Category Archives: Music, Photography, Art and Hobbies

Jan 14 2012

Pre-Empted by Knitting

I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve taken up a new hobby.  Did I mention that I am learning to knit?  I learned a couple of stitches (knit and purl) and also yarn over and knit two together, casting on, of course, and binding off.

Instead of learning more, I’ve spent the past week knitting dish cloths.  The same pattern, with crooked edges, which I found a fix for today online.  This is a sample of the second or third one I did (before addressing the uneven edges):

So far I’ve completed SIX of these puppies, using cotton yarn. The sixth one I finished this evening, and it turned out so much better, but I didn’t take a picture because I had already put the dishcloth in the closet with the others.

The nice thing about knitting is that I can be in the same room with the TV going and my husband and/or daughter watching TV, and I can be with them without being glued to the tube.

The bad thing is it is seriously cutting into my reading time, and my fingertips are a little sore.

I received the knitting needles and four skeins of cotton yarn from a dear friend, along with a pattern for the dish cloths.  I had to learn to knit first, which I did by watching videos on YouTube.

I was so frustrated trying to learn, but now that I can do some basics, it is such a zen sort of activity.  I feel good knowing that I can make some things to stockpile for gifts throughout the year so there isn’t such a mad scramble next Christmas.

Sitting on the sofa in the very early morning with my coffee on a table nearby, knitting in silence while the cats sleep on the floor beside me…it’s wonderful.  Knitting in my easy chair while my daughter watches cartoons and pauses the TV to tell me stories and jokes is also a wonderful thing.  Hearing her say to me “Mommy, you’re doing a good job!” is priceless.

Dec 18 2011

The Week In Pictures

I take a LOT of pictures with the camera on my cellphone; it’s an excellent way to capture little moments and fleeting things.  All the pictures in this post are from my cellphone except for the final one.

I picked up my daughter from her after school program earlier this week and she and her friend had been working across from each other on a giant sheet of newsprint, with crayons and great ambition.  They had learned the word “anatomy” at school, but Rabbit was also still fixated on Christmas, so they combined the two.

Rabbit enjoyed last week’s homemade macaroni and cheese:

I love having a kid who enjoys mixed vegetables.  ”Mommy,” she always says, while eating them, “Lima beans taste like potatoes.”  The CD on the table is by a group my husband loves, called the Bel-Airs.  They used to regularly play at the Zoo Bar here in Lincoln and we went to see them many times.  Good blues music, FYI.

It wasn’t until I saw this picture of Hazel on my favorite red blanket that I realized how cool the markings are on her back.  They used to remind me of the Shroud of Turin.  Feel free to give your own Rorschach thoughts on what they look like.

I am working on a commissioned pencil portrait of a child and realized how much I dislike drawing teeth.  This picture is about 20% done.  I need to have it finished by Thursday. And yet, I’m here at the computer.

I adapted the refrigerator bread dough recipe to wheat bread, PLUS, I reduced the amount of flour by quite a bit and I think it’s better for it.  Instead of 13 cups of flour, I used just over ten cups:  6 cups of whole wheat flour and 4 cups of white flour, and then a little more wheat to get it to the right consistency.  The bread is so much better: not as dense, not as prone to being gummy inside.   The crust is thick but the inside crumb is very fine and the smell is yeasty and wheaty and rich.

Finally, a picture of one of my most treasured Christmas ornaments, a tiny plaster angel that hung on my great-grandmother’s Christmas tree, then on my grandmother’s, then my mom’s tree and now on mine.

Enjoy your week – snap random pictures as you go and look at them often.  I am so glad I am from a family of shutterbugs, to keep a record of life as it passes, from the everyday to the special: because one day, you may not be able to tell one from the other.

Dec 12 2011

Wherein I Build A Christmas Tree Out of Books

This past week on facebook, I saw a link someone had posted to a photo of a tall conical tower of books that had Christmas lights strung around it.  I immediately thought “I am SO doing that next year for Christmas!”

Last night, after Rabbit went to bed and PC went out to the garage to watch football, I started building my own book Christmas tree.

I would have taken pictures along the way, but I didn’t even think of it til I was almost done.

I started with the bigger hardbound books I had, like coffee table books, art books, etc.  All the books were arranged spine/title out, flat on the floor, in a flower-petal circle of about seven books, making an empty space in the middle.

The next row was arranged the same way, but with the books in this level overlapping the spaces between the books below.  Same with the level above that.  I gradually used smaller books, building up and in.

About halfway up the stack, I stuffed a sofa pillow down into the well in the center, so that if any of the books started to slide inward, they couldn’t collapse into the well.  As I built up higher, I stuffed another sofa pillow into the center and mashed it down.

Toward the top, I had to redo the books a few times to get them arranged right.  As the stack got narrower, I ended up with a couple of Harry Potter books at the very top, and to make the top come up to a point, I put on top of the last book an upside down flower pot that I had painted red with a painted pattern of Christmas lights around the rim.

I wanted to use the old fashioned big Christmas lights for this, but we didn’t have any and I wasn’t going to buy any more Christmas lights when we have thousands in the basement.  So I wrapped two strands of colored lights around the stack, which also served to kind of tie the books into place.

Here is a picture of the “tree” without the lights turned on (this one was taken with my cellphone camera – sorry!):

I know the lights kind of look like barbed wire in this picture – next year I’ll have different ones.

Here’s a picture of the “tree” with the lights on:

How fun is that??

The whole thing has about 200 books in it, which is more than I was anticipating, and took only about an hour to complete.  If I’d had more time to organize books from throughout the house and plan a little better, I would  have been able to make a much bigger stack – as it is, this one is just under five feet tall and probably weighs over 125 pounds.

It is in the southeast corner of our living room, right in front of the door that leads out to the deck.  We almost never use that door, especially in the winter, and have had our regular Christmas tree in this corner a few times.

The fun part of this is that it was fast, free and fun.  It really doesn’t take up that much space and as much as I love books, it is just a joy to sit and look at on a cold winter evening.

Nov 17 2011

Better Late Than Never: Halloween Photos

Some pictures I finally uploaded from Halloween, taken with my actual camera instead of the ones from my phone.

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Oct 4 2011

A Few Photos of October 4th

My friend Di said she wished I would put more pictures on my blog (or words to that effect).  I had a busy day today but did make time to snap a few photos with my phone.

For example, I took the picture below from my car (at a stop light – settle down) as I drove to the office this morning after dropping Rabbit off at school.  It was a beautiful morning for clouds, which disappeared mid-day and it got up to 90 degrees here!

Sunrise on October 4th

I worked at the office and then went home to try to organize the scary part of the kitchen where all our stuff gets dumped when we walk in the door.  I had just gotten started when my friend Annette called to let me know she’d had a cancellation and could fit me in early for a desperately needed hair session.

After I got done, I had to get home and get ready for Rabbit’s parent teacher conference.  PC and I went to the school where we were waiting outside the classroom.  Mrs. K, the math and reading intervention specialist, saw us waiting and walked up.

“Are you Rabbit’s parents? I knew you were because you look just like her!” she said, unintentionally making my entire day.  We just smiled and said nice to meet you and yada yada yada.

The conference went well and then we went to pick up Rabbit from her after school program, from which we went straight to the school’s book fair.

PC holds Rabbit's school bag and a book for her while she continues browsing

While there, I had to take a picture of a book that NOBODY was buying:

Don't think for a second that giving a cat that name will trick us into caring about the Dewey Decimal System

And a moment of maternal pride, as I watched my daughter prefer a giant joke book to the nearby volumes about the life and hair of Justin Bieber:

In the end, she got a chapter book and two posters (one with two puppies on it and another with a kitten sleeping in a hammock).

When we got home, I noticed that Hazel had taken over the new organizer in the kitchen:

Don’t pay too much attention to my filthy floors….that’s a job for tomorrow.  I’m tired now and going to bed.

Oct 2 2011

Changes in Trees

This picture was taken just over two years ago, in May 2009.  Rabbit was in our maple tree with her dolls and her hula hoop.

The pictures below were taken today, a week before her ninth birthday, as she climbed even higher in the tree.

And this one, perhaps my favorite of all time.

It all goes by so fast.  One minute, she’s up four feet with dolls, and the next, she’s fifteen feet above me reaching skinny arms and legs out to catch a caterpillar.  Tomorrow, she’ll probably fly.

 

Sep 25 2011

Apparently a Photo of a Juicer

image

I’m blogging from my new phone just because my computer is having issues. So if there are crazy misspelled words, this time I have an excuse.

This will have to be short because this is an extremely difficult method of writing. So I will leave you with some pictures of a few of the treasures I brought back from my hometown.

Except that I can’t figure out how to add them.  So it looks like I will have to blog tomorrow instead. *sigh*

Sep 21 2011

Recent Discoveries

Some recent things I’ve discovered, which I enjoy:

1.  Fage Plain Greek Yogurt.  Yogurt is low in lactose, and Greek yogurt is extra high in protein.  In addition, it’s thicker and creamier.  Fage was recently rated the best tasting Greek yogurt.  PC got me some this evening and I ate it with honey drizzled over the top. It was like ice cream (but not as cold).

2.  ”The Sing-Off,” a show on TV that is a competition among acapella singing groups who perform using NO instruments other than their voices – including vocalized renditions of bass drums, cymbals, guitars, etc.  LOVED IT!

3.  Ben Folds is hilarious.  He’s a judge on The Sing-Off and I got such a kick out of his comments, which were very musically wise, but also funnier than funny.

4.  A Card Game Called Tic.  One of my brothers introduced it to us when my dad was in the hospital and it’s a weird and way more fun version of gin or gin rummy, with escalating hands, more cards each time, different wild cards and rules like “one bonehead move per game” and “you can call people names.”  My sister and I played many hands of this game while she was here.  I’ll outline the rules in a future blog post.

5. Going to Bed Early. A wonderful luxury, a joy and a privilege. Which I shall indulge in right about now.

Sep 9 2011

Waxing Rhapsodic About Nebraska

On a day like today when you the clear blue sky started to fill with clouds, I had some choices.  I could be anxious about whether or not it would rain, I could be grouchy that the sun kept disappearing…or I could get in my car and drive straight out 15 miles to some dirt roads southwest of the city and take pictures.

Guess which choice I made?

While I was on the roads looking for great cloud shots (my brothers were notorious for photographing clouds when they were in high school), I parked by the side of a road and walked about half a mile, where I came upon some very friendly horses who began to follow me from their side of the fence, just a few yards away.

I’m so lucky to live where I do.  Fall in Nebraska is absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous.  The weather today was balmy, the grasses outside of town are turning golden, and the skies of late summer are vivid and pure.  The clouds today were amazing.

I loved how the cloud shadows rolled across the hills.  I loved the gentle plumes of dust that rolled out behind my car as I bumped down the dirt roads.  Most of all I loved the peace of getting out of the city and the concrete and the billboards to see open skies, seas of undulating grass, rustling dry corn fields and shimmering cottonwoods and silver Russian olive trees along the roads.

I love the ability to drive for 30 minutes and see something like these pictures and then be back in town in time for dinner.  I just love being in Nebraska.

Sep 8 2011

Photographing Nebraska Scenery

Rabbit and I went out on Monday, after retrieving the cabinet I’d gotten, to enjoy some fresh air and take pictures.  Rabbit has her little digital camera and likes to take pictures through her car window of the blur of trees on the side of the road, and also apparently enjoys photographing parked cars, gas stations, and rocks.

I don’t have any of her pictures to share, but here are a few of mine from Monday, which was one of the most gorgeous and perfect days I’ve experienced in a very long time.

We had been traveling the back roads between Lincoln and Waverly, loving the trees and the grapevines growing over fences, clusters of goldenrod swarmed by bees.  We coasted through a tiny town called Prairie Home and rolled down dirt roads with the windows down, our hair fluttering and a trail of dust floating out behind us as we trolled for scenery to capture.

My favorite piece of scenery, however, is in the following pictures.  And I get to look at it every day, no matter what the weather is like outdoors.