Having Fun With Adobe Lightroom

I was introduced to Adobe Lightroom in early 2019 and it was completely alien to me. I knew nothing of presets or brushes, I was only used to Photoshop Elements and Photoimpression. For those of you who don't know what Photoimpression is, it's a photo editing software that was introduced in 2004. I cringe at the thought, but I've pretty much been using it since then, lol. I was in my early teens at the time and that was cutting edge software to me.

Now lets fast-forward 15 years to when I was turned on to Lightroom. I don't even remember how I stumbled upon it, but I downloaded it and have been using it ever since. If you're not familiar with Lightroom, it's main feature is using presets on your photos to dramatically enhance them. In the beginning I downloaded presets from various websites, but ended up pretty much making my own that suited my needs better. It takes some massive getting used to, but once you you got it, you got it.

I've really only used Lightroom to enhance photos of people, never really of anything else. The last time I used it on photos of nature was when I took some pictures of mushrooms on a tree stump. Milla got sick the following week, so I've never really done anything with it since. That's my crazy anxiety kicking in and causing me to worry and overthink every single thing.

Anyways, not going there, but that's basically why I don't edit all my photos. I did, however, edit some over the weekend because I wanted to share what an amazing change Lightroom can make. So without further adieu...

The before is obviously on the left, but you can easily see the difference that Lightroom makes.

Mind you, these is a preset of my own making that I tweaked to my needs, but there are loads of presets that you can buy.

One of the strawberry leaves that I photographed last week.

It's still amazing to me what a difference Lightroom makes. You can't find many honest Lightroom before and after photos, but this is tweaked with nothing else.

The Need for Seeds

 This is probably one of my favorite parts of gardening. It's definitely the easiest, but that's not why it's my favorite. I get so much enjoyment watching things sprout and grow, even when I was a kid I was fascinated by it. I still remember being in first or second grade and growing a little plant out of an eggshell. Most of the kids were bored by it, but I was obsessed! If you're not into gardening, then you won't get the excitement of watching something sprout and then produce fuel for your body. It's still positively fascinating to me that you can grow your own food.

Yesterday we officially kicked off our planting season. We got our old starter planters out and went to town sowing seeds. We agreed to scale it down a bit this year, which was basically pointless because we planted an ungodly amount of seeds. And these are just the ones that we have to start in planters! I'm going to try recap everything we planted thus far: 12 long sweet peppers, 18 bell peppers, 8 jalapenos, 6 green beans, 4 watermelons, 24 lemon cucumbers, 30 regular cucumbers, 6 mystery squash, 12 hot house tomatoes & 24 cherry tomatoes.

Wow, doing a playback there really kind of stress me out, lol. I mean, you have to take into consideration that not all of these will sprout. I mean, there's always a chance they will, but roughly half will suffice. Like I said earlier, this is just the ones that we can start now. We still have loads of corn and lettuce that needs to be sown directly into the ground.

And I may or may not have ventured by the seeds when I was in Dollar General today. I also may or may not have bought some spinach, zucchini and okra seeds. Since we're out of planters and Miracle Grow soil, I'll have to stop by Walmart on our way home Monday and get another. Maybe even some more seeds at Buchheit's, you just never know.

Here's some random pics of the planters. These were taken on my phone in the garage yesterday due to the rain. Not the best quality, but at least you can see what we're working with.

Miracle Grow Potting Mix and our little seed planters.

Planter tray number one.

Planter tray number one finished.

Planter tray number two.

New seed packs.

And So It Begins - Intro to Strawberry Plants

The older I get, the more I find myself looking at plants. Not just your average house plant, but fruit and/or vegetable plants - sometimes even trees or large bushes. It's a gene that I inherited from my grandma and one that I'm glad I have, but more times than not, it gets me in over my head or I make purchases that aren't all that necessary.

I usually stop by Buchheit's every Monday to get cat food. Upon my arrival my gaze drifted to all the seasonal plants. Herbs, flowers and strawberry's - oh my! It didn't really help that I literally just had a conversation with my aunt the week prior about growing strawberries this year. It's really needless to say that I made an impulse purchase and left with a couple strawberry plants.

There's really no place in the garden to put them, so I'm not sure where they're going to be. We'll most likely move them to large pots for now, but I honestly don't know where to put them long-term.

Like with any new purchase - especially of plants - I have to welcome them into our home with a photograph or two. It was almost picture perfect the way they were setting in the window. 

Young strawberry plants.

I love the leaves on the strawberry plants.

"Everbearing" Strawberry. It was either this or "Junebearing".

I love the macro detail with the 40mm Nikon lens on this strawberry leaf.

Strawberry plants sitting pretty in the window.

More baby strawberry leaves.

A Sweet Touch of Spring - Macro Edition

 The weather has definitely been looking up the past few days. Temperatures in the 40s seemed like a late Summer day compared to our two week streak of well below freezing weather. The wind is getting warmer with each gust, the spring frogs are coming out of hibernation and flowers are starting to bloom. It's only a matter of time before I'm complaining about the sweltering heat, so I'm trying to really take in the last bits of winter.

I ventured out late yesterday evening to take some pictures, narrowly missing the sun setting. These pictures have a depressing, cold feeling about them, but I'm not one to edit every picture I take just to post, so it's whatever. It's not a crazy amount either, just a handful of young daffodil sprouts and some purple flowers. Hope you enjoy!

Pretty little purple flowers.

Still trying to figure out this lens. O.o

These daffodil sprouts are the prettiest.

These macro daffodil sprouts are the cutest.

This was an intentional subject.

My Ancestry DNA Results

 My aunt got pretty much all of us Ancestry DNA kits for Christmas last year and I just got my results back Sunday. I've been impatiently waiting on my results since the end of December, but they've been super backed up due to the holidays and COVID. 

My mom's side of the family has a lot of English and Northwestern Europe, Irish and supposedly Native American. Well, when my aunt got her results back a few weeks ago, there was absolutely no trace of Native American ancestry. Lots of European, Irish and Scottish, but nothing else really. My mom did her Ancestry DNA well over a year ago and she was 46% England & Northwestern Europe, 30% Scotland, 9% Ireland, 9% Wales, 3% Norway and 3% German.

Now my biological dad's family is from San Diego and aside from the pictures I have of him and what I've been told, he was either Mexican or German. With a last name like Klein I've been leaning towards German/Jewish, but I really didn't know. I have a love for both spicy food (I have a super high tolerance for spice) and kraut of any kind, so I was honestly leaning towards both of those options. And I'm not trying to be racist at ALL, I'm being 100% serious about that. 

Well after I read my DNA results, I couldn't have been more wrong. Take a look:

So apparently I'm Scottish, lol. I was super shocked to see such a BIG percentage of one thing. I kinda expected it to be like my mom and aunt and have super mixed ancestry. The estimation is up to 70%, though, so there's a chance I'm even more Scottish than what's listed. I knew I would have England, Northwestern Europe and Irish, but Sweden was a nice surprise.

I was really laying it on thick over the weekend and joking around with everyone about just how Scottish I actually am. I went as far as looking up numerous Scottish dishes, which I will make one day, but it was mainly for fun. 

Overall I'm both impressed and satisfied with Ancestry DNA and hope that more of my family does it. My half-sister, Amber, is in the process of getting her results back as well, so I'm really looking forward to see just what we share from our biological dad's side. We share a father, if I hadn't specified.

Well I guess that's all for now. Actually, I do have one more thing to add. My uncle Gene got his back and he's like 2% African, Bantu to be specific. I think it's freaking awesome and I was actually a little jealous. Then LaVaughn got hers back and she's like 2% Nigerian on her dad's side. Like wtf people, I SO badly wanted to have some type of South African heritage, but apparently I'm just Scottish.