Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Photo A Day Oct 22-28, 2012

It is interesting to me how things go in waves.  I probably took close to 600 pictures the week before last between our puddle jumping, pumpkin patch visit, hikes around town and general fun around the house.  This week I took a little over 7 pictures....with my phone.

And...here they are.

oct 22, 2012
Taelin's broom constructed by Joe!

oct 23, 2012

oct 24, 2012

oct 25, 2012

oct 26, 2012

oct 27, 2012
Taelin's gymnastics center hosted a Halloween party!  She had a blast!

oct 28, 2012
From the yoga studio I love...that I wished I could visit more.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Photo-A-Day Week Oct 15-21, 2012

What a great week for taking pictures!  I played around a little bit with some of the settings on my camera this week which got me some good shots, got me a lot of blurry shots, and also got me a little frustrated about how I can get more good shots that are less blurry.  Follow all of that?

The fact is that I can take some pretty fast pictures with my camera but running feet and finger painting fingers are still faster.  I really like the one other lens I have which allows me to be farther away from Taelin but still gets close up shots (because she is less likely to throw a fit about me taking a picture) but I am still not so good about getting the focus in the right place.  I feel like I tried a lot of things but really just got some good pictures because of dumb luck than anything I did on purpose.

Anyway... Here are this week's photos!

oct 15, 2012

oct 16, 2012

oct 17, 2012

oct 18, 2012

oct 19, 2012

oct 20, 2012

oct 21, 2012

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Now THESE are some puddles!

Taelin has decided that she is going to be witch for Halloween and since I didn't keep up with the sewing skills I acquired in middle school, we had to purchase an outfit.  But Joe decided that a Taelin size broom needed to be made. We had a break in the rain on Saturday and headed down to Minto-Brown Park to see if we could find the makings for her broom.

I took advantage of the walk and the family outing to practice with some settings on the camera. We had a great time and because it had rained so much the day before, there were some HUGE puddles!  Because of our trial run after Monday's rain, Taelin and I had our boots on and were ready to go.










The face she made after Joe gave her a blackberry and told her there was an ant on it.
There was no ant and it was the end of her eating blackberries!

Me trying to convince her to let Joe take a picture of the two of us. 

No problem taking pictures with Daddy though...


Taelin's first attempt of taking a picture of us with Joe's phone.

And her second attempt! 


Thursday, October 18, 2012

I need a little help from my readers. That would be you!

It has come to my attention that the comment section of my posts is a little messed up.  The word verification is giving people trouble and in some cases not working at all.  Because I would rather have people comment (it really does make my day when I know that someone is reading) I have taken off the word verification.

Joe warned me that in doing so that I might get crazy amounts of spammed kinds of comments, so for now, I have enabled the comments to not need the word verification but I have turned on the "moderation" which means that the comment won't automatically post but instead I will get an email that I will need "ok" each comment.  We will see how that goes!

I am hoping that doing this will make it easier for you all to comment, but I need to test it!  So, if you could please and try to leave a comment on this post I would much appreciate it.  Do you need a topic or can you talk amongst yourselves?

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Opportunity is one of those things that depend greatly on the eye of the beholder. ~Andrew Sanchez

I have whined a little bit about the rain here, wishing for the sunshine to come back, but to be honest it hasn't really been even a fraction of how I am really feeling about the rain.  I used to love the rain.  Those days that called for baking or snuggling up under a blanket with a good book or an old favorite movie.  I loved listening to the rain beat down on the roof while staying inside or running from a building to the car without an umbrella because umbrellas are for sisses.

But I am having a hard time getting used to the return of the rain.  I feel cold to my core even thinking about wet socks and damp hair.  The gutters are overflowing. The gray of the clouds has set in and I have let it change my mood.  I think I would be perfectly content staying inside with Taelin and Joe for the next, say, 5 months.  Blah, blah, blah...right?

Well, kind of.  I do miss my sunshine and I think I can safely say that the answer to the question of "What is your favorite season?" has shifted to a solid "summer".  But realistically I am not going to be very much fun to be around (and I pretty much have to be around me all the time) if my attitude continues down this track.  So today, on our way home from Taelin's gymnastics class, I tried to ignore the fact that yet another leaf had gotten wedged between my windshield and the wiper causing a horrible messy arch that was impeding my view and instead tried to think about what opportunities the rain had brought.

I suppressed my non-helpful sarcastic side (which at times is more skilled than I would like) as I watched a car turn the corner and splash through the puddle that had been created by the leaves blocking the drain and thought, "Puddles.  There are puddles to jump in when it rains."  

So it was decided.  I told Taelin that when we got home we were going to go put our rain boots on, and find our coats with hoods and go jump in puddles.  Her response was logical for a preschooler, "Why?"

"Because it is raining and someone needs to jump in all those puddles," was my answer.
"Ok," was her simple reply.  (Something tells me not all my question/answer discussions will be that easy in the future but that is for another day.)

We got home just a few minutes later and gathered our gear (which also included the camera for me) and headed out.





How can you beat that smile? <3
 


They weren't really huge puddles.  Some people might not have even called them puddles.  But we did and we jumped and stomped our way up and down the street.  I did stop a few times to take a few pictures but you are just going to have to trust me when I say that my pants were just about as soaked as hers in this last picture from all of my own stomping and jumping.  There were absolutely puddles harmed in the making of this memory.

And for the record, after we came inside and peeled off all of our wet clothes, we snuggled up under a blanket and watched an old favorite movie.  Just like you are supposed to do on rainy Oregon days.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Photo-A-Day October 8-14, 2012

The end of our harvest, the start of our rainy season (which means more time inside), and the first ear infection of the school year is what I captured this week.  Afternoon naps are a thing of the past so I am finding myself having to think a little bit more than I am used about how we are going to spend our days.  Planning would be too strong of a word, but I am keeping my eye out for different kinds of things that we can do and even better if they are something that can be done again and again.  I have seen sensory boxes on quite a few blogs that I follow so I decided to give one a whirl and it is a huge hit!  We have also been cooking/baking a little for the freezer, playing a lot of "pretending" and I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit to a few movies snuggled up on the couch, especially since she has been sick.

Anyway, I am pretty excited to have a record of this season change.  Enjoy!


oct 8, 2012
cleaning off the apples from our harvest

oct 9, 2012
Looking for her coat with hood.  It is actually the one thing that is still hanging up.

oct 10, 2012
October sensory box.
Black beans, red lentils, scoops and plastic creepy bugs!

oct 11, 2012
You see a line of pillows.
Taelin sees a large caterpillar that can be rode on to a variety of adventures!

oct 12, 2012
Convinced that she needed to bundled up to help her ear infection.
(And she just found all of the goodies the other day.)

oct 13, 2012
Family bowling in the afternoon

oct 14, 2012
Empty raised beds...until next year!


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. - Charles F. Kettering

Since I have started the Something-A-Day challenge, I have pretty much let my 100 snapshots challenge slide off my radar.  Every once and a great while I think of it, but most of the time the pictures I really like end up being my picture of the day and for some reason I have the self-imposed rule that I can't use the same picture for both challenges.  So, when I had the opportunity at the pumpkin patch a week ago, I tried to snap some extra photos.  (Since there were 4 adults and one preschooler, I felt like I could break off for a minute or two to take advantage of the environment.)

I couldn't remember any of the words that I supposed to capture so instead I just looked for things I thought might make a cool photo and thought I would match them up to the words later.  Well, later is now.  I was able to add five new pictures to the challenge which means I now have 23 out of 100 snapshots.

#4 Hot


#38 Cliche

#40 Loss
There was something kind of sad about this photo.  
It was on the way back to the car and then in the middle of the path was this lone pumpkin. 
 I don't know if was left behind because it was too heavy or
 if it rolled off the hay ride on the way back from the patch, but there it sat.  

# 58 Field

#88 Stand

As I look at some of the other words on the list, I kind of want to give up;  vacant, swarm, release, poetry, against.  Yikes.  But, I am going to keep going.  Who knows what I will end up with.  At some point, I may need to carry a word around with me (in my head or literally on a sticky note) so that I start looking for that word.  Maybe if I did that I would surprise myself what I would find?

Friday, October 12, 2012

The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away. ~Linus Pauling

I had some good ideas last spring.  I planted a garden with tomatoes, green beans, peas, radishes, peppers, carrots, lettuce and spinach. Later on in the summer we planted strawberries and raspberries.  I also signed us up for a weekly CSA box that started the end of May and just ended this past week.  Clearly, my idea was to try to figure out a way to get more fresh and local produce in my house (and hopefully in our bodies).

Today is our first really rainy day.  The heat has been turned on, the heavy socks have been dug out from the back of the drawer and I pretty much want to just stay inside. I already miss the sun.  But this post isn't about how I need to figure out where in the world I put my Vitamin D, but rather it is meant to be a reflection on how my first garden and CSA experience has gone.

Let's start with the garden.  I am counting it as a success and is certainly something I want to do again next year.  That said, I will do things differently.  I don't think I will even bother with lettuce and spinach again.  The slugs just ate it all no matter what I did.  I don't like eat radishes enough to eat as many as I was getting and the pepper plants were a lot of work for what I ended up not getting from them.

I will plant more green beans next year so that I have enough to put in the freezer.  I will do tomatoes again for sure, but will be smarter about giving them more room.  I love homegrown carrots but they were a lot of work and even though I thinned them religiously, they never really grew big enough for more than a little nibble.  The peas were a favorite so I will do more than two plants but will also have to figure out a slug plan because the were also a favorite of our slimy friends.  Peas were really the only things that I grew that I was able to convince Taelin to eat every time.

Now, the CSA box.   The positives were many.  I tried a lot of different veggies because of the CSA box.  I made napa cabbage salad, homemade pickles, and grilled lots of veggies. We got a lot of berries all at once, which forced my hand to make jam that we have been enjoying since.  My freezer is well stocked with shredded zucchini, tomato sauce, roasted jalapenos, pesto and tomatillo salsa.  But, there was also a down side.

There are many veggies that we just didn't like or use.  I tried kale in four different ways and never grew to like it even a little.  Most of the greens we got, like swiss chard, ended up being given away or wilted in the back of the fridge.  I didn't like squash before and I don't like squash now.  We are just not that adventurous when it comes to veggies, we tend to eat the same rotation over and over, and are okay with that.  And there was the amount, we eat them every day (for me sometimes with every meal and for snacks) but even though we were sharing the box with two other families, it was just too much for us.

Another piece that was a challenge sometimes that doesn't have anything to do with what was actually included in the box, was how we went about getting it.  The box was dropped off at a friends house sometime on Tuesday afternoon/evening.  It wasn't ever really consistent and to be honest Tuesday is the worst night it could have been, especially once work started up again.  Then I had to go over and the get the veggies either before or after Weight Watchers.  It just wasn't really that convenient.

So, what will I do next spring?  I will plan and planted a garden for sure.  I probably won't be ordering another CSA box though.  There are things that we got in the CSA box that we used a lot of that I think I want to try and grow like zucchini, cucumber, potatoes, and maybe even garlic.  That might mean building more boxes. (Lorie?  Did you read that?)  Another thing that I am considering is taking the same amount I spent each week for the CSA box and just taking that down to the Saturday market to support the local growers.  That way I can get what I know I will use, I can have it and consider it when I am menu planning on Sunday and buying something new if I think I might want to try one thing (instead of the sometimes 4 or 5 new things a week).  I think it will just be a better match for us.

But for now, I will enjoy the last few tomatoes that we will get lucky enough to get off of the plants that are left in the backyard, use the last bits of our CSA box from this week and hope that the rain actually breaks later next week so I can clear out the raised beds for the winter.

(And I will admit that I have started to mentally make the "to-do" list for all the inside projects now that the rain has begun...another bunch of ideas....but more on that later!)

Monday, October 8, 2012

Photo-A-Day Oct 1-7

It is funny as I look at this week's photos and realize that every single one of the them is Taelin centered. Experiencing seasons (and their activities) through her eyes is something that I could have never fully imagined and am so incredibly thankful for.  The nights and mornings are a little cooler as we come into October but our days have been amazingly warm and sunny.  The leaves are turning all sorts of wonderful colors that Taelin is noticing as we drive around.  I am so thankful I am doing this project to chronicle our daily lives and capture the little things that make my life so great.  I already love having these pictures to tell our story and I can only imagine I will being more grateful for them as Taelin gets older.

oct 1, 2012
We were decorating and I was trying to explain that
haphazard-ness that sometimes looks nice.
She was having none of it.  All pointing the same way in a line.

oct 2, 2012
She has been very into telling/drawing/writing stories.
This particular one was about a wolf and a rabbit.
It didn't end well for the rabbit.

oct 3, 2012
Blowing bubbles in October!  We are loving this sunny days!

oct 4, 2012
She wanted to learn how to wash dishes.  Um...ok!

oct 5, 2012
Picking apples at a local orchard.
She filled her own 5 gallon bucket!

oct 6, 2012
I love this one.
She was walking out in a field at the pumpkin patch, eating an ear of roasted corn.

oct 7, 2012
Her first shape directed jack-o-lantern.
She wanted triangles and a happy smile.