It Is Another Tuesday

Circles 2023
Digital photo

The memory of creating the digital photograph on the left is stored so deep that I can't reach it.

As we get older, feeling worried when we don't remember something can feel very unsettling. Taking the date created, I can go to that folder to see what else I was up to in 2023.

As for today, the sun is shinning. It is cold. Spring is a mere 28 days away. The carnations I bought two weeks ago are just fading. None of the buds opened though. My spider plant looks like it just got home from an all night rave that it wasn't ready to leave. Blogging, again, is on the when to stop radar, blip yes, blip no, blippity blip as it goes. 

Time to read a book.

About Learning Photography

Leaf on Hot Concrete
Digital photo August 2019

What you might notice when going through photo folders of years gone by, are subjects you've photographed a lot, composition quality improvement, and not all cameras take good photos.

Clouds. I have a lot of cloud pictures. Moon. Lots of those pics as well. Plants. Like I'll forget what basil and nasturtiums look like. Autumn. Season favoritism shows. 

You can be engaged in pursuing adjustments in your life when other things you do merge, enter the room, have a sit down on the brain until you figure out why it deserves a seat. Becoming a better photographer deserves a seat in my mind is a no brainer.

Style. Are you a good photographer, candid picture taker or have a lens why not record an image? I think it depends on the moment and what you are looking at. 

I can be all three at the same time. Attitude prevails. What doesn't enter the picture is the effort to improve my skill as a photographer of any style level. Thus, with a depression dip to deal with, I'm now into learning photography. An item on the lists you see on websites for how to get out of a depression surge, is to learn or do something new. 

Below are a couple of links to get you started, if you have the mind to pursue photography improvement.

10 Best Free Online Photography Courses, petalpixel.com, 2024.

Intro to Photography Class, Reddit.com, authored by professional photographer, Alex Buisse.

I wish you much success in having fun with your photography at whatever level of expertise you are comfortable with.

I've feel encouraged to improve my photography skills after watching a fantastic YouTube video by professional photographer, Drew Simms. 

Yellowstone Winter Camping and Wildlife Photography

An Outstanding video

How many ideas can fit in one brain?

 

MIT News, When four is not four, but rather two plus two, MIT neuroscientists redefine the limits of working visual memory (June 2011)

The Magical Mystery Four: How Is Working Memory Capacity Limited and Why? (2010)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The answer: I don't know for sure after Googling the question, but I do believe it is a lot. Why ask such a question? It is like this, I was thinking again.

5 Years

As I'm searching the Internet for recent articles, 2020 - 2024, I realize that my brain is resisting the fun of learning. To better organize the subject, I decide to start with links to articles. Moving along, I begin to read the text. The more I read, the more my brain says...Think of something else We aren't into a high capacity learning experience!  I understand that because I've been in a depression dip. Learning takes a lot of brain power that depression does not relinquish readily or easily.

To simplify. 

Changing my lifestyle is a challenge. Clearing my mind to think smoother and sharper, (a worthy goal) I've been assessing my thinking history. 

I believe we are born curious. I believe, that when I first began breathing air, my first thought is: Where the F%#& am I!? 

I am sure I was terrified. I can't imagine myself as a chilled new born. As it happens, I spent a lot of time by myself wondering about the initial question. When I learned to speak the language, my mother said I talked myself to sleep, and talked myself awake.

She was not a journaling person. There was no computer or tape recorder. Not even a camera happy parent to take many candid pictures of me.

All that learning, all that brain use is in my memory somewhere, for what I don't know. If there are lives lived one after the other, then in this life of mine, not much of the past life information has come forward. What if what I was talking about are things that did transfer to the new me? Did she listen to what I was saying? I guess, yes because she knew I talked. I think we often dismiss a new person's chats because we think of a baby's brain as not developed. It may be more developed that we know or science is as yet, able to measure. 

Training your brain to think better, be healthier is as important, I believe, as exercising the body. 

I noted that as I've been pondering brain health, on my list of foods to add artichoke hearts rise to the top. I haven't had them in years. They are a good brain food.  The brain knows.

Assessing a Blogging Past

Together
Mixed media watercolor & cut paper
2008

Do you remember what you were thinking during each project?

Why you started? What the goal is? Where the idea began?

The year 2008 is 16 years ago. I'd have to look up blog posts to jog my memory for what I was doing back then. This blog began in October 2012, moved over from Poet Whale Studio (2010). The 2 years from 2008 to 2010, I was blogging elsewhere as Cornsilk Moon. I morphed the blog title here a few times before settling to this final name.

It boggles my mind that I've been blogging for 16 years. What has changed? I'm not sure, but I believe I don't write with as much scatter-brainess as I use to. My subjects seem to flow the same. I no longer feel the need to change the blog title. 

For what is the same, venting. I still have to put effort into not posting vents about customer service, politics, something in the news or a personal experience. 

(That may change as the 2024 election nears.)

Buoy, Buoy, Oh Ya, Buoy, Buoy,

Materials:

Save the bottle cap

Empty quart plastic bottles

Clean and remove labels

Paint like lobster buoys

Drill small hole in bottle cap; thread twine through the hole; knot around a tooth pick cut down to fit inside the bottle cap; knot the upper twine to make a holder

Apply a few coats using acrylic paint. Use a long taper candle in a candle holder as a drying stand. Place the bottle upside down over the taper. 

The paint can scrape off easily. Hang the buoy where it will not be banged around. You can also make decorative buoys using cardboard.

Photo: The yellow, white and blue buoy is a milk bottle. It is the first buoy I made. The paint needs sprucing up. The other two are soda bottles. They  are a fun and inexpensive way to add a nautical vibe to the decor. 

Real lobster buoys are painted with the colors of the commercially registered lobster fisherperson. Each state has their own buoy registry.

Bouys are the road signs on the water. All boaters should know what they mean. 

U.S. Coast Guard PDF, U.S. Aids to Navigation Systems PDF

People Watching Vs Nature

This week the weather forecast is back to mostly cloudy for this western upper Vermont Champlain Valley area, (with possible snow on Tuesday, Thursday & Friday). Last Saturday there were scattered rain showers. Not a bother for the small flock of Canada Geese landing in the field at the Dead Creek Wildlife Refuge. 

The visitor's area in the photograph is a nice place to stop to see the outdoors, experience the flatland of the Champlain Valley, have a nice sit and think as well as a lunch or early morning coffee. You can see a lot of sky there.

This brings to mind the observation that it feels more comfortable to me experiencing the outdoors in Nature than being in urban areas people watching. 

Do online interviews, podcasts and such replace the good old fashion sit on a bench connection that people watching provides? 

What do you find most interesting about watching folks walking down a sidewalk or shopping in a mall?

A Weekend Out & About

Short excursion this weekend as the weather was partly sunny and warmer. A pocket size sketchbook and I had a nice sit near the shores of Lake Champlain. The different hues of the icy waters is what I study most.

On the way home, at the very top of a tree, I catch a sudden checking the side of the road glimpse of a bald eagle. There is no area to stop and take a look. Farther down Route 17, I pull into the Dead Creek boat launch lot hoping the eagle will take flight my way. The eagle did not. 

Alas, the camera I had with me is my iphone 13 with a mere 5X zoom; and, a super lousy program that does not have the feature of plugging the phone into a device to upload the pictures. Photos are store in the where is it icloud on the phone. I have to email photos to myself, then open them. The sizes are always very small and blurry. Boo to Apple iphone 13.

It was surreal to hear geese in the middle of winter. I'm guessing maybe spring is closer than expected.

The warmer weather is eerie, nice but strange. Seeing sunhine so often is a blessing. It has been a slow going for me lately. Lots of laundry and blog reading to catch up on.

Have a wonderful week!

A Sunrise In February

Sun on the Horizon
7 AM EDT Vermont
10 February 2024

West of the Sun 7 AM EDT
10 February 2024
Addison County Vermont

 

Sunrise Merged Photo
Sky East versus Sky West

Taken from indoors through a patio window, the colors of the sky this morning are interesting. The first picture is the actual Sun peeking up on the horizon in the east. On the right, in the southwestern sky. It would be easy to think the sun is actually on the right because it is more golden.

NOAA The Color of Clouds

The weather forecast today is for scattered showers here in upper western Vermont. The cover to the stove vent banging in the wind indicates it is windy outdoors. I did not see any rain thus far at 7:31 AM EDT. The weather radar shows scattered showers to be an accurate description, rain clouds here and there thing. 

At 7:53 AM EDT, 46ºF, blue sky with puffy white clouds, and the sun is up over the horizon. No rain as yet. Looks and has the feel of Spring!

via GIPHY

Day 40 of Week 6 February 2024

Color & Pattern Doodling
Digital image

Summer Fabric Pattern
Digital image

I've had the idea to create my own fabric designs to use in making a small summer weekend getaway wardrobe: handmade rope sandals, 3 pair of shorts, 3 camp shirts, a hat, 2 summer dresses. a picnic cloth, a bathing suit, and, a tote bag.

The first pattern will be for summer tee shirts and the tote bag. The second pattern will be for a camp shirt and a summer dress.

Summer Shorts Fabric Pattern

The summer shorts will be made with a solid fabric and the print design. The colors might be adjusted before I order the fabric.

Colorful, summery, light and moving is the vibe I'm going for this summer. Holding the hot weather up against winter's cold is a contrast that pushes ideas towards brighter hues.

At the moment I have a spiral notebook close by with a story I've written that needs editing. Doodling fabric pattern designs is a way of avoiding that task. I have no answer as yet, (and I have thought long about it), why I put off doing things I believe will be very good for me.

C'est La vie!

Have a Doodling Good Weekend

Bake a pie

Read about whales

Take a walk with a friend

Make a fabric grocery bag

Make your silouhette from cardboard

Browse day packs online

Visit a neighbor

Grill aspargus

Sing to your mug a funny song

 

Toast

Vintage Toast Rack
E.P.N.S.

Do you remember the first time you had toast? Held it? Made it?

Guessing here, my first piece of toast might have been when I was a toddler. There is a photo of me with a lollipop when I was 3 years. It makes sense to me that I could handle a piece of toast on my own, as in held toast. 

A toaster, guessing again, was iffy when I was a kid. I remember the (scary) type with the two sides that you pull down. Watching adults not burning toast in those days, looked to me as skill to learn.  I also recall toast being made in a black frying pan.  In the 1950s, the round 2 slice marshmallow shiny toaster doubled as a mirror to comb my hair before school.

There are sandwiches that are the best when the bread is toasted, tuna fish or egg salad, for example. When I feel poorly, cinnamon toast rules (cinnamon sugar sprinkled on buttered toast). Oh! A hot dog on a toasted bun raises it to the fancy food level. Up late at night, toast and tea are my comfort snack. If running late for an appointment, grabbing a piece of toast is the meal on the run.

How does toast fit into your life?

🍞

P.S.

Wordle on 2 today!

#5 in my life time

Thrilled I be!

What are the retirement good old olden days like?

Chicken Soup (canned)

For the first meal of the day, it is all right with me, to have chicken soup. The day before, things got in the way of a nice hot bowl of broth, carrots, noodles and chicken bits. A can of anything can become lonely sitting on the counter too long. One must pay attention to the foods they keep.

The same can be said of blog posts. When you begin a subject, it is best, I believe, to stay on track by finishing the thought. A subject also needs attention.

So what is that unfinished post (below) all about?  As I recall, the issue is about managing one's daily flow, the benefits of routine blended in with the doing what you feel like. 

In retirement, it can feel frightening to wake up to an epiphany you having nothing to do that will make any difference in this world. There is nobody to tell you what to do. There is nobody going to judge your accomplishments or lack of. 

The unfinished blog post:

Why am I blogging when all I want to do is have a McD sausage biscuit and a real coffee? 

There's no telling why things aren't the way you want them. You can, though, make decisions. There are goals out there waiting for you to embrace them. Right now, I have so much stuff to do, all I want to do is leave. (I'm laughing.) Going out and about isn't always to be out there to get things done. It can be about not being indoors so you don't have to face the messes you need to square away. Escaping for a moment can ease the transition from not doing to doing.

As it happens, being out of packing tape means a trip to the store. If I'm already out and about, then a short stop for a coffee is all right.

I did go out to buy tape. I did have a sausage biscuit and coffee from McD. I got a lot done that day. That is what matters most to me, to keep on going.