pictures Archives | Page 1 of 4

| 1 2 3 4 | next ten entries

Thursday, January 01, 2009

generalized snippets, followed by some miscellaneous... snippets. With a bonus FUNNY DOG PICTURE.

I was knitting on the couch, sitting next to Scout (who's on the left). I walked away and came back a few minutes later to find that Festus the Foster-Dog had taken my spot and was already asleep, rather humorously.

****************

Speaking of Festus. He's, um, still here. This morning a friend of T's happened by, heard Festus's story, and mentioned that he knew a guy who might want him, and I had to throttle a visceral instinct to shove our friend out the door and slam it shut behind him. So I guess I'm maybe getting a little bit attached to Festus, in spite of the fact that we may have to take out a second mortgage to buy him food.

And then today he ran off. I encountered our family vet in Barnes and Noble on the day after Christmas, and in spite of the fact that I know she must be so tired of people talking shop with her every time she meets someone she knows, I couldn't help asking if she had perchance met Festus at any point in time. She hadn't, and when I told her about how we happened to have him in our care she said, "Hounds run away. That's what hounds do. Consider him temporary and don't spend too much money on him." Festus's history as our neighbors' dog bore this out -- they spent considerable time driving around looking for him -- and so did his behavior today, when he slipped through a gate and didn't come back no matter how much we called until the second or third time I went out looking for him, when I found him in a (different) neighbor's yard and he came home with me willingly enough. Anyway. As if it hadn't been enough having our friend trying to give him away, he had to go and take off and make me really aware of how much I kind of sort of hope that nobody wants him but us.

Wow, that got long.

********************

We brought in the New Year in style today. We invited family over to burn our brush piles with us.

Really, we did.

(We also roasted hot dogs and hot sausages and let the kids become one giant mass of stickiness as they made smores, a food I personally detest, not least because it's impossible to eat them without getting sticky and I hate sticky.)

*********************

I am working up the energy for a books post. Really, even with two weeks free of school this month, I didn't do as much reading as I thought I might -- only finished four books, and I already reviewed one of those. I blame knitting.

*********************

Speaking of knitting, I made my very first scarf last week. I felt like a baby knitter. Here's a picture:

That's not stockinette; that's k1p1 rib. I'm giving it away. The color doesn't really suit me.

That scarf took two skeins of Patons SWS yarn; I'd bought four just in case, but I didn't want to do another scarf in the same colors, so I went to Michaels while I was in the valley yesterday to get a couple of different colors of the same yarn, which I love (going back to cheap yarn after working with it kind of makes you feel like you're trying to knit with cardboard until you get used to it again) but which is ordinarily kind of pricey for me at $6 for a 2.5-oz skein. It was on sale, two skeins for $3. What could I do but take this as a sign? I ended up buying fifteen skeins. Which I then took home and photographed for my Ravelry stash because I am just that far gone into knitter-nerd insanity.

***************

So this week has been a cheerful way to end what was, for us, in spite of all the general worldwide crappiness, a really good year.

I feel a list coming on. Here... it... comes.

A Small Samplings Of Good Things About Last Year (A Year That Apparently Actually Sucked In Real Life, But What Do I Know)

• We spent it living in our own new home.
  
• We had a really great time with our garden.
  
• We even ate some food from our garden.
  
• We got a dog.
  
• Or, um, maybe, um, two. But not really. Not yet.
  
• Good grades! even in the classes I disliked.
  
• I knocked out some required classes that I will never have to take again. (See? I'm all about the silver lining.)
  
• Gas prices! (At the end of the year, not the beginning.)
  
• We discovered I Spy. OH MY GOSH LOVE THIS SHOW. Usually.
  
• We all enjoyed good overall health.
  
• Nobody broke any bones or required any surgeries.
  
• We developed a few really lovely traditions, at least one of which involves mass quantities of deliciously unhealthy food, which is always a plus.
  
• My sister-in-law and two of her kids moved to town.
  
• We had two bathrooms for the first time in our family's history.
  
• Facebook and Twitter have enabled me to be in better touch with some of my distant friends than I have been in years. Yes, I am a sheep. Baa. But I'm a happy sheep.
  
• We solidified and put into practice some of our ideas about self-sufficiency and pleasure in small things.
  

So yeah, I liked 2008 -- economical issues notwithstanding. But then I'm an annoying Pollyannaish type -- or maybe more of an ostrich, depending on your point of view. But hey, I'm a happy and sane ostrich, and life is too short to freak out about stuff. (Prepare: good. Freak out: bad.) Here's to a blessed 2009 rich in the things that really matter.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

An actual post. With pictures!

I actually feel like writing a post. I don't know what's going on but I figure I might as well take advantage of it. I just finished wandering around my house taking a few pictures, so you'll get to see those. (actually, I won't lie, after the first one, I thought, hey, I could post about that. I wonder what else I can inflict on those poor few people who still come to my blog?)

These are the cars that T and the kids made for the Awana Grand Prix race next weekend. T does the cutting, the kids sand and sometimes paint; then they decorate them. From near to far, you are looking at: T's General Lee (he wanted to do his Dart, since he's done Chargers for the past two years, but the kids begged him to do the General Lee and no they haven't seen the recent abomination, just some of the episodes of the old TV show), my Dart (which, I will state here on record, I did no work on whatsoever; it's all T), LT's Plymouth Superbird Nascar car (he's never seen a Nascar race in his life, but he has a Plymouth so he likes Plymouths. Also, he likes the movie Cars. He did his own painting this year) and C's version of my parents' van and "little house".

Close-up of my Awana Dart. It has windshield wipers, door handles and locks, a little Dart Swinger logo (partly obscured by the tire), an accurate-looking grille and headlights, taillights, bumpers, gas cap, and even my icthus on the trunk. The man missed his calling, no?

This is the stack of index cards from which I will be studying for my next history test.

C's best friend is having a birthday party tomorrow. C has been counting down days for a month. Today she wrapped the presents all by herself (no, really?). The bag, which contains homemade marble magnets that make up the friend's name -- google 'marble magnets' if you have no idea what I'm talking about -- says "[friend's name], stick theese [sic] things to your refridgerator [sic] and see what happens." She's seven, rather disorganized, and left-handed; the handwriting cards are stacked against her, so to speak. (she can be much neater than that when she tries, though.)

I have finished knitting all the pieces of C's sweater (now that she's nearly outgrown it. Not to mention that it's only getting warmer for the next six months or so). Now I get to weave in about a million little ends (what was I thinking, when I did the stripes? augh!), stitch the pieces together, and do the trim at the neck, and I'll move on to my [next winter's] hat.

When I was taking this picture I noticed how grungy the backs of my couches look. The cats love to sleep on them. I'll have to get one of those lint-roller things... I'll add it to my Mother's Day list.**

**other options on the list, in case you were curious: a blender. A good nonstick 5-quart saucepan. Or a whole set of saucepans, as all of mine are rather ratty after thirteen years of hard usage. Clothespins. Dishtowels. Dinner out (pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease). Bookmarks. iTunes gift cards. You never know what the kids' budget will be from one year to the next -- it depends on the recycling market. ;) Usually I get (and want) kitcheny stuff, but one memorable year they came through with the porch swing I'd wanted since before they were born.

close-up of the sweater. The blue is milder than it looks on my screen; it's a lightly-faded-denim-y kind of color. Also, for some reason, my white rows (but not the blue ones or the yellow ones!) got this kind of zig-zaggy back-and-forth thing in spots. I don't know why it only happened with the white. I hope it sorts itself out a bit when I block it.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

oh my gosh it's New Year's Eve!

I completely, totally, one hundred percent did not connect the fact that tonight is the last night of 2006 with the fact that I have meant since September to start a brand-new yearlong photography project on the first day of 2007 (until just now, of course). Oh dear. I am SO UNPREPARED.

See, the thing is, do you remember the 28 photos in 28 days project I did back in the spring? The one where I had all those different subjects and types of photography and I had to do one each day? You, er, don't? Oh, OK. Well, um. Go here and then come back.

Are you back?

OK. Well, this is going to be a yearlong version of that. Yes, I'm a lunatic. I have 365 challenges in a list (OK, some are duplicates; it's probably more like 300 or so) and the theory is that this will challenge and inspire me and I will take at least one picture EVERY DAY during 2007. Not sure what I'll do for vacations yet -- if I'll let myself take them in advance so as not to let creepy Internet stalkers know I am away from the computer, or whether I will just take them while I'm gone, upload them when I get back, and make sure I use the deadbolt, or whether I will go into mucho credit card debt and buy a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop to take with me. (probably not that last one, but hey, a girl can dream).

So. This project is frantically being scrambled together under construction tonight, but it should be live by tomorrow, and it will be here.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

wordless wednesday

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Elizabeth again

Nothing special about this picture except that it was taken with a Nikon D70s. With my Nikon D70s. THE NIKON, as opposed to The Nikon, which is of course still an awesome little camera. (lest you think I'm joking with the capitalization, pay attention; those are their actual nicknames and there will be a test later).

This is, of course, the obligatory I-just-got-my-camera-set-up-now-what-can-I-photograph photo. I had all these grandiose ideas for what I'd point it at when I clicked the shutter for that momentous first time, but the UPS driver inadvertently shattered all my plans by arriving after dark. And then we had to drive to the valley (very, very foggy oh my gosh how I hate driving in thick fog). And the gorgeous half-moon was behind clouds when I got home and refused to poke out. So you get Elizabeth, because the kids wouldn't appreciate the flash in their faces. (tripod and 1600 speed, though, I don't think they could mind -- right? stay tuned...)

Friday, October 28, 2005

still life with sanity

(OK, so technically with the moving water it's not a still life. So sue me.)

For a more complete mental image of the scene, you should add the following ingredients:

• half a day in the city
  
• a daughter who is the poster child for overactive bladder syndrome (just in case you wondered, bathrooms at the dollar store are not the kind of place you want to visit twice in one trip unless you really have to)
  
• half an hour outside walking along the highway and through the tarweed in the dark, moonless night, looking for a cat who always comes running when you call but can't be found now, but who shows up, after you've envisioned yourself breaking the bad news to the kids, with a purposeful nonchalance that tells you how much she loved waiting until just the right moment to come out and show herself
  
• a three-layered (three-tiered?) cake to be baked and inexpertly decorated, by you
  
• a husband who's been sick enough to stay home from work the whole week, poor guy
  
• a quarter of a bottle of inexpensive shampoo for bubbles
  
• a specially-made 'bath music' cd playing on the stereo speakers wired into the bathroom by your ever-so-thoughtful husband -- said CD to contain plenty of Enya, Yanni, Austen-movie-adaptation soundtrack bits, Loreena McKennitt, and one heartbreakingly beautiful Puccini aria (hey, I'm not in school anymore; I don't have to restrict my musical tastes to whatever it is the cool kids are liking that year)
  
• and don't forget the FORTY-FIVE MINUTES OF BLISSFUL SOLITUDE.
  

Stir ingredients well and simmer until Mom is limp and relaxed as a sleeping baby.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Jonathan

LOOK AT THAT FACE.

(in case you just landed in my journal from the far side of the galaxy, he's not mine; he's my nephew, and he's three days old in this picture.)

Monday, June 06, 2005

my day in pictures (sort of)

First, we got up at 5:00 and drove T to work. Then we continued on to...

Hetch Hetchy, which is about an hour and a quarter from Yosemite Valley, the way I drive, anyway. On the way there, we stopped at the bridge that goes over Cascade Creek (Falls), and C's beloved "Lydia Bennet bonnet" was blown off her head and down into this:

By the way, I liked the trip to Hetch Hetchy; it's a beautiful and interesting place. My parents swear I've been there before, but I have no memory of it. The way my memory's been lately, that's not surprising.

After we hung around for a while, the kids...

...sketched their impressions and wrote in their journals while I read Emma (I HEART HOMESCHOOLING) and took a few more pictures. Then we headed to...

Yosemite Valley, where we took more pictures, did a little more sketching, and rode shuttle buses which were so packed through traffic so intense that it took us a cumulative two and a quarter hours to make the usually-one-hour shuttle bus circuit, during which we were able to sit down for three minutes, not counting waiting at stops. But hey, I got a picture of Lower Yosemite Fall, and even some pictures of dogwood blossoms (missed almost all of those), so it was, um, worth it. Right?

Then I came home and figured out finances. I didn't take a picture of that. It's not pretty. Sigh.

In that mood, shopping for a few supplies for supper was not a pleasant activity, especially since the "music" playing in the store was (please forgive me for sticking this song in your head on endless loop, but hey, if I can't share my misery with my beloved bloggity friends, with whom can I share it?) that horrific "song" that goes: That's the way (uh huh uh huh) I LIKE it. It "goes" that way quite repetitively, in case you hadn't noticed. By the time it ended my loathing for it was white hot and very heavy.

So I got the mail, and T had a Mopar Collector's Guide, and the woman on the front just annoyed the heck out of me. So I fixed her good:

Oh, and there was also this that I had to administer, when I came home:

("I will not bite my brother" and "I am not my sister's boss.")

I am SO READY for a bubble bath.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

a date

Tonight T whisked us all off on a date.

Yes, the whole family, it wasn't THAT kind of date, it was just a nice surprise evening. He'd known that I wanted to go take sunset pictures at a lake where we camp sometimes, and see the dam with the water as high as it has been (I AM SO GEEKILY EASY TO AMUSE. So sue me). So he loaded us all into the car, took us out for fast food, and then started driving. We had so much fun. In case I've never told you, I have the best husband in the world. Just so you know.

There are sunset pictures in the photo blog, but here are a couple of family ones.

LT and C. LT is carrying my tripod. That's not a purse. :)

The family. Except me. (In case you're wondering, T is smiling. Really. And he wonders why people sometimes find him intimidating.)

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

out of practice

I've had a lot of little thoughts buzzing around in my head, but I'm having a hard time writing about them. So here are a few little tidbits, none of which is worthy of anywhere near an entire journal entry on its own.

• I'm feeling SO MUCH BETTER. Seriously, yesterday was, like, the turnaround day for me. I was able to take not one but TWO (very short) walks yesterday; I am not up to my normal levels of activity yet, but I'm acting a lot less like an invalid and I'm not suffering for it like I did even on Monday when I decided to just live normally. I'm glad T has stayed home, because I am not supposed to so much as lift a gallon of milk, and he's handy for keeping me from OVER-doing it (plus, hey, we've blown our entire vacation budget for the summer on this surgery, so T being at home for these three weeks is pretty much all we're going to get; might as well enjoy it, right?). But he doesn't have to be constantly at my beck and call now, which I think is probably a good thing. And that's hopefully the last time I'll write ANYTHING in this journal about this whole recuperation thing -- I know everyone must be bored with it by now.
  
  
• LT has decided to spend all of his money (that's $110, $50 of which he just got for his birthday) on a Father's Day present for T. He's actually been planning this for quite some time. I would say "there's not a selfish bone in his body" but that's not QUITE true. But there are certainly fewer selfish bones than there were in my body when I was nine.
  
  
• Also about LT: doesn't this look... vaguely disturbing? Or at least decidedly uncomfortable? He was just lying like that, all ho-hum, writing in his journal during school this morning. (I remember being a kid and sitting on my bottom with my knees splayed out to the side like an M and hearing similar comments from adults about that. I guess kids are just made of rubber.)
  

• I have a whole post about Hosea 4 written but I set it aside until I can read it with some objectivity because right now I think it seems really scattered and nearly pointless.
  
  
• I haven't done nearly as much reading this month as I had thought I would. I've only read 4 books. I can't even remember finishing anything before I went in for surgery. And everything I've been reading has been rereads, except for one book which I'm not sure I'm going to finish called Theodora's Diary. It's supposed to be a kind of Christian Bridget Jones. Except that it relies a wee bit too heavily on the kind of bland humor that gets passed around via email -- you know, the whole funny-mistakes-in-church-bulletins stuff -- and on caricatures of various Christian fringe-ish sorts of groups. I think the author (and publisher) figured she had a captive audience, consisting of all these Christian women whose consciences won't let them really get into the more vulgar humor on the market today -- and hey, she's British, so that's a plus, right? All I can say about this book is: YAWN. The four books I've finished are two Austens (S&S and P&P; I'm on MP now) and two L.M. Montgomerys (Anne of the Island and Anne of Avonlea. Neither of those last two is doing anything for me this time around either, which is sad. Must be something wrong with me.)
  

• Um, I think that's finally all. Cripes, SHUT UP, Rachel.

--------
pictures Archives | Page 1 of 4

| 1 2 3 4 | next ten entries