Hitting the Links

I have a picture for today, but I am just too tired to upload it right now. Tomorrow.

In the mean time, here is a link to one of the more funny Sesame Street episodes I have seen. I forgot where I saw this originally, but I rarely see the show. I think I was at a hotel flipping through the channels, but when I saw Ben Stiller, I had to watch.

Rose has a new favorite toy--a wooden rhinoceros. It is made by a pretty cool toy company called Hape as part of their Animalz collection.

Weights, colors, and more ice!

Today, I went on a walk to do some errands. Rose in the stroller, we navigated our way around the local businesses. Ice is still everywhere, and especially with all the melt run-off and night time freezing, it is quite slick out there. I do love the patterns and forms that ice makes. Endless varieties.
This is our driveway. Snow melts and runs into the sidewalk and any shoveled area we have created. We now have a two inch thick pad of ice slowly moving its way down our property. It is the Freedman-Riles glacier!
I know many of my recent posts have been about ice and snow. Winter here is quite intense. However, today I noticed the leaf buds swelling on some trees. Well, I didn't see the swelling happen, but they are bigger than they were before. Spring will happen. I can't wait to see the first shoots of crocuses poke through soil and any remaining snow to paint the dull landscape with fresh bursts of color.
I visited a local Goodwill today to check out baby clothes. I love how they organized the woman's section by color. It is a palette in fabric.
Today, Rose hung out with me in her bathroom as I filled the humidifier tanks. We have a weight to keep the door open when the windows are open (not for a while has that happened!). Rose decided to pump some iron.

I'm Melting!

The cap of snow and ice that has formed on the roof of my car has been subjected to the same freezing and thawing of that on the ground. Delicate fingers of ice reach out from the massive mounds of snow. Along roadsides, the directional spray of passing cars carve seemingly sharp claws of ice, all pointed the same direction and colored a dirty gray.

Where in the World?

I have been playing with google maps. Here is a link to the one I was building. So far, I just have locations I have lived. Anyone with more precise info, please let me know. This is the street view of the house I bought in St. Louis. The address in the bar is incorrect, though. The furniture on the porch means that this was taken after I moved out. When I bought the house, the bushes in front were wild. I got them back into shape after much work. I miss the beautiful tree on the lawn. It was some kind of maple that turned the most gorgeous colors in fall.

Duck, Duck, Goose??

In front of the library across the street from our house, I found this goose happily pecking up the berries that had fallen from the trees that line the front of the elementary school. Proof that feathers are good insulators!

Patterns

This is a game I got for Reena early on. Her office has lots of toys for students and adults to fiddle with. Love ebay!

Mobility bring new experiences

The mobility provided by crawling and standing up when holding on to furniture has provided Rose with many new opportunities to experience the world. Today, while visiting JD and Julianne, Rose experienced Titus, and Titus experience Rose. While he remained just out of reach, he seemed to seek the attention as he never just vanished from the room. Rose pursued him with chortles of glee.

Expansion Joint

Time for Walkies

Today I walked with Rose to Harvard Square. It has been a while since I have done this. Travel to Australia, illness, and massive snowfalls have all contributed to less walking time. Cambridge finally opened the Walden Street bridge that they have been working on for years. It is great for driving over the train tracks. The girders you see behind the bridge are for the pedestrian walkway that stayed open during construction.
Million Year Picnic. Love the place. I have been reading comics since college where I helped run the Haverford College Comic book collection. Today I get my books from MYP in Harvard Square. Great store, great atmosphere.


On the way out, I was enchanted by the little lights in the trees in Harvard Square (Brattle Square, actually) This shot was taken with a long exposure with the camera resting on the baby carriage.
At the bottom of the street where we live, there were some massive snowballs that had been rolled on the tennis courts. Two kids were tying to add to them, but the weight was a little too much. You'd need a forklift to get these stacked for a larger-than-life snowman.

Masks and Time

Today we varnished the plaster casts we made from the plaster molds of our faces. Next week, we will start building paper mache masks on top of these casts. The students are excited to get to the part of the project that actually involves making a mask that will go on their face.
I stayed after school to work with my new student teacher, Craig. He is a career changer and so has seen a bit of life--more than me--and it feels good to work with someone who has his act together. I am really enjoying having him in the class and am excited to see how he uses this time. In staying late, I saw a beautiful sunset as I left the building.

Ice Ice Baby!

Inauguration

We watched the inauguration.


Rose played beat a rhythm while Aretha sang.
The sun came out after days of gray and snow. The branches of the trees seemed to glow.

work work work

Lots of snow, some warmth, dripping water, fluid stalactites.

Lots of work to do. Been doing it all weekend. Writing student reports on the heels of writing secondary applications. Carpal tunnel is experiencing rush hour traffic.

BSOD and Snow

Yesterday as I went to add a blog entry, I was confronted by a BSOD, so I did what any rational person would do. I turned off the computer and went to bed.

Today, the computer started up fine after checking my backup disk. Hopefully my backups are not all corrupted.

Right now, a gentle snowfall of movie style clumps of snow is falling gently. I have already shoveled one batch of snow off the walk, and it looks like several more inches have fallen. I have to get reports done this weekend--by 10:00 A.M. tomorrow to be precise--so I went to school to pick up some student work. I moved the materials to the front door and then used sleds to pull them to my car. I love the all wheel drive!


Before that, Rose and I watched the snow fall from our front window, her with sharp toes digging into my ribs and me with appreciation for the quiet blanket being laid over the usual city noises.


Snow piles up on the skylight.

This fall, I took some pictures of the imprints leaves cast on the sidewalks. These shadows of leaves get stretched out by runoff from rainfall. Wish I had my camera instead of phone to capture these images!

String Theory

Rose loves to grab onto anything string-like. Necklaces, hair, and of course the window blind cords.

Today was a full Rose day. Since I missed yesterday, enjoy multiple photos!
This is Rose looking out the front window while holding the blind cord. She is standing on me to rest her arms on the top of the couch.Rose has recently learned how to stand when holding on to something. I couldn't resist the behind bars shot. Most of the time while standing We also went to the library today, and thought it is just across the road, it is bitterly cold here. I bundled up the package and scooted across the street to pick up some books that came in.

101.1

Sounds like a radio station. It is Rose's temp. Not a happy camper, congested, not sleeping well. First bug.
So we gave her some tylenol. First drugs administered by us.

I also fixed the strap on the changing table. It came with a hole for the non-adjustable strap set at the very end. This made the loop, when the strap was buckled, far bigger than an infant and even still too big for Rose even with the adjustable side at its smallest. I made a new hole by heating a wire and melting a hole halfway up the webbing. Now it fits and is adjustable. Rose is starting to wriggle more on the table, so this should help.

Choices, Choices

Today, I put a souvenir Cardinals baseball and a cricket ball in front of Rose. After reaching for each one, she moved to the side of the cricket ball and picked it up. As the afternoon wore on, she played with both, but spent more time chewing on books.

Fossils of Summer

Each summer I can usually be found at Sugar Hill. It is my favorite dance weekend for quite a few reasons. Camping, singing, swimming in the lake, late night revelries, eating together, great music, great dancing, nice dance hall, and so many more. I have been going since about 1996 or 1997 and have only missed a few.

One of my favorite things to do on Saturday during the day is visit the beach on the other side of the lake. The beach is almost entirely made of fossils and geodes. This image is taken of one of the many pieces that has traveled home with me from the weekend.

School at Night

After a day of shoveling snow and writing student recommendations, I went to school to set up for the professional day I am taking tomorrow. Had to get the room ready and drop of materials for the person covering. I will be continuing to work on recommendations tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get to report writing, too.

While at school, I took some night photos. I really like taking night photos. I love my gorilla pod! It can do such neat tricks.
After taking some building shots, I played around with making prints in the snow using the bottom of one of the safety cones.

Clippings, indeed

Hey all,

I hope people are catching on to the daily posts and enjoying them. If so, please let me know by making a comment now and then. I'd love to hear from you. I added a service to see where people are located who look at my blog. Barcelona? Who dat?

Today's post reflects what I suspect the nature of this spurt of blog activity will be. Some art, some fun, some mundane...
On the mundane edge, I found my side view mirror cracked this morning. Whether from the intense cold of last night or by foul play, I don't know. It is very disconcerting, though, to watch cars pass from one segment of the mirror to the next.

As I was driving around today, I saw this sign encouraging folks to walk upside down or to do fancy ski tricks.My penchant for patterns was satisfied by a trip to the hardware store. Had to return some hose clamps of the wrong size for a project I was doing and pick up some brushes for a school art project. The pipes caught my attention.One of the blogs I read, Art from Pushing Buttons and Turning Dials, has some of my favorite art out there. I was inspired by recent posts to play with a picture I took of copper pipes.

Back to School

Last year, I had a student teacher from Lesley University. In return for the work of being a supervising teacher, I received a credit for one course at the school. I was supposed to use the voucher by last semester, but with the new baby, new job role, and then Reena's broken ankle, it just did not seem the time to take on a course as well. Now that much is settled and moving more smoothly and the extended voucher is only good for this semester, it was time to enroll. I have not taken a formal college course for quite a while and am looking forward to doing so. I have chosen a course called Teaching the Fundamentals which is for students going into fine arts education. I look forward to learning much about integrating art into the main curriculum.
I pushed Rose's stroller into the elevator and was prepared to hunt down the registrar's office. Amazingly, it was an open desk area just outside the elevator with very approachable people. I was able to enroll and shift down the counter to pay. This is a far cry from my previous experiences in higher education in which the registrar's office and finance offices are often far if not in separate buildings, and they are either hidden or staffed by people whose job it seems is to keep enrollment down. No, this was just too easy. What a pleasure.

Sunrise and masks

This morning as I set off for the hardware store and then school, I saw a most gorgeous sunrise. I know the physics of it, but sunrise and sunset still amaze me. I pulled out my camera and snapped this picture hoping to pull over later and get a better foreground. As soon as I found some nicely silhouetted trees, the glow had almost gone. Fleeting beauty.
At school today, my students put petroleum jelly on the inside of the plaster casts they made of their faces. Into these greased vessels, we poured plaster. These new casts will serve as the foundation on which the students will build several masks.