synchronous snapshots.

Aaron decided last night to take an offer from a new company, so in a couple of weeks he will have a new job. We are really optimistic about this opportunity, although it was a tough decision for him to leave his company. He has been there for a while now and been through quite a bit. The company was acquired twice and the second time they let go most of the people on his team who he really liked, which was disappointing. He has been working remotely since we moved up here for me and it is probably time for him to start going into an office and having co-workers other than Layla and Chester around during the day! Also, he is ready for a more senior level position, which he will have at this company. I think he is only disappointed to leave his boss who he has always really liked and respected, but hopefully he will keep in touch with him. Anyway, things are changing a little at our house, but hopefully for the better.

On a totally different note, I’ve been meaning to put up some pictures from the 4th of July at the beach. The coast of South Carolina is probably my favorite place in the world. While we were there we did a lot of playing with our Wii, Aaron read some comic books, I took a nap one day, we walked miles and miles on the beach, went to a state park to see marshes and also got attacked there by really scary beach bugs, did some grilling, saw the fireworks on the 4th of July, and only got a little burnt. I took 3 cameras with me, but I only have the pictures to show you from my digital one.

Litchfield Beach

Aaron and I

the beach at sunset

tide pools - where little minnows lived

Kimie and Dale

a really cool bird that kept eating minnows from the water

beach house at sunset

This is also cool. A while ago I posted that a company called schmap.com asked to use one of my photos in their online and downloadable travel guides. I got an email yesterday showing me how my photo looks in their new iphone application. You can see it here, which is pretty cool.

Anslee and Chris

This weekend I am going to another friend’s wedding, which got me thinking… I never put up the pictures I took at my cousin’s wedding. My official job was to take pictures of her getting ready, but I snuck a few during the reception too, such as the one above. I have picked out a few of my favorite pictures, mostly of her or of her sisters:

I also made an Anslee’s Wedding Set on flickr with about 100 pictures I took of her getting ready and the rest of the preparations. I will probably leave them open for a few weeks and then make them private, so take a look if you’re interested. As always, send me an email if you want a copy or something.

And here is one last one that Aaron took of me (in the middle of course) with the first two people I knew my own age. It appears that we are all grown up now and well on our way to living happily ever after.

the “big three”

30 seconds on the Carolina coast

I spent the 4th of July with Aaron, my parents, my sister and her boyfriend on the coast of South Carolina. It was fun and pretty relaxing. I love the ocean! Anyway, we picked up all the pets yesterday an now it’s back to work…

a picturesque village in the fjords

I remember when I was a little kid my school had “puzzle maps”, which were these really cool maps of the continents where each country had it’s own puzzle piece. We were supposed to trace around each one to make our own map, color it in (etc.), and give it to our parents so they could say things like “wow- really nice coloring skills!” and “can you show me where Spain is on your map?”. Norway was, by far, the coolest country on the Europe continent map because of it’s fjords. Due to the fjords, tracing around Norway requires considerable tracing skills which, once mastered, make tracing around Norway much more fun than your average puzzle map piece. I think that was the beginning of my desire to see fjords which contributed to why I decided to drop everything and find a way to make it to Norway this summer.

While I was there, my mom and I took this little boat cruise to see the narrowest and steepest part of the fjords, which is called Nærøyfjord (no, I have no idea how to say that). There is no way to describe how pretty it was there.

sea gulls followed our boat the whole way

this is a little herd of sheep!

In my mind, I keep comparing the fjords in Norway to the ones Aaron and I saw in Alaska, particularly the misty fjords. It seemed to me that the fjords in Norway were much more green, rather than rocky and maybe not as steep. There were hills with grass, pastures for sheep, and little communities of adorable small houses, like the first picture in the post, or like these:

It was pretty cold outside, especially with the wind as the boat was moving so after a while we had to give up standing outside and get some hot chocolate and take in the view through the windows. Once we saw the part of the fjords that is the most narrow, we went out into the larger part of Sognefjord, which looks more like this:

See… so pretty…

Yay! It’s back up. Something major and bad happened at the company where all the files live but now everything is okay, as you can see.

Anyway, check out my sweet new cameras. I heart my Diana so much that I decided to see what else is out there in the world of old crappy cameras. Apparently I am just jumping on the bandwagon because these things can be really expensive on ebay. My Diana is a reproduction, but I just bought myself 3 new super awesome old crappy cameras. They weren’t too expensive because they were being sold for interior decorating and also these 3 take film that no longer is produced. That may sound like I paid for old molded plastic, but I am planning to put my little-accessed helluva engineer spirit behind at least taking a few pictures with each of these. Also there are detailed instructions on the internet.

Kodak Pony 828

First of all, I got this Kodak Pony 828, which came with its own leather case. I don’t think the Kodak Pony actually qualifies as a true crappy camera because it has a glass lens and was a really nice camera in the 1950s when it was made. The only big problem with this camera is that it takes 828 film, which is no longer produced. There are complicated ways to adapt other film to fit inside, which I may try once or twice, but you can also buy expensive 828 film, which I may also do just to see how the pictures look.

Kodak Brownie Hawkeye

Then, I got a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera. It is so cute! It takes 620 film, which is, luckily, the same as 120 film, just with a different spool. I’m going to buy some of those old spools so that I can just use my 120 film I already have. There were a lot of Brownie cameras but this kind, without a flash, was made in the late 40s.

The Kodak Jiffy Six-20
(Art Deco Model)

And the oldest one is this Kodak Jiffy from the mid 1930s. This particular one is the “Art Deco” model, and as you can see it looks awesome. Even if I can’t get it working, I just love how it looks. It is pretty likely that I will have to check the bellows for tears and light leaks. I’m looking forward to playing with it and trying to get it working. My thinking is that at least I should be able to get the equivalent of pinhole camera function out of each of these and they will look cool on a shelf too.

At the time, it seemed like Oslo was pretty small for a capital city but now that I am thinking back on my time there, there was actually a good bit to do and see. One of the most interesting things is the new Oslo opera house, which is this huge white stone and glass structure that cost over a billion dollars to build. It was directly beside our hotel (hooray for staying with my mom). I walked over there and checked it out while she was in her sessions. If you ever go there, take your sunglasses. Oslo is not a sunny city and it was quite overcast the day I was there, but I still think I would have been blinded had I not brought my sunglasses. The stone is texturized and all of the surfaces are slanted, so you can walk around on the building and even walk all the way to the top. I saw one lady with a stroller that was making me a nervous wreck, but it was remarkably easy to walk around.

the Oslo opera house

walking on the opera house

at the top of the opera house

Some other sights that I saw on my own were the National Gallery and the National Historical Museum. I was surprised, not only did the National Gallery have a good deal of quite interesting Norwegian art, there was a small, but impressive collection by extraordinarily famous artists such as Munch (of course), Manet, Gauguin, Monet, El Greco (my favorite!), Rodin (a cast of The Thinker), Degas (sculpture and paintings), Van Gogh (a self-portrait), and Picasso (from the blue period, pre-cubist, which is my favorite anyway)… and I am sure there were others I will think I should have mentioned. It would have been art lovers heaven had there been functioning air conditioning.

The history museum was right next door and it had an interesting collection of carved wooden objects (doors to stave churches, etc.) from medieval Norway and metal and glass items from graves. In my opinion, the historical collection paled in comparison to the awesome art deco building that housed it. There were so many amazing details like this door:

a door at the Historisk Museum

After my mom’s conference was over we were able to do some more sight-seeing our last afternoon in Oslo. We took a ferry to the Viking Ship Museum, which gave us an opportunity to see a little of Oslo by boat.

Oslo from the ferry

Seeing Viking ships was the #1 thing on my list to do in Oslo. While it is a little bit of a hike to get over to the museum, it was worth it. There are 3 ships that were found as part of burials. I don’t know why, but I expected them to be smaller, so I was pretty impressed with the exhibit. The museum is designed well, so you can climb stairs and look down on the ships, as well, and see the interiors.

a viking ship

Now, picture you are a Viking. What is the most terrifying thing you can put on the front of your boat? Apparently, this Chester-like creature:

a viking Chester

The Norwegian Cultural Museum was very near the Viking Ship Museum, so we went there as well. I am glad we did, although I was completely exhausted at the time. The have some meh exhibits about traditional textiles and pottery (my mom liked this part a lot, I should say…) but the really cool stuff was the traditional buildings that were relocated there from around Norway. They are made of wood, often have grass roofs, and many have beautiful paintings on all the surfaces inside. The most impressive one was the stave church. Most of the few surviving stave churches are in rather remote areas, so this one that had been relocated and preserved was the only chance we had to see one. It was amazing.

a medieval Norwegian stave church

inside a traditional Norwegian house

The last thing we did was go walk around the fortress that looks over Oslo. It was 10PM, but still really light and terribly windy. The view of the city was great, though.

view of Oslo from the fortress

So, you can check out my Oslo Set on flickr to see more pictures from my trip… my mom petting goats, the painting inside traditional buildings, the historical museum, more of the opera house and viking ships, etc. I will probably be adding to the set soon, too.

flying out of the Bergen airport

I’m home! I had a great time in Norway, other than the getting home part. Traveling internationally is probably the biggest hassle ever and it has gotten a lot worse. I had to go through security four times. I think this is because each airport did not trust the security of the airport before and then I even had to go through security and recheck my bags in order to leave the airport. I am just glad I was in the American citizen line. The non-American citizens are all being fingerprinted and they have their pictures taken. I guess this is probably for the best, but wow, it’s tiring. I also did not have a lot of time between my flights, so I was that poor girl running like a maniac through the airport. Heathrow is still my least favorite airport ever.

I just barely made it to my first flight because of inexplicable chaos at the airport in Bergen. I was handed my boarding pass at 6AM and my flight was at 6:10. I have very mixed feelings about Scandinavian Airlines now. They also don’t give you free water on the plane… Anyway, I was the last person who got on the plane, but luckily I got a window seat and no one was beside me. (Probably because hardly anyone made it through the airport in time.) If you are ever flying over Norway, you should book a window seat because the view is beautiful!

near Bergen

another of Norway’s coast, near Bergen

some pretty narrow fjords

snow-capped mountains, fjords and ocean

mountains and clouds in central Norway

a lake near Oslo

Anyway, while it was just a short trip and everything was absurdly expensive, I am still very glad I went. The only bad part about my trip was that Aaron got incredibly sick while I was gone, and even had to go to the emergency room. I still can’t believe that he never gets sick and had to go to the hospital the one time I go out of town without him. I think he got Salmonella from tomatoes, actually… He is feeling better now, though. Has anyone who saw him in the last few weeks been sick too?

I will put up more pictures from my trip and plenty of fjords in the next few days.

the midnight sun in Oslo

Greetings from Norway, where it is almost 1 AM and the sun is still awake. So far, the week here has gone really well. Norway is a beautiful country and everyone has been nice and friendly. Actually, Norway is the most like home of any country I have visited, I would say, with the possible exception of Canada. Sometimes I forget I am not in the US still. Norwegian even sounds a lot like English if you aren’t paying attention.

Anyway, my mom and I are now in the town of Bergen, but we spent the beginning of the week in Oslo where she had her conference. Oslo is a very interesting city. I spent most of the time there doing things on my own, which is more fun than you would think. It was pretty crazy, I found out that a friend of mine, Jennifer, was going to be in Oslo last weekend too and we made plans to meet up for dinner. I wasn’t really expecting it to work out, but it did! Oslo is often considered the most expensive European city, so she suggested that we meet for dinner at a Burger King. As soon as we ordered, the guy working at the counter said “here is your change… and we have free ketchup!” with his arms out like a conductor emphasizing the words free and ketchup. That cracked me up because I could just hear all the squeals of the Americans who came before us. I had not been there long enough to be desperate for free ketchup yet, but I sure do remember those days….

with Jennifer at the docks

Here are a couple other pictures I took in Oslo that night down near the waterfront:

Oslo is not the kind of city that I would say should be a major destination, but it is a nice place to visit. It seems pretty industrial, overall, which makes sense considering the predominant shipping and oil industries. I spent Monday by myself and, unfortunately, Monday is the day that all of the museums and attractions are closed. This was good, maybe, because I just had all day to walk around at my own pace, explore, shop, and take pictures of things around town that caught my interest– which turned out to be a lot of sea birds. Here are a few of the pictures I took that first day:

a seagull lands on a statue

score! he stole an ice cream cone from a little boy

sea bird in flight

a biker near the national theater

the university campus

a fountain in the city center

the street with all the shopping!

I did, eventually, get to see some of the attractions around Oslo, but I will put up some pictures after I get some sleep- it’s about 2AM here and I have fjords to see tomorrow.

one more Olso at “night” shot

I made it to Norway! This probably won’t last, but I also have internet access tonight because my mom had to buy some time for work and I am using what is left over. I’m really tired, but all in all the travel went pretty well. I had a window seat on the first flight here so I have some pictures for you all.

sunrise at 12 AM (east coast time)

cirrus clouds

apparently taking a major sky highway

the coast of Northern Ireland

the coast of Wales

coming into Manchester

After I got in, I took the high speed train from the airport in Oslo to the train station near our hotel, met up with my mom and then took a long nap. I know, it shouldn’t be allowed but I really don’t sleep on planes so I get super tired when traveling. Then, I met some friends of mine from Tech who randomly picked this weekend to take a trip to Oslo while studying abroad. I also just happened to read that they were coming here on facebook, so we met for dinner and talked about how small the world is. That was fun, but now I better go to bed.

This past weekend we went to Atlanta to celebrate with the rest of my family as my only older cousin, Anslee, got married. Aawoohoo. It was a lot of fun to see everyone and a little bit of work as well, as I took pictures of her getting ready and helped with various other things. I don’t want to put too many pictures of her up before I get the chance to run them by her first, but you can consider the one at the top a teaser. They have gone to Mexico for a month (I know, I’m jealous too) so it may be a while. We drove back on Saturday and, of course, since Aaron was driving he caused it to rain on the way back.

Aaron brings the rains

Aside from taking some pictures, I helped my mom and aunt put the flowers on their wedding cake. Apparently they were food safe!

their wedding cake all decorated

…and I also helped put the fancy wrappers on a box of candy bar favors. They invited 400-500 people and there were 400 candy bars so the box I wrapped was barely a contribution. They turned out looking really nice, though!

the back has their new address

So, I will put up more pictures later, but I was pretty pleased with how the ones I took of her getting ready turned out.

Here’s something interesting, though… Remember how there were tornadoes that went through Georgia a couple weeks ago? Well, the wind caused a big tree in my grandparents’ yard to fall on their barn. Now they have “tourists” who drive by to see it. Although, it’s supposed to get cleaned up this week, so that wont last for long. It’s a bummer that the barn got ruined, but everyone is just really glad that no one was inside, because it happened at the time of day when the horses are fed.

the barn got squished

This weekend we are going to another wedding but I actually I have to leave a little early to catch my flight to Norway. I’m flying by myself from Atlanta to Manchester to Oslo, then I have to take the train into the city. Cross your fingers for me! The month of May was totally exhausting and I think I need a break from work if I’m going to be productive anyway, so I’m really looking forward to this trip! I’m not sure about my internet access while I’m gone but you can check back to see if I get a chance to post anything good.

…as if Chester’s life is not difficult enough, he is now being tormented when he tries to do is bizness outside. Generally, he lets us know he has to go out, but then remembers the birds that hate him and changes his mind. When dragged, he will step onto the stoop and look out for a long time with a worried look on his face. This all started a few weeks ago when two birds that have a nest nearby decided he is public enemy #1 and have begun both verbally abusing him and dive-bombing his head, even though he has never done anything to them and doesn’t even care about birds. He’s feeling quite traumatized, so I hope you will all keep him in your thoughts.

watching for the birds

hiding behind Aaron from the birds

one of the two evil birds

We spent Memorial Day weekend with Aaron’s family this year, which was quite an interesting adventure. There are a lot of little kids around now and two of them were itty bitty. Little Bridget is 4 months old and Brady is 3 months. They are roughly about the same size, but one month really does make a huge difference! They tried to alternate being comedy and tragedy masks all weekend- but everyone pulled through.

Bridget and Brady

Bridget is an amazingly cheerful baby. She loves making eye contact and smiling at people. If you hold her she will twist around all the time to always be looking and smiling at as many people as possible.

Bridget’s pretty little face

Brady is also really cute and definitely looks like a little boy! This was the first time that I met him and he didn’t disappoint. Here are two of his faces:

   

Babies are exciting and all, but I spent most of my time playing with Mason and Parker, who are at the most fun ages, in my opinion. They are so incredibly cute and funny. Seriously, they crack me up.

the big brothers

Mason is like 2.5 years old, so on various occasions I’ve heard him called “a little terror”, “quite a handful”, “Denis the Menace”, etc. While you do have to watch him carefully, he is freaking adorable. If you smile and him and he is feeling shy instead of looking away he usually stands on his head. He is also going through a weird phase where he likes to lick everything. I know, not good, but trust me, really funny. And it’s also super cute how he tries to copy is brother all the time, which means he will play with imaginary versions of things that he is too little to play with in real life, like imaginary wii controllers or fishing poles.

Mason and his adorable blue eyes

Mason and a monkey

Parker is such a sweet little kid. He tries to look after the younger ones and he will sit and talk to me for hours. He also is really funny. for example, the story about him du jour is that in his graduation from preschool when he was asked to tell the audience what he wanted to be when he grows up he followed up a long line of future firemen by saying he wanted to be an acrobat. Sweet! Unfortunately, though, he was carrying a stuffed mouse around all weekend. Aaron kept saying annoying things like “Ask Aunt Ashley about mice, she knows a lot about them!”

Parker and “Mousie” who he “adopted” on the internet

The entire weekend really revolved around meal times and what the kids were doing, but we did get to do something awesome and grown-up— fly fishing! It was a lot of fun and I caught 5 rainbow trout in about 3 hours. That’s enough for dinner! We did release them, though. I don’t have any pictures of my fish because I didn’t want to slip in the river and destroy my camera, but they were sparkly and colorful. It was actually a lot harder to walk in the river with waders than I thought, but well worth the victory of catching the most fish (by a lot, I might say). On several occasions I heard the phrase “beginner’s luck” off in the distance… but I actually had been fishing before, just not for trout in a river.

Aaron and his brothers
“in danger of looking like they know what they are doing”

Lake Nottely sunset

I just woke up from being asleep for 15 hours. Between writing and defending my thesis proposal, I had been getting VERY little sleep - about 2 hours a few nights in a row this week, and last week I also had to stay up two nights in a row and I don’t think I ever really got caught up from that. I’m so glad that I won’t have another committee meeting for a year!

Today we are driving to Aaron’s family’s lake house for the weekend. It’s an 8 hour drive so Aaron has to have audio for the road, which is like fingernails on a chalk board to me. As a compromise, we will be listening to The Teaching Company’s Vikings course so I can learn all about Vikings before going to Norway. Poor Maggie Cat had to go to the vet to be boarded for the weekend.

eee! I got the first film developed from my new Diana camera, and I am largely happy with the pictures. As we were walking in to pick up the film Aaron stopped me and said, “I just want to make sure you are prepared to get back all white squares or all black squares.” … and I was, but actually some of them turned out okay. More than attempting to take interesting pictures, I tried to play with the settings a lot on the camera with this first set so I could get an idea of how the camera worked, what exposure times are best, how to advance the film, how double exposures turn out… that kind of thing. So here are some of the pictures:

That one is probably my favorite one- It is a double exposure and was taken at the museum here in Durham, of the skylight and the trees outside.

a long exposure of a tree

single exposure of the museum skylight

So that last one is playing around with the ability to take continuous pictures. I took one picture, then moved the film only part of the way to the next picture and took another picture so that only the center is overlapped. You can see my dendrobiums in the right hand corner.

And here’s one of Aaron:

Aaron covered in light leaks

this is the top of a taco stand

That last one looks better in the print I have because it’s a little too dark in the scan. I will have to do it again, but I wanted to go ahead and put it up.

I think that overall the first roll was very informative, and I even ended up with a few pictures that I like, so now I will have fun playing confidently with the other rolls I have. I really wanted to see if it would be worth it to try buy some more film and to pack this camera with my other stuff to take to Norway- since dealing with the film in security is a HUGE hassle. But I think it will be cool to take some pictures of fjords with this camera. Here are a couple very important lessons I learned from processing my Diana film:

1. It’s easy to over expose! There is a manual shutter and an automatic one, which is just plastic and doesn’t have a standard amount of time. I read online that in low light you should use the manual shutter, plus I had 100 speed film… so in dark rooms I was using about a 1-2 second exposure and it was actually too long in most cases. I think I will just use the automatic shutter now for the most part.
2. Whatever you do, don’t process your film with wolf camera. So many things went wrong here…
   • First thing, the guy took the tinfoil off my film in the middle of the brightly lit store after I asked him not to. I put tinfoil around it because I knew that the film had not wound tightly on the coil and would be immediately exposed in light- which is was. So I went from 2 rolls to 1, right there.
   • Then they had to send it off for special processing, which I expected. I did not, however, expect them to take 2 full weeks to process my film. That is not cool.
   • I gave them slide film, but I asked them to process it as normal film and give me negatives and prints, this is called cross-processing and it is pretty routine. They processed it as slide film and gave me slides. Whatever…
   • If I had sent my film off myself to a processing company it would have cost me about 5 dollars/roll. It ended up costing 5 dollars per picture to get prints from Wolf Camera. Granted, I didn’t ask specifically how much they charge for processing 120 film because I thought that they would have comparable prices to other groups. But still.

Most of the pictures I have in my flickr album are in this post, but this is the link to the album and hopefully as I get more film developed I can put more pictures in here.

Having to write my thesis proposal is boring and exhausting for everyone.

In the next month I have an extremely busy schedule. I am helping 3 other people in my lab with major experiments and I have to keep my own stuff going as well. I will also be out of town for several weekends. And the most dreaded thing, I have my yearly committee meeting. I have to turn in a giant document, dress up and look nice, and maintain my composure while I defend my work. Since I don’t even like talking to people to order my food at McDonald’s, I am really not looking forward to this.

So anyway, when my mom asked if I wanted to come with her to Norway the second week in June I said, of course! …Plenty of time for that. I just bought my ticket, which means I’m officially going!

I am really excited and I cant wait for my travel guides to come. I went to the store to look for some and I was really disappointed in the selection. I think Norway isn’t a very popular destination right now because it is so expensive. Hopefully it will be a little cheaper since my mom’s flight is covered for work and she will probably be nice and feed me a few times.

The plan right now is to fly into Oslo and spend a few days there. My mom has her conference at the beginning of the trip so I will probably spend some time chilling on my own, which I actually really enjoy. Then we will see a little bit of Oslo and then take the advice of my grad school friend here who is a real Norwegian and take the train from Oslo to the town of Bergen (which you can see on this map is on the coast). That is apparently a cute little town and a good place to see some of the fjords. There is a large fjord to the north, Sognefjord, and one to the south, Hardangerfjord, and I hope we can take little trips to see them.

While my favorite travel guides are currently made by Frommers, I chose these two. One is the Lonely Planet Rough Guide, and the other is the Eyewitness Travel Guide. One for practical information, and one for pretty pictures. Both for distracting me from writing my mammoth thesis.

      

Also, in case you’re curious, Aaron was invited but he decided not to go on this trip. He has a lot going on right now (like he’s getting his MBA and he has class then, and also he has less vacation time now that his company was acquired) and he wasn’t so into going to Norway just yet. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Norway is not particularly famous for their beer… Although, he and I are probably going to do something towards the end of the summer as a vacation.

sleepy Chester

Not too much has been going on around here lately. Since Aaron has been going to class at night (he’s getting his MBA) I have just been using the time to work late. It’s pretty good because I have a lot to do in the next few months. I have a committee meeting coming up, which is making me really nervous, and my project is making me nervous too, but that is nothing new. I got this t-shirt for myself, which I think sums up my life pretty well:

So, I am hoping that this Saturday we can take Chester to go for a hike somewhere or do something else similarly relaxing. Aaron could use something relaxing because his company was acquired and it made him very grumpy. Other than that, I am reading Anna Karenina. I’ve been reading it slowly since January and I am still only on part 4 of 8.

Also, I am really hoping that I may be able to take a trip this summer. We were supposed to do something with Aaron’s family this summer, but the trip just got cancelled because it really wasn’t feasible with two little babies (I have been saying this for months, but whatever…). I wish I had a little more time to plan something, but I may go with my mom on one of her business trips in the beginning of June and Aaron and I are thinking about going somewhere in August. He has less vacation time at the new company, so we will see. Either way, I am spending the 4th of July with my family at Litchfield Beach in South Carolina, and I can’t wait!

I just want to post this SNL skit from this weekend and dedicate it to a special someone. You know who you are and I heart you.

Book Review #32:

Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë

The truth is, I get most of my knowledge of 19th century British romantic literature not from actually reading the books, but by obsessively watching every BBC produced costume drama or masterpeice theatre miniseries there is. Recently, though, I decided to actually read Jane Eyre, partially because it is available online here or here for free, as it is in the public domain. This makes reading during the downtime at work a little easier… hint hint…

The first time I tried to read Jane Eyre I was about 13 years old. In my opinion, this is exactly the worst age to try to read classic literature because, while you can read and comprehend anything, on some topics a more adult perspective is required to fully appreciate the book. I remember being devastated, for example, when Jo refused to marry Laurie in Little Women, and similarly, I stopped reading Jane Eyre when it looked like Jane really was falling for grumpy old Mr. Rochester, after all.

I am glad I decided to try again, because I have decided that I adore this book and I also adore Mr. Rochester. I read it all the way through, and then immediately read it again. Most people know the general plot of Jane Eyre, whether they realize it or not. In the beginning, Jane, the orphan, is sent away from her aunt’s house after her loving uncle’s death to go to a boarding school/orphanage. There she has, certainly by today’s standards, an abusive childhood, but good education that prepares her to take a job as a governess to a little girl on the estate of Mr. Rochester. From there: romance, tragedy, mystery… adequately happy ending! It’s great.

The main thing that I really like about this book is that it is more serious than the 18th century romance novels of Jane Austin. There is a very strong Dickens quality (who I admit is possibly my favorite author). By that I mean, you don’t feel that the world Jane is in is certainly fair, and that everything will necessarily work out for her in the end. I should say, though, as I was reading, I wondered why this book is not more often required as school reading but then I why realized about 2/3 of the way through. There are some statements that are not politically correct, but I wouldn’t let that dissuade you from reading it, though. Another interesting little fact, many people say that this book is partially autobiographical. I was sad to read that Jane probably had a better life and happier ending than Charlotte Brontë.

Anyway, this was the first amazing book I have read this year, and the best book I’ve read in a long time!

meet Brady

This is my new little nephew, Brady, who is about a month younger than his cousin, Bridget. In spite of this, he still weighs quite a bit more than her… as you can see, he is LARGE. I haven’t met him yet, but Aaron took this picture with his camera phone while he was in Atlanta for work this week.

Los Angeles from the Getty Museum

So, I want to share some of the fun things we did during our brief time in L.A. while little Bridget was napping and otherwise keeping up her demanding baby schedule. If you ever are in L.A., you need to go to the Getty Museum. It is amazing! Basically, it is this huge gleaming white monstrosity on a hill above L.A., great for the expansive view of the city, seeing the art exhibits, and appreciating the huge sprawling structure and gardens which are art themselves. It was cute, Aaron’s brother has lived in L.A. his whole life and seemed to take great pride in showing off his city from above. While we were there I took some pictures of the building which you can see here:

Aaron and I at the Getty

Aaron and I also went on a few little walks on our own. We went down to the Santa Monica pier, snooped around the pretty houses and gardens in Santa Monica, and went to some cute little shops. I’m still having my mom’s version of buyer’s remorse… that’s where you wish you had bought things that you talked yourself out of at the time. Anyway…

looking back at Santa Monica from the pier

I met this birdie with only one foot!

looking towards L.A.

the beach in Santa Monica

And here are some flowers from Bridget’s neighborhood:

Oh, and we sat behind Adam West part of the plane ride home, and Pam Anderson had dinner at the same Greek restaurant we did our last night. Aaron also claims he pointed out Donald Sutherland while we were shopping, but I swear he was discreetly pointing at a hobo (so I was trying to figure out what the hobo was eating), so I say it doesn’t count because it wasn’t verified by more than one person… He says he was pointing behind the hobo…

a Bridget burrito

Aaron and I just got back from spending the past few days in L. A. visiting his brother’s growing family and meeting my new little niece, Bridget, who was born in January. She is really cute! Usually I think babies are intimidating and all, but she seems to be easy going.

Some things about Bridget….

• She chews on her hand when she is hungry.
• She sleeps and eats a lot.
• She doesn’t cry very much.
• She is quite a fashonista and her adorable clothes change several times a day.
• She was born early and is still pretty tiny.
• She is pretty easy and doesn’t mind going out on the town.

that’s about it so far…

going for a car ride

We were pretty much just there to meet her since they will probably not be making it out to the east coast for a while, so we didn’t have too many plans otherwise. She was a really good baby, though, so we did do some other things like go out to restaurants and also to the museum, but I will put up some of those pictures later. Aaron and I are both terribly tired between traveling and daylight savings time together.

flowers outside Bridget’s door

Bridget’s big sister…
who loved me, by the way

You can see more of her, her family, and our trip in my Baby Bridget and Environs set on flickr if you want.

Book Review #31:

Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Edith Grossman

A good friend of mine, who is from South America and a native Spanish speaker, recommended this author to me years ago and I just now got around to reading one of his books. She told me at the time that she had read a few of his novels in English and in Spanish and that, while a some of his masterful use of language was lost in translation, in her opinion, he was the greatest writer in the Spanish language and could still be appreciated in English.

I would characterize this book as a “kissey book” as my family would say, or “romance novel”, as the rest of the world would say. The story is set in the Caribbean and South America at the turn of the 20th century. You know from the back of the book that the first main character introduced, an elderly Dr. Juvenal Urbino, will fall to his death, leaving his widow, Fermina Daza. At the Doctor’s funeral, the man who she briefly promised she would marry when she was a teenager approaches her and tells her he is still in love with her. The rest of the story is predominately a series of flashbacks to the short time when they were “in love” as teenagers, and the story if the lives each of them had apart.

So, first of all, the book is very well written, so if you can read and enjoy books just for the way they are written (I can), then you may enjoy it for that reason alone. The nested story and flashbacks are very interesting and I kept reading partly because the story moved along so well that it never crossed my mind to stop at any point, no matter whether I liked the story or not. It was unusual to me, that while there were large sections with poignant descriptions of disease, aging, and death that really place this book outside the category of romance novel alone and show what people who love this book might be appreciating, the actual love story and most of the characters seemed very superficial to me. My big problem with this novel is that, call me naive and idealistic, I didn’t like the view of love that it portrayed. Also, there are some aspects of the story (which did not advance the plot) that I was surprised the author included and that some people might want to know about before reading. If you are curious what I am talking about, you can read the 1 star reviews on Amazon because I don’t want any of the key words I would have to use to explain to be used to search for my site. It wasn’t so much that I disprove of these topics ever appearing in literature, but that I didn’t care for the tone the author took towards these very serious issues and I didn’t find reading about it enjoyable or pleasant in any way. But I’ll just say that for this reason, the book left me with a bad feeling.

a sea of orchids

Last weekend I went to Atlanta to go with my mom and grandparents to the orchid exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. It was amazing, and even worth the fact that I had to drive down to South Carolina Friday after work, drive to Atlanta and back on Saturday, and the rest of the way home on Sunday. I went by myself, because Aaron had a presentation and a test last week - his first real work towards getting an MBA. Those of you who are in Atlanta should really consider going sometime before it ends (I think the end of March). Anyway, there are so many unusual orchids there! Unfortunately, I ended up in Atlanta with only my telephoto lens so I had to stand several leagues away from the flowers to take pictures. Annoying. Why can’t I remember things?

I also bought myself 2 new orchids, they’re twins! They are from genus that grows in South America called Masdevallia. I have no idea how likely they are to stay alive, but so far they seem to have improved. They were the only ones of their kind for sale and the flowers were looking a little rough, but I wanted them pretty badly (I’ve wanted this kind for a while actually), so I thought I would get them anyway. Now they’ve opened some new flowers, so hopefully they are on the right track. I will take some pictures of them soon. Oh, and their flowers are yellow and orange, which is cool because most of mine are purple. FYI, they only sell orchids at the exhibit the last weekend of the month, and the orchids are from outside vendors, not the botanical gardens.

Some pretty ones:

You can see more in my “Orchid Exhibit” flickr set.

Last night was *fun* for a change… A good friend of mine just finished taking his medical boards, so we went out to dinner with him and his girlfriend at a tasty Indian restaurant, then made it back just in time to watch American Idol (!) and catch the eclipse. Did you see it? It was really cool! We had a great view from our front stoop, where I took a few pictures. I had to use the manual settings, of course, because my poor camera was pretty frustrated that I was trying to take pictures in near total darkness. Here are a few:

Also, I finally decided how to spend some of my Christmas money. I bought myself a toy camera! It’s called a Diana, and it is basically a reproduction of a plastic camera from the 1950s-60s. It is completely manual, takes 120 film, and the pictures are square and have an unusual look can’t be reproduced with other cameras or photoshop. It is difficult to describe, but the unique look results from the fact that the lens is plastic, and the focus is sharp in the center but a little blurry around the corners- called vignetting. I have not yet produced any photos with this camera because it only arrived yesterday (with 5 tubes of slide film!). Woo hoo. Unfortunately, I will be without the instant gratification of digital pictures and may even have to send the film off for special processing, so I’ll let you know how the pictures turn out after the next ice age… Behold the Diana:

I’ve been really sick for about two weeks now, and while that didn’t diminish Valentine’s Day celebrations last Thursday, it did delay me putting up the pictures of our pets getting their presents. More importantly, our new little nephew, Brady, was born on Valentine’s Day! (Another easy birthday to remember- woo hoo!) I don’t have any pictures yet of him, but when I do I will share his cuteness with you all. Until then here is some cuteness:

Chester got a candy-dipped-strawberries tug

…and Layla got a heart covered graphic tee

Maggie got a pink Valentine’s bug toy but it was not to her liking so I don’t have any pictures. She just sniffed it, determined that it was obviously dead already, and hasn’t looked at it again. It was also greatly overshadowed by the fact that I found her favorite kind of jingly puff at the store after months of looking there and online. I bought almost their entire stock so we won’t have this crisis again. She seriously was carrying the old one around with her in the house as she went from room to room, and wouldn’t come upstairs to bed without going back downstairs to get it. It was getting really ratty and I was worried we wouldn’t find a replacement for it. Whew. She likes the new ones just as much and now she has more of them to keep track of, which seems to be even more entertaining for her.

So, that’s about all… Aaron has been busy going out of town a lot lately and also taking class at night to get his MBA. He won a sparkly award (that Miss Kittypants really likes) from work and also gets to be in charge of a project that he is really excited about, so that is good. For me, work is going meh because we can’t spend so much money for a while (we are over budget) and I am antsy to go on a trip. I am going to drive to Atlanta to spend Saturday going to the botanical gardens (which is having an orchid show!) with my mom and grandparents at the end of this week. Then, Aaron and I are going to pick a weekend to fly out to L.A. and meet Baby Bridget. Hopefully, we will be able to plan a sort of bigger, relaxing trip for the summer if it is not too late. I am leaning towards Eastern Europe. Oh, and I’ve been reading more since I’ve been sick so hopefully I will have some more book reviews pretty soon.

Since the holidays I’ve gotten two new orchids. I don’t think I have an “orchid problem” yet, though, and let me tell you why. First of all, I know that there is a point when one could have an orchid problem and this would be when the orchids are causing the house to look cluttered, perhaps there might not be enough time to enjoy each orchid individually, or the care of some orchids might be deteriorating. I’m not at this point yet, so I think I’m still okay. Each of my orchids has its own fancy pot, is watered on schedule, misted nearly each day (if it likes that), each has a name, and they are all healthy… except for Cordelia Mae who kept blooming for 6 months so I didn’t want to re-pot her on time and her roots weren’t looking so good, so now she is recovering. Oops.

Anyway, here are the new ones! This is Willa, my new Miltonia:

We have two other Miltonias that are very pretty upstairs, but since they are in Aaron’s office he says they are his orchids and I am not allowed to name them. (Their names are actually Gracie and Gretchen.)

Anyway, this is Sadie the slipper orchid:

Very very very unfortunately, Maggie got overly excited about Sadie and bit her flower spike, causing it to fail. Also, I didn’t get very many pictures of Sadie before that happened. I’m sad, but she does have lovely variegated leaves and is pretty even without a flower.

That’s right, Aaron and I have been married now for 3 years! That is kinda hard to believe. To celebrate our anniversary, we decided at the last minute to go on a short weekend trip… more about that later. Here are a few more of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of Aaron this year:

Aaron cruising in Alaska

Aaron looking at glaciers

a rare sight
Aaron reading the last Harry Potter book

Aaron as my date at a friend’s wedding

Aaron opening his very first iphone
may it rest in peace

Aaron blowing wedding bubbles

an old family album

As I’ve posted before, I have recently gotten interested in researching our family’s history and preserving old pictures that my grandparents have. This Christmas I brought my scanner and my camera and rummaged in their basement for old pictures… and look what I found! There was the coolest old album with old photos and tintypes, etc. I think it belonged to my grandmother’s grandmother. This is a picture of her:

Mary Lena Brown Griffith

It has been a lot of fun trying to figure out who the other people in her pictures are. To begin with, many of the pictures had been taken out of their spots in the album, and a very few had names scratched on the back. I think I have figured out a lot of the family pictures and I can tell that there are pictures of extended family, cousins, and even neighbors.

I should probably research the best way to actually archive these photos, but for now this is what I decided to do:

So, I put the loose individual pictures in little baggies and then filed them in a box so that they are better protected. The one thing that I am a little concerned about is the moisture level, so I will be thinking about how to take care of that, if anyone has suggestions.

I submitted one of my photos to a magazine and you should go vote for me! It’s a magazine called JPG and people submit photos for different themes and then the online readers vote for them on the website. Voting helps the editors decide which photos to review for publication. You do have to register, but all you need is a user name and password and then you can vote and even submit photos of your own. So, register, vote for me, (and while you’re at it you can say my photo is one of your “favorites”), then submit photos of your own to one of the themes, or just vote on other people’s photos. It’s fun (and addictive!).

Post Update: voting closed, so I removed the link, but thanks to everyone for voting and making my photo one of the “hot photos”

Good news! I have a little niece! Her name is Bridget and she was born yesterday in Santa Monica, California. We haven’t heard too much about her yet, but she was 6 lbs. 1 oz., a little early, and is doing really well according to eyewitness accounts. She and Aaron have the same birthday! That is good because it will be easy for us to remember as the number of nieces and nephews grows. Aaron and I hope we will be able to meet her sometime in the next few months. I don’t know yet if they want to spell her name Bridget or Bridgette. Oh, and I didn’t post a happy birthday message to Aaron yesterday because he doesn’t ever read this and I also spent all my time making him a two layer cake with chocolate raspberry icing because I am soooo niiiiiice.

Post Update:
I got one more picture that I thought I would share:

Bridget going home!