Monthly Archives: June 2013

June 30 — handwriting

For the last day of the June Photo a Day Challenge, Chantelle wanted to see handwriting. Well, I wasn’t sure what to write until I saw the weekend’s Trifextra Challenge:

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
–Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject–tell us what’s important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you’d like.  Or else change up the modifier–instead of telling us what’s important, tell us what’s sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James’s, giving us the same answer three times. 

June 29 — in my bag

There’s a whole lotta stuff in my bag. When I was a kid, I never understood why my mom’s purse weighed so much. Now I’m toting around one that’s just as heavy. My theory is, just like they say goldfish will grow to the size of their tank (myth, by the way), the stuff a woman deems it necessary to carry is determined by the size of her bag. I used to be totally content with a small purse that held only my wallet. Then I found a larger purse and bought it simply because I liked the style…brought it home and had to find stuff to put in it. In my current purse, with all its pockets, I am carrying:

• a wallet (larger than normal since I have to carry pounds and dollars)
• an umbrella (really useless–too small to cover more than my head, and no chance against the wind)
• sunglasses (also useless 90% of the past two years here in England)
• a reusable shopping bag
• an emergency kit (Tylenol, band-aids, dental floss, sewing kit, eyeglass repair kit, nail file, etc.)
• the hubby’s reading glasses
• a bottle of sweet chili sauce for the hubby’s chips
• a pack of tissues
• a small towel (learned how indispensable this was in Japan–for drying hands, mopping sweat)
• an extra key for my car
• the key to the hubby’s car
• a camera
• my cell phone
• a small tape measure
• a flashlight
• a notebook
• several pens
• chewing gum
• hand sanitizer
• 550 cord survival bracelet (I’ve seen too many episodes of Man, Woman, Wild to go anywhere without this)

June Photo a Day hosted by Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim

June 28 — red

Except for the ones that had been forced in the greenhouses, the tulips weren’t blooming when we went to Holland in April, but this beautiful scarlet red rose more than made up for it! (Surprisingly, it had absolutely no smell…I wonder what they’ve done to breed the smell out of a rose?)

June Photo a Day hosted by Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim

June 27–into the sun

When you live in England, an assignment to shoot a photo directly into the sun is going to be a hit or miss proposition. Today, it’s a miss. So I’ve gone through my archives to find an interesting photo that a) was shot intentionally into the sun b) has some minor compositional value, and c) isn’t a tired old sunset picture. I found this picture of Mt. Fuji, taken in December 2010. I don’t have a filter on my camera, a Kodax DX6490, so I was trying to use the edge of the lens itself to sort of block the sun from washing out the entire shot. What I got was an interesting rainbow effect, with some cool rays shooting off to the left side of the image. One of those happy accident kind of shots that I’m sure I could never replicate in a thousand clicks of the shutter.

June Photo a Day hosted by Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim

June 26 — empty

Well, it’s getting down to crunch time. With only 42 days left in England (the hubby is eagerly counting), moving preparations are in full swing (i.e. purging unneeded junk). The guest room is now empty, as I sold the bed, the nightstands, and the dresser last week. While I’m sad that our time here is almost over, I’m tickled at how well I did on the sale of the furniture. In all, we spent £188 (about $288) outfitting that room, and I got back £162 ($248) last week. So basically we rented a full room of furniture for two years for forty bucks. Won’t get that kind of deal at Rent-A-Center!!

June Photo a Day hosted by Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim

June 25 — sharp

Sharp is the knife I used in a traditional spoon carving course this past weekend. On Saturday we made a Scandinavian butter knife out of lime wood (a.k.a. basswood), a relatively easy project on which to practice our new axe and knife skills. Then on Sunday we got down to business and transformed an alder log into a Scandinavian style eating spoon. I am proud to report that except for some tape over a blister raised by the axe, I had no need of plasters (Band-aids) or the emergency room!

June Photo a Day hosted by Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim

June 24 — negative space

The negative space between the hummingbird and this feeder is diminishing rapidly as he zeros in for a sip of sugar water.

June Photo a Day hosted by Chantelle at Fat Mum Slim