Sunday Stills: Profile Pic

This week, the Sunday Stills challenge was a little different. First off, I didn't have to take the picture! And it was to be a profile pic. But, it did have to be with my own camera. So, I asked my photo friend, the very talented Colin, to help out. We actually did this at work in one of our meeting rooms with lots of natural light. Thanks Colin! It was very weird to be in front of the camera instead of behind it, but it was fun.

Calgary: Out of the comfort zone

Now that my 365 day project is done, I'm at a bit of a crossroads with the photography thing. I don't want to be forced to take a picture to a deadline for a long while yet. But, I still want to take pictures and get out of my comfort zone.

George and I went to Calgary for the weekend -- a sort of mini-working-vacation. I was helping him out at a tradeshow / seminar event. My first one. I met lots of interesting people and learned that, yes, I could wear high heels for three days straight. My feet actually felt funny when I put on my flat shoes Sunday night.

Because we were downtown Calgary, we were pretty much a short walk from everything. The Calgary Tower was across the street, and Stephen Avenue (a historic walking/shopping district) was a half block away. So, all of this made for some interesting, and different, pictures.

I posted a few of them, including the ones with snow, for my Sunday Stills project.

But, here are some extras. We  hit the Calgary Tower on Sunday night after a very tasty dinner, and a few drinks (I ordered a glass of wine, they brought me a half litre - happy days). You travel 525 feet up an elevator to get to the top of the tower. There, you can stand on a glass floor and look down at the city street below. A little freaky. Here's my self-portrait shot doing this.



And, just to prove George is conquering his fear of heights (or maybe had too many double caesars at supper), he did it too! (Note: He admitted after the trip that he's closer to flying to Europe...maybe even next year! I'm writing this down so I can show it to him in 6 months.)



But, my favourite shot from the weekend is the one I took on the way to dinner. We were walking along Stephen Avenue when I saw this man sleeping on a bench at the base of a sculpture. I took one of him from the front, but as I walked past I saw the contrast between the Indigospirit storefront and this poor guy. (And it was damn cold too.) I've always wanted to have the guts to take a picture like this (strange, I know). And I'm glad that I did it as I think it tells an interesting, if incomplete, story.



For more shots of Calgary...

The Queen

For the first, and likely last, time in my life, I got to cut a meeting short at work by saying, "The Queen is here. I have to go." Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip stopped next door to our office today today t0 tour a RIM manufacturing building, and pick up a free Blackberry.

I saw a couple of people with Canadian flag lawn chairs set up at 6:30 am this morning, but most people showed up closer to 10:30 to wait for her arrival. It was quite the production number, involving helicopters, motorcycles, SUVs, limos, horses, and the poor dude who got stuck on the roof, dressed in black and on the lookout with his binoculars. (More pictures on my photostream.)

I just saw her off in the distance walking to her limo (in a full hat, coat, and dress, in 40 degree C weather!), but I did get a good spot to see her driving out of the parking lot, with the customary wave. In this shot, you can see her and Prince Philip waving...at me, right?

And another one....my favourite actually.

I wasn't too excited about seeing the queen until it actually happened. Then, the atmosphere around the office, and around the RIM building was festive. I even met up with a former co-worker as we caught up along the fence line and waited for Her Majesty.

I'd say it was once in a lifetime, but my grandparents actually took me to see the Queen when I was a kid. I remember waiting a very looong time to see this woman ride by in a car, waving. A little deja vu today, but with a 20 minute wait instead. It was a spectacle that was fun to be part of. And, it was just next door.

Moved by infinite extension

This morning I had the strangest invitation to join a flickr group in my Inbox.

charles@米魯燒肉 has invited you to be a member of
米魯藝廊ibeer art gallery,Taiwan(your best 5 a day).

flickr has many different groups that people can post to, with or without invitation. But, I'd never been invited to one, and what the heck is an "ibeer art gallery" anyway? So, I went on to flickr to do some more investigation. And, yes, there really is a group called ibeer art gallery. And what is the group's mission? Even stranger:

ibeer is a yakiniku restaurant with
Happy selling yakiniku
Carefully adhere to delicious
As a service and sharing the spirit of the house ibeer

Because the owner and staff people who love photography
2005 opening date has accumulated tens of thousands of photos

Now this set up ibeer art Gallery
Welcome to share your photography
So moved by infinite extension!

Mmmm....while this is an intriguing, and strangely constructed ESL explanation, I'm going to say "No thanks" to being moved by infinite extension.

Now, back to the olympics!

An update...turned out better than I thought

Just an update on my brush with Blake's head on Friday. Despite my worst fears, and throbbing face/nose on Friday night as I was laying in bed trying to sleep, I did not turn into a raccoon overnight, or swell up like a balloon. Just sore on Saturday (the kind where you're constantly wary of anyone getting too close to your injury). By today, I can still feel it, but nothing bad at all.

Blake spent the weekend telling people I "hurt his head", and that he "went to the bathroom" (to hide). I don't think he's too traumatized though. He was trying to jump off the coffee table onto the couch yesterday afternoon. He sometimes rationalizes this behaviour by telling me "I'm not jumping mommy, I'm flying." At least he's cute when he's driving me crazy.

That hockey player look...

Blake and Faith have taken to playing in a "boat" in our living room. The boat is our two big easy chairs pushed together, with seat cushions optional. Today, Blake decided to push the chairs slightly apart, and make a bridge from one of the chairs to the other with a seat cushion. As I bent over to grab the cushion and push the chairs back together "for safety", he jumped in an attempt to cross the bridge, and propelled his hard little head into my nose.

I know that they recently released a study saying that swearing helps with pain, but when your three-year-old is standing there, dropping the f-bomb a few times just doesn't seem appropriate. Instead I sat down, quickly, and contemplated the crunching sound I'd just heard the cartilage in my nose make. Yes...it did start bleeding. And, yes, I had to sit on the couch with an ice pack for awhile. When Faith asked what was wrong, I told her that I hurt my nose. Blake piped up with, "You hurt my head mommy!" True, although your head didn't start bleeding, so I win the pain game.

Now, I have this kind of dull throb over my whole upper face, so we'll see if I look like a swollen raccoon tomorrow. Joy.

My bad

I just realized that most of the videos I've posted weren't "open to all" on flickr, which means you had to be my special flickr friend to see them. Sorry about that!

I've gone in and fixed all of them now, so you should be able to see:

Faith riding over a jump
Blake roaring

I'll do better next time....maybe.

Better late than never

I'm not sure how it got to be the middle of November, but here it is. I promised some vacation pictures a looooong time ago, and I finally remembered to post a link. I won't subject you to all the pictures I took, but here are my favourites from the two weeks:

http://flickr.com/gp/robinsnest3/516Qb6

My exotic lilies (and my new lens)

My exotic lilies
Originally uploaded by Robin's Nest3

Warning: If you're not into photography, just skip the next paragraph and enjoy the picture of my lilies.

I finally got a new (better) lens for my camera, and my new lilies were a good choice to do some test shots. It's a Tamron f2.8 28-75mm for my Canon body. I was going for the lower aperture across the whole focal range, without having to go bankrupt buying a Canon lens. So far, the Tamron has been an excellent investment. I even splurged and bought a higher end UV filter and polarizer for the lens. I plan on having the lens for a looooong time, so I figure it's an investment. The lens goes full frame, so whenever I get around to upgrading my camera body, the lens will go along with me. And, if anyone is interested, BJ Photo is where I bought everything. They are super helpful and, frankly, have the best prices around.

The case for egg salad

We make a lot of egg salad at our house. George and I love a good egg salad sandwich, Faith eats it too, and Blake likes to crack the eggs (although he prefers to eat the whole egg instead of the mushed up bits). So it's the perfect food...you get to play, then eat. We've always just made egg salad with whatever was lying around. And sometimes, it's just mushed up egg and mayo when we're feeling particularly lazy.

So, when someone at work asked me if I had a recipe for egg salad, I was actually surprised. Recipe? For egg salad? Why? Don't you just boil, cool, peel, mush? Perhaps chop up some celery, maybe a little green onion? I like a bit of relish and pepper. Whatever. I'd never even thought about looking up a recipe.

I think that this is another illustration of how different people view the world--some people need recipes, others wing it. I took one of those "personality" test things on the internet for fun, and one of my characteristics was "creative". But, I've never really thought of myself this way. Analytical yes, but not creative. But, maybe my egg salad "non-recipe" is one example of my "creativity". I'm not sure how this meshes with my control-freak nature though...a balancing act I think.

Either way, it leads to good egg salad.

Tall"er" for 60 minutes...

Last week I had my annual physical. Not usually a noteworthy experience, but this time was different for a few reasons.

1) My weight on the doctor's scale was lower than the weight on my home scale. Woohoo!
2) I had the best blood pressure ever! (120 over 60)
3) I grew an inch and a half.

Yes...according to the doctor's nurse, I am now 64 1/2 inches tall (5'4 1/2"). Considering that I've been 5'3" (ok...5' 2/3") since I've been about 13, this was quite a revelation to me. I did point this out to the nurse, that maybe her chart was a bit off. But, she just responded, "Well, you're 64 1/2 here." (This leaves me in some doubt about the first two items in my above list.)

On the plus side, I had a great BMI when the doctor came in to look at the chart. And, I could fantasize for just a little while that I actually was taller. What could I reach now in my kitchen cupboards? Mmmmmm...

But, when I got home, I whipped out the tape measure and sure enough, the extra inch and a half was gone. Sigh.

What money can buy...

I let Blake play in the downstairs bathroom sink quite a bit. He splashes around and gets the bathroom wet, but it keeps him amused while I'm making dinner. Yes...I need two hands to cut vegetables, which he doesn't quite understand.

Today, my wet babysitting plan went a little off course though. Blake took me to the bathroom to show me the pink-striped sock (Faith's) that he had decided to throw in the toilet. Great. I grabbed a plastic bag to fish it out, but, of course, Faith had to see the excitement first. After the inspection, I was ready to grab the sock, but then had a brilliant parenting idea.

"Faith, I'll give you $2.00 to get the sock out of the toilet."

"$2 bucks? OK!"

And, just like that, she grabbed the plastic bag, and de-sockified the toilet. While smiling!

"Two dollars please!"

Best two bucks I ever spent.

Left or right?

So, I took this quiz to determine whether I was right or left brain dominant. Apparently, I'm a leftie...although what this actually means, I have no idea. :) Actually, here's a site that talks about left vs. right brain dominance.

Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others. Left Brain Dominance: (9) Right Brain Dominance: (5) Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz

Tired of these phone calls

Saturday brought more phone calls....about 50.

Dad decided to test the theory that his helmut actually protected his hard head by getting into an accident with his horse Sophie and the carriage. But, how did we find out?

My cousin called us up looking for Mom's cell phone and explained what happened. Dad had called them from the back of the ambulance because he couldn't find Mom. He explained what happened, then I had to call Curtis to get the cell number, then call Mom, then call back to say I just left a message. (Later to find out that her phone was in the mail.) Then finally talk to Mom on her cell, and so on....

Faith was standing there listening to all this, and getting pretty upset. She kept asking about Grampa and the horse.

"I'm really worried."

"Don't worry, the horse will be fine."

"Not the horse. GRAMPA! He's a HUMAN!"

Grampa will be happy to know that he rates above the horse.

Turns out that he didn't break anything, and neither did the horse, but he is pretty banged up. He's going slooooow right now, but is happy about the drugs.

We're just happy that his helmut was on his head. We knew it was pretty hard--his head, not the helmut--but the extra protection saved his ass...um....head.

At the movies

So I saw Sicko yesterday...sort of. I decided to try out the whole "movies for moms" thing at the Galaxy as I just had Blake yesterday. And, they were playing Sicko...even better! Unfortunately, Blake does not share my affinity for movies, or maybe it's just Michael Moore movies. Dear god...perhaps he's a conservative like his dad!

Anyway, I would definitely recommend this one. Although I did have to leave before the final few moments (too much crying...which mysteriously ended as soon as I got to the car and turned into happy smiles...like "Thank God...she's finally doing what I want now!"), Sicko is Michael Moore's least strident, and I think most effective, documentary to date. The stories are relentless and after watching it, I don't see how anyone in the free world could doubt that the US system of health insurance/healthcare is pretty much a complete and total disaster.

George got to hear a bit about the movie after I got home, and after about three stories of woe, he told me to stop as he couldn't take it anymore. I didn't even get to the really, really upsetting ones either.

Anyway, it all makes me glad that I live in Canada and don't have to pull out the cheque book whenever I head to the doctor. I'm happy to pay the taxes that come with universal health care.

So, two thumbs up from me for Sicko, and one sucked thumb from Blake.

33 weeks pregnant

George took this picture of me on Sunday, two days before Blake was born so you can see just how big (or small) I was when he was born.

Dr's appointments

The last two days held dr's appointments for Faith and I. Faith saw our family doc on Thursday morning as a follow-up check on her diagnosis of pneumonia last week. Yes, pneumonia. She is fine now, other than a lingering cough, but the week before Christmas was really interesting. I got a kidney stone on Monday night and we found out Faith had pneumonia on Tuesday. This was a great double-whammy of sick women in the house for George, but luckily my mom came up for a few days to help us out, and then George's parents arrived a day early to spell her off. (Having family to help out is a huge bonus.)

My doctor's appointment was with my OB yesterday to do the normal check on the baby and get the results from my most recent ultrasound. All good news. My blood pressure is down (thanks to being off work I suspect), my ultrasound showed NO MORE KIDNEY STONES!, the baby weighs about 3.3 lbs and his head down, and the OB thinks I'll get to about 35 weeks before I have junior b. And the best part...I had only gained 2.5 lbs since my last visit! And that's with plenty of Christmas gorging!

Oh yes, and if anyone is ever interested, kidney stones are worse than labour. First off, intense, sudden pain, second, you "give birth" to a kidney stone and not a warm, snuggly baby. I was very happy to hear that I don't need to expect any more of those suckers. I don't want another midnight trip the hospital! (Well I can handle it if it's a baby.)

Experimenting with the new camera

Putting your best face forward

Mom is developing another artistic business to keep her even busier (retirement...what's that?). She has started a face painting business. But this is no ordinary face painting...none of those simple, one or two color butterflies and hearts you see on kid's cheeks at local fairs. Instead, the faces are works of art. When she pulled out a red suitcase (!) full of different colors, brushes, and tools, I couldn't believe it!

Faith thought this turn of events was awesome! And, since Halloween was yesterday, and she wanted to be a bunny princess, Mom showed me how to do a bunny face for her costume. (Note...my attempt at the bunny face did not look nearly as good as the picture below.)
Next, Faith wanted to have a "princess" face. So she went through the many pictures that Mom has of different ideas to choose the face she wanted. The result is below, with Mom's special flare for color of course.


...and from the other side...
Faith discovered with this face painting design what most women have learned. There is no possible way to keep your lips painted and actually eat or drink anything. Mom retouched her about three times before we had to wash off the masterpiece.

I even got into the act with a pumpkin for Halloween on my cheek.


I told Mom that her house has officially become a kid's idea of the circus, complete with horse rides from Grampa and face painting by Gramma.

Discovering hell...

I have discovered hell, and it's having a cold when you're pregnant. The only medicine you can take is Tylenol, which we all know is soooo effective against a stuffed up nose. This meant I was off work for 2 1/2 days this week, and missed Faith's field trip to a cider mill. I'm finally recovered/ing and am just down to a cough now.

On Monday, I had my second OB appointment. This time I got a very nice intern. So, I've gained 4 lbs, have slightly elevated blood pressure (although he's not worried about it and neither am I as I have white coat syndrome), and the baby was so uncooperative that she couldn't get a heart rate. She'd catch the kid for a few seconds and then the baby would move away. This one is very active compared with Faith.

Monday night I started getting the cold, so I was out of commission for Tuesday evening when Faith went to her first Sparks meeting (pre-Brownies). She was very excited when she came home. "I get to go in a parade and sell coooookies!" I'm not sure why selling cookies is so exciting to a five year old. Actually, she gets to go in two parades...Remembrance Day and Santa Claus. And, she has a field trip to Toronto planned, as well as a New Year's Sleepover but not on New Year's. So, Sparks so far sounds like a good investment (not a cheap activity!).

We survived the rest of the week. And today we're going to my 10-year class reunion for university. (I think this means I'm getting old. :) It's homecoming football day, so we're going with friends and hoping not to get rained on. George, of course, thinks I'm crazy as I'm still coughing, but your 10 year reunion only happens once!