Love/ Mostly Hate Relationship with Manual Settings

Well, just in case I didn't have enough hobbies and because I always have so much extra time on my hands (right)... I have decided that I'm finally going to try to master the manual art of photography. We bought our fancy SLR and lens over a year ago, and I had yet to try anything outside of fully automatic. I always look at other blogs and some of their pictures are just so much better....so frustrating!! Well, the difference is auto versus manual so I've discovered. Well, I thought it would be no problem to tackle that learning curve. Um, news flash to me. I have bought a few books on exposure and learning apperture/ ISO/ F-stops/ etc..... and finally learning that all those fun numbers on my camera do actually have a purpose. Well, it's beyond confusing! I need major tutorials....anyway, here are a few I did fully manual while Sailer were outside doing the bubbles. There still atrocious but at least they're somewhat in focus (you have no idea what a feat that is).