In the grooves

A photoblogger I follow recently started using a film camera, moving "backward," if you will, from digital. When she posted the pictures online, it was so apparent that they were film and not digital.

(source) 

When music moved from vinyl to CD, purists complained that CDs changed the music, that you can't get all of music's flow and nuances from digital music because when you break it down to the most basic level, you're getting bit and bytes of the music, not the smooth, uninterrupted flow of the needle on vinyl.

I think photography is the same. A film picture feels fuller to me, more rounded - like everything is there. Digital pictures are astoundingly crisp (and I love that about them) but I think maybe life isn't as crisp as those photos tell us. I feel like years from now I'm going to look back and all of these digital photos are going to feel somewhat untrue.

My dad is a photographer so when I first had these thoughts, I rushed to my email and wrote him a long note and then kept checking my inbox, waiting for his reply. I'm not good at taking pictures, but I do love to talk about the art of photography.

A few days ago, the aforementioned blogger posted a photo of her hands holding her film camera. As I looked at it on my iPad, Nate ran over and said, "Pop-Pop! Pop-Pop!" My sister's kids make the same connection, too. Pop-Pop means pictures, so much so that sometimes I call my dad the "Pop-Pop-parazzi." But the kids love it - and I love having so many pictures of them.

While in my heart I might feel that digital photographs hold little lies or withhold other truths, they still hold a place, filling in spaces in our memories.

NabloPoMo
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Tell us about your father.

My love/hate relationship with food blogs

I am a food blog addict. (Also a style blog addict, but that's another post.) I probably read about 20 food blogs a day, which I think is a lot for someone who isn't a food blogger herself (I do not have the camera skills nor the recipe inventing skills (yet) for that endeavor).

But I really have a love/hate relationship with these food blogs. What I love about them is easy:

• They inspire me to try new foods, new food combinations, and new cooking techniques
• They remind me to feed my family good foods
• They make me feel better about my skills when they write about how a recipe went wrong or took so many tries before it was good
• They constantly remind me that cooking is NOT hard (it's not!!!) - it just takes a small measure of patience, willingness to try and sometimes fail, and dedication to the fact (fact!) that it's better to cook and eat at home than eat or order out.

Here's what gets on my nerves about food blogs, though: the way they all seem to be seasonly in sync. I understand that cooking seasonly is important and I understand that each food blogger wants to give his or her take on a seasonal item or ingredient.

But like right now? If I see another pumpkin recipe, I'm going to retch. And it seems to always happen that just when I think, "Well, phew, that phase is over," another phase starts and I'm left going, "Oh god, everyone's doing that now?"

If you're a standard food blogger, here's pretty much how your year goes:

January: healthy meals (New Year's resolution time!), soup

February: cutesy Valentine's Day treats

March: St. Patrick's Day recipes (beer, soda bread, cabbage, etc)

April: Spring and Easter recipes (ham, spring side dishes)

May: Memorial Day barbecue recipes

June: more barbecue recipes

July: 4th of July red, white, and blue desserts, summer cocktails, MORE barbecue

August: more summer cocktails (it's getting super hot, after all) and, hey, look at that - more barbecue. Also, summer salads and other foods that don't require turning your stove on (did we all mention that it's hot outside?), anything with ice cream - or making ice cream itself (seriously, did we mention it's summer and it's hot outside?)

September: back to school snacks, lunchbox ideas, sandwiches, apple recipes

October: more apple recipes (we're still apple-picking!), soup, Halloween treats and everything possible with pumpkin

November: Thanksgiving (turkey, ham, potatoes, green bean dishes, rolls, pies), stews, Thanksgiving leftover meals

December: so... many... cookies... plus holiday dinners and cocktails (for New Years)

All year round: cookies (seriously, why are people so cookie obsessed?), chili

All of the sweet treat recipes and other little things like that are great when an occasion pops up that I need something like that, but that's really not often these days. What helps me best right now is normal dinner ideas - and, more specifically, dinners that can be eaten by a toddler with only burgeoning spoon and fork skills.

So all those soups I'm seeing every single day this month? Not so useful unless I want my dining room floor bathed in it. I do make hearty soups, stews, or chili for us sometimes, but I strain Nate's so he only gets the bigger bites. All that pureed soup? I'm pretty sure he'd think we all reverted to baby food and he'd probably be a bit peeved.

All that said, this is all a bit tongue-in-cheek, of course. I love food blogs and am mostly amused by the fact that on any given day I can open my Google Reader and find a dozen "new" recipes all within a certain seasonal theme. Food is a universal connector between human beings and so there's something to be said for the fact that we're all interested in cool dishes in the summer when it's hot out. There is a communal sense to all of those common-topic posts, for sure.

But really, I'm done with pumpkin right now. I have enough pumpkin-related recipes to last me until next October, when I'm sure I'll be greeted with a whole slew of new ones.

Here are a few of the food blogs I adore and read every day, even when they're posting the twenty-third soup recipe I've seen in three days:

Mel's Kitchen Cafe

How Sweet It Is

Smitten Kitchen

Joy the Baker

Shutterbean

The Pioneer Woman Cooks (of course!)

Like I said, I read many others but these are the ones I get the most excited about seeing a new post from - some because I love their recipes, some because I love their writing or stories, and some because I love their photography (and some for all of the above).

So, tell me, what food blogs do you absolutely adore and/or have had great success with trying recipes from?

P.S. As I was writing this post, I got a recipe email entitled, "Fill up with pumpkin!" All right, already, fine. I will go buy some canned pumpkin on the way home. Sheesh.

The best fun mixed with the hardest moments

Days 24 and 25 of my 30 days of fun project included some of the best fun yet, but also what were probably the saddest moments.

Day 24

Thankfully, it was a great day at work. I was feeling better, got a lot done, had a lot of great interactions with coworkers and students - everything that makes for a good day at work. This was a relief because I was still somewhat reeling from the awful Tuesday.

What was most fun about that day, though, was that it was Nate's 15 month pediatrician appointment. Do those of you with kids look forward to your child's well-visits? I get SO excited about them because I just can't wait to see how much he's grown and how he's doing with all of his milestones.

From his one year appointment, Nate gained two pounds and grew one and a half inches. He continues to be in the 75th percentile for height and his weight is still in the 95th percentile, so that's something for us to continue to keep an eye on. Also, I asked about his legs because he seems more bowlegged than other kids his age. The doctor agreed that he is and said that if at his 18 month appointment (3 months from now) he's still overly bowlegged, she'll refer us to an orthopedist.

Those were the only concerns, though. She was amazed that he has all his teeth except his two year molars, and was very happy with all the things he can do, including his vocabulary. He also had to get two shots, but was such a little champ with them, as always. He didn't even cry after the first one and then only cried for half a minute after the second one. He's just SO good. Having a great well-visit is always so much fun and makes my day great.

Day 25

Day 25 was Nate's last day at daycare, so I had a difficult time concentrating on anything all day. I held it together okay when I dropped him off in the morning until one of his teachers told me she was going to miss him and hoped he'd be back soon. I couldn't even choke out a goodbye after that. 

So, needless to say, I spent a lot of the day thinking about how hard it was going to be to pick him up later. I knew I had to do something fun to make myself feel better.

One thing I knew I wanted to do was make a peanut butter pie. This lovely blogger, Jennie, recently lost her dear husband, Mikey, to a sudden heart attack. In a stunningly beautiful and strong post, she asked people to make a peanut butter pie on Friday, the day of Mikey's memorial service, and share it with someone they love.

I didn't follow Jennie's recipe, though, because I had some other things I wanted to do so I made a shorter, but still yummy, version. The recipe makes two, so I kept one for us and gave the other to my sister.

My husband isn't a big sweets eater, though, and the spirit here is to make something someone loves and share it with them. So, regardless of the fact that it's summer, I made beef stew (following PW's recipe, but without the beer).

And, because I also wanted to make something new that was slightly challenging but a possible favorite (to get my mind on something other than daycare), I made Shutterbean's homemade soft pretzels.

mmmm cheese pretzels!

yummy salt pretzels (my fave!)

I thought I'd be standing around, crying over the pretzel dough, but I wasn't. For some reason, cooking and baking always makes me feel better - the methodical measuring, mixing, chopping, dicing - it just feels good.

It was hard to pick up Nate at the end of the day, and most difficult of all to watch him excitedly get his lunch bag out of the cabinet (one of his favorite things to do) for the last time for the foreseeable future. But my sister came over with her kids to pick up her pie after we got home and it was great fun watching them all play together. At that point, I knew the hardest parts were over and actually felt relief. I made it through what I knew would be an unreasonably difficult day.

And I had a great dinner and dessert to eat with my family, and the big takeaway from yesterday was to cherish the ones you love, which I do. The rest can be irrelevant sometimes.

I'm a fun copycat.

Life kind of sucks a little bit right now. We're so broke that we can't do anything. Even spending money on gas to get to work is killing us right now. (And really, that's for going to work. We both like our jobs but we'd also like to go elsewhere at some point.)

And my birthday is coming up. I've reached an interesting (at least to me) point with my birthday. I'm not all excited about it, like I might have been ten or more years ago (25 probably remains my favorite birthday, although 30 runs a close second). I'm not depressed about it either since, as far as I can tell, there isn't too much difference between being 35 and being 36. I know motherhood is a big chunk of this, but I'm far less interested in myself than I used to be. At times I do ache for the sort of introspection I used to have the time and energy for, and I do miss it, but I'm okay as I am right now.

But as much as I'm fairly okay with myself right now, I'm not okay with my life. As stated above, it kind of sucks right now. Every day I wake up with Nate. Every day I deal with having a dog I don't want to have. Every day involves meal planning on an invisible budget. Every day involves barely seeing or speaking to the hubby. Every day involves being too tired to focus on much reading. It's monotony and restriction.

So what's the prescription for that? FUN!

Yes, this is still me. Yes, I just used the word fun. I know, not something I discuss much. To be honest, I am completely and totally copying this idea from Maggie Mason. (Oh, and be sure to watch the TED video there. Can I just express how much I want to go to a TED event? So, so very much.)

So here's the plan. I'm going to do at least one fun thing every day for the next 30 days; day 30 will be my birthday (automatic fun!). I thought about doing a different 30 day project - you know, to actually be unique and not a complete copycat but - 1) my brain is too tired to come up with something great that also offers the possibility of being completely free and 2) I could use the fun, really. And having to keep it free is going to force me to be a little inventive on some days and to also look at some things a new way and see the fun where I may not be seeing it right now.

Oh - and I plan to take photos of this fun. We'll see how that goes since I'm not really a good photographer and I don't have Instagram to help me out.

But there it is. Fun. 30 whole days of fun. Well, 30 whole days in which something fun will happen each day. 30 days that are all fun, wholly - well, that's just not happening. This is still me.

Have you ever embarked on a 30 day project?

Monday Five Countdown - no more HP edition *sniffle*

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. The final Harry Potter film. Okay, I am so, so, so very NOT grateful that it's all over, but I loved the film. The series has been a pretty significant part of my life (as I've mentioned a bazillion times before, I wrote my Master's thesis on Harry Potter) and it hurts my heart that it's over because it feels like multiple phases are ending, but I'm so grateful to have had the reading and writing experience it brought me.

2. Air-conditioning. That deadly mid-west heat wave is headed our way and the end of the week looks like it's going to be brutal.

3. Everyone I know has their health. Yeah, it's one of those weeks where I have to dig deep to find things I'm grateful for, but this is a true one that I don't think about often enough. Just have a parent or spouse or child get significantly ill and see how quickly life becomes exponentially more difficult.

4. Social networking. I really wonder just how crazy I'd be right now if I didn't at least have online people to bounce thoughts off of.

5. Nate has been saying "Mom" a lot the past couple of days. I think he means "Mom" as in me, but I'm not positive yet. I love hearing it, regardless.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. Money. It's bad. I can't stop thinking about it so much that it's keeping me up at night and invading my dreams when I am sleeping.

2. A project I want to start (might possibly blog about it later today if I get a chance).

3. Vacation. We can't and won't be able to take one, not even a day trip, but I can't stop thinking about how nice it'd be to go somewhere that would force us to get some fresh air and unplug the hubby from his computer.

4. Some news I received at work last week.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Finish the Jay-Z book. Yes, this goal again. So far I am not doing well at it.

2. Finish creating two workshops at work.

3. Make myself another mojito. I made them from scratch last night because limes and mint were on sale and I already had rum and club soda soooo... hey, yum! I'm thinking this week will need a few more.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Money. It's bad and I can't figure out how we're going to pull through this. It's looking pretty impossible right now, in the short-term, at least.

2. Keeping our expenses as low as possible and not feeling like a jerk all the time.

One Random Thing

1. I tweeted this last week, but it's so true: I love soggy pb&j sandwiches. The hubby makes his on this zillion grain bread that's stiff as a shelf and I can't stand it. I need soft, going to totally mush up as it waits for lunchtime bread.

Do you do the Friday Five on your blog? Link up below and I'll visit you! If you don't have a blog, just post yours in the comments :)