Laura

This evening I went for a lovely walk. Fall has hit with a vengeance; there are trees in every shade from yellow through brown, not counting the evergreens of course, and while a few are nearly-bare, most trees still have more leaves on them than underneath them. (Except for one enterprising tree I passed as the homeowner was raking: I swear that one had somehow managed to lose an entire tree's worth of leaves and still look almost completely filled in....)

The sky was a glorious clear blue today. (I love the rain, but that clear-sky blue is an amazing color, and I love it too.) The sun was well toward setting, the colors of the trees were vivid, and I was way too comfortable. Because it was 70 degrees. At 5:30 pm.

I uploaded a few photos (taken with my phone) to Flickr. Fine art they aren't, but I do think they capture the day a bit.

Here's one of the photos, and if you click through you can browse to the other two:

GOOD weekend. Yesterday was awesome - we went to Canby, enjoyed the street fair and the parade and the music. The kids loved a parade with candy tossed, but for my money the most pure joy was on the playground. Then fireworks, which I got some really good shots of - on my digital camera. (The phone couldn't have done it. Which is a pity - if they'd have been on the phone, I'd have downloaded all the pictures from IT to the computer last night...well, see next paragraph.)

This morning, my iPhone died. Not completely, but interestingly - some kind of software issue where it decided that all space was used up despite the fact that nothing it could point to was using very much space. About 90 GB of space unaccounted for. Delete anything and the bug expanded to fill the space.

Restarting and other cleanup mechanisms didn't work, so after a 2.5-hour wait, the experts restored it to a factory default. And...that means I lost all the photos of Ian giggling happily on that spinny swing except for _one_ I shared on FB. Worst part is it wasn't the best one, which I found later in the sequence. Oh, well. My backup of photos and other stuff is otherwise recent and complete, and I have a photo and a LOVELY memory. We had so much fun, the two of us, at that swing. ***EDIT: Oh God I forgot!! When I found the better pictures I _put the best of them as a comment to the post with the first picture_, I just found that and a couple other pictures from that day. They're not lost!!***

Now to reinstall and reconfigure my phone. Pfeh, but I saw this coming and made notes of what I had where. (Also, anyone who texted me today before 5 pm, it was lost. My phone would accept it - but couldn't store it. As far as I know, that means one text from Scott and a couple about my appointment from Apple. Those weren't important anyway, since I was basically camped in their store.)

(Yes, I have a backup. But it's not super-recent and I adjusted things and added a bunch of apps in the meanwhile. And if it was super-recent, I'd worry it might have backed up the bug what did this, too. Aie.)

ANYWAY. Photos!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/sets/72157655490778181

( One preview - but seriously, guys, check out the set, please. )

( One behind the cut )

The rest are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/archives/date-taken/2015/02/20

Yesterday, I turned 40. Scott helped me celebrate by not telling our friends (who were over for our usual gaming night), keeping it low key, and getting me the DSLR I've been coveting for over a year.

I took it to the Japanese Garden yesterday (he gave it to me a bit in advance) and shot some photos with both the standard and telephoto lenses. Mother Nature gave me the only sun-break forecast for this weekend in the afternoon, meaning the telephoto lens was *useful* (for more than pictures of cloud and fog).

I was totally lazy and uploaded the JPG images exactly as they came out of the camera instead of processing the raw files and all that.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/archives/date-taken/2015/01/16/

( Two preview images, my favorite two )

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/archives/date-posted/2013/04/06/

There are ten pictures, and that will take you to the thumbnails. Two I'm especially proud of are ( below the cut: )

He rode along the sidewalk all the way around the cul de sac today, so I'd say he's willing to try turns again. And circling a cul de sac is a nice beginner "turn" rather than the u-turn he tried Saturday!



Also, go to my Flickr for yesterday for bonus pics of the Saturday morning snow. Apparently Beaverton - in the low elevations - didn't get any. Wilsonville felt like being an overachiever I guess?

When I was little, the dishwasher had two magnets: "Clean" and "Dirty" (with pigs, one polished pink, the other wallowing in mud). Finally, we own a house where magnets will stick to the dishwasher, and I want similar magnets! ...except most are clean/dirty pairs in one magnet (flip it to change the setting). Which is nice, and cute, but I want to put just one magnet at a time. If it's one for both, someone small and cute may spin it for fun.

Eating over carpet with a toddler: messy. So we have a queen size sheet as a drop cloth. I like the pattern! http://yfrog.com/h866fzxj

I am participating in the photo treasure hunt on Dreamwidth: http://photo-treasure-hunt.dreamwidth.org/ - the photos I'm doing are mostly not spectacular, since I'm aiming for a theme, but I'm trying and I'm having fun. :)

We are doing well. Just had a lovely crockpot chicken noodle soup tonight - tasty, and no salt to speak of. Win! Also enough to freeze for later. Double win! Which means I don't have to eat this soup all week...triple win. :) It's good, but not so good I want nothing else. :P

Drew has had fun this weekend, I think. The children's museum and the park yesterday. And the Japanese Garden. He loved the deer scare...and the art show. They're presently having a koi-related art show in the pavillion and there are a couple ENORMOUS koi kites hanging from the ceiling as well as smaller fabric art and prints. GORGEOUS. Anyway, we go in and before I can say anything particular about the art Drew looks up and points. "Fish!" Pause. "Tail!" Pause. "Mouth!" He enjoyed the exhibit so much. I'd been worried about taking him in and how well he would deal with it if he was bored. No. Need. Fish! Fish! He was happy as could be.

Today has been less fun for him, as we went shopping and other than that have mostly played around home. Scott was going to take him to the big park to run off some energy, but Drew refused to get in the car, which pretty well ended that plan. Heh. Nor was he willing to try our lovely soup. His cheese-and-bologna sandwich at lunch became a cheese sandwich. Some small pair of hands crept in and removed the bologna before eating. Sometime after that he started just eating the cheese out of it. Memo to kidlet: you cannot, in fact, live entirely on cheese alone. But boy do you seem to want to try.

A tweet from yesterday (expanded for readability): Drew, from the back seat: "It's nibbling me. Nibble, nibble, nibble." He had his sticker on one hand, folding and unfolding it to "bite" the other hand.

A writeup regarding the LJ DDoS and Russian Politics: http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/459929.html

Birds captured at 1/8000th of a second: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348572/Birds-captured-1-8000th-second-amateur-British-wildlife-photographer.html

Incredible.

A tweet from Wednesday: Drew decided to wash his shoes today at day care. Dumped them in the sink, ran water over.

Ray finally found a cat bed that fits him.

Well, kind of, I suppose...I won't tell him if you don't.

Not dead. Posting photos. I was drafting the update on Drew for his journal/email list (need to send the email still), which reminded me I've added some photos and videos at Flickr that are public and I'm fairly proud of. Feel free to go have a look (except if you're logged in to Flickr and are a friend on my account, you'll have a deluge of baby photos to look through instead of just the few that are public).

Annoyed at the washer. Again. Had to call in the home warranty. This time it might be useful - they sent a different company than the last gazillion times we complained about the slamatron washer, and THIS guy actually thinks parts need replacing. No, really? That would be nice. Sadly, it means we need to get the washer out of the teeny laundry room, which will probably (but maybe not) mean taking the door off its hinges. Augh.

Seems like a lot of my life is Drew and work these days. That's a good thing overall - but then I look up and suddenly it's been a week and I haven't posted here. Augh. Worse, there were usually things I wanted to post about. It's just that I don't find time and then the moment's gone (and sometimes the thought, too).