a little iphoneography
I’ve been playing with my iPhone camera more and more lately, using apps to play with filters, and borders, and cropping. It doesn’t seem like so much fun when I’m stuck at my desk editing in Photoshop but it’s a breeze to edit in apps like Camera+ and Instagram.
I think it’s making me a better photographer if only because I’m noticing the world around me more. I always have my phone with me, so it’s easy to snap a shot when I see it instead of wishing I had a camera. I’ve been focusing on playing with patterns, light, and textures so I’m doing more close ups. Eventually I’d like to get a real dslr and learn how to do all of these cool things by messing with f-stops, shutter speeds, and different lenses instead of relying on filters but for the moment the apps are helping get the end product I want without the frustration.
I’d love to know what you all think of these, and if there is one you like best.
Stairwell in an old mill building, from below.
Conveyor belt close up.
Wooden railing.
Zakim Bridge in Boston. (No, I wasn’t driving, and yes, we were stuck in traffic.)
Granite wall.
Filler on paved road.
Summer, in no particular order
I’ve been told I’ve been remiss in posting photos lately. I hadn’t noticed, but when I look back at the last few months…well, yeah! So here are my favorite photos from this Summer, so far.
Josh and George spend LOTS of time together.
George’s favorite room is the house is Josh’s bedroom. He’s usually on the bed, but this window gets top marks too. George is slowly getting used to being an indoor only kitty. (More to come on that soon!)
Josh’s favorite place is in the pool.
Uh. Not that pool! Although if he had been allowed to go diving into the big tank at the aquarium I think he might have.
This is Josh’s pool. I can say that since we often have the community pool to ourselves in the evenings. (What’s wrong with all of these people here that they don’t ever go to the swimming?!) We LOVE the pool.
We also love the neighbor’s cat Trevor. (Don’t tell George!!) Trevor meows at Josh if he tries to walk by him without petting him. Not that he ever would.
I think I mentioned we went to a nearby Zoo? I kept going back to see the lions, but really, the kangaroos were the most entertaining.
I think we like animals. Hmm. We also like a good sense of humor!
Snort.
We managed to make it to Maine a couple of times. We took the Amtrak once and this freaking adorable kid a few rows in front of us giggled and gurgled and made everyone on the train laugh. I love the train.
I also love where the train took us.
They showed off their respective toothy gaps. Gah! The cute!
Maine makes me happy.
So does Boston. When you walk the city, you never know what you’ll see.
Playing bagpipes on a unicycle? I know what you’re thinking…yes, he was wearing underwear.
So this is what I’ve been doing all Summer. What have you been up to??
Filed Under life, photos Tagged adventures, photos, summer, the boy, the cat
when the boy is away, the cat will…
…sleep on his bathrobe.
Every. day.
Why the guilty look George? Or is it that you want to claw my eyes out for interrupting your nap?
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A few days ago Josh wore a funny shirt to school that said “I’m allergic to homework” – typical sort of thing for a 2nd grader. Except, then he rationalized to the teacher that it was actually true. And I quote “I’m allergic to pollen, and pollen is on trees, and paper comes from trees and homework is on paper, so I really am allergic to homework!” Oy vey.
granite and foliage
Damon was speaking at a conference this past weekend and Josh and I tagged along so we could all spend a little time in a part of Maine that we don’t know particularly well. We were waaaay the heck up Rt. 1, in Northport. The hours and hours spent driving in the rain on that horrid road was well worth it the next day though!
This was the cutest little cabin you have ever seen:
It smelled like fresh pine inside, but had all the amenities of a 2 bedroom hotel suite. We really didn’t want to leave!
We did some sightseeing on Saturday and I took the opportunity to work on my photography skills. The rain made it difficult but I think the pictures turned out better than if all that granite had been dry.
These are of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory and Fort Knox, in Prospect, Maine. It was well worth the trip if you’re ever going that way!
Filed Under photos Tagged Fort Knox, Maine, Penobscot Narrows, photos, vacation
vacation all I ever wanted
It killed me for most of the summer to not talk about our vacation here! Now that it’s over I finally can! I didn’t ever mention it because I felt weird about too many people knowing I was leaving the house for 10 days. We’ve had a lot of break-ins in our town and I didn’t want us being away to be too obvious.
Sooooo, we went to Florida, on the hottest week of the year. Yep.
I really don’t like heat, but I got over myself and had 10 days of fabulous! We tried to do fun things every morning and spend the afternoons in the pool, (at least, Josh and I did, while Damon worked.) Only one day out of the whole trip was too thunderstormy to swim. As long as I can get in the water I’m happy. 
We went because Damon has a new job, where he will mostly be working from home, but one week a month he will be in the office in, you guessed it, Florida. Josh and I got a chance to tag along to St. Petersburg this time since we had a free place to stay and school hasn’t started here yet.
Okay, I’ve bored you enough with the words, here is our trip in pictures! (For all three of you that actually want to see them!)
Man, those pelicans stunk!
The beach!!
St. Pete Beach was absolutely gorgeous. Next time we go, we’re spending more time there.
We don’t have trees like this in New Hampshire!
An armadillo made out of junk car parts? This is one of Josh’s favorite pics!
We should have seen an alligator right here, but it was even too hot for them. Ugh, the sweat.
After Damon’s work week was over we left St. Pete and spent a few days in Orlando.
The Lego store…need I say more?
Damon had some issues taking pics with his iphone. And he used to be a photographer??! Hee. Okay, it was just a liiiittle bit sunny out, and he couldn’t see what he was shooting. Also, the only day I didn’t wear black. Ahem. Did I mention the sweat?
The best part of the day at Magic Kingdom. Seriously. Minnie air kissed me on the cheek. So ridiculously cute.
Kennedy Space Center was my favorite day. There was lots of air conditioning…
We can’t pass up an opportunity for a Vulcan hand sign. Ever.
And really, what is a vacation without one of these?
ps. I have to give a shout out to my MIL and her husband for staying in the house part of the time and doing tons of chores for us! And another to my friend’s daughter “C” for checking in on my cat the rest of the time! Thank you!
Filed Under life, photos, the boy Tagged Florida, life, photos, vacation
most days
My days are virtually the same, hour-by-hour, sitting at my desk, searching for photos, making lunches, begging telling Josh to play outside, cleaning up cat puke, and avoiding anything resembling housework. Thankfully, most days are punctuated with little bits of humor, like watching Wipeout. I know, I know, it’s all kinds of wrong, but I can’t help it. 
And, yes, I let Josh watch it too…
Anyway, I wanted to show you a few things I typically see around here on any given day.
Look closely at the top of the photo. Yes, there is an extra cat in the picture. George is often found sleeping with toys piled on top of him.
I know I’m not the only mother in the world whose kid has extra sensory perception regarding the phone. Right? As soon as it rings, or even if I silently start to dial – he’s in the room. Talking to me. Or giving me hand gestures. Anything to get my attention. Or to listen in. Every single time! This photo? If I had saved them all I would have hundreds just like it:
Have you ever been to Passive Aggressive Notes? Well, I could have had a whole website of “I’m On The Phone Notes” if I had just planned ahead.
Lately we’ve been on a kill the clutter kick and we’ve decided to have a yard sale. A whole lot of crap is now piled in the garage:
And that’s not even all of it. Every day I put a little more in the pile, now named the Monster that Ate the Garage. We need to have that yard sale soon!
And last, but not least, is an older photo I found, taken by my husband that perfectly illustrates most of my days:
A cat that thinks he’s a person sitting on a Garfield book with Legos and crap all over the place. If a corner of a computer and a coffee cup were in the photo it would be perfect.
Filed Under family, humor, life, the boy, the cat Tagged life, photos, the boy, the cat
pretty fuzzy
It’s vacation week here, except once again it’s not my vacation. I need pretty, fuzzy things to distract my from all of my friends’ facebook status updates from Disney World. Sigh. Do you need pretty, fuzzy things too? Here ya go!
The pretty.
The fuzzy.
More pretty.
More fuzzy.
And pretty again.
The last fuzzy thing would be my brain…but I don’t have a picture of it.
kicking cancer’s ass one science post at a time
If you don’t know WhyMommy, well, you should. And if you do know her then you know why I’m doing this.
I was very fortunate to meet and hug (and eat chocolate-dipped fruit with!) Susan aka WhyMommy at BlogHer this summer, but I feel like I’ve known her for oh so much longer. I’ve been a reader of her blog Toddler Planet for years, long before I was a blogger myself. One thing that has always been clear in her writing is that throughout her trials with cancer, Susan is first a mother. She’s also, quite literally, a rocket scientist.
Some of you may know that Susan has recently been diagnosed with cancer again, and is undergoing surgery again, today. We wanted to do a little something to support her, in the way only bloggers know how. In the spirit of Susan’s love for her kids and for teaching them science we bring you Team WhyMommy’s Virtual Science Fair! (Thanks to the amazing Stimey for the putting it all together!)
So the science fair project I did with Josh was one he didn’t actually know was happening. I stealth-scienced him.
My goal for this last week was to fit any science topics I could more into our daily life and conversations, whenever and wherever they seemed to fit. Here’s a few of the highlights!
First we took a walk in the swamp behind our house. It’s early for the frogs yet, (and for mosquitoes for that matter! Yay!) but even without spotting any wildlife we enjoyed it. Clearly he did:
It’s so pretty back there, and we’ve never really taken the time to appreciate it. I’m so glad we did. And we’ll be going back weekly to watch the changes as spring and summer progress.
While we were up in Maine this weekend, we had a chance to stop by my friend’s house to see her new baby cow named DC. Short for Diet Coke, the cow was only 3 days old, (!!) and as cute as can be. I don’t think Josh has ever petted a cow before, at least not a tiny one. I wish I had gotten pictures though! I didn’t even think of it. He also got to pet one of her chickens, which she picks up and holds just like I do with my cat. (She’s been known to comment under the alias “Cluckers” here. I wonder why?)
When we got back to my parent’s house from visiting Cluckers, it was dark and the sky was full of stars. Josh and I really don’t get to see that very often. We have too many trees, and far too much light pollution around our own house. So I made him stop and look. I pointed out Orion, and Cassiopeia, and he asked where the Big Dipper was. Now I’m planning an evening out with him, with a star map in hand, and we’re going to look at the stars for as long he wants to!
One of the most fun things we did this week was taking a walk by a nearby brook that looked more like a river from the heavy rains we’ve had.
Whoa! Of course we talked about the flooding, and we inspected the edges to see how high the waters had come up just a few days before.
See where he’s standing? All of that was underwater!
Then he found a clearing and danced like a leprechaun! So much for real science.
This week has made me realize that I really don’t do enough of this stuff with my kid. Sure we spend lots of time together, and he loves to read science books, but we don’t experience it as much as we should. I think we just forget to stop and pay attention to things during our usual hectic days, but now that we’ve started I’m not going to stop our science adventures, it’s been too much fun!
Thank you Susan, for inspiring us in so many ways! I hope you can look at the stars with your boys again soon. xo
ps. Go check out all of the other Team WhyMommy’s Virtual Science fair posts!
Filed Under blogging, photos, the boy Tagged blog friends, photos, science, the boy
snuggles
Most evenings we let Josh have one tv show before bed. Usually he has a snack and plays Legos while he watches, but once in awhile I have the pleasure of cuddles instead. Tonight was one of those rare nights, and I don’t ever take them for granted. Damon has been out of town for a few days, and Josh needed some mommy time.
Josh cozied up to me on the couch, and then George snuggled up to him. Sigh.
Josh loves his cat, and George loves his boy.
My foot fell asleep but I didn’t move an inch. There was no way I was going to be the one to disturb them!
Filed Under life, photos, the boy, the cat Tagged life, photos, the boy, the cat
Santa Claws
I just can’t help myself. Josh has all these little hats from his multitude of stuffed animals lying about the house. I pick them up, look at them and think how purrfectly they would fit on George. And they do. As long as he sits still.
I swear it’s not photoshopped! Damon and Josh witnessed George posing for a good 10 minutes so I could get the perfect shot. Yes, I managed to hold in my lap and take the photo at the same time…
I am an old cat lady.