Two Postcards!

Project 365: Day 27

I love getting mail, and I especially love getting fun postcards from traveling friends. Yesterday I was lucky enough to come home to find 2 such postcards in my mailbox! One was from Ann and Lee who vacationed this year in the Shenandoah Valley, hiking the Appalachian Trail. The other one was from my dear friend Brian who is traveling the globe this year. He sent birthday wishes all the way from Argentina!

Good Morning in the Garden

Project 365: Day 26

Yesterday morning I stopped into my garden before work for the first time after being away for 4 days. I asked a fellow gardener to water it while I was gone and she must have done a great job, since we're experiencing drought conditions right now. I had a bunch of Sungold tomatoes (above), 3 sandwich bags full of green beans and 3 huge cucumbers.

Bonus photo of some green beans:

Escher Ball

Project 365: Day 25

On Tuesday, Mac and I stopped at a gallery in CT to see some MC Esher prints and in the room with most of the prints there is this gazing ball, which is a reference to his famous self portrait. Mac and I had fun taking photos in it. Here you can see most of the room and Mac reflected in the ball on the left side.

Beautiful Walden Pond

Project 365: Day 24

On Monday, Mac and I headed from the wedding hotel to Walden Pond. It was a bit of an adventure getting parking and getting into the park on a hot summer day, but we finally did and it was so worth it. This is a photo of the little nook we used to get into an out of the lake. We spread out a towel and enjoyed the coolness of the water on this perfect day for a swim.

Skee Ball at Fun-o-Rama

Project 365: Day 23

If their is one thing I like to do when I'm in a beach town, it's play Skee Ball. All of the "kids" woke up early so that we could get in some rounds before Mac and I had to leave for his friend's wedding that afternoon. We went to Fun-o-Rama in York, ME had a great time. See more photos in the blog post about the weekend!

Fireworks in York, ME

Project 365: Day 22

I was lucky enough to get to see two sets of fireworks this year. Mac and I drove from Princeton to Maine on Saturday and enjoyed the evening with Sylvie and Miriam and their families, including seeing the fireworks shot off from the beach near their house. We had a great vantage point and it was a good show. This is a 15 second exposure, looking out over the water.

Grammy Gramps Camp

Project 365: Day 21

Friday I had the pleasure of taking the afternoon off, doing a little outlet shopping before my trip this weekend and then heading down to South Jersey to enjoy some time at my parent's at the tail end of Grammy Gramps Camp. My parents, Grammy, John, Nathaniel and I all headed out for Chinese food and had a lovely dinner. John even tried tofu and deemed it "nasty", but I'm glad he at least tried it. This is a photo of them being silly outside the restaurant.

Early Fireworks

Project 365: Day 20

Princeton held its town fireworks on July 1st this year, which works out well since I'll be out of town for the 4th. It was nothing compared to the Reunions fireworks show, but it was still fun. I got there early and spread out a blanket and made some phone calls and read the New Yorker. It was a beautiful evening to just be outside, and the people watching was great. Mac arrived just in time for the show. They did just one, two or three fireworks at a time, until the finale when they just set off tons. I liked the simplicity of this single shot vs. the chaos of the finale.

Purple Toes

Project 365: Day 19

I got a pedicure a couple days ago. The color is a little darker than I thought it would be, but it's still nice. I'm already looking forward to picking out a new fun color for a pedicure in Cape May!

Dead Grass

Project 365: Day 18

There used to be a sculpture on the lawn outside the art museum on campus. Now, there is just a perfect rectangle of dead grass there. They're trying to water it, but I think it might be a lost cause. We haven't had rain in a week and there's no rain in the forecast for days to come. It's been a long, hot early summer.

Snoozing

Project 365: Day 17

It's usually me who falls asleep on the couch, but this time Mac took a little snooze in the air conditioned coolness while I filled out some paperwork and did the dishes.

Keys

Project 365: Day 16

In the nearly two years that I've lived in my apartment there has been a continuing dispute between the landlord and one of the other tenants about access to the basement, which has resulted in there being 4 different padlocks, with 4 different keys throughout my time here. Somehow all of the old keys have ended up in one spot on my counter (you know, in case they bring back one of the old locks). So here they are, all 4 keys to the basement.

Enjoying the Pool

Project 365: Day 15

Sebastian is now tall enough to stand tippy-toe in the shallow end of my parents' pool. But when he's not standing on his tippy-toes, he's doing a great job of becoming a stronger swimmer. On Saturday he was all over the shallow end with these noodles.

Emerson, I mean, Batman

Project 365: Day 14

While I was babysitting this weekend Emerson had a blast dressing up in his Batman cape and striking some Batman poses. He is so serious when he does this, sometimes if you call him Emerson he says "I'm not Emerson, I'm BATMAN!".

Fireflies

Project 365: Day 13

The fireflies have been really outstanding the past few nights, so I thought that I should try to do some firefly photos. My first idea was to catch some in a jar and do a close-up long exposure to try and get them lighting up. So I caught some in a jar, with Mac's help, and alas, they didn't light up. I saw one glimmer, once and that was it. So I took my camera out to the yard and did some long exposures using just the ambient lights from the newspaper offices that are a few doors down. I like the shadows that they cast on the side of the old cinderblock garage and if you look really close (click the image to make it bigger) you can see one little streak of firefly on the left side of this photo. I'll have to play around some more with this firefly idea and see if I can get any better results.

HHH

Project 365: Day 12

The big news this week is the Heat Wave. And in NJ it's not just heat, it's HHH - Hazy, Hot and Humid. I had this glass of water out on my back deck for about minute before it got all sweaty. That's about how long it took me to get all sweaty, too. Thank goodness for my one little A/C unit that works to cool off 2 of the 3 rooms of my apartment.

Root Beer Float Fail

Project 365: Day 11

Last night I was really looking forward to a Root Beer Float, one of my favorite summertime treats. I bought vanilla ice cream and came home and scooped some of the half-melted ice cream into a glass and then reached all the way to the back of my fridge for a can of root beer and when I opened it up it bubbled up like crazy. Thankfully I made it to the sink before it spilled all over the kitchen. When I went to pick up the can I realized that it was completely frozen. I ended up pouring what I could into the now completely melty ice cream and enjoying what ended up being a root beer smoothie. It still tasted good, but I'm looking forward to a real root bear float sometime soon.

Thriving Garden, with tomatoes!

Project 365: Day 10

It was a very exciting morning in the garden! I noticed yesterday that one of these little cherry tomatoes was almost ready to go, but this morning it looks like there are 2! And my lettuce is pretty much ready to go, too, and that sounds like a salad! Guess what I'm having for dinner?

Bonus Photos:

Above is an overall shot of one corner of the garden with cauliflower in the front, then lettuce (yellow-green leaves), then green bush beans, and then sunflowers. Everything seems to be doing well. The beans I replanted are starting to come up, and after a massive weeding project this weekend, I replanted the carrots and planted some arugula and bibb lettuce.

This is a teeny little cucumber. The cukes seem to be doing really well this year and they are doing well climbing up the support that I got for them. This is already looking better than last year when most of my cukes ended up with end rot and were inedible. I'm looking forward to having these guys for salads, too!

And here is the progress on the Sungold tomatoes: Above are some blossoms toward the top of the plant (almost up to my chin!) and then below are some of the earliest fruits still waiting to turn yellow. I can't wait!

So far the garden seems to be looking good. It's going to be a hot, dry week so I'm going to try and check in every day and just make sure everything is doing OK.

Morning Glories: Sprouting!

Project 365: Day 9

Last week I did a little renegade gardening and planted morning glory and moonflower seeds in my yard and my neighbor's yard. I also planted some in pots on my front porch, hoping that they'll climb up the rusting metal handrail. And Sunday morning I woke up and they had sprouted! It's one of my favorite times when things just start to sprout. It's like a magic trick that works. I don't think I'll ever grow tired of this amazing little moment of gardening.

Chioggia Beet

Project 365: Day 8

I picked up some Chioggia Beets at the farmer's market on Thursday and took advantage of a cool Saturday morning to roast them in the oven. The fun thing about these beets is that they have a lovely candy-striped interior. And this one has a little heart shape, too.