What a week!!  I had a lot of fun going over the resources and assignments this week in ds106, as always.  I read through the assignment post long before I began the actual assignments, and also read through the advice provided through the links there on how to improve your photography skills.

Admittedly, I am far from being awesome with this.  But I do think that, after this week, I am better.  I even started trying out my new skillz when I was out with my son on a field trip, although it wasn’t really an assignment, exactly.  I couldn’t help it, though.  I was a little excited to try it out.  I wrote a little about my experimenting in another post from this week.

The Photoblitz was probably the absolute most fun of all of the activities.  I got to incorporate it into my Sissy’s birthday party at a winery – what an awesome combination!  Family and friends alike got in on the fun here, and contributed thoughts and ideas, and we got some cool stuff out of it, not to mention the fun we had doing this.  My favorite shots were the ones of my sisters laughing, the shadow, and the purple (cuz who doesn’t like purple).  I really liked the up close shot of the grapes, too – and that idea came from the birthday girl herself!

I was surprised to find, when I approached the ‘pimp your flickr’ part of the assignment, that I had done literally none of the things mentioned in that section.  I had already spent a bit of time on flickr, making it mine, and such.  But I had done nothing that was suggested here.  As usual, there’s so much more out there than I ever realized.  I decided not to connect flickr to Facebook – just doesn’t sound like fun to me.  I also had a hard time connecting my blog directly to flickr.  For whatever reason, it said I didn’t know my password and/or user name.  But I get into my blog just fine, so…I’m thinking that’s not me.    So I let it go.  I did finally create a ‘Best Of’ set on Flickr as well.  Funny that most of the photos in it are from this week, after reading the photography suggestions.

I had a lot of fun doing the Daily Creates this week again, also, as usual.    I didn’t add any new Daily Creates to the assignment repository this week, but I look forward to doing so soon. I’m wondering if maybe the assignment I submitted to the Visual Assignments shouldn’t have been a Daily Create instead.

For my visual assignments this week, I did the following:

Buddy Photo, for 2 stars
Return to the Scene of the Crime, for 3 stars
An Album Cover, for 2 stars
Art Comes to Life, for 3 stars

My favorite by far was the Buddy Photo – my daughter was naturally delighted with this assignment.  WOOT WOOT for getting the whole family in on the fun!  Justin had decided that he wanted to take Kayla on a hike today to spend some time with her, while my son was at his dad’s house, and we quickly realized that a slight change in my own plans would help make both the hike, and my assignments, much more epic, though it might take a little extra time.  It was worth it.  ‘See, Kayla? College is cool! And fun!’  She took the unicorn to bed with her tonight.

By the time I got to the last assignment I completed (the Buddy Photo), I couldn’t get enough photos.  Granted, I love taking pictures anyway, but that poor unicorn was subjected to more pictures than any stuffed animal ever should be.  But everything I looked at was a photo opp.  It was just too much fun.  I’ve enjoyed watching my spontaneity in all things art-related improve, and my perspectives expand.  I have not enjoyed the lack of any decent camera to use for these assignments.  That can get rather frustrating.   But all in all, it has been a great week.

And of course, we can’t forget the Radio Show project we’ve been working on.  It was beyond awesome to get to meet the others in my group at Blackstone this past Tuesday, and that was only partially because of how awesome the coffee is there. I couldn’t be more excited about working on this project with my group, and I can’t wait to see what these ideas grow into.

Probably the greatest challenge I’ve had so far has just been time constraints with regard to the class.  I absolutely love that I can come at this class (and my others) as a mom/adult/wife/oldlady.  I’ve been in the work force for years already, and I’ve had my own family for years, too.  All of this greatly changes my perspective towards all of the things I do here, not to mention how awesome it makes the assignments to have these things as a huge part of my life and how awesome it is to get to incorporate these things into the assignments and my blog.  But of course, with two other classes that have things due every Monday and Tuesday night, and my kids and their school and after-school obligations, I generally have literally not a moment to spare to even glance at ds106 each week until Thursday morning, usually more like Thursday night.

I should probably admit that I took on too much, but I won’t.  I won’t do it.

I’m going to keep going, because I love this too much.  I also love my other classes too much.  And I’m just so grateful to be here.  I’ll play with a few different approaches to see what I can do to ease the load on myself a bit.  Especially this coming week, since I’m trying to get my happy bum to the Poverty Action Conference next weekend, so I won’t have any time to do anything next weekend, either.  Week 5 down, and now, Week 6, here I come!  Let’s see what I can do!!