This a fascinating history of a fascinating structure. I wish I could take my own photos of it…
Category Archives: Lifestyle
Mom’s New Toy Means I Can’t Resist Posting
Life is strange. First I felt violated. Then I felt relieved. Now I’m just over it and ready to move on. Welcome back to Got My Reservations: The Retirement Sequel.
I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of months with friends who have much more knowledge than I do about cameras. I bought the Canon EOS Rebel T3i, and I’m thrilled with the results so far. Ten minutes out of the box and I had 24 photos that were better than anything I’ve taken recently — although I’ve done some pretty good work with my iPhone in Instagram. 🙂
Here’s today’s teaser.
The next step is to figure out which totally cute camera bag I’m going to buy from Judy at Snugglens.
InstaFriday
Last week I stumbled on a blogger with a fun way to link up photos on Fridays that fits right in with one of my RENEW goals for 2012 — using my cameras more thoughtfully and intentionally. The challenge is to photograph the week using only the camera on my phone. And yes, I know it’s Saturday.
Normally I’m not a late starter, but with spring break and all, it took me a while to get into the groove, so I didn’t actually take my first photo until Monday. The re-entry back into my real life as a teacher and the inevitable early morning wake up was hard, very hard.
On my arrival at school, I discovered that my promised laptop had not been delivered over spring break. I have mixed feelings about it anyway, so I wasn’t heartbroken.
On Tuesday, one of my students was playing with this mirrored Rubik’s Cube. He said he needed a greater challenge… and then showed us that he marked up one side with dots to help him solve it. 🙂
Since it was grades week and I was feverishly trying to get everything done before the Friday holiday from school, I didn’t do much photography. On Friday, we met out-of-town family members for museum-ing. I took this photo from the window of the Chicago Cultural Center because I have never seen the Bean (Cloud Gate) from this vantage point. The yellow tint comes from the protective film in the windows.
I also took this photo of the stained glass dome in the Chicago Cultural Center. I know it’s not perfect — I took it with my iPhone, for goodness sake — but it gives an idea of the beauty of this often overlooked building among Chicago’s museums. The web site says it’s the tenth most popular museum, but in a city of museums, how many people actually get to the tenth one?
I didn’t take this photo, but I thought you might want to see a well-photographed picture of the Tiffany glass dome that is also in the Cultural Center.
Lest you think I’m trying to cheat on the InstaFriday challenge, here’s my photo of the Tiffany Dome.
I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this quote in the new modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. Â When I looked up the attribution, I found that it was actually supposed to be a work of art. Silly me, I thought it was just an interesting quote on the wall.
It turned out to be one of those beautiful Chicago spring days — crisp and sunny. On such a day, it’s impossible to take a bad picture of the skyline, even on a smart phone.
If it’s Friday, it’s pizza day. We also had the double whammy of entertaining out-of-town guests, so it had to be a Chicago pizza day. We found a pizza place by the Art Institute that we’ve never been to and were happily surprised by both the food and the service.
A week that started pretty slowly ended up with a warm gush of family togetherness and yummy wine and pizza. It was another hot time in Chi-town after all!
Please stop by Life Rearranged and meet some new blogging friends. Everyone appreciates a little comment love.
Book Club: In the Garden of Beasts
Yesterday I finished Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin. After two previous slow starts, I read three-quarters of the book and it became a compelling read that I could barely put down.
How did we let Hitler get away with it? That particular piece of history absolutely should not repeat itself, yet it has in other ways and in other societies across the world. Should the United States be held responsible? Larsen creates a very personal story that reminds us that at least in regard to Hitler’s rise to power, we knew about it and didn’t do anything until it was too late for many European citizens.
Tom Hanks has signed on to star as University of Chicago professor-turned-ambassador William E. Dodd in a movie based on the book, scheduled for release in 2014. Given his ability to play low-key, gentle characters with sensitivity and historical accuracy, Hanks should be wonderful. I look forward to seeing the movie — it’s a long time until it comes out, though. In the meantime, I recommend that you read this riveting non-fiction and very personal account of a family’s relationship with Hitler’s Germany.
In Honor of My Mother
American Idol 2012: First Thoughts
I think we are in for a treat this year. The competition among the remaining contestants is going to be fierce. I still love the dynamics of the judging team and we’ve already seen the star power that Idol is pulling in this year.
The contestant that intrigues me the most is Jessica Sanchez. We see her in the candids and she’s a little girl. Her smile has teenager teeth that don’t quite fit her mouth and she shows her insecurity in the grateful response to praise that comes with being sixteen.
Then Jessica steps in front of a microphone and she turns into another person. She’s bold, sensual, and mature. She’s amazing.
SPOILER ALERT. Stop here if you don’t know who went home on Thursday, 3/29.
Watching the kids move into the Idol Mansion was kind of heart-wrenching, knowing that one of them would have to move out right away.
And now that Heejun has finally gone back to oblivion (or the comedy clubs) where he belongs, I can stop gritting my teeth over his awkward arrogance and Asian humility. It was an interesting combo, but I’m tired of it already. I’m ready to hear some more Colton, Phillip, Elise, Hollie, Joshua, and Jessica.
I can probably do without much more of DeAndre and Skylar; I feel that they both need some more seasoning and paying their dues in their local clubs. Skylar needs to take Jimmy’s advice and sing songs that show off her voice rather than choosing songs she likes. DeAndre needs to sing in his big boy voice; I’m done with his all-falsetto all-the-time thing.That being said, they are both very talented and could easily win it all. It all depends on how the votes fall.
It’s going to be an interesting season.
Writing Workshop: My Drink(s) of Choice
Mama Kat asked me today, “How did your love affair with Coffee begin?” That’s a really good question, but ironically, a funny thing happened on the way to being sixty. I forget when I drank my first coffee, but I still remember that I pretty much can’t live without it now.
My husband is partly to blame for my addiction to coffee. We’ve become connoisseurs of the different Starbucks blends — venti, dark, and black is my order. He prefers decaf and I live for the kick of caffeine. We shop carefully for whole beans, always on the lookout for a sale. When we travel, he scouts out the Starbucks locations on his smart phone or maps them out on his computer before we leave. We plan our driving breaks around the visits to Starbucks, knowing they will have good coffee, won’t sneer because we bring in our own reusable mugs, and we can depend on clean bathrooms.
At the Sissinghurst Castle Farmhouse bed and breakfast in England where we stayed during the summer of 2011, we were always served coffee in a sprightly little press pot, so I decided to buy one for Christmas. I searched and searched for a coffee press large enough to satisfy our coffee habit. I wanted to make two fresh mugs for each of us, with one being decaf and the other caf. I hoped the freshly pressed coffee would satisfy our coffee hunger and that we wouldn’t just continue to drink the dregs of the big coffeemaker pot out of habit. That hasn’t worked out so well, as we are still using our big Gevalia coffeemaker and are each still sacrificing for the other — to caf or not to caf is an important question in our thirty-year marriage.
The second part of Mama Kat’s prompt is easier to remember. She continued the question by providing an alternative — “Or Diet Coke or Tea or whatever your beverage of choice might be.” My true beverage of choice is the nectar of the gods, a good wine. I blame it all on moving to California in 1974 and discovering wineries, and my love for wine has progressed from the Boone’s Farm Apple Wine, Mateus, and Lancers of our college days to the fine wines from around the world to which we have access (and can better afford) today.
One of our most recent trips to a winery was in southeast England, where some amazing wine is made. Our host at Sissinghurst Castle Farmhouse is also the CEO of Chapel Downs Winery, and I blogged about our visit here.
The bookends of my day are a strong jolt of joe in the morning and slow sips of liquid terroir in the evening. What’s not to love?
I’m linked up to Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop today. Please stop by and spread some comment love around to my friends.
Online Scrabble and Score Envy
Do you do Facebook Scrabble? I do, and it’s making me crazy.
I haven’t unearthed the Scrabble dictionary from my mom’s boxes and I cringe at using online help (although I’m ashamed to admit I’ve looked up words that include both X and Y). I’m just so frickin’ ridiculous about cheating after thirty years of teaching that I can’t even look up a Scrabble word online without getting all paranoid. Trust me, my students have no such paranoia.
My cousin plays with masters of the game and she knows all the tricks. In her Scrabble world, they play both offensively and defensively. OMG, who has time to learn that? Not me. Or perhaps, more honestly, not yet me.
My son is pretty good at Scrabble, but it’s clear that he, like me, is doing it for fun. He’s got a good education and innate intelligence so sometimes he wins and sometimes I do. His dad seems to be able to come up with obscure words that score a zillion points. I’m pretty happy if I get something over twenty points.
Even with the list of two letter words, I don’t seem to get the breaks. I sit for several rounds with all one-point letters. My cousin said, “Trade the letters in!” To me, that feels like cheating. I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with the cards I was dealt — I’m a short, sturdy, German girl who loves to read so I know a lot of words. I should be able to use what I’ve got to make a fabulous score. Or not. To do otherwise would be risking life’s karma, wouldn’t it?
And then there’s Scrabble on my iPhone. At first it worked, but it hasn’t synched in many moons. I get notices, but can’t play. I’ve tried deleting and reloading the program from iTunes but I still can’t play on my phone. I have to wait until I get home — and then I’m getting “nudges” from people because I’m delinquent. Way too much pressure.
Technology. It’s a boon and a bummer. I’m afraid online Scrabble is only the tip of the iceberg.
Breaking the Forsythia Law
Where did winter go? We never had one in Chicago. This is by far the most beautiful spring I have ever enjoyed in 35 years of living in Chicago. The old joke is that Chicago has two seasons — winter and construction. In between we have about a week of fall and one day of spring.
I was so excited by our March spring (???? — when will the other shoe drop?) that I decided to take photos of the amazing forsythia that popped into bloom over the weekend. While driving through the parking lot of our newly renovated mall, I spied a well-shaped forsythia bush and stopped to take a photo. Sounds innocent, right?
As I’m focusing my camera on the perfect spot, behind me I hear someone asking, “Can I help you?” I turned around, saw what apparently was the shopping center security guard in his seekie car, and replied, quite obviously, that I was taking a photo of the beautiful flowers and that everything was fine. Still innocent, right?
Oh, no. It’s illegal to take a photo of forsythia in this particular shopping mall because if I can take a photo, so can terrorists, and terrorists aren’t allowed to take photos of anything in America. You know why.
I was very tempted to mouth off, but I said I understood and got back in my car. As I drove away, I really wanted to drive back around and flaunt the authority of “the man.” But then I thought about how getting arrested would look in the newspaper. It might just affect my credibility in the classroom, don’t you think?
I’m a law-abiding citizen and proud of it. And here’s the photo I took of another beautiful forsythia bush from a legal spot on the sidewalk. I’m really glad I didn’t get arrested for it, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get much out of my yellow petals blowing in the breeze. Note to self; don’t use HDR when the wind is blowing.
Writer’s Workshop: My Children’s Bedrooms
This week Mama Kat asked me to share a favorite part of my child’s bedroom. I’m an empty nester so what could I say about a child’s bedroom? When I woke up on Saturday morning, it just hit me. My favorite part of my children’s bedrooms is that they don’t live there anymore.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss having them with me in the house and having them immediately available to share their lives. Thank goodness we live in the era of instant communication. I often think about how much I miss my mother and I really miss the last five years of almost daily phone calls with her. Before cell phones, we didn’t talk nearly as much as we did in the years before her death. I’m glad that I’ve been able to forge out new patterns with my own adult children by maintaining closer communication with them than I did with my own parents.
We don’t even live in the same house as the ones in which I raised my kids. Thank goodness we don’t still live in the one in Ravenswood Manor just down the street from our newest incarcerated governor of Illinois. I can’t imagine enduring the media circus that was going on for the last two years, but I digress.
Even though both of the rooms that would have been my children’s bedrooms in this house are decorated as guest rooms, Â I still miss the boyness and girlness of the two rooms in our other houses. Bubble gum pink walls come to mind and so do bunk beds. Â Barbie dolls and science experiments. And music — lots and lots of music flowing out of bedrooms. Since my kids are seven years apart, they loved different singers and different bands. But we all loved Rockapella.
The fact that my kids both live in their own homes doesn’t mean that they’ve taken their childhood worlds with them. I’m sitting on the chair that my son brought home from college with the university logo on it. My storage area still has the collection of Brio railroad tracks and accessories that my mother-in-law collected for my son (I’m saving it, by the way, for the grandchildren –when the kids are ready) We still have the pink Legos in the garage and we have a pink trunk full of American Girl dolls in storage. The guest room that our daughter uses has some of her Little Mermaid collection on the bookshelves and she still insists on using her treasured duvet from college when she visits.
When I read blog posts from young mothers, it makes my life seem very staid and predictable. I don’t have the excitement and the miracles that come with the daily discoveries in young families. No one in my house is learning to talk or walk and we don’t have to struggle with what we’ll make for dinner. I know exactly what my husband likes to eat and what he doesn’t, and he doesn’t change his mind from day-to-day like little kids do. If there’s a mess in our house, we made it and we’ll pick it up.
Do I miss my children and sometimes wish those bedrooms were once again full of children and their stuff? OMG, yes. California is a very long way away, and even the one who lives in Chicago has a busy life and I am lucky if I see her once a month. But’s that how it should be. My kids are happy, employed, and enjoying their lives. Empty bedrooms are a small price to pay for that.
I’m linked up this week to Mama Kat’s workshop. Please stop by a visit some of her friends — and comment, comment, comment!
