Randoms

Today was a pretty uneventful day, and I have the pictures to prove it! I had to run around the house and look for some subjects, and this is what I came up with.

First I took a second attempt at my pebble:


I'm happier with the focus in this one, but I think I liked the lighting better in the last one.

Then I peeled Nick's socks off and forced him to be my foot model, which he patiently put up with, but was not too excited about. I think he has cute feet!


I tried doing it in black and white and upping the contrast a bit. I kind of like it, but want to experiment with black and white a bit more.

Finally I decided to take a picture of my knitting. I think knitting is so neat and pretty with its orderly little rows. The lighting wasn't so great, and it was trickier than expecting to come up with an interesting composition, so I might have to give it another try.


We're taking off for a wedding in St. George tomorrow, so expect some more interesting photos to come.

Game night

Tonight's photos illustrate the point (I hope!) that you don't always need to set up a formal photo shoot to get some decent shots. One of the reasons why I wanted to do this week's project was to remind myself to take more photos of every day life. it would be so sad to look back on this stage of our life and realize that we didn't think to take any photos of the things we have done, and the good friends we did them with.
Tonight we went to a game night at a little store called Board Game Revolution with our friends Matt and Bonnie to try out a new game called Swashbuckled. It was lots of fun, and the game pieces were super cute little ships that I couldn't stop taking photos of:

I'm quite pleased that I've found a way to take close up photos with a point and shoot camera, while still being able to get the focus on the things I want. And the little ships are so cute!


Speaking of super cute: Nick won the game (shocking, I know.) and was quite pleased about it, as there was a very close and nailbiting end to the game where it all came down to Matt and Nick and one roll of the dice.

I came in second, which was pretty much miraculous seeing as I spent most of the game taking photos and being in an almost perpetual state of confusion as to what I could and couldn't do on my turn. I guess I must have had one or two lucid moments, though.
All in all, fun times. Stay tuned for more excitement tomorrow, when I might do anything from go to the mail box to fold laundry. The thrills! The spills!

Baby show

Well, the bishop's horses were off at the other end of the field, and not cooperating, but this little nugget was most obliging. It really makes me laugh how pleased with herself she looks in this one :) And I I love her vertical hair.


Chubby, happy babies really are one of the better things in life.

PS: For those of you concerned that I may have stooped to new babynapping lows, let me reassure you: She belongs to a friend that stopped by.

Photography

Today was a busy day that mostly revolved around painting the downstairs bathroom, and seeing as I didn't much feel like photographing paint drying, I didn't actually take any photos until almost 8 PM. These are the ones that I liked best:


I found these growing outside our fence. The photo is a fairly straightforward set up, but it did give me a chance to practice using the zoom on the digital camera. I feel fairly competent with my SLR where I can adjust the zoom exactly as I like it, but I end up doing mostly point and shoot stuff with our digital camera.


Case in point of my zoom challenges being this attempt at a vaguely artsy shot of a pebble on our patio table. I think I'll try again tomorrow and see if I can focus on the pebble rather than the table.


I think this shot of the bullrushes behind our house is probably my favourite of the day. It came out fairly clear, and I think the sludginess of the pond life makes a pretty decent backdrop.

That's it for today! I'll try to get a few less traditional shots throughout the week, although I'm kind of thinking I might go and see the bishop's horses tomorrow. I'd love to hear what you think :)

Tadah!

I just finished my last letter, and thus my first week of blog project. Yay for finishing something!
My last letter was, quite appropriately, a love letter. How could I spend a week writing letters without writing one for my dear, sweet Nicholas, especially when he's going to end up doing a lot of my crazy harebrained schemes with me? Isn't he great? I go all goo goo eyes just thinking about him, and he's sitting right next to me on the couch! I think I must go give him a snuggle.

Oh, I almost forgot: Next week's project will be photography! I'll be taking photos every day, and will post the best ones on my blog. I thought this would be a good one for this week seeing as we'll be at a wedding in Zion's National Park this weekend. So there should be some good photo opportunities!

Image borrowed here.

Four, five and six

My last three letters have been to some of my favourite people with July birthdays. The first letter was a bit special because it happened to be written to Josh and Lolly Weed on the night that Lolly went into labor with their youngest daughter, Olivia. One of the things I like best about writing letters is that the whole space/time continuum sort of goes out the window, and the writer can, in a sense, feel like they are with the reader, and vice versa. While I knew that that the Weeds wouldn't get my letter until days after their baby was born, I liked thinking about them on this momentous day in their life, especially contrasted with my quiet living room.

The next letters were to Tess and MarLyn. I haven't talked to MarLyn in a long time, but I happened to think of her on her birthday (Thank you, Facebook!) and decided to write to her. It was very late when I started, so it turned it to very rambley and philosophical sort of letter. Thankfully MarLyn is the sort of person who can appreciate a good ramble, so I don't think she'll think I'm too crazy! I think. I hope?

Letter number six was for my cute sister in law Tess. She has just spent 3 weeks on the French Riviera, and so I thought she might be in need of some emotional support now that she has left. I love my little Tess, and I hope I haven't spoiled the surprise too much by announcing here that I have written to her. Tess is not only a wonderful in law, she is also my most faithful blog reader and commenter. Bless her!

So it occurred to me the other day that starting off my blog project with a weeks worth of blogging about writing letters probably isn't the best way to gain a vast and faithful readership. I'll admit it doesn't make for the most thrilling reading, but guess what: Hard bun, people! I wanted to write more letters, so I did. Next week will hopefully make for more interesting reading. Stay with me, kids!

Letter number three, obstacle number one

Today's letter was to my Nana, AKA my dad's mum. I wanted to thank her for the poem she sent me for birthday:


"Ode to Tam
The passage of hours, the passage of days
and weeks and years, they go in a haze
and suddenly little Tam is twentyeight...
O, I hope by American time this greeting is not too late
- or maybe too early for Nick's birthday girlie...
*
A new house for one's spouse
wandering from room to room, trying the doors..
and the floors,
peeking out of windows,
fiddling with the TV cable
the first breakfast together over one's very own table
and (to quote Pepys) so to bed.
Nuff said.
Have a nice birthday Tam, love to Nick.
love also from Farmor ba"

Obviously, my grandmother is nuts. Always has been. But then again, she's also very nice, so I thought I'd write her a letter and tell about our new house. I can't remember ever writing a letter to her before (emails, yes, letters no), and I love her lots, so I thought it would be a nice thing to do. I did have to solve the problem that, while I live in Spanish Fork, all of my letter writing supplies still live in Springville. But a quick dive into my craft box solved that, even if it meant I had to draw my own design on the notecard. The real obstacle was when I thought I should probably check and see how much international postage was these days, and realized that my 90 cent stamps were 4 cents short. We went to the Spanish Fork Post Office only to discover that their stamp machine had been removed because it was "obsolete". Thanks, USPS. Way to not sell stamps.At the Post Office. So we went to Albertson's, like they suggested, and they didn't have stamps either. By this point I realized that tomorrow is Pioneer Day, so my poor little letter would just have sat in the mail box anyway. So I guess I'll be communicating with the continental US only until I can lay my hands on some 4 cent filler stamps! Grrr.

Letter number two

Today's letter, as mentioned earlier, was to my friend Kristin. We were BFFs in elementary school and junior high, then lost touch in high school. I've only seen her once or twice since about 1996, at least until our mothers conspired up a surprise visit when we were at home in Norway last Christmas. We exchanged addresses then, but it took me almost 8 months to get a letter together. This is one of the letters that I have been meaning to write for a long time, and it feels good to finally have done it. It will be interesting to see if this reconnects me with an old friend or not.

On another note (oh ho ho!), if any of you are feeling it for some letter writing, but don't quite know how to go about this ancient art, I did a little research on your behalf:

Friendly Letter Writing Guide

Letters, Letter-writing and Other Intimate Discourse

and last, but not least: How to Write a Letter

First day, first letter

Today ended up being a lot busier than anticipated, so I didn't actually sit down and write my letter until after 10 PM, and then I ended up writing it while we were watching Prime Suspect 7. However, seeing as I was writing a letter to dear little Erin Huff, it seemed completely natural that there should be some grisly British murder going on in the background. One of the things I like best about writing letters is being able to think about the person you're writing to, and the things you want to tell them, so, between the milk and chocolate cake and the murder mysteries, it was in a sense a bit like having Erin around. Which was nice, seeing as she has currently taken herself off to the Ohio. It was a reasonably short letter (one and a half pages), but not too bad considering it was to someone I stay in pretty good contact with. Tomorrow's ought to be a different story, when I plan to write to Kristin, my best friend from elementary school who I have seen about twice in the past decade. That will be interesting!

And now, time for bed.

Week 1: Writing letters

I have decided to spend my first week writing letters. I love getting things in the mail, and, in my opinion, a real hand-written letter is the jewel in the crown of postal correspondence. Closely rivaled by packages, of course. But I love the idea of someone sitting down with pen and paper in another time and another place to write words and thoughts for me to read. So that's what I'm going to do this week! I have a few "victims" picked out, but if you feel a special need for a letter from me, let me know, and I will sit down at my kitchen table and write you one!

Also, I'd like to throw out a quick solicitation for ideas for things for me to do in the coming year. I have listed some of my own in the right column, but would love a few suggestions from y'all :)

I want to do... everything!

Butterfly brain
In a world so filled with options, it can be hard for a girl to know what to do next! I, for one, have never really had what one might call "staying power", and flitting from one thing to the next has been my trademark for years. Childhood activities included: ballet, clarinet, horse riding, choir, sports, a brief stint of ski jumping (although I only made it down the slope once!) and numerous brushes with other activities. In college I started out as a Print Journalism major, segued into Visual Art and ended up with Humanities, and now I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I've always seen this as somewhat of a character flaw of mine, and wished that I could be more of a Finisher than always the eternal Starter. "Real" people don't leave a trail of half-finished business in their wake, and seem to most often actually do the things they decide that they want to. Much as I would sometimes like to be that way, I just am not. But much as this could potentially be a blog about me learning to stick with things, it's not going to.

Inspiration
I tend to get inspired quite a lot by great things that people do, like Jen MacNeil, a New Yorker who spent the each of the 365 days before her 30th birthday doing something she hadn't done before, or ordinary people doing extraordinary things. I see the amazing things people do, and I think "I want to do that too!" Then the sober and realistic part of my brain thinks "Except you probably don't. Think about how much time/money/effort/motivation that takes. You don't want to commit to something like that!" And so I don't do it, but still end up sort of wishing that I had, which in turn can be a bit unfulfilling.

Getting to the point
Here is where I finally get to the point: I decided I wanted to do a year long blog project, and I decided I wanted to something a little different from what I had already seen out there. Knowing in my heart of hearts that I would most likely not keep up any kind of project that would take much staying power, I decided to turn my weakness into a strength and indulge the part of me that wants to do all of this stuff for a week at a time. I'll do the things I want to do, try the things I want to try, and give myself one week to do it in. When the week is up, on to something else!

My 28th birthday is July 18th, which is on a Friday this year. I will start my first week on the following Monday, July 21st, and keep going until one year from now, which will be Monday July 20th, 2009.

* Edited to add some props!*
I should also mention that about a year ago, our friend Clayton Thompson asked me if I had a blog, then went on to say something to the effect of: "I bet it's an interesting one too, and not just one of those self-centered blogs about everyday trivia". Which, of course, was exactly what my blog was all about. So thanks, Clayton, for making me think about what else I might want to say!