adventure with "bean"

if you ever get the urge to go to Friendly's for a cholesterol fix, just sit down and let it pass. I thought it'd be hard to mess up a standard early bird, but they managed. Didn't stop me from eating it, though!


Me and my friend "bean" were headed out to shoot some photos on Saturday. We've been talking about it for ages, and now that she's got a photography class under her belt and two cameras to choose from, she wants to shoot. a lot. So we headed up to the ponds at Durand Eastman park. It's a great place to enjoy the woods without having to drive too far.


This tree below reminds me of the "bad guy castle" in fantasy movies. The way that it more ripped than broke, leaving turrets and spikes.


this one's for you, M & W!


It's amazing to me, the things the Lord makes to be beautiful. I love it that He shows them to me. It's fungus. But I just may frame this one!


here we are: the bean and me, on our "photographying" adventure. Thanks for a great day & lots of laughs, girl!

i dream of killer clams

You really don't need to read this. whoever you are, however bored you are, whatever you think is about to come after this sentence, I'm just warning you now. You really don't need to. You probably won't gain anything but a niggling sense of wondering if my mind maybe needs to go in for an alignment.

But the other night, I dreamt of killer clams. Blogger right now is telling me that dreamt is not a word. But it is. I checked. And I like it better than dreamed.

So, they perhaps weren't clams, and they didn't really kill anyone, but in my dream, I was at a summer camp, and I was rock climbing without any kind of equipment, and all over the boulders I was scaling were these creatures living in shells. They were mostly attached to the boulders at their hinges, and they mostly kept their traps shut. But I think that all of my climbing started to irritate them after a bit, and they started snapping at me.

Now, I have tried rock climbing before, on one of those indoor walls where you're all harnessed up and if you lose a handhold it's no big deal. You may end up dangling from your belt feeling foolish, but you don't lose a finger, and you don't crack your skull on the ground 20 feet below you.

But if your handholds were to suddenly start to snack on you…you can see how tricky that might make things, can't you? Hey…what are you doing here? I told you you don't have to read this!

So, the next thing I knew in this dream was that the killer clams (for lack of a better name…I'm not worried about that whole "innocent until proven guilty" for rabid shellfish)…anyway, they popped off the rock and were then in my living room, occasionally jumping a couple of feet and snapping their razor-sharp shells as they did. It made walking around barefoot rather perilous.

And that was pretty much it. I don't think either I or the killer clams came to an untimely end. I'm not sure if we called a truce--I'd stop climbing on them if they'd stop biting my fingers. I just moved on to something else, but nothing so memorable as the killer clams.

What are you still doing here?

things i like

I started this list months ago, figuring it shouldn't take me too long to get to 100 things. It just seemed like a nice round number to get to and then post. But I've been stuck at 52 for a while (though I know I like more than 52 things…I wanted them to be unique and significant in some way), and the idea came to me to do a photo study of this list of things I like, working on one per week for a year. So I think I'll make it a project for myself. Not sure when I'll start. I'd like to end up with a photo that illustrates each of the things on my list. Some will be harder than others. But I'm due for a challenge.

here's my list of things i like:

shade.
real parmesan cheese. (i eat it by the slice)
the silence of a snowstorm.
that ache inside that happens when i see something beyond beautiful.
laughing with friends until i cry. (more cowbell, anyone?)
the smell of onions sizzling in butter.
a firm handshake.
surprises. (happy ones, anyway.)
a really inspired color combo.
catching a significant moment with my camera.
those clouds that look like they've got a hard edge.
leaving on a jet plane.
the always-enduring mercy of the Lord.
black raspberries right off the bush.
piano solos. (not played by me, but enjoyed by me!)
blueberry coffee from dunkin donuts.
standing on the edge of the ocean, getting the sand sucked out from under my feet.
getting lost in a really good story.
good hair days.
hundreds of men's voices lifted together in praise of the Lord Jesus.
snuggly babies.
old hymns.
really dark chocolate.
iTunes.
wool sweaters.
an unexpected free afternoon.
a well-worn Bible.
colored sharpies.
nighttime strolls.
finishing a race.
fresh-from-the-oven muffins.
real maple syrup.
that last bite of an ice cream cone.
waking up and not needing to get up yet.
an open road and wide-open windows.
sleeping under the stars.
campfires.
the crunch of autumn leaves.
sea glass.
the noise of a printing press.
partially frozen Pepsi.
dump trucks.
hammocks.
beautifully textured paper.
pumpkin spice lattes.
the word "wonky."
thunderstorms.
abandoned buildings.
the sound of the ocean.
the first frost.
giggling with children.
office supply stores.

volleyball

In high school, I earned the nickname ROTATE! (yes, screamed at me in all caps) because I hated playing volleyball so much that I refused to participate at all. I never even attempted to hit the ball, and generally tuned the game out entirely and had to be, oh so gently, reminded that it was time to rotate positions. I'm not sure why I despised the game so much, but I think perhaps it was because I had no idea how to play. It was intimidating. So I pretended I didn't even want to. Soccer was my game…no hands allowed.

My junior year, the girls in my school wanted to enter a volleyball team in our state competition, and they had to have another player to meet the minimum. So they asked me to be on the team. They told me I didn't even really have to play…they just needed 7 girls on the roster in order to enter. So, I made them grovel a bit (as if they wanted me for my talent), and finally gave in. Reluctantly.

Turns out, from the first practice, I was hooked. I loved volleyball! My arms had pinprick bruises all over them, and I couldn't even come close to the top of the net on the jumping drills, but I had a blast!

These days, I'd probably have a heart attack if I attempted an entire game of soccer, but volleyball I can do! My church has a league, and for the past several years, I've just signed up and hoped for the best as far as a team goes. It's a good thing I'm not all crazy-competitive, because "the best" hasn't happened much. Until this year. This year, I got the coveted invite to a really solid team. I feel like I'm playing so much better already, because I've got to live up to the talent on my team. I really don't want to mess up a set for one of those guys who just lives for the hit!

I'm also really grateful for the spirit of the people I'm playing with. We really have a good time, and there's a lot of encouraging talk. Not the kind of stuff you get in your average volleyball league. Everyone on the team is someone I've known for a while, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better…especially the really cool, stunningly beautiful teenage girls (who read my blog)!

it's. so. cold.

but sunny. :)

domesticated (ish)

so, I often have conversations something like this with my friends:

friend: so, wanna get together tonight?

me: um, I really have to do laundry. Not sure I should hang out.

friend: how often do you do laundry? Didn't you just do laundry last week?

me: well, I had planned to, but ended up, um, well, just not doing it.

friend: something else came up?

me: um, yeah, I got kidnapped. By a good book and my couch.

And on it goes. I start planning to do laundry about 2 weeks before I actually do laundry. Then I finally get desparate, and it's either do laundry or go shopping. Sometimes I go shopping.

I know some of you will think I'm nuts (especially you moms out there who do laundry ALL. DAY. EVERY. DAY. but I can go a whole month without doing a lick of laundry! I planned it that way in college, and until I've got to do laundry for more than just myself, I'm sticking to my guns. At the laundromat, I can throw in six loads of laundry and be done in 2 or 3 hours. If I had a machine at home (in my scary, scary basement), it would take me days. And I would forget halfway through that I was even doing laundry, and my clothes would get all musty or wrinkled and I'd have to wash them twice. Where's the sense in that?

So, for all my friends with whom I've had the above laundry conversation, I thought I'd post some photos proving that I was, indeed, at the laundromat last night. I guess I could have just walked in off the street and taken pics of someone else's laundry, but I'm not that weird. Really.

The stack is mostly my cheap-o fabric that I got to practice sewing on. When it's only a buck a yard (as a good friend informed me), you really can't go wrong for practice fabric. Since I think I'm going to need a lot of practice to really come up with something usable/giftable/wearable.

side note: I once had a guy walk completely out of his way when exiting the laundromat to tell me "I dig your sneakers" and then walk quickly away. It's still one of my favorite compliments.

In the interest of complete and total honesty (of which I'm a big fan), I must say that these were not the sneakers. It was a pair of blue cons. These are fake cons from Ukraine, which set me back all of about three bucks.

stray

Since I'm creating my own definition of OOPart, I'll include this in there. I wonder if Wegmans offers a reward for having their shopping carts returned? What about if it won't come with me? It looks rather determined to get on the next bus headed east.

the mother of all winter coats

or: how to wear a sleeping bag.

I got this baby right on time for the 60-degree weather we had last week, and only today has it been cool enough to try it out.

I had been looking for the perfect winter coat that would allow me to walk to work in 20 degrees without getting frostbite, and this seemed like the ideal solution. Besides, it came with retractable earbuds and a pocket for my ipod. Along with a warning about how dumb it would be to snowboard and listen to music at the same time. Who's going to snowboard in this thing??

Did I mention it was 80% off retail?

How did I get so blessed? So blessed, that I have a choice of which winter coat to wear each day? Not: can I find enough clothing to pile on to keep me warm, but: do I want to wear green or brown or black or gray? And do I want it to be fleece or leather or nylon or quilted? Do I need a warm coat, a light coat, or a sleeping bag coat today? How about gloves? leather or nylon? warm, warmer or warmest? And which scarf color and length shall I go with today? How about my choice of footwear? Not: Do I have shoes to wear, but: which of 5 or 6 different pairs of boots that will keep my feet warm and dry and clean do I want to wear? As I walk on the plowed sidewalks to my heated (sorta) building for work.

I am so blessed. And the Lord reminds me of that with this coat.

i'm using it!

When I borrowed my mother's sewing machine a few years ago, wanting to learn how to sew, I brought it home and never even took it out of it's case. For about a year and a half. So I was a bit hesitant to ask my family to pitch in and get me a sewing machine for Christmas, but I was pretty confident I was truly in a place where I would use it.

I attempted to make a wallet for my credit cards, based on a project in this book by this girl that I bought long before I even had the sewing machine. I'm finding that I'm a bit too impatient, and need to slow down and read everything through and do a better job of measuring and cutting. Is it going to take a sewing machine to get me to learn patience??? Time to go buy some cheap-o fabric for a few more practice projects. I'm probably trying to tackle too many things at once with the sewing, but I have learned a bit and am really enjoying the process so far.

Here's my before: I have to actually use an iron. I may have to buy one that's NOT the cheapest one available. Also need an ironing board, but my coffee table is working for now.


Here's my during: I think the theory is that you pin it all together and then all your layers stay lined up when you sew them together. um, yeah, gotta work on the technique here.


And the after: it's all together, I just put one pocket on backwards and sewed way too far away from the edge. so I can't fit any actual credit cards into it. It was called the "no cash wallet" but I may have to dub this the "no plastic wallet." Or something.

lost in translation

I posted before on how I really like eating fortune cookies. And how every now and then you find a real gem of a "fortune." These two are my hands-down favorites of all time. Yes, I even framed them, they're that good.

click on them, and they'll get bigger. Or you can read the text below.




1. You are the only flower of meditation in the wilderness.
2. Alas! the onion you are eating is someone else's water lily.

Probably these have some meaning in an Asian culture.

I just wish some other flowers of meditation would join me in the wilderness…It's getting kinda lonely being the only one.

OOPart (or: ball in the hall)

I just read a little blurb about "out of place" artifacts. Things that are found (usually in archeology, it seems) in places that it seems quite unlikely they'd be found. You can read more here.

I thought I'd maybe start my own category of OOPart today, as I walked past the beach ball in the hall for the umpteenth time. No idea how it got there, or what it's doing in this rough & industrial random fire exit hallway in the building I work in. But I'm really rather taken with it. And I like the fact that just today I read about OOPart so I have a way to categorize it.

today's walk

It got up to 66 today. I feel a bit twilight-zone-ish.

I know this is a magnolia tree. I think it's budding. Boy, is it in for a nasty surprise.


I don't know what these are, but they have these really amazing star-like centers, and what looks like feathers coming off them all around. It's probably some dead weed, but I think it's lovely.


This is where sidewalk plows go when they're bored.

for real?

light play

Today, the sun was bouncing off a plastic bag in our office, making a really fantastic display on our wall. Of course, I had not brought my camera, so I had to borrow from the studio. Gotta get me one of those pocket ones…

every day is a new year

I'm not so big on celebrating each and every holiday within an inch of its life. I grew up two houses away from a woman who strung up lights and installed yard figures for EVERY holiday. Valentines, St. Paddy's, Easter, etc.

I think I was scarred for life.

Last night I was at dinner with some friends, and we started talking about plans for 2008. I am much more about new beginnings and making plans in September than I am in January, so I've never really made any new year resolutions. I don't like dooming myself to failure, anyway. I figured out a few years back that the best way to ensure success is to resolve to do things you are already doing!

Things like brushing your teeth, getting dressed, laughing out loud, crying bitter tears, vegging on a couch all day with a book or going like a whirlwind when life gets a little crazy. I'm sure I'll work hard, and play some, and ponder things from big to small. And small to big. From the differences between American and British chocolate to the value of a soul in the eyes of God.

I'm sure I'll collect some stuff and make some stuff and throw some stuff away. I know I'll hurt some people I love, but I'll also be a blessing and an encouragement to some people I love…and hopefully to some people I don't even know. I know I'll dream and long and wonder and question and get mad and get hurt and probably fall apart in my own way now and again. I'll over-commit my time and then berate myself for doing so. I'll eat a can of Pringles in two sittings. My car will get messy. My apartment will get/stay messy (though you should see my living room right now…it's beautiful!).

These things are just a part of life. It will never be perfect until we're with Jesus. I won't ever be able to resolve all of the bad or dumb habits out of my life. But I can enjoy this life the Lord has given me, and work to lean more towards setting my affections on things above, not on things of the earth. I can deny my body and feed my soul. I can rely on the grace that is sufficient for me. Today. And all year…one day at a time.