Guess who discovered the bird feeder today?

Yup! Mr. Chubby Squirrel.

This is the first that I've seen any squirrels at it.

And I might've been disappointed, except that this gave me the perfect chance to try out the zoom lens my dad sent me that arrived late yesterday. He has a Nikon film camera that he doesn't really use anymore and a zoom lens that he was willing to send me. One of the cool thing about Nikon is that they've kept all of the lens threads the same over the years so that any Nikon lens, or Nikon-compatible lens, will fit onto the new camera models too. (Note: I believe Canon has done this too so that older Canon lenses will fit onto new Canon cameras.) Anyway, the lens is a Vivitar 70-210mm zoom lens.

Now, I've barely gotten to experiment with it, and since it is an entirely manual lens, I'm learning how to change settings to get the exposure the way I want it. But this will give you an idea of where I am today with it, and then as I (hopefully) get better, you can see my progress.

Now, that photo above was taken with the 'kit' lens that comes in the camera kit (if you choose to buy the D70 in that kind of package). The kit lens is an AF-S Nikkor 18-70mm. And in the photo above, I have stood inside the patio window and zoomed as close as possible with the kit lens.

Here is another example.

What I've often done in my bird pictures in the past, is cropped the photo so that you can see the birds (or in this case, the squirrel better).

Now, after taking those photos, I switched lenses. Lucky for me, Mr. Chubby Squirrel was happy to continue eating while I did this. And I started attempting to get the exposure right with the zoom lens.

Well, what you'll see is that it isn't quite where I wanted it, but you'll get the idea of how different the zoom is with this one. I zoomed in as far as possible for these shots.

In this next one, the wood and screws are in great focus, but the squirrel is not.

I could've sworn I was looking at the squirrel's face and feet to get the focus right. But the feeder kept spinning, he was wiggling, and I have/had a migraine, so it could be that I'm goofing up the focus. I also think I'd better double check the viewfinder, because it is possible something has gotten bumped on it and that also changes the focus-ing some.

I also kept changing some of the settings to try to get everything optimal, but I kinda knew I was working against time, because he'd already run away once. Finally, he'd had enough of that crazy lady inside the house with the beeg skeery black thing.

And off he went.

As he scampered along the railing, he paused for a second...

... and I got this one.

The fact that his front feet are in focus makes me think that some of the focusing issue may be that he was sniffing/moving slightly. Changing the film speed or exposure would probably help with that. But I've still got to figure out how to do all of that. ;-)

and off he went

I have lots to learn about how to get the kind of image I'm looking for, but now you can see where I am today. And then when I manage to get a shot with the squirrel's eyes in focus, it will be all the more exciting.

Posted by danielle at 01:07 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

In my post describing how much I battle getting myself to go exercise, Momo asked me if I would want to be email buddies and check in with each other once a week about how our exercising has gone for the week. Since this was along the same lines as a suggestion Amber made to me via email, we've decided to form an exercising club to help keep us motivated.

And, you are invited to join us!

Here's how it will work. On Sunday, I'll make a post where we can each comment about how our exercising/activity went for the previous week. You are welcome to put in as much, or as little detail as you want. You are welcome to comment every week or whenever you feel like it, but Momo and Amber and I are committing to commenting every week. I'm thinking that I'm going to commit to listing off each day of the week and what I did or didn't do that day; I'm still deciding if I want to include the lengths of time. It would be a nice way to see the progress I'm making and might keep me going past the 20 minute mark when I usually feel like stopping. I will probably put in the lengths of time.

Now, this is rather public (although my readership is relatively low) but for Momo and Amber and me, we are going to do it this way. For me, having it be 'public' will probably be the added incentive I need to keep at it when I'd rather not. I am one of these people who can stick with an exercising program for a month, but then the minute I get sick or travel or have something happen that makes it the littlest bit inconvenient, I stop. And once I stop, it is REALLY hard for me to get back at it again. So, I'm hoping this will
A) get me going again when I stop due to say illness/migraines and
B) will keep me going when it isn't convenient

If you want to participate, but don't want to do it by a public comment, you can always just email me (danielle at danielleblog dot com) and tell me if you do or don't want me to forward it to the people participating and we'll cheer you on via email.

That is really what this is about, having friends to encourage and support you, when the going gets tough, and to be accountable to someone as incentive to go be active when you don't feel like it.

And maybe along the way, we'll inspire each other in our battle to become more fit and healthier.

So start tracking your activity for the week and check back on Sunday!

Posted by danielle at 10:31 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

So, I've been feeling really tired this week and kind of sad and blue and just generally unmotivated. I think it is a combination of being burnt out from pushing and pushing and pushing so hard for so long and my usual winter blues. I have suspected for a number of years that I have seasonal affective disorder (SAD), because I get tired and depressed in winter, and usually my migraines get worse too. I have never gone to a doctor for it though, but that is more because
A) I've only really recognized the pattern within the past few years.
B) Within the past few years, making it to the doctor became extremely difficult with timed experiments that must be done on certain days and certain hours and planned 4 weeks in advance.

I've kind of put a lot of stuff on the back-burner while I was doing my graduate research that I am now attempting to move to the front-burner.

Like what? Well, getting my hair cut, going to the doctor, dermatologist, dentist, eye doctor, OB/Gyn, all those things kind of got shoved aside the crazier things got. I had appointments (that I'd have to make 2 months in advance, of course) and that would then have to be cancelled a couple weeks prior to the actual date when I realized that I'd be doing an experiment on those days that couldn't be done on a different day. I specifically tried to take weekends off, so I really loathed the idea of moving experiments to weekends in order to do something like go to the doctor on a precious weekday. And while I could get my hair cut on weekends, most doctors don't work on weekends, as I'm sure you are well aware.

The other thing that got pushed aside was exercising. I don't know if I've said, but when we went to buy a house in MA, the prices were so astronomical compared to what we had been able to live in for apartments, that I made the concession that I would commute farther every day in order to have the house we both wanted (and that would allow us to have a nicer home in the long run - like here in MN). But that meant that I was taking 3 hours total out of everyday just to get to and from work. It was quite a lot of commuting, but I figure everything is all a trade off, so I was willing to do it. But what that meant was that I pretty much got home, ate supper, and had an hour or so before I went to bed. And since I'm not a huge fan of exercising anyway, I wasn't going to exercise on a full stomach right after eating supper during my one free hour. So I pretty much pushed the thought of exercising out the window until I was done with grad school and I was commuting a shorter distance. And I just walked fast to and from the train station everyday (20 minutes total a day) to try to make up for it.

Of course, as anyone who has ever read anything about SAD or depression knows, exercising helps keep the symptoms down. But it is quite the catch 22, because the worse I feel, the harder it is to get myself to go exercise, but of course, exercising helps keep the blah feelings at a minimum.

So, this week, I started going for exercise walks. It was sunny most days, which helped me want to go outside and walk. And while it felt like a chore at first, it became enjoyable to be out and walking. Monday evening, my muscles were sore, which told me just how far out of shape I'd gotten now that I haven't been walking my 20 minutes a day to and from the train station, and that helped motivate me to get in better shape. Tuesday, I was anxious to go out even though it was overcast and blustering. Once I was out, I felt a bit stronger and able to walk faster than I had the day before. I felt like my muscles were starting to get accustomed to this exercising deal, and I felt happy and rejuvenated being out. Wednesday was sunny again and I was also looking forward to my walk, but I still had to push myself over my inertia to get my clothes changed and get going. I managed to walk even faster and harder, which felt like an accomplishment and made me happy once I was out there. Thursday I had to drag myself up to get my clothes on by telling myself that if I still felt bad 10 minutes into it, I'd come home. But once I got going, I felt great and energized and stayed out for the full 45 minutes; although the blister on my toe was getting a bit worse and I was reminded by a pain in my arch that I really need to remember to wear my arch supports, next time. Yesterday, well, I just couldn't drag myself to go. And now I wish I had.

I just feel so frickin TIRED. Like I could sleep for years.

I'd also rather be curled up with a book than working on anything school related. And this is the big flashing sign that I'm burnt out. I look at my data and just think "UGH, do I Have to deal with this still? Can't it just be Over Already?" And because it will be over soon, I tell myself that I just have to go just a little bit longer "blah-blah-blah- talk to the hand", is what all of that feels like, because well, I just want to be done and even one more day feels like too long. *sigh* And then I cheer myself on, etc. etc. and tell myself that if I work until lunch, I can read my book at lunch. Then if I work until 3:00, I'll get a nice break for my walk. And then if I work until supper, I can stop for the day.

And this strategy mostly worked. But I'm still tired and blah.

And I don't say all of this because I need or want cheering on or because I want a pep talk, I just needed to talk about it. I wanted to tell you how very unmotivated and tired I feel and I wanted to talk about the exercising issue, because I'm hoping that by bringing it up, I'll be motivated to stick with it. And this also reminds me that we've got to get our bicycle trainer out so that on days when I can't go walking outside, I I don't have an excuse to not exercise.

And now, I think I need to go dig out my tights and go for a walk.

Posted by danielle at 11:49 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

It took me many tries to get a photo that I liked of the daffodils in my bouquet. Finally, I realized that if I wanted to use a small depth of focus, I needed to get the flower angled so that the ruffly part was the same distance from the camera as part of the petals. This is where I smack my forehead and say "Well, duh!", of course you can't shoot it straight on and get both parts in focus! Thank goodness for digital cameras where I can take some shots, look at them, then take more, if need be. I may be a slow learner about some of these kinds of things, but I am learning.

And now, the Girlie-girl reminds us that it is important to stop and smell the flowers.

mmmmmm smells good, doesn't it?

And as I was taking shots one day, she just had to come over and plop herself down nearby so that she could be in the photos. And you know how I love to show her off...

And look how good her face looks! After 4 solid days of wearing the cone back in um, December, I think it was, we finally got her to stop fussing with her eye and nose. I think it just had to get a chance to get past a certain stage of healing. Now, if she starts to rub at it, I stop her from catching it with her claws and then clean it for her with a warm washcloth. That seems to get rid of the little scabs that must be what is making her want to scratch. Her white fur is growing back too. Pretty soon, she may be back to normal completely, and that would be terrific.

I've found a couple groups on Flickr for that picture. One is for cats that have a black mask. Girlie-girl's mask isn't perfectly black, so we'll see if it stays on there or if someone removes it. The other is for pictures of cats that are staring. Well, this pic is about as intense as she gets, eyeball-wise. In the process of looking for those groups, I found a heck of a lot of cat groups. My goodness! Who knew? I've got all kinds of photos that would fit into some of the groups... close-ups of whiskers, eyes, cats on computers, cats with their human family members, and stuff on the cats, amongst others. One could spend hours looking for groups and looking at photos! Because I am trying to limit how much time I spend doing stuff like that, I really haven't delved into it much, but I may slowly keep my eyes out for stuff like that.

Posted by danielle at 01:01 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Another special delivery

This one, we've been waiting on since we ordered it in November.

Yes, a snowblower, I mean, snow thrower.

Now, we are officially Minnesotans and no longer need to envy our across the street neighbor

and our next door neighbor

for their abilities to clean off their driveways.

And now, we grunt like the guys from Home Improvement, "Haaar Haaar Haaaar."

Let it snow, for WE are prePARED.

Note: delivery photos are from today - yes, it is both sunny and there is still snow on the ground. Pics of the neighbors are from Dec 31st.

Posted by danielle at 10:28 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

Ladybug had wondered (in the comments of my Friday posts) where HB was taking me over the weekend to celebrate the completion of my written thesis.

Well, I came up with the idea that we could go have high tea! I had read about a local tea house that served high tea on Saturdays. Now, to give you some perspective, for several years now, HB and I have talked about going to a high tea. Usually our discussions are prompted by some article in the newspaper listing off places that serve tea and a mention of how one of them serves high tea. Usually, the places serving high tea are fancy-shmancy hotel-like spots that required more planning than either of us ever seemed to be able to muster. I guess we got spoiled when we lived in Ohio and could go to Special Teas for, well, special tea at the drop of a hat.

On Friday, I looked up and called the local tearoom and Lo and Behold! they still had room for 2 for high tea on Saturday. Yay!

The tearoom is a farmhouse that has been restored/decorated as a tea place. The structure of it reminded me a lot of my grandparents' place in Indiana. Our table was by an nice bay window and I could look through the wavery old glass and see a couple of very large trees.

The place settings were pretty, and made me all excited to be there.

I've never actually been to a place before that had so many utensils. My fancy dinner experience is somewhat limited.

We drank Lemon Soltice tea, a blend of black tea that had lemon, vanilla, licorice, and some berries in it.

I was a bit wary of it, because in the past, I haven't enjoyed tea that is lemon, or vanilla, and I avoid licorice like the plague. I thought it was a bit odd that we didn't get to choose the tea that we were going to drink, but I had a feeling going into it that was going to be the case from reviews I'd read online. However, the tea grew on me. After a cup of it, I found it quite pleasant. I couldn't taste or smell the licorice, so all was well. And the lemon was offset by the vanilla and vice versa, and that made the tea fine. The tea also went well with the food.

First, we enjoyed a warm fruit compote. Very tiny chunks of apples with raisins (golden) and craisins topped with cinnamon and with the flavors kind of blending together.

Second was the scone. Oatmeal, maple, walnut with Devonshire Cream.

The scone was good, but the cream was to die for. YUM. For me, this was the highlight of the whole tea experience. Afterward, I decided that I'd be happy just going back for tea and scones sometime. If I could choose the tea flavor.

Third were the tea sandwiches.

Including pork tenderloin in pastry, curried chicken with gruyere cheese, and salmon in a phyllo crust. I liked the curried chicken one the best.

Fourth was the spinach and pine nut quiche. I decided to pass on the quiche. The eggs were too runny/custardy for my taste and I just couldn't get past the smell of the melted butter of the crust. I have a really strong aversion to the smell of melted butter or melted cheese, even now, I can almost smell it and feel slightly nauseated by it. bleck.

Fifth was a Grand Marnier sponge cake. It was a fruity cream filled roll cake. The cream was cool and had pieces of orange and/or pineapple in it that made this cake a cool and light ending to a large meal.

All in all, it was a lot of really good food and nice tea in a lovely setting. I'm glad that I finally got to experience a 'high tea', although I think I now know that I'm just as happy having nice tea with a single dessert or scones and don't really need all of the extra food. I did buy a couple of new tea blends too, and HB and I tried one of them over breakfast on Sunday. It was quite good. I'm looking forward to trying the other one today with lunch.

It was a special way to celebrate this stage in my graduate work.

Tea anyone?

Posted by danielle at 10:20 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

Special Delivery!

I received these about 2 hours ago from Mom and Dad!

Aren't they just gorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgeous!?

*GRIN*

I've spent part of the last 2 hours on the phone with Mom and Dad, but for the majority of it, I've been taking pictures in the afternoon sunlight.

I'll be posting more. I kinda want to spread them out for longer lasting enjoyment.

Posted by danielle at 04:30 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

*UPDATED to add one that I forgot*

231 references

186 pages

38 black and white figures

8 copies

7 years of graduate work

6 copies shipped

6 chapters

3 months of writing (here at the end)

3 lbs = the weight of each copy*

2 color figures

1.5 inch binders

1 inch of paper per copy

and the support of all of you = Priceless

Thank you all so very much.

Posted by danielle at 10:04 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

Just a quick note, cause I know some of you may be checking in on my progress. I have one final figure to pull together (hopefully within the next hour) then I'm off to Kinko's for the big print. Everything else is DONE.

Shipping it out today, barring any really crazy happenings.

Posted by danielle at 09:20 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

This is the Indian blanket wildflower that I fell in love with while we were visiting Texas.

If you haven't noticed by now, I'm particularly fond of flowers that change their coloring or shading within a petal or within the center of the flower.

I thought those pictures might be a nice cheer-me-up to all of us today. Particularly those of us *ahem* who are beginning to be tired of snow and/or being cooped up inside. But you know what makes being cooped up inside just a wee bit more bearable?

That's right! chooooooooooooooooocolate.

Now, you may look at that collection and say to yourself "OH MY GOSH, Danielle!? Are you planning to OD on chocolate? REALLY, calm down, honey, you are almost done. No need to be drastic!"

Or you may say "Wow! HB bought all of that for you at the grocery yesterday? A truer sign of love has ne'er been found."

(but only if you say things like ne'er. And who says words like that today? Not I! said the bear, I ne'er say ne'er.)

*ahem* Don't mind me, I'm feeling loopy for some reason. Maybe it is the lightheadedness from yearning for chocolate. All of the blood has left my brain and gone to my stomach.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes! OR you may say to yourself, "geeeeee, I wish I could get a better look at those chocolates, because I Swear one of them wants to be eaten!"

Do you seeeeeeee that?! That one has a spotlight on it!

It clearly needs to be eaten.

Ope! It just fell out of the wrapper.

Well, we can't leave a mess around the house, now can we?

yummmmmmmmmmmm

Flower pictures were taken with our Sony Cybershot DSC-P71 and chocolate pics were taken this morning with Dee-Dee.

Posted by danielle at 10:07 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

I recently exchanged emails with a friend from high school. We hadn't really talked in a year so all the info about my being at the point where I'm writing my thesis was new to her.

She said something funny in her email to me (mind you, she got her Ph.D. a few years ago and also has a 1.5 yr old daughter)

"Is there anything worse than writing a thesis?

Honestly, childbirth was more pleasant."

Posted by danielle at 09:30 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

I just spotted this out the dining room door

Somehow, I just don't think that all those birds are going to fit at the feeder. Doncha think?

I guess they could always wait and take turns.

I hope to post about my weekend one of these times when I gather the energy to take some extra pics that go along with it.

In the meantime, my thesis defense is officially set for Feb 7th. Now, if we were to use Trainwreck's method of keeping track of dates, the 'anchor date' would be Valentine's day on Feb 14th, and we'd remember the 7th by knowing that it is exactly one week earlier.

There, now we can all remember.

Another key date is that in just under 2 weeks, I will be shipping my entire thesis to my committee.

Which means, that
A) this feels a bit like 'crunch time' and
B) the end is near.

hmmm... that may be a bit ominous.

How about "the light at the end of the tunnel is closer"
or
to build upon the mountain climbing analogy from before, I can see the peak, and am approaching the top.

There. That's better.

Posted by danielle at 10:52 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

I took this photo a while back when we were visiting Texas. I skimmed all of my flower entries to see if I'd posted this one yet, and I don't think I have, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that, because I feel like we've covered the "looks like fairies" a few times already.

This one, reminds me of fairies.

Actually it is columbine. I was surprised and saddened to see that on the plant tag.

I can see why a school would have that as a name, because it is a remarkably beautiful flower. But the word columbine will always have an association with tragedy and sadness for me, so it is odd to see this beautiful flower and know it is columbine.

Now I posted this in an attempt to bring something bright and pretty into my blog of snow and work, and here I am being all depressing about this flower. ugh.

Here, maybe we need another flower.

That one is an Engelman Daisy. I like the name Engelman. It sounds nice to me for some reason. Maybe because it resembles the name of Laura Ingalls Wilder? Or maybe because it sounds like the name of an optometrist that my dad once worked for.

Which reminds me of another picture that I really like that I never posted of my Dad adjusting NEW! glasses for me. He and my mom brought these for me when we all converged upon Texas for Texas Seestor's wedding. And you can't have new glasses and not have them fit right! Right? right.

I was really glad to get this pic, because for me, its a picture of love. Almost every time I see my parents I ask my dad to adjust my glasses for me, and even when he is probably exasperated that I've bent them once again, he does it patiently.

Now, in theory, once they are adjusted once, you don't need them adjusted again, and usually they are fine. But then there are those accidents when you bonk your head into something and your glasses get bonked in the process, and a wee bit bent. Consequently, he has to adjust them quite a bit, and I have these very warm memories of my dad adjusting my glasses for me, and of mom, behind the scenes, prompting him to make me new ones.

The flower pics were taken with my Sony Cybershot DSC-P71, the pic of my dad adjusting my glasses was taken with Dee-Dee, my Nikon D70.

Posted by danielle at 02:51 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Now that the weather is a bit warmer, we've been getting lots of action at my new bird feeder! This seemed a bit backwards to me, because I figured that when it was cold, the birds need to eat more to stay warm. But my new theory is that when it is really cold (single digits), that they huddle somewhere for warmth and don't go out looking for food.

Now, just in case you are wondering why there is so much snow in that picture, just ignore it. It is actually all melted today. I took those on the 30th.

How many birds did you see in that pic?

Did you see the three on the railing?

Usually there are many more when I grab my camera, but the ones who are camera shy fly away as I approach the window.

"Beeeeeeg skeeeery black thing!"

Then there are the little guys I can see out the kitchen window, waiting their turn on a different tree.

And the Girlie-girl watches and watches and occasionally makes these little "Meeorph! Meeerph." sounds that are quite adorable.

In fact, here is an up to the minute pic of us, with many notes (click the pic and move your mouse/pointer over it to read them)

I'd better turn the heat up though, the natives are getting restless.

Posted by danielle at 09:31 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack