334/365*

His eyes aren't even open yet, and still, I only have a split-second before he starts mewing for his mama louder than one would think possible for his size.















* Only one month left of my photography project! Crazy!

333/365

332/365

Incidentally, this may or may not be my third serving of ice cream today.

331/365

Never underestimate the power of twenty minutes in a sunny hammock.

330/365

This box once held a bathtub. It was used for several weeks (as a rocket ship, car, airplane, boat and house) at Playgroup, and now that the year is done, I said I would take the box to a boy I do respite with, as he loves playing games in boxes. I asked for help to put it in my car.

"Your car?!" she asked.
The box had been brought in a truck.
I drive a Civic.

"You feeling mathematical?"

Clearly, she was dubious. Enough so that two other coworkers decided they had to come see this, too.

But I know my car.

A little bit of folding (both the seats of my car and the flaps of the box!), and voila! Box in car.

Origami meets Tetris. Win.

329/365

Joy in the [very] little things!

328/365

Falling into slumber...

327/365

♥ to bursting!

326/365

Upon reflection...

325/365

SUMMER!!!

324/365

Okay, taking my photo first thing in the morning isn't so bad when my face isn't involved.

That being said, it was still quite a bit more effort than usual to get my still sleep-fuzzy brain to operate the camera.

Mmm.... raspberries.

323/365

This was today. Celebration of children, families, staff, and learning at our year-end luncheon. My partner and I work closely with a group of mentors, who help us "train up" newer staff, and are always the first to eagerly step in to any volunteer role around the office. They are great. I feel the photo loses a bit of its impact without all the lovely faces. But it IS the internet, and I DON'T have permission. That being said, I left my partner's face, because she's amazing, and I just had to share her :)

WTF?! OR 322/365

So, I tried a low-light shot. Lying in bed, where the alpha waves of my brain start considering surrender to the beta waves. I took the shot five times, because I wasn't keeping the shutter open long enough the first two, and because I like at least a few options to choose from with my photos. This whole process was painful.

Never try to shoot yourself lying "asleep" in bed when it's actually time to be lying asleep in bed. Each shot took 5, then 6, then 8, 9, and 9 1/2 minutes. It was 11:45pm when I was all said and done, and by then, I tossed and turned a bit before finally falling asleep around 12:30. Good grief.

As I uploaded the last few days of photos just now, including this low-light bedtime shot, great confusion set in. The five photos are gone. You have got to be kidding me. I do remember deleting the three test shots that I took even before the five 'for-real's. But I didn't delete the real shots. I know I didn't delete the real shots. Especially the one with the cat in. It's hard to delete a photo by accident. I couldn't have deleted it. Did my camera glitch? ......Maybe I did delete it? All these ponderings running through my head. And then--what a waste of a half hour!!! Fumbling around, tired, with my camera in the dark, and I have nothing to even prove for it. It was not a masterpiece shot by any means--but it was what I wanted for the day.

Srsly.

Where's The File?!

For Pete's Sake OR 321/365

There is a rabbit. Well, more precisely, a hare. I don't see him very often, though he was quite ambitious earlier this week when he hopped within four feet of me as I weeded the front garden. I've named him Peter. I usually try to be more original when I name things around me*, but given this hare's behaviour, I think 'Peter' suits him just fine.

Last year, I noticed lots of nibble marks in the leaves of my vegetables--the peas just barely survived. But after hearing that hair can sometimes act as a natural deterrent, I promptly brushed the cat and sprinkled her fur all over the garden. Someone else stated that garlic was also effective. So I sprinkled garlic powder around a few times, too (if nothing else, it kept the vampires away). Sure enough, the peas stopped looking nibbled, and my garden did just fine. So, I figured I knew what to expect this year.

When I planted the garden, I sprinkled cat fur around it right off the bat. But as the plants started to come up, most of them quickly showed signs of struggling. However, I came to the conclusion that it was most likely bugs, given the holey--not nibbly--state of the leaves. After stocking up on diatomaceous earth for the bugs and blood/bone meal for the rabbit (just in case), I replanted half my garden. Everything has started to come up again that had suffered. Except that the spinach--just the spinach--disappeared again earlier this week. Where's the fairness?!

Since everything else is doing all right, I decided that the bugs had been beaten, but the rabbit had not.

I think I made my sixth trip to Rona today in just as many weeks.

Chicken wire; check.
Wooden posts; check.
New package of spinach seeds; check.

How come this garden's taking so much more effort this year???

*For example, my Macbook is NOT named Mac. That's too easy. She IS, however, named Ambrosia (she is an Apple, after all).

320/365

Dress shoes are highly overrated.

319/365

Bless the person who brought doughnuts to work for breakfast this morning.

318/365

Rhubarb season has officially begun.

317/365

316/365

Why yes, yes I am in downtown Edmonton.

315/365

And the last of the 'garden' goes in!

314/365

Mmm, Doritos.

313/365

Technology meets good old-fashioned play: when was the last time YOU Skyped from inside a fort?

312/365

Takin' a break before respite.

311/365

Ah, summerfoot.


How I shall pumice thee.

310/365

Sometimes chocolate is a Wednesday's only redeeming factor.

309/365

A fast-food-dinner-in-transit kind of day.

308/365

There was a child at Playgroup today who just loved using the digital camera. He was taking pictures of everybody. He took several of me in the process, and I thought that made my blog work easy for today.

Yet, what a dilemma when I looked at the images on my computer this evening. Of the three top contending images, one is a very direct view of my bum, one is a view of my crotch, and one has a view straight down the front of my shirt.

SIGH.

In the end, I went with this one, because I think it must really capture the perspective in which children view us most of the time as we move around them in our daily activities.

Sometimes grown-ups are just too tall.

307/365

Ready... Set...

Oops, I Did it Again OR 306/365

I had an 'off' kinda Saturday. I started my weekend Friday night with an awesome dinner and backyard campfire with a friend, rendering a bed time of roughly 2:30am. This would be all fine, except my body decided it wanted to be up at 9:30. When it didn't have to be. On a Saturday. So I puttered around slowly both indoors and out, tackling some chores and some gardening. I had "chill" music playing on the iPhone in my pocket, as I was not really in a physical or mental space to handle anything too upbeat in tempo. The overcast sky seemed to match the fuzzy space I was in.

Mid-afternoon, the clouds moved themselves over for the sun to shine through. In my stupor, I was getting ready to have a nap on the couch, but switched gears and dozed in the hammock instead. The sleep was light, but good. After an hour and a half, I wouldn't say I was fully re-energized, and it was quite hard to peel myself from the hammock, but I had given myself back the energy needed to chat with a friend I hadn't called in a while, and then mosey on down to Whyte Avenue to meet up with The Edmonton Shutterbugs for a photo walk.

Throughout the day, I hadn't bothered with my blog picture. I did take a couple after I woke up in the hammock, but the shadows were horrible and the photo not good enough to warrant the post-processing to deal with it. So I deleted them. And I had been telling myself all day that I would take a picture of myself on the photo walk.

It wasn't until I was in bed that night--around 12:30, now Sunday--that I suddenly realized, "crap, I have no photo."

Again.

So... here are some photos I DID take Saturday....

One of These Things is Not Like the Other...

Red, Brick, Lock

Skyline at Sunset

305/365

Play = Work

Work = Play