synchronous snapshots.

eee! I got the first film developed from my new Diana camera, and I am largely happy with the pictures. As we were walking in to pick up the film Aaron stopped me and said, “I just want to make sure you are prepared to get back all white squares or all black squares.” … and I was, but actually some of them turned out okay. More than attempting to take interesting pictures, I tried to play with the settings a lot on the camera with this first set so I could get an idea of how the camera worked, what exposure times are best, how to advance the film, how double exposures turn out… that kind of thing. So here are some of the pictures:

That one is probably my favorite one- It is a double exposure and was taken at the museum here in Durham, of the skylight and the trees outside.

a long exposure of a tree

single exposure of the museum skylight

So that last one is playing around with the ability to take continuous pictures. I took one picture, then moved the film only part of the way to the next picture and took another picture so that only the center is overlapped. You can see my dendrobiums in the right hand corner.

And here’s one of Aaron:

Aaron covered in light leaks

this is the top of a taco stand

That last one looks better in the print I have because it’s a little too dark in the scan. I will have to do it again, but I wanted to go ahead and put it up.

I think that overall the first roll was very informative, and I even ended up with a few pictures that I like, so now I will have fun playing confidently with the other rolls I have. I really wanted to see if it would be worth it to try buy some more film and to pack this camera with my other stuff to take to Norway- since dealing with the film in security is a HUGE hassle. But I think it will be cool to take some pictures of fjords with this camera. Here are a couple very important lessons I learned from processing my Diana film:

1. It’s easy to over expose! There is a manual shutter and an automatic one, which is just plastic and doesn’t have a standard amount of time. I read online that in low light you should use the manual shutter, plus I had 100 speed film… so in dark rooms I was using about a 1-2 second exposure and it was actually too long in most cases. I think I will just use the automatic shutter now for the most part.
2. Whatever you do, don’t process your film with wolf camera. So many things went wrong here…
   • First thing, the guy took the tinfoil off my film in the middle of the brightly lit store after I asked him not to. I put tinfoil around it because I knew that the film had not wound tightly on the coil and would be immediately exposed in light- which is was. So I went from 2 rolls to 1, right there.
   • Then they had to send it off for special processing, which I expected. I did not, however, expect them to take 2 full weeks to process my film. That is not cool.
   • I gave them slide film, but I asked them to process it as normal film and give me negatives and prints, this is called cross-processing and it is pretty routine. They processed it as slide film and gave me slides. Whatever…
   • If I had sent my film off myself to a processing company it would have cost me about 5 dollars/roll. It ended up costing 5 dollars per picture to get prints from Wolf Camera. Granted, I didn’t ask specifically how much they charge for processing 120 film because I thought that they would have comparable prices to other groups. But still.

Most of the pictures I have in my flickr album are in this post, but this is the link to the album and hopefully as I get more film developed I can put more pictures in here.

Having to write my thesis proposal is boring and exhausting for everyone.

In the next month I have an extremely busy schedule. I am helping 3 other people in my lab with major experiments and I have to keep my own stuff going as well. I will also be out of town for several weekends. And the most dreaded thing, I have my yearly committee meeting. I have to turn in a giant document, dress up and look nice, and maintain my composure while I defend my work. Since I don’t even like talking to people to order my food at McDonald’s, I am really not looking forward to this.

So anyway, when my mom asked if I wanted to come with her to Norway the second week in June I said, of course! …Plenty of time for that. I just bought my ticket, which means I’m officially going!

I am really excited and I cant wait for my travel guides to come. I went to the store to look for some and I was really disappointed in the selection. I think Norway isn’t a very popular destination right now because it is so expensive. Hopefully it will be a little cheaper since my mom’s flight is covered for work and she will probably be nice and feed me a few times.

The plan right now is to fly into Oslo and spend a few days there. My mom has her conference at the beginning of the trip so I will probably spend some time chilling on my own, which I actually really enjoy. Then we will see a little bit of Oslo and then take the advice of my grad school friend here who is a real Norwegian and take the train from Oslo to the town of Bergen (which you can see on this map is on the coast). That is apparently a cute little town and a good place to see some of the fjords. There is a large fjord to the north, Sognefjord, and one to the south, Hardangerfjord, and I hope we can take little trips to see them.

While my favorite travel guides are currently made by Frommers, I chose these two. One is the Lonely Planet Rough Guide, and the other is the Eyewitness Travel Guide. One for practical information, and one for pretty pictures. Both for distracting me from writing my mammoth thesis.

      

Also, in case you’re curious, Aaron was invited but he decided not to go on this trip. He has a lot going on right now (like he’s getting his MBA and he has class then, and also he has less vacation time now that his company was acquired) and he wasn’t so into going to Norway just yet. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Norway is not particularly famous for their beer… Although, he and I are probably going to do something towards the end of the summer as a vacation.

sleepy Chester

Not too much has been going on around here lately. Since Aaron has been going to class at night (he’s getting his MBA) I have just been using the time to work late. It’s pretty good because I have a lot to do in the next few months. I have a committee meeting coming up, which is making me really nervous, and my project is making me nervous too, but that is nothing new. I got this t-shirt for myself, which I think sums up my life pretty well:

So, I am hoping that this Saturday we can take Chester to go for a hike somewhere or do something else similarly relaxing. Aaron could use something relaxing because his company was acquired and it made him very grumpy. Other than that, I am reading Anna Karenina. I’ve been reading it slowly since January and I am still only on part 4 of 8.

Also, I am really hoping that I may be able to take a trip this summer. We were supposed to do something with Aaron’s family this summer, but the trip just got cancelled because it really wasn’t feasible with two little babies (I have been saying this for months, but whatever…). I wish I had a little more time to plan something, but I may go with my mom on one of her business trips in the beginning of June and Aaron and I are thinking about going somewhere in August. He has less vacation time at the new company, so we will see. Either way, I am spending the 4th of July with my family at Litchfield Beach in South Carolina, and I can’t wait!

I just want to post this SNL skit from this weekend and dedicate it to a special someone. You know who you are and I heart you.

Book Review #32:

Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë

The truth is, I get most of my knowledge of 19th century British romantic literature not from actually reading the books, but by obsessively watching every BBC produced costume drama or masterpeice theatre miniseries there is. Recently, though, I decided to actually read Jane Eyre, partially because it is available online here or here for free, as it is in the public domain. This makes reading during the downtime at work a little easier… hint hint…

The first time I tried to read Jane Eyre I was about 13 years old. In my opinion, this is exactly the worst age to try to read classic literature because, while you can read and comprehend anything, on some topics a more adult perspective is required to fully appreciate the book. I remember being devastated, for example, when Jo refused to marry Laurie in Little Women, and similarly, I stopped reading Jane Eyre when it looked like Jane really was falling for grumpy old Mr. Rochester, after all.

I am glad I decided to try again, because I have decided that I adore this book and I also adore Mr. Rochester. I read it all the way through, and then immediately read it again. Most people know the general plot of Jane Eyre, whether they realize it or not. In the beginning, Jane, the orphan, is sent away from her aunt’s house after her loving uncle’s death to go to a boarding school/orphanage. There she has, certainly by today’s standards, an abusive childhood, but good education that prepares her to take a job as a governess to a little girl on the estate of Mr. Rochester. From there: romance, tragedy, mystery… adequately happy ending! It’s great.

The main thing that I really like about this book is that it is more serious than the 18th century romance novels of Jane Austin. There is a very strong Dickens quality (who I admit is possibly my favorite author). By that I mean, you don’t feel that the world Jane is in is certainly fair, and that everything will necessarily work out for her in the end. I should say, though, as I was reading, I wondered why this book is not more often required as school reading but then I why realized about 2/3 of the way through. There are some statements that are not politically correct, but I wouldn’t let that dissuade you from reading it, though. Another interesting little fact, many people say that this book is partially autobiographical. I was sad to read that Jane probably had a better life and happier ending than Charlotte Brontë.

Anyway, this was the first amazing book I have read this year, and the best book I’ve read in a long time!

meet Brady

This is my new little nephew, Brady, who is about a month younger than his cousin, Bridget. In spite of this, he still weighs quite a bit more than her… as you can see, he is LARGE. I haven’t met him yet, but Aaron took this picture with his camera phone while he was in Atlanta for work this week.

Los Angeles from the Getty Museum

So, I want to share some of the fun things we did during our brief time in L.A. while little Bridget was napping and otherwise keeping up her demanding baby schedule. If you ever are in L.A., you need to go to the Getty Museum. It is amazing! Basically, it is this huge gleaming white monstrosity on a hill above L.A., great for the expansive view of the city, seeing the art exhibits, and appreciating the huge sprawling structure and gardens which are art themselves. It was cute, Aaron’s brother has lived in L.A. his whole life and seemed to take great pride in showing off his city from above. While we were there I took some pictures of the building which you can see here:

Aaron and I at the Getty

Aaron and I also went on a few little walks on our own. We went down to the Santa Monica pier, snooped around the pretty houses and gardens in Santa Monica, and went to some cute little shops. I’m still having my mom’s version of buyer’s remorse… that’s where you wish you had bought things that you talked yourself out of at the time. Anyway…

looking back at Santa Monica from the pier

I met this birdie with only one foot!

looking towards L.A.

the beach in Santa Monica

And here are some flowers from Bridget’s neighborhood:

Oh, and we sat behind Adam West part of the plane ride home, and Pam Anderson had dinner at the same Greek restaurant we did our last night. Aaron also claims he pointed out Donald Sutherland while we were shopping, but I swear he was discreetly pointing at a hobo (so I was trying to figure out what the hobo was eating), so I say it doesn’t count because it wasn’t verified by more than one person… He says he was pointing behind the hobo…

a Bridget burrito

Aaron and I just got back from spending the past few days in L. A. visiting his brother’s growing family and meeting my new little niece, Bridget, who was born in January. She is really cute! Usually I think babies are intimidating and all, but she seems to be easy going.

Some things about Bridget….

• She chews on her hand when she is hungry.
• She sleeps and eats a lot.
• She doesn’t cry very much.
• She is quite a fashonista and her adorable clothes change several times a day.
• She was born early and is still pretty tiny.
• She is pretty easy and doesn’t mind going out on the town.

that’s about it so far…

going for a car ride

We were pretty much just there to meet her since they will probably not be making it out to the east coast for a while, so we didn’t have too many plans otherwise. She was a really good baby, though, so we did do some other things like go out to restaurants and also to the museum, but I will put up some of those pictures later. Aaron and I are both terribly tired between traveling and daylight savings time together.

flowers outside Bridget’s door

Bridget’s big sister…
who loved me, by the way

You can see more of her, her family, and our trip in my Baby Bridget and Environs set on flickr if you want.

Book Review #31:

Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Edith Grossman

A good friend of mine, who is from South America and a native Spanish speaker, recommended this author to me years ago and I just now got around to reading one of his books. She told me at the time that she had read a few of his novels in English and in Spanish and that, while a some of his masterful use of language was lost in translation, in her opinion, he was the greatest writer in the Spanish language and could still be appreciated in English.

I would characterize this book as a “kissey book” as my family would say, or “romance novel”, as the rest of the world would say. The story is set in the Caribbean and South America at the turn of the 20th century. You know from the back of the book that the first main character introduced, an elderly Dr. Juvenal Urbino, will fall to his death, leaving his widow, Fermina Daza. At the Doctor’s funeral, the man who she briefly promised she would marry when she was a teenager approaches her and tells her he is still in love with her. The rest of the story is predominately a series of flashbacks to the short time when they were “in love” as teenagers, and the story if the lives each of them had apart.

So, first of all, the book is very well written, so if you can read and enjoy books just for the way they are written (I can), then you may enjoy it for that reason alone. The nested story and flashbacks are very interesting and I kept reading partly because the story moved along so well that it never crossed my mind to stop at any point, no matter whether I liked the story or not. It was unusual to me, that while there were large sections with poignant descriptions of disease, aging, and death that really place this book outside the category of romance novel alone and show what people who love this book might be appreciating, the actual love story and most of the characters seemed very superficial to me. My big problem with this novel is that, call me naive and idealistic, I didn’t like the view of love that it portrayed. Also, there are some aspects of the story (which did not advance the plot) that I was surprised the author included and that some people might want to know about before reading. If you are curious what I am talking about, you can read the 1 star reviews on Amazon because I don’t want any of the key words I would have to use to explain to be used to search for my site. It wasn’t so much that I disprove of these topics ever appearing in literature, but that I didn’t care for the tone the author took towards these very serious issues and I didn’t find reading about it enjoyable or pleasant in any way. But I’ll just say that for this reason, the book left me with a bad feeling.

a sea of orchids

Last weekend I went to Atlanta to go with my mom and grandparents to the orchid exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. It was amazing, and even worth the fact that I had to drive down to South Carolina Friday after work, drive to Atlanta and back on Saturday, and the rest of the way home on Sunday. I went by myself, because Aaron had a presentation and a test last week - his first real work towards getting an MBA. Those of you who are in Atlanta should really consider going sometime before it ends (I think the end of March). Anyway, there are so many unusual orchids there! Unfortunately, I ended up in Atlanta with only my telephoto lens so I had to stand several leagues away from the flowers to take pictures. Annoying. Why can’t I remember things?

I also bought myself 2 new orchids, they’re twins! They are from genus that grows in South America called Masdevallia. I have no idea how likely they are to stay alive, but so far they seem to have improved. They were the only ones of their kind for sale and the flowers were looking a little rough, but I wanted them pretty badly (I’ve wanted this kind for a while actually), so I thought I would get them anyway. Now they’ve opened some new flowers, so hopefully they are on the right track. I will take some pictures of them soon. Oh, and their flowers are yellow and orange, which is cool because most of mine are purple. FYI, they only sell orchids at the exhibit the last weekend of the month, and the orchids are from outside vendors, not the botanical gardens.

Some pretty ones:

You can see more in my “Orchid Exhibit” flickr set.

Last night was *fun* for a change… A good friend of mine just finished taking his medical boards, so we went out to dinner with him and his girlfriend at a tasty Indian restaurant, then made it back just in time to watch American Idol (!) and catch the eclipse. Did you see it? It was really cool! We had a great view from our front stoop, where I took a few pictures. I had to use the manual settings, of course, because my poor camera was pretty frustrated that I was trying to take pictures in near total darkness. Here are a few:

Also, I finally decided how to spend some of my Christmas money. I bought myself a toy camera! It’s called a Diana, and it is basically a reproduction of a plastic camera from the 1950s-60s. It is completely manual, takes 120 film, and the pictures are square and have an unusual look can’t be reproduced with other cameras or photoshop. It is difficult to describe, but the unique look results from the fact that the lens is plastic, and the focus is sharp in the center but a little blurry around the corners- called vignetting. I have not yet produced any photos with this camera because it only arrived yesterday (with 5 tubes of slide film!). Woo hoo. Unfortunately, I will be without the instant gratification of digital pictures and may even have to send the film off for special processing, so I’ll let you know how the pictures turn out after the next ice age… Behold the Diana:

I’ve been really sick for about two weeks now, and while that didn’t diminish Valentine’s Day celebrations last Thursday, it did delay me putting up the pictures of our pets getting their presents. More importantly, our new little nephew, Brady, was born on Valentine’s Day! (Another easy birthday to remember- woo hoo!) I don’t have any pictures yet of him, but when I do I will share his cuteness with you all. Until then here is some cuteness:

Chester got a candy-dipped-strawberries tug

…and Layla got a heart covered graphic tee

Maggie got a pink Valentine’s bug toy but it was not to her liking so I don’t have any pictures. She just sniffed it, determined that it was obviously dead already, and hasn’t looked at it again. It was also greatly overshadowed by the fact that I found her favorite kind of jingly puff at the store after months of looking there and online. I bought almost their entire stock so we won’t have this crisis again. She seriously was carrying the old one around with her in the house as she went from room to room, and wouldn’t come upstairs to bed without going back downstairs to get it. It was getting really ratty and I was worried we wouldn’t find a replacement for it. Whew. She likes the new ones just as much and now she has more of them to keep track of, which seems to be even more entertaining for her.

So, that’s about all… Aaron has been busy going out of town a lot lately and also taking class at night to get his MBA. He won a sparkly award (that Miss Kittypants really likes) from work and also gets to be in charge of a project that he is really excited about, so that is good. For me, work is going meh because we can’t spend so much money for a while (we are over budget) and I am antsy to go on a trip. I am going to drive to Atlanta to spend Saturday going to the botanical gardens (which is having an orchid show!) with my mom and grandparents at the end of this week. Then, Aaron and I are going to pick a weekend to fly out to L.A. and meet Baby Bridget. Hopefully, we will be able to plan a sort of bigger, relaxing trip for the summer if it is not too late. I am leaning towards Eastern Europe. Oh, and I’ve been reading more since I’ve been sick so hopefully I will have some more book reviews pretty soon.

Since the holidays I’ve gotten two new orchids. I don’t think I have an “orchid problem” yet, though, and let me tell you why. First of all, I know that there is a point when one could have an orchid problem and this would be when the orchids are causing the house to look cluttered, perhaps there might not be enough time to enjoy each orchid individually, or the care of some orchids might be deteriorating. I’m not at this point yet, so I think I’m still okay. Each of my orchids has its own fancy pot, is watered on schedule, misted nearly each day (if it likes that), each has a name, and they are all healthy… except for Cordelia Mae who kept blooming for 6 months so I didn’t want to re-pot her on time and her roots weren’t looking so good, so now she is recovering. Oops.

Anyway, here are the new ones! This is Willa, my new Miltonia:

We have two other Miltonias that are very pretty upstairs, but since they are in Aaron’s office he says they are his orchids and I am not allowed to name them. (Their names are actually Gracie and Gretchen.)

Anyway, this is Sadie the slipper orchid:

Very very very unfortunately, Maggie got overly excited about Sadie and bit her flower spike, causing it to fail. Also, I didn’t get very many pictures of Sadie before that happened. I’m sad, but she does have lovely variegated leaves and is pretty even without a flower.

That’s right, Aaron and I have been married now for 3 years! That is kinda hard to believe. To celebrate our anniversary, we decided at the last minute to go on a short weekend trip… more about that later. Here are a few more of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of Aaron this year:

Aaron cruising in Alaska

Aaron looking at glaciers

a rare sight
Aaron reading the last Harry Potter book

Aaron as my date at a friend’s wedding

Aaron opening his very first iphone
may it rest in peace

Aaron blowing wedding bubbles

an old family album

As I’ve posted before, I have recently gotten interested in researching our family’s history and preserving old pictures that my grandparents have. This Christmas I brought my scanner and my camera and rummaged in their basement for old pictures… and look what I found! There was the coolest old album with old photos and tintypes, etc. I think it belonged to my grandmother’s grandmother. This is a picture of her:

Mary Lena Brown Griffith

It has been a lot of fun trying to figure out who the other people in her pictures are. To begin with, many of the pictures had been taken out of their spots in the album, and a very few had names scratched on the back. I think I have figured out a lot of the family pictures and I can tell that there are pictures of extended family, cousins, and even neighbors.

I should probably research the best way to actually archive these photos, but for now this is what I decided to do:

So, I put the loose individual pictures in little baggies and then filed them in a box so that they are better protected. The one thing that I am a little concerned about is the moisture level, so I will be thinking about how to take care of that, if anyone has suggestions.

I submitted one of my photos to a magazine and you should go vote for me! It’s a magazine called JPG and people submit photos for different themes and then the online readers vote for them on the website. Voting helps the editors decide which photos to review for publication. You do have to register, but all you need is a user name and password and then you can vote and even submit photos of your own. So, register, vote for me, (and while you’re at it you can say my photo is one of your “favorites”), then submit photos of your own to one of the themes, or just vote on other people’s photos. It’s fun (and addictive!).

Post Update: voting closed, so I removed the link, but thanks to everyone for voting and making my photo one of the “hot photos”

Good news! I have a little niece! Her name is Bridget and she was born yesterday in Santa Monica, California. We haven’t heard too much about her yet, but she was 6 lbs. 1 oz., a little early, and is doing really well according to eyewitness accounts. She and Aaron have the same birthday! That is good because it will be easy for us to remember as the number of nieces and nephews grows. Aaron and I hope we will be able to meet her sometime in the next few months. I don’t know yet if they want to spell her name Bridget or Bridgette. Oh, and I didn’t post a happy birthday message to Aaron yesterday because he doesn’t ever read this and I also spent all my time making him a two layer cake with chocolate raspberry icing because I am soooo niiiiiice.

Post Update:
I got one more picture that I thought I would share:

Bridget going home!

Maggie is relaxed and happy

Our Christmas vacation was really nice and now we are back home. I have been feeling really panicked all day that I am back in town, but did not go into work. I just really wanted to take New Years off and I knew if I went to work today, I would have to go in tomorrow. I spent the day cleaning, playing around online, and I took a few macro shots:

Aaron got a coffee roaster
here are some of the roasted and green beans

old etched glass

some of our pottery

Also, I added a few more pictures that I took at my cousin’s wedding to my Melinda and Ryan photo set on flickr. I will probably make the photos “private” soon, so take a look before then if it interests you. Anyone who wants larger copies just let me know.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve! I had a really looooong week at work this week and I am so glad to finally be seeing my family, wrapping presents, cooking… which will soon be even better (opening presents and eating). I will have to put up some of the tasty recipes that we have used, including our new chocolate chip cheese cake recipe. I just want to say Merry Christmas from Aaron, Chester, Layla, Maggie and me. I took pictures of them for you with their Christmas toys!

Chester and his Santa tug!

Thanks Bailey and Sandy!

Layla doesn’t really like to have her picture taken. Having a camera in the room causes her to keep her eyes closed and make quiet high pitched noises that are barely in a frequency that humans can hear. That makes me really sad, so I try not to torment her, but even Layla was feeling the Christmas spirit and posed for a picture.

Layla feeling festive

Sadly, for Maggie most holidays mean being cooped up in a bedroom because she is a kitty. She is doing a little better with this as she is getting older and recognizes the places where we go regularly. I gave her a Christmas bow.

Maggie killed a Christmas bow

nom nom nom…

And I thought that since I had a bunch of pictures of the pets I would get a festive Christmas picture of Aaron. I had to have a guerrilla picture attack:

So, if you want to see more pictures of Chester the Reindeer you can look in my Christmas ‘07 Set that I am just now starting!

You may have noticed that the comments have disappeared on all of my posts. This is because I did a huge update of everything and installed anti-spam stuff on my blog. Actually, I guilted Aaron into doing it for me. Your comments aren’t gone, they are just not showing up and as soon as I get a chance (read: Aaron gets a chance) everything will be fixed and then all comments will be welcome. The good news is that I think I have eliminated all of the inappropriate spam comments that have been driving me crazy for years.

Post Update: Everything is fixed! Thanks, Aaron!

When I visited my grandparents over Thanksgiving, when I wasn’t taking pictures at Melinda’s wedding or staying up all night talking to my aunt, Sandy, I was trying to make copies of some old family photos. Unfortunately, I had left my scanner at home in the process of trying to remember everything I needed for the wedding, but the last day I was there I decided to use my macro lens and try to take pictures of the pictures. You would be surprised how well this worked! I just love some of these old photographs. I am planing to try to make copies of even more of them when I go there for Christmas and hopefully distribute them to the rest of my family. There are boxes and boxes of photos in my grandparent’s basement, but I chose mostly the very old ones and the ones of my grandparents that I particularly liked since I was a little short on time and wanted to spend time with my family too. Here are some of my favorites of my grandparents:

my grandfather is in the front in the white t-shirt
he was stationed on Okinawa with the Air Force

This is probably my favorite picture I have ever seen of my great grandmother. She did not like to have her picture taken very much, but here you can see that she is even smiling a little bit, which looks just like her smile when I knew her.

my great grandmother with my grandmother

Then there is this gem that has “Jan 68″ printed on the side of it… as if you need any help knowing when it was taken.

Mimi (Carolyn) and her sister, Mary Ann

There were also older pictures of my grandparents growing up in north Georgia.

Papa graduates from highschool

Tommy, Bob and Papa (Archie)

another of Mary Ann and Mimi (Carolyn)

This next old picture is of another great grandmother, Ethel Swindle Hinton with her sister, Sallie. I never met her, but I do actually remember Sallie because I went to a birthday party for her when I was little. This one is cropped from a larger picture.

Ethel Hinton and Sallie Swindle

Then this one is of her grandmother and my great great great grandmother:

Sarah Ann Savannah (Sallie) Holder Fain
(with two of her children)

And this is another of my great grandmother’s grandfather, on the other side. This is a picture I took of a really old tin type. It was probably taken about the time he fought in the Civil War.

William Thomas Swindle

Here is another old one- of my grandfather’s grandparents, Desdemona and William Riley Hinton. It is in a very interesting frame, as you can see. (You can click on it to make it a little bit bigger.) My great great grandmother here was, most likely, part Native American. I have been doing some genealogy research lately (my new hobby) and I’ve found about 4 of my ancestors who are most likely Native American, although, only one is on one of the Indian Rolls from the 1800s. According to our family, Desdemona was part Indian, but I haven’t found any documentation of that. She does look like she could be, though.

Desdemona (Martin) Hinton and W. R. Hinton
my great great grandparents

I even made copies of a few pictures for Aaron when we were at his parents house over Thanksgiving and copies of the two old pictures my dad has of his side of the family.

My grandparents are on the far right
Martha and Jack St. John

That picture was from when he was in the Navy during WWII. His parents are in this next picture. I knew my great grandmother, Mammy, when I was little. She died when she was 99! It’s hard to believe she ever looked like this, but here she is with my great grandfather who I never knew because died in 1933, 55 years before her.

Thomas Albert and Fanny St. John

Melinda and Ryan at their wedding
doesn’t she look like a little Grecian muse?

I was just feeling back in the swing of things after my super long Thanksgiving week extravaganza and then I got sick. Ugh. Anyway, last week was great and it was the longest I’ve been in Atlanta since we moved, actually, because we came the weekend before for a wedding. My little cousin got married! Now Aaron isn’t the only boy in the family. I also got my first opportunity to photograph a wedding. Pictures of people are tricky because people have opinions about their own appearance. It is interesting how there are little nuances of peoples’ expressions or details about the moment that make a picture just not right at all or perfect. Anyway, I guess my point is that Melinda and Ryan might disagree or have their own favorites, but here are some of my favorite moments from their wedding:

Sarah and Melinda

Melinda’s bridesmaids help with the veil

the back of the dress

the back of her dress was really lovely

during the vows

her dad (my uncle) performed part of the ceremony

I actually have a lot of favorites… so I will have to add more to my Melinda & Ryan photoset on flicker because there just isn’t room here to show all of the great moments from their wedding. I took almost 1000 pictures that I thought were probably worth keeping in some way (cut down from over twice that many actual pictures I took). My goals in taking the pictures were:

• to catch the major wedding moments
  i. e. the cutting of the cake, running though bubbles, etc.
• to take pictures of the little details that are easily forgotten
  the cake, the flowers, the back of the dress
• to have formal shots that looked even a little bit professional
  (I was really worried because I have never taken pictures of large groups of people posed)
• to have the confidence to go up and take pictures of strangers at the reception… I’m shy.

I think that for the most part I met these goals, but after going through the pictures I think that the things I need to work on if I ever get the chance to photograph another wedding are:

• low light photography
  I knew that this would be an issue, but I have quite a bit of shots that have noise or are blurry. Because the wedding (and rehearsal) were at night there was actually no natural light for most of the pictures, which made it quite difficult to take many of the pictures where it was not appropriate for the flash to go off. I went back and looked at my wedding pictures, and I think that this was also the case even with my professional photographer, but I hope I can improve this aspect in the future.
• equal numbers of pictures of the groom’s family
  I don’t have as many pictures of Ryan’s family from the reception, which is mostly because I didn’t know them as well as the bride’s family, which is my family. Also, there were 400 people or so at the reception, which was very intimidating, so most of the time I followed Melinda and her white dress around, concerned that I would loose her and miss something important. Perhaps this would be less of an issue if I didn’t know the bride so well, but I wish I had gotten more candid photos of his family.

So, anyway, I’m sure there is much more I need to work on, but I did really enjoy taking the pictures at their wedding. I think the main reason I love taking pictures is not so much the satisfaction of capturing a moment that I want to remember, but the way taking pictures allows me to slow down and focuses my attention on the details at a particular moment as it is occurring. There were so many times when I was really struck by how beautiful their wedding was, how sweet and thoughtful Ryan is around Melinda, how much Melinda has grown up since most of my memories of her, and how happy they looked together. Even though I wasn’t able to capture them all, I might have let some of those moments pass me by without noticing if I had not had a camera, and they did have a lovely wedding.

This is pretty cool. Remember this photo I took when we were in Vancouver this summer?

I was asked by a travel website, schmap, if they could use it for their section on Vancouver, specifically for Vanier Park. You can see it HERE.

Two of my favorite things in the world are my nephews. I can’t get over how cute they are and how much fun it is to be around them. Mason, the little one (for now), has these big beautiful blue eyes and curly blond hair. He obviously has a great sense of humor (like his uncle) and may be something of a prankster, I suspect. When he thinks something is funny one side of his mouth curls into an adorable little Elvis smile. This is Mason:

reason #4082 why everyone should have a poodle

Parker is adorable too.

We went out of town this weekend because I planned a shower for my cousin, Melinda, who is getting married in a couple weeks. It was a lot of fun to plan the shower because there is not a lot else going on here besides science. Science also requires a lot of planning, but nothing as exciting as a wedding happens at the end, believe it or not. The shower had sort of a French theme, as it was at a French restaurant and… that is all… Anyway, here is the invitation that I made for her:

I also took a few pictures at the shower and here are some the ones of my cousins:

Holly looked so pretty that day

Sarah, who is also my new stylist

Melinda gets a mirror

Joanna is a little bit blurry, but still cute!

Katie and Holly

Melinda asked me a while back to take some pictures for her of the two of them together, kind of like engagement pictures. I was so honored that she asked me to do that. Now I just need to burn them on a CD and stick them in the mail to her. We just took the pictures in their soon-to-be new yard, and luckily they had this awesome red shed on the back of their property. Here are some of my favorites:

Obviously I have a lot of favorites, but they were just so cute together and I had a really fun time taking pictures. See the whole flickr set for more.

a blurry me and monuments

So, I’ve been pretty busy lately… I finally presented my yearly update of my project on Monday… and I’m still alive, so that is good. Here are the last few pictures from our weekend in D. C. -although that was quite a while ago now. We had a little time to go to the mall after the wedding, but it was dark. It’s too bad, because Aaron hasn’t been to D. C. before and I wish he could have seen everything during the day. It was still pretty, though.

the mall

at the Lincoln memorial

Aaron being a tourist!

The next morning, we met our sister-in-law, Kim, for brunch. She was spending a couple weeks in D. C. as part of her medical training. It was nice to hear about our soon-to-be-born little niece and all the preparations for her and to catch up in general. Afterwards, we walked around in a cute little market and I took a few pictures:

daliahs for sale

purple kale

pretty expensive peppers…

So besides the crazy guy threatening to jump in the metro (for real), it was a pretty good weekend. Ever since then I’ve been working pretty long hours every day trying to get data ready for my presentation. Whew. I should be able to take a few days off. This weekend I hope we get to go to the craft fair!

This weekend, Aaron and I went to D. C. for a friend’s wedding. It was a pretty fun trip because we got to do a few things in the city and we also had a good time at the wedding. There was an unconventional addition of glowsticks at her reception, so I thought I would post a few pictures of the dance floor and the end of my other friend, Zak’s girly drink.

You can see them bigger on my flickr page and I will add some more of the rest of the weekend later.

I have been so busy lately working in the lab and being a T.A. (please stop asking me what’s on the test!). I was so tired that I fell asleep at 8PM on Saturday night but the next few weekends I won’t be able to rest up over the weekend because we are BUSY. My entire fall seems to be scheduled with various activities, although most of them are for my own enjoyment, so I’m not complaining. For the next few weeks this is what I am doing on the weekends when I should be in the lab:

This weekend we are going to a friend’s wedding in D. C. A girl in my lab is getting married so Aaron and I are planning to drive to D. C. this weekend to go to the wedding. It is actually only a little over 4 hours, so I don’t know why we haven’t done this yet. Aaron has never been to D. C. either because he is lame. He also hadn’t been to North Carolina before we moved here. The only problem is that the wedding is at noon- so we won’t really have a lot of time to do anything and we have to get our pets to my parents for any weekend trip because Layla can’t be boarded.

The next weekend I have my yearly departmental retreat, which shouldn’t be fun. Ugh. Usually it’s at the beach, but not this year and the beach was the one thing that I was looking forward to.

Then I need to be working on my presentation to the department that I have to do once a year. My presentation is on a Monday so the weekend before I will be working on it and in the weeks leading up to it I have to somehow magically acquire more data. The state fair also begins that weekend, so hopefully I will be able to take a break and go see the prize-winning bunnies.

Next, I will be getting a jump start on my Christmas present buying at the Southern Highland Craft Guild’s annual craft fair. Yay. The plan is to meet my mom in Asheville for the day. Last year we got some really beautiful pottery, blown glass, and other things mostly for Aaron’s family for Christmas.

Then, I am hosting a shower for my cousin who is getting married. Woo! I am going to Atlanta for the day to make sure she gets plenty of loot and also take some engagement pictures for her.

It’s a busy fall….

For the most part, my orchids have been relatively cheerful this summer, but I have had a few little issues associated with repotting and pests.

Lucy’s roots

I decided it was about time to repot two of my phalanopsis since their potting medium seemed to be breaking down and I wanted to see if their roots were healthy. I started with Lucy, who loved being repotted and decided to start growing her 3rd leaf of the summer. Then, I repotted Nellie. Unfortunately, Nellie had a little bit of root rot, so I had to cut off a lot of her roots. Then, after being repotted she was all limp and grumpy. I finally decided to leave her for a few nights in front of a humidifier, which helped a good bit. Now she has a lot of bright green roots growing and I think is out of the woods for now. If you do this just be sure that the humidifier is far enough away that the steam is no longer hot enough to burn the leaves by the time it reaches them.

Nellie in recovery

For future repotting, I will use some new growing medium I bought and grow my orchids semi-hydroponically. Instead of using orchid bark, I plan to use these little ceramic pebbles. They are supposed to cut down on root rot, allow more time between repotting cycles, and can be reused.

semi-hydroponic growing medium

Then, unfortunately, my newest orchid, Pierre, got very eaten by aphids. They seemed to appear suddenly, but I realized after reading more about them that he probably came with aphids from the greenhouse where I bought him.

argh! aphids!

This is Pierre before the aphid boom:

Pierre in happier times

If you click on the picture and make it bigger, you can see what looks like a little droplet of dew at the node where the stem branches out to make the flower. This little droplet is probably a bad sign. As the aphids chomp down on the orchids, they release the sugary sap from the phloem. Poor Pierre erupted in aphids after a few weeks and I had to spray him down with alcohol, and take him outside. You are actually supposed to use something with mineral oil because it smothers the aphids, but at the same time I put him outside so that aphid preditors (bees and flies) could eat the aphids. It was also during the time when the temperature was in the high 90s- which is okay for Brassia/Oncidiums but not good for aphids, which do best in the low 70s. There are no more aphids now, but the flowers didn’t survive all that… oh well. They probably only had another week left anyway.

My last problem I haven’t quite figured out yet. We got some orchids recently for going to Orchid day, and this is one. It’s a Miltonia.

our new Miltonia

We actually got two, but this one isn’t doing very well. The leaves developed some unusual patterning. I don’t know if this is due to a virus (in which case it would have to go in the trash) or if it just got too much light- possibly magnified through water droplets after being watered. Any suggestions are welcome. In the meantime, it is staying in quarantine and Aaron is taking care of it in his office.

the sick little leaf

Another common orchid pest is scale. I’ve been lucky enough to not have this problem, however, I diagnosed one of my mom’s plants with it this past weekend. When I get the pictures off my camera I will put one up to show how that looks.