Pizza Chef

Here is Julia making pizza (or "gluten", as Uncle J would say). Please note the outfit: John Deere shirt, chef's hat, pink tutu, and fairy wings.

Lots more (and bigger) photos of Julia on flickr.

Silhouettes

We had our traditional New Years Eve(playing with the kid, putting the kid to bed, having a few quiet drinks at home, and usually going to bed around 10:30 :P). This year, thanks to the addition of a few more friends from New York we actually made it to midnight and beyond!

When we walk from the young Mannings' farm house down the road to the farm and the ice cream store (one of the greatest walks in the whole world, that I could take over and over again even in 5 degree weather), I usually end up lagging behind because I stop to take photos and my hubby and friends have long-since-stopped waiting for me. I was glad to catch three of my loves walking into the sunset though - Uncle J, Dana, and little Julia. I love the way mom and daughter are holding hands, I love the slight lean to Julia's body (just the way a 4 year old would walk), I love that the grown ups are walking in the road while the kid is stomping through the snow (just as you'd expect), and I love that she will never be that small again.

Julia and her Snowman

Here's Julia with her clone in snow. Her mouth is covered in chocolate ice cream because before this picture was taken we were doing something very similar to this, but with more clothes on this time.



There are more pictures of Julia and the snowmen on flickr.

The Farm

Off to the farm in PA for New Years...

It snowed at the farm too - I swear it snows every time we come to visit them even when none is in the forecast. It must just know that it looks even prettier when it's cold and icy.

Not quite flying

Here I am with J's Uncle in his plane!

Well, this is the closest I've gotten to flying in a small plane since about 1995 or so! It was actually quite thrilling just to sit in this little beauty. Maybe I will work up the courage in the future!



**Photo coutesy of A&B!

Potomac

Since the others are more museum-inclined (reading all the words and fine print), I went on a walk around the grounds and down to the Potomac River alone. It was so beautiful and in all my years of living in the Potomac area I can't remember a time that I was actually ever down on the banks of the river (mom, correct me if I'm wrong here). I was fascinated with the fall leaves on the bottom of the river and so this photograph was directly inspired by my friend "Sky" from Sea and Sky Journal; see here, and here, and here for my inspiration by Sky.

Picket Fence

And, if I had a mansion like Mount Vernon (or any house for that matter) I would totally have a white picket fence!

Portico

See!!!! If I had a portico (or whatever that thing is called), I would totally paint it that exact shade of blue/green.

Cheesy Tourist Photos

Today, my mom, my sister, J, and I went to see Mount Vernon - George Washington's home in Virginia. It's a wonderful place and I hadn't been there since I was a little girl (when all I "knew" about George was something about wooden teeth and a cherry tree). Since we have all read up recently on 1776 and His Excellency, we wanted to revisit. The addition of a brand new, beautiful, museum made the trip an even better experience. I was very pleased to see that George Washington and I have similar ascthetic tastes when it comes to color palette and paint choices. His dining room is a vivid green and many other shades of green and blue and sea colors were all around the house.

I have to confess a certain fondness for the "cheesy tourist photo" so I made us take turns posing. When forced, I hate these shots, but when done with just the right amount of "oh well the hell", "it'll be fun", "let's get our picture taken", and just a dash of irony (and add in a little creative post processing) you get some of my favorite shots for the family album.

p.s. I was surprised to see that J is a little bit taller than my sister (but she may not be standing up straight)
p.p.s. I hate being so short!
p.p.p.s. In the second picture, my mom and I have the exact same smile!

Flight

The only photo I took today...from the plane somewhere over a western state. There was such a nebulous distinction between the blue sky and the clouds that it looked completely out of focus and I just had to try to photograph the softness.

For the next few days, I only managed to take one shot each day so rather than repeat them here, I will refer you to Sea and Sky Journal.

Textures III

More playing with textures today. I am shortly going to update my other blog, Sea and Sky Journal so go check that out as well for some new work.

I am off to the East for the holidays and the new year. I will see some of you soon! The rest of you will have to wait on pins and needles for me to post when I get home.

Domestic Cat

Busy day cleaning house and packing for my two week trip so this is what you get! Just a quick snap of Mush on the bed.

Green Shoes

The only thing I have to blog about today are these cute green shoes I got last night. To be honest, I haven't felt much like blogging lately because hardly anyone reads this blog any more. (Hi Brian! and Graham! and Sarah!) I know I am just feeling sorry for myself at the moment so please ignore me until this pouting phase passes. Thanks.

p.s. I went to a totally awesome and fun game night tonight at our friends Graham and Sarah's place. They were talking about my blog and how great it is so I had to tell them, "Well, not today. All I am blogging about today is my green shoes."

Golden Gardens (Lomo)

I was in a mood when I post-processed this. I felt like trying to make it look like my old Lomo film camera. I did this at 6:30 in the morning after 3 hours sleep so when I wake up I might not think it's a good idea anymore and it may be gone. Those of you who are frequent loyal readers may be the only ones who catch it!

Golden Gardens I

Yeah, this is my beach on December 20th. I believe I was on the phone with J as I drove to the beach, giving him a play-by-play on the sun, the sunset, and the mountains and as I drove up to the parking lot I exclaimed something along the lines of "Oh my god, there's even a sailboat out." Today is one of those days that it's kind of amazing to me that I live here.

Sunset Bowl

Today, in the late afternoon, the sun came out bright and strong. So, I jumped in the car so fast and raced to the beach to soak in some warm rays and try to catch the sunset. Here's how the warm light looked shining on our local bowling alley, appropriately named Sunset Bowl.

Textures II

Here is another example where the texture is a bit more obvious. Again, curious to know what you guys think.

Textures I

Today I experimented in the backyard with creating textures in my photographs by layering different images together like a double exposure. When I post-processed this one, the texture seemed strong and obvious to me but now that I am looking at it several days later I can barely see it. Let me know what you think.

Mushroom

All I could come up with for today is a picture of the cat.

New Office

Since J will no longer be working in our home office and I will get to be here in some peace and quiet for a change, I decided an even bigger change was in order and we needed to rearrange! I love to rearrange furniture every 6 months or so and we have been here for 8 months cramped into this little room for 14 hours a day. Looks like we've opened up some good gallery space on the wall, doesn't it?!

Hilltop Ale House

J and I went for some dinner at what I suppose may be becoming our "local pub". It has excellent food, our favorite beer on tap, and this to-die-for curried cashew appetizer.

Beach Treasures

I did find a few little things to bring home; two tiny shells, a pebble that looks like a pinto bean, a little black pebble, a rock with a line in it, and a speckled orb. As usual, I like to photograph these in my hand - but I like that this time they are in my mitten! A gray winter photo for a gray winter day at the beach.

Two Crows

Went for an hour long walk along the beach. Starting early this morning I had this strong feeling that I needed to go there, that maybe there was something I needed to find - like a pretty stone or shell. I found a few treasures to bring home but maybe that was just my body's way of telling me "get thee to the sea".

Present III

It was this beautiful little calendar from the women who inspired us to start Sea and Sky - it comes from a wonderful blog called port2port.

Present II

It was a beautifully little packaged present, down to the smallest detail!

Early Christmas Presents

I got an early Christmas present today from my friend G in England. She is the woman that I do my other blog, Sea and Sky Journal, with. It was so exciting to get a package from the UK!

Failure

I had this great experimental idea for today but after trying for a while and failing miserably, I was too tired and I gave up. So, you get to see one of my big failures! Woo hoo! It feels kind of liberating to put this out there into the world...

I know at least one of you will tell me that you actually like it.

Mushroom in Bed

This was the first thing I saw this morning as I got out of bed. He was settled in enough that I knew I'd have time to run get the tripod and the camera.

He wakes J up at 6:30 or so every morning to be fed (the cat doesn't know the difference between weekdays and weekends) and then when he's full and happy he comes back to bed with me and we sleep late together all snuggled up in the covers until the light comes in through the window.

Christmas Tree 3

Thanks to the cat, I have had to transition my Christmas Tree over to being a completely non-glass, non-breakable, non-cat-edible tree. I kind of like it though because it gives sort of a rustic hand-made quality to the decorations.

The Rudolph Pinecone you can see in the middle is my all-time favorite ornament - I made it in pre-school when I was about 3 years old. After 27 years, it's only missing one googly eye!

Christmas Tree 2

Here's a shot so that you can see the handmade garland that I made this year. I still need to make more, in case I ever want a bigger tree!

Christmas Tree 1

Here is a literal shot of the Christmas Tree - no artsy interpretation here - because you just had to see how cute it is! It is the cutest Christmas Tree ever! I am very pleased with it. It's tiny but plump.

Barbershop Dog

This is the barber shop where J gets his hair cut. It's not the best picture, because it's really dark in there (I have no idea how they can see what they're doing), but the barberlady's two dogs are always in there begging for petting and attention while you wait.

Aquabus V

And here is a picture of J looking happy that he is about to ride the Aquabus. In case you couldn't tell, the Aquabus was the highlight of the trip to Vancouver.


a p.s. on Canada - I am not good at border crossings! I suck at it! I had no idea that the border patrol were so serious and questioning.

Aquabus IV

And one final picture of the Aquabus.

Aquabus III

Another photo of the Aquabus.

Aquabus II

Another picture of the Aquabus.

The Aquabus!!!

THE AQUABUS!!! This little boat was by far the bestthing about Vancouver. In fact, it was the best thing that I have seen in a very, very, long time. It may in fact also be the best BOAT ever and the best form of public transportation ever, all rolled into one. I mean, look at it! Look how cute it is! It's ridiculously cute! It's so tiny! It looks like a bathtub toy! It is rainbow! I decided that my new destiny in life is the be the Aquabus operator. That would be the best job ever. Now I just have to get the Aquabus to move from Vancouver to Seattle.

Vancouver

We spent a few days last week on a mostly uneventful trip to Vancouver, BC. Canada! Vancouver is sort of "eh". Everyone has raved about it but it was just a city to me - nothing to write home about (or much to blog about even).

There was only ONE thing I LOVED and ADORED about Vancouver...

Flour

I made dinner tonight for J and Mrs. Cyclone. I hate having leftovers and also, she is lovely company. My chicken piccatta is delicious! My least favorite part of making chicken piccatta is when you have to flatten the meat with a rolling pin.

And, bonus!: We finished it all off with a glass of delicious Manning Farm Egg Nog sent all the way to Seattle!

Mushroom

How can you not make cartoons about a cat that's this funny in real life?

Office Cat

Mushroom has taken to stealing J's butt-warmed chair as soon as he leaves the room. We know who's boss around here!

Mushroom's Teeth

We took Mushroom to the vet the other day (ongoing story, I will blog about that some other time) and she noticed that he is missing a tooth. She lectured me on cat dental care and now I feel like a very bad parent. I always grew up in a house with cats but I have never once brushed a cat's teeth - we just weren't the cat-teeth-brushing kind of cat family! Can I take a poll? How many of you brush your cat's teeth and pay for those expensive dental cleanings?? (just need a reality check on exactly how bad of a cat parent I am...)

365

Today marks #365 in my photo-a-day project. It has taken me from November 29, 2006 until December 2nd, 2007 to complete this year because I missed just a couple of days throughout this year. So, whether you want to look at it as "I did this for one year" or "I took a photo of my day 365 times" - it's complete either way! This doesn't mean I am going to stop, it just means I made it through a year. *phew* I love that it's become a journal for me (Lord knows I need it, with my memory!)

My mom sent me this cute little orange pitcher in the mail and I finally unpacked it from its box today. It is so tiny (those are cuties in it, not full-size oranges). You may see it appear in lots of future photos.

Snow! V

Ok, here's the last snow triptych. While I was out for my walk, Ms. Cyclone called me from her house in another part of the city. She said her snow had already turned ugly (the way it does in cities) but she bet our side of the hill was still pretty, "Like it snowed in a Pottery Barn Catalog or something, right?" Well, yeah - it kinda is. Cute little stairs with a lamp, another snowman with Christmas lights, and then our cute little street. Our house is the one on the left, not the blue one. Of course, you can't see that the little chimneys on these little houses were puffing out smoke from their wood-burning fires just as they should be...

See, isn't it the best snow storm ever? Plus, after looking pretty all afternoon, as soon as it got dark it melted away so that we could still go out with our friends on Saturday night.

Snow! IV

Ok, isn't this the cutest little snowman you've ever seen?? The people in my neighborhood are too cute. I bet they went out and bought baby carrots (probably organic) just so that they could make this cute little snowman with his cute little baby carrot nose! He had on a real hat and he had a very nice broom as well. My favorite is the one on the left where he is impishly peeking at the camera.

Snow! III

I had so many snow pictures I wanted to show that I had to combine them into triptychs. This is the first.

Snow! II

I love to go out walking in fresh, newly fallen, snow. I love the sound it makes when you step on it. It feels so crisp - like biting into a green apple.

J stayed inside to make a pizza while I went for a walk around the neighborhood to take in the site of it covered in snow. Our neighborhood is one of the cutest, prettiest, little neighborhoods I've ever seen and the addition of snow just made it seem all the more quaint. It looked like a little village from a model train set or the kind of little village that my parents put under our Christmas tree.

Snow! I

Guess what?!? We had a snow storm yesterday! It was awesome - the best snow storm ever in fact, and all because we live here where everything is awesome. I loved this snow storm so much, in fact, that the next like 10 posts will be about the snow storm.

I've been meaning to take a poll - how do you read my blog? Which direction do you go? Do you go backwards through time or forwards through time? Do you use the archive button and look at the whole month at once? Do you use the most recent button? Let me know because it may affect the way I organize the blog. Sometimes I post shots that are in a series and should be viewed in order...but I don't know what order you see them in. Thanks!

French Movies

I heard that one of the artsy theatres here (Seattle has a LOT of artsy theatres - which is awesome!) was playing a re-released showing of two classic French films from the 1950s; The Red Balloon and The White Mane. J is not really interested in seeing things like this so I advertised it to my girlfriends as, "SO French! SO artsy! Anyone interested?" And, I actually got three of them to come along.

The Red Balloon was a wonderful movie experience - just a happy little (beautifully shot) film. Plus, the movie theatre had blown up all these red balloons to decorate the ceiling but one of them decided to float around aimlessly (much like the one on the screen) which was incredibly charming. At one point, it floated in front of the projector and made a giant balloon-shaped shadow on the screen while the movie played.

The White Mane, on the other hand, is one of those French movies that bores you to tears and then horribly, shockingly, goes awry. Ms. Cyclone and I had to cover our mouths to stifle a lot of inappropriate laughter during the showing and afterwards, all my friends were like "Thanks a lot M. That was really great." (heavy sarcasm). They aren't going to let me live that one down for a long time.

If you want to go see this (and why wouldn't you, after this blog post?!?!) here is where you can find it playing in a town near you: Click here for dates!. It's playing in Brooklyn, Portland, Atlanta, Pittsburg, and Boston (among others) and I know I have loyal readers in those cities!

The thing I liked about this photograph was how the letters were all crooked and how the SS and N were in red, not black. There's a little secret thing I like about this as well, that you can't see from this distance. You may see a small smudge in the bottom row of lights, halfway through the light block that is second from the left, about half an inch to the right of the tree trunk. When you look closely, you can clearly see that it's a paper clip, attached to the light bank. I remember reading this book when I was a kid, where there was a little spider hidden in every drawing and you had to look for it. I loved doing that! Does anyone remember what that book was??