My research group has a paper draft due today, so I’ve been pretty well tethered to my laptop since early this morning. I’m eager¹ to finish up with this deadline so that I can shift my focus back to a deadline for a project for my own research.
In other news, I wasn’t expecting to wake up to this scene this morning.
¹ Maybe eager is not quite how I’m feeling. Antsy? Anxious? Loopy? Maybe.
Today we went to an apple orchard for their annual apple tasting, during which they set out samples of several dozen of the varieties of apples they grow there. It’s a rather understated event, but it gives a rare chance to really try a large number of kinds of apples and learn a bit about them. We enjoyed it last year, and even dragged along a friend this time.
Apples were set out for samples along side a crate of that type of apple, most of which were also available for purchase. (There were a few varieties not for sale, as they were rare varieties–a couple even from the only tree of their kind on the orchard.) Each crate was adorned with a card with a bit of history and description of the apple, including lineage and gossip. This one had a description that particularly amused my friend, especially the bit at the end:
“While not a terribly attractive apple, its taste warrants its inclusion in any apple collection.”
On the other hand, I thought these apples were quite attractive. (I just don’t remember right off hand which they were. They might have been Rome Beauty.)
Phoebe and Theo spent some time impersonating bags of apples for sale. Attractive as they were, they proved tricky to photograph in the low light. (They were constantly in motion.) In the end, I didn’t end up with any one great photo, but the sequence rather amuses me.
It’s ended up being a rather long week for me, and it’s far from over. I’ve already made 2 trips into Boston, and have plans to go in another 2 days. (I generally try not to have more than 3 commutes in a week, as they are tiring, time-consuming, fuel-consuming and expensive.) However, my program is running/hosting a conference this weekend, and I’ll be both working and socializing with people who are in town for the conference, not to mention attending talks. I was this close to staying over with a friend tonight nearer to Boston, as there are a couple of talks I wanted to attend in the first session of the day. (What cruel person put the only 2 intonation talks in that slot?) My plan had been to drive into town after the kids went to bed.
But as I was rushing to get groceries before picking up the kids at daycare, after trying to fit in several days of work into a few hours after having had Theo out of daycare for two days due to a fever, I thought about how tired I was. Then I thought about what a long day I’ll be having tomorrow anyhow, as I’ll be volunteering for the conference from 10:45 to 5:45 (with significant breaks, at least, though I may be meeting to talk about work during those times) and then planning to attend the keynote, which ends around 9 pm. And I thought about how I have a deadline coming up on Monday, and another bigger one coming up in a few more weeks. And all of this thinking was before I discovered that I had a flat tire. So, I decided to wait to go into town till tomorrow morning, and try to get a bit more work done tonight. If I manage to get a good night’s sleep, I may still try for an early train, but most likely I’ll just leave home around 8:30, and will help John get the kids off to daycare and preschool.
(You know, I’m finding this posting in a restricted time business rather unsatisfying. Even this blob of a post–which feels rather pointless and whiny to me–has taken me over 20 minutes, though I am counting the several minutes I spent poking around in my photo library again before I started writing. Why must I be so slow? Ah right. I’m tired.)
This photo was from September of this year. I’m pretty sure that those rainbow bits of flare are due to my lens being dirty, but I think they add to the photo. A bit more flair, perhaps.
When it gets late at night, I really find it hard to make any sort of decisions. I’ve just spent over 10 minutes poking aimlessly through my photo library trying to pick something to post quickly. I finally just settled on picking some apples I shot a few minutes ago. (Actually, this is one apple. I set up the camera on a tripod, set it for a slow shutter speed, and moved the apple.)
Now I should go to bed so that that maybe tomorrow I’ll be in a better position for making decisions.
How do you like them apples?
While I don’t like to consider myself a hoarder, I certainly have packrat tendencies. In the past few years, I’ve gotten better about getting rid of stuff, as in physical objects, as long as I know that they aren’t being wasted. (Whether it’s passing things on to friends, donating or recycling.) However, I’ve also realized that in the past few years, some of my real-world tendencies to hold on to things have passed over and firmly entrenched themselves in my digital world. Case in point: digital photos. My iPhoto library is getting embarrassingly large,¹ and with this daily photography project, it is growing at a frightening speed. While I am committed to posting one new photo a day, I don’t just take one photo. Most days, I take lots. Like 20 to 50 on an average day when I’m out and about, or trying out something new. On a day when we have an excursion, I’m likely to take well over a hundred. And while I’ve gotten better about deleting some of the total duds right away–I try to make myself delete a good 25% of a batch after I import it–my library is full of bad and mediocre photos from years past that really aren’t worth even the virtual space they are occupying. But it takes time to go through them, and I don’t want to accidently delete photos that are precious to me.
I’ve also realized that of the photos that I like, and those I want to share, if I don’t manage to post right away, I find myself wanting to “save them for later.” But what, exactly, I mean by “later” is unclear to me. I suppose if I were posting regularly on themes, like I have fantasized about doing, I could share the photos along the way, in a meaningful way.
This is all to say that I am going to share some of the photos I’ve been holding on to. Starting now.
Phoebe holding a shiny rock. Photo from July of 2010.
I was also going to write about my other digital hoarding tendencies, such as with emails, but I don’t have time tonight. This post has already taken me 24 minutes so far, according to my shiny new timer app. And I have yet to actually publish. Ack!
¹ As in over 10,000.²
² And when I say “over 10,000,” the number is actually well over even 20,000.³
³ As in 34,100. And that’s before I’ve imported today’s…
Halloween is coming, and you want to get costumes for your 2 kids. How do you go about getting their costumes?
B: Pick up something at the store that will fit. There are plenty of inexpensive new or used costumes, and your kids are so young that they probably could be talked into liking just about any of them. If you wait till a day or two before Halloween, you can find something really cheap.
C: Find out what your kids want to be several weeks in advance, and order something online.
D: Decide on a theme for your kids’ costumes months before Halloween based on some accessory you’d gotten on sale a couple of years before, and plant the seed of the idea in your kids’ heads so that they think they want to be those things. Decide that you want to make as much of their costumes as you can. Less than a week before Halloween, buy a sewing machine, even though you haven’t used one since junior high. Figure out how to use it, including doing types of things that you’d never even done in home ec. classes. Spend a bit of time each night working out the design of a costume. The night before you plan to use the costumes, stay up past 2 in the morning. Work for a couple more hours the next day getting ready for your afternoon departure to a place where the kids will be in costume, including stitching on some proper straps to the accessory you’d bought a couple years ago because the glue is coming apart and one of the cheap plastic straps has already come loose. Continue to work on the other costume in the passenger seat on your way to the Halloween event, sewing on embellishments until your fingers are so sore and tired that you drop a needle in your lap while trying to thread it just one more time, and then spend the rest of the ride trying to find the damn needle, and convincing yourself that you will either be sitting on it, or poking a small child with it in the near future. Spend even more time finishing up the costume the next day, and then make a costume for yourself while your youngest child is napping. In the end, you are still vaguely unsatisfied, because there are a few details you never found time for, and getting kids to cooperate for photos is really tricky, so none of it looks quite how you imagined it anyhow.
How did you answer? Please match your answers to the evaluations below.
B: You are both sane and prepared. You probably get all of your work done on time, and still have time to relax in the evenings. Others probably resent you for this.
C: You are moderately compulsive, but as long as you don’t spend countless hours or insane amounts of money to find “just the right thing,” you are not certifiable.
D: You are freakin’ insane. Don’t you know you have an abstract due in just a few weeks? Put down the needle and thread and get back to your research.
The beautiful butterfly.
Caterpillar and butterfly. (Photo by John.)
Caterpillar and plant. (Photo by John.)
So over it.
John has posted a few more photos on Flickr, too, if you want to see more. (See, for example this, this, this, this and this.)
I stopped for a few minutes on my drive into work yesterday to take these photos.
I’ve realized that, once again, I’ve let more than a week go by between posts. I’ve had a lot going on, in my head as well as my life, and I can’t quite manage to get my thoughts together enough for a real post. So I will fall back once more on posting some photos. Here a few from last weekend, when we went for a picnic and walk along a trail that runs beside canal by one of the old mills in a neighboring town.
Theo turned two a couple of weeks ago. Not only did I not manage to post anything here about it on the day itself, but we didn’t manage to have a celebration. Our reasons were many and varied:
We would have done something with the family (as in “just the four of us,” seeing as we have no nearby family members) the following weekend, but that weekend had back-to-back parties: Phoebe’s karate school summer party on the Friday, a baby shower for some friends on the Saturday, and Phoebe’s preschool beach party on the Sunday. Not only were we totally zonked, but reasons b through d were applied once more.
So it came to be that it wasn’t until this past Saturday that we managed to get our act together. Not only did Theo get to open his presents, but Phoebe and I baked and decorated a very festive cake.
Phoebe comes in for a smooch.
Theo is intrigued by the colorful circle.
Theo is uneasy about the flaming things.
Phoebe steps in and shows Theo what to do with the candles, thus sparing him the need to get closer to them.
Once Phoebe blew them out, Theo was even more freaked out by the smoke.
“Daddy, save me!”
A piece of cake.
Theo makes his peace with the cake.
One last thing to share: at dinner time on Theo’s actual birthday, Phoebe said, “I’m so glad Theo is 2 now, because that means he won’t argue as much.”
collecting tokens 