Rainy Day Projects

Rain has changed from plinking on the roof and the kitchen stove fan to actual, steady pouring. Water has pooled in the depressions in my patio concrete forming puddles and we are receiving a rainfall that will finally be measurable. Hurrah. It is a good time to be indoors and to do indoor projects.

Friday I made chocolate cupcakes for Valentine's Day using my oldest, old time favorite chocolate cake recipe, Hershey's Chocolatetown Special Cake. It makes two layers or twenty-four cupcakes. The recipe used to be printed on the side of the cocoa container, but isn't there now. It can be found on the web though and when I googled I found a number of links.

Only when I went to put the cupcake liners into the tins did I discover that I had no paper liners. Since I can't just run out to the store, I had to be creative. I had a can of non-stick spray a friend had passed on to me so liberally sprayed the tins and put in the batter. The cupcakes are good, released well from the pans, but I think the flavor is negatively impacted by the vegetable spray and the spray left an oily film where it hit the pans in between the muffin cups. Here is a picture of cupcakes before frosting.



Today I finally frosted the cupcakes which I had not already eaten as shown in the photo.



Here is one cupcake looking almost photogenic.



Wish I could share them with everyone. I have a long way to go as a food photographer, but I think that this is one time in my life that I will not buy a book to teach me how to do it better! Too many books already, way too little time.

Today the mystery of the last Amaryllis finally revealed itself. It is definitely red. Definitely gorgeous too and difficult to photograph because it is above my head!



I would love to know why blogger always puts the photo above the text and not below it. Below seems so much more logical to me, since we write text from the top down.

I am grateful for the rain, which is truly a benediction in our lives today and for the cupcakes and the flowers, including the daffodils which are looking chilled and lonely outside today.

Friday at Week's End

A feeble pun on wit's end. I have been busy this week setting up a new watering schedule and devising a new way to do some of the watering chores myself. Two half gallon milk jugs and a watering can come into the kitchen sink and are filled then hauled to the porch to do the honors. People are away this weekend and so I want to see if I can manage this myself before finding more friends to help. So far so good. I have also potted up the irises a friend brought over in holding pots before someone can plant them in the ground.

The larger of the yellow roses that I posted Tuesday grew to be six inches across. A truly large rose. Three Mr. Lincoln's are fading on my counter now. As they fade they turn an almost purple not quite magenta color that I can't quite capture with my camera. (I probably need filters that I don't have. As well as knowledge that I don't have.) The camera is such a gift. My digital camera was preceded by a 35mm camera, a gift from my parents when I graduated from high school.

This week I have been scanning slides from that time into my desk top computer. It is amazing how many Christmas tree pictures my family took. As though we would never have another Christmas tree, we snapped shot after shot of the trees. The shots with the lights on never turned out. Then as I was laughing at myself for having expended so much film on the trees, and wishing also that I had taken more shots of the people, I found it: the magic Christmas tree.

One year in the eighties when a tree truly wasn't in the household budget and I had not expected to have one, Papa came into the house on Christmas eve day with a scrawny, not terribly beautiful tree, the last one in the grocery store lot. He went to the garage and brought in the boxes. He set it up where I would be able to look and look and look at it and even helped me decorate it. I hadn't thought that I had any pictures of it at all and the slides had turned a funny color, magenta like the roses on the counter. With the help of the computer, I brought it back to green again. It was such a joy to see it again. I spent hours that Christmas, in the evening with my feet up on a stool just looking at the tree. That was the first time, too that we did not put lights on a tree. It was so dry that I did not think it was a good idea to put the light on it. Papa was grateful. I have never put lights on one again. Symbol of the Light as it is, it doesn't need electricity to make it work for me. Everything on it is shiny and catches the light. I take better pictures of it this way too.

Somehow I think the picture taking is an attempt to fix the object. The picture is never quite the same. It doesn't capture the magic. It is why I keep taking pictures of the flowers too, I think, turning the ephemeral into something that lasts longer; holding on to memory that I don't quite trust to do the job without the visual cue.

Memory too is an elusive thing, not as fixed as we think it is, the memories change as we go forward in time. The way that I remember my childhood is not the same as the way I remembered it in my twenties. My memory of the Christmas trees, or the roses, is not the same as the trees or the items themselves. I will still try to hold the moments in time making memories by taking pictures for as long as I have the gift to see well enough to use the cameras. For the art, the technology and the gift of sight, I give thanks tonight and am grateful.

Saturday--the Week has Flown!

The week has flown by! I have been nursing a hand problem that makes it difficult to type so am behind on everything except taking flower pictures. With both irises and roses on the counter there is much material for this indoor photographer to play with! More to learn too.

Here are some of the recent pictures of my flowers. The first is of the Cecil Brunner roses that a friend cut for me yesterday. They remind me of one of the impressionist painters, perhaps Renoir, my favorite. The second one was taken outdoors by my young friend who has just returned home from her first year of college. The last is of the last of the Iris from another friend's garden.






I have had fun playing with Kaboodle (which I call kaboodle/doodling. My computer is also calling me to do some serious security updating, so it looks like my afternoon is taken care of for today! I am grateful for the flowers, including the brilliant splash of red from the few poppies that are blooming.

Irises

A friend brought purple and white irises yesterday from her garden. I gasped in awe at how gorgeous these flowers are and immediately thought of my niece, J whose favorite color is purple. I have been on the lookout for all things purple for over twenty years now because of this and have come to love the color myself.

These flowers are large, frilly and showy. They are not fragrant, which may be a good thing since they would be likely to be overpowering if they were fragrant. One has already closed making way for a bud behind it that is half grown. I am curious to see if it will open.




I was curious about the "beard", the little furry protrusion that looks like a tongue, or a white caterpillar on each of the lower, outer petals. After looking at it and wheeling by it a number of times, finally I couldn't resist and I had to touch it. Was it soft was the reason for my curiosity? Yes, as soft as a bee's body or a kitten's fur. I am amazed even more. (And yes, I know that a bee's body is soft for I touched one once and no he did not sting me.)

All in all the flowers made for a delightful Sunday along with a lunch of spinach bolani and some watching of the Lord of the Rings on television. I am grateful for all of these good things.

It is the second Sunday after Easter and almost too chilly and gray to feel like either Easter or Spring. Still this season will speed by all too quickly.

Please note: the photographs are copyright 2008 Marguerite Manor

Lights! Camera! Roll the wheelchair!

Last night I had the opportunity to witness and help with the most ingenious and innovative way to use a wheelchair that I have ever seen. Three boys from the local high school, one of whom is a neighbor, had asked if they could use my house to shoot a film project for their senior film class. Last night was the designated night. They came to my door with tripods and a camera gear box and a wheelchair. I answered the door in my wheelchair.

Surprised by the sight of the wheelchair, I was slightly taken aback and asked, "What is the wheelchair for?" My neighbor responded, "We have a tracking shot and we are going to use the wheelchair as a dolly." Ok. Actually it was quite cool and I plan to post a picture here later when I have uploaded the pictures to the desktop, downloaded them to the flash drive and re-uploaded them to the laptop, from which, connected to the Internet, I am blogging.

The equipment intrigued me. A light on a light pole. A tripod for the light pole and another for the camera. A boom mike with a headset. A round screen known as a diffuser. Finally, the wheelchair. Painter's blue tape came out of one of my drawers and was useful to keep the camera on the footplate of the wheelchair. (I just learned about painter's blue tape myself last summer.)

Life is varied and fun. I want a tripod myself. Also some lights. And a diffuser. Adorama has cool articles on their website that show how to take product pictures for posting on websites. Mine need to be better. More to learn. More to do. This makes life fun. I hope it continues to be and I am grateful. It is good to keep learning and especially to learn from other people, including those who are younger than I am. I am thankful for these opportunities.

Oh Happy Spring!

Daffodils from my yard and tulips from the Farmer's Market adorn the end of my kitchen counter. The sun shines in and Spring is truly here!

A few years ago (probably four) I was able to buy a quantity of daffodil bulbs from a neighbor who had gotten a bag of 100 from Costco. (The marvel of Costco combined with the wonder of the Internet--our neighborhood email list.) The bulbs bloomed perfectly, with flowers as large as the saucers that match my Mama's good teacups. Their first blooming season coincided with my purchase of a digital camera.

At the same time my young friend M, then a freshman in High School, was taking a photography class. She photographed my flowers with my camera. One shot stood out and I labeled it, "Perfect Daffodil".

The next year I began tinkering with cafepress and learning how to place my designs on their templates. One of my first designs was, "Daffodils, Oh Happy Spring", which is also available in Spanish as "Daffodils, Feliz Verano". Here it is on a mug



It is available on other items as well and when I checked it this morning I realized that I need to update more products to it (or should that be it to more products?) Anyway, I do hope that folks will check it out. Spring is coming and this is a perfect way to celebrate it! Thanks so much. I am so grateful for the beauty of the flowers, the warmer weather coming and all of my customers.

November and it is Going By Too Fast!

November 5 already! Whew, the time really is flying by. The leaves have turned. I love the golden and red light of autumn, the pumpkins and other squashes and the turning in. At the same time, because I live in California, I have the pleasure of going outside and watching the birds who still forage in my yard. Yesterday I watched while the hummingbird came bey and fed all around the big pineapple sage that grows on my porch. Just two years ago that was two cuttings from the bush in the back that we were not even sure would survive over the window. (It scan now be seen easily from the kitchen window.) M's kind care has made my plants grow and L continues the tradition for me.

My biggest project over this weekend was to copy files from the "big guy" or desk top computer to the laptop and then upload the images to AdoramaPix for printing. I happily await the email that says my prints are on the way. These will be made into cards for sale through this blog, I hope on Etsy--if I ever, ever get that up and running and through little boutiques at my house. So if you need cards--peace, flowers, Christmas, please keep checking back.

It is fun to review the photos and designs that I have made over the last two years. Papa shared his considerable knowledge and interest in photography with me all those years ago when I was growing up. A Mark IV little box camera was my first ever camera, followed by a beautiful Retina (used adn reconditioned, my graduation present from High School), followed by a Kodak Instamatic because the Retina had jammed and we couldn't get it repaired. Finally, nearly three years ago I invested in a beautiful digital camera and will write more about it later.

Backing up the files from a digital camera is one step in good disaster preparedness, as I believe that I have written in posts regarding my computer crash. Computers are subject to their own topical disasters as well as the natural disasters that can befall everything else.

Since November is the month of remembrance and one turns to looking at photo albums as one remembers and reminisces, I think it is also a good time to think about how to share and back-up family photos.

Some, a great many, in fact have been scanned and can be shared either on CD's or through file-sharing sites. I will be exploring what Adorama offers in this regard as well as other options and will report back.

Lazy Morning

Still in lazy, vacation mode and I see that I haven't blogged in almost a week. In the meantime, I have discovered Adorama Camera in New York City, thanks to a suggestion form a friend. Adorama prints from digital photos and they have many, many sizes and four choices of paper. Sorry if this sounds like an ad, I am just so excited. I think that instead of making my own card prints on my wonderful ink jet printer I can have them printed. Now I won't have to worry about the dreaded trimming problem--not being able to trim evenly has left me six or more months behind on this project. So I have been resizing flower photos to make them the size of the prints that I want. Then the dsl will have to be reinvented so that it won't take all day to upload the images.

Working between two computers, as I still am, raises questions and choices. DSL or Google wifi? Network the two computers or not? I hate making decisions, I hate making choices, I want to go back to my nice warm bed. No I don't, I want to go forward. The trouble and the joy with modern technology is that it moves so fast, innovation is so constant, that if we don't make change from time to time, we miss out on really good things.

The other evening I was uploading something from the laptop and discovered that since the laptop is on the dining room table and the kitchen is right behind me, I could putter about at kitchen chores during the wait. Couldn't do that if I were in the other room working at the desktop. On the other hand with the desktop hooked up to dsl I don't have to wait either. No, multi-tasking, no little exercises while I wait, just blink and it's done. Which shall it be?

Another thing about the laptop that is going to be useful is the ability to share things with others without going into the office. My "office", actually one of the bedrooms in my house, is stuffed full and its difficult for someone else to pull up a chair! So now I can share Mary Kay, new photos of my grand-nephew or a web search right at the table where I normally sit with friends to converse. Blessed modern technology. How fun!

Friends are coming today so it is going to be a social time. Part of the reason for the feeling of extended vacation mode