Testing...1...

This is the only slightly successful image from my first test of the new toy. It still has a ways to go but I still like this one a little bit.

Mr. Coconut Head

Hi Mom, don't worry - Mr. Coconut Head arrived safe and sound. Thanks for sending him to me. J seemed less impressed with him than I am but that's ok.

Swings

I tried to take some pictures while swinging on the swings today. They didn't turn out the way I wanted, and this made me a little queasy. But, I always have a good time swinging on the swings!

Cafe Fiore

We finally made it to the cafe we tried to go to the other day. This time it was open and we spent a little while. This cafe has won J over to the "love" side on the issue of "Adirondack Chairs: love them or hate them?"

Seriously, if you come visit, we will take you to this cafe.

$5

Here is my new toy that I found in a bin on the street today and got for $5. I have some really cool things in mind for this little guy but I need to test out some theories first before you see them here! Watch this space!

Crappy D 2

Here's a little self-portrait of Crappy D in a film noir kind of version.

Crappy D

We went out for the whole afternoon and evening. Another brief but theraputic trip to the beach, to happy hour at the Matador, to see the movie Ratatouille...all this and I forgot to put a memory card in my camera!

Thankfully, J brought his camera, which we affectionately call "Crappy D". It's a 2 mp, view-screen-less, camera he got for FREE many years ago. It is completely unpredictable and cannot be relied upon for anything other than humorously amusing crappy photos. It doesn't aim straight, it doesn't know how to "expose", and it's flash records as pure white and goes off all the time. It has about a 3 second delay and you can't see what you've shot until you get home. If you'd like to see what J shoots with Crappy D - check out his own blog.

It was quite liberating to be able to "shoot" without thinking about anything. Whatever you think about is irrelevant so you just have fun and hope for the best. But, I came home and was pleasantly surprised to find this photo - and several others I considered at least artsy! Way to go Crappy D!

Just goes to show, it's the photographer, not the equipment. :P

Closed

We took a lovely walk tonight to go to our favorite new coffee shop for a treat. It's a nice, fairly long, walk from our house. But, when we arrived we found it had closed at SEVEN! This is one of those moments that our NY friends can brag about things being open late. But, we found another cafe, walked home later, sat outside on our patio in lovely weather and watched the sun go down.

Mush

My favorite model, once again.

Darcy's Cucumber Salad

This one isn't really a hard and fast "recipe" since it's mostly "eyeballed" but I love it! I love it so much I insisted it be served at our wedding!

1) Wash and peel two large cucumbers. Cut off ends and slice into the thinnest slices you absolutely can. Put them into a bowl or tupperware container.

2) Pour about 1/4-1/2 cup of white vinegar over them and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.(I eyeball it based on how big the cucumbers were. You don't need a lot - not all the cucumbers need to be sitting in vinegar, but there should be a bit of liquid at the bottom.

3) Pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper (to your tastes)

4) Cover with "lots" "tons" or "gobs" of dillweed. Darcy's words were: Be heavy-handed with the dill (to taste, but the more the better). I think looking at the photo is a good estimate. Once you stir it all up, there should be a bit of dill on all the slices.

5) Stir it up (or close the tupperware and shake) to make sure it's all coated evenly.

6) Refrigerate. It tastes best after it's had some time to absorb the flavors. I stir or shake mine occasionally to mix it up while it refrgerates. At least an hour or so!

Notes:
- If you peel the cucumbers into stripes (only peel a strip every 1/2 inch or so) it makes a pretty accent, rather than peeling all of the skin off.
- I tried this with fresh dill once, but I think it actually works better with the concentrated dried dillweed spice you buy in a jar at the store.
- Good to take as a side or salad to a dinner party because it's super easy but it looks pretty!

Pop Art Burritos

Here's my favorite recipe for Burritos. It's my favorite because it involves almost NO cooking, it is delicious, and you can freeze them and nuke em for a good snack or meal when you, again, don't feel like cooking!

Servings: Depends on how big you make the burritos and how much stuff you put in them but I make about 15-16 burritos with this.

Ingredients:
2 cups rice
3 cans (15 ounce) black beans
2 cans pinto beans
2 can whole kernel corn
2 can diced tomatoes with green chiles
(the chiles gives just the right amount of spicyness for a mild, but yummy burrito)
1/2-1 pound Pepper Jack cheese, shredded
16 large flour tortillas

1) Make two cups of rice (I use brown rice) - This part is the cooking bit! - if you use Minute rice it's even faster. Let the rice cool before you mix it into the rest.
2) Open all the cans of beans and rinse them in a strainer under cold water.
3) Shred the cheese if it's not already.
4) Combine all the ingredients into a large bowl.
5) Divide the mixture evenly among the tortillas and roll up. I make a few smaller and a few larger, so that I can pull one out of the freezer depending on how hungry I am.

To freeze: wrap each burrito individually in plastic wrap, place into a large freezer bag, and freeze.

Reheat as needed in the microwave for lunch or snacks! Ours takes about 5-6 minutes and it's best to flip it half way through. The very, very, edges of the tortilla get a little hard when nuked but the insides are delicious!

NOTES:
-you could add meat or fake meat but I don't
-add more spicyness accordingly
-add anything else you like in burritos - I put in green onions if I have them
-when I say a "large" bowl, I mean a LARGE bowl - I have to use the big salad bowl we got for a wedding present - it's bigger than my biggest mixing bowl
-you can tweak to your tastes - I like more corn so I substitute a can of corn for a can of black beans and I use two cans of the tomatoes with chiles
-my health conscious hubby thinks a whole pound of cheese is too much so you could cut back to 1/2 or whatever you like.
-drain the corn and tomatoes of excess liquid, but don't rinse them
-I use a silicone spatula like thing to stir it up so that it doesn't crush the beans - I am not sure it works better than a wooden spool but it makes me feel like it does.

Dressed Up

J had to get all dressed up for work today, which he almost never has to do. I had to get pants and a shirt out of the secret vault of nice clothes I keep in the closet so he can't get at them. After his meeting I picked him up and took him grocery shopping with me. He was probably one of the best-dressed grocery shoppers ever!

The Next Morning...

The Cat...asleep.

The husband...asleep.

Me...still reading.

It Begins

Sometimes it's just a penguin

We still get reminders that we are in a completely new city sometimes - like today. We went to see Harry Potter today. It took us two times longer to get downtown and find parking than expected. We parked in a parking garage after 45 minutes in traffic. We have to go into the mall and up like 5 escalators to get to the theatre. We find out Harry Potter isn't playing at this theatre, isn't in this mall, isn't on this block.

This is what I do to kill time while J looks up the correct theatre on his blackberry.

Cloudscape

I started reading a wonderful book on my vacation all about the clouds. It's called "The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds". So you may see a lot more cloudscapes from me in the future. This is the little patch of sky right outside and above my front door.

Water

The ferry, rushing us home.

Home

On the boat on the way home. This one just felt very nautical to me.

Sunset 3

Tonight I went to watch the sunset but a stratus nebulosa obscura had moved in and there wasn't a good view. When I got back in the car, I threw my things - the book, a sweater, and one little white pebble - into the passenger seat to drive home.

Suddenly, looking over, they hit me as having a very organic and beautiful composition.

This one goes out to my long-distance friends A and G. I didn't share this one with you earlier but I knew you'd both like it.

Stones

This island was a stone collector's paradise. I collected the stones I liked, let them sit to dry on a big rock or piece of driftwood.

Sunset 2

Thai Sisters

Today...was a great day...

I tried sea kayaking for the first time ever and had the most wonderful time! I loved being in the ocean, getting hit by waves, being covered in salt. We saw three bald eagles up close. I took a little disposable film camera with me in the kayak (remember those?!) and I haven't gotten the pics developed yet.

After the trip, the guide, a local, recommended I go see the Thai Sisters. The Thai Sisters run a "restaurant" of sorts. On Thursdays and Fridays only, they rent out a kitchen basement in a little hole in the wall, out the way place that only the island locals know about. It's not listed, and there's no sign. But there are cars lining both sides of the dirt road...It sounded just perfect to me. I sat at a counter all by myself and watched a team of 5 people, led by the 2 Thai Sisters run the fastest moving, most seamless, kitchen I have ever seen - preparing dinner for just about every local on the island it seemed. I had the best seat in the house - right over all the pots cooking on the stove. This woman, the main cook, was just amazing to watch. She cooked everything from scratch, used her ladle to dip quickly into different stocks and seasonings, and pour herself a taste of every meal before she served it - just to be sure. She never stopped moving. I asked if she minded if I photographed her and she was very pleased - she said she felt like she was on tv. Sure, I could have frozen her motion with the camera - but it wouldn't be the same as it was to watch in real life.

It made me think that if sometimes, just a bit more often, we could watch people who loved what they were doing prepare our meals for us, we would appreciate it all the more.

J would have loved this kind of restaurant...I wish he had been there with me.

Sunset

I have no idea what I did today. Isn't that a good sign?

I just know that I discovered a great spot to watch the sunset at a little road end called North Beach.

Waterfall

Today I sat by a waterfall and read and had a picnic lunch. Wonderful! You could walk right under the waterfall and let it rain on you. If I had different clothes on I would have stood under the full force of the waterfall for an hour or so and let it just beat down on me. But, I am quite happy to have settled for this photo as far under as I felt safe taking my Nikon....

Waiting

I had to wait for the ferry to take me off and away to my mini-vacation on Orcas Island. I love how wonderfully tall this makes me look....

Lavender

This is for my new friend, G. G, I took this one while thinking of you today!

Honesty Seeds

One of my new friends tells me these are called "Honesty Seeds". I really like that name.

Cribbage

J left for another long business trip so I played Cribbage with the cat. He may look like he's not even paying attention, but he won.

Happy Birthday, yo.

This is what you get when you let the birthday boy pick the photo of the day, no questions asked! It's ok, I was a little worn out from yesterday so this is fine by me.

Happy birthday to the coolest boy with the coolest birthday ever. I swear, letting you pick the photo isn't really "celebrating".

Grumpy

This is J, late at night, pretending to be sad about turning old tomorrow.

Evening Sky

For all those of you who think it's always cloudy in Seattle.

Mush 2

Mushroom, hard at work again.

Mush

Kitchen

I LOVE this photo of me cleaning the kitchen.

Get a Job

Mushroom keeps us company at work, but he doesn't do much to help.

Clean Stove

Look at how clean my stove is!

Self-portrait, Early morning

I took a lot of photos today. I will show you just a few.

The Good One

Comic Strip

I didn't decide to shoot today until I saw the quickly-fading evening sun coming through the window and hitting the couch. I interrupted J's work and said "Can I have you for 2 minutes in the living room to take your picture?" He grumbled something about "Yeah, sure, in a minute..." and of course, by the time he came out the light was gone and I grumbled something like "Well, forget it, now the light's gone." This caused one of those 90 second mini-fights with grumbling and pouting in separate rooms.

Until, I hear from the living room, "The light is kinda back now if you want to do it." So, huffing and puffing, I bring out the camera and in two seconds we are laughing our heads off at each other because the sun is too bright for him to open his eyes and look at the camera. And, he starts making silly faces!

I shoot 42 pictures in 2 minutes, 32 seconds. He finally says, "Haven't you got a good one yet?" and I say "Oh yeah, I got a good one a while ago, I just thought I'd see how long you'd keep this up!"

July 4th

There's something I really like about this one.

I like the play of the repeating shapes, the balance of the man vs. the woman, the voyeuristic nature of it.

This is me spying on the 4th of July BBQ going on 4 floors down from ours. I was at Debbie's house - with a fantastic view of the fireworks! Thanks Deb!

Men

Men. Men are the only people who can insist on buying a special maple syrup that's better than your maple syrup. Men are the only people who can then put that container of special maple syrup back in the fridge while special maple syrup is dripping down all sides of it. Men are the only people who can ignore the conspicuous puddle of maple syrup that begins to pool in the fridge, under the container of special maple syrup, for days. Then, when asked about the pool of special maple syrup, men are the only people who can first, deny that the pool is maple syrup and second, accuse you of somehow making the pool of maple syrup in the fridge by improper placement of their special container of maple syrup.

That has nothing to do with this photograph. But, that's my story for today.

Raga

Today my yoga class focused on Raga, one of the 5 causes of suffering, which means intense attachment, desire, passion for. While attachment and desire and passion are good things, pleasurable things, having too much of them can actually become a cause of suffering. Sort of a fancy way of saying "you CAN have too much of a good thing".

Nap time

This is what happens when you fall asleep on the couch, remote in hand, and your hubby steals the camera and takes a picture of you!

Skewers

Having friends over to grill out is a fitting way to start off July. I wasn't focused on shooting. After they left and I had cleaned the dishes, I liked the way these clean skewers look against my blue mixing bowl. I like kitchen photos.