My Newest Hobby

A few weeks ago, a special package arrived at our house with my name on it. This newest arrival to the Holley household brought with it great excitement and anticipation:

My camera is a Canon Rebel SL1 Digital SLR. I currently have just the one 18-55mm lens, though I anticipate eventually getting more, when funds allow and my skill level has increased to the point where it would actually be worth spending said funds.

I have been taking an online class (which I got for half price--win! My sister-in-law ended up paying even less for it. The power of coupons!) and I have been thoroughly engrossed in learning how to use my DSLR. I'm still VERY new at this, but I am loving it.

It makes me a little nervous sharing my photos, which seems silly in a way, seeing as how I post photos I've taken all the time. However, there's something about having a "nice" camera that seems to raise people's expectations. I feel like my photos will be judged on a whole different level than when I was just snapping shots with my phone, despite the fact that this is my first genuine foray into photography. (I don't really count the one photography class I took in school, though I enjoyed it, because that was about 15 years ago!)

Still, this is an exciting new experience for me, and I don't want to keep it to myself. So, without further adieu, I present my earliest works with my Rebel SL1.

(Incidentally...none of the photos have been altered, cropped, or photoshopped in any way.)

One of my rosebushes started to bud last week, and when I walked out and saw the first blooms, I had to capture their fresh beauty.

This afternoon, Shadow was dozing on the couch wrapped up in one of our blankets. I just loved the way his head was poking out. The lighting was particularly nice for capturing his features.

I've had a lot of fun over the past couple of weeks practicing with my camera at taekwondo. This takes a whole different bunch of settings, to capture the high-speed motions of the students kicking and flipping.

Obviously I'm still working on it. But I feel like my ability to capture these moments is rapidly improving. These photos were all captured in the midst of regular classes, which makes it hard to get clear shots at the action without the background clutter. That too I will keep practicing.

 

Naturally, my favorite subject to photograph is my little Smush. I absolutely treasure these photos.

 

This has brought me so much joy just in the short couple of weeks I've had my camera. I can't wait to continue learning and experimenting! 


As always: all original images and original content on this site are the sole property of the blog author and may not be used, copied or transmitted without express consent.

1st Birthday!

Our Joel Riley turned 1 on Wednesday! It is incredible to look at the last year and realize how much our lives have changed. This little man brings us so much joy, even amidst the frustrations of parenthood.  We had a blast celebrating Joel's birthday.

 

The day started out not so birthday-like. Joel had his 12-month doctor's checkup, including his shots. My mom thought I was crazy to schedule his immunizations on his birthday, fearing he would be cranky and feeling unwell for his party. But, like all his past times getting his shots, he did totally fine. He cried monstrously when it happened, fell asleep in the car on the way home, slept for a couple of hours, and when he woke up, he was our happy birthday boy!

We invited our families over Wednesday evening. The weather conspired against us (we decided that Joel must have wished for snow for his birthday) and so out of necessity we held the party inside. It was a little crowded (James has lots of siblings!) but it worked all right. James and I were actually quite surprised by how many of our family members came. It was wonderful to see how loved our Joel-baby is by our family.

 I made a couple of ice cream cakes, as well as a pan of cupcakes. I wanted Joel to be able to have a cake smash, but a cupcake just seemed more reasonable to me! So, after everyone had arrived, we sang happy birthday to him, lit the candle (which he tried to touch) and Daddy helped him blow it out.

 He went after his cupcake with gusto, although his enjoyment of said cake was slightly more questionable...

 "Not sure about this, Mama..."

After everyone had cake, we settled down for present-opening. I have to confess, I was surprised at the number of gifts that Joel received. James and I only got him a couple of things, ourselves. Our goal is to always keep birthdays fairly low-key for our children. This birthday definitely did not fit that mold! But that was all right. This is probably the only birthday where we'll be near family, so it made us really happy.

  Joel loved going through the bags, although he seemed more interested in the tags than the presents at first! And of course, had to munch on some wrapping paper.

 He was pretty studious about examining each of the gifts. Joel's a very curious little boy, and he was fascinated by several of his presents.

Joel got totally spoiled! Yesterday, we got all his new things out of the boxes and left them in our living room. He had a blast playing with everything off and on all day. I suppose eventually I'll get it all put away, but right now it's fun to watch him explore and experiment.

Here's to the next year! Can't wait to see what adventures this little man has in store!

Selling our House, Part 1

We have known that we would be selling our house for several months now. That wasn't always the plan--for many years, James had been planning to attend law school at BYU. That was the plan when we bought our house, thinking we would be here for 5 years or more, for school and then possibly for the beginnings of a local career. Of course, that all changed when James decided to apply at the Top 10 schools, and our entire life plan shifted course.

It was only two and a half weeks ago that James officially declared his intent to attend Duke University. Duke has been our top choice all along, but it really came down to scholarships. Fortunately, Duke offered James a substantial scholarship, the best offer that he received. (Made the choice very easy!) Once we knew for sure where we would be going, we decided to proceed with plans for the house.

We met with our realtor, Amy Laster-Haynes, for the first time on March 24th, two weeks ago yesterday. She came highly recommended by our friend and loan officer, Brother James Sly, and we immediately liked her a great deal. She was professional and upfront with us, which we appreciated.

My greatest concern about the sale of our home was the timing. We don't plan to move until July, so I was worried about listing our home too soon, and being forced to move out early, and probably have to move twice. But on the other hand, we didn't want to still be trying to sell our home after moving to North Carolina, with the hassle and financial strain that would bring.

With all this in mind, Amy recommended listing sooner rather than later. Her reasoning was that we could probably work out a later closing or a rent-back situation with potential buyers, and furthermore, she believes that a lot more houses will be listed in the next several months, and having more competition on the market would make our house harder to sell. After considering the matter, James and I decided to proceed.

We spend the week preparing the house. James actually went to Durham that weekend, so my awesome parents came over and helped me clean and finish a couple of little fixes around the house that needed to be done before listing the house. To our surprise the For Sale sign went up Saturday afternoon--Amy apologized for that later, as it wasn't supposed to have gone up until Monday. We definitely got questioned at church on Sunday!

On Monday, Amy's professional photographer came and took pictures of the house. They turned out AMAZING. You can check them out here. I was so pleased--having spent quite of bit of time looking at houses for sale in Durham, I have come to appreciate what a difference good photos make in the desirability of a home.

Tuesday saw the actual listing of our house. Our house was officially for sale! We had our first showing scheduled that evening, though it later got postponed until Wednesday.

A big surprise came at 9:00am on Wednesday--our first offer! We hadn't even shown the house yet! But it turned out to be a lowball offer--Amy believed they were investors, probably planning to rent out the property. It was a cash offer, but that wasn't nearly enough of an enticement to accept $10,000 below what we had asked for. Amy said to wait to reject it until that evening--we had two showings lined up already, and she hoped to use this offer to put a little pressure on them.

We ended up having FOUR showings that first day. James and I spent the morning cleaning and preparing the house, and then vacated for the afternoon. Amy texted a few times, and she seemed very hopeful about the interest shown, and so we waited with great anticipation.

Amy called us at about 8:00 that evening--with TWO more offers. The first (and lower!) of the two was $5,000 over our asking price, although asked us to pay $7,000 in closing costs. However, the big thing with this offer was that the seller was willing to delay closing for 40 days, and then rent back to us for 60 more days, which gets us to the middle of July--about as good as we could have hoped for!

The second offer was a full $10,000 over our asking price, with the more typical $4,000 in closing costs. However, there were two major issues with this offer--first, they wanted to close and move in as soon as possible. Second, Amy expressed her concerns about our house appraising for anything near this high, a very valid concern.

Amy asked us to sleep on it, and let her know in the morning how we would like to proceed. We talked about it, but it was a pretty clear choice for us. We texted her in the morning with our intent to accept the first offer. Amy was really happy--she said that many sellers only look at the dollar signs, and she was glad that we had listened to her cautions and all. For me, the bigger dealbreaker was the timing. Being able to stay in our house until July makes all the difference in the world for me!

We went back and forth a couple more times with the buyer with some addendums, but later that day, we got a signed acceptance back--we were officially under contract!

Now we are in the midst of a three-week due diligence period, while the buyer has time to get a home inspection, the appraisal, etc. We've got our fingers crossed that all that goes smoothly, and that we get to closing without any major hiccoughs. Still, it's a pretty big relief to have reached this stage with as much ease as we did. Now we're just waiting with eager anticipation until our trip out to Durham in May, to search for our next home!