Photography

I love photography.  I love taking pictures.  I always have my camera on me.  I love being able to capture my life (and my kids's lives) on my memory card (I kinda miss having real film).  I've always been fascinated by the art of photography.  My dad is a pretty good photographer, as in he's real good.  Growing up, our upstairs bathroom was a dark room for a while.  Then he stopped working on it and life got in the way I guess. Now that I have kids, my fascination with photography has heightened.
The Hubs recently coordinated my favorite birthday present ever, my new camera.  He got everyone in on it so I could have it.  I was torn between a DSLR and a fancy point and shoot with all the qualities of a DSLR.  I ended up choosing a fancy point and shoot (Canon PowerShot SX30IS).  I love it to pieces.  I mean LOVE.  I'm doing online searches for cute camera straps and camera bags.  I lug it around everywhere, even though I'm known to have cameras small enough to slip in my back pocket.  But you know what....no matter how much I might look like I know what I'm doing, I have NO CLUE how to use my camera or maximize it to it's potential.
Devastating, I know.
My dad was nice enough to try to explain things to me.  He's even willing to work with me to get basic photography down.  He saw the pictures that we had done of the kiddos and said to me....you can take pictures like these.  That is what I want.  I want to have the knowledge and skill to take amazing pictures.  Do I want to have my own photography business? No.  Do I want to take professional quality pics? Absolutely.  That is the ultimate goal.
So I've done some googling (Google is my BFF....for reals) and stumbled across a 31 day project on taking a better photo.  It's all about learning the camera, learning the basics, and taking it one step at a time.  I think it's just what I need (besides a translator for my camera manual...have you ever read one?  Impossible to understand).
So here's to struggling with my camera.  To feeling like I'm dumb for getting confused on what each number and dial means.  To getting frustrated with every blurry picture, every horribly lit picture, until I get the one perfect picture.  To that one perfect picture becoming the way my pictures turn out on a regular basis.  

Oh and if anyone has any helpful tips, suggestions, websites I can check out, feel free to send them my way.  I need all the help I can get!