October 28, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 9 Comments
As I’ve kind of mentioned in a round-about way, Texas Seeestor is getting married soon! Next Saturday, to be precise. As of this time next week, we’ll all be together in Texas.
Texas Seestor and her fiance Trainwreck, asked me to sing at the wedding ceremony. Since I didn’t have any wedding music in my repertoire, so to speak, they chose the song upon the advice of their accompaniest, and they mailed me the sheet music.
When I received it, I was relieved to see that the highest note is a D. Which, as an alto, is in a semi-comfortable spot when I’m singing in a choir. As a soloist, well, it takes a little more work to make it totally comfortable. Luckily, it is also the spot in the song where I am supposed to sing the loudest.
Anyway, for the first couple of months, I had No Idea whatsoever what the song sounded like. This is the disadvantage of not playing piano.
Finally, I found someone to play it for me and Lo and Behold! it is the same tune as “The Water is Wide.” I’ve always loved that song. I was introduced to it in choir in middle- or high-school. It was probably middle-school. And am fond of the version that James Taylor has done at the end of one of his albums.
So, I’ve been practicing, so that I can hit that D comfortably. Not to mention just getting entirely comfortable with the song.
And last night, HB had to work late, so I figured it was a perfect chance to practice before I ate supper (after eating I find it is trickier to keep my throat clear enough to sing).
Now, the Girlie-girl was a bit anxious, I am guessing, that HB wasn’t home. She might’ve also been concerned that I wasn’t On the Couch like I was Supposed To Be at this hour of the night so that I could Pet Her.
So, I reminded her that the On the Couch comes after supper, remember, Girlie-girl?
First, she kept fussing around on the floor while I sang meowing &/or rolling on her back, cleaning etc.
Finally, she jumped up on the chair where I had my sheet music sitting
and then jumped up on top of the music!
D: hurmpf. Well, I guess I can’t exactly sing now, can I?
GG: No, now you HAVE to pay attention to me.
D: Dork. Fine, I’ll just take your picture.
GG: *grumble, grumble* not the dang camera again.
D: Well, I can’t help it. You just do the silliest things.
GG: Now. If I. Can. Just. Get. Comfortable…
So, you don’t think she was trying to say something about the quality of my singing do you?
I took both pictures last night with Dee-Dee.
October 27, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 11 Comments
The first weekend I arrived, one of our goals was to get my home office space set up so that I would have a nice place to write my thesis.
It was a little daunting from the hallway.
There were so many boxes, and so many heavy boxes of books…
…boxes that I couldn’t even begin to lift! And when I looked at it during the first two days, I felt a sense of panic. You know, the panic that isn’t so strong that you feel sick to your stomach, but the panic that makes you breathe a little faster and makes your mind run faster, and well, maybe makes you feel a weeee bit queasy.
But HB reassured me that he could move the heavy boxes. And that above all I was “NOT to panic.”
He knows me so well.
So, we moved the boxes into the hall. That would be the royal we, meaning he. And we pushed my existing furniture around in the room to get it into place. That would be the not so royal we, meaning, well, meaning the two of us.
After taking multiple measurements of the wall nearest the door, the one that doesn’t have the closet, we headed off to attempt to buy bookcases.
You see, while I had a bookcase that used to be in my office, there were a couple of problems with it.
It was
A) overflowing with books – which meant there was No Room for my textbooks and binders that I’d had at my school office.
B) making me feel claustrophobic due to the height of it in the room.
Now, I may not be into feng shui, or whatever that stuff is, but I do know when I feel like my air supply is being cut off. And that is what used to happen when I would go into my old home office for any length of time.
We went to both Home Deeee-pot and Target. And after perusing the aisles at both places The Search for Bookcases was starting to look rather dire.
However, in desperation, we took a closer look at these stackable cube things that Target is selling. And lo and behold! The measurements were right. The shelves were tall enough to hold my textbooks and binders, and there were these cute little cubes that you could mix and match all over the place to get the look you wanted.
There was even a rounded end piece. AND the color appeared to match my desks that we’d purchased years ago, at least, so we were hoping.
*Assembly Required
Um yeah.
Assembly took a while. But the good thing was that by the end of Sunday night, my office was D.O.N.E.!!
I took these pics a week and a half ago Monday, when the light was nice.
First, the view from the door was no longer daunting!
Perhaps welcoming even!
And yes, that is my iBook in white on the desk! Beautiful new lovey.
And tah-dah! The Bookcases!
Aren’t they GRRRRReat! (in the manner of Tony the Tiger)
It makes me smile to see them.
And that glowing thing on top, is the lamp we found at Ikea. I’ve always been really into spiral shapes, so I glommed onto this lamp really fast.
And I’ve been just waiting to hang my little party lights up somewhere!
And I’ve got my slinky’s and magic sand in the little cube. And most of my pictures.
And did you notice the rounded end piece? I know the lines of books and binders are rather distracting, so I thought I’d point all of that out.
At some point, it would be nice to change the paint color and actually hang my pictures up. But there is time for that later.
For now, writing calls.
October 21, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 9 Comments
When I flew in last week, HB took me out to dinner at Don Pablo’s (yum!). Then, because we needed breakfast food, we stopped at the grocery store near our house.
It is sooooo completely gorgeous. I walked around saying “I can’t believe it! This is so amazing!”
Sometime, I’ll take Dee-Dee with me, and show you what I mean.
Actually, when I stopped there the other day, I was in the vegetable aisle, and I was itching to take photos of the produce. The displays were that pretty.
Anyway, back to the night I flew in, I saw some beautiful mums when I first walked in and stopped in my tracks. HB, being the observant hubby, told me that I could get some flowers. This statement, of course, led to my hemming and hawing between the cut flowers and the potted mums.
“Do I get cut flowers, which include some beautiful gerbera daisies in lovely autumn shades, but which will only last for a week?”
“Or do I get the potted mum which will last for quite a long time and are pretty in their own right but aren’t the same as the gerbera daisies?”
HB, probably wanting to keep our trip as short as possible *wink wink*, suggested that we get both.
BOTH!
Yay!
So, on Thursday of last week, I set up a little photoshoot of the flowers in the late afternoon light.
Yes! That is our new home!
But back to the flowers, I was struck by how the view of the daisy from the side reminded me of a feather duster.
And when I stepped back a little bit, the shadow on the grass was actually very pretty too.
At the time, the light was changing minute by minute and I was working kind of fast to get the photos I had in mind before the light changed too much. And I didn’t think to find the tripod ahead of time. So, I still haven’t done any photos with a tripod and the timer on Dee-Dee yet. I want to try taking photos that way though, because I read on the Flickr Nikon D70 group that it is one way to get really clear close-up shots (no jiggling while you hold the camera and while you press the button).
For now, though, I’m happy with how this turned out.
It felt really good to spend some time with Dee-Dee. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed getting to spend time on photography.
I took all photos with Dee-Dee, my Nikon D70, last Thursday in the late afternoon light of our new home.
October 20, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 9 Comments
Tonight, I got to meet one of my blogging friends IN PERSON. No more just a photo on a flat computer monitor, but a three-dimensional, real, live, person!
Yup! That’s Amber and me in a self-portrait!
The funny part of it is that we’d talked about how once I moved here we wanted to go to Cold Stone Creamery together for ice cream. How is that funny, you ask? Well, just hooooold on, I’m getting there.
Anyway, we had kind of batted around the idea of whether it should be with our spouses in tow, or just the 2 (or 3 (Jonah) of us). In the end, it worked out really well to just have a girl’s night (+Jonah, the cutie-pie). Andy is out of town, and HB had to work late = Cool.
We morphed it into supper and time to hang out before going out for ice cream. And wouldn’t you know it, but the time got away from us and before we realized it, we were too late to go out for ice cream! Doh! There’s the funny part, I know, I know. If I hadn’t pointed it out you would’ve completely missed the funniness. Aren’t you glad that you’ve got me to point it out?
We substituted yummy coffee drinks from Caribou instead, which was better because it is dang cold outside, ya know?
yahhhh Danielle, you betcha.
Here, to make up for my lack of funny stories and lame Minnesota accent jokes, I give you the cuteness of Jonah.
Jonah, who is known to be particularly fond of a wooden spoon, right now, decided that the Girlie-girl’s plastic cat brush might just be a reasonable substitute.
Of course, all of the camera action brought over the camera hog, I mean, the Girlie-girl.
She was a bit skeeerd of that small animal that didn’t have the right color of fur. Even if he is smaller, she was just not sure that he wasn’t going to perhaps encroach upon her territory.
But Jonah’s good natured attitude was not deterred by the unfriendliness of the Girlie. Nope! He is just a very happy little boy.
Very curious too.
“Hey! What are those things on your face?”
“Do they taste good?”
“um, I’m not so sure that I want them on my face. They are better on yours. But I would like to taste them again, really.”
Amber and I took these pictures tonight with Dee-Dee.
October 17, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 17 Comments
There are still several aspects of moving here that I haven’t gotten to blog about yet.
The first is about the Girlie-Girl.
The night I walked in the door, she acted very afraid of me. I don’t know if she’d given me up for dead and thought I was a ghost or if it was that I smelled like Tizer and airplane fuel. Either way, she wasn’t. too. sure. what. to. think. about. me. quite. yet.
After HB showed me a bit of the seeeekrit squirrel stuff (more about that another day), I sat on the floor and let her sniff and sniff me. And then she slowly let me pet her on the head.
Maybe. that’s. okay.
Oh but wait, maybe not. *swipe*
Okay then, we’ll just go look at more of the house and the monumental job of unpacking that HB did before I arrived. And then I sat on the couch and called her over. And she finally came over, and sniffed me, and I petted her on the head for a little bit longer than the previous time. And then she swiped at me.
And that happened one more time on the floor in the living room, the sniffing, petting, and swiping. And then FInally, she seemed to get the sniffing and swiping part out of her system.
By the next day, we were allllll friends again. I think the only time I got scratched was playing with her.
When we went to Target to buy her cat litter, we were in the cat aisle you know. So, I made sure to get her a brush to replace the one that got lost in the move and a couple new toys.
And ohhhhh does she lurve the new brush, let me tell you.
“Oh, over here, please.”
“ummmm, yeaaah, right there.”
And the new toys? Well, they are both mice. I have let her have one for now and she’ll get the other one later sometime.
“Oh! What’s this!”
“mmmmmmm… smells good.”
“And it is alllllllllllllways better when I rub the side of my face on it.”
“Geeeee, Danie, why’d you move the toy into the sun?
“You know, I kinda liked it better in the shade. Now that it is in the sun, the sun is awfully distracting, and is ever so much better than that little ol’ mouse.”
Oh, did I mention that this toy is from Fat Cat, Inc.?
Appropriate name, eh?
But shhhhh, don’t ever say the F word to her. Or she’ll get mad.
“Oh! Look! The mouse is moving! That is everrrr so much betterrrr!”
Note the claws on that left paw, which is why I’m so very carefully trying to reach for the mouse tail.
Cause when all four feet get going…. well, I’m not crazy ya know, I like my skin intact.
October 13, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 11 Comments
I have a few things I’ve been wanting to share with you, when I got a chance. Hmmm… this moment really needs a photo too, doesn’t it? hmmmm… I think that’ll be tomorrow’s post (details to follow).
I’ll tell you all of this in chronological order, I think it is easiest.
First, let’s go back a few weeks. I mentioned to some of you about how I didn’t have access to my danielleblog email. Well, part of the reason was that my good ol’ laptop died. Normally, this is the sort of situation where HB jumps in and figures out what is wrong. But he was in MN and I was in MA and there’s only so much jumping one can do from half-way across the country, you know. So, I took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy. Now, they had said 48 hrs. for a diagnosis. Before I ever took it in, HB and I discussed ‘worst case’ scenarios. In the best case, they’d fix it and I’d happily plan to write my thesis on my ol’ trusty laptop. In the ‘worst case’, I would prematurely make the leap to using mac software because we would buy my mac laptop NOW instead of waiting until I start my post-doc. You see, the lab I will be in for my post-doc is a Mac lab, while my current one is Windows. I had really just wanted to do my thesis on my Windows laptop, because I fear having all of my graphs get screwy moving them from Windows to Mac. Plus, I have to be able to email back and forth with my advisor using track changes in Word to get corrections on all of my drafts of my thesis chapters. That is a long-winded explanation for why getting a brand-spankin’ new laptop would be considered a ‘worst case’.
And then I waited. I waited 48 hours for the diagnosis (and called). And waited 72 hours.. and then we hit 4 days… and 5 days… and HB ordered me a new Mac. An iBook G4 to be precise. Because at that point, I was barely going to have time to receive it at school and move my 4 Gb of data onto my new iBook before I had to leave. You might be able to imagine the panic that was starting to set in.
On the 6th day, they figured out that the power supply in my Windows laptop was loose, and they easily repaired it by screwing it in tighter. I imagine that the power supply has been loose for a while; it probably happened back when HB took my laptop apart to fix my fan (and clean out the cat hair). But it wasn’t until I turned it on its side and carried it in my back-pack to move to Lola’s that it was josteled enought to really matter.
My iBook arrived. And LET ME TELL YOU she is sooooo beautiful!
I squealed when I saw the box and the beautiful white shiny laptop inside. I haven’t had a NEW computer since I entered undergrad… which was, hmmmm… (you know how I am about math and years and all…) 13 years ago! All this time, I’ve just been using hand-me-downs from HB.
For my first hand-me-down, I had to press really hard on the top of the lid while turning it on, to get it to start, because he’d managed to somehow break a power connection inside. Sometimes, I’d press and press and it would take 3 tries to get it to start.
yeah. That was really not so great.
The second hand-me-down always had to be plugged in, because the battery was totally ruined. Oh, and then the fan broke. And then well, you know the part about the power supply.
And you know what his first thought was about switching me to Mac right? “Oh, well, I’ll just give you mine and that way I can upgrade to a new one.”
!!
I put my foot down on that one.
I get to have a NEW ONE this time! NO more hand-me-downs with dysfunctional parts!
So, back to my beautiful new baby. She shines! And is pretty!
And she ate my powerpoint presentation that I had created in Windows and moved onto her and puked up this mess of ruined error bars and skinny little lines for the line graphs.
I became less enamored of her at that point.
However, HB tells me that there are special ways to save things that I’ve created on my Windows computer. And move them and that there are probably software patches and whatever to make her treat my Windows things right.
For right now, the jury is kind of out about whether or not I’ll use her to write my thesis. I’m still worried about stuff getting screwy if my advisor and I transfer documents back and forth.
So… we’ll see.
But she sure is pretty. And clearly works well for blogging.
I guess this is long enough for now.
I’ll tell you tomorrow about, the seeeeekrits that HB surprised me with last night when I arrived in MN!
I might even have a peeeeeeekture that is fitting for Flowers for Friday!
Did I mention that we are both taking these 4 days off? Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
We are going furniture shopping as soon as I post this.
teeeeee-heeeeee!
cya!
October 12, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 6 Comments
This is the last one in this particular fall leaf series. I think you can all see why this leaf jumped out at me when I saw it on the sidewalk.
Here is what I like about each image, that I think all of you have noticed too.
In the first one, you can see the yellow cells outlined by the green borders. They are so close to the green vein and reddish-orange region that provide nice contrast (but in retrospect, might be a hint more distracting than I’d planned on). If I were to re-post that one, I think I’d crop out the green vein.
In the second one, the veins are the star of the show. I’d intended for the color variation to be the focus, but the crevases of the veins and the patterns really draw your eye.
In the third one, the symmetry, and the tye-dye appearance really appeal to me. I also really like how the green reminds me of rays of sun coming up over the horizon or some sort of star burst.
In the fourth one, the green horns are just unbelievable. It also reminds me of a Rorschach blot in the way the patterns on each side are similar but not perfectly symmetrical. My eye is always drawn to the center vein and the red outline of cells around it. I just can’t quit tracing it with my eyes.
It reminds me of these art things my sister and I used to make. We’d start with our name or letters in black, and then would carefuly outline around it with one color of marker, and then another color. We’d keep tracing until an entire 8 1/2 x 11 paper was filled with lines of tracing. It might take all day to carefully trace with markers and not bleed into the nearby color…. but the end result was just beautiful. I wonder if we have any of those stored away at my parent’s home? I know Mom saved most of our artwork from school. If I ever get a chance to find it, I’ll show you what I mean.
This last one, isn’t quite like seeing the leaf on the sidewalk… but well, you can get a sense of what it looked like from farther away and what caught my eye.
October 11, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 8 Comments
October 10, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
October 9, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 3 Comments
