Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Camera-derie
We are a Nikon family. My DH has used Nikons for probably going on 30 years and I have had mine for almost 25. I started with a Nikon N2000. I bought it at a photo store in Massachusetts, when the original owner traded it in after 2 weeks to get a slightly bigger model. Because of that, I started out with a Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8 as well as an Underground 28mm 1:2.8. Fairly soon thereafter I saved all my pennies and picked up a Vivitar 35-200mm 1:3.0-4.5, which became my all around, every purpose lens from then on.
I had a decent eye, but technically, I was never really good. I compensated for lack of understanding with decent instinct, but over time the hassle, the weight of the gear and the long-windedness of the process (shoot, develop, evaluate, discard or reprint, repeat) caused me to use the gear less and less.
Then came digital photography and for a good long time, nothing changed. DH and I both love gadgets and technology, but the digital bandwagon was eyed suspiciously for a fairly long time. Eventually, we bought a point-and-shoot to try it out. This camera, to my knowledge the only non-Nikon interloper in the family, a Canon Powershot A620, has served us well and after DH upgraded to a D80, the Canon was mine to use pretty much exclusively.
I have to admit, I started to have DSLR envy. I love pulling things in real close, especially architectural elements and plants (I'm not good at portraits), so the somewhat limited zoom capability of the point-and-shoot niggled me. However, I hadn't taken pictures in a while and didn't seem to exhibit the level of commitment to the hobby that I would have liked to see to justify the investment of a DSLR. Also, I had pretty specific ideas of what I wanted and it wasn't really anything that was available yet. Basically I wanted an entry level DSLR that any photo-moron could use, but one with enough oomph to last me trough the growth towards a possible later upgrade, but at a good price.
When I initially saw the D5000 I got pretty excited. It looked pretty much like the camera I "ordered", except that it still had features I didn't want or need (video, for example) and the price was still not where I wanted it. I continued to ponder...
When I realized there was now also a D3000 I started to research it and read the reviews and I realized that this was exactly what I had been looking for. Last Saturday DH and I exchanged our birthday presents (3 weeks early, but we knew we'd have time to play with them then, so why not) and I got my new baby.
I got the kit with the 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 Nikkor lens and I am probably going to add the other lens often available in the kit (a 55-120mm I believe) fairly soon. My old lenses work, of course, except that I have to figure out how to use them (they are manual lenses). Since practice is supposed to increase skill, I am going to try to participate in my own little 365 project. who knows, it may actually prime the pump and get me back into photography the way I hope it will.
I had a decent eye, but technically, I was never really good. I compensated for lack of understanding with decent instinct, but over time the hassle, the weight of the gear and the long-windedness of the process (shoot, develop, evaluate, discard or reprint, repeat) caused me to use the gear less and less.
Then came digital photography and for a good long time, nothing changed. DH and I both love gadgets and technology, but the digital bandwagon was eyed suspiciously for a fairly long time. Eventually, we bought a point-and-shoot to try it out. This camera, to my knowledge the only non-Nikon interloper in the family, a Canon Powershot A620, has served us well and after DH upgraded to a D80, the Canon was mine to use pretty much exclusively.
I have to admit, I started to have DSLR envy. I love pulling things in real close, especially architectural elements and plants (I'm not good at portraits), so the somewhat limited zoom capability of the point-and-shoot niggled me. However, I hadn't taken pictures in a while and didn't seem to exhibit the level of commitment to the hobby that I would have liked to see to justify the investment of a DSLR. Also, I had pretty specific ideas of what I wanted and it wasn't really anything that was available yet. Basically I wanted an entry level DSLR that any photo-moron could use, but one with enough oomph to last me trough the growth towards a possible later upgrade, but at a good price.
When I initially saw the D5000 I got pretty excited. It looked pretty much like the camera I "ordered", except that it still had features I didn't want or need (video, for example) and the price was still not where I wanted it. I continued to ponder...
When I realized there was now also a D3000 I started to research it and read the reviews and I realized that this was exactly what I had been looking for. Last Saturday DH and I exchanged our birthday presents (3 weeks early, but we knew we'd have time to play with them then, so why not) and I got my new baby.
I got the kit with the 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 Nikkor lens and I am probably going to add the other lens often available in the kit (a 55-120mm I believe) fairly soon. My old lenses work, of course, except that I have to figure out how to use them (they are manual lenses). Since practice is supposed to increase skill, I am going to try to participate in my own little 365 project. who knows, it may actually prime the pump and get me back into photography the way I hope it will.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Things to strive for
Living with the seasons, making more with less, cooking more meals from scratch, all of these are goals I am trying to incorporate into my life. Actually, these are goals I have been trying to incorporate into my life for years now.
I work in the IT field, 70-ish miles from home in a 24/7 environment. My work schedule makes it a challenge at times to pursue my own goals.
I try to do what I can. Over the past three years, my DH was deployed twice. To make room for the extra responsibilities that left me with, I "outsourced" some of my life. While I have always been an affirmed ironer of shirts (I know, I am weird), I have sent most of my shirt to the dry cleaners. I neither liked the results, nor the expense, but I had clean shirts, so it was a good investment. DH is back for now and currently I iron my own stuff again, but come January, when I take another class towards my next degree, the dry cleaner will be there to pick up my slack if I need it.
I got help cleaning my house. Once a week or every two weeks, 2 wonderful ladies buzz through my home and dust, scrub, vacuum and sweep everything and then some. Sometimes I am lazy and use the time to relax, a lot of times I sew and often I take the time to work on some sorting/purging project. We have made a lot of progress towards a comfortable home over the past few years, but there is still a lot to do. If I need to, I will reduce the frequency of the visits, but I will try to keep them in the budget, not just for the clean house, but for the friendship as well.
Pretty much the first thing we did when we moved into our home was to establish a pantry. DH and I both love our pantry. It is nice sized and lovely. It is not as well organized as I would like and until a few weeks ago it held some small appliances etc that took up valuable shelf space. We finally made a space for those things in what we (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) refer to as our "butler's pantry". The bp consists of several sturdy shelves (think commercial kitchen style chrome wire shelves) in a cupboard under the stairs. In addition to the small appliances mentioned above, that space now also holds extra dishes, large platters and serving dishes, the silver flatware etc. The space will still need some tweaking, but it is already developing quite nicely.
The food pantry now has a surprising amount of free shelf space that I will have to ponder on and rearrange, possibly in the coming week (at least that's when I hope to get started on it). I think this will allow me to get a better grip on our stores and use them more wisely. Once I get things a bit more organized, I will try to use my price book and sales etc to replenish things.
We built 4 raised beds in the veggie garden this spring. Those crops did really well, the ones in the remaining garden beds not so much. We will add a few more raised beds next year and hopefully, little by little, we will have a larger selection of crops each year. With canning and dehydrating, we should be able to fill those pantry shelves in no time.
There are many things I would like to do better, but as long as we make progress towards our goals, I am happy.
I work in the IT field, 70-ish miles from home in a 24/7 environment. My work schedule makes it a challenge at times to pursue my own goals.
I try to do what I can. Over the past three years, my DH was deployed twice. To make room for the extra responsibilities that left me with, I "outsourced" some of my life. While I have always been an affirmed ironer of shirts (I know, I am weird), I have sent most of my shirt to the dry cleaners. I neither liked the results, nor the expense, but I had clean shirts, so it was a good investment. DH is back for now and currently I iron my own stuff again, but come January, when I take another class towards my next degree, the dry cleaner will be there to pick up my slack if I need it.
I got help cleaning my house. Once a week or every two weeks, 2 wonderful ladies buzz through my home and dust, scrub, vacuum and sweep everything and then some. Sometimes I am lazy and use the time to relax, a lot of times I sew and often I take the time to work on some sorting/purging project. We have made a lot of progress towards a comfortable home over the past few years, but there is still a lot to do. If I need to, I will reduce the frequency of the visits, but I will try to keep them in the budget, not just for the clean house, but for the friendship as well.
Pretty much the first thing we did when we moved into our home was to establish a pantry. DH and I both love our pantry. It is nice sized and lovely. It is not as well organized as I would like and until a few weeks ago it held some small appliances etc that took up valuable shelf space. We finally made a space for those things in what we (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) refer to as our "butler's pantry". The bp consists of several sturdy shelves (think commercial kitchen style chrome wire shelves) in a cupboard under the stairs. In addition to the small appliances mentioned above, that space now also holds extra dishes, large platters and serving dishes, the silver flatware etc. The space will still need some tweaking, but it is already developing quite nicely.
The food pantry now has a surprising amount of free shelf space that I will have to ponder on and rearrange, possibly in the coming week (at least that's when I hope to get started on it). I think this will allow me to get a better grip on our stores and use them more wisely. Once I get things a bit more organized, I will try to use my price book and sales etc to replenish things.
We built 4 raised beds in the veggie garden this spring. Those crops did really well, the ones in the remaining garden beds not so much. We will add a few more raised beds next year and hopefully, little by little, we will have a larger selection of crops each year. With canning and dehydrating, we should be able to fill those pantry shelves in no time.
There are many things I would like to do better, but as long as we make progress towards our goals, I am happy.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Today's daily bread...
Look what came out of the oven this morning:
This is the first time I've used the Artisan Bread Topping from King Arthur Flour (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/artisan-bread-topping-8-oz) That stuff is terrific!
This is the first time I've used the Artisan Bread Topping from King Arthur Flour (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/artisan-bread-topping-8-oz) That stuff is terrific!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Goodies!
Here are the wonderful things I found today:
As I mentioned in the last post, I found a great garden ornament at the Design House. The tall white rusted contraption to the right of the chair is it. The globe portion spins around the arrow. The height is fantastic, I can stick it in the back of the bed and it looks lovely (permanent place yet to be determined)
In the Community Center I picked this little goodness up. It's about 14 inches tall.
This came from the same booth as the dress form. I'm not entirely sure where I'll put it, but it is really pretty and it was very reasonable, so I decided to sort it out later.
Ah, cloches, I love them. This is actually my first one, although I do have a very nice short one, which is actually a cheese dome, so I guess that doesn't really count. There is some engraving on the bell, but it didn't show up very well in the pictures I took. Maybe once it's filled it'll be more visible.
After I left Lucketts and returned home, I "happened to be in the neighborhood" of Slindy's, our local treasure trove (sometimes more than others, of course)
This little picnic basket was mine for the bargain price of $1.99. Can't beat that and I already have a need for it next week when we have tickets for Wolftrap.
Also from Slindy's, for the great price of $1.50 is this little covered dish. I have a weakness for tureens, covered dishes and large bowls and if they are white porcelain or ironstone, I find it very hard to resist.
And finally, two aisles over, temptation loomed large. at $6, I didn't even try to resist.
As I mentioned in the last post, I found a great garden ornament at the Design House. The tall white rusted contraption to the right of the chair is it. The globe portion spins around the arrow. The height is fantastic, I can stick it in the back of the bed and it looks lovely (permanent place yet to be determined)
In the Community Center I picked this little goodness up. It's about 14 inches tall.
This came from the same booth as the dress form. I'm not entirely sure where I'll put it, but it is really pretty and it was very reasonable, so I decided to sort it out later.
Ah, cloches, I love them. This is actually my first one, although I do have a very nice short one, which is actually a cheese dome, so I guess that doesn't really count. There is some engraving on the bell, but it didn't show up very well in the pictures I took. Maybe once it's filled it'll be more visible.
After I left Lucketts and returned home, I "happened to be in the neighborhood" of Slindy's, our local treasure trove (sometimes more than others, of course)
This little picnic basket was mine for the bargain price of $1.99. Can't beat that and I already have a need for it next week when we have tickets for Wolftrap.
Also from Slindy's, for the great price of $1.50 is this little covered dish. I have a weakness for tureens, covered dishes and large bowls and if they are white porcelain or ironstone, I find it very hard to resist.
And finally, two aisles over, temptation loomed large. at $6, I didn't even try to resist.
A Fine Spring Day in Virginia
Today was the first of two days of the Seventh Annual Lucketts Spring Antique Market. Until a few weeks ago, I had never even heard of Lucketts, let alone the market, but after a recommendation I found on a blog I enjoy (I'd love to give credit, but for the life of me I can't remember which blog I found it on, sorry) I looked Lucketts Store up on that interweb thingy and found out that they were about to have their Spring Market, so I marked the day on the calendar and went along my merry way. Turns out, DH is away for the weekend on Reserve business and the weather is great. Lucketts, the town, as well as the store, is a few miles north of Leesburg on 15N. There is a cluster of nifty little antique stores across the street from the Community Center, so the Market included all of the stores as well as booths in and around the community center. I took a few pictures and I wanted to share them with you all.
This is Design House, where I found a great garden ornament. I think I'll post all of my finds in a second post. Anyway, this is a lovely place with neat ideas and decorating items. The prices are quite reasonable and the staff is extremely nice.
This is a picture of the inside, just to give you an idea.
Once more on the outside of the Design House.
Some of the outside vendors in front of the community center. By this time I had my hands full with goodies, so the picture taking dropped of drastically : )
And another one...
This is Design House, where I found a great garden ornament. I think I'll post all of my finds in a second post. Anyway, this is a lovely place with neat ideas and decorating items. The prices are quite reasonable and the staff is extremely nice.
This is a picture of the inside, just to give you an idea.
Once more on the outside of the Design House.
Some of the outside vendors in front of the community center. By this time I had my hands full with goodies, so the picture taking dropped of drastically : )
And another one...
Saturday, May 10, 2008
How it all started
I promised some before and now pictures and after a little bit of digging I found a few pictures that ought to work here.
This picture shows the right front side of the house. The fence encloses what is currently the vegetable garden, although we decided to let it lay fallow this year and just work on amendments and maybe some hardscaping. Instead, we are going to try a share with the local CSA this year.
Here is the same point of view this afternoon. The large shrub in the front of the house, between the windows is a Purple-leafed Plum. Everything else is a bit hard to see, due to the distance, but thats okay.
This picture must have been taken a few moths after we moved in, 5 years ago. The foundation plantings consisted of dwarf Burford hollies and some Rhododendrons.
Slightly different angle, but you can see, there have been lot of additions made to the foundation plantings, including a weeping cherry tree, a weeping atlas cedar and a Japanese maple.
This is the house from the open area (well, actually it's the drainfield). Not much there, except for the satellite dish and some very large boxwoods on the side of the house (north-east orientation).
Much greener! In front of the boxwoods, that you can't really see in this picture, since everything is growing in front of them, has grown up a nice shade bed. Forward and to the left is the main (oldest) sunny border. That border is very exciting this year, it is really starting to coe together and looking really good.
So that's the big picture, I'll talk about the detailed stuff soon.
This picture shows the right front side of the house. The fence encloses what is currently the vegetable garden, although we decided to let it lay fallow this year and just work on amendments and maybe some hardscaping. Instead, we are going to try a share with the local CSA this year.
Here is the same point of view this afternoon. The large shrub in the front of the house, between the windows is a Purple-leafed Plum. Everything else is a bit hard to see, due to the distance, but thats okay.
This picture must have been taken a few moths after we moved in, 5 years ago. The foundation plantings consisted of dwarf Burford hollies and some Rhododendrons.
Slightly different angle, but you can see, there have been lot of additions made to the foundation plantings, including a weeping cherry tree, a weeping atlas cedar and a Japanese maple.
This is the house from the open area (well, actually it's the drainfield). Not much there, except for the satellite dish and some very large boxwoods on the side of the house (north-east orientation).
Much greener! In front of the boxwoods, that you can't really see in this picture, since everything is growing in front of them, has grown up a nice shade bed. Forward and to the left is the main (oldest) sunny border. That border is very exciting this year, it is really starting to coe together and looking really good.
So that's the big picture, I'll talk about the detailed stuff soon.
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