Family Wall Red Christmas Card

Turn your photos into personalized Christmas cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

I just ordered 50 cards, for free from Shutterfly.com. The promo I had even covered shipping!

Ever since we got a cat (4 years now), we have taken a “family” picture to use on our Christmas card. Sometimes we’ve ordered actual cards with pictures from Shutterfly.com or ordered pictures to insert inside cards.

Here’s a picture of our first card- I always keep a few extras from each and was able to find this one from 2006.

Here’s a current card that is similiar.

I really want to keep up with this tradition. But we have yet to take our classic picture with the cat, but hopefully soon! But this year, I would like to go for a collage type card, where I can put multiple pictures in it! The hard part will be picking out the 5 or 6 photos to use!

Something like:

I’m a little late this year, but I think I may just send them at the last minute or hand deliver them when I see people at the holiday!

And someday, I am going to host a New Year’s Eve Party and send invitations!

* Shutterfly is doing a promotion for bloggers who post about their holiday products, so I will be receiving 50 free photo cards. But I like and use Shutterfly, so I like to talk about their products.

Earlier this summer, I had plans to run the 15K race- but training this summer was almost impossible for me with this heat and my summer school schedule. Two weeks ago, I got an email from River City Races asking for volunteers for the Downtown Doubler. She offered a technical shirt and free entry into the Polar Bear Grand Prix races this winter. Considering that I knew several people who were planning on running and that I wanted to run the Grand Prix, I though why not? Then, I got the email response to be there by 6:30! Ugh!

I woke up at 5am, but it wasn’t that bad. I was out the door at 6 and there by 6:20. It was still dark! I was stationed behind the pre-registration table handing out shirts to the people that had been the first 400 to sign up. Not everyone got a shirt, so we had to repeat that phrase a lot! And some people didn’t want the size that they signed up for, so it was a little annoying. We had no authority to make decisions and we had no clue how many extras there were- if any.

View of the long line for the 4 port-a-pots! I heard several complaints about the lack of toilets. I witnessed about 20-30 people still in line after the race started. The organizer said that 600 had signed up, and was a LOT more than expected from past years. I think a lot more people are training for Fall half and full marathons, than usual. This race was 15K or 30K (hence the “doubler”).

Here’s the starting line. Both races started at the same time and the same place. But the doubler’s had a different finish line.

View at the starting line:

While I was helping with the shirts, most of the other volunteers helped with the water and bagels.

Now, we just waited about an hour before the first runners came by!

I was waiting behind the finish line, near the water tables. I saw @mudd4goals afterward. We hadn’t met each other before, so it was nice to finally meet another twitter friend in real life. We also spotted @MikeCampbellCFO and @thelynnied. They race re-capped! We talked about other races and training. And lots of other things. Needless to say, I didn’t do much “volunteering”.

Around 9:30-9:45, we started to clean up and re-organize the tables. We took a lot of water and snacks over to the 30K finish line, as most of the 15k runners had already finished.

I stayed behind with a few others at the 15K finish. We had several walkers stop by for water and also a lot of 30K runners who had finished, but were on their way back to their vehicles, and we offered more water and snacks.

Here’s the rest of my pictures on Flickr.com

Here’s other race re-caps:
Lynn
Sarah
Brad

After having gotten up at 5 that morning, and rushed downtown. And walked around like crazy helping out- I was worn out. We grabbed Qdoba for lunch, watched a little football, and then I had a nap. I was more exhausted when I got up. I felt like I had run that race. My body was playing tricks on me! Knees were sore and a raised temp! I went to bed before 10pm.

As a student with IU, we get some good software. It’s almost worth it just to take a class to get all the perks- such as software and training. I am also taking an online  tutorial class through Lynda.com given by Chris Orwig. Here are some below and afters of the making of a birthday card on Sunday.

B:

A:

B: A:

Here are 3 shots with different apertures:

1.4

8

16

Here are some pictures with my new camera. I used different shooting modes, but I can’t remember what I used or how to go back and figure it out.

Oh yea, I just remembered the whipped cream on top!! That’s totally not healthy!!

Of course the first thing I took a picture of was my cat- Miffy! She’s not very good at posing for pictures! More to come for sure! I need to redo my computer this weekend and get all the junk off here, and reinstall everything and hopefully it will run smoother, so that I can hold off buying a new computer for a little while longer!