Category: photos

dandy

I tried out some macro photography using a bellows for the first time. (John set me up with his bellows and a lens, and an adapter so that I could use them with my camera.) While the shots didn’t turn out quite how I envisioned (I have a lot to learn), I did have fun, and was pleased with the results. I was trying to get in closer to the little shadows I could see in this shot, taken with my own lens.

That is a crop of this one, which was as about close as I could get with my 20 mm lens. (The bellows that John has doesn’t work with my lens.)

The bellows got me in much closer than I expected! It was very tricky to get things in focus, as evidenced by my first attempts.

because I felt like I should toss something up here

Hey. Remember how I used to write stuff and post stuff here all the time? Like more than twice a month? Yeah, me too. That was cool.

I haven’t left, though. Well, actually, I did go on a trip, and come back. I went to Colorado for a cousin’s wedding. (All four of us went, and we got to see various family members, including my mother. Which was wonderful. Phoebe and Theo hadn’t seen my mother in over a year.) But what I mean to say is that I haven’t really abandoned the blog. I actually still write drafts that never get posted, and think about posting something almost daily. I’m not quite sure what gets in the way, except maybe the guilty sense that my time should be going in other directions.

I’ve still been keeping up with Project 365, and while I have definitely hit the doldrums, I am still largely enjoying myself. Many days, I feel like I’m going through the motions, and end up with predictably lackluster shots. Often taken at 11pm, somewhere in my house. However, when I look back at a month’s worth, I am generally pleased to see that there have been a few shots that I actually like. And every once in a while, I manage to do something fun.

In other news, in case you haven’t checked in on my sister’s blog, the latest news on my nephew and the pathology report was good, if unsettling: the masses removed in his recent surgery appear to be dead tumors. So, not requiring more chemo, which is fantastic. But unnerving, in that it’s not clear when, exactly, these tumors first showed up.

There are plenty more things that have been on my mind, and perhaps I will get around to sharing them. But for now, I should get back to some other stuff.

paddling on the river

I haven’t participated in PhotoHunt for ages, but this week’s prompt of “silhouette” was too good for me to resist. Because one of my all-time favorite photos is a silhouette, taken on the riverfront in Sevilla, Spain:

cut out from the same paper

Phoebe is growing more and more independent. She has her own sense of style, and is very creative. She picks out her outfits, she makes up projects and even games. She likes to do things her way, and is happiest when she able to do things herself. Not by herself, as in alone–she loves to have company. But she likes to be the one doing the tasks, and making the decisions. I enjoy seeing her figuring things out, and becoming more competent at a wide range of things.

For Valentine’s Day, the kids in Phoebe’s pre-K class were invited to bring in valentines for each of the other 17 kids in the class. Phoebe decided that she wanted to make all her own valentines, for the kids in her class. (And for the teachers. And for a few other friends.) Since I definitely have a preference for the hand-made and the home-made over the mass-produced and the store-bought, I did not discourage her from this plan. We even had an extra day, I reassured myself, since Phoebe wouldn’t be going to preschool till Tuesday. Of course, I had in mind that I could do a lot of the tasks with or for her–cutting card stock with the big paper cutter, and snipping other paper things as needed with the scissors for her to use as decorations. (I am a whiz with the scissors.)

But Phoebe had her own plans. For a start, she wanted to cut all the cards herself with her own little scissors. And she wanted to do all the decorating herself. And the writing.

Due to the chaos that is our life, which was compounded by a flat tire on one of the cars, Phoebe didn’t really get going on her project till Sunday. She worked hard at the project, cutting and drawing and writing. (I kept her company, and made my own valentine.) By Sunday night, however, she had only finished 8 cards.

Monday was a work day for me and a daycare day for Phoebe, then Phoebe had karate class in the evening. She’d finished a couple more designs before dinner, but still had many more to make. By the time we finished dinner, it was heading on towards 7:00, when we would ordinarily be getting going with the bedtime process.

I found myself saying to John: “I really love to see her wanting to do things her way, but sometimes she needs to understand that there just isn’t time to do everything she wants, just how she wants to.”

John looked at me.

“What?” I said. John smirked in reply.

“Oh, you mean she sounds like me. With my research.”

“Like you with everything that you ever do.”

Um. Guilty.

But I had worked out a revised plan, to at least get the 17 cards done for the kids in her class. I told Phoebe I would cut out some hearts for her with different papers–I even enticed her with sparkly papers! Then she could write on the cards and glue hearts on, rather than drawing pictures on each card. Phoebe agreed that we could wait for another day to make cards for the other people on her list.

John got Theo off to bed, and Phoebe and I settled down to work. We got a method down by which she would pick several hearts for a card, then I would put glue on the hearts, and she’d stick them on like stickers. When things went pretty fast, I even agreed that she could draw on embellishments. (She wanted each card to have a face.) We finished the cards by 8:30 or so, and Phoebe still felt that she’d had control of the artistic direction for each of the cards.

(Remind me to tell you what’s going on with my research…)

Some of the plan A cards:


Plan B:



Sometimes it feels like the universe is conspiring to keep me from getting my work done.

After an hour and a half of shovelling with the snow still accumulating as I shoveled, coupled with not seeing any signs of a snowplow on our road till almost 10:30, I realized that it was not feasible for me to get the kids to daycare and preschool this morning.

Yesterday the kids had a late start due a dentist appointment, and for related reasons which I may get into here later, I ended up keeping Phoebe home with me while I tried to do work. (I managed some, but not a full day’s worth.)

Last week, as I mentioned, I did not get home, as scheduled, on Tuesday night. (Due to the snow in Boston.) And while I did get home reasonably early on Friday, it was following a pretty hellacious red-eye-with-a-connection during which I probably got about an hour of sleep (cumulative). All night. (The “overnight” flight from San Francisco to Chicago was about 3 and a half hours long, starting at midnight. I had trouble falling asleep, but finally managed to about half way through the flight. Only to be awakened shortly thereafter by a man in the row behind me, who was apparently watching the in-flight movie, and forgot that he was wearing headphones when he very loudly asked the flight attendant for a beverage. (Tomato juice.) (Two cans of tomato juice.) (Which he then proceeded to slurp.) (LOUDLY.) I was so annoyed that I didn’t fall back asleep till the descent, and woke up on landing. Then I had a 2-hour layover, which isn’t long enough for a nap, and then a 2-hour flight to Boston. I dozed off a couple of times during that flight, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve been in lecture classes during which I got more sleep. Seeing as I had an hour of driving to do to get home, I caffeinated myself up at the airport before going to my car.

By the time I got home a bit after 1:00 p.m. on Friday, I was tired and wired, and while I theoretically had about 3 hours to work or sleep before John brought the kids home, in practice I successfully managed neither.

While I have managed to get some work done here and there over the last 2 weeks, mostly at night, I have not had a full workday.

I was completely caught off guard by today’s snowstorm. Having only checked my weather widget, I saw a forecast high of 38, along with the icon for a mix of rain and snow. I hadn’t realized that these events would be after a night and day of cold temps and heavy snow. Right up to the point when I came in for a break from shovelling once I’d seen the snowplow, and saw how late it was, I really and truly thought that I would be able to have a productive day. In the end, I realized that the universe had other plans for me.

The universe wanted me to bake gingerbread.

thanks accepted here

Speaking of ambiguity…

This was a sign outside a local catering/takeout business I came across a few weeks ago. It made my day. (And I swear I that this was the way I found it. No punctuation marks were stolen in the creation of this image.)

more peas

I’m seriously falling asleep sitting here with my computer, so I’m just going to post something for the sake of posting something. Nablopomo just brings out that kind of amazing quality. Here is a photo I took of a bowl of peas back in July. (Do you see Phoebe in it?)