100 Photos: No. 19 -- Halloween Edition

Hooray for November!

Halloween is done for another year. What a hectic and fun weekend! We had a family of five over for dinner Friday night after a day full of festivities at school. Saturday we had soccer and Nana over for a day-long visit including cooking Indian food for dinner. Sunday was the big day and we finally got our pumpkins and carved them. All the grandparents came for dinner and trick or treating & visiting with friends. Can you say EXHAUSTED?

But this Polaroid (in focus!) makes it all worth it for me. Meet my darling little as Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau:

Okay, by this post title it is clear I am not going to make it to 100 Photos by the end of the year. The original blog is gone now too. The Flickr pool is still going though!

Did you enjoy Halloween? Are you tired today like me?

Beach Polaroids

I found my Polaroid courage at the beach last weekend. I got some of the new Impossible Project Color Shade film for my birthday last month but didn't open it until this weekend.

Guess what? I only took the last image! Are you surprised? All of the Polaroids I took came out blurry. The Noodle took the first two images in this post! I am so impressed. He only took two Polaroids and they both came out great! 

I am such a proud mama. I think I will order these on Plywerk for him. I want to honor the beauty that he captured. Maybe he can teach me a thing or two. 

100 Photos: No. 18

Last night, our town's seasonal farmer's market opened! I was so happy. Jeff was able to join me and the Noodle for a little relaxing family time. I got kettle corn and some flowers. Next week I'll do real shopping there as I'm hoping life will settle down enough for me to meal plan and cook again.

No. 18, Happy Boy Farms

I have another happy boy in my life because today* is my Noodle's seventh birthday! I've crepe-papered the house, there's pancakes on the breakfast menu and I wrote happy birthday all over the place outside with sidewalk chalk. We've got his gift in the car with a big, red bow on it and the car fob wrapped up in a box with its own bow. 

I bet he'll wake up the entire neighborhood, you might even hear him squealing wherever you are! (I tested it out after Jeff assembled it tonight, whoa fun times!) 

Wishing you all a peaceful weekend. 

* I'm posting this at 12:40 a.m. because between the birthday festivities and working in the classroom tomorrow morning, followed by play rehearsals, I wouldn't have been able to post till midnight tomorrow probably.

100 Photos: No. 17

This is my receipt file. I've reused it many years by writing the year on it, then covering the writing with stickers. Now I've gotten smart and covered it with a paper that I liked and I'll just toss the receipts at the end of the year and file the keepers elsewhere. Now I'm cooking with gas!

No. 17, Receipt File

I know it's overexposed, but if you squint, you might see the question mark in the upper left and the "5" in the middle on the bottom. :)

100 Photos: No. 13

Please forgive my sporadic posting last week. I will be back on track this week! We have had truly wonderful spring weather here lately. This weekend and this morning it is downright lovely, and the next three days promise rain. So I decided that the chores could wait and I headed out to photograph another tree that has caught my eye lately in my neighborhood.

No. 13, Sweet Springtime

What do we get from the flighty weather? We get trees like this one bursting with soft blossoms, the sound of birds chirping, and the promise of more warm, sunny days.

It is the sweetness of springtime.


P.S. I made it on the 100 Photos Group Features blog last week, hooray!

100 Photos: No. 12

It's spring break around here and I've come down with some kind of bug so all of my plans have gone right out the window. And those were my Plan B plans because my Plan A was a road trip to Portland which got postponed. So now it's Plan C which means more screen time for the Noodle than I generally prefer and a lot of moping. "Boo hiss!" as my friend said when she found out I was sick.

At least I have a Polaroid that I took recently when it was warm and sunny to remind me that sometimes life is glorious.

Tutu's Tree

This amazing tree lives in my in-laws front yard. They have sold the house after more than 15 years there and are moving to the next chapter of their lives. Now we can always remember this tree in all its spring glory.

100 Photos: No. 10 & No. 11

Hello friends! I have a sick wee one at home so I am going to split my big post into two parts. Today is the Polaroid part and tomorrow will be the Canon part of my trip to San Francisco last week. The special place I visited is the last place that I lived with my dad: Rincon Towers at 88 Howard Street.

No. 10, Howard Street

This was the last exposure in the pack, and it got stuck coming out.

But I quite like it.

When I went off to college at Cal State Long Beach, my dad almost immediately left the suburbs of San Jose for city life in San Francisco. He chose Rincon Towers as his re-entry point after 17 years away from a city. He was a native New Yorker, and while he didn't want to raise me there, it had been quite a sacrifice for him to leave and live in suburbs all that time. I always thought that was a mistake but hey, I was the kid right?

I struggled quite a bit at CSULB, and after two years, came crawling home. I joined my dad at Rincon Towers and got a full-time job in a law firm. I lived there with him for almost 1.5 years before I went back to college in southern California. We didn't last long in his one-bedroom, so we switched towers and moved to a two-bedroom on the 22nd floor facing the water.

No. 11, The Embarcadero

We each had a short commute to work and we would often walk in together with our espresso coffees from the cafe in the plaza of our apartment towers. My office was on California Street and his was on Montgomery. Some days, it was very windy and I would hop on the cable car for the last couple of blocks.

After I returned to college, my dad couldn't really afford that two-bedroom so he moved into a studio. I remember he was very frustrated by three moves in three years, even though he was happy I was going back to school. It was a lot of hassle for him. Parenting, huh? Shortly after that he found a great pad in North Beach and that was the very last place I saw him happy.

Part Two, tomorrow.

100 Photos: No. 9

I love the simplicity of No. 9 with its pristine blue sky and a single object.

Lamp Post in Walnut Creek

One of my very favorite parts of my Polaroids is that little bit of white near the bottom edge. It doesn't happen every time. I love that for some reason, it's a mystery to me because I'm so new with it all.

Today is a minimum day at school so I have to try to cram as much grown-up stuff into the next hour as humanly possible! Over the weekend, I will prepare a special post for Monday. I went to San Francisco yesterday to pick up some prints and ventured a little out of my way to visit a place from my past. I can't wait to share it with you.

100 Photos: Outtakes

Sorry for the big psych but I do not have a real fifth Polaroid to share with you this morning. My weekend started off great: I met PLuv for drinks at one of our favorite local restaurants and on Saturday, I had a productive day and a fun evening with my family. But yesterday, I woke up with a fever and my weekend came to a screeching halt on the most sunny day in recent memory.

I tried to take a few Polaroids for my project this morning but a) my head is cloudy from being sick and b) the cloud sky is cloudy (see I told you about my head) and so my idea to show you the signs of spring around my house flopped and failed miserably.

The Noodle climbed "his tree" in our backyard yesterday (which bloomed while we were in Tahoe) and plucked those yellow pretties for me. Aren't they are so cheerful? You would never know from the Polaroid I tried to take. And that dark, grainy mess above those balls of sunshine is another sign of spring that popped up on the side of my driveway recently. Until I went out with a pair of common scissors and hacked it off to bring inside! Aren't I awful?

Anyway, I do have some good things planned for my blog this week including a dreamy photographer to share tomorrow, a wonderful interview with a fiber artist on Wednesday and on Thursday, it will be my turn to post for Blog It Forward! Blog It Forward is going to knock our blogging socks off, I know it!

Back in Business

This weekend I hope to do some catching up. Four-day weekends are fun and all, but they leave me rather behind on the everyday things like housework, paperwork, cooking, and the general organizing that a family seems to need to keep functioning. Not to mention, there is a collection happening right next door for the school rummage sale and I'm definitely in the mood to do some purging. Also there has been a lot of Valentine makings going on around here lately, and now I'm in the mood to do some crafting.

But mostly I plan to catch up with my camera because I finally have a new pack of film!

To kick off my hopefully productive weekend, I'm meeting a friend for a cocktail this evening so we can catch up with each other. I can already tell that my plans for the weekend are unrealistic because we have a non-local birthday party tomorrow, plus I have some school volunteer projects to do. It's the old too-much-to-do-and-not-enough-time-to-do-it problem.

What are you doing this weekend?

100 Photos: No. 4

You might have heard about a series of storms on the West Coast this week. Luckily I got to enjoy them all from the warmth and comfort of home. There was a golden bright sunny moment in between downpours yesterday and I was inspired by our little rascal in the backyard.

After the Storm

Okay, Jackson's not that little but he is a rascal. He was very perplexed by my Pola, he's used to my Canon I guess and never gives it a second glance. Here's a bit of personal trivia for you. I was a huge Mad About You fan back in the day (well, I'm still a huge fan) and the show always ended with "Sit Ubu Sit. Good dog." I still say that in my mind (even when I'm telling Jackson to sit).

Fine, I will admit that I quote lots of random bits of that show in my mind on a regular basis: like the tease from Season Two's episode "Love Letters" when Paul is slurping his soup loudly and Jamie is staring at him and finally he notices and asks, "What?" and she says, "I was just thinking about how much I love you" in the most perfect tone of voice.

Isn't it funny how a Polaroid can lead you down Memory Lane?

100 Photos: No. 3

Yesterday when I was at the grocery store, I decided to buy myself some flowers. Every time I buy myself flowers, I split the bouquet into many smaller bouquets and spread the cheer around the house.

Cheer Up

Those are Strauss glass bottles, yummy half + half and then later on, yummy vases.

Exposing a Polaroid is a skill I have not acquired yet. Maybe by photo 99, I will get it right. This is a reminder to myself about why I chose Polaroid for my 100 Photos project, so I can make friends with her. Over the weekend, we were not friends. We were more like schoolyard enemies when my awesome photo of a 101 freeway sign at eventide was perfectly exposed at 5 seconds vs. the end of development.

100 Photos: No. 1

A couple of days ago, I was hanging out in the Shutter Sisters pool on Flickr when I ran across a discussion started by Toni to spread the word about her One Hundred Photos project.

I was very intrigued because I love the idea of an ongoing creative project, but also did not want to commit to a 365. After 24 hours of thought, I decided to do 100 polaroids because I am still quite intimidated by my Pola. I think this project will be the perfect way for me to make friends with her. It's like making plans twice a week with someone you really admire, know you have a lot in common with  and want to get to know.

B.'s dresser

I took this photo two days before I read about the project. My nephew's dresser whispered to me, "Please put down that fancy Canon and capture me with Pola." Funny how often something I do prepares me for something ahead, even though I have no idea that it will at the time. It has happened countless times.

P.S. Toni has another gorgeous blog called Waking Up in Bavaria about her family's adventure moving to Germany from California. Check it out! :)

Farmers Market

Today I went a farmers market for the first time when it was not summer. I am evolving little by little in my shopping habits and going to a year-round market is one step in my process.

I picked up fresh salad mix, tomatoes and scallions, as well as some locally grown pink lady apples. I also got myself a bunch of lovely orange flowers.  Oh and I did get a couple of Polaroids to come out. :)

Thanks Green Bean for showing me a new market!

Polaroids

I am getting over my fear of the Polaroid. Not fear of the camera itself, but the price tag on the packs of film. It's a hobby and it's not free. I am making my peace with that.

By the way, that's a note my son left me this morning. It says, "I Jaden pot cofe des in. Neto pot water" (Translation: I Jaden put coffee beans in. Need to put water.)

Between Lisa Mitchell tweeting about her new video and the coffee being started, my Monday is off to a great start. :)