Count your blessings

I hit some really bad traffic on the way back from dropping a friend off at the airport.  I decided that it's really not fun to drive a stick shift car in stop-and-go traffic.  Just as I was thinking about how annoying it was, I saw three motorcyclists ahead of me.  Well, it may not be fun to drive a stick shift in traffic, but it's much better than riding a motorcycle!

To-Do List

I made myself a to-do list before heading out for my college roommate's wedding.  Can you guess which item made David laugh?

- something to go with cookie sheet
- recipes
- card for shower; write in card
- card for wedding
- copy most recent pictures to external HD
- choose meal(s) to make; plan food purchases
- paint toenails
- put money on phone

Independence Day

We visited my cousin Katie and her family for July 4th.  First, we got a tour of the town, and the college where Katie's husband, Ben, teaches.

We came back and had lunch.  Here are David and Ben preparing it.

Then we played games.  Katie is a master at Boggle, as are her parents, and a number of my other cousins and aunts and uncles.  Some key games that I always remember being played at family reunions growing up are Boggle and Pit.  I never could hold my own at Boggle.  So, I made sure we played a non-word game.  And I won.  (I didn't make sure that I won, it just happened that way.  Twice.)

Later, we had a barbeque with some of Katie and Ben's friends, and we went to see fireworks.  They were great.

It was also cool to celebrate the 4th with Ben, because he can tell you a lot of the history.  As he read us the Declaration of Independence after breakfast (a nice tradition), he was also able to explain where some of the philosophies came from, and he pointed out phrases that Jefferson took directly from the writings of John Locke.

The Miracle that is the Eye

It's amazing to realize all the things the eye can see that just can't be replicated by a camera.  We went to Mammoth Cave last weekend, and there were very few things I could get a good picture of.  Using the flash ruined the color of what I wanted to see, and without the flash, the shutter speed was so slow that I couldn't hold the camera still.  Compare (this is the same pit):

Okay, so at this size, it's hard to tell how blurry the 2nd picture is.  Maybe I should just print it out really small.  :)

Anyway, what's amazing is how the eye can see just fine in that low light.  I could see clearly, I could see the variety of colors, and the detail of all the different layers of rock.  The camera also wasn't able to capture the grandeur of the cave.  There were huge climbs and long descents, all the while with a vast amount of space above us.  The eye can see the incredible depth, even in the low light; the camera can't.  I also think it's amazing how the brain adjusts the images it receives so that you can see when you're moving, without feeling the crazy up and down of a home video.

I also thought about eyesight as I took a bunch of bad pictures of fireworks on July 4th.  Here's the good one I got:

That was just another reminder of how miraculous eyesight is.

Something isn't right when . . .

Something is just not right when I find mold growing on my super-moist cake because I haven't been eating it fast enough.

Picture-taking

I've been thinking about pictures.  Each time I go on some outing, and take a ton of pictures (read, about 80), I think back.  When I was 12, I took 24 pictures in an entire week at camp.  My first year of college, I took 24 pictures.  (Granted, I got digital pictures from friends' cameras.)  In part, it was because my camera was a bit unwieldy to carry around,

and by the time I got the lighting set and the image focused, whoever was getting their picture taken was getting antsy.  And in part, it was because I didn't want to deal with having my film developed.

I bought my digital camera in 2004.  Since then, I've taken almost 4700 pictures.  That's close to 700 a year.  And then I have pictures I've collected from other people's cameras.  I have a lot of pictures to document the last 7 years of my life.  And then I think about what will actually be worth looking at again.  What, 20 years from now, will I actually look back at?  I'm getting better at deleting bad pictures, or even a good picture, when I took 3 of the same thing, and picked my favorite.  I don't want to have tons of pictures I never look at.  I'd rather have a few choice ones.

And, since I can't really talk about taking pictures without posting some, here are some favorites (without people in them) that I've taken over the past 7 years.

And then there was one

I found some lovely glass drinking glasses at a thrift store a number of years ago.  I bought as many as I could find that matched--7.  And they were great.  (I have problems with cheap plastic glasses--I can't stand the way they feel against my mouth.)

When I moved across the country for grad school, one broke in transit.  When David came to visit me, he broke one.  The next time David came to visit me, I broke one.  After we got married, I broke one.  Then David broke one.  Then, a few weeks ago, I broke another.  Now, there is just one lone glass.