When Reading Goes Too Far

Women might be accused of idolizing Jane Austen a bit too much. I think that "Mr. Darcy" has unrealistically heightened the expectations of more than a few women. I love Jane Austen as much as the next girl but I could not be accused of that same folly. I could however, be accused of the folly of believing I was immune to attachment to fictional characters.

I'm very interested in historical fiction and I have recently been feeling the need to read a good book so I picked a couple up from the library. One of the books I picked up was called "The Constant Princess" by Phillipa Gregory. It is about Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry the VIII and I have developed an unhealthy attachment to Catherine. So much so that I could not finish the book and even a week after returning it I am still plagued by thoughts of her.

If anyone does not know (and I would be very surprised to find out that many people do since it is not common grade school history knowledge) Catherine of Aragon was actually married to Henry's older brother, Arthur before she was married to Henry VIII. Despite the fact that it was an arranged marriage, designed to unite Spain and England, there are speculations that Catherine and Arthur were actually satisfied with the match and did fall in love. Tragically however, Arthur died just 5 months into the marriage and history as we are taught it in school became just that, history.

Like I said, it is pure speculation that they were in love but historical fiction thrives on speculation. That was were I got lost. I was only able to read up until Arthur's death before throwing the book across the room in frustration and ultimately returning it to the library unfinished. After reading about an unlikely love match, I couldn't bring myself to watch Catherine marry Henry VIII and take up her role as the tragic and doomed figure of Tudor England.

And the most frustrating part? The book itself wasn't even that good! It wasn't fantastically written (better than Twilight I am sure, but probably not by much). Why on earth am I so attached to this Catherine, that my heart aches for her even a week after closing the book!? For all we know, she wasn't actually in love with her husband any more than any other arranged marriage! But I am heartbroken for her all the same!

It really is making me crazy. When I have nothing else to think about, I wonder what it would have been like had Arthur lived. Would they have been happy? How would England have changed? How would history have changed? 

AUGH! I am not even exaggerating here, it is making me completely insane. I think the moral of the story here is that I should not read historical fiction about actual historical figures.

The other moral of the story, if you can call it a moral, is that my "one" question to ask God when I die is no longer going to be "how did the dinosaurs die", it is probably going to be "Why did Arthur have to die?"

Has anyone else had problems with getting attached to characters in books or movies or anything? It doesn't have to be nearly as unhealthy as my attachment, but I'd like to know that I'm not alone. =P

I Did A Silly Thing

I did an engagement shoot last friday and finally finished editing the photos last night. The bride is in Arizona now so I had to mail her the CD. I suppose I could have dropboxed the images to her or something but meh. First silly.

I mailed the CD today but because I was working on a public computer to edit them, I deleted the files after I burned them to CD. So that CD is the only copy of the images that exists, aside from 10 that I put on G+. Whoops. Second Silly.

That's ok. As long as I pray that the CD makes it there, everything will be fine. They are going to live next door to us after they are married so I'll just borrow the CD and copy them back to my computer. I can't believe I forgot to do that before I sent them. bah.

Here are a couple of the pictures, I'm rather pleased with how they came out despite my initial fear that there were hardly any good pictures. I managed to get a total of 100 independent images and 13 more from cropping them different ways or applying effects to them. In the end, it turned out that this was one instance where black and white actually took away from the images.

My Camera Should Automatically Revert to ISO 200

I never shoot on higher than ISO 200 unless I have to. Monday was one of those days because we were shooting indoors for class and he told us we had to bump up our ISO. I never dare go past 800 and even at 800 its iffy.

Well guess what? I just spent 2 hours setting up a shoot so that everything was perfect and then I loaded them up in lightroom and wondered why the pictures looked fuzzy. Then I looked at the metadata.

ISO 800. Leftovers from class that I hadn't changed back. *sigh*

I really think my camera should be programmed to move back to the lowest ISO after being turned off. :(

It Could Be Worse

Things could definitely be worse...but I'm not really excited that my Photography final is next Saturday. I've never had a final on a Saturday before, normally I'm used to taking that weekend to breathe. But I'm gonna have to shoot it all and get it ready to go in a week and a half.

Oh. Joy.

After this, I'm working in my garden and taking a nice long break from photography.

Unless I use my freetime to bake up some delicious yummies. Then I'll probably go back to photography more quickly than anticipated. =P

Wow. School is really almost over. Just gotta hang on a bit longer!

It Is Done

I submitted my photography portfolio on Wednesday night. You would think I would have posted about that immediately buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I didn't. And that's pretty much all the information I have to give. I'm not supposed to be thinking about it, remember?

Spring! Spring!

I ordered the seeds for my garden last week. They still haven't shipped yet...but I have about a month before I have to start the seedlings. I'm sure they will be here in time.

I found this super awesome garden planning site and so I sketched out my garden in its stages. I'm really trying to work on maximizing my space so I'm focusing on companion planting and staggering plantings. Some of the stuff will actually go in the same square, like the corn and the beans and the squash (a 3 sisters garden!)...but the program wouldn't let me.

This is early spring

Late Spring

SUMMER!!!

I haven't really planned out the fall garden yet. I'll probably put peas in where the carrots and cucumbers are but other than that not much change. Peas are magical...they extend my growing season. :)

Why did it take so long?

Why did it take me so long to realize what my true calling is?

Food photography! Duh! It makes so much sense!

This might spell bad news for Andrew though...as he'll probably now have to wait until I've photographed everything before he can eat =P