Day 20: 365: It was a crazy blizzard of a day Tuesday. On one of Jedidiah's slides down he cracked his sled. It was quit the comical site seeing him tumble and roll. Thankfully he wasn't hurt. More picts to come.


 Day 21: 365: I'd love to think Buffy was talking to me in this photo about how she'd like to go outside or that perhaps she might like to go for a walk this week but alas she was only yawning.


Day 22 of 365:  Earlier this week I shared about my desperate need to alter some hems. I started one but I regret to report it is STILL sitting there on my table waiting to be finished... I'm a bit nervous to snip into my skirt. I'm working up to it, this time it's not procrastination. I swear! lol!


Day 23 of 365: I'm a proud mama who's showered daily with love and TONS of artwork.


Day 24 of 365: Bits of my home. I don't photograph it often because it's still so empty even though I'm crazy about home decorating. I also realized after taking this photo that my table is terribly dusty! Eek, just seeing that makes me anxious cause I'm a crazy clean freak. lol!


Day 25 of 365: Local wanderings. Manitou Springs.


 Day 26 of 365: My old green kitchen lamp. My love for the color green knows no bounds!



I'm terribly late getting these photos out this week and I do apologize. Jedidiah is doing a lot of upgrades to the computer and it's made everything really sluggish. He's building a super computer and dividing everything into two computers. Yep he's my huge nerd! Things should hopefully be back to normal soon.

Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather

We had a last minute decision to go for a snow drive through the mountains the other day. It probably wasn't the best idea, the sun was going down and in this area being so close to the mountains the sun seems to go down even faster. But eh, we didn't feel like sitting around at home so why not. Although I love my winter and snow I look forward to longer summer days when the sun is out till as late as 10pm, which really works with our lifestyle.
I wanted to go to Victor and wander around for a bit with my camera but in truth that wasn't a practical idea. I should have waited to go the next day, it was already 3:30 when we left. Above is an old mining train used to transport metals like gold through the pass in the mid 1800's.



I had wanted to climb the barbed wire fence to get a closer inside look but I suppose the world was against me that day. The days old snow that had piled up along the entire fence came past my knees. It was interesting trying to walk, keep my boots on, and hold a camera. It was very crunchy snow that you couldn't just walk through. Next time, perhaps.


A great many of the buildings in this area are difficult to go into due to being so terribly condemned. Most of them are barely standing and some have no flooring at all. Others are still in active mining sites and harder to get to. I'm still hunting for more, they're everywhere in Colorado. These are just really close by.



I'm really excited to discover one that I had overlooked in this area. There are so many up this way it's not hard to do. Sadly it was getting really late and the sun was already beginning to set. I decided at the very least I'd take a peak inside. This one had a lot more in it than others I've seen. But it was extremely dark and despite how my camera captured the images. I couldn't see very well except for right in front of windows and doorways. The large random holes in the floor wasn't exactly screaming explore me either. I've also learned that in mining areas (as with any condemned building but especially mining areas) EXTREME caution should be used. It's not uncommon to find gated holes in the ground that go thousands of feet down.


Although the upstairs did greatly grip my curiosity I decided to wrap it up. I could hardly see anything and this building isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I would like to mention that I don't at all encourage exploring abandon areas or buildings. But since I'm confident that this alone won't stop you, should you choose to throw caution into the wind, please be responsible and heed warning signs. Never go alone ( I NEVER do), always let others know where you are going and bring supplies in the event you get stuck over night. Don't get cocky and think that disasters won't ever happen to you. Because we do do a lot of exploring in the mountains and Colorado isn't the most forgiving terrain, we do keep a fully stocked emergency kit. Humm maybe I'll do a post on that soon. Would you be interested in that?

Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather

It's occurred to me that I seem to have acquired quite a lot of plaid clothing lately. I went from not owning a stitch of plaid since I was in high school, maybe even middle school to a whole closet full! Okay that's a bit of an exaggeration. Jedidiah still has waaay more plaid than me, but still, I have a lot. Fleet Collection had an amazing sale over the holidays and they just kept having them so eventually I ended up owning their whole collection of these fabulous skirts for a whopping $13-24 depending on the coupons I had. I have to admit if they had more colors I'd own them all! I really need to work on my year goal of making my own skirts cause I'm confident I can make this style quite easily (I think). Then I could make them custom to my height. I love a more modest length but I prefer my skirts more at my knees or just above vs below.


Most of these picts were taken in front of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. And no, I'm far to chicken to stay the night there because while my hubby would be fast asleep sawing logs, I'd be wide awake letting my imagination get the best of me. I have been inside the hotel several times though. Awesome place. Creepy feeling but awesome. Anyhoo, I love sneaking away to Estes when ever we can. This is such a beautiful area. If you get a chance to visit Estes Park, definitely visit summer - October at the latest. The best time to visit is in August/September when the elk are out but you can still travel through the whole Rocky Mountain National Park.

Sadly, most of the photos I took of our very short trip did not turn out very well. It happens sometimes. I'm still a photographer in the making.  So I'll keep this post short. I have more local travel adventures and posts to come very soon!

Cardigan: ModCloth  Skirt: Fleet Collection (Limited Supply! But you can find the green skirt at: Hello Holiday) Top: ModCloth  Belt: ModCloth  Shoes: Chelsea Crew  Hair Clip: Lovely Muggle

Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather ♥

Day 13: 365: Piper is pretty passionate about two things right now. My Little Pony's and Frozen. Here she is holding her new Anna doll that she very much loves.


Day 14: 365: I use to photograph these two all the time and then stopped for some reason. I've decided to make more of an effort to capture my beautiful babies more. Here Gretta is stopping in the middle of play for an apparently much needed grooming. She's always grooming Buffy.


Day 15: 365: Walls of candy from one of our favorite local haunts, Goldminers Nuts & Candy. This place is not only affordable but full of all the classics. Yum!


Day 16: 365: Ahh Chloie, this beauty has been like trying to capture a unicorn or photograph the loch ness monster lately. She's either never there or always a blur. On one of our quick random drives I encouraged her to dress up and borrow my scarf. She looked so cute. It's a shame it started to snow too heavily to take any decent photos.


Day 17: 365:  I like not having to layer so much in the summer but I truly love seeing everything in a blanket of snow.

Day 18: 365: This is the little cutie pie I've been watching since she was just a wee newborn. She's quite possibly the perfect baby. I've never cared for an easier infant. If I could keep her all for myself I totally would, I love her to bits! She just turned 1 years old.


Day 19: 365: We've been having some unusually nice weather here and there this year. So we decided to take the girls for a quick trip to the park before it got too cold and dark. This is Chloie with her best friend Teresa.



Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather ♥

Hello friends! I'm starting to pick up some speed and finally get some distance behind me with this awful acne. It's actually been more than 2 month since I started Accutane and while I'll be sharing more photos of my skins progress soon,  I wanted to show what it looked like at month 2. So here I am in some of the most unflattering of photos. To be honest I'm a bit embarrassed and have deeply considered re-shooting these, even editing them! I think I said that last month too but it is just as true this month. As my skin is starting to clear up I'm starting to see what my skin actually looks like underneath all these bumps and scabs. I've never seen my skin fully acne free and despite my optimistic nature I still remain skeptical that I will ever be rid of this burden.

Oh look I have freckles! Lots of them, with a bit of skin discoloration mixed in, thanks acne scaring and hormones. I'd love to keep my freckles i think they're cute but I know that I have a lot of scars to remove and I know that my journey to better skin won't be over after Accutane. I've already decided that I will go in after the required 6 month waiting period and get laser work done to remove any dimples and deep scaring.



But anyhoo back to my updates. I really struggled through this month. My headaches were worse than ever and most days I just didn't have the motivation to do a lot of moving. I had held hope that lowering my dose to 30mg once a day would eliminate my problems but it didn't, not completely anyways. Of course I did take double doses when ever I could. What ultimately ended up helping was just not taking my medication on days when I felt lousy and then resuming it again the next day. I did this on and off the whole month long. Doubling up on good days, half doses on so so days, and nothing at all on days I was nearly in tears with terrible migraines. I also discovered that my period does play a part in my migraines even though I don't usually have major menstrual cycles. Since then I've also had my dosage lowered. I take 20mg twice a day. Which is good cause I really need to get caught up. I don't want to be on this medication for a whole year! But when I do have a bad day taking 20mg is better than taking 30mg. I just hope this lower dose doesn't affect the final outcome when I'm off this medication.

Despite the ups and downs I'm still working through, I am learning a pattern and what seems to work for my body. I've been trying to push double doses when ever I can as I'm currently 26 days behind my 6 month mark. As long as I finish before summer I'll be a happy gal!

As for the other Accutane side affects, my eyes are terribly dry and red. I've been using Blink Tears and while gel eye drops are fantastic for severely dry eyes it only mildly helps keep the dryness at bay. Colorado's dry winters probably aren't helping me even though our home does have a built in humidifier. I may need to break down and buy a small one for my room too. There's nothing like waking up in the morning with the feeling like someone replaced your eyes with raisins! My under eye area is paper thin as is the rest of my skin. I can't tell you how much that bothers me. It's like I've aged 15yrs and I can only pray that this is all revived once I'm finished with this. My doctor reassures me that it will but it's still no picnic! Gretta jumped on my the other day, her nail cut my hand pretty bad, since then I've been walking around like I'm glass! LOL!

 

I still remain positive despite how frustrating this medication can be. It's also been nice cutting down my makeup time! Yea! Less to cover and conceal! If you have any questions about Accutane don't hesitate to ask! I'll share more about my skin care next time.

Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather


P.S. For the record, I just woke up. Haha I probably could look a bit more bright eyed but it was a late starting day and I wanted to make sure photos were taken. Also to view better detail click on each photo. Note: Firefox and blogger seems to be acting rather awful lately and are fuzing photos worse than other browsers. I think Chrome might be my new favorite browser. My hubby keeps swearing they are better and since he's a total computer nerd he's probably right. I just don't like change lol!

Day 6: 365: My sweet Gretta is starting to get all frosty in the face. She's creeping on 8.


Day 7: 365: Ahhh lately it seems like our lives has been fueled by Dutch Brothers Coffee. Their grapefruit rebel energy drink iced is pretty amazing too! If you haven't tried them, you need to! Although I've only seen them in Colorado and in Washington. But that's probably because both are awesome places in general. lol!


 Day 8: 365: A lot of our spare time has been used to work on the girls playroom/ hang out space. Regrettably it's taking much longer than I would have liked to complete but like I mentioned before it's been a really busy past two months. Last month along with the holidays a family member passed away. It was sudden but with his health constantly declining we knew it was coming. Then Jedidiah has been traveling a lot lately. I'm grateful for the over time but not for having him gone so much. A few days ago my father inlaw (one of my personal role models) was overwhelmed with chest pains. Thankfully they decided to get it checked out. It turned out to be the early warnings of a heart attack. Had he not gone in for what resulted in an unexpected surgery he might have died. It was crazy seeing images of his heart and how closed the veins were. I'm so thankful to still have him with us. He still has so much to offer the world through his kindness and wisdom. ANYHOO, way off subject, I do this a lot in person too...LOL! We are still working on the room. I'm currently having a difficult time deciding on what direction I want to go with the decor and overall style. Piper is 7 and she will get the most use out of the room but Chloie is nearly 15 and I'd still like it to be a fun place for her to draw and lounge (That girl spends waaay too much time in her room...teenagers.)




Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather

I'm a bit behind posting this shoot. I took these back in December but with the holiday rush, I just didn't get a chance to edit and post them till now. But as promised, I'm determined to make this a good year and blog more often. I feel really good about 2015, although I am something of an optimist about most things. I think its a good quality to have, even though things don't always turn out as I hope, staying positive or having hope just makes me a happier person! What kind of person are you? Optimist or pessimist?


Anyhoo, looking back on these photos I'm pretty surprised at how composed I look. I didn't move much and I wish I had a bit more photo variety but it was HORRIBLY cold this day. A whopping 5 degrees. I got up that morning set with what I wanted to wear and usually when I know what I want to wear it's hard for me to stray without adding another 45min of planning. I swear I'm the worst when it comes to getting dressed. THE WORST. I should add that to my goals: Get dressed in under 2 hrs (seriously for me that would be epic). So when Jedidiah told me it was going to be cold I did consider changing then said cold be damned! LOL! Instead I opted for lots of layers. Only when I got outside I was shocked at how cold it really was. Thankfully Jedidiah was a good sport and let me drag him into the yard for a quick few photos. My skirt did however turn out a lot more orange than it truly is. Although my hair is actually that orange more or less depending on the day. This skirt is more a muted orange but still as lovely.

What did we do with the rest of our day? We went to Ikea! I've now been there 3 times in the last month. We've been working on a playroom/ hangout spot for the girls. It was one of their Christmas presents and wow was it hard keeping them out of the basement. We told them there was a pipe leak and we had to tear out the walls. LOL! I didn't want to tell them anything but Piper kept questioning us and we didn't want to ruin the surprise. Thankfully she bought it and was over the moon when she finally saw our progress. They both were. We still have a lot more to do but I'm so very pleased with the progress. I'll be sharing photos soon.



Cardigan: Modcloth (or F21) Top: Target  Brooch: Jesiiii  Skirt: Etsy - FleetCollection (or their website)  Shoes: Liliana (Similar)

Take Care & Enjoy,

♥Heather


PS: I apologize for how terribly fuzzy my photos seem to appear, again. If you click on each photo, they are crisp. I can't seem to figure out why blogger has some days that it blurs my photos and other days that it doesn't. Especially when I haven't changed my photo size or anything from the last post where images were crisper. There is no reasoning! AARG, sorry venting. If anyone has any information on this please let me know cause asking google anything is like asking for a million dollars.

Day 1: 365 I'm extremely excited to now own my very first Canon L series lens. The first of many to come I hope!


Day 2: 365 The first of my succulents and the last still left standing. You hang in there little guy! Why I'm great with other plants and not succulents, I'll never know. *sigh*


Day 3: 365  Aspens. They're everywhere in the Springs

Day 4: 365 Somebody joined the family of eyeglass wearers this past month. I'm sad to know she didn't get away with perfect vision but Piper couldn't be happier. And how cute are these little Rayban glasses?!

Day 5: 365 On our recent snow drive (we live for these) we got stuck in the snow. It doesn't happen often but we were in a valley with drifts that trapped us. It was too cold to go out and help Jedidiah. I also wore the wrong boots, ones with no traction. So with nothing better to do,  I took pictures! LOL!

I'm eager to see how my photography skills improve through out the year. I still have a great deal to learn. Are there things you'd like to see me photograph more?

Take Care & Enjoy,
Heather