do what you love, love what you do

8 nights to go until i'm in canada :)

today was extremely stressful but also very exciting.

it started off like it often does this time of year. dragging 3 tired kids out of bed to attend the last couple of days of school is just about one of my least favorite things to do. they are grumpy, and rude, and demanding. its a horrible way to start the day.. everyone at their very worst. one day more day of this and then its officially summer holiday.

the kids have exams all this week.. which makes things even worse, they can't concentrate. alex is just now realizing the expectations i have for his grades aren't going to change, no matter what he actually achieved this year. alex is a chronic under achiever. he has the capability of acing every class with very little effort. it might actually take great effort to do badly in his classes. most of the classes he had this year were not new to him. its not the academics that gives him fits.. its following rules.

i have a rule in my house. you have to achieve a 80% or better.. bare minimum or... give it a 100% effort and then we can worry about the grades as they come. there is no mercy for slacking off on school work and then bringing home crappy grades.

growing up.. my parents didn't voice any expectations for my academic achievement. matter of fact i can't even remember them ever attending a parent/teacher conference, or commenting on a report card that i got. i was blessed with a talent in music that helped me get into a college.. and then the grades mattered to me, so i did what i needed to do to be proud of myself.

i know that ultimately the grades aren't what matters in life. its your effort and rewards for your efforts, and consequences for your lack of effort that will probably shape your life much more than what a silly report card says.

that all being said... alex will probably have a very long summer of having to answer to me much more than he would if he would have taken responsibility for his own behavior.

alex has made great strides in the social arena tho.. he has the sweetest girlfriend and has a group of loyal friends that are in the band with him (gotta love those musicians!) in the past, i always thought alex would be struggling socially for the rest of his life. academics came so easily to him.... he never ceases to surprise me. he is so very talented in music.. and seems to realize it. maybe thats the direction he'll take in life.

hannah has worked her butt off this school year. she had a very hard transition from kansas to michigan. she didn't fit in with a group of friends right away (for a teenage girl that could be the worst fate of all) so, hannah did concentrate on her school work. she also made a huge effort to get involved in the community volunteering her time. about 3 months ago she stared a journalism class, and then was put on the staff of the high school yearbook.

this has turned out to be the very best turn of events for her. she really excels in journalism. she gets so excited about stories and writing them that her enthusiasm is contagious. she was made financial manager of the yearbook next year, which is a huge honor for someone who isn't even a senior yet :)

sam did great in school this year. 6th grade is the first year where the kids typically get letter grades and he really likes to see tangible evidence of his efforts. so he was very motivated for grades. he earned a 4.0 or all perfect grades this year *mom smiles proudly*

he will be so happy when he is able to be on the basketball team next year. they didn't have a 6th grade team. basketball is HIS sport. sam and i love to go to our local professional team's games as well. thats something that we share a lot. even if we can't get tickets for the game he and i will sit, glued to the tv and cheer the Pistons on :P

oh.. darn.. now i remember why i started this blog :/ i got a very exciting phone call today. i've been trying really hard to figure out a way to earn money doing the things i love to do. music and photography. music is a hard business to earn a living at. i love to teach, but building a teaching studio takes time, and the best advertisement is word of mouth. before we moved to kansas i was teaching 25 students a week. now i'm just working on building that up again. i play jobs, but often they are for the church and even if they are paid jobs... they just aren't steady enough to depend on at this point.

that means turning my efforts to photography. portraits always sell, i mean.. who wont by a picture of their kids ;) but.. i don't actually have studio space. i have all the studio equipment i need, and its fairly portable (with a small army of helpers) again.. just working out of my living room booking friends and friends of friends for portraits just isn't steady work. the occasional wedding or party helps, but doesn't really come along that often.

i've been working on some new photography skills. my friend markus from austria is a real whiz with the camera. i swear he knows more about my cameras than i do.. and he doesn't even own the same camera! markus got interested in doing panoramas and then going one step further doing 360 degree panos just for a hobby.

i thought it was so cool that i just wanted to learn out to do it too. i bought a nodal ninja ... no its not a fighting guy.. its an attachment for my tripod that helps the camera stay in the right place to reduce the distortion when i take the pano images. anyway.. after doing a few panos i realized that this could really be a marketable thing.

because i have moved so many times, i know how important it is to weed out the unsuitable houses before you ever take a trip to see it in person. seeing a house on the inside, by way of a virtual tour, or 360 pano is a great way to see whats going on behind those 4 walls and a roof.

i've been milling this idea around in my head for a while now, but today i actually did something about it. i got a call from a sister of a friend that is selling her house on her own. she was looking for a better way to market her house, and then she was told about my photography.

i agreed to go to her house on monday and shoot 4 rooms 360 style, and then give her the links to the panos.. and she is going to use them for advertising.

i wont make a lot of money on this particular job, but its a foot in the door. once i get a few of these under my belt, then i can take my services to the larger real estate companies and show them what i have to offer.

i have a temporary hosting site, thanks izz ;) but will eventually get my own domain name and website to host the images. i'm still figuring out how it should look and how it will work, but i'm pretty excited about it.

markus agreed to be my technical support although he swears i don't need it. i think its all in his plan to eventually come to the united states and visit his friend in colorado

this is something i've wanted to do for a long time, and i really think there is a need for it. its only a tiny foot in the door.. but i have big plans :)

a very dear friend gave me just the moral support i needed to take the steps to get started with this. i'm not sure this will be the thing that makes my life more financially secure, but at least i'll love it while i'm working on it.

"do what you love, love what you do" (its not just a company kippy, its a way of life!)

for anyone that hasn't tried a brand of clothing called "life is good" you should.

sorry for the long rambling blog.. without pictures :| soon you'll see at least a few 360 panos here tho

friday

ok.. so i've already missed a day in my daily blog ......

well i do have a good excuse.

i woke up yesterday and just felt a bit off (more off than usual). i was tired, achy, and felt .. blah. there were some people at rehearsal on monday that mentioned being sick over the weekend, and one lady got sick at rehearsal.. so i figured i was next in line.

i tried to take it easy yesterday morning.. going back to bed after getting the kids to school, but didn't really sleep. finally decided to get up and take a shower..i always feel better after a shower. i decided to go out and run some errands that i had been putting off, and to meet bill for lunch. as i drove out of the driveway, i pressed the garage door opener button to close the door.. and then i heard "BOOM!!!!!"

i couldn't figure out what had happened... i was still in the driveway.. and looked at my house.. and then i realized that my garage door was all bent up.. crumpled :( something had happened, and it fell instead of lowering slowly like it was supposed to. i knew it was going to be a hassle, but i didn't want to be late for lunch, so i just left it and went on.

from lunch i went straight to pick the kids up after school.. because the weather was just plain dreary and nasty. we then went to the card store to by my dad a birthday card, his birthday (71) is on monday. nobody could agree on one card, so we each got one.... so he'll have a bunch of cards to open on monday :)

anyway.. back home to check the damage to the door..... its a very very heavy door... double wide made of reinforced steal. its guided thru the tracks by wheels, and springs, and the electric door opener is connected to it. i realized after looking at it, that the spring had snapped. this isn't a tiny spring, its HUGE... i'm so glad no one was in the garage when it happened and that it happened when the door was closing .. not opening.

if it had occured while i was pulling into the garage, the door would have fallen on the car.. and probably crushed it :|

i'm starting to think maybe its this car that is cursed.. a few weeks ago the hit and run accident, then during repairs at the shop.. more mysterious damage to the opposite side of the car.. now the garage door nearly missing it......

anyway.... the garage door will have to be jacked up and removed..and replaced. i'm waiting right now for the garage door guy, he said he'd be here between 8-12... so that means i'll see him around 12:30 ;)

my estimate for this repair is 1300 ... ugh... lets hope i'm wrong. i keep thinking there is nothing else that could possibly go wrong with this house.....

3 toilets replaced, new laundry tub, new kitchen, new master bathroom, new electrical throughout, new telephone lines, new cable.... could all this hassle really be worth the amount we saved on this house?????

so.. on with my day yesterday... by the time i got in after shopping... and feeding everyone, i was still feeling quite crappy and decided to put on my jammies, and just watch the Pistons playoff game. game 3 against the orlando magic (we won!! yay!) now we have one more game in florida.. if we lose that one then its back home next week. this is just the first round of the playoffs, but the pistons look great.

last night after watching the game.. alex got a call from his g/f just at bedtime. her mom is good friends with the secretary at the high school. natalie told alex that there has been yet another bomb threat at their school, and its closed today while the police do a sweep. this is the second bomb threat in 2 weeks, and just 3 weeks ago at the middle school there was a false call about a student with a gun that closed down the entire area for several hours.

in total, 4 schools in our district are closed this morning due to the threat.. thats about 6500 students out of school for another day. this is getting really upsetting.

they caught the person who phoned in the phoney gun call at sam's school.. it was a 6th grader :| a new kid to the school, 11 years old calling from the payphone at school ... how sad. he has been suspended and failed 6th grade.

they have a suspect in the bomb threat 2 weeks ago that shut down the same 4 schools that are shut down this morning... a 16 yr old boy, they are charging him for the costs of the search... estimated 700,000US, plus failing him, and charging him as an adult. there is also talk of charging his parents :|

i just don't understand that.. i mean.. at 16 years old, i believe if you hurt someone or threaten to hurt someone.. you are responsible for yourself. i don't know the parents, or what kind of family this kid comes from... maybe i'm just looking at it from my point of view. if one of my kids ever did something like this...... i just can't imagine.

to the kids at the schools now its becoming a big joke... days off. this latest threat apparently referenced the virgina tech mess and threaten to make that look like "childs play" as a parent that creeps me out beyond words. i asked my 2 high schoolers if they talked about what they would do if someone was actually shooting up their school.. and they said.. yeah.. everyone agrees they would play dead :| i hate that they even have had to think about that. its just so sad.

garage door guy just called, he is on his way.. so we'll see what the damage is in a few minutes.

i'm expecting a housefull of kids here in a little while... since they don't have school, our house seems to be the gathering place. i don't mind that.. at least i know what they're doing.

i'm supposed to do a 5k run in the morning, the way i feel right now.. i'll be walking very slow and come in last for sure .. but i'm still planning on doing it.

i guess if i'm going to do this blogging thing, i need to become more efficent with saying more using less words.

c ya all for now.