Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

For baby photo fans, I finally uploaded a bunch of photos of Winter. Click the photo to go to the first of the latest uploads.

The last photo in the set is Miss Winter’s debut as a fierce Viking girl. (Also below.) My mother knit the cap for my brother 30-something years ago and her excellentness Alesone produced the wee Viking apron from her stash of scrap linen. She also has a tiny set of medieval mocs that she wore over hand-knit socks to complete the outfit. Unsurprisingly, our child is starting with better garb than most newbies.

The wee Viking photo is from Iron Bog’s Investiture this weekend – which was wonderful! Congratulations to Don Collin and Mistress Marion on their new positions! The event was wonderful and it was great to see folks. Dayboard was super-yummy and the kitchen smelled wonderful as they prepped for feast. Unfortunately, we had to leave before the 2nd Royal court as Miss Winter decided the day was over early. (Actually, she made that decision about when I expected her to make it given the circumstances… we just weren’t expecting there to be a 2nd court later in the day.) Congrats to Davius on his Silver Rapier! I hear our congratulatory kisses were delivered.

So the football season has been reaching its regular crescendo. I only watch football for about 4 weeks a year, mostly in January. I’m just not invested enough to care before the playoffs. This year has involved more football than usual though. Football is an excellent thing to have on in the background when you’re sick all weekend (like last weekend) or having a slow day because grocery shopping took it all out of you (like yesterday). Oh, and the Giants, the Fop’s team, made it to the playoffs, so there was added interest in football around the household.

The Patriots-Ravens game yesterday was more exciting than I’d expected. The Giants-49ers game was also fun… for me. Especially when poor, little Eli Manning got sacked. Repeatedly. The Fop, on the other hand, was rather tense most of the game. But it’s another Patriots-Giants Superbowl coming up. This time, the Pats are going to kick Giant butt. Sorry, dear.

The awesome: I deposited my first check via an app on my iPhone today. I love my credit union. This is awesome as the closest branch is approximately 300 miles away. Since I moved to Pennsylvania, I’ve been depositing expense checks and other miscellany in the joint account for the house but I want to move away from that bank (fees, hassle) eventually. (“Eventually” is a promotion from “as quickly as possible” because they gave out tree ornaments in December that you can plant in the Spring. Yes, I’m a sucker.) I’m hoping to get all our accounts at the same financial institution so we can do easy transfers instead of writing checks to ourselves every month.

The irritating: I also had an unplanned upgrade to Mac OS Lion (10.7.2) this week. My system decided it wanted maintenance and I haven’t seen my system disks since we moved sooooo… luckily I had a copy of Lion hanging around. The Internet told me how to build a bootable disk, and, when the repair failed, I installed Lion fresh over Snowleopard. I was promptly reminded why I was procrastinating the upgrade when Photoshop (CS1), Quicken 2007 and Mouseworks (Kensington trackball software) all ceased to function properly. I found a poor substitute for Mouseworks (Trackball Works – fewer features but I could reverse my scroll direction at least). Intuit promises a rewrite of Quicken 2007 for Lion in the Spring (not holding my breath) and I’ll find another image editing program to replace good ol’ Photoshop as I use very little of its vast functionality.

The amusing: My old MacBook Pro (running Tiger, 10.5) valiantly built the boot disk as requested and tried to remind me of its loyalty and love. I keep pricing MacBook Airs, you see. I think it knows. But the MacBook is a 15″ laptop, heavy and unwieldy rather than sleek and sexy like the Air. Most of the portable functionality has already been taken over by the iPad. (Oh, iPad, you are my own true love.) However I do sometimes want true multi-tasking, a real keyboard and proper OS in my portable device. I’m big on procrastination though, so I’ll be waiting to see if Apple announces an iPad 3 this Spring. In the meantime, I’ll be moving Quicken and Photoshop to the MacBook Pro!

The horticultural, which is utterly unrelated to technology but I’m going to make it fit anyway: My little key lime tree bloomed. My tiny olive tree is doing something. The paper whites were pretty even if it was disappointing that only 2 of the bulbs produced flowers… but hey, they were $2.50 at Home Despot…

2011 was a mostly awesome year with spots of ick and doom. From a toy perspective, things were good: I received a new camera at Christmas in 2010 and I purchased a new iPhone 4s as soon as it was available.

I took 6,120 photos throughout the year, up 300+ from 2010. That number is slightly inflated as the new iPhone actually takes 2 photos each time you click when HDR is turned on. (It saves one normal file and one HDR file each time.) I’m incredibly pleased with the iPhone 4S camera. I did a baby book for the grandparents and even the iPhone shots printed up well enough that I’m hard pressed to remember which photos were taken with which camera. Ok, that lack of memory could also be due to sleep deprivation.

Once again, there were lots of photos of cats this year, however in the last 2 months I took almost 1000 photos of Miss Winter Joyce. Taking photos of babies is harder than I thought. It’s incredibly difficult to catch her expression just right with the right light and background. I’m sure she’ll start posing for me before long and that will all change.

I didn’t make it to the zoo this year… mostly because I got hit with this huge wave of exhaustion in early March followed by a different, huge wave of exhaustion in November. I’m optimistic that there will be zoo trips this year once someone can focus more than a few feet in front of her.

The weirdest thing I took a photo of this year? The Holiday Flamingo (it was still only September too).

1. January – IMG_1149.JPG, 2. February – IMG_1446.JPG, 3. March – IMG_1625.JPG, 4. April – IMG_1991.jpg, 5. May – IMG_2060.JPG, 6. June – IMG_2902.JPG, 7. July – IMG_3047.JPG, 8. August – IMG_3258.JPG, 9. September – IMG_0356.jpg, 10. October – IMG_1068.jpg, 11. November – IMG_0526.jpg, 12. December – IMG_4638.JPG

I’m making a feeble attempt to post more than just Monster Cat. Which means you get pictures of light up flamingos and ramblings about silliness.

Friday I visited the chiropractor. After some serious adjustment to my neck, I think we’ve resolved my headache problems. My hip problems have at least another 6 weeks to wait, but he did do some manipulation that appears to have helped a lot. I also got a home blood pressure cuff. My blood pressure is pleasantly low at home (like 100/70) so it really is the traffic and the parking garage at the hospital that are driving up my pressure before I see my doctor. I’ll take my little machine tomorrow to compare it to the in-office reading. Should be entertaining. And reassuring. Low blood pressure means fewer tests… or at least a lower risk of various interventions. So hurray for 2 major annoyances being mitigated!

Why, yes, I do feel taller now that my neck isn’t so jammed that it took 2 really good cracks to get back into shape.

Saturday, I did NOT buy the flamingo pictured here. Note the lovely scarf! And the Halloween decor on the wall behind it. That’s right, the real horror is that xmas crap is available so early they haven’t taken down the Halloween stuff yet. Soon the seasonal backdrop for xmas crap will be stars, stripes and fireworks.

Of course, I have already “decorated” for Halloween… which is to say that my terracotta jack-o-lanterns are hanging out around the house. There are apples in the kitchen which will soon be pies and sauce. Last night, there was hot and spicy sausage pasta sauce. Tonight there will be the attempting of pre-made turkey and beef pot pies. Even though it’s 80° F (27° C) outside, I can effectively pretend that it’s Autumn.

And… I’m learning just how horrible the stink bug infestation is in the new area. I just vacuumed up a ton of them (and emptied the canister outside into a bag, sealed the bag and tossed it in the outside trash) and I already feel like my efforts are in vain.

I know, I’m a terrible person!

Actually, I blame the poppets. Clearly they are adventurous and trouble-makers. They’ve been encouraging the flowers.

These photos are from yesterday. Today was gray and gloomy all day, very Spring-like indeed!

This Spring is definitely going to be fun. I don’t remember what all I planted last Fall for bulbs. I do remember that I wasn’t sure at least one set of bulbs were viable though… they were… odd. Not that I remember what they were, so I won’t actually be able to say if they came up or not. But there are tons of daffodils and some tulips coming soon and then there will be irises for the summer.

I’m sad that my snow is all gone, but at least there are flowers to amuse me!

Now if only the tool I’m trying to use for work would do what I want it to do. *grumble* Tomorrow…

crocus, garden, photography, poppets

I decided that the photos needed a model to add some perspective. Enter: Little Yellow Poppet to help by providing a reference for scale! (A reference photo for scale of the little yellow poppet can be found here.) Poppets are curious creatures in many ways so it seemed logical to take one out to the garden. There are no buds showing yet, but it’s still early and chilly at night. (The lows tomorrow night are supposed to be in the lower 20s. No, I will not be knitting bulb cozies to keep the plants warm, but it did cross my mind.)

It’s nice out, spring-like even. I have to admit that I don’t recall what the plant is in the second photo. Possibly a poppy? I recall it’s something tall but that’s all I remember for certain. At any rate, soon there will be daffodils everywhere, and that’s the important thing! I should probably trim back the rose bushes soon too so that they’re a little more tame, at least until their growth spurts hit. I also need to start seeds this week or weekend. Tis the season for green and growing! And garden clean-up… not to mention general spring cleaning. Oh, and taxes.

The weather doesn’t explain why I’m looking at the world and asking, “How is it only Tuesday?” Lots got done yesterday and today, but apparently not enough to speed me through to Friday. I started Monday with a sleep debt so that’s probably the real problem here. More sleep tonight and then maybe it will be Friday when I wake up. Right? I don’t want to hear any silliness about having to sleep for 48 hours in order to wake up to Friday “tomorrow” morning.

gardening, photography, poppets, weather, work

Perhaps this post would be better titled, “Photos not to show my mother on her birthday when she’s in the middle of a big snowstorm in Maine…”

Sorry, Mum.

And sorry to everyone else dealing with snow. But look! Spring is on its way!

We had torrential rain overnight and through the morning. At noon it was still as dark as early morning. It’s also a very blustery day.

By 4 pm, the rain had broken but the wind remained. The snow? Pretty much all gone.

Taking photos of the bulbs coming in the garden made me wonder if I should get some ruby slippers just in case I needed to get home from Oz. The wind did not blow me over though, but it sure tried! The sprouting bulbs are definitely getting taller by the day. I can’t wait to see how the new irises look when they come up. They’re double-blooming too, so there will be purple in early summer then again early fall!

The sun wasn’t out much today, but when it was, Miss Abby put herself in the perfect place on the back of the chair. She really has a talent for finding the best position to light herself beautifully for photos. She’s our little supermodel cat.

It’s been a long week, despite the holiday Monday. Productive, but long. I’m very enthusiastic for the weekend. I’m twitchy to get things done that don’t involve my job. This tells me that Spring is indeed waiting to blow in. At least I got my last bit of snow before the end.

garden, spring, weather, wind

So, I washed a couple of cat beds with some old catnip toys that had ended up down the laundry chute. The mini-cats often end up sending toys down the chute since there’s a lot of space between the bottom of the chute door and the floor. I guess the cat toys weren’t quite as old and impotent as I believed because Abby got quite silly and stoned when she decided to explore the clean cat bed!

catnip, cats, mini-cats, videos

The new camera is really exciting! Around doing laundry, pretending to clean my office and getting ready for a work trip, I’ve taken a bunch of photos. Most of those photos are of the cats, of course. The camera likes them.

The first photo is picture of Tasha and the new camera bag taken with no flash. Both the cat and the bag are awesome, but only one of them is coming on my trip this week. There was not as much light in the room as the photo implies, which is awesome. This camera is quite content to shoot away in low light. Not all the photos I took were great – if Tasha moved at all, I got a blur, of course. But still, quite impressive over the previous camera.

Abby is in the next photo. The day was dark and overcast but the photo implies it was a bright, gray day. Love that. I will need to figure out how to manipulate the settings to get true low-light photos but for now, I’m excited about this.

I like that the no-flash setting has been moved next to the automatic setting on the wheel.(i.e. a quick flick to turn off the flash rather than turning the knob almost half a turn) The bigger LCD screen is nice but I’m still getting used to where the buttons on the back of the camera have moved to. There’s a thumb-smudge in the lower left of the LCD because that’s where the preview button is on the old Rebel.

bengals, canon, cats, low light, photography, rebel t2i, bengals

2010 was good, bad and ugly, depending on the moment. I think this about par for the course. I took 5,785 photographs, mostly of cats, but also including snow, flowers and medieval events. This is actually down by over 1000 shots from 2009 but up over 300 about 2008. I actually picked 12 photos, one from each month, to represent the year. By the by, it’s hard to pick just one per month. It’s also hard not to put in the photos of the various damage the house suffered this year. (That would be the ugly: hail and plaster giving in to gravity.)

Unsurprisingly, I take a lot of photos of cats. Occupational hazard, I guess.

I’m not sure my photography saw any significant improvement this year. I took lots of shots but didn’t really work on my technique. I did take more shots of people this year and spent more time thinking about composition in those photos but I really only did that on two occasions so I’m not sure it counts as real work, despite the 1500+ shots from those two occasions.

However, the future looks rather promising.

In exciting photographic news, I got a new camera for Christmas from the fabulous Fop! (A Canon Rebel T2i.) And there was also an Epiphanie Bag. (Ginger in black with BRIGHT PINK lining!) This means the camera will probably hang out with me more often. And there will be more photography-oriented adventures this year too. I haven’t been to see the polar bears in ages.

2010, photographs, random