Padiddle...London traffic in our living room

Husband travels to London on business several times a year. Every time he goes, Ethan asks for one thing--a black cab or a double-decker bus. I do believe that when we finally end up making the trip overseas with Husband at some point, the most transcendent part of the entire experience for Ethan will be seeing these two iconic London vehicles in person.

Because of the frequency of Husband's trips, we are in possession of a small fleet of both buses and taxis and are fully capable of recreating a mini-traffic jam (oh, we also recently added a Mini Cooper to our mix, for the record) on our own living room floor. Like this one.

Apparently little British boys & girls are far more reserved with their toy cars, or the "choking hazard" laws aren't quite as stringent there because Ethan's taxis and buses are forever having wheels pop out or, as is the case in the picture above, headlights breaking right off. Which led Ethan to learning his favorite word--padiddle. Who can blame him? It's a fun word. And you should be able to have some fun when you're sitting in traffic.

Too Hot

Autumn, WHERE are you??!!!!

Nothing

This week's Sunday Creative prompt was "Nothing." How to capture nothing? Oh my head. I wanted to find a way to make "nothing" a positive, full of something while being nothing. It's taken me awhile to come up with a picture I feel captures "nothing" in a hopeful, powerful light; but I remembered this picture I took a few weeks ago in Santa Cruz, and realized it had to be my Sunday Creative picture:

The roots of this tree, hovering at the edge of the cliff, are clinging to nothing. Who knows how long it has been there, growing those amazing tendrils down into the ground. One thing is certain, it won't be there much longer. Even with those tenacious roots, nothing is going to be able to keep that tree from toppling over the edge of the beach cliff as the soil below it erodes away. In one sense, that makes me sad--I thought, "how sad to have lived all that time, grown and developed such extensive roots, only to slide off the side of a cliff into oblivion." But then I realized that on the beach, the tree will be a home for sandpipers or a lookout perch for gulls. When it slides out to sea, it will be a play ground for the otters and sea lions that hang out at this beach. So my initial lament of "It was all for nothing," turns out not to be true after all. And there's nothing more hopeful than finding "something" worthwhile in "nothing."

Half To Have It...

There's been a bit of a hiccup in my 365 plan, in the form of pneumonia last week. I just couldn't quite find the motivation to take pictures and post them. So I guess the 365 blog now becomes the 365+7 blog. Perhaps since I have been generally posting more than one shot a day, I can justify those days off? Either way, I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things--I have been loving carrying my camera around and seeing more of the world through it's lens these past few weeks and I definitely felt like I was missing something integral to my experience last week when I didn't pick up the camera.

Today we went to Half Moon Bay, and visited my favorite little antique & rusty treasures spot, Half to Have It. I can't go there without taking copious amounts of pictures; my son loves it because it's one of the few places where I am not all up in his business trying to take pictures of him like his own personal paparazzo. Today my camera feasted on these treasures:

this Buddha makes me so happy, I can't stop looking at him. He's going to end up on my wall, I think.

The Sunday Creative--Abundance

FINALLY, the apples are ready for picking. And suddenly, it seems, we go from none at all, to almost an overabundance.

21/365 The Lone Lime

I kept finding limes tucked in window sills and on benches all over the farm yesterday. Why? I have no idea. I'm kind of hoping it was some sort of time-honored farm-y tradition, but who knows? One of life's weird little random findings...

You Capture

This week was "your choice" for the You Capture challenge, and the idea was to learn something new about yourself and your photography. Welllll, right now I'm just kind of obsessed with Picnik and most of my learning this week has revolved around learning how to use it for photo editing. These pictures are from Ardenwood Farm in Fremont, CA.

19/365 Photo Walk #1

This morning while my son was in preschool, I strolled through town and took pictures of whatever caught my eye. In what was at first a pretty embarrassing turn, at pick up this afternoon, one of the other moms said, "Did I see you walking through town with a camera this morning?"

I said "yes," felt the need to qualify and stumbled over a lot of "Oh, I was just goofing off. I don't really know how to take a picture," and "I'm just trying to teach myself some basics," etc. It's really unnerving to be caught out in public with a camera when you truly don't know the first thing about taking a picture and your camera is on "auto." You (and by "you," I mean, clearly, "I") feel like a grade A poser out there, snapping pictures and wondering if you have any natural talent or if your time wouldn't be better spent at home doing another load of laundry and planning a few more meals.

But the other mom just chuckled and said, "Well, you looked so happy out there!" and continued on with her son to their car. And it made me realize that, while I felt a bit awkward, walking through town with my camera around my neck and stopping to take pictures at store fronts and church yards, I actually was really happy. Being behind a camera and seeing through the lens and then seeing what I've seen reflected back at me on the screen, does make me happy.

18/365

He tolerates me...

but just barely...

Party

Today was all about parties. A back to school brunch with Ethan's entire school, followed by a fabulous back yard BBQ with good friends. One of those days that remind you that life is pretty sweet.

You Capture--Signs

Okay, so I'm a couple of days late with the You Capture, which is supposed to be on Thursdays, but with all the holiday stuff, I've didn't really keep up with the schedule. This week's challenge was "signs" and while I had hoped to get all abstract & deep with that, my brain space was limited this week, so I just went with good old-fashioned signs.

From our trip to the farm last Sunday:

and from our trip to the apple festival and Berkeley today:

A Big Old Round Loaf of Shabbat Shalom

Not a lot of time for taking pictures today because in between two play dates and preparing a brisket (holiday tradition is all about food, right?), I was busy making this: a Rosh Hashanah challah--spiraled and round instead of braided, to symbolize the continuum of time.

It's the first time I've ever made bread from scratch, with the sifting the flour, the making a well in the bowl, and the separating eggs and the kneading and rising, kneading and rising. And the clouds of flour all over the place, all. day. long.

It's not a gorgeous piece of bread, but it tastes like challah, so it works for me.