Book Display - Photography

May is National Photography Month. I'm a big fan of "Life" and "National Geographic" so I tossed in a few of those publications, and included some info on how to organize, restore, and preserve family photos. And, along with breathtaking nature shots, of course I put out some beautiful Nebraska collections.

Early Photography
Antique & Classic Cameras by Harry I. Gross

Collector’s Guide to Early Photographs by O. Henry Mace

Early War Photographs: 50 Years of War Photographs from the Nineteenth Century by Pat Hodgson

Land’s Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented it by Peter C. Wensberg

Photographs for the Tsar: The Pioneering Color Photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

The Big Guns (and Other Well-Known Photographers)
The Best of Life by Life Magazine

Down in the Garden by Anne Geddes

Humor in News Photography by National Press Photographers Association

Life Photographers: What They Saw by John Loengard

Life’s Picture History of World War II by Life Magazine

Moments: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs: A Visual Chronicle of Our Time by Hal Buell

Moments of Vision: The Stroboscopic Revolution in Photography by Harold E. Edgerton and James R. Killian, Jr (this has the cool, slow-motion photos of water dropping into a puddle, or bullets going through apples)

National Geographic: The Photographs by Leah Bendavid-Val

How-To
50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques with Photoshop Elements 3 by Gregory George

Build Your Own Home Darkroom by Lista Duren & Will McDonald

Conservation of Photographs by George T. Eaton

Creative Photocropping for Scrapbooks by Michele and Ron Gerbrandt

Digital Photography Bible: Desktop Edition by Dan Simon

iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Derrick Story

Jim Zuckerman’s Secrets to Great Photographs: Digital Effects by Jim Zuckerman

Make Your Own Digital Photo Scrapbook by Roger Pring and Ivan Hissey

New Photos of Old Stuff: Photographing Historic Structures by Joel Sartore, Video

Photographing Your Baby: Tips for Taking Great Pictures by Eastman Kodak

Preserving Your Family Photographs: How to Organize, Present, and Restore Precious Family Images by Maureen A. Taylor (for your family history...)

Shooting & Sharing Digital Photos for Dummies by Julie Adair King

Uncovering Your Ancestry Through Family Photographs: How to Identify, Interpret and Preserve Your Family’s Visual Heritage by Maureen Taylor (more family history)

Using Your Autofocus 35mm Camera: Exposure, Lenses, Film, Composition, and More by Eastman Kodak Company

Regional
Architectural Wonder of the World: Nebraska’s State Capitol Building by Elinor L. Brown

Nebraska 24/7: 24 Hours, 7 Days: Extraordinary Images of One Week in Nebraska by Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen

Nebraska: A Photographic Celebration published by American & World Geographic Publishing

Nebraska: Under a Big Red Sky by Joel Sartore

Time Pieces: Photographs, Writing, and Memory by Wright Morris

Unforgettable: The Photos of Our Lives: A Pictorial of Southeast Nebraska by David Swarzlander

Visions of Lincoln: Nebraska’s Capital City in the Present, Past and Future by James L. McKee

Nature
Forever Wild: The Adirondacks by Eliot Porter

Yosemite: The Original John Muir Text by Galen Rowell

Yosemite and the Range of Light by Ansel Adams

Zane Grey: A Photographic Odyssey by Loren Grey

An Active May

Cassie has had a busy month. (Which means I've been running in circles too.)

April 30 she lost her second tooth. It came out while at lunch at school. She carefully wrapped it in a napkin, put it in her backpack and brought it home. We placed it beneath her pillow and the Tooth Fairy left her $.25 (though my brother tried to convince Cassie she should get $100).

She had a playdate with Alyssa S., daughter of friends Brian and Claire S. Cassie had a blast playing dress-up, putting on nail polish with cool dots, running around the backyard, and playing on the swingset. She can't wait to return and play some more. I told her Alyssa could visit and play at our house when she gets her room cleaned up.

Cassie had her six-year pediatrician appointment. She's 46.75" tall (75 percentile), and weighs 49.2 lb (50-75 percentile). She was very relieved she didn't need a vaccination this time around. Dr. Applegate sat back and looked at her, and seemed to be mentally comparing this young girl who was chatting away with him to the baby we first brought to him two days after we got home from China.

We also had Mother's Day. Cassie and I skipped Sunday School/church and visited Betsy in the morning. Then I worked that afternoon and we headed to Mom's that evening. Here's our three-generation photo:

And finally, Deb H. and I held a garage sale on a Friday and Saturday during the Highlands Neighborhood Garage Sale. Cassie joined us on Saturday. She and Deb ran a quick errand and along the way saw an Estate Sale. There they found a gown that was the right size for Cassie to use for dress-up. Does she look like a debutante or what? (Okay, ignore the temporary tatoo...) She wears it for all her tea parties and uses her porcelain tea dishes from Betsy and her silver tea set from Tom and Anne D.

Orange Porch

I now have an orange porch.

My house is a bungalow built in 1900 with two bedrooms on the first floor and a non-conforming bedroom in the basement. When I bought this house in 1987 it was one of the few homes in my price range that didn't have a dirt floor in the basement and had a shower. As a matter of fact, I didn't have to do a darn thing to this house except clean it and move in. The basement was fully usable including a laundry room and had plenty of storage space. On top of that, the gorgeous oak trim, oak doors, and French doors hadn't been painted.

Well, there was one thing I had to do. The house was painted mustard yellow with brown trim. A few years after I bought the house I qualified for a neighborhood grant program that reimbursed the homeowner for the cost of paint and supplies. So I chose a pretty blue color with white trim. Not the usual color one associates with an Arts & Crafts style home, but I like it.

Last month Jim L. and Kathi S., friends from Las Vegas, came through on their annual visit to Nebraska to see friends and family. What with their tight schedule and my work schedule we could get together only one Sunday evening for dinner at Tico's. But we had a nice visit. We didn't have to do a lot of catching up due to email and cell phones with national coverage, but it was nice to talk face-to-face. A couple of days later they ran by the house again with a gift for Cassie. They'd found a 3-D artwork package with stencils, paint, sidewalk chalk, and 3-D glasses to view the resulting artwork.

Cassie loves it (and looks adorable in those green glasses) and put it to use right away the next day, and the next day, and the next, and the next. We have the prettiest sidewalk in the neighborhood. She soon ran out of paint so I hit Target and bought her a selection of small bottles of washable paint in 10 bright colors.

I came home from work the following Saturday to find a giant orange design painted on the porch floor.

It never occurred to me to remind Cassie to paint only the sidewalk because she's been so good all these years about doing her artwork only on the cement. But I figure the paint is washable and will, EVENTUALLY, wash off. Plus, this is part and parcel of having kids and will be a great story to add to family lore. As one relative replied when a neighbor couldn't believe they allowed the kids on the lawn, "I'm raising kids, not grass." In that vein I'm not going to blow a gasket over something that can easily be repainted. Though I did email Kathi S. "blaming" her for my orange porch but she felt no remorse at all and indicated she'd do all she could to encourage Cassie's artistic endeavors.

After a month of rain the orange design is still there, though it is beginning to fade. But I haven't the heart to remove it myself.

Shopping with Cassie

The day after the Shop Hop ended, I was still seeking black and white plaid flannel fabric. So after Sunday school, Cassie and I headed to Hancock’s. She was busy learning to use her cell phone to “send” a text message. It’s really my old phone that still holds a charge, but has no service – as long as she doesn’t dial 9-1-1!!! (In case you don’t know, by law any cell phone can dial 9-1-1 as long as it’s still charged-up. You can’t place any other calls, just calls to 9-1-1.) So essentially she was busy learning to spell while riding in the cart and playing. She also asked to have fabric spread over the top of the cart like a tent. All other shoppers could see was me pushing a cart, spelling words out loud to myself.

Then we hit the grocery store. I piled the groceries onto the conveyor belt for the clerk to scan and then I noticed that Cassie was at the end busily sacking them all. She’s barely tall enough to see into the sack, but there she was filling sacks and trying to place them into the cart (I kept the carton of eggs). Too bad the sacks are too heavy yet for her to help carry into the house…

Denim Quilt Update

I really am trying to get my denim quilt done. Long-time readers may remember that I finished putting the top together during retreat this past March. Easter morning I went to Deb H.'s and got half of it tied. Here I am working on my quilt, with her cat, Vincent, supervising me. Eli, my cat, gave the quilt a good sniffing when I brought it back home.

(The one advantage of having to work a holiday weekend: Mark and Cassie went up by themselves to visit his family, so I was able to do as I wished come Easter morning.)

Shop Hop! April 10-19, 2008

The Nebraska Shop Hop is put on by the Nebraska Independent Fabric Shop Association (‘ya gotta scroll down their page to see anything). You pay $10, get a bag, a list of shops, a stamp card, a free fat-quarter, and a map of Nebraska. You visit the shops, they stamp your card, and you turn in your card at the end for drawings for gift certificates. The shops run specials and have treats, beverages, and other goodies for the Hoppers. It’s a blast!

Deb H., Cassie and I headed out to the Lincoln shops on Friday night. Cassie had birthday and allowance money saved up and was eager to spend, spend, spend. Which she did.

I was able to get off work an hour early, and met Deb at my place. We all piled into the van and headed south to Calico House. NOT my favorite store (and is actually on my list of shops I don’t buy from unless I’m absolutely positively desperate) though I bought a fat-quarter cuz I always buy one from each shop during The Hop. Cassie found fat-quarters, buttons, and lots of other things that caught her eye. I reminded her that we had two other shops to hit (read: two other shops that I’d rather support). So she finally settled for just one fat-quarter and off we headed to The Quilted Kitty and The Cosmic Cow. Along the way we hit the drive-through at Taco Inn and Cassie though it was pretty neat to eat in the van. Surprisingly there were no food or drink mishaps.

Cassie spent all her money and was thrilled with the evening. By us starting to Hop at 5:30pm we had just enough time to hit all three shops by 8:00pm without feeling rushed. So next year I’ll again ask to leave work early.

Sunday I was dying to Hop more Shops, so I called Deb and we made arrangements to Hop together that afternoon. Mark was fine with this cuz he’d spend the day at home in front of the TV uninterrupted by anyone. In the meantime, Cassie and I skipped Sunday school/church (I’m so-o-o-o bad!), hit Taco Inn again, and munched on our way to the Fabric Fair in Seward. I found some red plaid flannel I needed (still need two patterns of black plaid to round out my design for a black/red/white plaid rag quilt I have in mind), Cassie found some fat-quarters she “needed,” and off we headed back to Lincoln to pick up Deb. Then we headed to Country Traditions in Fremont.

Initially we really liked this shop. They had lots to pick from, different styles of fabrics, kits, patterns, books, fat-quarters, jelly rolls, and charm packs. They also had antique-looking wire baskets you could use and they’d clip your name to the basket. Cassie was tickled to have her own basket and kept switching out what she thought she was going to buy. But they didn’t allow you to take photos of anything in the store! All the other shops encourage you to take photos, and will even hold up quilts so you can get a better shot. I decided this was not an attitude I need to deal with so they can’t count me as one of their regular shoppers. So there.

Outside their store Deb, Cassie, and I had our photo taken. Then we hit the Zesto for desperately needed ice cream and beverages. We stopped at a city park to run Cassie around for half an hour (she had a good time playing on the swings and slides with another family that was there) then we headed back home. My six-year-old didn’t do too badly for sitting in the van for over three hours on a nice, sunny day.

By the time we got to Lincoln it was supper time and Cassie was hungry. So we dropped Deb off at her house for her car, and I followed them to Village Inn at 50th & Van Dorn for breakfast/supper. I got Cassie home, bathed, and in bed at a relatively decent time and she went right to sleep. In all, I had a grand time at this year’s Shop Hop, and Mark had 10 hours to himself at home with the TV and a nap.

Book Display - Manuals for Techie Stuff

Phones, iPods, MP3s, Music, Blogs, MySpace and Making Your PC Work for You

The first part of April I tossed up a book display of how-to books for various types of techie stuff. We all received electronic toys for Christmas and struggled to learn how to use them. We gave up, but around springtime are ready to try again, or are ready to build on the elementary steps we’ve learned since the holidays. So here’s a list of some books to get us on our way:

Utilizing Your PC
Digitizing Your Family History: Easy Methods for Preserving Your Heirloom Documents, Photos, Home Movies, and More in a digital Format by Rhonda R. McClure

Home Wireless Networking in a Snap by Joe Habraken

Mac Annoyances: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Mac by John Rizzo

MySpace for Dummies by Ryan Hupfer, Mitch Maxon, and Ryan Williams

PC Toys: 14 Cool Projects for Home, Office, and Entertainment by Barry Press and Marcia Press

Publishing a Blog with Blogger by Elizabeth Castro

The Rough Guide to the Internet by Peter Buckley & Duncan Clark

Roxio Easy Media Creator for Dummies by Greg Harvey

Teach Your Computer to Dance: Make Your Computer, Mobile Devices, and the Internet Perform for You by Don Silver and Susan Silver

iPods, iTunes, and MP3 Players
Absolute Beginner’s Guide to iPod and iTunes by Brad Miser

How to do Everything with Your iPod & iPod Mimi by Guy Hart-Davis

iPod Book: Doing Cool Stuff with the iPod and the iTunes Store by Scott Kelby

iPod & iTunes: Everything You Need for Digital Music, Start to Finish! by Brad Miser and Tim Robertson

MP3 for Dummies by Andy Rathbone

MP3 FYI: Digial Music Online by Jay Lickfett

The Rough Guide to iPods, iTunes & Music Online by Peter Buckley and Duncan Clark

Phones
BlackBerry for Dummies by Robert Kao and Dante Sarigumba

How to do Everything With Your Treo 700p by Derek Ball and Dayton Foster

Making Music
Audio Mashup Construction Kit by Jordan “DJ Earworm” Roseman

Making Music with Your Computer by Brent Edstrom

Music Tech Magazine: Ten Minute Masters by Music Tech Magazine

PC Music: The Easy Guide by Robin Vincent

Bowling

Cassie went bowling for the first time last month.

My boss, Bob B., gathered together a group of us who have kids and April 4th we all met at Sun Valley Lanes. Just getting to Sun Valley was an experience. The Harris Overpass that usually gets one to west Lincoln is closed for construction of a new bridge, and one family never made it for they couldn't figure out how to get there.

Sun Valley was a blast. They have rails in the gutters that can be raised that act as bumpers in a pinball game. The bowling ball simply bounces off the rail rather than landing in the gutter making it more fun for kids and other inexperienced bowlers. There's also an automated scorekeeper.

I had a cool, blue-colored 12-lb bowling ball and Cassie was very unhappy with her ugly, green 6-lb ball. I managed to convince her that she actually had a Shrek-colored ball. That made it okay! She also thought the bowling shoes were neat and she wants a pair for home.

One girl there attends Cassie's school. She and Cassie have encountered each other at school since then and wave at each other.

After bowling our game, Bob joined Cassie and me for a late supper at Tico's. Since it was a Friday night I wasn't too concerned about Cassie being up later than she should. After we ate, I managed to get her home, bathed, and in bed by 9:30pm.