Archives for December 2011

Geriatric Monty

December 24, 2011 by Jen

I’ve been going through my photos and posted a few to Flickr that I took with my Project 365 in mind, but didn’t quite make the cut. Or they’re photos I just took anyway. Here are a few of them.

One of the things I miss about not going out with The Surfer any more is the proximity I had more regularly to the beach. Plans are afoot – albeit long-term plans – to remedy this though. So photos like the one above probably won’t feature as much in my daily photos when I kickstart that again.

This is Monty in my car boot. I jokingly told (well gestured because she’s deaf) her to hop in and she did. I was quite surprised because while it’s not that high off the ground I didn’t realise she was still agile enough.

Now, of course, I didn’t put the boot’s lid down and drive off but as you can see I did take a photo. She looks quite content don’t you think?

Here’s another one of Monty. I have to fatten her up as she’s lost four kilos since she had her last vet’s checkup a year ago. And that’s a fair amount of weight for a dog that only weighed 22kg to start with. The vet said that ‘we have arthritis in our back legs and we might need some medication to make us feel better’. I swear, that’s how she spoke. I felt like telling her that she could talk about the dog, not us. We don’t need medication, the bloody dog does ok? She also kept calling Monty ‘him’ after I’d more than once referred to ‘her’.

This medication would have cost $47 per month. I’ve decided to go the natural route and give her glucosamine powder and fish oil. This way she won’t feel left out with what I take for my sore knees!

Monty, despite her 14+ years, still loves to come for walks with us and she potters around the oval while we’re there. Someone the other day commented that she takes shortcuts across the oval to catch up with me.

I notice that she’s constantly underfoot too. She follows me EVERYWHERE. She never used to follow me around quite as much. I don’t know if it’s because she’s hard of hearing and has to have me in her sights now. While it sometimes becomes annoying I know I’ll miss it like crazy when she’s not doing it any more so I put up with it.

Songs that immediately lift my mood

December 20, 2011 by Jen

As I try to sort out playlists on that iToy contraption of mine I’ve been creating a favourites list. Last Wednesday saw me dancing around the kitchen to some of it. Sometimes JJ and I will crank up the music’s volume and have a dance together and occasionally I’ll do it myself. It makes me feel really good, and it’s good exercise. Here’s a few of those tunes (if viewing this via RSS and can’t see the clips below click through to the site).

What songs would you add?

Lonely Boy – The Black Keys

I’ll bet you have trouble staying still when listening to/watching this clip.

It’s Lunacy – Ed Kuepper

Ed Kuepper is a favourite musician of mine. I haven’t seen him recently but saw him years ago at a local university with the Hoodoo Gurus. Listen to the lyrics – love em.

Fever – Sarah Vaughan [Adam Freeland remix]

Yet another cover version of an older song and I really like how it’s been done. This is a great one to sing along to as well – if you’re into that sort of thing. I might be!

Human Fly – Nouvelle Vague

It takes nearly a minute before the song actually starts and it’s a live version, but it’s a great song – a Cramps cover. It’s also somewhat slower than the music above. I saw Nouvelle Vague a year and a half ago at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and I thoroughly recommend them. They were great.

I know I asked above, but I’m asking again. What song/s make you feel great?

My very own Little Boy Blue

December 17, 2011 by Jen

JJ had a beach day the other day. They weren’t allowed to go swimming – I guess the safety logistics of that are too much. Instead they had to break up into groups and build a sandcastle. each

JJ brought home his group’s plan the night before and a list of things he had to take.

It included food colouring and sand monsters (aka plastic dinosaurs).

I knew as I handed over the blue food colouring that something would happen but as a parent, I thought, I’ve got to trust him don’t I? I can’t even remember what the food colouring was supposed to be used for and as I had to work I couldn’t witness the sandcastle creations.

I arrived at after school care to pick him up and this is what I saw!

I ‘calmly’ asked what had happened and didn’t outwardly didn’t over-react while inside I was thinking ‘what the hell’. Apparently another kid had taken a bottle of blue food colouring as well and the lids had gotten mixed up. JJ put his bottle with the loose lid into his board shorts and it leaked all over his shorts and his leg.

Something like this would only happen to him.

He was more worried about my reaction to losing all the food colouring. He obviously didn’t realise that I might be more worried about removing blue from everything.

Trying to think of the positives, Iwas glad he didn’t put it in his school bag.

He didn’t argue with me when I asked him to have a shower that evening, and luckily I was able to wash the blue out of everything.

Oh, and his group won the sandcastle competition. It wasn’t the blue food colouring that gave them the edge either, it was the ‘sand monsters’.

Photography project

December 14, 2011 by Jen

As regular readers of this blog will know I recently completed my first photography project, ie a photo a day for a year, or ‘Project 365‘.

I’m taking a break from a photo a day until the new year but maybe I need to rethink the aim of the next project. Maybe I need a theme?

A fellow Flickr contact took a photo a day for a year using the same object in each photo. While I admire that I don’t think it’s for me because I’d be bound to go away for a weekend and forget the damn object then where would I be?

Recently I came across a photographer (Jennifer Sando) who had a photography goal of shooting a portrait of a favourite musician, Eddie Vedder, and used her photography to get noticed to reach her goal.

She says:

I’m an up-and-coming photographer based in Adelaide (South Australia) who happens to be a massive Pearl Jam fan. And I would like to take Eddie Vedder’s portrait. (Note that was “portrait” and not “snapshot”.)

I’m very conscious of the fact that Eddie will be doing two solo shows here at the end of March. So I’m striving for an opportunity at that time. Yes, I have tickets.

Until the concert, (which is 84 days away), I will be uploading a black & white photograph every day to spell out the fact that I REALLY want to take Eddie’s portrait. …

She reached her goal and got to take Eddie Vedder’s portrait when he came to Adelaide earlier this year. She wrote:

…this was more than a portrait quest for me. It turned out to be a life-changing journey with major rewards, a big finale, and a new perspective on life.

I couldn’t find anything about what her new perspective on life is. Jennifer? Perhaps you can tell me? I’d love to hear it.

The only reason I know about this project is because Jennifer was at The Gov (an Adelaide music venue and pub) a while ago taking photos one Saturday afternoon of a uke gathering I was at. You can see the photos here.

I think an aim like this is admirable. It gets you doing something you love, to achieve something you want to achieve. Food for thought.

His first piano concert

December 13, 2011 by Jen

JJ’s been learning to play piano for half a year now and his teacher organised the obligatory end of year concert for her students.

I’ve been to primary school aged piano concerts before and they’re usually as boring as all get-out until your child plays in one, then you’re all excited to go.

Well I was.

He’s always been very self-conscious about being required to perform in public even though he’s taken part in various school concerts and events. I thought he might like to join the choir but he was too embarrassed.

So when he told me about the piano concert he said he didn’t want to play because he thought it was going to be in front of the whole school. However, he found out it was only going to be for the piano students and their families so he ummed and aaahed over it for a while.

It wasn’t until the day before the concert that I got a text from his teacher saying that he would perform. I was really excited because I knew this was a big step for him.

A friend (shown above) was somehow allowed to come which was only annoying because they kept talking to each other despite me telling them to be quiet more than once, twice etc!

His teacher accompanied him and he did stuff up at the beginning and do a bit of a giggle but he pulled himself together and played his one short piece.

He won’t let me publish the video I took. I will keep it and show it to him in a year or so to show him the difference. And it will be good fodder to drag out for anyone who cares when he’s a well-known musician.

I was really proud of him, and of all the other kids who got up and had a go, two of whom played original pieces.

Rewind

December 6, 2011 by Jen

I’ve gradually been doing a bit of a cleanout of bits and pieces around the place and there was a box under my bed that if it was a file in a filing cabinet it would have been labelled ‘miscellaneous’. It was full of that stuff that you don’t quite know where else to put.

I went through the box outside because it was so full of dust and I’d just vacuumed. Aside from the photos I found the items shown above. This is how long that stuff’s been lying around.

The little tape was for my analogue answering machine which I haven’t had for ages – BIN.

The Sony Walkman I can’t quite get rid of even though I haven’t got many cassette tapes left. I carted a Walkman around when backpacking in the early 1990s but this was one that a workplace bought me as I was leaving London to do some more travelling in India before I came back to Australia after two years away.

I think up how much room in my backpack my music and books took up and how much room I could save now with existing technology. Perhaps room for more clothes or perhaps a smaller bag. I still hang my head in shame when on a train in Switzerland and an elderly lady had to help me lift my backpack up to the rack because it was too heavy for me to lift by myself.

The camera film is goodness knows how many years old and I’d like to use it but need to find out whether it’s even worth it. Anyone know? I do have an SLR film camera I can put it in and I even remember how to do that.

The TechED 2000 conference pouch was from one of the first conferences I ever went to. It was in Cairns and lots of my colleagues came along. Some of us had won some award money I think which helped pay our way. I don’t know how useful a very technical conference was to me at the time but I had a good time. Microsoft used to put on (and maybe they still do) great conference parties. This one was a Mad Max themed party which nearly didn’t go ahead because of excessive rain. But go ahead it did and we had a ball.

The box also had some photos of me in hospital while giving birth to my son which happened just over ten years ago. I burned some of them they were that graphic. I don’t even remember my friend taking them but no future generations needed to see them! I just wish I could remember if I’ve burned the negatives too. Oh well, if someone wants to go through them one day I either won’t be around or I won’t care. I also had some photos of my son’s father which I’ve given to him. There were even some reusable breastfeeding pads in there. What was I thinking when I kept those?

The next things on my list to clean out are the bathroom drawers and cabinets. I’m guessing I’ll find some makeup that I haven’t used for five years that can be binned.

Run run run run run away

December 3, 2011 by Jen

I am pleased to say that I am now four weeeks into consistently going out for runs. Back in high school I used to do long distance running – it came pretty easily to me and I had a couple of chances to do some cross country running through school. If I had trained I would have done a lot better. I think you would have to be some kind of freak to be able to run about six kilometres without any training at all.

Fast forward ten or so years and I played netball. While it wasn’t long distance running it involved a lot of running around a netball court. However, my knees didn’t like netball and I was always conscious of the knee injury I had in my last year of high school.

More recently I’ve maintained that I wouldn’t be able to run because of my knees hurting. After all it hurt to walk up and down stairs so there’s no way I could run. However, I”ve been taking a combination of fish oil and glucosamine and that seems to have really helped my sore knees.

And even more recently a friend I’ve made via Twitter and have met in person inspired me to start running. After all, she said, If I can do it anyone can. I also decided that I needed to get fitter and I could do with losing a bit of weight so I started running too.

I downloaded the Get Running app on my iPhone which coaches you to get up off the couch and eventually you’ll run for 5km.

The coach, Clare, has a lovely encouraging voice and you really do ease your way into it. For the first week you run for one minute then walk for one minute and do this eight times. Throughout this there are prompts that you’ve only got 30 seconds to go, you’ve only got four more runs etc etc.

The first week or so I was really puffed after the running and needed every second of that minute to recover for the next one, but I did it. Now, in week 4, I run for 3 minutes, walk, then run for 5 minutes and repeat this once. I ran this morning and I realised that the running is definitely getting a lot easier. And the recovery time between runs is also happening a lot faster.

I’ve mainly been running around the local oval on the grass which is kinder on my joints. It also means I can take my dog and my son and they do their own thing while I’m doing laps around the oval. As there’s sport there on a Saturday morning my son goes on his bike along the local bike track while I run. Unfortunately we have to leave Monty home on this one because I know that her running and walking for nearly 4kms would be too hard.

I also use the Runkeeper app in conjunction with the Get Running app. Runkeeper tracks the distance, the pace, and the location of your runs and an app I’ll keep using once I complete the nine week Get Running program.

I’ve invested in a good pair of running shoes and bought a Spibelt to keep my phone and keys in while I run.

I’m already thinking ahead to joining a local running group so I’m trying to get my son to run with me so he can join too otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do with him.

You know how when you start an activitiy, or you’re looking for a new particular type of car you start noticing lots about that particular activity, or type of car?

For me since I’ve started running, it’s been the New York marathon. I read about Heather Armstrong completing it, and a Twitter acquaintance did it this year too. I know this year’s marathon only happened recently but it’s really entered into my consicousness lately. The other night on television there was a program called Running to America about a group of four indigenous Australians training to and running the New York marathon. It was really inspiring and I thought – one day maybe I could do that!

Do you want to know the other great thing about running? All other thoughts of what’s happening in your life are cast aside and that can be a really good thing.