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.

easy as pi

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Day caught me a bit off guard this year, but was not going to let my unpreparedness result in pielessness. I had some errands to run this afternoon, so I stopped by the store while I was out to get a pie crust and some frozen berries, and voila! The Pi Day Pie tradition has been upheld.

This pi pie is the 3rd such pie I have under my belt. (Not to say that I ate three whole pies today. Though I could imagine such a feat. I do love me some pie.) My Pi Day tradition started with a pi post back in 2008, which then inspired me to bake my first pi pie. Pi Day of 2009 was a pieless day, due to traveling and attending a wedding, but then I did recapture the pi magic in 2010.

In celebration of Pi Day, I offer you a gallery of pi pies past and present.


My original pi pie, from 2008. I was so fond of it, I even wrote its obituary.


Last year’s pi pie was an apple pi.


This year’s pi Pie is of mixed berry heritage.

hitting a wall

I had meant to post something fun today, seeing as I’ve managed to go a whole 2 weeks since last posting. (That may be a record for me–I don’t remember going longer.) But I got some distressing news today. My nephew Diego had his 4-month-post-treatment scan yesterday, and the results were not as we’d anticipated. There will need to be more surgery. I feel a bit like we’ve hit a wall.

(I found this photo when looking through my photo library for clouds, since my sister picked that as a theme for her post. This felt fitting. I’m quite fond of the photo, though. It’s a mural in San Francisco, I think near the Bay Bridge.)

little Phoebe

A little list of Five Phoebe things.

  1. Phoebe is a name meaning “bright and shining,” originating from ancient Greek. The first Phoebe was a goddess in Greek mythology, one of the Titans (also spelled Phoibe)
  2. Many Phoebes have since made their appearance in fiction and life, such as Phoebe Snow, used in advertisements for the Lackawanna Railroad in the early 1900s:

  3. Phoebes are birds: “The genus Sayornis is a small group of medium-sized insect-eating birds in the Tyrant flycatcher family Tyrranidaenative to North and South America.” (wiki). They are named for their song, which is said to sound like “fee-bee” (Click here to hear some Phoebe chirping.)
    An Eastern Phoebe
  4. Phoebe is Saturn’s smallest moon, a satellite which was once a comet.
    Phoebe, moon of Saturn.

  5. Phoebe, or Little Phoebe, is a term meaning “five”

    little phoebe

    noun
    the cardinal number that is the sum of four and one

    In case this meaning seems completely obscure to you, as it did to me, it appears to have originated in the dice game, craps. Among the “Principal craps terms” listed under the heading for craps in Dictionary of the American West: over 5,000 terms and expressions from Aarigaa! to Zopilote, by Winfred Blevins are these terms for a roll of 5: “fever dice, little Phoebe, feebee, or just Phoebe”

This is all by way of saying that my own little Phoebe is five today.

Phoebe, five-year old girl.

Happy birthday, sweet Phoebe.

Image links: a roll of Phoebe with dice, Phoebe (moon), Phoebe (bird), and Phoebe Snow. (All 4 of these are public domain images. The image of Phoebe (child) is not.)

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:



a big, squishy heart for you

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends. I cut out some hearts just for you.

For more Valentine’s treats, please revisit eat your hearts out (all about little candy hearts), heart in my hands (an anatomical heart-themed list), and getting over V.D. If you are seek more heart-warming valentines, please see giving a rat’s ass for Valentine’s Day. Don’t say I never gave you anything for Valentine’s Day.