256/365 On the Table

"The 13th Table"

Many of the people who are part of the Capture Your 365 community are avid and very talented scrapbookers.  Yesterday many people posted scrapbook type collages as a documentation of the details of their day.  It was cool to see an entire day in snapshots.  Because I worked from home today, I decided that I would give the collage thing a try.

I had tons of work to gone done today and most of that was going to happen at the dining room table so the day's prompt and my schedule seemed to align.  So here is my day from the perspective of our dining room table.

• Since today is Friday the 13th, a calendar shot seemed appropriate; and, it gives context to the otherwise generic shots.
• Yes, the cat is on the table, but she waited until after I was done eating.  And because she is on the table, she is not on the kitchen counters where the bread is being made.
• I had time this morning to look at the puzzles in the paper and drink an extra cup of coffee.
• In the mail this afternoon, we received some anti-bullying materials that Weber and I hope to be able to use for programs at his school.
• I did actually spend some time organizing all of my school papers, hence the hole punch so that all the loose papers could be corralled in the appropriate binders.
• Though we went out for dinner tonight, the lazy susan that lives in the middle of the table reminds us to always "come home for love."

Though I know I don't have the time to document every day like this, it was a fun project.  I think that I will attempt to do something like this at least once a month.  We'll see if I can make that happen.

255/365 Details of the Day

"Real Life"

It doesn't get much more real than this during the evenings at our house.  Sad, but true.  Since we both usually have work to do at night, it is nice that we share a home office.  If we didn't, we'd never see each other!

254/365 On the Schedule

'Scheduled Maintenance"

Wednesdays are over-scheduled even without a visit to the dentist!

253/365 Around the House

"The Evidence"

So, the girls have started a business of a weekly bread baking and delivery service.  I am proud of their entrepreneurial spirit.  Weber and I have become investors in this new venture - it is all taking place in our kitchen.  Therefore, we are "underwriting" their "rent" and utilities.  Last week was their first week to deliver bread.  Though they are still fine tuning the workflow, it was a relatively successful opening week.

This week's photo prompts are focusing on everyday life, photographing  things that you would not normally consider preserving for generations to come.  Today we were asked to document something around the house. See above.  Now you know what our kitchen looks like almost all the time except when it is worse than this.  

It was hard for me to take this photo and even harder to post it.  I don't like mess.  I can't function in it.  This is a personality thing, not necessarily an aesthetic thing.  It took all that I had in me to follow through in this direction but it is an honest depiction of our life today.

I love the fact that the cutting mat in the center has a bright red cow on it.  It makes me laugh because we eat little to meat at home.  So the designated meat cutting mat gets used for anything and everything but meat.

As a way to soften the blow of having taken and shared the above picture as my picture of the day, I had to take this one as well.  I feel better now!

"The Contemplative Baker"

252/365 Routine

'Routine Breakfast"

This week is all about photographing the details of daily life - both the ordinary and the extraordinary.  The above shows how we begin almost every day - well, how we begin after we smack the snooze on the alarm a few times, stand in the shower in an effort to become coherent, get dressed wearing clothes that hopefully match and finally stagger out to the kitchen for that first cup of coffee.  The coffee is accompanied by vanilla yogurt topped with Cheerios and blueberries - sometimes fresh and sometimes frozen.  I suppose there are worse ways to start each day.  f it weren't for the alarm, things would be pretty damn near perfect.

I realized today that I am not very good about photographing the everyday details of my life.  I think about them; I just don't take pictures of them.  This week I am going to try to be conscious of all that makes my life "my life."  I can't carry my big camera to work with me so I suspect that many of the week's pictures, like the one above, will be taken with my phone.  It is routine for me to have my phone with me all the time so I suppose phone pictures tell a significant part of the story as well.

Changing gears . . .

We were in Portland for a NOAH (National Organization for Albinism and Hypo-pigmentation) Adult Weekend over the past weekend.  We had a great time and I took some pictures.  Two of them were my daily pictures over the weekend.  The others are still safely stored on an SD card - that I left in Portland.

On Saturday night we stayed up super late talking with a group.  Because I did not want to miss posting a picture, I stopped by the hotel business center on the way up to our room to use a hotel computer to post.  (I forget to take the card reader for my iPad so I was a slave to the computers in the hotel.)  Anyway, it was so late and I was so tired that after I posted my picture, I felt that the task had been accomplished and I went to bed - leaving my card in the computer.  It didn't dawn on me that I had done that until the next morning when we were on the train on our way back to the airport.  As is often the case, the love of my life took pity on me and called the hotel.

The hotel clerk that answered the phone was very helpful.  He took Weber's number and said that he would send someone up immediately to look for it and call him right back.  He did and they had found it.  I am so lucky!  During the few moments before the hotel called saying they had found it, I was kicking myself for not having the secondary card in my camera set to backup rather than overflow.  Who needs an overflow card when the primary card is a 32GB card.  Really . . .

The clerk said that he would have housekeeping call Monday to set up a payment method to ship the card.  A payment method?  For an SD card?  Surely they can spring for a stamp and an envelope.  We didn't even ask for our sheets and towels to be replaced while we were there.  Surely we saved them the 46 cents that the stamp would cost.  

They called us back on Sunday afternoon while we were still in the airport waiting to leave Portland.  As it turns out, the hotel will only ship FedEx or UPS so the 46 cent stamp is a moot point.  The shipping costs will be charged to 'the card number on file."  Oh well, I haven't had a chance to even look at most of the pictures that I took so I would have hated to have lost them.  Hopefully I will receive the card sometime this week.

Knock on wood . . .I have yet to lose completely a card with unprocessed photos.  I came the closest that I would like to come this weekend.  When I get the card and have a chance to process the pictures I'll share them along with a few stories about our visit to Portland.

250/365 Black and White

"Water Ride"

We are having a great weekend in Portland.  I am way too tired to write, but I'll catch up when we get home.

251/365 Simple

"Simple Comforts of Home"

Today was a day of travel - planes, trains, and automobiles - and a few blocks on foot.  We made our way home from Portland to Dallas via a brief layover in Phoenix.  Though we had no snafus in our travel plans, it was still and long day and tonight will be a very short night.  After being gone, even for just two nights, it is nice to come home to the simple comforts . . .