Christmas + Ice Melting

I didn't intend to wait this long to start posting my Christmas vacation pictures! Now I'm betting most people are not in the mood for Christmasy pictures since we've moved on, but I decided to post these anyway. My family might want to look at them.

I didn't take a lot (for me), but tried to capture some of the scenes and activities. That ornament is one of my dad's because he used to ride a unicycle.

More still life scenes of the Christmas vibe at my parents' house. I love the blue poinsettias, no matter how unnatural they are. :)

This Christmas I flew in the Saturday before, so I had a few days to hang out and do Christmasy stuff with my parents and friends. In the past, I've flown in on the day of or Christmas Eve because of ticket prices and the way the days fell, but we planned further ahead and I really enjoyed my long visit. It gave me the opportunity to take my time and add some extras into my stay.

Such as a lunch outing with my friend M. This represents that, since I'm not sure if she's okay with me posting her picture. :) M's a longtime friend, but we've not had a lot of contact as we've aged, moved, and (in her case) married and had kids. I've really enjoyed the past couple of deep conversations we've had. It's great to reconnect with her. :) We went to New Earth, a grocery store in Yuba City that has an eating area.

My mom and I made Spritz cookies. Have you made them? We baked them a lot growing up, and I was craving some. These are wreaths, and I'm not so great at getting the sprinkles on the cookie.

Dania's dad sent my parents some Shari's Berries!

My mom and I put together a 3D lighthouse puzzle (seen in the tree picture above) that had all of the [plastic] pieces numbered, so it was pretty easy and more like a construction than a puzzle. It was fun to sit in the "Christmas room" (living room) drinking egg nog and relaxing. My dad even kept bringing us all sorts of treats. My cousin also stopped by to pick up some gifts, and it was good to see her, even if just briefly.

A picture of me waving to you in an ornament. And looking a little crazed.


My mom used to play French horn, so we have a few ornaments in that shape.

I also opened a late birthday gift from my sister that contained lots of candy (among many other cool things). I opened it then so I could share it with my parents, and in a slower moment of my stay decided to photograph some pumpkin spice kisses. These are weird. At first it's like, "Okay, that's nice, I've had my fill." But then there's a lingering flavor that makes you want MORE. So I ate too many. Have you tried them?

Skip ahead to Christmas Eve. My friend Dania and I have kind of made a tradition of going to dinner (usually at Chili's) on Christmas Eve and exchanging gifts. Since we were planning the SF trip, I wasn't sure if we'd be doing it this year, but was super happy when she invited me. :) Dania also brought me to a street in town that has lots of well-lit houses. I had never been to this particular street, for some reason. It was pretty crowded, as many people had the same idea, but we found a place to park on a side street and then walked around taking pictures of the houses.


Here you can better see the traffic and people.

Dania pointed this out to me because she had seen it before. Do you get it?

And now we're at Christmas morning. My family draws names for the adults, and I got my mom for the second year in a row. No probs, because she's easy to buy for. I don't know if she's opening a gift from me or my dad here, though.

My dad made Cinnabon cinnamon rolls for breakfast! So good. :D

My aunt gave my parents these measuring spoons, and I loved them! So now everyone gets to see a picture.

For Christmas dinner, my mom and I made these cute potatoes that I had seen on Pinterest only days before. They were more manageable than I had feared, and I want to make them again sometime. Here's the recipe. We used rosemary instead of thyme, since my parents have a lot in the yard.

We also had ham and brussels sprouts. (I guess I didn't take a picture of all the food together.) I was happy to help with the cooking, and it was all pretty delicious, but low-key with just the three of us.

So that was Christmas! And now I can move on to the SF trip next. :)

Before I go, I might as well post this time-lapse video I made, since it'll probably be forgotten otherwise. I decided to photograph ice melting, and I added some food coloring so the ice would show up better. It creates a nice effect. But melting ice is less predictable than I thought and there's some weird movement and lighting in these two sets of ice. That's all the disclaimer I'll include. :) Enjoy.

Ice2

My first time-lapse video

One of my Christmas gifts was an intervalometer, or time-lapse/timer remote, for my camera. (I'm still confused on whether it's timelapse, time-lapse or just time lapse.) You can set it up to take pictures every x seconds/minutes/hours. You can have it be continuous or a set number, and there are some other options I haven't really explored. Then you can take all those photos and put them into a little time-lapse video! It's something I was interested in trying, and I've been having fun experimenting.

My first few attempts didn't work so well (a scene that barely changes doesn't tend to make a very exciting video for some reason), but yesterday I set my camera out on my deck all day and there happened to be a lot of cloud and light variation over the lake. It was actually a very nice day for January. So now I'm sharing this video with friends because what else am I going to do with it? It's just a minute long, but it depicts several hours of pictures. Oh and I didn't do anything with the photos to color correct or change the exposure--I was just working on the mechanics of the video more than the photography aspect.

Lake from J M on Vimeo.

I have some other ideas and might show you more resulting videos sometime.

PS Sorry if you have already heard of this through other social media. :)

PPS Christmas/SF pictures to come!

2013 Books

Here's what I read/listened to this year...


Some notes:

Most of these were audiobooks. I read a lot when you add up all the emails, websites and blog posts I am exposed to each day, but I wasn't in much of a mood to read books. Also, this year I started listening to books at other times besides just while I drive. I listened while doing chores and walking, or sometimes even when cooking. I hope to read more this year because I do enjoy it and I have so many on my Kindle. Plus, I could use some time away from my phone.

Rereads: Pride and Prejudice, The Boxcar Children and Twilight

Books I particularly enjoyed (and this doesn't mean they are the most well-written!): Starters by Lissa Price, The Cinderella Pact by Sarah Strohmeyer, Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella, Breath of Dawn by Kristen Heitzmann, Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick and Cinder by Marissa Meyer.

Best new (to me) authors: Patti Callahan Henry and Marissa Meyer (though I've only read 1.5 by her--it just seems she has a good, non-annoying style)

Authors I enjoyed less the more I read (sorry!): Barbara Taylor Bradford, Julie Klassen and Irene Hannon

Silliest: Song of My Heart by Kim Vogel Sawyer (omg!), Fatal Judgment by Irene Hannon, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, Footprints in the Sand by Mary Jane Clark

Surprisingly good: The Lauren Conrad series beginning with L.A. Candy held my interest. I haven't yet read the third book, but enjoyed the first two on my walks. I'm not saying they're fine literature, but the topic was fun. And then I wasn't sure how I'd like Cinder even though I had several friends rave about it, but I loved it! It's also one of a series and I'm currently reading the second book.

For funzies, I included two tiny books that I didn't count in my total--Walking Sticks and All My Friends Are Dead. The latter was a Christmas gift and it's really funny. Read through it if you come across it.

I am not afraid to stop reading a book if I don't like it, so I end up with a pretty high rate of enjoyment for my book list (and some I enjoy despite also finding lots of flaws). My taste in books is not all that sophisticated. I just like to be entertained in a fairly clean and light-hearted way. I don't like a lot of nonfiction because it gets boring and repetitive. I don't like graphic details in practically any topic, but especially sex and violence. I can't handle really heavy drama because it makes me feel depressed. So as I've gotten older, I've come to accept my somewhat cheesy taste in books and I try not to feel embarrassed about it.

Did you read anything good this year?

2013 in Review (July-December)

Continuing on with a few photos from the year...

[Start with the first half of the year here.]

JULY

For Independence Day I went to New Mexico to visit with my sisters and their families! I took a ton of pictures and got some quality time with the nephieces.

And we all got quality time with electronics, too. ;)

One of the highlights was getting to practice lightning photography since there were lots of storms. I loved it!

In late July, I went back to the Seattle area. The Pacific Northwest is SO NICE in the summer, and Washington seems especially perfect with slightly cooler temps and more trees than Oregon. The above was taken at Mercer Slough Nature Park in Bellevue.

AUGUST

In August I bought a couch! I feel like I have made an overly-big deal of this, but it was something I had wanted/needed for a long time, and it felt impossible to actually manage. So it's sort of an achievement combined with a nice gift to myself. :)

Then later in the month I went to the state fair with my friends Pami and Nancy.

SEPTEMBER

I think September was somewhat quiet. Later in the month, I went to a grape stomp at Willamette Valley Vineyards. I was the photographer for my friends Pami and Angelique while they stomped their little hearts out.

This particular winery is just a couple of miles from my neighborhood and it's so beautiful! I really enjoyed my day.

OCTOBER

Best month ever!* And a busy one. I did a photo-of-the-day project for the month and posted the pictures here.

*Well, not necessarily, but my birthday month has a special place in my heart.

The first week was a big one at work. We had several events leading up to a very busy weekend, and I split the photography with my coworker. The final event was a dinner at the Oregon Garden on Saturday evening. It was really pretty and probably the most enjoyable event to photograph of all the different ones that week.

The fog rolled in and I had an exciting opportunity to photograph droplets on a spider's web. It was thrilling!

My birthday week and weekend were great. I got to see various friends and everything felt a little more special. This was my lopsided store-bought cake! Thanks to Dan for being a hand model.

NOVEMBER

In early November I traveled back to CA to stay with my parents and visit with my nieces. I loved this trip. The weather was great (notice a theme for this year--good weather!) and of course I love hanging out with my nieces.

Then at Thanksgiving I went up to the Seattle area again and also got to see Garden d'Lights in Bellevue. As I'm sure most of you remember, since I posted photos just a few weeks ago.

DECEMBER

December was pretty fun! I was feeling merry and watched several cheesy Christmas movies on Netflix. I got much of my shopping done early (for me) and felt like I enjoyed the holiday season. I even wanted a little more, when usually I'm in a hurry for it to be over.

I was super excited when we got a powdery snow that gave me half a day off work and the chance to photograph snowflakes!

We had quite a few days of low temperatures which meant lots of frost.

Then I flew to CA for Christmas. I have lots of pictures to show you later on, so here are just a few. I had a great visit. The weather was awesome (60s and sunny), I got to spend time with my friend M, I had time to relax and do Christmasy things with my parents before the actual day (sometimes I fly in on Christmas eve or day, so I don't have that opportunity), I got some great presents, and...

...we can't forget my little trip to San Francisco with my friend Dania!

Including a stop in Muir Woods. I have a ton of photos to show you. January will be a good month to catch up on pictures.

And those were the highlights of my year! If you saw my life day-to-day, you'd think it was slow and uneventful. But when you look back at all I have done, it seems a lot more exciting. :) At least to me. Anyway, it had its ups and downs but I enjoyed many parts of 2013. Here's to an awesome 2014! *clink*

2013 in Review (January-June)

It's hard to believe it's already time to do my year-end posts. Sometimes it feels like the days go slow but the years go fast. I enjoy these posts because there's so much I forget, and it helps remind me that my time wasn't completely taken up with work, sleep and phone games. ;) Here we go! This is some of the more positive stuff. I'll spare you the lows of 2013. You've seen most of these photos before, but there are a few new ones interspersed.

JANUARY

We began the year with a lot of frost, which gave me some nice photo ops. Otherwise, I guess it was a usual January--not a lot going on since it's so cold and dark outside.

FEBRUARY

In February, I had my first giveaway in my blog--a Valentine's package. That was fun! I hope to do more giveaways in the future.

My mom came to visit again for an annual women's conference I help with for work. I can't remember if this was her second or third time visiting for the conference. We also did a puzzle, watched movies and relaxed.

I also started a 40 Days of Thanks project for Lent (see posts here).

MARCH

The weather was awesome for March! I loooooved it. This is when life gets going again.

I had a spring party for my girlfriends. We decorated cookies and painted eggs. These types of gatherings can be a lot of work, but they are generally so worth it. Not only do I enjoy the prep, but we have a lot of fun and make some memories. Well, at least for me since I have pictures to remember it by. :)

I went to Deepwood for some picture-taking.

I did a portrait shoot on Easter day, and it was not only enjoyable, but I felt pretty good about the resulting images. And the weather rocked so much.

APRIL

In April, I had my first experience with a macro lens. I was so, so excited to rent one and try it out. I can remember being super impatient waiting for FedEx to drop it off!

My friend Mariel let me be her photographer for some graduation portraits!

I took a trip to CA to visit my parents and get even more practice with the macro lens. It was a fun, sunny visit full of photography and probably many episodes of House Hunters.

I also bought a Fitbit One this month and started tracking my steps. My Fitbit is one of my favorite 2013 purchases!

MAY

The Fitbit, lovely weather, and scenery motivated me to walk a lot this month. I started listening to audiobooks on my walks and really enjoyed my neighborhood. I felt like this was a high point in my year--I was full of motivation and in love with my surroundings.

I started watching and photographing some goslings that were growing up behind my home.

I took portraits of Bella for her first birthday.

Memorial weekend was rainy and I mostly stayed in and hung out with a friend, playing games and watching DVDs. I revisited Twilight (both the book and movie) and laughed a lot at the silliness.

JUNE

My parents gave me my very own macro lens! So began some experimentation with droplets and anything else I could try the lens on. I'm still practicing--there's a lot more I want to try. I hope to have some fun stuff to share in 2014.

I went up to the Seattle area to spend a weekend with my friend Dan and his parents. It was great, as usual. We played games, saw bunnies in the neighborhood, and visited Marymoor Park (above).

I went with some friends to a local art store where they let you do glass projects. I've always been interested in doing something like that but never had. It was definitely harder than I had imagined!

I decided to divide these highlights into two posts since it's getting kind of long. July through December are in this separate post.