This was one of the petunias growing at my aunt and uncle's house back in Indiana.

I like how the veins are purple and really stand out in the flower.

I also like that it is purple and white, which is reminiscent of the colors of my (and Texas Sister's) undergraduate University.

These were growing at my cousin's house across and down the road from my aunt and uncle's place. I really like how the flowers change from orange to pink to yellow, even within the same flower.

You can see it even better in this close up view.

I'm usually not a fan of petunias. I'm not sure why, they just never used to look like much to me. But I really like these varieties.

Last year, I had some that were a raspberry color and actually looked more velvety/glistening... in the same way that pansies can glisten. I had planted them by our mailbox last year, but didn't plant any this year.

But just last weekend, I discovered that it must have seeded itself a little bit, because one is growing in that spot.

I'll try to photograph it at some point if I'm ever home when the sun is still out. I'm not a big fan of going outside to take pictures when the mosquitoes will eat me alive.

;-)

Happy Friday!

BTW, the server was down all day yesterday, and while it is now up and running, I've been warned that there might be a little kookiness (my word) for 12-24 hours. Hopefully it will treat you right!

(reminds me of a version of a song by the Commmitments)

All photos were taken with Dweedle Dum.

Posted by danielle at 09:00 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

In case you didn't notice, there is a new entry below this one. Um, I guess you'll have to skim past the pics if you want to get to it.

Bummer.

Well, go look at it. I'll still be here when you get back. (I put those links there so that you won't have to look at the pics prematurely)

Okay, so now that we are alllll up to speed, the other (kind of minor) reason that I haven't written lately is because I've been READING. Yes, BOOKS, not blogs, last weekend and this week during the evenings.

What, would drive me to reading and not posting for all of you, my dear friends?

Well, I wanted to re-read Harry Potter book 5 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) before starting book 6!

And I JUST finished book 5 over supper.

And did I start reading book 6 RIGHT AWAY like I'd thought I might?

Oh no, I came here, to put up a proper Friday post, like a nice dependable muggle.

Now, don't get your panties in a twist, I know that a Proper Friday post means Flowers and Not pictures of books.

So, I give you a flower that I think is worthy of the cover of book 6.

See, it is purple, like the lettering on the cover (not quite the right shade, but close enough, right?). AND the flower has lots of green around it. It even has that weird lime green center that looks like a sea anemone!

The center is even, kinda wavy, magical looking too, if you stretch your imagination a bit.

And here's where it gets a little funny. You see, I only had Tweedledum at the time, 'cause these are more flowers from my aunt and uncle's garden (recall, that it was when I got home from that trip that HB surprised me with Dee Dee). Now, Tweedledum has a flower focus button, but he is still autofocus. And the item for focus, must be fairly solid, unfortunately. Usually, I can look at a picture after I've taken it and decide whether or not the pic is blurry or not, but well, this time I couldn't tell, or didn't realize it.

So, here were my mistakes, and I'll show you what I think is neat about them.

First, trying to get a shot at an angle that would've been cool if I'd had Dee Dee. But poor Tweedledum just didn't know what to do with it.

But isn't the texture on that leaf on the left kinda neat? It is probably one of the better leaf shots I've got.

Here is another mistake.

Doesn't look like much, I know.

But wait! There's a spider web in the corner, in focus!

And if that isn't appropriate for the cover of book 6 of the Harry Potter series, then I don't know what is!

And with that, I'm more than ready to dive into book 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

All photos taken with Tweedledum, the Cyber-shot DSC-P71, except for the photo of the Harry Potter books, which was taken with Dee Dee, my Nikon D70.

Posted by danielle at 01:01 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't posted anything since last Friday.

There are several reasons for that. The main one, which will be the topic of this post, is kind of long and drawn out... and I really wasn't sure that I wanted to go into it, but well, maybe it will be cathartic for me to just write it out.

I think you all probably realize that I'm trying to finish all of my experiments for my Ph.D. thesis right now. What I've only mentioned in passing is that I've had some major set backs the past couple of months. This would be same set backs where I asked all of you for prayers of support and good vibes for one of my really exhausting experiments where I was trying to get the right dose of a certain chemical. Um, I never said what happened with that, did I? Well, cause we still couldn't get the right dose with that stupid fucking lot of chemical they fucking sold us.

um. yeah.

Anger?

Me?

Not at all.

Never.

*ahem*

HOWEVER, I found a lab in a different department with a stock of that chemical from a lot that was similar to the ones that had worked for us in the past, redid the experiment and bammo! It worked great. This is reassuring in that
A) I wasn't going crazy, and there really was a problem with recent lots that are 99% pure or less (the ones that worked were 100% and 99.5%).
B) Everything else that can affect the experimental outcome is still fine.
C) I hadn't somehow "lost my touch" or done something flukey i.e. it wasn't me! (which is always a worry in the back of my mind)

The bad news is that because it is so expensive, they hadn't bought a whole bunch of it, and there is just barely enough to do the experiments that we'd thought about doing originally, but only if everything would go perfectly.

On top of that, the Clock Is Ticking. We are set to close on our house in Mnnpls/St. Paul August 29th. Our house here gets packed and loaded right around August 25th. Which means that as of the 25th or 26th I will not have a place to live to do any additional experiments.

What all of this means is that last week, I sat down with my calendar to try to figure out how to squeeze in all of my experiments before then. And well, I couldn't see any way to get the experiments done that we'd originally thought about doing. I ended up with my stomach in knots and a migraine.

I sigh now, just thinking about it, and well, my stomach still turns over when I think about it.

I discussed it with my advisor and we both agreed that the fact that we had "just enough" of the compound, combined with the timing issues, meant that I ought to do a slightly different set of experiments where I can get the results faster. Faster in days. But lots and lots of man-hours of work.

Now, just in case I've confused anyone, I should just say that ever since my experiments got that wrench thrown into them, I have faced the possibility that I may need to write my thesis while living in Mnnpls. The plan would be that I'd fly back to Boston to defend it. But I'd always imagined that I'd get my experiments done with time to spare.

Now, I face this time crunch and have had to at least bat around the idea of could I live with my advisor for a couple of weeks to finish stuff if anything goes wrong.

So, I'll be working pretty much constantly (weekends included) until late August. Yesterday, was the worst, 12 hours of experiments, very grueling.

Today was better though. And hey, I'll have the beginnings of my results on Sunday, with the final results on Monday. So, at least I'll KNOW something soon.

The other minor reason I haven't written this week, will all come to light in my Flowers for Friday.

(to be continued)

Posted by danielle at 08:46 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

I saw these orange daylilies nestled among the blue hydranageas as we were walking from SeaQueen's house to the neighborhood beach, on the Sunday of July 4th weekend. I hadn't brought Dee Dee with me, because well, we were going to the beach, and I was afraid to expose her to the sand. I was also afraid that we might all get in the ocean at the same time, and then she'd be vulnerable to theft while we cavorted in the water.

But as it got to be later in the afternoon, and everyone was just about tired of being at the beach. I decided that with the way the light was changing, I had better walk back NOW, pick her up and take a bunch of photos with her, before the light changed any more.

So I did.

Remember that this was the first weekend I really worked with Dee Dee extensively, and the photos were not taken in Fine mode, as I had intended to do (and as Kristine kindly encouraged me to do). But I still like them.

A lot.

or click here for the really big close-up view.

From another angle

and the big size

You know, I think I like that one the best. The BIG one. You really should click that link to see it.

Are you tired of them yet?

Well, not me.

Cause I love orange and blue together.

And well, you know about me and hydrangeas, right?

The BIG version.

I took all of these photos yada yada yada Dee Dee blah blah Nikon D70.

(that was for Sheryl, did you spew water on the cats this time?)

Posted by danielle at 01:01 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

It is our wedding anniversary today.

Yup, nine years ago today. Lessee... about now (consulting time, going on 8:00 a.m.) I was probably watching episodes of Dr. Quinn that my mom had taped for me.

I was up really really early, couldn't sleep from being excited, of course. And well, I had all of these episodes to watch, and who knew when I was going to get a chance to see them? What with our honeymoon and moving and all coming up.

Jump ahead to now. 9 years. Or as HB teases me "We've been married ELEVEN years! No, Wait, it must be TWELVE!"

He teases me, because he is a certified D.O.R.K. And well, I am too. And he knows it will make me smile and giggle and laugh.
And because after we'd been married 4 or 5 years, I could never remember how long we'd been married. And people would ask, and I'd either have to pause and try to do the math (Hey, you try to quickly subtract 1996 from 2003 - especially if you are still a few months before the date), or I'd just throw out what I thought it was. Um, 5! No, wait, SIX!

Anyway, our marriage just keeps getting better and better.

More inside jokes. Better understanding of moods, expressions... knowing when to tease and laugh, and when to hug and cry. But lots of teasing and laughing.

And cookies.

;-)

Lover you hunny bunny.

Happy Anniversary my big DORK.

-G errrrrrrr

Posted by danielle at 08:05 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

I had hoped to get this entry done before SeaQueen left to go be Queen of the Sea for a while. But at least I got the Flickr slideshow set of her girlie done before she had to leave and she did get to see it.

When we arrived at SeaQueen's place on the Sunday of July 4th weekend, we promptly got the food out for lunch. Well, during lunch, Pandora decided that it was time to eat too. HB grabbed Dee Dee and clicked a picture of Pandora up on her eating spot.

WELL, evidently Pandora is a bit of a camera hog too! Who knew? She started rubbing and rolling and being all frisky on the carpet while HB took photo after photo. It was really odd. Pandora was just going nuts.

SeaQueen's theory is that Pandora really likes men better than women, so if you want good pictures of her, you've got to send a man in with the camera. And SeaQueen's family's theory is that Pandora will only be pretty for the camera when it is a really nice camera.

;-)

Either way, it was pretty funny.

Later, I sat down on the couch and was waiting on everyone. I was half trying to get a picture of a chipmunk or bird that was on their deck, and who should come by but the Camera Princess, herself.

"Is that a beautiful new camera in your hands?"

So, I did the usual scratch away at my head to get her eyes focused on me (I had to shoot in automatic mode, as you might imagine for a one-handed photo op). Then HB came by behind me and she stared at him, so I could quit scratching and go back to using both hands.

After HB left, she went back to being a bit sulky/predatory.

I made my first Flickr slideshow of the pics of Pandora that HB and I took. Mostly the ones I took, because the ones HB took, she is just rubbing and squirming on the carpet. But he did take the close up of her face at the end.

Click here to view the Slideshow of pics of SeaQueen's cat Pandora

The slideshow will automatically open using flash. If your computer doesn't have the program, Flickr will help you install a version of it when you try to view the slideshow. Or you can email me, especially if you are family (mom, dad, etc.), and I can help figure out what to do so that you can see my photos by slideshow.

Um, that's it for now. I hope to do an extended entry about the rest of our trip to SeaQueen's place on the Cape later.

I took these photos with Dee Dee, my Nikon D70. Note that a few of the pics in the Slideshow were taken by HB.

Posted by danielle at 08:45 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

When I was back in Indiana for my cousin's wedding (recall that last week I posted wedding flowers), I took a whole ton of photos. A bunch of them were flowers, another bunch of them were farm related, and a third bunch of them were an attempt to archive &/or at least get copies of older black and white family photos.

My uncle showed me his flower garden, which included a bunch of different types of sunflowers.

Only three types (all yellowish) were currently in bloom.

I was also fascinated by the one that he told me would end up being a purple sunflower when it bloomed. Sure enough, when I looked really closely, I could see a tinge of purple in the greenery surrounding the closed bud.

Last year, I remember being at a flower store or a grocery, and seeing sunflowers that were orangey-red. I remember wondering if they were real (or if they had been made by putting them in water that had red food coloring in it).

Tangent
Did you ever do that as a kid? You know, take a celery stalk that still had the leaves on it, or a white carnation, and put it in water that had food coloring in it? I did. I preferred to use blue food coloring... and if you wait (days?) for the celery or the carnation to soak up the colored water, the veins will turn blue and can make a very pretty contrast against the rest of the cells that haven't changed color yet.
End tangent

Anyway, come to find out, I guess those red sunflowers must've been real. Because my uncle was telling me that he has seeds that will make purple ones, red ones, and the more traditional yellow ones.

And even the yellow ones are different from one another.

This one, for example, is all yellow, but the ends of the petals are pointed.

I particularly like this photo for the unopened buds in the top half of the photo... but also for the light that highlights the hairs on the stalks, the edges of the edges of the leaves, and the shadows that are cast on the larger leaves.

It also makes me feel a bit like I'm walking through a shadowed wood, or a jungle... or somewhere a bit secret....

... or that I'm just really short.

Notice how this yellow sunflower has petals that are curved on the tips.

I guess I had never really noticed before how many different varieties exist.

It was a fun time. Can you tell I was happy, amidst the flowers?

I (and my uncle) took these photos with Tweedledum, my Cyber-shot DSC-P71.

Posted by danielle at 01:01 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

I mentioned to you a while back that one of these days, I would tell you the whole story about the car pictures that I took while in Minneapolis.

Basically, we were intending to just tool around Mill Ruins Park that day. However, once we got to the other side of the bridge, we noticed that there was an Art Festival.

Well, I wasn't really in the mood to deal with slow moving people perusing the arts and crafts. However, the call of nature, drove us to look for port-o-pottys... and then, we got sucked into looking at the arts on display "just a little bit, Danie, mmkay?"
(It struck me as funny that HB was the one who wanted to walk around it, since usually I have to drag him through stuff like that.)

One of the first interesting booths we stopped at was a girl who made photo collages. That was probably the coolest thing we saw all day.

Well, that and the cars.

Oh, and you might notice something new about my photos. Hopefully, they won't load any slower... but now, if you run your pointer over them it should turn into a hand, and you can click on the photo to see my pics that I've stored on Flickr. On Flickr, you should be able to see a larger version of it, if you, for example, really wanted to get up close and personal with any of the pics. Yes, this is old hat for my blogging friends, but I say this, for my family and friends who are new to this whole blog thang.

There is plenty of memory for me on my blog server for me to not use Flickr, but I'm trying it for a picture or two per entry... at least right now. Just to see how it works out. If Flickr gets bogged down, or runs slow, it can be kind of prohibitive for looking at pics, so, this is a bit of a trial run.

Where was I? Oh yes, the cool cars.

There were lots of them. I've narrowed down my pics to what we'll call the greatest hits.

I really liked the color of this one. And how can you not like a car that smiles at you from the front?

This one just screams classic car, to me.

The cars were separated in eras or styles, but I've just kind of organized them by pleasing color scheme.

I thought this bright yellow one looked like it jumped out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

I thought it was very puffy and cartoonish-looking. I think this category was "novelty."

hmmmm....

It doesn't seem to be jumping does it?

Perhaps it needs a bit of a jump start.

Can you hear the song? "Jump around! Jump! Jump!"

*ahem*

a little decorum, PLEASE, Danie. Geez LO-peet.

We'll call this one, big as a boat.
(And you thought SUVs took up a lot of parking space.)

... I can just hear my Dad saying "Check out those fins, man!"

I took all photos with Tweedledum, the Cybershot DSC-P71.

Posted by danielle at 10:32 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

I am having an absoLUTEly FABulous holiday weekend!

I am overflowing with excitement about a variety of things. One of them being my brand-spanking-new camera, Dee Dee.

I've been taking oooooodles and ooodles of photos (342, not including the ones that I deleted shortly after taking them). I am slowly learning the best ways to capture images, and am getting even bettter at holding very very still, and focusing, focusing, focusing.

Framing & focusing.

Photo taken by HB with our Cyber-shot DSC-P71, 'cause, ya know, I'm holding the Nikon D70 in my hands.

That was how I was laying on our grass to get the photo of the one at the top.

Holding very still is particularly important for images like this.

Um, these are... (consulting the little plastic tags that came with the annuals)

...'Tukana Scarlet' Verbena hybrid.

They really have done very well since I planted them. I admit, I'm not very good about watering them everyday and tend to underwater my plants more than anything. I aim for at least 3 times a week. Perhaps they like those conditions?

I thought the shadows that they cast were quite pretty too.

While I was taking various photos of the Tukana Scarlet Verbena, there was a bee buzzing around one of the other annuals, which was, 'Summer Wave Blue' Torenia hybrid.

I was working with Dee Dee on manual focus at the time, and was having a bit of trouble focusing on Mr. Bee himself. But I guess without realizing it, I was focused well enough on the flower to get a nice effect.

The other nice thing about my lovely new camera is that the images are sooooo large (3000 pixels wide, and I only post 500 pixel wide images), that I can crop out a tiny part of the image, and still get a nice photo for you.

I can't wait to show you some of the others!

teee-heeeee!

I took all of these photos today, July Fourth! with Dee Dee, my brand spankin' new Nikon D70.

Posted by danielle at 03:49 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

I was debating about the best way to post these pictures. Well, after I noticed that Ladybug and Squirl like my photo essays, I decided that I might as well just do a biggie.

Sunday, the day after our big house hunting excursion, we were pretty much just anxiously waiting to hear back about the offer that we'd made on the house. Since there wasn't much we could do, other than perhaps wring our hands and pace, HB suggested that I might enjoy going down to see the Mississippi river at Mill Ruins Park.

Just as we were leaving our car and walking toward the bridge and the visitor's center, we saw this funny line of geese.

I guess they wanted to go see the river too.

That and get away from the crazy lady with the camera.

"Hey! Don't get in the water! mmm'kay? Cantcha see? It's Dangerous."

"Oh good, just hang out in the grass and eat the bugs."

"Good geese."

Where was I? Oh, yeah, distracted by the wildlife.

Now, some of you might know the Indigo Girls song about how (rough lyrics)
"the mighty Mississippi, starts in Minnesota, at a place where you can cross with three steps down."

Well, this is NOT that place.

At THIS place, the Mississippi is so powerful that a bunch of mills were built in the spot. And while the mills are not currently in operation, the power of the river is still harnessed for electricity.

As the name of the park implies, there are ruins of the mills that used to be in operation, and some of the ruins of the mills have been left intact and incorporated into new developments.

You can still see signs for Gold Medal Flour and Pillsbury's Best Flour, to name just a couple.

See the water tower and grain silos? I think it is neat that they left those intact.

There were some interesting plaques and descriptions about the mills, including the development, the peak, and then the decline of them. There was also information about the workers and things like the first known instance of profit sharing. It was all interesting, yet somehow sad.

But really, I was distracted from focusing on the history by the roar, rush, and swirl of the river.

The river was running particularly high then, which made it even more fascinating.

Here, you can see the moisture of the falls.

Now, if you were a barge, wouldn't you rather be on the left side where the water is all calm, and not the right?

Yes, that is a lock on the left side. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any boats go through it while we were there. And the visitor's center was closed, I guess because it was a Sunday.

We did see some fun sights though. While I was standing on the bridge looking over the river and the rapids, I noticed this fast line of moving people.

Here is a bit of a recreation:

"Hey! Are those people on Pedways?!" I yelped with excitement.

"um... Segways, honey" HB replies. "Yeah, aren't those cool?"

"Yeah, neat! I wonder if I can get a picture?"

snap.

"hmmmmm... they are a little far away. *pause* Bummer. Oh well," I say.

"Hey! Is that a seagull?"

snap.

"What the heck is a seagull doing in Minnesota? Isn't the ocean kinda far away? How odd."

"But look at that sun spot on the water. How sparkly."

Then we went back to looking at the river. I was pretty mesmerized by watching the rapids and swirls of foam move down the river. It was almost like watching the clouds move on a really windy day. You know how sometimes you can see them drift and move, and they mostly stay the same shape as they move, but with subtle variations.

It was one of those moments when I wished that the video option on our camera didn't produce such grainy video. Because it was a beautiful thing to behold.

Ah well, that's okay.

We went back to walking over the bridge and who should appear, but the segway group!

I admit, I kind of let out a squeak in my excitement to see them. Some of them heard me and smiled for my picture.

Then, HB noticed and pointed out the shirt that the guide was wearing.

Too funny.

Eventually, we made it across the river, and went down to one of the tributaries that feed into it.

When we got to the bottom, there were two people with a dog, and the dog was going after a big stick that they were throwing into the water.

The dog's joy at playing in the water was infectious and made all of us smile and laugh, and cheer her on.

When it was time for them to go, she killed the stick really well *munch munch munch*. And then she hauled off a small piece of it with her. I guess, in case she wanted a snack later.

After the dog left, the geese evidently decided it was safe to come back.

It made me wonder if these were the same geese we'd seen earlier? It was about the same number, and I guess they could've flown over... and there was that no swimming sign and all back on the other side... so if they wanted to swim, they really DID have to come over here...

Who knows?

One of the geese, evidently decided that I was not a threat and came very close.

"Okay, okay, I'm going, I'm going. You can have the little beach all to yourselves again. Just let me get one last picture of the bridge"

STOP!

Wait a minute!

Does anyone see something fishy here?

We have, the geese and the people.

The geese...

...and the people.

The geese...

...and the people.

The goose leader, and...

...the human leader.

HA!

*GRIN*

interesting parallels, eh?

Posted by danielle at 07:14 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

This is for poopie who said last Friday "I wanna see me some wedding flowers."

This was my cousin's wedding bouquet. Although it may not seem that unusual, I really have never seen a bouquet that was all roses. And I liked the effect.

Here it a close-up from the same pic.

And then, there was the bouquet used in the bouquet toss.

Doesn't she look happy? The unblurred picture is actually really nice, but I try to refrain from posting pics of the faces of my friends and family without first asking for permission, and well, she is off on her honeymoon. So, blurred and burned it is.

There were also flowers on the cake.

Sure the cake Looked Nice, but isn't it more important for it to Taste Wonderful?

Well, it was terrific!

I actually liked the white layer better than the chocolate (hard to believe, I know).

And I got to try a layer that was white and raspberry, at the brunch the next day; it was also really yummy.

Here is one more picture of wedding flowers that I'm kinda partial to.

This is from the wedding of (one set of) my great-grandparents. It had a 95 stamped in the bottom corner, and after asking my mom and dad about it, they said it would make sense if it was from 1895 timing-wise and all.

I always love old photos, don't you?

I'll be sharing more of them in the future, because there are a bunch of neat pics from my grandma and grandpa's farm when my mom and aunt were little kids.

Oh, and we will be installing Tweedle Dee's software (Nikon D70) on my computer over the weekend. So, I hope to share some of those pics with you soon.

Remember, patience is a virtue.

Updated to add: I always suspected that Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee were male, but I was going to ignore that. However, I was curious about the spelling/hyphenation of it and realized that those names are the characters' last names! i.e. they are Ned Tweedledum and Fred Tweedledee.

poop.

So, I am back to Niki or Dee Dee, I guess....

thank goodness I hadn't filled out a birth certificate...

Posted by danielle at 01:01 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack