Day 9

Day 9

This is graffiti on the fire escape outside my building at work. It showed up about 3 months ago. I pass it every day. I have no idea what it means, but I like it. It does not seem gang-related.

Day 8

Day 8

Today's theme is "filthy".  Oh, so many possibilities....
This is the bottom of my freezer. That's some marionberry ice cream, which melted and got all over everything, then froze.  If you look carefully you can see some peas in there too. It's been there for about 3 months. I can't figure out how to clean it without, you know, actually taking everything out of the freezer and cleaning it.
And that's how I learned to make sure the freezer is closed.

Day 7



Day 7

This photograph happened when I tried to be all cool about recording the most exciting thing to happen to me (Well, near me) all day- maybe even in a week!
I was walking past the bookstore, when black t-shirt comes around the corner, cool as a cucumber, with a bag from the store. Then, all of a sudden, the guy on the left of him and the lady on his right start chasing after him, and the guy flashes a badge! He says, "Hey man, you have anything in that bag that you maybe forgot to pay for?" (and that was right when I was walking right in that spot!)
Well T-shirt admits that he's got hot goods in his bag, and as I left, they were walking back into the store.  But I did not leave before I unabashedly pulled out my phone to take a picture. Because undercover student cops, just like 21 Jump Street!

Day 6

Day 6

I am tempted to retire as I have achieved the perfect photograph. It's all downhill from here.

Day 5

Day 5- Robotics kickoff

Today's theme is "dark". I should have taken a photo of my daughter when I dropped her off, in the predawn hours, at this year's robotics competition kickoff. But I was too tired. So I took this photo of her in the dark when she got home.  She won't be home in daylight for the next six weeks. 

Day 4

This is my Check Engine light. It has been on for about 11 years. Subaru makes one heck of a long lasting bulb!

Day 4

Day 3

Day 3

This is not a beautiful photo. Let's get that out of the way.

When I decided to do this 365 project, I knew that I would need to take inspiration wherever I could find it. It turns out that my cousin is also doing a photo-a-day project, although she has only committed to a month, and she is using a set of prompts. Day 1 was "resolution", Day 2 was "street", and Day 3 is "lunch". 

Under normal circumstances, I would only photograph my food if it were particularly beautiful, or looked like buttholes. Because we all remember Ptomaine Wednesday and that got OLD and I am not a food photographer.

But.

Despite its modest appearance, this is a special lunch. 

This year for Christmas, my husband's grandmother gave me (among other things) a cardboard box full of canned ingredients for "Terry's Taco Soup", with a hand-written recipe card and in true Grandma fashion, a five dollar bill to buy the ground beef, cheddar cheese and sour cream that would have spoiled under the tree.

It was one of my favorite gifts. I made the soup last week and brought leftovers for lunch today. It tastes much better than it looks.

Day 2

Day 2

Today we made beer. Well, actually, we made wort. In three weeks, it might be beer.   My house smells like West Seattle used to, when Rainier beer was made right next to the freeway. I think they make coffee there now.

365 project: Day 1

Day 1

In 2013, I will take a photo every day.
This morning, I woke up very early at my mother's house. I took Gus for a walk to the creek,  our feet crunched the frozen grass.  I saw beautiful frost on some brush, and I thought it would make a lovely day one photograph. An hour or so later, Gus and I went for another walk, this time I had my camera and the sun was fully up. But my camera battery was not fully up. I did not remember that my back-up camera was in my purse until all the frost had melted.
But we did see about a million elk this weekend, and I took a picture of a few of them. 

It's 2012

So this is the year that the world might end. I am going to pretend it isn't going to end, because really, it's just too depressing to think otherwise.

Did you know that if you google "Wintergreen alcohol and aspirin", the first result is my blog? I've contributed to the greater good! Maybe sometime soon I will make a recipe/ tutorial for the magic salve. I think we are getting low.

I've discovered Pinterest. Pinterest is like a magazine... just photos and links that you can browse through. If a photo interests you, you can “pin” it to one of your “boards” which everyone can see. It also seems to be the place to go to plan a wedding. I get the feeling that the average Pinterester is a 26 year-old single girl who hasn’t yet had her dreams squashed. It’s kinda neat to see what she thinks her life might be like: trips to the Maldives, a beautiful home with furniture covered in chalkboard paint, fancy cupcakes for school field trips, scrapbooks filled with expertly posed and photoshopped family photos with just a hint of whimsy. Oh and smoky eyes.
I started using pinterest a few weeks ago, and it quickly evolved into a shopping list. I realized a few days ago that Pinterest could get expensive for me if I keep pinning all the outfits I like. Also, yesterday, I noticed that a lot of the aforementioned Young Pinners pinned a lot of things that I already have, or places I have already been, or things I already do. I thought, “Woo HOO! I’m living the dream!” So I made a board of things that I have that I need to appreciate. But then I thought it might be braggy. So now I don’t know how I feel about Pinterest and how it can fit into my life.
Christmas
The holidays are over. I can declare that because we have visited all four of our parents and my husband is taking the tree down today. One of the pros/cons of having divorced parents and being married to man with divorced parents is that Christmas isn’t a day, it’s a season. I don’t want to be the kind of person that complains about gifts, I really don’t. (Even though I do it every year) But how many pairs of microfiber slipper socks does one woman need? Five. Five is the answer.
Robotics
My daughter is on her school’s robotics team. The team is part of FIRST, and organization started by Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway Human Transporter and the first portable dialysis machine among other things. The team designs and builds a robot that competes in a game. Each year, the game is different. All the teams across the country find out the rules of the game on the same day and have six weeks to design a robot to compete. This year’s kick-off is on Saturday. I found out at a parent meeting last night that for the next six weeks, my daughter will spend nearly every non-school hour in the robotics room, which means I will put many miles on my car and have many hours to kill. She will leave the house at 7 am and will not return until 7:30 pm. This must be what it’s like for parents of student athletes. I will spend the next few days scouring the internet, okay, Pinterest, looking for crock-pot recipes. I think I also need to get a programmable crock-pot so that my food doesn’t cook for 12 hours. Because I can barely tolerate crock-pot foods, let alone overcooked crock-pot foods.
The gym
For winter term, the university gave employees who aren’t active a membership to the student recreation center. When I signed up for it a few months ago, I thought it sounded like a good idea. Now that my membership has been activated, I am a little nervous about actually going. I do have all those after-school hours to kill, though. I will keep my blog updated with fitness reports because I know how riveting shit like that is to read.
Some things I’d like to do
New Years means resolutions, but I am horrible at keeping them, so I am just going to commit a list of things that I might like to do if I get around to it to the world wide web. First of all, my garage needs to be cleaned the fuck out. It scares me, because I know that there are mice and snakes in there. If I can get the garage cleaned, I will consider it the greatest single achievement in the history of garage cleaning.
I’d like to do something with my yarn stash. I’m inclined to make an afghan. I think this is a leftover thing I’d like to do from a year or two ago.
I want to get up just a few minutes earlier each day so that I am not late all the time. This seems like a really hard thing to do.
Maybe once a week I’d like to wear matching a bra that matches my panties. See where that takes me.
I want to be able to do some real pushups. Okay, one real pushup.