don't wanna.

Feeling rather uninspired tonight. It was another tiring day. What is it with me and those lately? Well I guess the whole day wasn't so bad. I took the Marshmallow Girl and I to Mass, and her behavior get me quite upset but looking back I'm not sure what set me off. Then we came home for a bit and met with my friend Ryan at the Base Gate to hand off some of our surplus food to his family. Then it was more hanging out at home. Marshmallow and I played and read together and I fooled on the computer and tried to get my Bluetooth devices to talk to each other. They finally did and then loading music onto my phone turned into a total pain. All the while in the back of my mind I wondered if my husband was ever going to surface from the tub. He was attempting to soak aches away. We went out to the front of the house for a bit and hung with the neighbors then broke for dinner. M had a melt down while the oven was warming because she was hungry so I made her corndogs in the microwave and whisked her to bed ASAP.

And there you have it. Time for me to turn my PC off.

Offerings

Yesterday for the promotion party one of the Airmen was going to be the chef. Not only did he cancel on us literally at the last minute (although I guess it is excusable, it was a call to assist with an excersise on base) but he also over estimated the food quantities. We could have done with one third of what we brought. I am offering the leftover, unopened food items to anyone here on Oahu who wants them, especially the meats. Here's what we have:

• 5 pounds chicken breast
• 7 pounds chicken thighs
• 15 pounds skirt steak, cut into strips
• 2 x 1.5 pounds sour cream
• 5 x 16 ounce bags tortilla chips
• 2 x 4 pound jars medium chunky salsa
• 3 x 4.5 ounce cans peeled chopped green chile
• 6 x 16 ounce cans traditional refried beans

I am planning to donate as much of this unclaimed food stuff to the Hickam AFB Chapel Pantry that they can take, in a couple days. I don't know if they will accept the meat, but I know the chips, salsa, chiles, and beans can probably go to them.

If you'd like any of this, free of charge, please let me know!

Color Me Curious

I've been on craving pale nail polish on my tips lately. With 'naked' toes. Not my usual fare. I tend to reach for dark 'vampy' colors or sometimes brights. And my toes are nearly always polished. Since this was puzzling, I read up on some 'Psychology of Color' web pages and am concluding that whites and pales are associated with purity, new beginnings, and neutrality. Now it makes sense- a new year, the upcoming move, and being in a clothing rut are all things going on right now and compatible with the color's psychology mindset.

Using my newfound knowledge on the psychology of color, I should pick a power color for my toes. Black, purple and red would be appropriate. There's a purple polish sitting on the upper level of my desk waiting to be 'loved on', and there's something to be said for the classic red tootsies, but black goes with everything unarguably. That decision will have to be for another night though, as well as repainting my tips.

We hosted a promotion party today for my husband and a couple other Airmaen from his unit who also got promoted. I did shopping for the party's food, chopped several pounds of chicken, assisted with setting things up and taking things down, and of course ensured our girl stayed safe (with the help of my husband). All that has got me worn out.

I'm hoping tomorrow will be refreshing and inspiring. I've been wanting to produce a really good piece of writing and everything on here just feels like mush.

I think I can...

Really, it's only 10 minutes. Yes, sleepiness is holding my hand and
nearly dragged me off but then I remembered resolutions and it's forlorn
expression at the thought of being cast aside.

And it happened again. Eyes closed and two moments seemed like an eternity.

This morning a wonderful rare event occurred: I rose from bed before my
girl! I peeked in on her sleeping little body a couple times and
couldn't take it any more so grabbed the camera and started clicking
away. The sleep of a child so often looks satisfying. She did get
awoken, but it was time for her to get up any way. I shared some of the
shots on my flickr page. http://www.flickr.com/photos/caramews/

The lure of bed is getting far too strong, and it's been 10 minutes. A
quick cuddle with my cats then to dreamland. I may just skip taking off
the make up, I really am that tired tonight.

cloud gazing

It's always been a pleasure to gaze at the clouds. To pick out the layers of color at a sunset or between brewing storms, watch their motions, experience them taking a life of their own. A few minutes and at least one discernible form has been found. Tonight I got two really distinct ones. First was the human. It looked exactly like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Shortly after came the Brontosaurus, lumbering it's way into the sunset. Then I had to get to making dinner, and the sky got dark. The daily show was over.

One of the most memorable cloud gazing moments for me was a couple years ago. My husband and I were on the front porch bench during a power outage one night. Our girl had already gone to bed so we were just out there killing time and chatting. The moon was bright, even more so due to the lack of street lamps from the Air Force Base. Suddenly I saw clear as day, the female reproductive system up there in the sky. I'm telling you, it was the whole she-bang- ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix... and right next to it was a Dragon. Who then proceeded to eat the system. I kid you not- the reproductive bits blurred away but the dragon remained. It was so strange! I'd never seen the clouds take such a complex distinct shape before! Even more odd to me was that the one form completely vanished but the other remained for a long few moments after.

Some believe that our dreams are messengers from beyond. I wonder if the clouds could be the same. Perhaps they are merely a psychedelic heaven bound art show set for our amusement, if we take the time to slow down and look. I hope you do take the time, and if you do already, take a couple moments more each time. There is so much that we often miss while scrambling about our busy day. Everybody needs more of this sort of relaxing, free fun in their life! It is amazing how much grounding can be attained by staring at the sky.

May you have peace and marbled skies...

another test

Now I'm trying out the email a blog post feature! I didn't realize that
Blogger sends my phone a message back every time I text an entry. So now
I get to see if any extra goop gets sent by this method. I'm sure the
goop is actually useful, but my text box seems to fill up way too fast.
I may use this method to post more. I'm a chatter box and 160 characters
just isn't enough most of the time ;)

testing, 1.2.3. Is this posting

testing, 1.2.3. Is this posting to my usual blog? If so, w00t! =) The mobile posts are limited to 160 characters. Now I may not twitter flood =)

little update

We are waiting for our 'orders to drop' as far as moving off this island goes. We should have known by now. It is going to be a fast and furious move, for sure! I'm hoping that all will go smoothly and that we will be in SoCal for my birthday on the 27th.

I think I will be going with Canon for my new camera. Was looking at the SX10 and am impressed with most of its capabilities, but I need to get my hands on a model in store. The Rebel is looking very nice too. Where is the best place to shop for cameras in Orange County, CA?

Christmas was wonderful. I loved seeing all the cards we got and am so happy that people got our cards before The Day. We all are enjoying out loot and are pleased to announce there were no 'bomb' gifts!

I was trying to get this thing set up with the Mobile Blogging service but now my phone seems to be jammed, while trying ot receive a message. Hopefully that will be fixed soon and I can make a test post or two.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Upgrade Saga Continues

I sit here with a large mug of hot Smores flavored coffee, glance out the window at the rainy day, and ponder the cruel fate of the photography pantheon. Upon visiting the camera shop yesterday I learned no current DSLR body nor converter rings are compatible with my 35mm set up. I have now been set to square one of the digital camera upgrade research project. I picked up as many informative phamplets as the shop could offer, most of them being from Canon. The Nikon brochure just laid out additional gear to buy, with not much in the way of assisting a shopper starting from scratch. So I shall be continuing the knowledge quest. No longer focusing on the Alpha series, but now tackling the choice between Nikon or Canon. It seems as though Nikon has a wider range of lenses to expand with. But the salesman seemed to be saying that the Canon Rebel was more user friendly. What do you in the DSLR using world think? What is your favorite camera and why?

upgrade woes

It has recently been made blatantly clear that my digital camera is longing to be upgraded. The main source of this realization was discovering that my camera system was not compatible with my PC Operating System. Thank goodness I can still get the images onto my PC albeit in a round about way: I load the images onto my laptop, then transfer over to the PC on our network. Then nine times out of ten uploading to flickr occurs with several of the images. I've been doing this for a month or two now and it's feeling more tedious each time. Yet despite the fact that my digital camera model is nearly a decade old (Sony CyberShot DSC-S50) it's held up extremely well against my abuses and the image quality is still meeting my standards in the technical regard. So, I would not be in as big of a hurry to upgrade but something happened which got me back to enjoying the SLR manual focusing rather than point and shoot with minimal focal point adjustments.

I unearthed my old camera bag. And found over 10 not-yet-shot rolls of film. Color and Black and White format. Multiple speed options. So that set me on a shooting spree and I've loved getting behind an SLR again (Minolta X-7a). It feels like sight has been re-gifted to me! But developing film is adding up! At least last time I took in a batch for developing I wised up and skipped the printing in favor of just the negatives and CD.

Here is where the mild agony comes in. I am almost certain I want to go with one of the Sony Alpha series cameras. A couple years ago Sony bought the camera division of Minolta so the lenses I'm using now should be compatible with those bodies. And if they aren't straight off the bat friendly with each other than I've been told there's converter rings to settle things out just right. But I'm not sure if I actually need to make the leap to DSLR just yet. Photography is just my hobby- I take snapshots of my daughter, silly little macros of things around the house, and random scenery or objects that catch my interest. Is getting a camera with a several hundred dollar price tag overkill for casual shooting?

Then I look at the investment I've made in my 35mm system. I have three lenses and several filters. If it all were to be laid out and had it's value appraised it wouldn't surprise me if the cash value came out to a couple thousand dollars. The equipment is really old. At least from the early 80s or 70s I'm guessing and some of the filters are even from the 50s. My parents bought the 'starter kit' for me when I got chewed by the shutter bug in high school from my teacher who had bought the equipment when he was in college if I recall correctly and I've been adding in bits and pieces over the past 10 years. Some of those pieces were left overs from one of my Grandfathers. There is a ton of sentimental value here, obviously. Don't think selling these babies would be an option.

Looking off to the not so distant future I can see the possibility of attempting to sell some of my better quality images as art for people's walls or desks, but I don't know how high of caliber my works are. There is still an infinate amount of photography basics that still need to be re-learned. Then if I go and get a fancy model of camera that opens a whole new vat of worms in the learning department.

So how will carakitty attempt to gain peace and knowledge in this matter? She will get herself and the fully loaded camera bag to a reputable camera shop when she finds one in her area. She will dismiss the comment from the Ritz Cameras Sales Associate who told her she should sell her 35mm system. She will get hands on play time with the Alpha cameras and continue to read reviews and bug her photo friends about camera models. She will keep the husband updated on her findings. Finally she will wait to see when exactly the shiney new camera arrives- there is the immediate future, Christmas, and January holds her Birthday.

I hope you enjoyed that drift into third-person drama. After nearly a full hour of writing and editing things are getting a little incoherant in here ;) I'm considering the next topic being 'Responsible Pet Ownership'. I bid you adeiu for now.