Toys, toys, toys

It's mid-January and I'm just getting to posting Xmas pictures. I guess I'm probably not the only one to have a long holiday recovery time.

We have a tradition in our house that many people seem to feel is cheating. We don't open presents on the 25th of December, we open presents on the first day that everyone's vacation has commenced. Why wait for a whole week before opening your presents? You could be spending that week enjoying the presents. Many presents we give and receive are sharing presents or games that we can all play together, so we even get more family time in. The main reason this tradition isn't cheating is that we aren't Christians and we try to be fairly practical. As such, it seems appropriate to celebrate the first day of our family holiday break.

I do like to take note of the solstice to bring back a little Halloween feeling. In a deep, warbling voice I announce solemnly to the children, "It is the darkest day of the year..." At first, they thought I was joking, then they thought I meant something supernatural. So, we had a little astronomy lesson to explain the joke. Jokes are always funnier when you carefully lecture the listener on all the important humorous elements.

Back to Xmas. We went to my folks house where my dad has steadfastly maintained the practice of giving toys. I love toys. I love giving toys. I love playing with toys. The only thing better than toys are in-joke toys. For instance, I've been getting my sister nose-themed gifts for three years running...

Theo got me a whole host of wonderful toys that I'm still happily playing with. The toy in this post though, is a toy my dad received -- a ping pong ball floater with which to practice your nerf shooting skills. Jasmine adored it and spent quite a bit of time perfecting the art of getting all five balls floating. (The main difficulty was her long pony tails or the sleeve of her sweater knocking the balls out of the air.) She giggled like mad every time she had all floating at once. She has the same taste as my Dad for shiny, colorful objects and toys that are slightly absurd or surprising. Actually, I think the rest of the family will also have to admit to the magpie-like predilections.

Driving into the Sunset

It's not a macro. If anything, a sky like this makes you feel like a micro. There have been some incredible sunsets around here lately. We saw this particular one as we headed down to Albuquerque for the holidays.

My Sister's Eye

 
 
I know, there are two pictures of eyes, but it's the same eye.

I think her eyes are yellow with green rims. Most people tell me I'm nuts and that her eyes are green.

Robotic New Year

The new year brings such hopes of hitherto unknown productivity.

I'll call 2009 a success: We've done Boxing Day and voluntarily donated some toys for the first time ever. Well, the boys donated some of their toys; I haven't quite managed to separate myself from my collection. We've also done a family, multi-hundred piece puzzle and nearly finished two gear/circuit board/gear box type robots. If anything else productive happens this year, I'll call it icing.

This picture shows the current state of Rowan's robot. We should have it finished this week. Its motion is programmable via a black and white, two-ringed disk. I can't wait; Rowan isn't quite as impatient and likes playing with the gears and experimenting with the various ratios. We should have it finished this week.

Kai's neon purple, wheeled robot is totally completed and merrily running into walls, then reversing and turning to run into another wall. If it hears a shrill-voiced child scream, "STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP!" it will also change direction. I bet you can imagine, with sympathetic pain and very little effort, the happy and barely-tolerated decibel spikes puncturing our frontal lobes.

We try to remember that the screaming is the result of an educational activity. That lasts about two minutes, then we reach for the remote and speed dial the Cartoon Network.

Dumping the Paint

Lately, I've had the rottenest luck with photography. Well, I guess it's not so much luck.

I haven't been carrying my camera around everywhere, which means of course, that I see the most amazing things. I wonder if I see them specifically because I don't have my camera. If I had my camera, I'd probably be bemoaning the fact that I can't see something to take pictures of.

I do need to make more photo time. I've been squeezing in a little more.

The ones below were taken while I was cleaning up Jasmine's watercolor painting extravaganza. Since it was at home, I did have the camera. Yea!

Beautiful Eyes

The mouthparts aren't quite so entrancing.

I've been very bummed that I haven't had as much time to photograph. I find myself more tense. I like to observe, interpret, create and share the work. I haven't figured out how to do it all with my new schedule and massive commute.

Anyhow, I'm putting together the 2009 calendar and I'm finding a ton of photos that I took many months ago. This fly is from an early August camping trip in northern New Mexico with the kids and my Dad.

Enter Fall

I have my computer set to show one inch by one and a half inch thumbnails randomly selected from my pictures directory. I found this one that I liked a lot. I might have posted it before but I couldn't find it on a general search of frog, hand or holding, so it's probably a good bet I didn't.

It's interesting to me that like writing, sewing, and sculpting, sometimes the true impact (or lack of one) of a photograph doesn't reveal itself for an hour, a day, a week or even years.

Am I changing? Has the photo's subject or my techniques become suddenly more relevant? Has my brain just dropped away the clutter attached to the moment the photo was taken, leaving just a pure emotive image? Or most mundanely did it just not make the cut the first time around and I'd just forgotten about it?

I feel so philosophic today.

I haven't posted often lately. I haven't had the walkabout time I used to. I have a few hundred photos to judge and then a couple three or four to post. Time is always the issue.

It's suddenly Fall; the temperature dropped from 70 to 50 in just a couple days. At least the atmosphere is right for Halloween cloudy, dark and foggy, but it makes me meloncholy. It will probably dump a few inches of snow within the week of Halloween because it always does.

So, here's a calm, maybe meloncholy frog in the last days of July last year. I'm not sure if it's Kai or Rowan holding it, but we found it while in a suburb of Boston.

Dreaming of Lichen

We found this on a walk in Roxborough State Park growing on scrub oak. I don't know enough about lichen to say anything about it... the round cups may even be fungus. Dunno. I thought it was pretty though.

Western Scrub Jay

I photographed this jay with my macro lens. I wish I could have gotten closer. I love the color blue. I love the brash, smart personalities of these birds.

Long Horn Beetle

When we were camping in South Dakota we saw a ton of long horn beetles. They were flying all over the place and landing on us, our tent and most everything else. I didn't realize though, until I looked closely at the pictures that the base of the antenna encroaches upon the eye. Theo (my husband) theorized that there was some interraction of the antenna and eye nerves to the brain. I was wondering if maybe the antenna became more important than having a whole eye; so, in the evolution of the insect's head the antenna took over some eye space.

A Loom with a View

I like the machinery of the looms of the "historic tents" at the Highland Games Festival.

Wiggly Willow

It's been raining here in Colorado. We're not used to it so everyone except my friend Ward (an Oregon romantic) wants to crawl in bed and take a nap. Oh, Jasmine also is energized. She wants to play in the rain-flooded gutters.

This is my neighbors' willow tree. I love this tree.

Dusk Challenge

The plant only opens at dusk and the flowers only seem to last a day, shrivelling up so that new buds can take their place. Almost as soon as they open the Sphynix moth comes to visit. I wish I'd had a better lighting setup, but while camping at Cimmeron State Park in New Mexico, I didn't know I'd need it.

Given all my recent lighting regrets, I think my camera equipment might well outweigh my clothing on my next trip.

Grasshoppers

It's like the I-spy games. Locate the grasshoppers on the monument plant.

More Fast Flying Things for Matt

At the risk of alienating myself again, I'm following the theme of catching fast things in flight. These hummingbirds are quite a bit easier than the dragonflies as they hover to eat, not just to assert territorial dominance. This particular bird was fairly shy. I'm not used to humming birds caring about my location. Like dragonflies, I assumed that they assumed I was too slow to be any real threat. I guess it pays to be careful though.

I think this is a broad-tailed humming bird.

Blue Darners in Flight

Here's a series of pictures from a local mosquito farm. These darners were patroling their territory and occassionally finding a mate. A number of times they came over and gave me the eye in case I might have gotten any ideas.

Widow

According to Bug Guide, this is a Female Widow Skimmer. New species for me, but I still haven't been getting the close-ups yet. I might need more walks that are light on the kid population load. :)

Sneaking up on Da Frog

At the end of our tadpole expedition, I saw this fellow. I got the boys quiet, pointed at the frog and took a few pictures. Then I showed them the funniest thing in the pond. Walk up to one and they give the funniest indignant squawk as they kick out into the pond. They laughed all the way to the car.

Spider Blade

A crab spider in our lawn... I wonder what plant it was trying to hide in prior to it landing in the lawn. We're currently pretty pink and red in our yard. Two weeks or so and it should be colored like it's plant of choice. Sunflowers will be coming out soon. They're always popular.

Bug Envy

Check this out.

This is completely not my picture, but oh, how I wish it was. It's a beetle molting. My husband Theo sent me the link to this. Perfect for a entomology buff and a VW-lover. (I mean in the tradition sense, not like this.)