Can you solve this problem, Dora?

When I arrived home from work Wednesday evening, Emily informed me that a special Dora show was going to be on Sunday night at 7:00 and she really, really wanted to watch it. "Please can we watch it?" There is something so refreshing about the innocence of a child so Rich and I conferred and agreed to allow the girls to stay up a bit later to watch the special, which I'm sure will be replayed on Nick over and over again. On average, the girls are asleep between 7:15 and 7:30 so they really wouldn't be staying up that much later.

And, no, we don't have a DVR or any other way to record television shows.

Allie finished her Z pack for babies on Friday but still has a nasty cough. She's not coughing as frequently but now Anna is coughing. Again, not frequently but when she does, it's nasty. Anna also slept until 8:30 yesterday morning, which is almost unheard of in our house. She looked exhausted and ready for bed by 5:00. I think Rich and I could have gone to bed at 5:00 last night too.





So the deal was that the girls had to be bathed, teeth brushed and in their pajamas before the show started and when the show ended, they needed to go to bed without me reading or telling them any stories. They did okay. As soon as Rich shut the television off, Anna announced, "I want dessert now." She had already eaten dessert hours earlier. Allie insisted on telling me a story and Emily called me upstairs twice.

The girls told me that they enjoyed the show and I'm glad that they were able to watch it for several reasons, one being that I realized that my 35mm lens is back focusing. For at least the past month or so, I have felt like my photos taken with this lens are soft. I ususally keep my f stop at 3.5 - 4.5 with the girls but the few times that I have used a lower f stop, I noticed some focus issues. Because I feel like I am swimming in a fog half the time, I just ignored it.

Well, it was really bothering me on Saturday. I took a slew of photos, which (soft or not) I'll post later, and the focus was obviously not right. Last night, I dropped my f stop to 3.2 to photograph Emily sitting on the couch. Although she was frozen in place and I used my external flash for additional light, I could see immediately that the focus was falling behind her and not on her face.
Some quick, rudimentary testing after the girls went to sleep confirmed my suspicions . And then I lost it. I don't have a "back-up" lens close to this focal range and so I am without a main lens until this issue is corrected or I purchase a new lens, which I am not ready to do because I don't know what to replace it with and I really don't want to spend $1,400 on a lens right now. I did check this morning and my D7000 is able to fine tune the auto focus on lenses so guess what I'll be doing tonight.

Quite honesly, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for anything. I decided that instead of purchasing $60+ Christmas outfits for the girls, that I would sew them each a dress (and hopefully a skirt) with their input. I really do like to sew and the girls seem to enjoy their new outfit additions. I started on Allie's dress yesterday and I was able to complete almost half of it.

Last night, I told Rich that I feel stupid for trying to sew anything. I don't have time. I just want to be a normal mom but normal went out the window years ago and yet here I am still trying to squeeze it all in. Throw in a bad lens during a holiday week and I'm lost, sad and frustrated.