Spotsylvania Film Festival

, originally uploaded by willowdawn.

Our church has a motto:
"Loving God, Loving People
Turning the World Upside Down"

So to love our neighbors, we did free face painting at the Spotsylvania Film Festival. I say "we" but I had little to nothing to do with it, other than birth one of the artists! AJ and Julie painted the faces, arms and sometimes feet of nearly 200 kids! They took requests and painted what ever the child wanted. I had planned on helping paint, but when I saw what these two talented ladies could do, I knew any poor kid that stuck in my line would be sorely dissapointed. They loved it so much that even when the sun went down and the movie started, they wouldn't leave. We finally had to stop allowing kids in line and turn our truck around so the gals could paint in the light from the headlights! They painted non-stop from 6:00 till 10:00 p.m. They were awesome and the kids loved it!

Still painting...

Sorry for lack of updates, but I MUST finish this kitchen. This kitchen will be the death of me I'm pretty sure. When we bought the house, it was pink with grey undertones. Very dentist office-y. There was also a wall-paper border at the ceiling. Wasn't working for me, but I wasn't sure what exactly I was going to do as I needed to replace countertops and floors, and possibly new cabinets, as well. So for a quick fix, I painted it a medium coffee color. Lovely, color but I quickly realized that there wasn't enough contrast between the medium oak cabinets and the coffee walls... So next paint job was a gorgeous shade of red. Word to the wise, do NOT buy Behr brand of red paint. When I was on coat 5 of 6, I read that they have the worst red coverage. It's true. So at this point I have two coats of coffee, and six coats of red. I'm sick of painting this kitchen! Well, we finally figured out what we are doing. Reusing the cabinets, but new countertops, and dark Jacobean bamboo floors throughout then entire house. Well, the Jacobean can not be used next to the medium oak cabinets, which means, you guessed it... I'm painting not only the walls, but all of the cabinets as well. So in the past 20 months that I have lived in this house, I have personally put ELEVEN coats of paint on the walls! I'm still working on the trim and the cabinets.... Calgon take me away!

I promise to post before and after pics when after actually comes. The countertops are being reordered as they arrived damaged and the flooring is currently occupying all space in my garage!

Live... in concert!

I LOVE the band Live. Have since about 1992... so we definitely hit their show last night. We had a great time with my brother-in-law, his girlfriend, and two of his best friends. I also learned a couple of lessons.

1. I want a decent zoom lens. I sold the kit zoom as it was heavy and slow. The longest focal length I have is 85mm so it was OK for stage shots, but really didn't get me that close to the action.

2. A polarizing filter works great for the lights of the stage, but not so great for shooting the image off the jumbo-tron.

First shots with filter:







Shots without the filter:





The stage shot with the filter is soooo much more palatable than without, but the jumbo-tron shots with the filter, Ed is green. So it was a toss up as to which way is better I guess.

This just in... Maniacal teen with clippers on the loose!

, originally uploaded by willowdawn.

, originally uploaded by willowdawn.

My hubby is assuming that the paint fumes have gone to my head... at least he hopes it's the paint! Actually, I've always wanted a mohawk and my very serious life has prevented it. I have a one month window to be absolutely stupid with my hair. The fact that my teenage daughter thinks it's soooo cool that she got to give it to me is just gravy!

Oh yeah, changed the music to something a little more fitting. I love the band Live and we are going to see them in concert tomorrow night! YEAH!

How I spent Memorial Day and all this week...

, originally uploaded by willowdawn.

, originally uploaded by willowdawn.

I wasn't very nice to my sweet hubby so I'm editing my post. I appreciate everything he did to make this project easier and get finished. We really did work well together and I shouldn't give him so much grief.