Flight

Pink

They have the exact same pink, white, and black bathroom that they had when I was a little girl, and in reality it may be the same as it's been since the house was built long before that. I had a vision when I took this photograph of being able to portray a passage of time and a continuity or to somehow wrap up this subject with the quality of time warp that I feel when I go there but I just couldn't translate the vision into a photograph. Sigh.

Books

One of my other favorite things to do when I am home is to go to visit my 96 year old Aunt. Her cute and tidy little house is so photogenic and it hasn't changed much since I was a little girl so it always feels exactly like it did when my uncle would be there smoking a pipe or pottering in the yard or garage.

Home Woods

Whenever I get back to my parent's house and the woods that I grew up in, I love to go exploring with my camera. I take pictures of trees and leaves and bark and the woodpile and it's a very pleasant way to spend the last hour before sunset. In this case, it's way more about the experience of doing it than it is about getting any good results. It's very peaceful.

Forgetfulness

I actually forgot to shoot any pictures at all yesterday. *sigh* This is only the fourth time I have missed a day since I started the "shot a day" rule. And it's the first time since May 12th. Oh well! Can't go back in time and shoot something now. I just have to keep moving on.

Orange

I bought J this hat as a present to commemerate the occasion - also, it's a step up in class from his
camo-mesh-baseball-cap version of this hat and he's headed off to a week of corporate meetings so he needs a pick-me-up.

Duck Hunters

Here are the three kids, giddy after blowing things up with shotguns for an hour.

If you want to see more pics of them in action, check them out on flickr.

Shooting

The boys decided to sign up for skeet shooting today. Don't worry, they aren't really shooting anything with antlers. They spent the afternoon firing away at little orange disks. I didn't try it, and now that it's over I have no idea why not. It look awesome!

Again

Well, I guess I am not tired of the "raindrop on leaf" theme yet. I may never do anything with these photos, or I may make an entire coffee table book of raindrops on leaves. I just can't seem to stop taking them! I snapped this while we were away at Skytop resort in PA for the day.

Time zones

Back east on the red eye always makes you unsure of what time it is, what time bedtime is, and what you should do about it. I think this clock is wrong too, which confuses things even more.

Our Neighborhood

Today I finally found the elusive park we were searching for last week! It has a beautiful view of our neighborhood, Queen Anne, and the city. I thought you might like to see the view OF where we live, for a change, rather than the views FROM where we live. You can get an idea of where we are in relation to the city as well. The hill of houses is Queen Anne hill. Our street is about 1 inch from the left edge of the photo. You can't see our house but the street is recognizable by the out-of-place orange adobe house that can be seen from miles away.

If you'd like to see a larger version, you can on flickr.

Fries and a Coke

We leave today for a trip back east so I have no time for cooking or photographing. The local burger place had to fill both requirements. Thanks Red Mill!

Play

Here is the Mush playing with one of the reject Christmas ornaments. I ran a piece of rawhide through it which drives him absolutely crazy. He now FAR prefers my homemade cat toys to anything brought from the store (a fact that I adore).

Blue Door

Seaweed

On Tuesday, we got the most beautiful day of weather. It was just one of those perfect summer days - in late October! We try to take advantage of good weather when we get it so we went off to the beach to go for a walk and play some frisbee! (This is the first wind-less day we've had in a long, long time)

This is the last post for a little while as we are off to the east coast for a few days. I will fill you in when I get back and I have a bit of a surprise coming up! Stay tuned!

More Baking

Don't worry, we are also still baking, although our pace has slowed a little bit. Nothing with great results to show for this week. We made the world's most terrible pretzels and J made a horrible bread that I didn't even eat.

Knitting II

You can see that my knitting bowl is even more full than it was just a couple of days ago.

Grain

Shibori

Here is a little sample of one of the new techniques I learned in my Shibori felting workshop. You can create these odd little shapes of bubbles and bobbles (and I don't know what to call them) in your knitting.

Bathtime

So, during October I began to slack off a little bit on the "shooting every day" rule. Some days, I only shot one thing, and many of those days were the cat. Sorry! Everyone needs a little mental break now and again.

Felting

I took a workshop today where I learned to make these small felted balls of wool. The plan is to use the good ones to make Christmas decorations (cat proof ones) and to use the rejects to make cat toys (that look like Christmas decorations).

Rain

This is the rain on my front window. My neighbor's home and yard and trees across the street provide a beautiful backdrop of colors. I may never get sick of taking this particular shot because to me it looks different each time.

Tones

This is another shot in that same pouring rain. I finally installed Lightroom this week and have been quite happily playing around with toning.

Strange Weather

We had a day of very strange weather but I found that it made some very beautiful photographs. It was rainy rather heavily but the sun was also shining through bright and strong. Of course it made a giant rainbow but my favorite shots were this group (and the next one. We were driving along and I saw how the ocean and the clouds look and I just had to jump out of the car (after I stopped safely obviously) and get out in the pouring rain to shoot these shots.

Hands

My husbands hands. This was just sort of a spur of the moment shot. We were relaxing by the window at our favorite coffee shop. I love the way this turned out.

News

One of my personal favorite contributions to Sea and Sky Journal.

Just J

Just a little shot of J at the local library, our destination for today's long walk, to drop off some knitting books I checked out.

Yellow

Leaves

Another thing I love doing in fall is collecting leaves on all my long neighborhood walks. Does anyone else do this? I know it's silly because they just dry up and you have to throw them away or put them back outside. But, they are so pretty I can't help it.

Remainder

This is the little ball of yarn that's all I have left after finishing the scarf for G. I will have to think of something little I can make with it because it's too pretty to waste.

Knitting

Let's see...picking up where I left off a week and a half ago...

I have not been posting as frequently, mostly because I have been working like crazy! I have been very busy filling print orders for old and new clients as well as coming up with my entire new marketing scheme for 2008! So, I have a good excuse for not blogging!

The free time I have had, as you will see in the next few pictures, has been spent very craftily. Fall always makes me dig out the old knitting bag and create some new projects. I also took two classes at my local knitting store so I know a few more cool tricks that I will be spending some time working on over the next month. I am making more cat toys, christmas ornaments, and all kinds of things using my new techniques of felting.

The view

The view to the east is city - the space needle and tall buildings, the view south is to the stadiums and Mt. Ranier. The view west is to the Olympics and this is the view to the southwest. It makes for a pretty pleasant walk. I wish we had bikes to ride along this path too. It made for a super nice Sunday afternoon.

That was the last day of beautiful weather for a while. I am not sure if I already mentioned the awesome weather site here from the local news. It gives a very candid, humorous approach to the weather forecast - always trying to look on the bright side of the situation. This week's forecast includes the gem: "It is a wonderful week for rain fans!!! "

The Park II

Another view of the running path through the park.

The Park

We did indeed find a little urban oasis of a park. It's a long narrow park that runs between the train tracks and the water. It's a strip along the coast that has been transformed into this beautiful little park right in the middle of industrial and city lands. It has separate paths for bikes and pedestrians which is really nice. We walked a mile, which leads down to downtown directly into the awesome Seattle Art Museum sculpture garden. I suspect that you can keep walking a good long ways through the piers and the market and down to the stadiums but that would be a longer walk than we can handle at the moment.

What is this?

We drove to another spot I've been wanting to eplore that's about 1.6 miles from our house. We could see this building from our usual running route (with a high up vantage point) but hadn't figured out how to get down to where it is. It's not the building that interested me so much, but the cool park and running path that we could see running along beside it. I was determined to find that little park! We drove in and around these weird industrial buildings to find a tiny little parking lot that had a small sign pointing to access the the park.

Does anyone know what this building might be? It appeared to have a big pipeline running to a large industrial shipping dock where they either load of fuel or service ocean-going cargo ships.

Yeah, we live here

Sunday, it was another beautiful day - warm and sunny. We decided to go exploring the next neighborhood over because I had seen a photograph taken from a park there and wanted to find the vantage point. We drove around with the windows down for a while looking for the park but never found it. The neighborhood was beautiful though with views over the sound and mansions built to look out on those views.

p.s. For some perspective, that little white speck near the bottom right corner is a sailboat.

Bagels

We have burned ourselves out on bread for the moment so we made our own bagels. They should have been completely mind-blowingly delicious but they were just like "Oh, let's eat some bagels". I think it was more my problem than something wrong with the bagels. I go through phases where I just lose my taste for food. I am not interested in anything - nothing sounds good to eat. I know it will pass but it kind of sucks at the moment.

A week

Wow. A week has gone by without updating the blog! I am not really sure where it all went (other than to work) so I won't bother trying to update all the happenings and non-happenings. We took lots of nice long fall walks.

Now Playing

Shot from my car window at a stoplight. We went on a little exploring drive through Capitol Hill which didn't really turn up much (wandering aimlessly didn't really get us any where).

Stripes

Here's my little jungle cat showing how his striped coat can act as camouflage.

My Favorite House

This is my favorite house in the neighborhood. Every time I walk by it, I wish it were mine. It's not huge or ostentatious, just a comfy little cottage home with beautiful style. I imagine sitting in that chair on the porch reading a book or drinking a cup of tea.

Duck Egg Blue

Knitting furiously! Making a little present for G, the partner in my new photo venture. Her favorite color is duck egg blue so I am making her a one-of-a-kind scarf!

Bottles

My kitchen window again; I never really get tired of seeing the light pour in and strike these bottles in all my favorite shades of blue and green.

Fish and Chips

Well, I don't eat fish but you get the idea. We stopped at The Lockspot bar and got fish (chicken) and chips at their outdoor stall. We sat on benches in the rain, watching it rain, eating fish and chips while Nirvana played in the kitchen.


p.s. We found the missing sandwich today! It was in the trunk of my car for 9 days. Why did I put the sandwich in the trunk of the car? I have no idea.

Fall III

There is a pretty little park alongside the locks and it gave me a moment rain-free to practice more of these shots. I like the completely unrealistic look here. The warped edges seems like the trees are moving in the wind.

Fall II

Here's a more closer upper view.

Fall

It was a lovely rainy fall day but we didn't let that stop us from going out and doing things today and I am glad it didn't. We walked a bit along the canal at the locks and saw a sea lion.

The Locks

Today we finally went to "The Locks". I have been wanting to go since we moved here. The locks are the gateway for the boats traveling from the lake to the ocean and back. There is also a fish ladder for the salmon runs. This is peak salmon season so it's a good time to go. The locks were very interesting to watch but we didn't see many fish and we didn't get to see any jumping.

Btw, this photo is not of the locks but of the sculpture at the locks called "Salmon Waves". For shots of the locks themselves, see J's blog.

Breakfast and New Project

After my early morning (and super awesome) maternity photoshoot, I went for brunch with J and the Cyclones.

This photograph also marks the beginning of a new project for me. I have joined a collaborative project with a woman from England called Sea and Sky Journal. We each post a picture from our day, without coordinating them, to see a compare and contrast of the lives of two people living far apart who have never met. Sometimes, the photos you see here will be the same as there. Sometimes not. I am not sure how long this little project will last.

Masts

Up early on a Saturday morning for another maternity photoshoot on the beach. It wasn't the ideal weather - cold, moist air, overcast - but my subject was up for it so I was too. I snapped this shot at the marina on my way home from the beach.

In the very early morning, before my shoot, I saw a bald eagle flying near the beach. Every time I see one it feels like a small special occasion - it's very exciting and it feels amazing.