Louise Pedersen

I was in a client's home today, photographing a newborn baby, and I always find it interesting to go into people's homes. Sometimes I am struck by how similarly we all live. Sometimes by how amazingly different.

Today, in the kitchen, this brown envelope up high on a shelf caught my eye. It had definitely been placed there deliberately. It says, "Thought you might need these. I found the letter mixed in with my mail. Louise Pedersen". I am always attracted to found notes, to handwriting, to small these. I love that Pedersen is spelled the proper way (although in this town I am not surprised). I am curious what is in the envelope. I find it fascinating that I will never know Louise Pedersen.

New Office - Step 4

An intermediate solution. The wall was painted. Part of a rug was purchased (not sure if there will be more rug or what). And my very lovely, very fancy, Herman Miller Swag Leg desk chair has arrived. Wires are all out on the floor (uggh). Still no desk though, and after weeks of working in the living room, we decided to move my computer and monitors back in here and set them up on our dining room table until a proper desk can be purchased.

There's a desk that I have my eye one, and have gone to visit in the store several times. It's perfect, if ever a piece of furniture can be such a thing. But it's too expensive. J keeps trying to convince me it's worth it but I don't know if I can bring myself to spend the money.

In other news tonight, we bottled our first batch of beer. 22 bottles.

Fergus

I didn't feel like taking a picture tonight but I did feel like writing in my journal today and one needs a photo to be able to do that. Cat shots work just fine in that situation. Besides, I am on a quest to make September my first full month in quite a while and with the push towards 1000 I don't want to miss any more days than necessary.

I am currently engrossed in reading The Letters of John and Abigail Adams. I have a sort of historical crush on the Adamses after reading John Adams and 1776. They were a wonderful married couple and wrote each other fantastic letters over many years while they lived apart for very long stretches. I am completely charmed by them. She, running all of their domestic affairs, asks him, in Philadelphia, to send her things like paper, green tea, needles and pins, and thread. I can't imagine a world where I knew I was down to my last few sheets of paper or my greatest desire would be for more pins to sew with.

Power Outtage

J was really ill today. I am apparently still not 100% as I slept off and on the whole day as well. Around 9:30 PM we had a sudden power failure. I stumbled through the dark to light some candles (and broke one trying to get it down from storage so that I ended up in the dark, barefoot, standing on the toilet, surrounded by broken glass I couldn't see all over the floor) and thankfully we had our camping stuff not put away so we made use of our lanterns. I read a book by lantern-light and appreciated the darkness and the quiet (I love brief power outtages for that reason) and J stayed ill on the couch by candlelight.

Last of the Season

Last Tri of the season for Michelle. There will be more cold lakes waiting for me next year...

The lake was very still (and cold) this morning before the start of the triathlon. J woke up very ill this morning, having finally caught the bug he no doubt brought home from work and gave to me last week. So, we went and watched Michelle's swim but immediately after that we broke camp and left to head home. Another few days of couch-lounging-illness in our household.

Camping

We planned to squeeze in one last camping trip this year and combine it with one last half-ironman race for Michelle too. We went to the not-very-far-away and not-really-exotic camping location of Enumclaw, WA, only about an hour away from Seattle. For some reason though, this trip was cursed from the start. The only really good thing was that we finally upgraded our 1" thick camping mats and replaced them with an air mattress for the tent. Oh, heaven! So much better! Plus, this means I get to add the mats to the purge (replacing two things with one is really good purge karma) and the air mattress takes up less storage space too.

Mushroom

Mushroom hasn't made a journal appearance since August 15th, so it was time. He was looking super cute on the couch. He's lying on his back, belly in the air, paws curled up, with just the slightest hint of twist (to maximize the pose, I suppose). This shot is almost straight out of camera too. He's been such a different cat lately since his diet and dental surgery. We don't know what the cause is but we will take the much happier, more content, snuggly, playful cat that we have as a result.

The Life of a Day

J had to work late so I spent the evening reading poetry and scribbling things in my little notebook. When he came home, he bent down to kiss me and his black tie draped over my book of poems in just such a way. "Wait," I said. "Do that again and let me photograph it." A nice little reminder of why I do this photo-a-day "project" (going on three years now):


The Life of A Day
by Tom Hennen

Like people or dogs, each day is uniqueand has
its own personality quirks which can easily be seen
if you look closely. But there are so few days as
compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it
would be surprising if a day wre not a hundred
times more interesting that most people. But
usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless
they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red
maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly
awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost
traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason
we like to see days pass, even though most of us
claim we don't want to reach our last one for a
long time. We examine each day before us with
barely a glance and say, no, this isn't one I've been
looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for
the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will
start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by
perfectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the
right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light
breeze scented with a perfume made from the
mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak
leaves, and the faint odor of last night's
meandering skunk.

Alley

Still sick. I won't bother explaining this blurry shot of our alley.

Fergus

Just a random photo of Fergus continuing to be the snuggliest cat in the world (and be in love with J).

Still sick although my fever is much less today. I have trolled the internet all day and exhausted the tv and web for entertainment.

Sick!

Today was supposed to be another triumphant triathlon photo/race report but Friday night's mysterious dinner illness and Saturday's impending cold decided to get together last night to create a crazy illness and make me really sick. The alarm was set for 5:30 AM to head to the triathlon but around 4 AM I was running a 101.5 degree fever. Not good. I missed the race. I spent the entire day on the couch, with this as my view. In the afternoon, J opened our front doors to let in some fresh air and that was wonderful.

Red leaves and raindrops...

First rainy day we've had in ages though so I can't complain. Feeling a bad cold coming on today and I am supposed to do my third and final triathlon of the summer tomorrow. I went to the expo today to pick up my race packet and get body marked, but it's not looking too good for tomorrow.

Todd II

Here's Todd finding out that his present from Michelle is a trip to go sky diving...I think he looked worried, initially, here but he was pretty psyched about it!

Opening Presents

Opening some birthday presents...Fergus "helped" unwrap the clay oven that J and I gave Todd (to continue the cult of bread baking we've started).

Happy 40th Todd

My friend Todd turned 40 today, a bit to his dismay. I rarely get good pictures of Todd because he gets all weird in front of the camera and makes funny faces. I have to catch him looking somewhere else.

We dressed up and went out to a fancy splurge dinner. Unfortunately, I became ill during dinner and my first nice-expensive-meal-out in ages went to waste (well, it went to J's lunch the follorwing day). Bummer.

Crappy D Does Paris In Seattle

Out on the run...

Crappy D Does Macro Dew-Covered Spider Web

Pretty impressed with Crappy D's Macro here...

Crappy D Makes Art

Facing a chilly, foggy, lonely run this morning (I have to run, big race coming up on Sunday) and I didn't want to go alone. So, I took Crappy D with me and that's like having an old friend along. I think he did a really great job today too since I had three photos that were difficult to choose from. Here, a neighbor's Poppy - very, very artsy style!

Light Box

Sorted hundreds and hundreds (maybe more?) of old slides today. Slides I hadn't seen in 8 years. Slides I had forgotten existed. Found a slide of me and J very early on in our dating relationship. Found a slide of me and my Dad in Utah in 2001. Found these old slides where my friend Dana modeled for me in what must be early 2003. A lot went into the trash, and that's great! Because it means it will be easier to find and keep the ones that mean something.

Abstract

Went out in the alleyway in search of a blip tonight. I never know what I'll come back with...

The Purge

The Great Purge of 2009 continues. But, I am finally starting to feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I am rounding out just about one calendar year of slowly but surely changing our lifestyle.

I have been keeping a little inventory (my little black book) of all the things we own. It's sometimes frightening, shocking, and a little sickening to think that we own so many thousands of things that we don't even know what they all are.

This little notebook contains all my purge secrets and, in the spirit of reduce/reuse/recycle it's really an old calendar from 2007 that I never got around to using as a calendar.

Many things have been sold, many things have been donated, and many many things have been given away or sent to people who will give them good homes.

We started with a goal of creating a little "TV fund" to buy one of those big TVs everybody has been talking about. Through craigslist and ebay and not-just-a-little-bit through less wanting and less shopping and cooking at home, we have built a little pile that's more than big enough to buy one of those TVs but we haven't spent it yet. We've saved a lot of money by leading a less consuming lifestyle. I am now much more the kind of person who would rather spend good money on one really nice "thing X" or "thing Y" than buy 100 cheap versions of "thing A-Z".

We have less cleaning to do, less maintenance of "things", and less time spent simply dealing with the things we own. I have fewer choices, really narrowed down to things I need, love, and enjoy, so my mind is worried over fewer decisions. It's amazing how much peace having less stuff has brought.

My goal has been to get rid of 5 things every week. Many weeks have seen the departure of way more than 5things. I haven't yet reached the point of a zero-sum household but it's out there.

This week, I feel like I can see that the tide has shifted because I had to actively go looking for the things that needed to go and they all turned out to be bits of random things: a box of straight pins that are too small for me to sew with, push pins that I've had about 17 years, two cans of spray paint, a half-used bottle of febreze, a random little bag of jewelry I don't like and never wear, some of my massive collection of stationary, and three balls of "yarn" I made from old t-shirts.

Beloved Towel

I coulda shared another food-related technically-fine-but-really-who-cares? photo today of us beginning our first batch of home-brewed beer. We crushed and boiled and mixed and sanitized all night until the beer stunk so much we had to open the front doors.

But, I was also doing laundry and I sadly had to witness the death of one of my two beloved towels. Does anyone else have favorite towels? Or a favorite article of clothing? I got this towel from Tray probably around 2002 or 2003. I don't know why I liked it so much, I just did. It's an uassuming little beach towel that made me happy. But tonight as I was folding it from the laundry for probably the 400th time, it finally felt apart, tearing to pieces in my hands.

Since this is really just my own personal journal at this point, I want to use it to remember my beloved towel.

The Ferris Wheel II

The Roller Coaster II

The Roller Coaster

The Ferris Wheel

Sharing just a couple of my favorites from that collage...

At the Puyallup Fair

Went on a photo trip with the photogirls to the Puyallup fair. I felt like everything should be just a little bit out of focus.

Outside Delancey

New Office - Step 3

The new blue is painted on the wall and it's perfect. I am in love with it. Apparently, you get what you pay for in paint too. Now, if only I had some furniture...

A New Blue...

can make all the difference.

New Office - Step 2

More painting today. Another coat of the cream to cover up the dirty disgusting walls from the last two years. And, today's big development...the blue accent wall! Ta da! It's not exactly the blue I imagined (paint is so hard to figure out) but this is only one coat so I am hoping two or three will deepen it up.

View

A friend in town from NY and she's staying down south with friends who have this view (and more) from their home. Crazy. A nice dinner and good company. I had a Bud Light with Lime (J will never forgive me), homemade guacamole (which I don't usually like but did this time), and a delicious chicken soup that I hope to get the recipe for.

New Office, Step 1

We are doing a complete redo of my office. It's taken months to get from the idea stage to today, the beginning to paint stage. It took me weeks to clear out and sell or give away all the crap we no longer want or need. There's still a lot to go since I haven't yet ordered the new furniture and once I do I imagine it will trickle in slowly over the next couple weeks. If I can have clients in here by the end of the year I suppose that will be an accomplishment. Of course, that will be just in time for us to have to move. Anyways, this weekend is Step 1 in the actual redo: Paint! These are the before photos. I will post afters if it goes well.

What's out the window, Fergus?

Oh, that would be the massive moving truck of our new neighbors moving in upstairs. This truck was so big that it covered the window in the kitchen, the window in the living room, and both of our double front french doors.

Since we moved to Seattle (in this one apartment), this will be our third set of new upstairs neighbors. Sigh.

The bad news? This set has a baby. Uggh. (I love babies, don't get me wrong, I just don't want one in my house 24 hours a day.) I fear that the noise will be unbearable. I am so worried! I do not want to have to move until we can buy a house. We were hoping to stay here for a while. Sigh.

Mundane III

"If you get me the sheets you want, I'll make the bed." Now that's an offer I couldn't refuse.

Correspondence

Today was the anniversary of my Dad's death. The weeks leading up to it were hard, but by the time today arrived...well...I am glad I had last week's overwhelming distraction of Ironman to keep my mind off things.

Nothing to photograph to sum up today so I will just go on shooting my regular old life.

I am behind on my letter writing. This is another big week in the massive purge of all the crap we own and today I got rid of the place where I keep all my stationary, cards, etc. (the green bench, for those who remember it). I love the stuff so for a long time I could not resist buying a new little set here and there. But, at the pace of only a few letters a year...it will take the rest of my life to go through this stuff! I need to write more letters I guess.

Fergus

The traditional "return home from a trip cat photo", this time with fur in the toes.