On life lately....

So right this minute I'm not entirely sure if I'm Arthur or Martha, whether I'm here or there, whether I'm coming or going. If there's an underlying element of panic apparent in this post, then that'd be about right. There is just SO much going on right now. I always knew (from my on the horizon post I wrote a few weeks back) that the last few weeks of this term would be a bit like this. And if it wasn't enough to have a big LEGO movie party to plan (10 days and counting...and still a fair bit to do...eek!) then of course I thought it would be a grand idea to throw a few other things into the mix like:

making a tradtional 'year in the life' movie for Mylo's birthday next week
planning my last crèche session this Sunday
baking cookies for Noah's Cub camp next weekend
baking for our final ever daycare birthday and farewell next Thursday and finding a suitable farewell gift for the lovely teachers
planning and purchasing products for the Thorndon fair - having to take advantage of a fantastic promotion that ends this week on Diamond Photo
contributing photos to the new Photography Stock NZ website
working on my new photography website - it's actually happening....albeit slowly. At this rate I probably still won't be able to launch it for another month or two!
reviewing another book on the blog (why oh why did I decide to review two books on the blog on the busiest month of the year!)

Oh yeah, then this somehow happened this week too.

My little D3100 looks positively diminutive beside the big daddy D800

And the difference in zoom lenses is pretty hilarious - old (left) vs new (right)

I'm still in shock. I'd been wanting to upgrade my camera for a while and I'd been dilly-dallying over whether to just go for the next model up from mine (Nikon D3100) which is 3.5 years old and has been around the block and literally around the world now. I could have purchased the D7100 body with the proceeds of all our recent Trade Me sales, and all my existing lenses would have still worked just fine with it. But in the back of my mind I also knew that out there in my future there was a full-frame camera waiting for me telling me that if I bought the D7100, in about six months or a year I'd be kicking myself and wishing I'd just taken that big ol' leap of faith and upgraded to the big kahuna once and for all.

So I took the opportunity while over in Melbourne to play with my brother's full-frame D700 and got a feel for what it could do. Then darn it all if the Photo Warehouse didn't go and put the D800 on sale the very next week.

I thought and researched and thought and researched some more, knowing I'd have to buy at least two lenses (a wide angle and a telephoto) to have a decent landscape photography kit. Even having made the decision, I had extreme butterflies going into the shop to pay and pick it up. Holy moly, I hope I can do justice to the expense. I keep telling myself it's an investment in my photographic future, but not being one for significant splurges it still felt somewhat crazy and extravagant to be doing it all the same.

Our week long holiday in Nelson and Golden Bay is only three weeks away now so I'm hoping I can get up to speed to figure out what the heck I am actually doing with it before we go!

So all of that was really to say...don't be surprised if there's not a lot of blogging going on the next week or so - at least until the big birthday bash is over!