I love buying baby items and baby related things!
Posted by admin on January 22nd, 2012 filed in Baby, GeneralComment now »
We’re getting ready for a baby shower for a very special couple!
Miss me? Blame Facebook.
Posted by admin on January 22nd, 2012 filed in General8 Comments »
A few months ago I finally surrendered and joined Facebook. What convinced me? Pictures of cute kids. If I wanted to see pictures of babies that live too far away for me to ever see in person, I had to look on the Facebook. At first, I viewed the pictures, said, “D’aaaawwwwwww!!!” and then didn’t check back for weeks. Then I started befriending co-workers. People I hadn’t talked to in years, but still liked, sent me friend requests. Soon I was checking every day, lurking. After a bit I started making an occasional status update, maybe throwing in a picture so people would know what I was going on and on about. Now I check a few times a day, compulsively, exactly as I feared I would. Did anyone update? Who’s doing something fun this weekend in the Events section? Did I miss anyone’s birthday? Are there any of those funny/witty chunks of text that I read and then tell everyone about? DID ANYONE POST PICTURES OF KITTENS?!?
Clearly I’ve been a victim of incrementalism here. (Bert said this would happen.) Facebook hooked me with pictures of friends’ children and then worked its way into my life from there. And I let it. For what? Now the 15 minutes I would have spent blogging is wasted by scrolling through dozens of comments about people’s laundry and dinner. There is the rare gem like a picture of someone’s new tattoo or good news about someone’s recovery from cancer, but mostly it seems to be people saying negative things. I mean, really, would it kill people to say something nice about someone else for a change? In general, my list of friends includes very pleasant people, so the whole thing confuses me.
I think I need a vacation from Facebook. Yes, keeping up with people is a huge benefit, but the time sink is too much of a drawback. So, buh-bye Facebook, hello Blog!
Conversation with Maggie
Posted by admin on January 8th, 2012 filed in General, Magdalena1 Comment »
This morning, at Too Early O’Clock.
Maggie: Mommy, I need you!
Me, stumbling into her room, after dragging myself out of bed: Nmnnnnnnnmmm I’m here.
Maggie, in horror: Mommy! What happened to you?!
Me: I’m sick, hon. That’s why I don’t look very good.
Maggie: Don’t worry, Mommy. We’ll take care of you.
Me, squinting out the window at the pre-dawn light: Does that mean you’ll let me sleep?
Maggie: Oh, yes, Mommy! But… I need breakfast.
First trip to the zoo in 2012
Posted by admin on January 8th, 2012 filed in General, Magdalena, Zoo2 Comments »
It was sunny and in the mid-50s yesterday, so I took the kids to our first trip to the zoo for the year. I can tell you we’ll definitely be renewing our membership when it expires. I think yesterday was something like our 24th trip on this membership. Winter admission prices are $10 for adults and $9 for kids. Summer prices are $14 for adults and $12 for kids. That means we would have spent over a thousand in admission without our membership! Plus, we got 10 guest passes, which was worth another $140. All that for $115. Yay zoo membership!
Now, the pictures. We saw the tigers, but they weren’t holding still for pictures. They were born in September 2010, so they are a few months into their second year now. They are big!
Now, the pictures, for real this time. Here are the young lions. They are male, but they don’t have their manes yet.
The amur leopard is one of our favorites, since s/he has no problem coming right up to the glass and posing. However, the glass is extra reflective, which makes it difficult to get any decent photographs.
My kids enjoyed these goldfish.
It’s funny. They were down on the ground, with that bar being the only thing keeping them from falling in. They were completely enthralled by these fish. Had they just looked up, they would have seen the giraffes, RIGHT THERE!
As the giraffes ate the hay, little pieces of it fell down in the breeze like snow. It was late afternoon, so the sun made the hay glint golden. I don’t know if you can tell in the picture, but it was neat in real life.
Yesterday Maggie leveled up the category of Zoo Interest. She’s always enjoyed the zoo, especially the tigers and elephants, but yesterday was the first time she was really excited to see all the animals. She wanted lifted up to see each and every one. Not only was she watching them and following their movements, she was asking questions about them and nurturing a deep fear that they were either in trouble or were going to be stuck in a net or that some other mishap would befall them (thank you, Wonder Pets and Diego).
Also, on the way there, she was very excited to see the flamingos. I told her I wasn’t sure if they would be out, since previously they were on exhibit only in the summer. She wished very hard for at least 20 minutes that there would be flamingos for her to see. When we went around the bend to the flamingo enclosure, she was excited. And apparently she has the ability to manifest reality, because the flamingos were there! Fuzzy pink reality! The pink is how you can tell Maggie did it. Or something like that. She likes pink.
First post of 2012
Posted by admin on January 3rd, 2012 filed in General6 Comments »
I haven’t been doing such a great job of blogging lately. I’m not on the computer much, the holidays were busy, I don’t like the new font my blog inexplicably has. Things like that. You know the excuses.
I’ve taken to doing the New York Times crossword with a few friends at work. My mind doesn’t quite wake up in the morning until I’ve gotten a few words. It’s neat.
I’m slowly making new friends, which is nice. It’s good to have local people to talk to. I miss my long distance friends a lot. I’m learning how rare it is to find people who “get” me. My new friends have taught me something, although they probably don’t realize it. It’s hard to quantify and put into words. It would go something like this: It might be a surprise to you which people matter to you. They might not be the type of person you would seek out to be your friend, but circumstance has put you together, and somehow you connect. You don’t have to be interested in all the same things, because new perspective causes growth. I wasn’t looking, but good people found me. I’m thankful for that.
I was pondering inspiration the other day. Lots of things inspire me artistically, even other people. I have noticed that things I make often inspire people to try making their own, or something similar. I think it’s a great gift, to be able to inspire people. It’s a real compliment when something you did moves another person to be creative. It means you did something right. I was thinking about how I personally never seem to inspire people though. I think Beren and Maggie are the only people who have ever drawn a picture of me. No one’s written songs or poems about me. I am unaware of any characters in stories that are based on me. I’ve never starred in a photo shoot.` Okay, I don’t mean to sound so conceited – I’m not suggesting anyone should base their art on me. I was just considering how the things I do are more influential in other people’s artwork than I am myself. It’s interesting to me.
I haven’t taken many pictures lately, since I ran out of the kind of film I like. I should order some of that.
That’s about all I’ve got going on that’s blog worthy. Happy New Year. Did you have a good New Year’s Eve?
Even more balloon lomographs.
Posted by admin on December 11th, 2011 filed in General, Life List, Lomography, Neat things, Photography, Travel, Vacation1 Comment »
Here are the LCA+’s pictures from the Night Glow at the Balloon Festival. I think this might be the last of the balloon pictures.
The guy in this photo is holding a line that connects to the top of the balloon and helps to control it as it fills with hot air. Sometimes these guys were dragged along and it was fun to watch. I mean, why wouldn’t they just put more than one person on the job?
A double exposure, one of my favorites:
More balloon lomographs!
Posted by admin on December 11th, 2011 filed in General, Life List, Lomography, Neat things, Photography, Travel, VacationComment now »
Here’s how my LCA+ saw the Mass Ascension at the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in October.
I’m at war with myself today
Posted by admin on December 11th, 2011 filed in GeneralComment now »
Bert’s told me that “to blog” has become synonymous with “to whine.” Let’s give it a shot.
It’s my day off. I have so much I should be getting done. Cleaning, laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, writing, photo sorting, Christmas shopping, Christmas cards. I’m not doing any of it! Although I’ve been up since 7:00 AM, I didn’t officially get out of bed until 1:00 PM, and only then because Bert got me a sandwich. I read a book. Looked at the computer a few times. Got a shower. I’ve been completely useless today. Why do I feel like I have to justify a day of doing nothing to myself (and everyone else)?
It’s one of those days where I have too many voices in my head saying, “No, you can’t” and “You aren’t good enough.” I need to get rid of those. They don’t help anything.
This is kind of unusual for me these days, but I think I actually feel like watching a movie.
I need to reset my mind somehow.
New Lomographs
Posted by admin on December 4th, 2011 filed in General, Lomography, Photography, Travel, Vacation1 Comment »
I got several rolls of film developed! Here are some shots from the balloon festival in October.
A few pictures from the Nationality Rooms
Posted by admin on December 4th, 2011 filed in Education, General, Neat things, Steampunk5 Comments »
Yesterday the kids and I toured the Nationality Rooms in the Cathedral of Learning with a co-worker and the Cub Scouts. The rooms are set up like a museum display, but they also serve as classrooms for University of Pittsburgh students sometimes. Each room is devoted to a different country, like Italy, Germany, etc. (there were some Eastern rooms, like China, but I didn’t get to see them). I didn’t get a lot of pictures, nor did I hear a lot of what the tour guide was saying. It was a lot for little kids (and mommies watching little kids) to pay attention to. One nice thing was that they had all the rooms decorated for Christmas! From what I could tell, they used ornaments traditional to whatever culture the room was representing. One tree was covered with intricately folded paper ornaments! I wanted that one, but alas, each and every one looked exactly like the sort of delicate craftsmanship children and cats look for when they want something to bat around recklessly for a while. Almost all the rooms had some variety of realistic-looking plastic fruit or berry that I had to convince the kids not to eat.
Here are a few pictures!
Those paper cones had candy in them!
One of my favorite pictures from yesterday: Isaac Newton, PIRATE!
This was in the English Parliament room:
An Italian woman who went to college. This mural takes up a whole wall. There was another one of Copernicus that I really wish I’d gotten a picture of.
There were pictures like this, where the different pieces of wood were painstakingly fitted together, and then sanded smooth to create the image.
The kids’ favorite room was the German one (I think), because it had fairy tales worked into the stained glass! After we looked at the stories-in-pictures, both Beren and Maggie had fun finding the hidden animals in all the panels. After that, we just found all the hidden mushrooms. And wow, there were a lot! Almost enough for me to teach the children to exclaim, “There are fungus among us!” Or to point at the little glass mushrooms and tell them each individually that they “look like a fun guy!” The tour was still going on, so I refrained.
Check out this bit of steampunkery! Oh I want it!
It was a giant globe! It had it’s own giant stand! It looked like it could actually sever fingers if you had the misfortune to have them in the holes while the rings turned!
I hope to get back to tour the rest of the rooms, maybe when the kids are older. Thank you to Kaylee, Craig, and the Cub Scouts for having us yesterday!