Day 194: Wash by Em

Some of Missy's pictures have these cool effects. And they're all edited and wonderful. With me, you're lucky if I crop the picture (which I usually do). I don't have the skills, but maybe an "A" for effort?
(At least I have a cute subject to photograph. Washing her foot.)

Day 190: Whistle by Em

Sure, she's cute.
Less cute when she's blowing the whistle before 7am.
Thankfully, she can't yet blow at full power, so it's more like air with a tone.

Day 189: Water by Em

Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a drop of water falling off the tip of an icicle? Hard But there it is, a big fat drop, hanging off the tip of the left most icicle.

Day 188: White by Em

Snow is white. So are snowflakes. I DID take this photo on the correct day. In the midst of a 2-day storm that dropped 20 inches of snow on us. Unprecedented in central Virgina

Day 186: Wheelchair by Em

Handicapped parking.
Where no one can currently park.
Because the parking spaces are covered with snow.

Day 185: Winter by Em

I am not following the "rules" because I really, really think that Missy just needs some company on this blog (Hi Missy! Hi everyone else? Where are you?). I did not take this picture on the correct day, but it just screams "winter" to me!

Day 184: Window by Em

Hmmm, I think that perhaps are windows are not all that efficient, as this is the view out our bedroom window most chilly mornings. (Some view, eh?)

Day 71: Fruit by Em

I've been scarce. I'm sorry. I've got a lot going on. My hubby is currently off in the woods of North Carolina with a bunch of high schoolers and my mom is visiting. Today, we took Sierra to the Graves Mountain Apple Harvest Festival. It was awesome! I had funnel cake! And there were lots of fruits there: pumpkins and apples and corn and whatnot, but I'm going to be the second person today to post a picture of a gourd because they are so funky looking and I love all the colors.
Did you know that a fruit with a hard shell like these (and cucumber, pumpkin, squash, and melons) is called a pepo? Such a fun little word. And they are all part of the same plant family, the Cucurbitaceae? Well, now ya know!

Day 40: Disappointment by Em

I was going to start a business making baby carriers. You can click on the link there to see them! It is my opinion that it would be a very poor business decision to go forward without product liability insurance (even though I'm certain not every mei tai maker has insurance). I talked to fifteen insurance agents. Fifteen! Most of them were "sorry, can't help ya." The couple that were able to get coverage for me had premiums that were prohibitively expensive. Le sigh. I will not be starting a business (at least not one making baby carriers). This is one of the pages with my list of insurance agents. The x's were to the left were written as I reached a dead-end with each agent.

Day 39: Height by Em

The word height immediately made me think of a tree. This is the tulip tree in our yard. The tulip tree is in my top 5 favorite trees (the others, in case you were wondering are cottonwood, sycamore, sassafras, and cypress - there are some other cool trees that could probably make the list [baobob and mangrove come to mind], but I haven't seen them in real life, so they don't count)

Day 38: Birthday by Em

OMG! I am totally going to be 30! OMG!

Okay, really, I feel like it should be a big deal, but I really don't think it IS a big deal. Hmmm. My 22 year old self was way more concerned about turning 30 than my 29 year old self is.

Day 37: Phone by Em

This is our phone. It is the only phone we have downstairs. It sits quietly in the dining room looking like a regular, everyday, usable phone. When it rings, however, I rush upstairs as quickly as possible, jumping over both the gate to keep the baby from climbing the stairs and the gate to keep the dog out of the room with the kitty litter to answer the phone in the upstairs office. Why? Because, when I answer this phone, you can hear me and I sound like this: "Hello? Hello? Hellllooooo? Is anybody there? Anybody? Hello?"

Apparently, the microphone is broken. At least the answering machine still works so I know you called if I can't make it upstairs in time!

Day 36: Leaf by Em

The leaves on the tulip tree in our yard have been falling off since the beginning of August. This does not, so much, make me think that it is time for the change of the season, but rather, that the tree is having some sort of physiological struggle.

Day 34: Pepper by Em

I went out for Mexican with the girls tonight and I took my camera. I often order chili relleno, which is a pepper so I thought it would be fun to photograph my dinner. As it turned out, I got there and was in the mood for pollo rojo mole (or something) so, no pepper. This one is from my fridge. I sliced it and then Photoshop and I had some fun!

Day 32: Almost by Em

Sierra is almost able to get on the couch by herself. She's just not. quite. tall. enough. (Yet) She reaches and tries to haul herself up, stands up as high as she can on her toe. Then she will turn to me (or other nearby adult) and sign "up." Ah, well, can't say she's not determined.

Day 31: Introduction by Em

Sometimes when I introduce myself I have to follow up with "You know? Short for Emily?" Seriously, is "Em" really that difficult to understand?! In this picture I am wearing makeup! And earings! And I styled my hair! Do not get used to it. It happens maybe once every couple months. But we were headed out to the opening faculty party tonight so you get to see me all spiffied up.

Speaking of the faculty party, I live at a high school. An all boys boarding school. I have been married to J (not the J on this blog!) since 2003; our daughter Sierra is nearly 15 months old. She is probably the main subject of my blog. I will be 30 in October. I do not find that nearly as traumatizing as I thought it would be when I was 23. Of those nearly 30 years, I have spent more than 18 living in Illinois, followed by 6 in Missouri, then 4 in Connecticut, and now this last year in Virginia.

I run. Not away from the cops or to catch the bus, but because I actually enjoy it. In recent years I have added some swimming and cycling before the running and do triathlons. I am an environmental educator. I have a Masters degree in Botany. But my current boss is the above metioned 15-month-old. She is a very demanding boss. Sometimes I'm okay with being a "domestic engineer" but sometimes it drives me completely batty. I have two dogs and two cats. I like red wine and dark chocolate. I am here on ASAOTC because I know Mike. I know Mike because Mike knows Kate. I know Kate because she and her love found us (me, J, two dogs) in the woods in the White Mountains in 2005. She seduced me with red wine.

Day 30: Carve by Em

This one was hard for me. If it were winter, I might have found a ski hill and photographed a skier carving her way down the mountain. It's not winter. And there are neither skiers nor snow to carve to be found. So, I thought I would go up to campus and find a picnic table that someone had carved into. High schoolers do that, right? Well, apparently not. Every picnic table I came across was in pristine condition. Hmmm ... How about the artist who carved her name into the bottom of my favorite coffee mug ... it's really more etched than carved, though. Then I remembered that we have this. Have you seen these? They are made by a company called "Willow Tree." Little figures carved out of wood. Willow wood? I don't know.

Day 29: Coffee by Em

These are coffee beans. Mmmmmm ... they come to us every month from New England, Vermont specifically. When J and I moved to Virginia and went to the grocery store, we were very, very disappointed in our coffee selection. Since we had found deliciousness of the coffee variety when we lived in New England, we figured "Why not just buy the good stuff?" Why not indeed.

The scruffy looks comes from clipping my photo to a mask of that shape.

Day 28: Girl by Em

Nothing says "girl" more than a pink bow! This is a friend of ours. I would love to put a pink bow in my own daughter's hair, but ... at 15 months, she doesn't have enough hair for a bow.

Day 27: Block by Em

I had this really great idea for "block." We live at a boarding school where my husband teaches and our house happens to be right behind the football stadium where the players are here and have been practicing every day. Twice a day. I was sure I could get some good photos of football players "blocking." Of course, today would be the "recovery day" where they only had morning practice and no blocking. Boo. So, you get Sierra's actual blocks. They are squishy. And they squeak.