A little project

... I've had this frame ABOUT a year and finally decided to put photos from the two recent graduations and the big 50th anniversary party into it... the pictures were full of clashy and bright colors, until I had a brainstorm(it was a very SMALL storm....more like a passing shower ) and converted all three of them to sepia.

Now it goes very nicely in that big empty spot on my kitchen wall. It was a floating glass frame but I stuck paper in since I don't have kitchen wallpaper.

The middle photo is the golden anniversary couple and all of their grandchildren. Awwwwww.

And for you scrappers... Paper Adventures, Heirloom Interiors, Vintage Rose-Peach. I've had it a few years... so good luck finding it. But it is archival paper.

Frasier

Photo by moi... this morning, on my rainy walk... it took 20 minutes of stalking to get one good shot, but I love this...

I have an odd affection for this bird... he has been hanging around my pond for years. Sometimes I see him in the old dead tree, up in the woods behind my house. He will eventually decide to go back to the pond and fly over my head with a whooop whooop whooop.

Once (long ago) I saw him standing on one foot for no particular reason in the back of my yard, and figured my neighbor had made some sort of a bizzarre scarecrow as a practical joke. Then I opened the window for a closer look, and about had a heart attack when he spread his wings and took off.

Really, they're big.

(The largest North American heron, with a head-to-tail length of 91–140 cm (36-55 in), a wingspan of 167-201 cm (66-79 in), and a weight of 2–3.6 kg (4.4-8 lbs), it is blue-gray overall,..... thanks wiki... )

And it's not ACTUALLY a Crane. But back when I watched him fish every day, I named him Frasier. That was right after I'd had my gallbladder out, and was just starting to take walks to get my strength back and recuperate. I'd walk to the bench, sit for a while, and since it was usually around 9 am, he'd be out looking for his breakfast.

Cheesecake Tuesday

Pumpkin Caramel today. Excellent.

Carly(via Blackberry)

It's a beautiful day

....So of course I am in the ER

During mass I killed a giant millipede that was headed Stanley's way. Squished it right there on the rug . Icky. No lie, it was four or five inches long.

I escaped for a little while after lunch. I ran errands and then found a nice shady place to sit, with some little frosted things and ice tea from starbucks.... enjoying being outdoors.

Called home on my way into the market. Mr Carly managed to cut his leg on some metal, so I abandoned the grocery run. When I got home it was definitely bleeding pretty badly.... So here I sit, waiting for the suture king.

Carly(via Blackberry)

My blackberry is a vegetable too

My daughter joked to me yesterday.... "You should say 'Okie Dokie artichokie' Mom".

From there we went off on a tangent about how she doesn't like those tiny little fish in a can.

Yeah, I was lost too, at first. She mixes up things when her hampster falls off the wheel.
Artichoke, anchovy, ....sardines. So glad I paid for that tuition.

My blackberry troubles this week wasted a ton of time. Oy. Allegedly I can get money back on the battered shell, but since it's fried I'll wait and see if that pans out. I am growing fond of the new one. I just wish yahoo didn't suck on it. I liked the app I had. I do like a couple of the new apps like ScoreMobile that I've found.

Two weeks till the big graduation party; I have about 75 people coming and I'm still in denial about how screwed I am. Dummy. I have so much to do...
~Char
=========================

"Create the world you want to see."

letters

Dear Michael Jackson,
I couldn't care ANY less. Either way. Really.

I'm not in the "he's the greatest superstar ever" OR the "he's a freak" team. Although I lean to the latter. But then I think a lot of brilliant artists are REALLY, really emotional wrecks. I know I am, hahahaha.

We were at the baseball field last night when he expired, and all of the parents with Blackberrys were chatting about 'he's in the hospital', 'he's dead', etc. It was funny because my friend's wife called him to say "MJ is dead" and we had all known for an hour. We talked about how we used to get BIG news when we got home from sports events, because we would have been in an information void while we sat at that game, 25 years ago. Viva la wireless technology.

Dear Research In Motion,
so help me god if your automatic updates fry my PC the way they killed my little Red crackberry... it won't be pretty.

I spent 5 hours waiting for an upgrade to finish on Red, (I knew it was bad but steps 1 & 2 that ran were "backup everything" and "delete everything" so I was trapped.... and the damn thing crapped out on step 11. Of 11. ) It totally fried the operating system and I could not restore it, despite 3 attempts. I gave up and got a new one, since I was elegible for upgrade. ATT doesn't have the Storm, so I stuck with the BB Curve since I like it. The camera's better, the whole thing runs faster, and the browser's a little nicer than what I had.... but what a horrible way to get there. I sat and cried at my pc the other night then thought "Get a grip, C".

Dear PC,
really, stop with the fan noise increasing in pitch. It's freaking me out. Seriously. Stop it.

I do have a nice new external drive and I have backed up my data. I see myself shopping for a purchase I don't want to make, in the very near future.

Dear former employer,
thank you for giving me this wonderful summer day off, with pay. And yesterday, and last month, and... well, you know what I mean. But giving me the axe in a group setting? That kind of sucked. Still not thrilled about that. Just saying...

~Carly

Shooting golfers

So today is the school golf tourney; I take pictures of the groups and print onsite. My HP Photosmart is 3 or 4 years old has been acting wonky so I bought this new Canon Selphy.

My selection process was very elaborate - I didn't have much time, and there was one choice. I bought it. ;-)

It's a little odd. The paper feeds all of the way through from the front, and then goes back and forth a few times for the color layers (yellow, magenta, cyan....). So you need room behind it. But it's quicker than the HP and smaller, as you can see.

The ink cartridge is strange because it's two bands with some sort of ink-coated cellophane, but is perfectly matched to the paper quantity it comes along with.

I'm pretty happy about the picture quality. So maybe I'll let my kids have the HP. Hahahahaha.....

~Char
=========================

"Create the world you want to see."

Rain Rain Go Away

IMG_2949
Originally uploaded by carlyq80

... after I'm done photographing, that is. I like to shoot sometimes with a little bit of cloud cover in the sky so that the glare isn't a problem....

Busy, I've been so busy. Two graduations and the requisite midnight bowling afterwards and then someone else's graduation party and of course Father's day... the piles of papers on my desk are getting deeper. And I have a party to throw in less than 3 weeks.

Hi kids, welcome to summer. We have work to do!

Insanity rules

So I got a cabinet from Suzy when she moved - one of the ones that goes over "the throne", if you will.

I threw away the old "spare roll" holder we'd been using, and stashed some paper inside the new cabinet. Then I thought "hhhhmmmm. Someday I'll see this space empty, when I need it NOT to be. "

I wrote this note and can now report IT WORKED.

So, I'm crazy. But I've got paper....

Carly(via Blackberry)

Flowers don't say cheeeeese

...but I like to photograph them anyway.


Love using the macro mode to catch tiny details....


and I love that these managed to grow in my garden despite my "not really green" thumb.

And that this happened in my kitchen, just before I threw the dead flowers from this arrangement away...

Wii fit update

Things I like / dislike about the wii... which I have been faithfully using for 12 days now, only missing one day.

I hate the female trainer. She is perky and skinny and just not my kind of girl. Also, why are both of the wii trainers lilly-white? Diversity. Geez. I think I would like her more if she was a curvy Latina with a trace of an accent. I'm not even kidding. She would seem friendlier that way. VanillaGirl is very cold and unfriendly.

I like the guy. Don't know why. I don't see him as particularly manly (not to say he's effeminate, just kind of average) , but he's not as threatening to me as IceGirl. I like hearing him say "Way to Go!" when I don't actually fall off the board doing a one-legged balance pose. (Don't laugh. It happens. Then the trainer says "you put your foot down, didn't you?" Oh, right, a computer is now going to give me attitude. Thank you. )

Today the Wii decided I was spending too much time with him and gave me the female trainer. Really - she actually showed up on my screen and said "I hope you don't mind, I 'll be filling in for your regular trainer today. Um, I don't think so! Luckily she went away after one yoga pose. Buh bye, doll. It would be nice to be able to have my son or my daughter be my coach. Well, not my son, because he laughs himself silly over how I do on some of the balance games.

I have been running again. Today is the first day I would charactarize what I did as actually resembling running, because it was almost evenly split between walk a while, run a while, but that's not really the point I'm getting to. You can enter non-wii exercise in the log on the wii fit. It will show up as a gray part of the bar graph showing your daily workouts - almost like they don't believe you. "Well, you say so, but we're not giving it a pretty color. " The other gripe I have is that you can only enter exercise for TODAY. No matter which date you click on the calendar, you log it to today. Losers. Work on that part of the code, wiiGeeks.

I would still recommend it to my fellow couch potatoes though... the yoga feedback on whether you're really balancing well is definitely helping me. And I can navigate a soap bubble through a rocky canyon. No lie.

Random website recommendation

I was in the library with my daughter looking for books on Hitler (oh what a fun time that was...) and I noticed a book called The Gallery of Regrettable Food and managed to find the author's website.

The main site is http://www.lileks.com/ and there are enough interesting things to keep just about all of you busy until I come up with some time to work on this blog!

I am actually doing some work on a web page for a friend of a friend; the web page content is about a recording artist who is working on his second cd. I am LOVING this little project. I won't get paid all that much, but the money will go into a secret hiding place to be saved up for a REAL camera. I'm thinking maybe a Canon digital rebel. Modes, baby. Lots of shooting modes and buttons and fun stuff. And I want a 24-105 zoom lens. Just smile and nod...

Clicks

Just a few random pictures here, with comments... this weekend was very mixed, weather-wise, but I managed to enjoy the good weather and duck the bad. At Country Drive-in I saw a 59 Corvette convertible. I immediately sent a picture of the car to Suzy with a request to have one for my very own; I have yet to hear back from her. I like how the two headlights and the area below make a face.... or am I the only one who sees that?

sigh... yes, I thought so.

Earlier in the day my son and I took in the scenery at the visitor's center at the point where the Hudson River splits off into the Erie Canal... (we were too late for the farmer's market, my bad)

This is an example of some of the clouds that were out and about in the evening, before the thunderstorms moved in. I love clouds. Don't know why. Did you hear they might officially declare a new type of cloud? really ... first Pluto isn't a planet and now they want to declare that there are FOUR types of clouds? I need to lie down. It gives me a headache.

More clouds, earlier in the day, after a trip to Michaels (!) and the market (boooo). I swear that the upper mountains in the shot below are in Vermont, at least it seems that way because I don't usually see them. And, I shoot very CROOKED these days. I need to get a tiny bubble level and put it on the back of my darn camera. But this is, I believe, one of the ones I shot out of the sunroof of my car. SO that may be why it's a little crooked. It's vistas like this that are part of why I like living here, and not in some really flat place where the wind can blow along a tumbleweed for miles. (I'm hurtling downhill here at about 70 mph. Hi Mom.)

And then there are the falls. Pretty huh? You can find these in Cohoes. It's not like they hide them or anything....

Too much to do these days.... that's all the time I have for you, internets... it's not you, it's me....

Attention wildlife

Apparently my property is NOT the place for you to be havin' young'uns.... Just saying.

Carly(via Blackberry)

Found it!

Kudos to Emmay for saying "it's probably under your car seat" in a text message. For the life of me, I don't know how it got there. I guess it fell out of my purse. Unfortunately I didn't find the OTHER missing thing, the paper I need... not under my carseat. Oy.

But... happy Friday. It's rainy and I have no plans, which could sink me down pretty quickly, but I think I'm going to do a little bit around here, and work out, and then go use the Michael's gift card that my sister gave me, after a nice lunch. Because That Bank is still paying me for not showing up. Awesome.

Really really dead!

Sorry about the multiple post on the previous item. I guess my Blackberry was traumatized too. Not as much as me. I took a walk over to ponder how to throw the squirrel in the woods, (shovel? work gloves? ) and it's a baby bunny. Boooo hoooo.

Wild fricken' kingdom

I looked out my family room window and saw a hawk swoop down and snatch up a hapless squirrel. He landed in the apple tree in my neighbor's yard. Three robins immediately freaked out and chased him away (from their nests, I presume, since there was a baby bird in my hedges when I was trying to cut them. He lived. The squirrel ain't looking so good where the hawk dropped him. )

This reminds me, I never blogged about how really stupid the deer are in Pennsylvania. Honestly, there are dead deer all over those highways. I even saw one that had been torn into three pieces by whatever hit it. Yummy.

Enjoy your dinner.

Carly(via Blackberry)

You might say

...She is having a very good day.

I guess that's what the secret wink is all about. I just walked by the room, and saw her sitting on a pile of stuff, winking at me

Carly(via Blackberry)

Tilt

There is a subtle trend in all of my photos. They tilt a leeeeeetle bit to one side. How annoying. I guess I have to tape a level to the back of the camera...

I added about ten of my favorite photos from last night's shoot to my Flickr photostream.

Meet up

Someone forwarded a "meet up" link to me, and it was for a kayak group, but I don't have a kayak yet. I looked around the site and found a photography group, and so I went to the Empire State Plaza to meet some of the other members to take some photos tonight... these are two of my favorites.

I definitely had the baby camera of the bunch - no lens switching for me... but I have at least 15 shots I really like (out of probably 150 +, thank god for digital)

The one above is a long exposure, self timer with a tripod, and then you know I had to show you one that I played with tonal curves because I just can't NOT DO IT sometimes.

For you who are not familiar, this is The Egg.... not the mother ship of an alien race. It's actually a small theater and was the scene of the crime for the recent field trip I chaperoned.

Huh. I had way more fun tonight ;-)

Search Party

I have lost my Road ID. This makes me VERY, very unhappy. In part because I am a clutz and feel a little paranoid about running without this on my arm and a mack truck running me over, and no one knowing who I am. But also because I hate being disorganized. And because I wore it in my first "real" 5 K and I really enjoyed running that summer and want to get back to it again... so many reasons.


So...

if you are feeling psychic and can suggest to me where I might find it (I've looked for 3 days now) and you are correct, I will buy you a road ID. No, really. The original wrist id version or the shoe version ($19 value). One winner. Mine is red, by the way, but you can pick your color.

Help!

To sleep, perchance to dream

So I woke up at about 3:45 from vivid and peculiar dreams that have slid back down into my subconscious.

I worried about money for a little while, the went out to my newly acquired couch(...which, for the record, is not newy purchased; it's from Suzy's former apartment and for the first time in years I can stretch out in my family room).

I read some facebook notifications aboot the PENS on my (bl/cr)ackberry, plus a guest photographer post from scott kelby's blog. Then I looked at AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com - you have to check that out.

I had a small snack, because I'm hungry, so my stomach is feeling off. I wonder what my WiiBtch trainer would say... Snacking at 4 am. Greaaaaaat - that WILL get my BMI down.

Of course the REASON for being awake is the two wines and three sodas after dinner last night, when I met an old friend and his wife who are in town for a short visit. That and the potato skins may not help my stats either.

Did I mention we killed off one of the two new fish already? Whoops. Yes, after a lovely communion breakfast we returned home to the smell of death. I knew I should have changed that tank water sooner.

I think Mr C is less than thrilled with my housekeeping this last week or so. It's not totally unfounded. There are plenty of things here and there. But in my own defense, there are three of them, all avidly watching tv whenever their eyes are open, and so I don't feel the urge to play Cinderella and work like a dog all day, just to have them mess it all up again.

I've been somewhat gainfully unemployed for two (almost 3) months now, depending on how you count. I alternate between "god I'm getting nothing done" and "but I still have x weeks of severance pay and it's ok to enjoy myself a LITTLE" and "I did do the yearbook and all that other school stuff and help her move and....".

So that dialogue doesn't help me fall back asleep. Neither does the snoring. Last night I resorted to Ocean Waves on my ipod, certain I'd strangle myself with the cord. No, I only slept through the alarm that THEY all need to get up to go where they belong.

Good times, my dear friends, good times.


Carly(via Blackberry)

Where does my day go?

The desk still looks like this....

I talked to an old friend. That's important.

I worked out for an hour with the Wii fit. That's important tooo. Hmmm.

Talked to someone who has a project I can work on to get some creative experience. Very psyched about that.

Took some photos of roses. Haven't even done anything with the photos from my trip yet.

Talked to my mom and my sister.

Can you see where this is going??? That's right, dishes in my sink and no laundry done.

Carly(via Blackberry)

The Scrapbook

(pardon me, internet. I had a little two hour wrestling match yesterday with some hedge clippers, and I'm not quite myself yet today... that's my lame excuse for not writing about this sooner)


When I opened the scrapbook my daughter gave to us at her graduation breakfast...

I was looking at a picture of myself... ! and the title "The most unforgettable person in my life"

::::awwww::::::

She wrote things like "there for me no matter what" and "always tried to help me" that most parents try their hardest to convey to their kids, and hope they understand. She wrote a (long) list of things I have done for her school... and that I have taught her to be independent by being able to cook, do things around the house... and that she sees me as being open to what she has to say, and willing to give my honest opinions

As days go, I'd say it was a ten :-)

There were pictures from her first day of first grade, a "happy memory" page (meeting her baby brother for the first time, which was on her 3rd birthday), of our extended family... her first communion...the Christmas tree decorating parties we have every year... There is room left for graduation photos.

Sniffle.

Wiibtch

My daughter has been campaigning vigorously for a WiiFit and I cracked the other day.

I was frustrated by a little trip to the DMV... I didn't have a hair sample from my great grandmother to prove my identity... or actually, one of the 5,000 papers they require. (I am planning to get an enhanced driver's license for our summer road trip - they're fairly new, and can serve in lieu of a passport to drive or go by boat to Canada.) But I wasted about an hour on the trip. Grrrr.

So I tore my house apart looking for that certain paper, and my kids circled. "Can we open the wiiFit?" (snarl) . A few minutes later, "Please?" (growl). Not my finest hour.

After dinner (oh, who am I kidding, WINE) I opened the box and set it up (batteries, attach the little feet extenders to the bottom because we have a thick rug..)

A voice that sounded something like my grandmother sucking helium came from the thing. "Starting up!" Ohhhhkay.

I have a "Mii" set up already (for those of you who don't play, you can make a little characters to represent yourself. My first try came out something like Hilary Clinton, so I had to fix it. Changed the hair, made myself taller and thinner. Heh. )

Well, sHelium was having none of that. When I got on the board for the first time sHe said "Ohhh!" and I wanted to slap it. I get it, b!tch . After weighing me it immediately changed my mii to a shorter, pudger version of me. Dammit.

I am afraid I continued to call the yoga trainer bad names as she put me through my initial routine, saying helpful things like "Your foot touched down, didn't it?" My only consolation is that my current fitness age is 32, according to her. Blahahahaha. It's obviously broken.

Temptation

Oy.

I am still patiently waiting for the scrapbook that my daughter will be giving to us at the graduation breakfast this Sunday.

Today she called me* and said "I really need you to bring my scrapbook over right now, I left it home and we are supposed to be wrapping them at school today."

Now how was I supposed to go and fetch it, while I am alone in the house, and NOT LOOK INSIDE?

Somehow, I managed.

I also managed not to buy any Ben & Jerry's individual ice cream cups at the market. I'm on a roll today...

Google Reader, Post Eater

I'm not clear on why... but it seems as though if I start to write a post and save the draft in Blogger, when I get around to finishing it and posting it, anyone who uses Google Reader won't actually see that post.

So if you use GR (and if not, why don't you???) here is my Crazy Woman at the Kid's Baseball Game story and here is a card I made last week, if either of those interest you.

Foul

Yesterday I got myself some dinner (bruschetta and chicken caesar salad) from the only nice restaurant that's close to my house, and headed over to my kid's baseball game.

For reference, the players on this team are 11 or 12, and it's not even "really" Little League. It's a recreational league run by the town. Nothing to get yourself all tied up in knots about.

When I got there some of D's teammates were saying they might have to forfeit and D's coaches were nowhere to be seen. I found out later one coach's wife has the chicken pox; I'd say he missed all the fun but I guess he didn't, really, now did he????

This woman kind of stomped by from our dugout on the way back over to hers, with her scorebook. I guess she keeps the book for the other team. She's kind of a slob and was dressed in a tacky sort of way, and has a BIG mouth. Genuuuuine White Trash, if you will. I remember two years ago, she sat in her lawn chair and HECKLED 9 year olds with singsong chants like "batter, batter, he can't hit".

GWT was saying something about the game that I can't recall now. Something along the lines of "we need to start now or they have to forfeit." Since she was right in front of me, I looked at her and said "seriously?" in my best "I think perhaps you're an ass" tone and she shot me a dirty look. Get a grip, lady. It was a gorgeous evening and the kids were all there and ready to play, except I couldn't quite figure out where Coach was.


AnotherMom from my son's team walked by me and said "I'm going to stab her in the eye with this pencil" and I thought she meant me, but no, GWT was giving her crap because AnotherMom didn't know really how to keep the book, she was just trying to help since Mrs. Chicken Pox wasn't there to do it. And the whole starting RIGHT now thing... AnotherMom's husband went out onto the field to play coach for a few minutes.


So this was getting amusing, and I sat there eating my bruschetta and CCsalad and enjoying the show heat up. Our Coach came back with his kid's best friend, who is also the same age and in the same rec league. The shit started to hit the fan.


GWT came storming over screaming that he was an illegal player and it was a slimy thing for Coach to go get "a ringer" (who is his neighbor, and his son's best friend, and word from my other buddy is that this kid is not playing well these days on his travel team, being a KID who's YOUNG and not necessarily A PRO BALLER and maybe having an off season) .

GWT was ranting and raving about how this was an illegal game, and Coach started to get hot. He pointed out that he would do anything for his team and the rec league and he just wanted the kids to be able to play the game tonight.

She stormed over to her own chair again. By now people were really noticing her tantrums. AnotherMom's pencil hand was twitching noticably. Awesome.


The backup coach for our opponents came over and told our Coach that the kids could still play, but it wouldn't be an official game. He was a little testy about it, and Coach was getting more upset. He just wanted to move forward without all of the adults bickering.


Blue (the umpire) started the game and Coach went to call the league director. He verified that it was a valid substitution since the kid's the right age and in our little rec league already.


So he called over GWT (who was near me, berating AnotherMom for not knowing that as the home team she had to keep the book for both teams, not just ours) and said "Listen, I called X and he said that this is OK, and it is a valid game" and yada yada.


GWT went ballistic. Told him (two feet from his kids) that he was slimy and just basically stood there screaming at him with her head spinning round. Started walking away from him but was still in a full tirade, and when she got by me I caught her eye long enough while she was yelling and swearing to interrupt her with "You really need to not conduct yourself this way in front of all these kids. "


She told me it was none of my business, and I said "Really? because my kid is out there on the field listening to all of this. Go back over to your dugout and calm down."


She started screaming at me that if I didn't like it ** I ** should be the one to leave, and Blue stopped the game, which the poor kids were trying to keep playing with all of this crap going on. He came over to the fence and looked at her and pointed and said "I'm going to have to ask you to leave the park if you don't stop."

Hee, hee.


I got a GREAT icy glare from her at that point and I laughed in her face and said "You're being ridiculous. " So then she stormed off. Idiot. It was awesome.

GWT later tried to bum a cigarette up by the concession stand from AnotherMom. It was hilarious. She went on and on about how we all started yelling at her. Hello? Really? In NYS a carton of cigarettes is about a million dollars now, with all the taxes. She was irate when AM wouldn't give her one.

By the way... the "ringer" ? Pop fly caught by the other team's shortstop. Although he did make a sweeeet double play when a ball was hit to him and he tagged second base to get an advancing runner out. Final score, 11 - 1 we kicked their asses. But it's only a game. Snicker.

We have to play them again next Thursday, but sadly, I won't be there. I'll be at the dance recital shooting mommies. Um, make that asking Mommies not to use our backdrop.

Boxes, beers, bump into's, and brawls

Quick hits...

Moved S into her third floor apartment on Monday, which required more trips up to the third floor than I dared count. About six hours for the four of us to lug boxes up and squish into what is a cute, bright, clean, but on the small side apartment. Pain from the knees down today, not bad all things considered.

Then recovered, or made myself feel worse ultimately, with several Blue Moon beers and some fantastic pizza in a rooftop bar a few blocks from the apartment. Perfect weather for such an outing and apparently they don't import NY black flies.

On the flight home I had to change planes in Baltimore. While looking for the authentic crab cakes The Boyfriend promised me, I tripped over my own next door neighbors. Reminder, we DON"T live in Baltimore so this was a very freakish event, and required a photograph. Crab cakes were awesome, BTW

The brawl deserves a post of its own... for now, suffice it to say it was Sports Parents Gone Stark Raving Mad and it's probably good that Mr. C wasn't there to poke me and say "shhhh". But then again, I'm not the one the Ump was ready to throw out. :-)

Go Pens!