Awake

*Yawn*

Today is one of those pesky season-reminder days that states in a tone of parental sternness, no, it is not Spring yet. Go back to your room. (And stay there, until I say you can come out.) Inevitably, it comes immediately following a lovely day of blue skies and puffy white clouds. Never mind those dark moisture soaked clouds in the distance. (Well, maybe they weren't as far in the distance as I would have liked to have thought). No today is one of those rain and cold induced pseudo-arthritis days where headaches reign and fatigue rules the day. At least for me. At least this day.

The headache is finally moving to the background. And the nap that seemed inevitable five minutes ago now seems less necessary.

(I'm trying to remember the point of this post. Not a good sign for either one of us.)

Had a lovely day with the fam last Saturday, celebrating Seth's 31st birthday, 80s Dance Party style. (Happy Birthday, Tall Brother.) Went *quite* overboard taking pictures on my new DSLR (took over 700) and spent some time earlier this week sifting through them all. Took quite a few pictures in sports action mode and created short little videos (basically fast slideshows as stop-animation sequences) courtesy of QuickTime's "Image Sequence" feature. There are a few pictures left to upload that need red-eye reduction (taken before I found the red-eye reduction feature on the camera), but basically, the lot of them are up on my flickr account in the set Seth's 31st Birthday {80s Dance Party}.

Very happy with the camera. Very. Got a Sony Alpha-300 DSLR with an 18-70mm lens and a 75-300mm telephoto lens. Now I will be in the market for a new hard drive to store all these pictures (at 2.8-3.1 MB per picture, hard drive space is definitely an issue).

Plenty to do lately. Staying busy getting caught up with web projects. Doing lots of reading and crocheting and watching fictitious drama unfold weekly in the form of time traveling island-dwellers, terrorist-thwarting anti-heroes and various other exciting scenarios.

Current playlist:

First Breath After Coma

Artist: Explosions In The Sky

Album: The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place

End of the Road

Artist: Umphrey's McGee

Safety In Numbers

Album: Tabarly (Bande originale du film) Soundtrack

Artist: Yann Tiersen

La Valse Des Montres

Artist: Yann Tiersen

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain Soundtrack

The Seasons, Op. 37a: VI. June - Barcarole

Performed by: 101 Strings Orchestra

Album: 30 Toddler Classical Songs, Vol. 1

Life In Technicolor

Artist: Coldplay

Album: Viva la Vida

Pas Si Simple

Artist: Yann Tiersen

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain Soundtrack

La Noyée

Artist: Yann Tiersen

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain Soundtrack

Soir De Fête

Artist: Yann Tiersen

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain Soundtrack

La Redécouverte

Artist: Yann Tiersen

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain Soundtrack

Sur Le Fil

Artist: Yann Tiersen

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain Soundtrack

Looking forward to seeing Yann Tiersen perform live in Portland in April.

Currently reading: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. Liking it a lot so far. Also reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. About halfway through it, which is great since it took about 2 years to read the first chapter. (Perhaps if you've ever tried to read the first chapter, you'll know what I'm talking about.) I think this would be an excellent book to read with someone and discuss it along the way. Lots of food for thought and discussion. (Actually it's more like 20 years of Thanksgiving feasts-of-thought.) But I could never convince anyone to read it with me. So I'm plowing through it on my own. Just got the Sunlight Print Kit on sale from powells.com. Learning all about cyanotypes and early forms of photography. Waiting for the sun to come out before trying it out. (Necessarily.)

Well, back to the grindstone. Happy Thursday, though the weather defy this statement, I say it again, Happy Thursday. (Sometimes you have to be persistent with happiness when it is gray all around.)