Visiting the new baby

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Mennogirl

While the librarian in me would much appreciate an orderly set of chronologically arranged updates, the onus of editing and uploading all my trip photos BEFORE posting pictures from yesterday’s trip to visit the new baby, would have guaranteed that the baby would have been several months old before I got around to posting these pictures.

To fill all of you in, Seattle friends Jenn and Clayton (previously famous for their Anna production, of which I am a big fan!) have produced a delightful new bundle, Allinore:

But of course, before we lost ourselves in baby-rapture, we enjoyed time with Anna, who was pretty pumped to have so many adults around to play with.

Anna was a pro at demonstrating her new fancy kitchen, with a great deal more bells and whistles than I remember even being possible when I was kid. Buttons that beep, special burner/pot combos that make water boiling noises and flash lights – the combination of which surprised me a great deal, to the endless amusement of Katie, who had previously been introduced to said kitchen.

Anna is now old enough to find things funny on her own accord, although adults laughing in general is still sure to set her off.

After a nap and feeding time, Allinore granted us a short display of “open eye” time during which she was most likely way more enamored with the bright light behind our faces than our actual adoring gazes.

As the evening wore on, we played a delightful game of pass the baby.

Alex gets in on the game too.

Babies are seriously entertaining, in fact they have been known to draw a whole crowd.

Thanks Jenn and Clayton for letting is come and hang out with your two daughters!

Complete filler post

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Mennogirl

Last night Katie informed me oh so politely that I haven’t posted here since February. Ah, tut, tut! I have to admit I was somewhat aware of that, however that dreadful snowball of “giant update needed”, “oh I really should upload those pictures from my trip first”, and so on and so forth led me down the path of sad empty blog.

At her recommendation, I won’t actually attempt that long overdue update now, but this is just a quick hello, check the pressure, kick the tires type of thing (wow, my car analogies are quite horrid and should definitely be retired) and since nothing bores more quickly than an avid navel-gazer trying to explain why they haven’t gazed at their navel in public recently. I will end here. Hopefully now that this post (in its rather shortened, nothingness) is out there, more will follow. Keep your fingers crossed!

Day 13 – New animated gif generator!

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Mennogirl

During the past holiday season I wrote a round up of great animated gifs for a post at work and also decided to make my own animated gif – out of gifts! I seriously am the funniest person alive, people.

But at the time, finding a good animated gif generator was not the easiest thing. I hunted around on Google, wasting a good hour downloading and trying to use an old Microsoft tool, which didn’t end up doing anything – not too surprising because they stopped supporting it back in 1999 or so. I did eventually find a gif generator, but wasn’t super thrilled by the lack of edits and it also just wasn’t very pretty.

Enter this new site (with a slightly inappropriate name) – Mothereffing animated gif. It has a simple ad-free interface that let’s you drag and drop your photos into place, select your desired quality and speed, then download your nicely generated animated gif.

So I decided to experiment from this series of photos I took of Jonathan pretending to be a zombie during a visit home last summer. As you can see the first version got a fun slightly creepy effect from being a lo-res version, but the speed was too high and and I wanted a better quality.

I like how this final one turned out, just the right amount of creepy and plenty of zombie-infected Jonathan!

Day 12 – A collection of interesting links, thoughts about Lent, the weather and why I haven’t been blogging

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Mennogirl

So obviously my attempt to post 5 days a week in February has not taken place. Sad to say, my goal to take a photo every day has been equally a failure, however I don’t actually feel too badly about it, because I both posted more AND took more pictures than I had during the previous two months.

In the good news department, I have several almost completed drafts of various things rolling around in the blog, so hopefully February will still finish strong. But as following my long tradition of following up long blogging absences with list/link based posts, here are some interesting tidbits from my life and internet browsing:

1. I decided to give up sugar for Lent, which although containing a rather loose interpretation of “sugar” (basically avoiding sweet things including but not limited to diet coke, honey on my bread (but bread remains okay, cause come on!), the vast majority of baked goods, ice cream, chocolate, etc). This is actually not nearly as challenging for me as giving up salty things, cheese or other more beloved foods. However I have definitely missed chocolate a few times already and have missed my weekend habit of making pancakes or french toast on Saturday mornings.

2. I found myself quite awed, saddened and overall impressed by this collection of World Press Photo Winners from 1955 to 2011. I agree with Kottke’s statement that these are amazing photos that don’t present a very positive view of humankind (many of the photos are graphic portrayals of the horrible things that humans inflict on each other). However I was also struck that while many of the photos portray deep painful grief, there can be no huge upswellings of grief without the larger underlying foundation of great love. Hopefully a similar collection of the next 56 years will have more photos depicting peace and equality breaking out, than the last 56 years of wars, cruelty and pain.

3. In a fascinating glimpse into Seattle weather, today we passed through sunshine, snow flurries, cloudy skies, and some rain all on the 25 minute drive to church.

4. I loved this list of advice for young people, from which the following highlight can be drawn:

Yes, you should not worry too much about the consequences and you should definitely quit your job that you hate and it’ll probably all work out great. Job quitters are the happiest people around.

5. This last link is mainly for Katie, or any other Star Wars lovers, this great post comes up with the perfect way to integrate the far inferior 1-3 trilogy (the one with Jar Jar Binks) into one’s viewing of the original trilogy. While this would make for an all to epic one night marathon, this definitely stirred my interests in re-watching Star Wars some time soon.

Day 11 – Teaching computer classes and really good suppers

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Mennogirl

Tonight I volunteered for the second time as an instructor for a computer skills for adult english language learners class at the local library. However, thanks to a missing instructor I got a last minute bump from assistent to teacher! While not my ideal way to start teaching, the evening still went quite smoothly, although I missed having someone else there to help monitor how the students are progressing. Due to the set-up of the lap you can either instruct from the front, where you only see the backs of student’s monitors, or you can stand in the back and help out from there. Thankfully it was a pretty small class, with only 4 people in attendance, which let me balance helping individuals with leading the class.

I am enjoying this chance to both flex my instructor muscles and get to do more direct service, however seeing as I haven’t had the work to evening class transition in well over a year, these types of days tend to leave me pretty exhausted. But seeing as David just pulled this out of the oven, the evening just started looking up!

Day 10 – Some photos from the weekend

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Mennogirl

Another highlight of my Sunday spent hanging out with Katie was getting to take some headshots for her. While I don’t have any plans to start taking photos professionally, I do like taking photos for friends and getting more practice in general. So here are some of the results. Most have minimal editing, although some are examples of fun with Photoshop’s actions.

So if anyone else wants me to practice headshots (or other types of photos) on them, let me know!

Day 9 – Some things I have learned during the past year and 17 odd days

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Mennogirl

While today is technically Valentine’s Day and therefore a fitting day to write a post about someone you love, this post was actually mostly written last month when I intended to post it on Alex and I’s anniversay. Of course I never actually finished it till today…

Today marks a pretty amazing day for me – my one year anniversary of dating Alex. It was one year ago that I was out here in Seattle for a long weekend of visiting. Alex and I had spent much of the day wondering around doing various tourist things and were walking around the Seattle Center waiting for our IMAX movie start time (I think we ended up watching a odd movie about Boeing innovation masquerading as a movie about flight) when Alex asked me if I would be his girlfriend. To which I said yes and then promptly asked him if he would be interested in being my boyfriend.

So fast forward 12 months and I am now living in that city that I was just a visitor to and have been dating that same man for ~~365~~ 382 days. Here are a few things I have learned along the way:

It doesn’t get easier, but it does get better – During Jess’s visit a few weeks ago, she asked me the question that prompted this whole post – If you could go back a year and tell yourself anything about your relationship with Alex, what would it be? And the above phrase was my answer. It stems from my long-held incorrect assumption that if only the next level of relationshiphood was achieved everything would be instantly easy. For example, if only a boy liked me, than instant easy relationship would result. Then it was, if only a boy wanted to date me, than instant easy relationship would result. Turns out, there is no part of the relationship stepping stone that instantly makes any relationship easy and work-free. BUT, the second part is oh so very true. Turns out getting to know someone over the course of a year, does make things even better. Being comfortable with each other, knowing each other’s dislikes, quirks and the quickest way to incite some laughter means that dating someone for a year is intrinsically better than dating someone for a week, etc.
Driving around a Seattle neighborhood looking at Christmas lights and listening to an old Bing Crosby tape of carols (that despite his general dislike for the sappiness factor, Alex picked cause he knew you liked them) can actually end up being one of your highlights of the year.
Disagreeing can be almost as important as agreeing – Finding the right ways to disagree is a huge part of keeping a relationship going smoothly. I have always known that addressing conflict in interpersonal relationships is not my strong point, however I have also been putting in a lot of work over the past 10 years to get better at this vital skill. So of course I assumed that all that work would carry over into my romantic relationship – not true! Turns out learning how to communicate both the good AND the bad to one’s partner is challenging work. However the good is that I happen to be dating a man who is incredible at those necessary, but sometimes difficult work (Seriously, Alex is better at the “What I hear you saying is….” and general communication than most people I know).
Spontaneous foot rubs are exactly as awesome as I always thought they might be.
Finding someone who values dialogue, believes in doing what’s right, enjoys nerdy TV shows and geek board games, wears a beard well, reads books just as fast as you do, advocates for goofy humor, likes being of use to others AND thinks you are pretty darn swell, really is possible.

Day 8 – Weekend!!!!*

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Mennogirl

While this has been a pretty great weekend, I am not a fan of tomorrow being Monday. Sigh, I think I need to switch over to David’s current model of four days of work, three days of not work. Anyways let’s see, Friday night was a lovely chance to catch up with Alex’s aunt and uncle over dinner. Then Saturday started off nice and early with yoga with Katie, then I came home made these very delicious pancakes (the wheat germ ones out of the More with Less cookbook).

Then I sat down and made myself an ambitious to do list include all sorts of cleaning. I started with the kitchen, scrubbed the floor, cleaned the counters/stove-top/etc. After which, pleased with my progress I sat down to watch an episode of the United States of Tara. Four hours later I discovered that the day was almost over and my to do list would have to wait. What can I say, that show (especially the third season!) is highly engrossing! Saturday evening Alex came over for some supper and a quick game of 7 Wonders. Unfortunately after that he had to head back to work on homework, but David and I walked over to a bar in northeast Ballard to hear an old friend from college play fiddle in an Irish band.
Sunday brought about a lazy morning and a delicious brunch with Alex at Hattie Hat, where I tried the Red Flannel Hash. Who knew corned beef, potatoes and red beets, topped by two poached eggs could be so good? Then Alex headed off to play the epic (and very long) Twilight Emporium, and on his way dropped me off at Katie’s where Dominion was played, truffles were made, headshots were taken and part of Midnight in Paris was watched. It was a stellar day!

*For which, apparently, the theme was really good food

Day 7 – What I wore

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Mennogirl

It is late and I just got back from a marvelous evening of book club with the ladies, so I will keep this brief. I only took one picture today and it was of my outfit. So here you go:

This outfit was fun because it incorporated several of my favorite things including this cardigan, my boots and these striped tights. Plus it was fun to try belting on the inner layer as opposed to outside which is what I do more frequently. Also how fun is it that you get to see how messy my room looks right now!…..sigh

Day 6 – Nothing much to report

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Mennogirl

Today at work, I had a bad headache and was very tired of looking a computer screen by the time I made it home. But making a delicious spaghetti dinner (with meatballs!) and a side dish of roasted brussel sprouts for Alex and David helped turn the day around. Then David baked more of his incredible sourdough bread (with his very own homemade starter) and Alex and I watched the 3 most recent episodes of Community. Of which, I have to say, every time I think it just can’t get better than this, that show manages to top itself. It truly is the funniest thing on television right now.

But now it is 10:30pm, so it is off to bed for me!