A couple of nights ago, I pulled out some school photos of Uncle Jeff and Aunt Cynthia and me to show my son how we all looked with braces on our teeth (in preparation for this morning when he got his put on.) He seemed completely unconcerned about the hardware; he couldn’t get past my ’80s hair:
“What did you do, stand in front of an air vent?” he asked. ”Your Mom let you go to school like that???”
mostly unplugged this week, this is my shot of the day, from several days ago.
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I’m borrowing that line, it struck me as funny this last week. whose isn’t? I’m ready for March when I go back to shooting.
I was in the ER for many hours, again, with my little Sunshine this last week (she’s okay — a 4th grade boy had slipped her a valentine treat laced with nuts.) I had her brother in the waiting room, I had to yank him out of school as well because I knew we’d never get in and out of an ER visit in time to pick him up at the end of the day, so I was running between Lex in the ER, J in the wait room, the car in the lot on the other side of the world to fetch more homework for J, the hour-long wait at the pharmacy for a new epi-pen …
I handed Lexi my iPhone with a very stern warning, “no texting.” (because not too long ago, she sent Daddy and some of my friends texts saying how proud I am of my Lexi, how she’s better behaved and smarter than Jonathan and therefore certainly deserves to have a hamster, don’t you think? it was kind of funny but kind of not.
anyhow. no texts.
I felt bad leaving her in the ER alone but she was fine, right next to the nurses station where they had to monitor her for four hours to be sure she was okay after the epi-pen wore off (she was) so I left her with my iPhone and asked her to draw me a picture (Brushes) and when I returned, found her completely engrossed in flight of the hamsters. It wasn’t until this morning that I remembered my request, and found the drawing my brilliant Sunshine made for me:
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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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It’s been raining like [west of the Cascades] Oregon here the last few months! Today the sun came out and made the humidity feel like just this side of an East Coast summer — which is too quick because I was still getting the hang of spring. As we turn the corner into summer, most of my pictures of spring sit unedited and unposted.
Like this.
And this.
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this morning, I wrote my son’s Godparents an email telling them what he’s been up to lately. You know, the usual, today was Colonial Day at school, he dressed as a General, after school he has guitar lessons and then tonight his spring band concert (he plays the sax).
I told them the story about one day last month, I waited in the car with his sister during his lesson (because otherwise it’s just a lot of work for me to keep her from banging the drums in the store while we’re inside.) He came out 30 minutes later, put his guitar in the trunk and off we went. Pretty uneventful.
Until the next week, when I walked him into his lesson and the employees behind the counter all rushed over excited to tell me hey, the stuff your son ordered last week is in. !!!! Turns out, he ordered himself a combo tuner-slash-metronome and some new music books, stuff he can use with his keyboard, sax and guitar and he’ll have for life they all assured me. I raised an eyebrow and looked over at him sideways while I handed over my credit card.
UPDATE: J & Cat performing at a dinner party in May, Catherine on the trumpet. video credit: Cat’s Daddy.
[quicktime]http://christinegacharna.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/jcat.mov[/quicktime]
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This morning, when I went to download some photos I had taken with my point-and-shoot, I found some images that weren’t mine — 93 of them, to be exact. It wasn’t hard to guess into whose hands it had fallen, especially thanks to the self portraits toward the end. I’m secretly thrilled by the defocusing, disturbing the frame, rule of thirds, getting right up in there with her lens…
I’m not going to post them all, but chose a pretty representative sampling of her work.
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When I first queried Carl Zoch Photography for a family session, I let him know straight-up that I’m a photographer. Photographing the photographer can be tricky business, and a simple Google search of my name will bring up my portfolio. I didn’t want him to think this was some kind of feint maneuver.
Carl is stunning at engagement and wedding photos. When my husband and I were engaged, Carl might have been saying to us, “Uh, hey, guys? Over here?” It’s been 12 years and 2 kids since our engagement, so instead of interrupting our kisses to get his shot, Carl had to crash-course us on kissing in public! Walking down the center of a cobblestone street at sunset with our children in tow isn’t an everyday experience — but maybe it should be, at least occasionally.
I chose Carl for a number of reasons:
He’s likable;
He’s a former Oregonian;
He’s mastered Oklahoma sun;
Photographs are important to him.
Sitting on the other side of the lens is an experience I’m still digesting, but I’ve decided this much: photographers should be showing up in the posts of photography blogs, not just in the comment section.
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© 2010 christine gacharna | a Northern Virginia photo B L o G
Thank you! My name was announced on the school intercom today.
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