Month: May 2010

The 100 push-ups challenge – week four!

Maybe it’s because I had to call a do-over for week 3, or maybe it’s because I’m starting to build up some actual upper body strength, but you know what? The push-ups weren’t so hard last week. In fact, on Day 2 of Week 3, I just about breezed through my sets, cranking out 52 of them, and then went on to crank out 57 on Day 3. Woot! More than half way to the goal of 100 push-ups!

Just when I was feeling all full of myself and my newly discovered awesomeness, I got knocked down a peg or two at the gym. I’d dropped down on the mat and pulled off what I considered a completely excellent 20 push-ups in a single set (!) when I looked over at a guy in the corner. He had a heavy ball that he was rolling back and forth from hand to hand in between each push-up. As I watched, he did more than 20 without pausing, and I have no idea how long he’d been doing them before I noticed him. So I waited until he’d gone, got my own ball and tried it out — and I think I still have the bruise on my sternum from where I fell on the ball. I think I’ll stick to the regular push-ups and try not to get cocky from here on in.

How are y’all doing?

Thank you Canadian Family Magazine!

I‘ve been a fan of Canadian Family magazine online for quite a while now, so when the boys were selling magazines to raise funds for their school, I bought a subscription to Canadian Family (and one to Popular Photography, too!) I’ve been consistently impressed with it — articles worth reading, shopping tips for real families, and excellent recipes. (If I weren’t so pressed for time, I’d link to a few of the articles I enjoyed — stay tuned, I’ll try to remember to come back and do that!)

All that to say, I was honoured to get an e-mail last week letting me know that Canadian Family had chosen Postcards from the Mothership as one of its Top 53 Mommy Blogs. Here’s my little page in their slideshow, and here’s a link to all the awesome blogs they featured, by category. (Scroll down, past the graphic at the top. The content is in the middle of the page.)

Thank you so much for including me, Canadian Family. I’m honoured to be in such good company!

Edited to add: And look, there’s badges!!

canadianfamily.ca

If there’s badges, it *must* be cool! 😉

New blog banners!

It’s been nearly nine months since I created any new blog banners from my photographs, and I’ve taken a few (!!) new pictures since then. So, my menfolk gave me exactly what I wanted for Mother’s Day: a couple of hours to futz about in Photoshop and make up some new banners.

Whaddya think?

New blog banners

The one with the pears doesn’t quite work as well as a banner as an image, and the one with the typewriter keys at the top is a little busy — but they’ll do! You can click the refresh button a few times to see them in action. There’s 15 custom header images altogether now, and they rotate randomly.

Did you get to do something you love to do on Mother’s Day, even if just for a few minutes?

A new Flickr group for Ottawa photographers and dilettantes like me!

While I’ve been on Flickr for more than five years, it was only in the last year or two that I really started participating in the social side of the medium, posting my photos to groups and participating in group discussions.

I’ve learned so much about photography, but I like to think I’ve also learned just a little bit about what it takes to run a group that’s helpful and welcoming and a fun place to hang out online. Lofty goals, but with a co-admin like Angela, aka jhscrapmom, I think we’re up to the task!

So please, if you’re in the Ottawa area and you take pictures, or like pictures, or like to hang around with peeps from Ottawa who take (or like!) pictures, come and play with us in the Postively Ottawa group.

Positively Ottawa

a group to share your ottawa and ottawa area photos
a group to share your photos if you are an ottawa area photographer
a group to share your ottawa blogs
a group to share your ottawa experiences
a group to share your photographic experience
a group to learn from
a group to ask questions in
a group to positively participate in

and in the spirit of positivity we welcome photographers from beginner to professional!

we play nice here. promise.
and we follow all flickr guidelines. we are funny like that.
this is a family friendly group, please moderate your photos accordingly.

Cuz, yanno, I don’t spend enough hours in the day with either a keyboard attached to my hands or a camera stuck to my face. *grin* And speaking of pictures, here’s my own favourite of the week.

449:1000 Yoshiback ride

A keeper, for sure, don’t you think? Now come and join our group — you know you want to!!

The Thousand Picture Project – it’s been a while!

Holy cats, it’s been more than six weeks since I posted an update about my thousand picture project! Don’t worry, I haven’t stopped taking pictures — far from it! While I haven’t quite kept up the 365 project pace of one photo every single day, I’ve still been carrying my camera with me and truly loving the act of taking pictures.

See, here’s what six weeks’ worth of Thousand Picture Project looks like:

Thousand picture project

1. 447:1000 Wake up lilacs! (TtV), 2. 446:1000 Bleeding hearts TtV, 3. 445:1000 Tulip sunshine TtV, 4. 444:1000 NRC shiny ball TtV, 5. 443:1000 April is Fickle, 6. 442:1000 Tulip macro abstract, 7. 441:1000 Tulips to the sky, 8. 440:1000 At the firestation TtV, 9. 439:1000 Hello spring TtV, 10. 438:1000 Book club, 11. 437:1000 Calypso tour – Pirate’s Aquaplay TtV, 12. 436:1000 Puzzle bokeh, 13. 435:1000 A little daff action, 14. Boots on the beach, 15. 434:1000 Hello rock!, 16. 432:1000 Splash TtV, 17. 431:1000 Toddlers on the beach, 18. 430:1000 (Almost) Happy Bench Monday TtV, 19. 429:1000 Spring at the park TtV, 20. 428:1000 Tristan at the Farm, 21. 427:1000 TtV Daff, 22. 426:1000 Baby Everitt (1 of 10), 23. 425:1000 Happy Easter!, 24. 424:1000 After the sidewalk paint, 25. 423:1000 Newborn toes!, 26. 422:1000 Katie TtV, 27. 421:1000 Just ducky, 28. 420:1000 Mancala TtV, 29. 419:1000 Daddy kiss, 30. 418:1000 Lucas on the loose

You’ve already seen a lot of these already, my Calypso Park pictures and my amazing day at the lake with Angela and my first family portrait shoot with the adorable baby Everitt. Here’s a few more of my favourites from the last month or so.

He’s two now, and soon I won’t be able to take these kinds of pictures of his adorable toddler parts. It makes me nostalgic for something that I haven’t even lost yet…

418:1000 Lucas on the loose

I love the light in this one, and how they’re staring right into each other’s eyes. (At least he’s finally learned to kiss with his mouth shut.)(I’ll let you figure out which “he” I mean.)

419:1000 Daddy kiss

I love this one a little bit because of the picture itself, but mostly because it makes me laugh when I remember that night. I’d found the puzzle in a closet and figured he was about the right age for it. I had no idea he’d become instantly obsessed with it. For more than an hour (and may I remind you, an hour in toddler time = three years in grown-up time!) we worked our way through the alphabet over and over again. “Where does the A go?” he would ask in the most adorable little singsong voice. And then he’d answer himself, without pausing for breath, “I don’t know! Oh, right there!” Then he’d show me the next letter and I’d tell him it was a K and he’d repeat, “Where does the K go? I don’t know! Oh, right there!” For AN HOUR. Way too cute for words or pictures!

436:1000 Puzzle bokeh

And then the flowers started blooming and I was delighted. I love love love how these tulips came out. I made the sky that vaguely turquoise colour with a Photoshop action called Urban Acid that I use sometimes in my TtV stuff. The colours really work well together, don’t they?

441:1000 Tulips to the sky

This is the same day, but with a close-up filter on my lens. (One of the things I love about the Thousand Picture Project, as opposed to the 365 Project, is that I can take five good pictures on one day and then dole them out as the picture of the day for most of a week. Yes, I’m aware that they are capricious and arcane rules that nobody cares about except me. But I’m okay with that.)

442:1000 Tulip macro abstract

And, I have been having a LOT of fun with TtV lately. All the gorgeous flowers I “discovered” last year during my 365 project are now equally engaging through the viewfinder of my trusty old Duaflex. See?

ttv spring

Okay, so that bottom right one is not really a flower. It’s the giant sphere sculpture on the National Research Council campus on Montreal Road. Doesn’t it look like an alien spacepod or something?

Speaking of through-the-viewfinder, last week I scored an old Starflex camera and I can’t wait to start taking pictures with it. I have to wait, though, because it had an exposed roll of film in it (!!) when I bought it, and I’ve handed it over to a friend with a film lab in his basement to see if it can be processed. How cool is that? I’ll let you know if anything — develops. (har har har, I slay me — I’m here all week, try the veal!)

The 100 Push-ups Challenge — Week 3 Revisited

Oops. I kind of dropped the ball on the 100 push-up challenge last week. First, the exhaustion test tired me out so efficiently on Monday that I didn’t do Day 1 until Tuesday — and after that, I was so off kilter that I completely forgot to do Day 2 until Saturday at the gym, and by then I’d pretty much given up on Week 3 entirely.

I call for a do-over!

Besides, is it me or is the jump from Week 2 intensity to Week 3 intensity a little harsh? From the end of Week 2 to the beginning of Week 3 the darn thing demands an extra ten or a dozen push-ups. Yeesh!

And hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you — what exactly is the definition of “rest time” between sets? I can sit and stare at my iPod counting down the 60 seconds between sets on Day 1, but the 120 seconds on Day 3 seems like an awfully long pause. Am I allowed to do anything except wish I were naturally muscular doing the rest period? I’ve taken to tidying between sets. Five sets with two minutes between each = 10 minutes of cleaning, which is more than I do on most days. (Not really. But every little bit helps!)

Or am I allowed to do some other exercise that doesn’t tax my already shaky arms? Leg lifts, maybe? What do you think? Or should I just lie on the floor in the child position and wait for the universe to send me more energy so I can get through the next set?

Week 3, here I come! Again.