March 14 2009 Throw It

Just as we have Mardi Gras, we have adopted St. Patrick's Day as our own. The chef experiments every year with the beef dish, and this year is corning his own beef. Every year we have a fire, though this year we will borrow a pit because our yard isn't as safe as the last one. We lost the boat we had used as a relaxing wading pool to the sun's harsh rays, cracking the plastic and rendering it useless, and we may not find a suitable replacement. We play State of Grace, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, and a new one last year, An Everlasting Piece as our tribute to Irish immigrants, Irish lore, and present-day conflict of Catholics and Protestants. We also throw things. Horseshoes, bocce ball, and things that are sharp, like spikes and axes. We tried out our new target board this afternoon after a day of prepping the backyard for festivities.

The chef-photographer-weapons expert left these for me to photograph. My eyes ill-able to adjust to the shade after working in the sun, I took the shot and didn't try to play with getting a "good" one.

*********************
If you read this, you're invited. Tuesday, anytime between noon and midnight. Eat, throw things, drink and be merry.

March 13 2009 Calm Down

At my mother-in-law's, my dog and her dog really go at it. Mine being part border-collie is always the aggressively playful one, goading the other, a part shar pei, into running back and forth across the deck in tussling, ear-biting bouts of fun. Mine has had her fair share of broken skin from the exchange, and it's always a darned pain in the rear keeping them from bringing the wild and crazy fun into the house. Tonight, we were there long enough that the two rambunctious pups managed to stop moving for a minute.


I had walked by and snapped a flashless, to no good end. Then I added the flash and got to devil dogs staring at me with glowing white-yellow eyes. The third pass through the room found them with their eyes delicately shut, waiting for the other to make a move.

March 12 2009 Read It

My daughter started violin lessons last week, and since I've been involved with every aspect of her education, I've passed this one off to the string player in the house. I take the time she's in lessons to teach my boy in some quality one-on-one play. Today we played The Hungry Caterpillar card game (he already knows his numbers and their order) and we started in on the reader I used for his sister (who at 6 reads at a 5th grade level). However, he is too sharp to read the repetitiveness of the Dick and Jane. He also doesn't have the same reading setbacks she had needed the repetition for. Maybe tomorrow we'll start in on Hop on Pop.


I'm really not interested in anything but my dedication to this daily thing tonight. It's a photo. It's my day.

March 11 2009 Clean Me

If you know what this picture is, then you know what smell is giving me a headache right now. If you do not know what this picture is, then you should review your Bill of Rights to make sure you're not missing something.


I stood WAY back and zoomed in to 14x because all white+flash=nearly indiscernible photo.

March 10 2009 Stop That

I watched my daughter do an art project today that she read in a book. When she was done, the bottle of glue remained at the table. Me, I like to feel things, I like the texture, the moisture, the movement. Heck, I even have tactile hallucinations on occasion. Tell me that you never smeared Elmer's glue on your hands and let it dry just to peel it off. This is third grade stuff here. Though, maybe I shouldn't have done it in front of the kids. Just what I need, little kids with glue smeared all over them.


Flash the first time was too much. No flash was not enough. Back to the back up, zoom in, and flash away shot. Came out fantastic.

March 09 2009 Watch This

Went to the forge tonight and watched metal bend. Flakes come off, when hot metal is hammered, and collect under the anvil. I love magnets. Put magnets and iron flakes together and get a pretty (as I dubbed it) Forger's Flower. Then, put it in the forge. See what happens. (What happens? The magnet gets hot and loses its magnetism, and the flakes fall off.)

Took 117 photos in the forge tonight. It was hot, and I had no choice but to stand back. The in-the-forge photos came out great. No flash, everything else on auto. One day I'll be braver and start being meticulous with the settings.

March 08 2009 Meet Will

Having missed my NPR news show yesterday, I listened to it off my feed this morning, and followed it up with the Sunday Puzzle. Which attracted my husband, and we ended up playing a broken hour of archived puzzles. (I am terrible at anagrams, by the way.) And then we went to his mom's house and spent another two or more broken hours playing more archives. (I totally broke down and started using a notebook. Those anagrams, whew!) I wonder what my mind looks like when I struggle with an anagram? I guess something like this.


Somewhere along the way this evening I started to cater my doodles to this post. See there at the binding on the bottom, it says Meet Will. Yep. I totally drew for you guys, in between of course writing the clues down in desperate hopes I could guess before anyone else. Macro, overhead lighting, trying to collect the whole in the frame.