the best nest, or wherein i come out in favor of the interwebs

little bitty nest in a tree in our back yard. much smaller than it appears.
how does this bird know how to decorate it so well - acorn and all - without the interwebs?

it's a well-known fact that i love the internet - blogs, flickr, twitter, facebook, even linked-in. social media butterfly, that's me. well, sorta. within a small-ish circle.  when i began this bloggy adventure in earnest, i explored a lot of different blogs on a lot of different topics. i've pretty much weeded out all of the scrapbooking ones now, but those were kind of where i started. along the way, i found some people who seemed to have a really cool aesthetic that they were sharing - opening their homes and giving glimpses of their lives through their blogs. some, like me, just to share and reach out and make contact and some to sell their wares. i still read quite a few of those. but i think the blogs i am attracted to most these days share their process. they're pretty heavy on handmade (food, quilts, art) thematically, but i love the insight people are sharing into their creative processes.  but, i still love the blogs where people just show us glimpses of their beautifully-lived, well-lit everyday lives.

and i shudder think back to the time before blogs, where we had to figure out what we thought was cool home decor for ourselves. i guess we got our ideas from magazines then or, if we were me, by visiting the golden nugget in downtown las vegas and thinking that brass, glass and a lot of plants were really the way to go. (it was the late 80s, so sue me.)  now, i know better, because i can latch onto trends (mid-century modern, vintage in general, crocheted blankets) a whole lot faster, just by trolling the flickr groups i'm part of.

but in a way, i really envy people like anne, who despite being an ostensibly poor graduate student is a brilliant photographer and all around brainiac, and she cooks gorgeous food in a very deliberate and thoughtful way. i can tell you that i seldom did that as a grad student. i can recall a truly ugly broccoli cheese soup i once made, but which we ate anyway because it tasted great. but i wonder if i'd have done better if i'd had the internet then. i'd like to think i would have. i know i would have appreciated my hand-me-down furniture - i had a gorgeous danish modern desk and dining table & chairs that had belonged to my mom's aunt (where are they now, i wonder?) - a whole lot more.

even more, i envy inna karenina. at 18, she's already a completely stunning photographer and has that ability i've been working so hard on acquiring, that ability to really SEE and capture the world around her and to live in what seems to be a very deliberate way. i was so clueless at 18. if only we'd had the interwebs back then in the dark ages!

and digital photography, it's perhaps that that's done it more than anything else - i download pictures 3-4 times a day on a good day. in the old days, i would take a few pictures, leave the camera, which was some crap old canon snappy, lying in a corner for months, take a few more, leave it again, then finish the roll and eventually take it to be developed. if only i'd known then how cool expired film and light leaks are. but even now, i only know that because of, you guessed it, the internet.

so, moral of the story? if you want the best nest, you've gotta get online....

in spring a (not so) young woman's fancy turns to...cocktails

the sun came out at long last this afternoon. the garden table beckoned. the birds sang. and after a long day at work, the lure of a relaxing cocktail was irresistible. but i didn't feel like an ordinary glass of my old pal chardonnay, nor was it quite warm enough to break out the rosé. the sun-kissed late spring air whispered of something a bit more exotic, something a bit seasonal, something sweet yet tart. in short, a cocktail worthy of one of the first late spring sunshiney days.

i stared into the refrigerator and caught sight of the bright jar of rhubarb syrup i made last weekend, bright and inviting, flecked with black specks of real vanilla suspended in its sweet, slightly thick pink goodness. we'd start there. there was also the ubiquitous bottle of schweppes indian tonic in the fridge-that's-not-a-smeg (sigh). i turned to the liquor cabinet and spied the bottle of thylandia genever, a danish-made, slightly golden historical (tho' newly produced) gin precursor with a whiff of juniper about it. hmm, it sounded perfect. and it was. i give you the rhubarb gin fizz...

the rhubarb gin fizz
it's pinker than this, i couldn't resist a bit of processing

much closer to the true color

you don't need controversial historical gin relatives to make this, use your favorite gin or even vodka. to make the rhubarb syrup, i cooked down about 30 rhubarb stalks (mine are a bit thin, if yours are thick, use less), very slowly with only a little water. after it was cooked, i put it in a strainer over a bowl and let the gorgeous pink liquid drain through, overnight, actually. i didn't press it a whole lot, as i didn't want any bits or pulp in it. then, the next day, i put the clear tart juice back in a pan with a generous cup of sugar (it was probably 3+ C of liquid) and a whole vanilla bean pod that i sliced in half and slowly brought it to a boil. i put it into a canning jar and sealed it, but it's already half gone, as we've used it to make sodas all weekend. as a soda, we had it mixed with plain water or schweppes lemon or fizzy water - it just depends on what you're in the mood for. but it's pretty heavenly with the genevere. tomorrow, i'll give it a whirl with the real stuff - hendrick's, my best and favorite gin (loved by a small handful of people, all over the world).

to make the cocktail, i poured about 3 shots of the rhubarb syrup into a tall glass, one generous shot of genever and filled it up with tonic. perfectly tart yet a bit sweet and with just the right hint of vanilla.

normally, i post recipes over on domestic sensualists, but this one seemed more like a moment of perfect clarity. i am brewing a rhubarb post for over there, so do check in with us soon. but first, grab yourself a nice springy cocktail.

all is quiet on the western front

mathilde is well enough again to go out in the pasture and eat some fresh grass.
she had quite the snot nose on the weekend - a natural consequence of all the new horses she's been around of late.

after a bit of time spent hugging the horse, we had an after-dinner walk around our lake (have i mentioned we have a lake?) in the golden early evening light. the sun finally emerged around 6 or so after being rather shy for most of the day (and the preceding two weeks).

that blurry white spot in the middle is a mean swan.

this time we went over to the other side of our lake. you can see the boat across the way.

it was really pretty, tho' rather overgrown, on the other side.

father and daughter are just fine again after last evening's meltdown. we all have a meltdown once in awhile and there have been a lot of changes around here of late, so i suppose it's all to be expected. but i appreciate very much your supportive comments in regard to my parenting doubts.

i was thinking about that today. our parents never had any doubts. moms of the previous generation just shipped us off to a babysitter, popped a couple of valium and went to play bridge and drink daquiris with their friends. maybe that was quite a healthy way of handling it. we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect these days. and let's face it, nobody's perfect. we just have to do the best we can. and possibly speak to the doctor about that valium prescription...

top books: how many have you read?

the guardian published a list of the top 100 works of fiction of all time. the list was voted upon by 100 top writers from 54 countries and originally released by the Norwegian Book Club. cervantes' don quixote was voted #1, but the others are just listed in alphabetical order.  i love lists like this, even if they are utterly subjective.

here's the guardian's list (i just lifted it from their website, hence the capital letters)...how many have you read?

Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger.
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll's House
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia
Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC).
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays.
Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300).
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight's Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs of Hadrian

at 58, i've got a ways to go, tho' i can say that some of them (berlin, alexanderplatz?) probably aren't on my list. and i find murakami to be distinctly missing, but perhaps he was among those who voted. i'm pleased to see no less than 4 dostoevsky - go russians! but really, where is alice in wonderland, shouldn't that be there somewhere? and really, if celan's poems are there, where is pushkin? and bulgakov is clearly missing. and although i liked zorba the greek, does it really belong on this list? damn these lists, they have a way of making me want to make my own.

resourcestærke forældre

i've written before about resourcestærke forældre. it's a danish phrase that's haunted me ever since it was used in some or other note sent home by the school when sabin was in nulte class (grade 0). directly translated it's "resource-strong parents,"and i'll admit i initially thought it was about money, but it's more metaphorical than that. it's more about how strong you are as a parent - how many resources you have and by resources i think they mean whether you have the proper surplus to be a good parent. do you have the energy, patience and time it takes? do you take the child to activities, do you make her do her homework, do you read enough to her, do you give her a proper lunch, does she brush her hair and teeth on a daily basis, do her socks match, does she have clean clothes, do you make sure she has playdates with her friends?

as i watch the child pull her hair back into a ponytail and run a brush through just the tips of it, i wonder sometimes if i'm particularly resourcestærk. with my tendency want to buy my way out of trouble with her (see recent acquisition of horse) and desire to see new pretty electronics (see recent iPhone and iPad acquisitions) as a bandaid of sorts for hurts both imagined and real, i've had a sneaking suspicion that i'm not doing all that well on the resourcestærk front.

you're given the one chance with a child (well, if you only have the one, like i do), so there's a lot of pressure to get it right. you want that child to have the best opportunities, to be good at things she loves, to see the world, to fly business class (you get the idea)....but it's all so fragile, isn't it? things can seem to be going well and then there's a big giant melt-down and homework doesn't get done and tears flow and threats are issued by a parent (who is not me but who shall remain nameless) in a moment of non-resourcestærke-ness and frustration and everyone ends up with a big fat headache that can only be cured by going over and hugging the horse and breathing in her horsey-ness and listening to her crunch some grain soothingly. and then you realize it's really the horse that's resourcestærke and you probably should have acquired her long ago, tho' she would probably be pretty heavy on the carrots in the lunchbox if she were making it...

the rain is good for something

when i grow up, i want to be one of the gardeners at legoland. that must be a great job.

thank you all for your thoughtful thoughts on my previous post. i've gotten much less angsty about the whole photo editing thing. as a number of you said, photos have been manipulated since they began, it's actually an integral part of the medium. we're just fortunate to live in a time where we can sit at our computers and do it and not have to putter around in a basement darkroom (tho' one of those appeals as well).

spud brought up an interesting point about it being a bit of a cheat to use someone else's Lightroom presets.  i found myself thinking about that quite a lot of the day. then i realized that i use products of other people's creativity all the time - recipe books, sewing patterns - but what i produce with them ends up something uniquely mine. i see the LR presets as no different than that - after all, the photos i apply them to are my own. at the base of it, i'm a pretty pragmatic person and i don't see any reason to reinvent the wheel. so i thank whoever it was who made that oldskool preset i love so much these days  (tho' most of the flowers above are a new one i found called PH bedtime).

and here's to the beginning of a beautiful week....

rainy day photo manipulation

original - SOOC
those lines you can see are a reflection of the wall behind me in the window that's between me and the rain.

during the time without internet (of which we speak only at a whisper) i had some time to play around a bit more with Lightroom (i'm not so much a photoshop girl, you see, so LR is as close as i come). and although some part of me still feels there's a measure of dishonesty in manipulating the photos, i'll also admit i had a bit of fun. and i learned something about how applying presets (i haven't made my own yet, it's not gone that far) can give a photo a different mood, one which helps you express what you'd like to express with the photo.

this morning, we woke up, once again, to a steady, drizzling, cold rain. it's been cold and dreary for what feels like weeks now and it's just so depressing, even tho' the world is a brilliant green and the flowers are blooming their little hearts out. what i'd like more than anything is to spread a cheery tablecloth on that table out there, get out the chair pillows and serve some cold, refreshing homemade rhubarb fizz. but alas, it's far too cold and rainy for that.

SarahJiDriftwood preset

somehow, this photo treatment makes me feel a bit better about that rainy scene. it has an early 20th century feel to it, like looking out on another time and that somehow makes it better. tho' i still picture sitting out there at the table, with this one, i've got more of a flapper dress on and perhaps a smart beaded headband and i'm definitely smoking a cigarette in one of those elegant holders (and i'm not even a smoker) and sipping a martini. the preset changes the whole mood of the photo and opens a whole new realm of imagination.

Hoddo_blue/yellow preset

this one isn't that far off the original, but it's just far enough that to me it has more depth. the greens are a bit more blue and i feel just that much more longing for the weather to clear and let me sit outside. the darker tones make the table just that much more lonely without me out there. it's closer to what i wanted to express when i took the photo. should i have made these adjustments in camera when i took the shot? perhaps.

what do you think about photo manipulation? is it simply a part of finishing our photos and making them our own? or is it cheating?

kristina wrote about this recently(ish) and you should check her post, as she goes much more into the technical aspects of using Lightroom, as well as asking the "what is real?" question on a more philosophical plane.