Magically Nerdy

I told myself that this was the year I was going to figure out my health so it’s been a very long year of trying to proceed as normal with life while also attempting to fit in all of the appointments. We’ve made some discoveries but still have so many questions. Anyway, it means that some things have fallen behind. My socials I made definitely part of that. I also have a habit of working on things and sharing random progress things but never share the final result. I’m currently bouncing around between photo shoots of the kids and I in an effort to not get too bored working on one at a time but also to finally start chipping away at things. If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know that my very first 100% seen on my machine cosplay was Redd. I shares several progress things but I don’t think I ever shared the final result. So here she is. Hopefully there will be more to come. I

This image took ages to edit, partly because I had to edit and mask not only my son but also all of the dancers but I had I had ti individually mess with the hues and saturation and all of that for all of the “dancer” photos. Plus the file itself is almost 2G in size 😬💀 but then, I think due to the size, the file I was working on corrupted and I spent the next several hours attempting to recover it before giving up and just starting again. Previously, I had brought the dancers in and edited them just in the layers. This time, I made those edits their own files instead so I didn’t have to do this again if this file corrupted. Thankfully it all worked out. My kids also like to point out that you can’t see ghosts behind him on the ride. 😂 I know…. But since we aren’t on the ride, it gives more contexts to his shocked expression 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️

Also, as much as I’ve loved for years (which is where I found all of the dancers), it’s becoming increasingly hard to not find ai generated images (even after clicking “exclude ai” in the search parameters)… especially if it involves background type images.

📸: .photodesign (me)
🖌️ in by me

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One of my favorite newer traditions is turning our downstairs bathroom into the Haunted Mansion in the fall. Well, it’s only been two years but it makes me happy 😂 this year, I added more than just the gargoyle (who lives there all year long) and the portraits but also added so much more. My favorite part is the .candle.company haunted mansion room air freshener. It really and truly does tie it all together.

We had friends over today before heading out for trunk or treat and after using the bathroom, one of those friends described it as feeling a bit unnerving 😂 “I felt like I was being watched the whole time” 💀
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It’s been a bit quiet around here because we’ve had a fairly busy summer. Our most recent adventure was to Alaska with . It’s always been a bucket list item for me to see a humpback whale and this little guy put on quite the show for us as we were leaving Sitka. I was taking a Timelapse on my phone of us leaving port and its acrobatics even show up in the Timelapse despite it probably recording for an hour or more. You can see the first little blip of it at 7.12 seconds and again at 7.14… and even more. It jumped around for a good 15-20 minutes. It was really amazing to watch. I may post more from our trip. We’ll see. I’ve got to get back to working on client photos and both of my kids’ birthday portraits so we will see how motivated I am after so much editing. 😂😮‍💨
And thank you to for the talk on glaciers and animals in the area. Going back and watching my videos from the day of the massive pod of humpbacks after we briefly chatted, I can definitely see that those were not porpoise backs like I initially thought.

Still in awe of the beautiful weather we got and all of the amazing things we saw and experienced. I definitely see more Alaskan cruises in our future.



(The last photo is a screenshot of one of the “blips” from the Timelapse!… pretty perfectly framed 😂)

They don’t look like much, but these three (very amazingly soft/textured pillow cases represent growth. Mentally and sewingly (yes, I realize that last one isn’t a real word. I bought a blanket from Value Village months ago when I worked on my Hera Jacket. I basically harvested the Sherpa off of it for her collar. However, I didn’t want to waste it so I kept the fabric with the intent of turning it into pillowcases; I even bought matching invisible zippers. However, at that point, I’d never sewn a pillow case, installed invisible zippers or even used a sewing machine. So it sat… for months. Fast forward to the start of this year where one of my goals was to finish abandoned projects (which I have actually been doing). This has also included ideas of projects where I have most of the supplies but never officially started. Learning how to use the sewing machine has meant that I could actually make a lot of forward momentum. But I would never have been able to even start the process of learning if I hadn’t started to take care of my mental health first. Getting that official ADHD diagnosis after suspecting it for years meant that I couldn’t meds that helped clear up some of that mental clutter so that I could start making some forward progression so many ways. So yeah, these 3 pillow cases may have taken me an entire day to complete and they’re far from perfect but they represent so much progress and I’m so happy to be on this journey. So thankful for all who have dealt with my crazy brain and also those who have encouraged me to just “do the thing”. I’ve been having so much fun learning and creating and am excited to see what l can continue to create.