We spent the Friday before Easter at one of our favorite places, Winterthur. In early spring, it is even more amazing than usual.
Signs of spring are everywhere! I know I’ve posted lots of flower photos lately, but I just can’t help it: the arrival of spring is just so awesome!
We walked (or ran) the labyrinth…
…built a fairy house…
…looked at magnolia buds (and this is right about the time Sylvia decided to remove her shoes for the rest of the day)…
…marveled at the flowering trees and shrubs (that magnolia in the distance is at least 60 feet tall, by the way)…
…delighted in daffodils…
…and peeked at some fiddleheads.
Actually, I think we may have skipped spring and headed straight for summer: today’s high was 92 degrees. In the first week of April.
It’s been so warm and sunny the past two weeks that the trees and flowers are all freaking out. Instead of a springtime blossom show that rolls out over six weeks or so, everything is in flower right now. I’m happy to see spring flowers again, but a little bummed that we’re getting everything all at once. The dogwoods are just about ready to pop–about three weeks ahead of schedule.
Here’s the first crocus that appeared in my yard, on 10 March (not even one full month ago):
Ten days later, it had been joined by about 200 more:
Five days later, the first daffodil had opened up:
That was a week and a half ago. Today the hyacinths and daffodils are in full bloom, the forsythias are nearly spent, and the tulips are just about ready to step into the limelight. Usually the dogwoods and azaleas flower in early May. This year, we might start seeing their blooms next week.
…of the 200+ crocuses currently blooming in my yard.
(Photo 365 | 2010: 20 March)
While my friend Beth was secretly knitting a pincushion for me, my friend Katie was secretly knitting this tea cozy for me. Or not so secretly, as the case may be: she actually worked on it while she was sitting in my house, but lied her head off and told me it was for herself. She even lied when she blogged about it, too!
So imagine my surprise when Katie came over a few days ago and handed me this:
Of course I had to test it immediately (on a pot of Darjeeling). It fits perfectly–and actually did keep the tea warm a lot longer!
I am so lucky!
(Project 363 | 2010: 22 February)
Guess what happened again yesterday?
(I love how rhododendron leaves curl up when it’s really cold outside.) Fortunately, only about an inch fell this time.
We’ve been busy with crafty stuff around here, partly because of being snowbound. We do go out to play in the snow, but after a while it’s time to come inside to get warm and enjoy some hot chocolate and do some inside stuff for a while. The other day, Sylvia and I build a nest: I hot-glued together some pieces of craft felt into a bowl-ish shape, and she filled it with lengths of yarn. Then she asked me to make a bird for her, so I made up this one:
I’m in the home stretch of the Wonderful Wallaby I’m knitting for myself–working on the neck placket now (woot!). I’ve decided not to knit the hood. The result won’t be an exact match to the hooded Wallabies I’ve knit for Sylvia and Jan, but I know I will never wear the hood, so there’s no point in wasting yarn and time on it. I expect to finish up this sweater in the next few days. In the meantime, I’ve been wearing a sweater that I finished during the summer…and just now realize that I never wrote about here.
It’s a simple bottom-up in-the-round raglan knit in Wool of the Woods. It’s very toasty and has a buttoned opening on the front-left raglan seam. (Because the neckline is so wide, I don’t ever need to unbutton the sweater to get it on or off.) My favorite part? The buttons:
I bought these buttons when Sylvia was maybe a year old. They are pewter, and I bought two of each of the five designs, thinking they would be so adorable on a sweater for her. Unfortunately, they are rather heavy–too heavy for a fine knit. They work well on this raglan seam, though; because it’s on an angle, I think that helps prevent the buttons from sagging.
For all that we have about three feet of snow on the ground (it was more, but it’s settled over the past few days), it’s not particularly sticky stuff. I really wanted to make a snowman today, so I had to wing it.
First I made a huge mound for the body. Then I got lucky and found a very compacted chunk for the head. Jan and Sylvia helped with the decorations: an old scarf, gloves from the 2002 NYC Marathon (no, I wasn’t in it, but I was there to watch my brother-in-law race, and Nike reps handed these gloves out to spectators), a wool hat that was made in Afghanistan but bought in Oregon twelve years ago, gumball buttons, and an acorn smile. They raided the recycling bin in the garage for the eyes and nose.
I like to imagine that he’s standing in our front yard yelling, “I’m number one! I’m number one!” to all passersby.
(Project 365 | 2010: 14 February)
Yesterday morning around 8:30 a.m., I had just finished breakfast and was thinking about suiting up to go outside to shovel the six inches of snow that had fallen since I’d last shoveled, and Sylvia said, “I think someone is here.” I looked outside the window and sure enough, my friend Beth was here. She also happens to live in my neighborhood and enjoys a good walk, so she was here on foot.
And not empty-handed. Look what she brought:
I’d posted the pattern last month, and Beth then took it upon herself to knit one for me. And see that little button on the top? She handpainted a little bee on it! (My family has a thing for bees. And hedgehogs. And cheetahs.)
I love it. I can’t wait to get a new sewing project going so I can use it!
(Project 365 | 2010: 12 February)
I have long known that I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler. In recent years I’ve learned that whenever I mow my lawn, it looks like I went on a bender with my lawnmower. Today I discovered that I cannot shovel in a straight line, either.
(Project 365 | 2010: 11 February)
I mentioned last month that I was participating in a Photo 365 project organized by a friend (whom I know only from blogland and have yet to meet in person. So far it’s going well–I haven’t missed a day yet. The group rules state that a posted picture has to be taken that day (no raiding the photo library for good shots!), and I am really enjoying the reminder to try to “see” the world around me more mindfully every day.
My Flickr account is here, here’s my Project 365 project, and here’s a mosaic of the first thirty-six photos I’ve done. (There are actually forty pictures in my set so far, but the mosaic maker can handle only thirty-six at a time.)
1. Paperwhites, 2. Hello, 2010!, 3. Out with the old, 4. Anticipation, 5. Twelfth Night, 6. Ch-ch-ch-CHIA!, 7. Scooting, 8. Morning view, 9. How to save your sanity, 10. Simpsons on parade, 11. More paperwhites, 12. My friend Jim, 13. Hoot!, 14. Self-portrait, 15. Frolic, 16. No photos, please!, 17. Stylin’, 18. Possibilities, 19. Conversation, 20. Annual polar bear swim, 21. Close up, 22. Cactus, 23. Still life, 24. Dragon ‘do, 25. Posing, 26. Sideburns, 27. Snow on pavers, 28. Something fishy, 29. Totoro and the Catbus, 30. Snow falling on dogwoods, 31. Snowy day, 32. I beg to disagree, 33. End stage, 34. Snowmaggedon: the aftermath, 35. One of our customers, 36. I do, too
Most of these are nowhere near “art” photography, but I am enjoying focusing more documenting every day stuff than setting up an “ideal” shot. I’ve also been relying heavily on my new POS camera–it takes great pictures, and its size lets me have it with me at all times (and having a camera handy is 95% of getting a good shot!).
I’m going to start posting some of my Project 365 shots here–partly to share them with more people, and partly to give myself a space to write fuller commentary where warranted (the photo description section on Flickr can handle only so much before it looks unwieldy).
I’m still working on my photography. Although I enjoy using my DSLR, sometimes I do miss my Pentax K-1000 days. That camera was fully manual, and the pictures it produced were based more on what I did before releasing the shutter than on anything that happened afterward. These days, so much of the discourse surrounding photography focuses on gear and post-processing. I expect those conversations among professionals, but among amateurs it seems just a bit too much for me.
So as you can imagine, I do have a fairly limited gear setup. I built my own soft-light box last winter (it comes apart and stores flat, too!) and have been experimenting with it whenever I have the time and space to set it up.
Right before Christmas, Sylvia helped me take some pictures with it. This was her first experience using a tripod and a remote shutter release–how exciting!
One of my Christmas gifts was a Canon PowerShot camera. My old POS, a Kodak EasyShare, was given to Sylvia last year, and I’ve been on the lookout for a replacement ever since. It’s hard to find a POS camera that takes bad pictures these days, so with that being a given my top priority was size. I wanted a POS that was small enough that I would have no excuse not to have it with me at all times. And this one fits the bill perfectly. It actually fits in my pocket.
True, this camera isn’t ideal for photography when you want a lot of control over the image it produces. But it’s just right for those spur-of-the-moment and I-don’t-want-to-schlep-the-DSLR-around times.
Here’s the icing on the cake: my friend JD organized a Photo 365 | 2010 group on Flickr and invited me to join it. Perfect timing, too, because I had already been planning to do this sort of project on my own; playing along with others is making it lots more fun.
If you’re interested, you can see my Photo 365 | 2010 pictures here. This is one that I took the other day, after Sylvia had arranged the pieces of our Simpsons chess set (yes, we have a Simpsons chess set–doesn’t everybody?) into a “parade” on the coffee table in the living room.
