Rambling Along

October 28, 2008

I was hoping that this Halloween would be full of creativity such as I have seen all these many years.  Now that I am ready to photograph the lawn spooks and creatures with my new infrared camera, suddenly what I am seeing doesn’t seem so exciting.  I have a few more days to go, and am hoping that people will get busy.  Enough with the pumpkins already – do something picture-worthy.  Of course I am a Halloween grinch.  This Friday night, the house will be dark and our family will be hiding in the basement until each and every little darling is home with their bag of loot (none received from 487)

September 27, 2008

It seemed to take a long time to decide about Elaine’s weekend up north but finally, like a hurricane, it blew itself out.  Unfortunately everybody is beginning to feel stressed and even the brunch for Sunday couldn’t make a go of it.  School seems so much less stressful than last year at this time, but we have theses to work on!  In my case the folk dance class is shut down until after all the High Holidays are done..end of October and the kids’s dance school wants me to begin in October just to get the kids feeling relaxed so I have the freedom of time to work on readings and 3 upcoming class projects.  I feel as if I can handle it.  I am looking forward to beginning the dance photography though.  Mainly because I’m not sure how I will approach it.  As in the past I see myself hanging back and then with confidence moving in closer and closer and that will be the time that I will get the photographs that I want.  The folk dancing group has a 95 year old and she is a real fireball!  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she will be more than willing to be the star in the seniors group of photographs.  Play up to the camera – she will be more than welcome to do so.  In my other life, I have been doing alot of riding…hacking in the woods with Donna and her horse, and taking lessons from Laurel on Stinky the quarter horse.  How anybody could call their horse Stinky is beyond me but there it is.  He’s a good, down to earth horse as is Bonnie, the Arab mare who belongs to Donna and who I ride.  The High Holidays are coming up in a few days and there will be lots of cooking and trying to stay relaxed and organized.  Disappointed in nephew J. because he is totally not inspired to come with my brother for a family dinner. 

 

September 8, 2008

School started.  Everybody was there and everybody looked good. Happy to see each other etc.  This was a meeting.  W. had his arm in a cast and said that it had been a bad year, but he still managed to mumble funny things under his breath.  D. came in from Grad Studies with a big smile on her face….memories of aggravating emails etc.  suddenly disappeared.   I guess we all found out today finally what our second elective is.  I find that whole system very confusing.  Maybe I’m the only person who is confused by this tangled web but I’m not going to change any of my courses even though I am the last person in the world (I thought) to be interested in databases.  I guess this wasn’t my first choice.  Hopefully V. will be a good teacher and mark lovingly.  I know he sent a very, nice welcoming email to the class.  I had a talk with Don in his office and told him that I wanted to photograph a group of oldsters who are dancing as well as a group of young totsters.  It would support my thesis that everybody loves to dance.  But I wonder how difficult or easy it will be to get my group of people and kids.  Mothers today are not overjoyed at their kids being photographed by non-family members.  Next week when I come back from my trip I will do some serious researching and telephone calling.  And plan that by the end of September I am all set to be a dancing fiend and friend to all.  I bought a new camera – it’s a Fujifilm digital infrared camera and I am thrilled to have it…it was difficult to get, I saw Bill’s examples and they are amazing, and I am psyched!  But the manual is on a pdf..kind of a stupid thing to do.  And things do not work the way I thought they would so I really do have to read the manual.

Tomorrow class at 9 a.m.  A tad early but maybe I can get my stuff at the bookstore without having to stand in a never ending line.

AUGUST 24, 2009

Why isn’t Sunday my favourite day – it’s simple.  Sunday is the end of the weekend….what is there to look forward to now.  Monday?  Monday is the scariest day of the week.  Monday puts a hell of alot of pressure on us to succeed and to fulfil promises that we have made to ourselves.  Tuesday….well Tuesday is close to the beginning of the week but I can correct what went wrong on Monday.  If I don’t fulfil the Monday promises I can make amends by organizing and putting things right on Tuesday…make those telephone calls, check off things on THE list, go for the brisk walk with the dog…feel the calories of the weekend melting away, Wednesday commonly known as hump day is not a bad day at all.  Monday and Tuesday can be corrected, …maybe a coffee or lunch with a friend, a horseback ride  in the country north of the city, a pilates class when I return, time to make an interesting vegetarian dinner, then a glass of wine on the front porch with husband and dog talking about the week.  Oh oh if this is my life we’re talking about Wednesday doesn’t happen like that.  Husband goes to karate that night and I usually don’t make a vegetarian dinner.  Thursday, that’s the day we sit on the porch and chat about life and drink a drink, have a snack and then dinner is ready because I had time to prepare it during the day.  Friday – yay!!  I love Friday.  We usually go to sisinlaw’s for dinner and sit out on her deck while she brings more food out than I have seen all week.  I have 2 glasses of wine and I have brought dessert (which I would rather not indulge in – calories are evil).  Friiday night we can stay up late without conscience and then the next morning it’s Saturday.  Ah Saturday!  I go to the stable and have a lovely ride with friends, husband plays golf, we get home and there are naps to be had, dog walks to be taken, a fairly lazy day and then dinner out at a restaurant or at friends.  Saturday…..!  The next morning it’s Sunday – still feeling o.k.  Make a decision whether or not to ride – I either ride and enjoy, or stay home and enjoy.  Perhaps a blueberry pancake breakfast with a latte and reading all the weekend papers, catch up on work and fun work (creative stuff) and all of a sudden it’s Sunday night.  Oh oh, time to get a wee bit anxious.  No great feelings of freedom to look forward to..got to face the Monday and fulfilment of promises again.  Sunday – the day of reckoning before the reckoning must begin in earnest.

AUGUST 26, 2008

Sometimes it seems as if problematic technical things only happen to me.  Why do I say that – because when I ask techies if they have ever encountered a particular problem the answer is always no.  I rest my case.  But before I totally rest it, I will explain what happened.  I had uploaded the photos from the recent wedding that I did unto both my Mac and the PC (just to be safe).  Since I have decided I must use the Mac alot more (and I do like the Mac – it’s not hard to convince me to use it) I did all the post work using CS3 on the Mac.  Once they looked ready for viewing by the client, I burned a DVD.  Then I put that particular DVD into my PC to take a look and for some reason all the verticals were sideways.  I have a feeling  that when uploading images directly from the camera into the Mac everything will be positioned correctly..I won’t have to manually (using Photoshop) rotate the verticals.  I asked a few people if they  had ever heard of that problem and of course the answer was no.  Maybe the PC couldn’t read the disc because the Mac had done its own corrections.  Do I really know?  I’m one of the least technical people I know…although that isn’t quite true.  I’ve been able to do o.k. with Photoshop over the years and have become a bit more logical. 

Speaking of logical, I’ve started to do Sudoku on the advice of M.  He seems to think that this will improve my brain power and I believe that he has a point.  But even the ones marked extremely easy, for babies only although it doesn’t have me completely baffled  does have me thinking “what the…!”

Knitting is very relaxing, and I have been working on a blanket for our queen sized bed.  There are 600 stitches on the circular needles.  It will take forever I think.  I’m on the second ball of wool and it’s only about 3 inches long so far.  Somebody told me, (the instructor I think), that the part of the brain that knows how to knit is the same part that does meditation.  I love knitting because it can be done anywhere.  People don’t think you’re rude if you seem to ignore them while knitting and they can keep talking away, while I just knit and nod.  I’m actually considering bringing my knitting into class.  I’ve seen other students on their laptops.  One would think they’re taking notes, but they’re checking Facebook, other sites, etc.  But would knitting be too blatant?