April 18 2009 Disturbing Teaching Aids

In class for 12 hours today. Long and tiring. Early again tomorrow. Still, a picture is worth a thousand words.




Nothing special.

April 17 2009 Travelling Day

I spent all day getting ready to go an hour away for the weekend. Really, it was that stressful. Pack the girl, pack the boy, secure a sitter for the dog, hand of the girl, hand off the dog, hand off the boy. Teach students, pack myself and my husband. Finish paperwork for the weekend's class. Lock the doors. Forget the seabands and the husband's pile of shirts from the other room. Go back and thank goodness--dang running toilet would have cost a fortune in water over the weekend. Make it out of town into the rain. Stop for dinner at the pub, eat buffalo chicken sandwich and watch NASCAR and baseball. Sip rootbeer float.

Get hotel. Climb into bed. Oh crud, I didn't take any pictures today: here's the table, mostly. Montrose is a pretty place. Those are seabands. They help me keep my sanity. Flash auto photo from an I-don't-care perspective.

April 16 2009 Knitting Comfort

Overheard during today's violin lesson: "It hurts me right here." Oh yeah, I have been commissioned to knit a chin rest for the little musician, and have forgotten for at least a month. Also, I have been disinclined to create anything of value: I have frogged more knitting in the past few weeks than I have actually knit, which does indeed suggest I have finally frogged some random pieces laying around half-finished for ages. So as I was deterring my fidget while watching some crime show dramas, I contemplated finally producing something for this task. Violins and violin players have always, in my mind, exuded a sense of luxury: The Red Violin, my friend a room over in the dorm, the girl I have hired to teach my daughter. I chose black, a common orchestral color, and silk,* to complement the connotation of luxury. It's a wonderful sensation to knit with. I'm also knitting with too-narrow needles, so my hands are getting a workout. Care to challenge me to a thumb war?


Auto + stand-back-and-zoom= today's photo. It has not been easy to care to take pictures throughout my day. It is not uncommon that I take them just before I go to bed, and often of the thing I had just done before bed. One of these months, I'm going to challenge myself to a pre-noon photo every day. I have eight months left. I do like it when I get cheered on. Is there any cheering out there?


*Many thanks to Heather in Progress [item 3] for winding my silk from hank to ball for me!

April 15 2009 Observing the Tea Party

Yes, I went to the tea party. I've already written about it twice, so peek at my other blogs (if you're not subscribed to them, hint hint) and see the different perspectives I've taken. * For this one, though, it was a gorgeous day, it was an interesting experience, and it was a heck of a walk that my hips are really really arguing with me for.



I took over a hundred photos on auto on this fully sunny day from various ranges with various zooms. This one struck me for its variety: the woman with the fur, the man with the sign, man with huge flag sitting on walker, young guy in hippiehat with protest sign, veterans, cell phones, lawn chairs. Taking photos of groups like this reveals a lot of juxtaposition. This one I got by pure chance.


*As of date of post, one has not been published, pending purchase. Yes, I am a paid writer. This will be updated when it is bought and posted.

April 14 2009 Shopping Sucks

I had to buy stuff for my pending trip to Michigan today: simple things like tank tops and a belt. I really really hate shopping, but if it must be done, I go to Kohl's something like an hour before it closes and shop the starred clearance racks. If it's not there, there's nothing worth buying. Why? Well, I just bought five seventeen-dollar tank tops for seven bucks a pop. What's not to love? Oh yeah, the shopping part. Yeah, that sucked. (Who would pay seventeen dollars for such a tiny bit of cotton fabric?!)


I used ambient light and the macro setting so the text would come out.

April 12, 2009 Playing and Building in 3D

I have amblyopia. I can't interpret any of the information that my right and left eye share that comes from my left eye. (Sorry, there really is no simpler way to explain this. ) I do not see in 3D. I've heard there are people who've retrained their brains who are twice as old as I am, so I can't say that I can't see in 3D. I just don't. So with all this odd nature of my perception of the world, I've been noticing my increased fascination in the manipulation of 3D objects: origami, legos, connecting magnets, tying a double windsor, the movement of my own body in a 3D space (tai chi). It's as if I am searching to intellectually comprehend a world I cannot see.

My cool little creation was the product of some hours of playing and constructing. I took this with no flash as I was being too lazy to get far enough away to keep it from being a glare. Now, as far as a 2D photo of my 3D creation, it looks great to me. How about you?

April 11 2009 Plating the Celebration

"Why are you taking pictures of my plate?" "Because it is a beautifully arranged pile of food. Get your fork out of the way, please." The goal today was to enjoy each other's company and share a dinner together. The food took all afternoon, wafting into struggles with origami instructions, stringing beads, peeling potatoes, hide and seek, hide-and-seeking easter eggs, managing rowdy dogs and rowdy children and rowdy uncles, and other sundry activities. Of all the 9 plates served, it was the one prepared by and for my 12 year old niece that caught my eye as the exact right combination of all the contributions to the meal.

The photograph was not as well executed as the presentation itself. Florescents and flash, and an impatient and hungry owner of said plate contributed to the intensity of the glare here. Lesson: prepare camera and settings before stopping the action.