snowpocalypse

Our long weekend is getting L O N G E R …

It started early Friday morning with the wildly exciting news that school is canceled! We slept late and then just before the flakes started to fall, ventured out for last-minute stops at all the essentials for such a weekend: Gamestop, the library and Starbucks.

Late afternoon found us all sitting in the kitchen, Lexi working on homework, Jonathan on his PSP and me texting Carlos (away this last week on a trip) to let him know that yes, we are fine and have everything we need. WHOOSH quick as a flash, my little sunshine was outside on the patio, barefoot, gleeful to run and play, leap for sheer winter joy in the snow. And then she slipped, fell, stood, and saw the blood everywhere, gushing from her shin. She screamed, “Mommy, my kidney just fell out!” (In hindsight, I’m guessing that was a chunk of tissue?)

Mommy switched into crisis mode, adrenaline taking over, sent off the text mid-letter and followed up with another: “destination: ER. call me.”

Once there, my kids started to argue over who has the most ER visits under his/her belt. :sigh: I know the correct answer: I am considerably more likely to be in the ER with either one kid or the other when Carlos is on a trip. The ER Doc, as fun and wonderful as he was, showed the kids how to suture a wound and assured Lexi that although this was his first attempt ever, it looked as if it was actually going quite well.

Then all joking aside, he said no getting wet — no sledding — for 48 hours.:(

So we sat indoors all day Saturday, sat and looked out the window as inches, and more inches, and then a foot and another of snow continued to fall. The kids played the Wii, DS, PSP — I began to fear that we might lose power and what then of our indoor alphabet world?

This morning, I mustered my nerve and headed outside to dig out our cars — and my wonderful neighbors were already hard at work! We worked long into afternoon getting everybody properly uncovered and recovered from this unusually epic storm that slammed the mid-Atlantic. As we worked, we all got the text that school is canceled Monday, and then more news to expect 6 more inches Tuesday.

So on that happy note: we went SLEDDING!!! (only a few hours shy of 48, Doc.)

[Canon G11, +2 ev]

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even the snowmen are buried in snow

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a perfect Northern Virginia snow day

no school! and the streets I need to get us to a matinee have already been plowed.

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February 3, 2010 - 10:52 am

cameo mark - the perfect tucson sunrise and the perfect virgina snow day all in the same week. not bad.

February 3, 2010 - 11:06 pm

christine - totally worth the trip just to get this cameo appearance from you on my blog! thank you for lunch…

the birthday girls

in a long line of slumber parties we’ve shared over the years to celebrate (we were born 5 days apart), each year I wonder how we’ll top the last. we stayed up way too late & laughed until our stomach muscles ached, tears rolling down our cheeks.

happy birthday, Robin! thank you for the wonderful time…

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February 1, 2010 - 2:30 pm

Robin - Time, in my opinion, is the best gift one can give you. Thank you for all your precious time. It was magical. Next….Paris, Kilimanjaro, ….

February 1, 2010 - 2:39 pm

Shane - Happy Birthday to both of you, looking great as always. It’s very cool that you both can be together to share. I like how you still call it a slumber party! Any pilliow fights?

Take care and enjoy.

Shane

February 3, 2010 - 12:13 am

Carol Reimer - You asked me to get back to you but your card does not have an e-mail address so I will try to do it this way. Our lunch was wonderful and we spent alot of extra money on goodies at the store. Thanks for being so friendly and maybe someday you will come to Calif. and stop in Kingsburg. We are there most of the time. Sincerly Carol Reimer

February 3, 2010 - 8:49 am

christine - Carol! how fun was that, a car pulls up right next to where we are walking and out spills a bunch of Oregonians and two Californians? it was so great to meet you all! we enjoyed our quiche from the High Desert Market & Cafe in Old Bisbee, Robin left with a French tablecloth and I with my favorite French soap. as you walked back to your car, did you see the Oregon trash can? I will email you the photo.

Shane, thank you! sweet and thoughtful as ever. no Bisbee pillow fights, for fear we might knock over our wine?

and Robin, yes! 39 Georgetown, 40 Bisbee, 41 Paris and Kilimanjaro any year before 50. I’m in. :)

February 7, 2010 - 3:38 am

Sheila Gebhardt - …how sweet to have those times…I just spent some time with Rachel, it’s amazing how we can just pick up after being apart for months…40 is going to be a GREAT year!..

a perfect Tucson sunrise

at least I can take my baby home w/ me:

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the Bisbee Breakfast Club

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February 2, 2010 - 3:03 am

Ray - Loved those pics.

My favorite one: empty street, overcast sky, person in blue walking up the sidewalk.

Happy birthday, Christine.

February 2, 2010 - 1:43 pm

christine - speechless, Ray? :)

jk. we’re working on it…

February 4, 2010 - 11:04 am

christine - code for loved rendered a logic bug.

how’s that for poetic?

February 4, 2010 - 5:18 pm

Ray - Most poetic thing I’ve ever seen — outside of those photos.

Now let’s see if I render another logic bug …

Cafe Roka, Bisbee


It was upstairs, a window table for two, second from the left, looking out over Bisbee when she knew for certain: she was going to marry this man. (If he ever asks; he kept her guessing just for sport.)

Fast forward 15 years, he’s at home enjoying the snow with the kids while she gets a long weekend away with her best friend from kindergarten. Thank you, Carlos, for Bisbee. Then and now.

Mrs. Robin and I had planned a dinner date at Cafe Roka tonight, but it’s closed until February for renovations. A picture from outside was the best we could do.


[photo by RLC]

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January 31, 2010 - 10:28 am

Paul - Great pic!

Dinesen’s Africa = my Tucson

Living on the East Coast has taught me one thing for certain: I am a West Coast girl.

For me, Tucson in particular is like walking through life with only a Lensbaby to capture the story. With no annoying details to distract from the purpose, a Lensbaby makes big-picture interesting by merging the surreal and romantic stuff of memories into the reality of right now.

In hindsight, I’m glad I landed after dark. It wasn’t raining, per se, not the sort of rain as Oregon knows rain, just a light dusting of moisture over the desert, making the streets glisten and a mess of windshields. Driving in the dark, distracted by the beauty and brightness of the stars and the permanence of the Santa Catalina Mountains to orient me, I was totally unprepared for what happened next: as I crossed over Broadway and Kino became Campbell, I started to cry. Happy to be home, I thought. But then I saw a building I’d seen so many times before, stucco with prickly pears along the entrance, and then I passed the Mall, and then an old haunt — all brought more tears. Driving through town evoked an overwhelming response that I did not expect. I’ve been so excited to return, it never even occurred to me that my beloved Tucson could make my cry.

I didn’t dare turn left on Speedway toward Euclid as habit wanted me to. I slept instead in the foothills, a big soft feathery bed anticipating a spectacular view (something I’d always wanted to do but sort of silly back in the days when I had an apartment across town and barely enough cash to buy dinner.) As I write this, the sun is brushing strips of light blue over Mt. Lemmon and the mountains are pushing back with gold. I’m thinking later this morning, after the sun has been around for awhile and I venture toward campus, I might be able to drive past my old studio apartment in the historic building. It’s awfully easy to be hard-boiled about things during the daytime; but at night it’s a different thing.

I didn’t bring my Lensbaby — I didn’t even bring my camera. Just me, my keyboard and ShakeIt. It’s going to be a delicious three days.

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January 29, 2010 - 11:02 am

suzanne - I can see it all – the drive, the catalinas as my compass, passing the mall at U of A (how many miles did I run there?!), the drive up Campbell to the foothills, my old house on 6th street. You just opened up the huge book of Tucson memories for me! Tucson will be be on my mind all day!

January 29, 2010 - 1:14 pm

Erin - I think just reading about it is going to make me cry! Wish we’d had more time there together. Miss those days…

January 29, 2010 - 7:04 pm

Ray - Your post launched me back. It’s been bitter cold in Colorado the past couple of days, and I was just thinking of Tucson, and how much I miss it. Your post was synchronicitous, your writing gorgeous.

Right around the spot where you started cry is right around where I used to live.

I hope you have the best time ever. Drink a cup of coffee for me at the Epic Cafe.

January 29, 2010 - 7:06 pm

Ray - P.S. Your Hemingway reference was brilliantly apposite.

January 30, 2010 - 9:30 am

Katie Artz - I have never been to Tucson but your comment about always being a West Coast girl really hits home! Especially now, as we are moving to the East Coast! Philadelphia – Eric got a new job working for Urban Outfitters. He starts on Monday and the girls and I will join him in June when school gets out. I can’t believe we are moving again but I am always up for another adventure. Let’s get these two West Coasters, who’ve travelled the world, together on the East Coast!!! Have a great time in Tucson.

February 3, 2010 - 9:30 am

christine - Synchronicitous. Gorgeous. Epic. (Apposite; although, I did get an email after you wrote that accusing my blog of becoming highbrow.) Ray and Suzanne, it would haunt me terribly to think how I most certainly ran right past you both, on the Mall, down 4th Ave., [insert list of haunts here], all of us there and none of us knowing. so I just don’t think about it.

Erin, you and I most certainly tripped past them on our way home! that was sum fun, you and me and Arizona. (and Colorado. and Wyoming. we should give a few more states a whirl!)

Katie, that’s GREAT! there are still highlights in Philly that I haven’t seen yet, so it’ll be perfect. from CornValley to downtown Tokyo to Penn State to Philly … I have a couple of good adventures in mind for you when you arrive, you’ll need your camera and a passport. call me as soon as you get settled! :)

fun with profile pics on an iPhone


ingredients:
iPhone + built-in camera + ps mobile (photo fx, pixel perfect will work, too)
OR best camera
shakeit photo

total time: about 2 minutes

The original shot, taken with my iPhone’s built in camera with light from a west-facing window. Ideally, I would have been standing at a north-facing window, but I live in a townhome and all of our windows face west or east, so I improvised. Note: I held my phone slightly higher than eye-level and aimed it down at a slight angle.

Ideally, I prefer snapshots of myself to be overexposed by two stops, just to wash out some of the telltale signs of my 40ish years and sun-worship lifestyle. I can’t control exposure on my iPhone camera, but I have an app. Here’s the original shot run through PS Mobile with the exposure dialed up one full stop (I know, I just said I prefer two stops; keep reading):

Ideally, I prefer portraits shot nearly wide-open, careful to keep the focus on the eyes so they remain tack-sharp. I can’t control f-stops on my iPhone, so in this case, I used the “vignette/blur” setting in PS Mobile to sort of mimic my preferences. This setting adds some saturation kick, too:

Ideally, I would have achieved the whole look in ShakeIt Photo. When ShakeIt Photo came on scene last year, it brought with it a whole new experience in camera fun to my world. ShakeIt will add about a full stop of overexposure and a little bit of saturation kick, and of course randomly selects a fun square frame:

Ideally, I wouldn’t have saturated the color twice; and ideally, I would have brushed my lipgloss on with a little more care to keep it straight if I had known this was going to turn into an experiment and land on my blog; and ideally, the end result would be in black & white, so the deal-breaker of the over-saturation of colors would ultimately be rendered a moot point:

But for building a profile pic in two minutes on an iPhone with a couple of fun apps, I can certainly live with slightly less than ideal.

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Bob Sullivan’s latest book

UPDATE: first week on the NYTimes bestseller list!

Many months ago, I got a sneak peek at Stop Getting Ripped Off: Why Consumers Get Screwed And How You Can Always Get A Fair Deal when it was still in draft form. I read it in three-point type on my iPhone while on vacation — something only a handful of authors could entice me to do. Bob Sullivan is one.

This is what I remember: in places, I felt sick to my stomach. He’s talking right to me and makes me come face to face with my own quirky patterns of not caring about numbers and not being fiscally responsible. Bob Sullivan is on a mission to educate Americans and change the way we view and spend our money, make us smarter, be our consumer advocate. He genuinely writes to help people. He writes as if he has an established relationship with his readers. (He does, of course.)

Bottom line: I loved the book before it was published and although I haven’t received my printed/bound/autographed copy yet, I’m already confidently talking it up to my friends.:)

He emailed me today to let me know NPR used my photo alongside a “Fresh Air” interview.

We actually shot this photo for Gotcha! but the shoot for this latest book kept getting pushed back for one reason or another. Note to self: schedule Bob Sullivan for a photo session before he starts writing his next book.:)

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January 8, 2010 - 9:30 am

kate gardiner photography - I heard this interview! Nifty!

Merry Christmas!

the best of 2009

made on my iPhone using ShakeIt Photo

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December 23, 2009 - 4:47 pm

Paul - Merry Christmas!

December 23, 2009 - 5:00 pm

Susan - That is the greatest holiday card I have ever seen! Nice job.
Looks like the bug on your blog is fixed. The photos aren’t disappearing for me anymore.

December 23, 2009 - 10:30 pm

Kate - Merry Christmas doll! Great fam pix!

December 27, 2009 - 1:34 am

Sheila Gebhardt - LOVE IT!…what a great card, the kids are just growing up so fast, tell them to slow down…the card was just adorable, all the way down to “LEXI” :)

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

As a military family, our children rarely spend Christmas in the same place twice.  So working with that, we try to make family traditions flexible worldwide.  For example, we take them to the Nutcracker each year and recount years passed how many cities across the globe we’ve seen it in during the holidays.  We have tickets for today’s Septime Webre’s The Nutcracker starring George Washington as the heroic Nutcracker and England’s King George III as the villainous Rat King.  I can’t wait.  Our tickets are for the showing at D.C.’s historic Warner Theater.

Only we woke up this morning to all this snow!

So we went sledding instead!


The blizzard continues, D.C. is shut down.  We’re inside now, all warmed up and sipping hot chocolate.  This might be the year we reschedule the Nutcracker for January, which makes 2010 the historic year that we’ll see it twice!

Carlos is heartbroken, stuck indoors on a day the Saints are playing.  :)  (thinking of you, Tommy and Katie!)

And I digress here, but sledding down that tiny treeless hill this morning brought back so many fond memories of recklessly sailing down mountains on Les Schwab tire tubes, dodging evergreens, and the completely insane hooky-bobbing of my youth.  On days like today, I think of all my Oregon friends and smile.  :)  Miss you guys!


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December 19, 2009 - 8:05 pm

Cameron - So glad you’re having fun in the snow! :) And also glad that we made it out just in time! :)

December 21, 2009 - 1:27 am

Sheila Gebhardt - So FUN to follow your family journey :) What a true joy!

December 21, 2009 - 6:12 pm

Eleanor Lynch - Loved the pictures. Love, Mom

a Meeks family Christmas card

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a Wales family holiday card

Photo credit for cute patriotic doggies: Jaime Wales  :)

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December 16, 2009 - 10:01 pm

Jaime Wales - I could not be happier with holiday cards! I LOVE them!

December 21, 2009 - 11:30 am

christine - :) enjoy!

December 22, 2009 - 1:43 am

suzanne - Awwwwww! Love it! Simply lovely! Our cards will not be nearly as excitin this year without Christine’s expert photography and design talents! I am really sad about that!!! We’ll just have to fly her to vegas in 2010 to photograph the kids….

a Fuhrmann family Christmas card

[play the ditty "sugar and spice and everything nice …" somewhere in the background of your mind while viewing]

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