Friday Photo Gratitude

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Stealing a bit from Soulemama's weekly {this moment}, I will be posting a single photo, no words, every Friday as a practice of gratitude - for the simple and extraordinary pleasures of life, for the ability to capture them with my camera, and for the honor of sharing them with you. 

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Friday Photo Gratitude

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I will be on vacation next week, so ktmade will be quiet. But I'll be back July 6th! 

Stealing a bit from Soulemama's weekly {this moment}, I will be posting a single photo, no words, every Friday as a practice of gratitude - for the simple and extraordinary pleasures of life, for the ability to capture them with my camera, and for the honor of sharing them with you. 

Like what you just read? Share it with a friend! You can also follow ktmade on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram so you'll never miss a post. And you'll earn my undying affection!

Friday Photo Gratitude

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Stealing a bit from Soulemama's weekly 

{this moment}

, I will be posting a single photo, no words, every Friday as a practice of gratitude - for the simple and extraordinary pleasures of life, for the ability to capture them with my camera, and for the honor of sharing them with you. 

Like what you just read? Share it with a friend! You can also follow ktmade on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram so you'll never miss a post. And you'll earn my undying affection!

Saratoga Springs: Ducklings

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This past weekend, I visited Saratoga Springs, New York with my dad and sister for our annual father-daughter weekend. None of us had ever been, but it proved to be a delightful town with great restaurants, a fun main drag for strolling and popping into stores, a charming bed and breakfast, and a lovely little public park filled with ducks and precious little ducklings.

We spent a good twenty minutes following them around paparazzi style, trying to get close enough for good photos without getting pecked to death by their protective mamas. I got a bunch with my iphone, including this video, and then went back with my real camera later in the day.

Taking pictures of these cute little things was the only way I kept myself from trying to reach for one because all I really wanted to do was pick them up and pet and snuggle them. When I was really still, some of them got close enough that I might've tried, but I know it would've ended disastrously, so I turned on my adult brain and just happily snapped these photos.

p.s.  Butterflies

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Friday Photo Gratitude

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Stealing a bit from Soulemama's weekly {this moment}, I will be posting a single photo, no words, every Friday as a practice of gratitude - for the simple and extraordinary pleasures of life, for the ability to capture them with my camera, and for the honor of sharing them with you. 
Photo credit: Navah Spero


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Vergennes Memorial Day Parade

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Vergennes is about 40 minutes south of Burlington and is both the oldest and the smallest chartered city in Vermont. Their Memorial Day Parade, the biggest in the state, draws crowds from around the region. Because of some odd circumstances, I had to attend the parade yesterday for work. Thankfully, I got an opportunity to take some pictures. Even though it was rainy and cold, the crowd and the parade participants were committed to a celebration. 



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DIY Photography Background

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This isn't a tutorial so much as a general description of this simple project, mainly because it was so easy that it didn't even occur to me to put it on the blog until my wife asked, "Are you putting this on the blog?"

 By then I was almost finished, but I figured I'd snap a few shots of the final stages and share it here with anyone who's trying to find a super quick and inexpensive way to add a little diversity to their photography backgrounds for food or product shots. 

 Because I had deconstructed a falling-apart shelving unit in our utility room, I had a pile of 2 x 4s just hanging out in my garage. So I spent zero dollars on this project, which was the perfect price point for me. 

 Using a circular saw, I cut the boards so that they were all an equal length - 5 of them. My process was about as haphazard as you could get. I cut the first board about how long I thought I'd like it to be, and then I used it as a rough guide for the other cuts. Once those were done, I cut two other pieces a little shorter to work as the cross supports. 

 I set down the support pieces parallel to each other about a foot and a half apart, covered the tops of both of them in wood glue and then laid each of the 5 equal length pieces perpendicular across those two support pieces. 

 Then I put a heavy board on top of the whole thing (one of the shelves in the shelving unit I took apart), put some more heavy stuff on that and let it sit overnight so the glue could really do its thing. 

 And it's the first time I took a picture: 


 Fancy work space, huh?

 The next day, I used some leftover white paint to give it a quick couple coats in the morning.


Then I came back in the afternoon and sanded it down very lightly with my power sander (but you could just use sandpaper) to give the paint a little softer look. 

 And that's it. Aside from the time for the glue and paint to dry, I spent about an hour and a half on the project. 


I've been enjoying trying to improve my food photography game - it is not my strongest area, for sure, and having very little natural light in our house doesn't help. A portable background that I can carry outside or to whichever window is getting the best sun in that moment is quite useful. 


p.s. I've come a long from here (wheat-free yogurt pancakes).
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Easy DIY Instagram Magnets

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I have taken thousands of photos on my phone. Tens of thousands. And I've shared many of them with the world through my Instagram feed. But once I put them out there, they get shuffled to my Instagram archive and out of my mind.

I wanted some way to display a bunch of them in my house because so many inspire happy memories of fun times. Or adorable pictures of my dog that should be visible as a reminder not to murder him when he's being a jerk. Magnets came to mind because the side of our refrigerator is a big blank magnetic canvas that sits in the middle of our primary living space. 

I went to Michaels to see about the magnet situation and was absolutely delighted to find entire sheets of magnetic paper that can simply be run through a printer. Hence began the absolute easiest DIY Instagram magnet project. The biggest amount of time went to figuring out which pictures I wanted to use. 



Easy DIY Instagram Magnets 
Important Note: You can make these even if you think you are not "creative" or "a crafter." Go make some.

1. Choose your photos. If they're not already on your computer, you might need to use an Instagram photo downloader. Most of mine were already on my laptop because it syncs automatically with my camera roll when I plug in my phone. But for some reason, a few were missing, and I used Instagrabbr to get those photos.  

2. Once you've chosen your photos, pull them all up in a photo editor. I used Photoshop, but you can use PicMonkey or Picasa or another similar free editor. Begin to make a contact sheet by dragging and dropping the photos onto a blank 8 1/2 x 11 page. 


3. Resize all of the photos. I sized mine 2 inches x 2 inches. To do this in Photoshop, hit control +  t to select the image and then set your width and height up in the top left corner. Then fill up your page with your images. 


4. Once you have your contact sheet(s) made, load the magnetic paper into your printer and print each sheet out according to your printer settings. You'll likely need to load the paper into a side or back feed rather than the normal paper tray.


5. Voila - sheets of magnetic photos!


6. Cut out each square magnet using a paper cutter, scissors, or an exacto knife. My little Fiskars paper cutter worked perfectly to cut out each square. 


7. Once all of your squares are cut out, hang them somewhere you'll see them everyday!

I adore having these photos out in the open and seeing them as I walk through the house. And I'll definitely be making more because now I have a vision of the entire side of the refrigerator covered in these little happy tiles. 

The whole project only took about 2 hours, and that was mostly because I labored over which pictures to use. Even so, time well spent!




p.s. Back when I was using an Android phone


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Rekindle That Spark

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Perhaps it's been a while since you and your wife/husband/partner/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend got together, and maybe things are a little...stale.



You love them dearly, of course. But maybe all the time you spend scheduling repair men and taking the animals to the vet (and chauffeuring the kids and fighting about chores and hosting visitors and cleaning the house and and and and...) has you out of the habit of noticing each other.



Maybe you haven't really stopped in weeks, or even months, to notice how easily the conversation flows between you, how relaxed your body is next to theirs, how often they make you laugh.



Maybe it's been a while since you really noticed what a beautiful smile they have. Or what a beautiful smile you have when they're in the room.


I have a simple solution for you. It sounds silly, but I promise you, it's not.



Make a photo book.

If you haven't made a book of photos from your wedding, congratulations.  You have prime rekindling fodder.



If you're already set with wedding photos or you aren't married, make a book from your vacation or your birthday party or a mini-book from that perfect date you shared a couple months ago.



This is key: Sit down next to each other, and look through the photos on your computer. You know the ones - the ones you took (or your photographer took) and that have since been waiting, invisible in a folder on your desktop.



Choose a photo book vendor (Adoramapix, perhaps), and spend the next few hours reliving that happy occasion while you drag and drop smiling photos that will remind you both - every time you look down at those pages on your coffee table - of how insanely lucky you are. Tell each other stories about the event that you already know but love to hear again.



When your package arrives in the mail, rip it open together and turn the pages of your book with a mixture of glee and gratitude.

Then wrap your arms around your wife/husband/partner/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend and don't let go.



p.s. You can read all about our wedding here. 

Become a Better Person: Weekend Links

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Here's your quick and dirty weekend reading list from around the web, guaranteed to make you a better human being.*

This weekend I'm granting you (and me) permission to be flawed and broken and wildly imperfect. You can read these awesome articles if you get tired of being so damn human.

Become...

A more creative person: Spoiler alert - Do You. Well, figure you out. And then do you.

A happier person (in the dating world): Some rules are made to be broken, but some might help you survive the single life.

A happier person (in any world): Start searching the #pygmygoats and #dwarfgoats hashtags on Instagram. Hours of delight (and procrastination).

An awe-filled person: Let yourself be amazed and touched and tickled by watching these little bald eagle babies do their thing (mostly sitting and looking around and eating).

A softer person: Blur the lines. Don't try to put grief in a box. It's won't be put.

A more informed person: The words we use matter.



*As I've said before, simply reading these articles probably won't make you a better person. But they're interesting, and anyway, I recommend seriously considering whether you're perfect already - just the way you are.

The Montreal Butterfly Exhibit

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Oh, did you think we were done with Montreal?

 Absolutely not. Not before the butterflies. 



What more is there to say? Everyone should spend an hour in a room filled with butterflies. It is a balm for what ails you, a reminder that beauty and fragility are often inextricably intertwined. Notice all the wings with torn edges, and yet they still fly. 
p.s. We have some pretty lovely butterflies here in Vermont too. 

The Montreal Botanical Garden (or Why I Take Photos)

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I guess sometimes being a person who takes lots of photographs - or being around a person who takes lots of photographs (sorry, Navah) - can get annoying. I've heard people say things like, "Put down your camera. Enjoy the moment." And for a while, I took that in. I had this kind of itching concern every time I lifted my lens that perhaps I was getting Enjoying The Moment wrong.

 It didn't keep me from taking pictures because there was some deeper, louder voice shoving my camera into my hand and telling me to shoot, woman, shoot. So I did. 

 But there was this quibbling little thought in the back of my head that somehow I was messing it (enjoyment) up. 

 And then recently I came across the hashtag #elevatetheeveryday, and I started using it in my instagram posts. And when I was out on my walks with the dog, often cold and cranky and tired, I started carrying my cell phone in my hand, keeping the camera app at the ready, and looking around as I walked to see if there was something beautiful I could capture. 

 And almost every time, there was. The way the light was coming through the trees, the way my shadow fell on the ground, the way a particular leaf looked against the snow. There was always something beautiful or meaningful or worth seeing. And I realized that by engaging in that practice, I was enjoying my walks in a way I never had. 

 Perhaps there are people who can just say to themselves, I am going to find beauty in this moment. And they do. But that doesn't always work for me. I can be stubborn in my crankiness.

 My camera helps me to slow down, look around, and notice. My camera pulls me out of myself and into the world. My camera is a conduit through which I find beauty, through which I enjoy the moment. And it's not about being a brilliant photographer, thank goodness. It's about taking the time to honor the "everyday" beauty right in front of me. It is, I suppose, another way to practice gratitude.

 So this weekend at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, I clicked away, and I didn't apologize for it. Not to anyone else (though no one was asking me to), but most importantly, not to myself. There was nothing to apologize for. I wasn't getting it wrong. 

 For me, being in a beautiful place with my camera in my hand is getting it exactly right. 
p.s. As hard as it is to believe, Spring - aka beautiful flowers right here - is truly not that far away...

Overnight in Montreal

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 Before this past weekend, the weather had been pretty crummy here in Vermont, and Navah and I were seriously in need of a vacation. So we headed to...Montreal. Not the obvious choice for a mid-winter getaway, but a trip to the beach wasn't in the cards. And, as shocking as it continues to be to me, Montreal is just an hour and a half away from Burlington. That means it's a perfect candidate for a quick overnight trip to see some attractions, eat some delicious food, and not check your phone for a couple days (that was a surprise - we both forgot that we wouldn't have data service while in Canada - made for some interesting navigating and a lot of high fives for not ending up completely and totally lost forever). 
The reason it really did make sense to go farther north to get away from the cold was Montreal's Botanical Gardens. We'd been wanting to visit for a while, and the need for a getaway combined with the promise of hot, humid rooms filled with gorgeous blooms and delicate butterflies put us over the edge. And what a good call. We took off our coats and spent three hours relishing the exquisite beauty. 



We also took advantage of being in the big city to visit Chinatown and get our fill of hot and sour soup, spring rolls, and deep fried saucy meat at Amigo. Oh, and let's not forget the South Indian restaurant where we crammed ourselves full of idli, uttapam, and masala dosas. And of course the numerous Tim Hortons donuts I consumed on the way there and the way back. 



This is how I feel when I see a Tim Hortons sign on the road. 

(not from Montreal)

What is it about Tim Hortons? I hate to talk smack about our US donuts, but they just do donuts right up there. For one thing, I don't know what this says about Canadians, but no matter what time you go, they are chock full of donuts. They don't run out of things as the day ends. They're like, no more maple boston creams and it's 4:00 in the afternoon? MAKE SOME MORE. 

Ahem. 

We stayed in Old Montreal, which we've visited once before, at a fancy hotel (yay for Sunday night deals) that was filled with original art. Most of it wasn't really my style, but it was really fun to walk down and halls and look at all the pieces. We spent a few hours wandering the quiet streets on Monday morning, stopping into a shop here or there and doing a little maple syrup tasting. And to top things off, we visited Target since we don't have one here in Vermont.

When we got back into the car to head home, it felt like 36 hours very well spent. Plus we've added a ton more to our list of Things To Do in Montreal and will definitely be planning some more day trips this summer. 

Let's be honest - the primary purpose will be more dosas and donuts. We'll see some pretty stuff if we have time.


p.s. I'm making a version of this simple cabbage salad at least once a week right now. Healthy, filling, and it keeps in the fridge way better than a traditional salad. 

Weekending

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We've been packing it in these last few fall weekends.  This one was all about raking, picking apples, and preparing the garden for winter - with a little football and knitting thrown in for good measure. Life feels so very Autumn right now.  A never-ending raking job'll do that.  As will piles of vegetables and herbs that must get stored or preserved asap and garlic that needs to get in the ground before the frost.  (I hope Laura Ingalls is listening.)

I'm soaking it all in before "stick season," the affectionate term given to the winters here.  Then we'll hibernate as best we can, but for now it's all about being outside and enjoying these gorgeous days.


Maine

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Oh hi.

I could go into a long song and dance about why I've been away from the blog for a while, but that's no fun.  And I'm following the advice of my old therapist who, when I came to therapy once after missing several weeks and bemoaned all the time I would need to spend getting her up to speed, said "or you could just start where you are."  So there you go.

Our trip down the coast of Maine (from Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park, through Camden and Rockland, and finally Port Clyde) at the end of July was gorgeous and a welcome vacation from busy work life.  We got in some hiking, some reading, some lounging, some quality time with each other, and some laughs with friends.  And of course, a lot of photography.





The Week in Feet

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I'm three weeks in and still enjoying the challenge of these #weekinfeet photos. There were so many happy moments to document this past week - with 4th of July and friends visiting.  We were having such fun, in fact, that I forgot to take a foot picture on Saturday until we were relaxing on the couch. Seems like the sign of a day well spent!

What were you up to last week?  Any #weekinfeet photos?

 

The Mad River Valley

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It's hard to imagine that we ever had a beautiful blue-sky day like this, but when my mom was visiting we made it out for a drive before the deluge of rain that has been our lives the last six days - with more to come.

We did a huge loop from Richmond down to the beautiful farms in Waitsfield - with their spotted cows and bright red barns - and then on to Warren, Vermont.  We had lunch at the Warren Store - an absolutely delicious chicken salad sandwich on fresh baked bread for me - and ate it at a picnic table overlooking a stream.  We puttered around leisurely in the clothing and gifts section and both walked out with little bags of goodies.  I came home with a paper lamp that I love about as much as anything I've ever bought.  I'm sure it'll show up in some future posts.

We stopped at Warren Falls, where brave folks were splashing around in the water that, I know from experience, is COLD.  My boss had recommended also going to Blueberry Lake, and we were delighted that we took the suggestion.  Besides it being gorgeous, we had a great time watching all the little kids running around (and frog hunting).

We capped off the afternoon with a stop at Red Hen Bakery in Middlesex for coffee and treats.

A beautiful Vermont day to remember while the rain comes down.