Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Confession Time

1. I secretly love the "emo" look, and having only caught snippets of Idol this year, I have to root for this guy.

2. I didn't take my morning pills until 3 pm today. Oooops.

3. I have had only rice cakes for dinner the past two nights. Nausea is not fun.

4. I haven't been on the treadmill in about 2 weeks.

5. I'm still biting my fingernails.

6. I wish the ice cream truck guy would die (ok, not really, but I do wish he would move far, far away like... Pluto).

7. I just went to the dentist last week for the first time in almost 5 years (only because of Jason's prodding). I'm crazy obsessive about my teeth being clean and white, but I HATE going to the dentist. Thankfully, he said my teeth were in great shape. *Whew*

8. I've been trimming the hair on my face with cuticle scissors. It's FINALLY going away since coming down on the devil drug (prednisone, for all of you who don't know what that is).

9. My car seriously needs washing. You can actually write "wash me" on it.

10. I have thrown the past 3 issues of Casey's "Teen Vogue" away before she could see them. I don't like how they portray teenagers at all.

Ok, that's my 10 confessions of the day. Anyone else want to confess anything???

Monday, March 9, 2009

Casey and Michele

I took these pictures of Casey and her friend Michele today. They aren't photoshopped, but I did boost the color on some of them (not that you can tell much with Blogger) and did some other adjustments with the saturation, sharpness, and softness features in my iPhoto program. I realize now I should have had a filter on my camera lens... not sure why I didn't think of that before. They had a good time as you can tell.














Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for Shannon. Lori wrote that she did make it to the hospital, and they are going to try to fly her back home. You can read more on Lori's blog.

I'm headed to Duke tomorrow for a follow-up appointment with my ENT. I also have to go by the kidney transplant clinic so they can draw some blood. They are testing me for a virus that some post-kidney transplant patients can get (because of my creeping creatinine). I had never heard of it before my nurse called today. Please pray that it's negative. It can be a threat to your new kidney if you have it. Thanks guys!

Casey's touch

If my 13 year old daughter can do this to a photo after playing around with photoshop for a total of 2 hours (yeah there are imperfections, but it only took her 15 minutes to do this), then imagine what a professional photo retoucher in Hollywood can do. It makes you wonder if anything you see is real....

Before


After


Gotta Run

Gotta run to go pick Casey up from school. I'll post some random pictures later on today.

In the meantime, please keep my dear friend Shannon in your thoughts and prayers. She is my friend Lori's (who I've blogged about several times recently) sister. Shannon had her transplant at Duke 2 months after I did. You can go to Lori's blog and read about why Shannon needs your urgent prayers now! Thanks guys.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Photography websites

I just thought I'd share some of my favorite photography websites:

www.dailycoyote.net

www.lyralyra.com

www.jasminestarblog.com

www.photosbyiasha.com

www.alexwisephotography.net

www.catchycolors.blogspot.com

www.tysonandjulia.com/blog

www.pixoflife.com

www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com

Hope you enjoy!!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Playing around with Photoshop

Below are the original picture (well, after I boosted the color in iPhoto) and the enhanced photo. I played around with Casey's eyes and the colors of the photo. You might have to click on the pictures to really see the difference. I'm not sure which one actually looks better. I just know that I'm learning this.. slowly but surely, and it's truly going to be addicting. I'm curious to know how many hours of training the professional photo retouchers have!?!?! Between learning this program and my photography class, you see where my time is going to be spent in the coming weeks (or months).

Original


Enhanced


Ok hmmm.. so I just published my post and looked at the pictures!!! I have always known that blogger doesn't show the quality of your pictures, but this is just ridiculous. In the second picture (in my picture program at least) the red in her jacket is SO bright, her skin looks better, and her eyes really pop.... a lot more than it's doing here. I really wonder just how good other people's pictures look on their photo program as opposed to on Blogger.. Anywhoooooo.... maybe I'll get my hubby to build me a separate photography website one day. :)

Friday, March 6, 2009

Creeping Creatinine

I'm sorry I've been MIA the past couple of days. I've so missed out on my fellow blogger's lives. It's been a tough couple of days emotionally and physically, but I'm feeling better today. :)

Ok, so I went to the kidney transplant clinic on Wednesday. It seems that my creatinine is slowly creeping upward. I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what this means, other than my kidney isn't functioning as well as it was in December. It has gone from 0.5 to 1.2. I'm also not sure what the docs are going to do about it, if anything. My transplant coordinator called me today to tell me about it, and said that she has yet to talk to a doctor about it. She has several of them paged, but hasn't heard back from them yet. I've done the dangerous thing and read on the internet that a "creeping creatinine" can mean chronic rejection, but I personally don't think that's what is going on, so I'll just wait to hear back from my nurse.

I am also back to having the nausea that I had prior to kidney transplant. I am convinced now that this is due to the anti-rejection med called Cellcept that I'm taking. I believe that the high doses of prednisone (that make you so hungry you would eat the kitchen sink if there were nothing else in site) were masking this nausea. Now that I'm down to a low dose, it has come back. I'm still eating, but find it a struggle. Yesterday, I had to break down and take a phenergan, which always knocks me out. I see my lung transplant pulmonologist in late March. He is the one who would lower the dose of Cellcept if that's possible. I was put on it, because he thought I was having some chronic rejection of my lungs almost 2 years ago. It did bring my lung function back up, so I know it's working. I would hate to stop it, or lower the dose and have my numbers drop again.

On a different note... I finished my photography class. I take the final exam today after I do some much needed reviewing. I finally got my photoshop/Creative Suite 4 activated yesterday and started playing around with it last night. I have a ton of tutorials to watch. I also start my next photography class on the 18th. I'm really starting to love all of this. I just can't get enough!!

Casey is at her dad's this weekend. I'm not really sure what Jason and I are going to be doing except make a trip to the health food store. It is only about 20 minutes away from here, but we just can't seem to make time to go there. I have a whole shopping list, so we can try to stock up this weekend. They have a lot of low sodium, or sodium-free foods that I just can't find anywhere else.

I'll keep you updated on my kidney :), and I hope all of you have a great weekend.

Twitter mosaic

These are the people who are following me on Twitter who have a picture posted. It's amazingly fun. You should try it!