As I talked about, I've felt frustrated sometimes when I can't take the pictures I want (since I definitely still have a lot to learn about my camera and photography). I've also been wanting to give my blog a bit of an update. I've got that move-some-furniture-around, change-the-curtains kind of feeling. 

Well, good news on these fronts! Learning is happening and will be happening. My preferred approach to learning a new skill is usually to learn from someone. Of course, I do love reading about babies, but for the most part I'd rather learn from a person than a book. And all of a sudden the exact classes that I wanted to take just popped up!

First, I took a photography class at the beautiful Desert Botanical Garden this past Saturday (and will have one more session on Wednesday). Even though I've actually taken a few photography classes before I've never fully absorbed all that aperture and shutter speed jazz. I think it's because when I've learned about those things before I wasn't practicing enough so that I could internalize it. My instructor this weekend made a great comparison between photography and driving. He said, "Remember when you first learned to drive? You were conscious of everything: 'now I'm putting my foot on the brake, now I'm putting on the gas, now I'm using my blinker.' But now you probably never think that way!" I loved that; so true. And I did figure out a few things on my camera that were driving me crazy. It's so nice to just be able to ask someone instead of thumbing through my instruction manual. 

And there's more learning to come! This summer I'm going to take a Photoshop class through ASU (for free!). Super excited. And just today, Elise announced that she's running her Blog Design workshop again starting at the end of the month! I love Elise's blog and her style so I'm excited to hear her tips. Plus, I've been wanting to convert my blog to Typepad but it sounds like such a laborious task I haven't felt super motivated. Perhaps some new design skills and the promise of a shiny new blog will be just what I need!