on my editing. This is one that I took of Sage when he was just a few weeks old. Sleep was so precious early on. He was a colicky baby and only slept in short spurts.  So when he was a sleep it was like magic time. An how the light from the window hit his little bow lips was simply the most beautiful thing I had ever seen (to that point). I could resist. 

The theme is B/W photographs so if you want to see other wonderful photos by other amazing photographers check out.

Heirloom Strawberries.

The last few days I had been searching and trying to come up with inspiration for Artistically Amy's Color Splash Sunday. This weeks theme was a building. It shouldn't be difficult. Right? Well, I looked through my photos and looked everywhere I went for inspiration. To no avail. The inspiration hit me about 30 minutes after the link closed. Go figure. The funny thing is I had tried a different photo from this group of photos from our trip down the road to pick strawberries, and couldn't get it to where I liked it.

Even though the challenge was over, I had to still see this vision out. I use the challenges as sparks for my imagination. When a creative idea sparks you should fan the flames of creativity. Besides Thursday was coming up, and with it the before and after challenge. Oh, I think I may be developing a challenge habit.

This is the original shot with some minor cropping.

I thinks its a cute snapshot. I like Sage in the foreground and the clean lines of the rows of strawberries running back to the barn. I just wondered what it would look using the selective colors.

Besides the obvious selective coloring I also tweaked the basic settings of contrast, exposure and sharpness. I added a bit of vignetting, color brightening, and a bit of sepia tones. Then finished if off with a touch or orton-ish and a touch of focal softening on my son.

This was such a quiet moment with him. We don't get them much. He's like a little hummingbird he buzzes around until he run out of gas then he brings me his cup and asks for juice.

If you want to see other great before and after photos, by other wonderful photographers check out Pixel Perfects

On the road....Pittsburgh (day one)

 I have such a hard time picking just one photo to enter into these challenges. I blog mainly to document the adventures of my family. I use to  scrapbook, but it's such an expensive hobby, and it's not truly a permanent documentation. Too many things can happen. So I've started blogging our escapades because like they say. Once it is online it is never gone. And this way my friends and family can view it anytime they want and I don't have to lug around supplies and heavy albums. All I need is my laptop, camera, and creativity. I was going to save the Pittsburgh trip for later, but I find it serendipitous that the day I posted some Pittsburgh photos for the In a Yellow House challenge that A Trendy Treehouse  would be hosting a challenge about vacations. So I figure I may as well take the a cue from the fates to go ahead and tackle our trip to Pittsburgh.  For those who are new to my blog I had a time period that the only camera that I had was my cellphone. On this trip all the photos I took were with either my husband's or my cellphone. Mostly mine, because getting my husbands phone out of his hands is about as difficult as getting the camera out of my hands.

Trying to decide on a photo to use as the entry was difficult. Although I am totally addicted to these photo challenges as I stated before I blog to save the memory for my son, not necessarily for the "followers" or kudos. Although I have to admit it is nice to get on to my dashboard in the morning and find that other people find my photos, rambling and ranting interesting enough to mark me as an interesting read, and I love to hear everyone's feed back. I suppose I could post one photo at a time for each individual challenge, but I tend to look as most of my photos in term of collections. So for me it is easier to blog them as such. Plus I take so many photos it would take me forever to document them If I did them one at a time. So I guess I will enter my favorite photo and hope others will feel the same.

I wouldn't exactly call this a vacation, because my hubby had to work in the evenings after taking us back to the hotel. Since I don't work and the company pays for travel expenses and hotel we travel with him sometimes. Since we are on a serious budget these days this is as close to vacation as we get, but we have been to so great places this way. The catch is that Sage and I leave the hotel in the mornings so that he can get some sleep, and then he wakes around lunch and the real adventure starts.

On the first day we always get a late start, this is when we usually do sightseeing in the downtown areas. Since I chose a photo at this location to enter in to the challenge I will start with photos at Trinity Cathedral. We didn't go inside but the cemetery courtyard and architecture was stunning in itself. I can only imagine how stunning it is inside.

Trinity church wasn't the only thing we saw on the first day. It just really inspired me. There's nothing like an old Gothic cathedral and cemetery to get my creative juices going. It was early spring when we went so the trees were just starting to bloom and the weather was still crisp and unpredictable. So the sky was an amazing blue with fluffy clouds. The skyscrapers were amazing and the reflections in their windows were stunning. Here are a few of them that caught my eye.

First for the skyscrapers against the beautiful sky.

Now for the reflections.

My photography used to really annoy my hubby when we go on trips. He tells me that I spend too much time trying to capture the moment than living in the moment. This coming from a guy who him and his bar buddies talk on the phone like a group of teenage girls. LOL!!! We've worked out at deal that he push the stroller and I take photos. Him and Sage keep walk and I have to catch up. From time to time he makes requests. This last building is one of them.

I was so impressed with the architecture and art that in downtown Pittsburgh. Here are some of the the details.

Then I captured a little art. My husband walks fast so I couldn't get everything. The first is a close of a flower on a fake tree, yes I said fake tree. It was totally surreal to walk by this park area. Because it was still early spring so no all the trees were blooming. In this park there were all these trees with small green bud and these oddly unnatural trees. I think we walked by 3 or 4 times before we actually had to just walk through to check it out. Our first clue should have been the signs say "Please don't touch the trees!"

Did you know that a transformers live in Pittsburgh? Well there is one overlooking on of the rivers.

Of course no trip downtown would be complete without some photos of bridges.

Same spot, Same time. Just now looking to the left.

There is still plenty more from Pittsburgh, but I think this is enough for now. I need to fix dinner, get the gremlin ready from bed, then it is Karaoke tonight. YEAH!!!!!! Maybe I'll get some video tonight.