This week’s Edit Me Challenge is extra special. Since the 4th of July is even bigger than Christmas for Branson’s family, she’s decided to be our judge this week! She also suggested that we try adding text to this image…which only seemed appropriate. Here’s my edit: I have already seen some incredible edits – everyone is really rocking this challenge. I decided (once again) to try something a little different and stretch the canvas (discussed HERE). Thus, I turned a vertical shot into a horizontal shot. After inverting the image (I’ll talk more about...

Welcome to the 25th week of Shoot and Edit: Part 2. Click HERE for all the details and upcoming prompts/themes (also including previous editing tutorials). This week’s theme or prompt was to show us one “Sunrise” SOOC shot (this was just a suggestion, you can show us any SOOC shot). I clearly did not follow the rules, but hopefully you linked up with Jill’s blog earlier this week. Each Thursday, I will take my SOOC shot and provide some basic editing tips. You can then try these tips on your own photos and link up here – linky will now open EARLY on Thursdays and...

On Monday, I came home from work and noticed that our house was a bit warmer than usual. I walked upstairs and my suspicions were correct…our HVAC system was on the fritz. So yesterday, at 8 o’clock on the dot, I called to make an appointment. As if a summer day in North Carolina wasn’t hot enough, a summer day without air conditioning is for the birds!UPDATE: I should probably have updated this post before going to bed last night. Our AC was fixed yesterday afternoon for the low price of $300. From what I understand, it could have been a lot worse, so I’m thankful ...

Friday night, we came home from dinner and I was settling in for the evening…until I got a tweet from my blogger friend Christy, over at Skinned Knees. @christypeffly: “@AshleyRSisk Do you see the sky!!?? If I didn’t have hideous power lines in my yard I’d get my camera out!”In case you’re wondering, Christy lives fairly close to me (even though we’ve yet to meet in person)…thus the reason she asked if I saw the sky. We don’t have much of a view from our backyard, but I immediately got up from the couch…camera in hand, and walked...