My friend Heather thinks I owe you a retraction. Remember this post, where I congratulated myself for my level-headedness and maturity in managing to pull myself out of a frenzy of consumeristic covetousness and NOT impulse-buy a new iPhone 4S? She thinks I owe you a retraction because I went out and actually did buy the new iPhone four days later. I think I deserve a medal for waiting for four whole days. And pro haggler that I am, I managed to wrangle a deal on my data plan so that I’m actually paying less per month for wireless than I was for our ancient non-data-plan Krazr, so we’ll save the price of the new iPhone in about a year and a half. Yay!
And oh my sweet lord, what a treat is the new iPhone 4S! I have only barely begun to figure out the voice-activated Siri stuff, but the camera? Wow! Well here, don’t let me tell you — let me show you!
“Hey, look Willie! Mom got a new iPhone!”
I went out for a drive on Sunday to take some pictures and started playing with Hipstamatic, an app I’ve had on my iPhone for more than a year but never warmed to. I’m kinda digging it now! (Do you like the digital sticky tape holding the collage together? I added that in Photoshop.)
This was the view from my office window when the sun hit an icy tree on Sussex Drive, also via Hipstamatic.
And this one is straight-up out of the iPhone, no app required. (I have been coveting a wide-angle lens for my Nikon so I can do this kind of big-nose distortion, but the iPhone’s angle of view is just wide enough to satisfy my creative urge for now!)
And speaking of the Nikon, I didn’t abandon it entirely this week. I’m glad I had it with me on Monday when this spectacular sunrise lit up the sky over the Byward Market. No colour enhancement on this one, I just pointed my camera and clicked.
You might have seen this one in my post yesterday. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but only recently had enough skill to be able to make it come out like I planned in my head. The text is actually added after the fact in Photoshop, which means I can put up just about any message I want. I’m thinking it might make a fun new blog header one of these days.
As I said on Flickr, stand by for the “I am so much more than just a mom with a camera” version. 
Speaking of which, I’ve made a few allusions recently to Internet drama. I thought you guys would get a kick out of this. I got tangled up in a war of words on a Flickr forum recently with Ottawa photographer Paul Couvrette, who called me a “mamarazzi” and criticized me for (among other things) undercharging for prints and making my pictures available online. While the criticism stung at the time, especially since it was more or less unprovoked and definitely overly vicious and personal, the apology he later posted was laugh-out-loud funny. I had no idea at the time, but apparently he had “personified [Dani] as an icon of the ill direction towards which I believe photography may well be headed.” Nice, eh? I’ve never been called an icon of anything, let alone the downfall of an entire industry. And I thought I was just taking pictures because it made me happy. So if I hike my prices next year, you can blame Paul Couvrette.
Mostly, though? I still just love taking pictures.
And hey, this made me feel a lot better. I got my Getty Images sales statement at the end of the week, and this picture from October apparently ran in the Wall Street Journal during December.
And this picture of Willie was bought by a company that makes greeting cards and calendars with titles like “Napping Cats of 2012.”
Hmmm, can you guess which one I’ll be adding to my “as seen in” portfolio? I mean, the WSJ is great, but the Napping Cats of 2012 calendar? Does it get more prestigious than that?!
Cuz yanno, sometimes a picture does say it so much better than a thousand words could.
I read somewhere in the Ottawa media recently that today, January 19, is the official “dead of winter.” Today is the date with the lowest average daily temperature of the entire year, and the average daily temperature creeps upward from here. So now we can officially say that winter is more than half behind us.
I was trying to pacify myself with that thought as I scraped that merciless ice off my windows at sparrow’s first fart yesterday morning in the rampaging wind. Summer is coming!!
Since winter is on it’s last legs (heh, maybe a little too optimistic?) you might as well get out and enjoy it during Manotick’s official winter carnival, Shiverfest! It runs next weekend, January 27 through 29.
There will be horse-drawn sleigh rides, a chili-cookoff, a photography contest, a trivia night, bands, reptiles, a kids’ play area and more! You can check out this PDF for details on the full weekend of activities.
It’s a snow day here in Ottawa today. The buses have been cancelled and while the schools are still open, we’ve decided to let the boys stay home. I usually ship ‘em off as even in the most treacherous conditions I think they’re better off for a few hours at school than at home, but by a fluke of scheduling both Beloved and I were home anyway, so we let them stay home for a treat.
Now that the kids are older, they’re better at entertaining themselves even on a long day at home. They like to play board games, and we’ve always got a craft of some sort on the go. And of course, there are the ubiquitous video games.
Snow days are such a break from routine that it’s fun to find something unique to do. Just a few days ago, I blogged a few more of my favourite indoor activities, including bead crafts and scavenger hunts. If you’re feeling like comfort food, how about baking up some rainbow cupcakes? Or maybe just whipping up a batch of home-made playdoh?
It’s pretty easy to pass the day with older kids, but sometimes not so much with babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Conveniently, my friends at Fisher-Price just shared this awesome new tool for inspiring playtime with your kids. I remember how hard it was coming up with ideas on how to play with a baby, especially when Tristan was a newborn, but there are dozens – maybe even hundreds – of great suggestions here on games to play with kids from newborn to school age.
From the simple idea of tummy talking for babies under 3 mos to the classic “red light, green light” for toddlers to storybook theatre for older kids, there are tonnes of great ideas. I like how each game also has information about which learning skill you’re stimulating and even some basic safety cautions. Wouldn’t this be a great tool for a young babysitter looking for ways to interact with kids as well? I really wish I’d had access to this when I was a new mom!
As I’m writing this post, I’m remembering how long those early days could seem, home with a baby who couldn’t entertain himself with Super Mario Bros or endless episodes of Max and Ruby. Isn’t it funny how while you’re in them, it seems like those days will never end and suddenly you realize that they’re long behind you?
If you could make one suggestion to help another parent pass a long winter day at home with the kids, what would it be?
(Disclosure: I am part of the Fisher-Price Play Panel and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.)
I am crazy busy this week. I don’t have time for Internet drama (but oh, there is drama) and I don’t have time for the forecasted 30+ cm of snow between now and Friday (seriously!) and I really don’t have time to talk at any length about coffee. But as we discussed on Twitter this weekend, it’s a simple fact of life: coffee sometimes trumps all.
I just got a press release from Tim Hortons. I am still not sure I’ve forgiven them for their Christmas cup faux pas, but I wanted to put this out there for your opinion. Apparently, they’ve broadened their coffee cup line so that starting next Monday a small is now an extra-small, a large is now a medium and an extra-large is four ounces bigger than it used to be.
From the press release:
Tim Hortons announced it will be brewing its biggest cup yet, with this month’s introduction of a brand new extra large cup. Beginning January 23rd, the new cup will offer coffee lovers across Canada a premium quality, extra large coffee at a value price. To accommodate the brand new cup, the names of the other hot cup sizes have shifted: the original small is now extra small, the medium is now small and so forth. The change in names of the hot cup sizes will apply to all hot beverages – guests will still receive the same amount of coffee for the same price, only the name of the size has changed.
I’m happy that they didn’t drop the small entirely, as since my last post on the subject of Tim’s cup sizes (hey, what can I say, I’m obsessed) I’ve grown kind of fond of the kiddie-size small — soon to be known as the extra-small. But do we really need to buy our in coffee 2/3 of a litre containers? I’m a hard-core coffee drinker and even I’m not sure I’d have many occasions to order THAT much coffee at a time.
What say ye, bloggy peeps? Do you need your entire daily recommended dose of caffeine in one 24-ounce hit, or is there such a thing as too big a cup of coffee?
After a notable absence, winter has arrived with a vengeance in Ottawa recently. I can’t wait to get out and start taking pictures of the great snow dump we got yesterday — but I might wait until the temperatures warm up a bit beyond the current minus 30 with the wind chill. Brrrr!
But heck, winter lasts a long time here in the world’s snowiest capital city, so you kind of have to suck it up and get outside and enjoy it. Like this!
And then you have to stand by patiently and look cute while your mom takes your picture. Again.
Or maybe you ham it up a bit and hope she’ll go away and let you get back to playing in the snow.
And then you can go back to this.
Speaking of getting out in the winter, can you believe I’ve never walked the full loop from the Interprovincial Bridge to the Portage Bridge and back? It’s a gorgeous five kilometre loop and takes just a little bit less than an hour to walk, even if you stop every now and then to take a picture or five. I’ve vowed to try to do it once a week, weather be damned, until my jeans are feeling a little less snug.
(I’ve also discovered the Pano app for my iPhone. How have I missed this before now? This one was taken on the Portage Bridge, facing Parliament Hill.)
More Peace Tower shots. I can’t help myself!
From icy and blue to warm and soft — you might remember this shot from earlier in the week. Tristan spontaneously asked if he could read Lucas a bedtime story, and then proceeded to read to him for half an hour. This one is a keeper.
Heh. The boys pointed out that not only do my multicoloured toes match my jammies, but they both match my coffee cup.
Photo tip: to catch the cat staring directly into your lens, compose your photo and then scritch your fingernail against the side of your lens. Snap! (There’s nothing I can suggest to erase the vague look of disdain, though!)
(If you read an earlier version of this post, there was some misinformation from a hacked account in here. Carry on, folks, nothing to see here.)
I’ll let ee cummings have the last word on this one. 
