Thursdays come and Thursdays go as Thursdays are wont to do. Yesterday was just such a Thursday. It has gone now and I’m kicking myself for it. Though surely it will return as my calendar tells me I should expect another Thursday next week and another the next.
But yesterday’s Thursday is gone.
Most days I’ll remember for the things I did. Accomplishments. Yesterday will more likely be remembered for what I did not.
Today will be one of those days remembered for its missed opportunities. I’m not sure if anyone has noticed, I’ve certainly not made mention of it, but I have decided to hop on the proverbial wagon.
Project 365 has been around for a while now. How long? I hear you asking. Long enough. I suppose I could take the time to look into it and find an exact, or at least approximate, answer for you. But I’m not going to do that. That would involve something more than a minimal effort on my part and I’m just not there.
Took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch this past Sunday. Here’s Zella, meandering through the corn maze.
I had a roll of film developed recently. Yes—FILM. Frankly, I was unsure technology still existed that enabled people to do such things. Seems that it does. I had pulled out my old Pentax 35mm slr camera because we were going to the Browns Training Camp in Cleveland and it has a really nice zoom lens. It also takes fantastic pictures, I had forgotten how nice.
I snapped about 6 rolls during our stay and decided when I dropped the film off for developing that I would grab a few of the undeveloped rolls of film I had lying around in an attempt to whittle at that pile. Oh, don’t even begin to tell me you don’t have one or two rolls of film lying undeveloped somewhere in a drawer. You’ve got no idea what is on them or when they were taken–but you’ve got them. I’ve got a box full. Probably 20-30 rolls of undeveloped film.
It’s kind of like giving yourself a special treat or opening an almanac, stepping into a time machine when you finally get around to having the film processed. You exclaim, “Oh, I remember that! That was so much fun. My, the kids have certainly grown.” Or you’ll comment, “Hmm….I don’t remember this. Honey, where was this taken?” Or you may lament, “Oh. My. GOD!!! I honestly thought there was no film in the camera when we did that! We were just playing!”
Anyway, one of the rolls was some black and whites taken just over two years ago. As soon as I opened the package, I remembered exactly when and where they were taken. I had taken the kids into the back yard late one evening. We grabbed a few blankets, the lounge chairs and just sat. We sat looking up into the dark, vast night sky spying stars and planets, hoping to catch a glimpse of a shooting star. We talked, we laughed and we sat. Enjoying the night sky and each other.
It was one of the best nights, ever!
Photography is not my forte. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I have a forte. I’m pretty much one of those guys that can do most things adequately (at best) but in no specific area would I dare call myself an expert. That has never really stopped me. I’ll still jump right in and participate in just about any activity. Within reason.
My latest foray? James from Quirkee.com and Daddyshack fame has organized a group on Flickr called the Daddyshack Scavenger Hunt. Each week our task is to photograph a group of selected items and post the pictures to the scavenger hunt pool on the Flickr group page. Interpretation is left entirely to the photographer.
I have found these past few weeks that the scavenger hunt has provided an enjoyable outlet. It shifts focus from otherwise mundane and ordinary objects in our environment and makes me think. It has also turned into a bit of a family activity as Zoë has started to ask for the list and will help me to find items as we travel here and there throughout the course of the week.
It’s a fun way to shake the dust off of your camera and start snapping pictures all in a laid-back, no pressure sort of way. If for some reason you are unable to get all of the shots during the week—”No worries!” to quote an often used phrase by James.
Here’s a link to the Daddyshack Scavenger Hunt page on Flickr. Stop by, sign up and start hunting. You’ll be glad you did. Oh, and tell em Ed sent ya.
Zane is studying the life cycle of the caterpillar this week. They even have a few caterpillars in the classroom and a couple have already formed a chrysalis. I asked him what was the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon. He said, “it’s the same–isn’t it?” “I don’t know, Dude. Weren’t you paying attention in class when they went over that? You tell me. Why are we paying all this money to send you to school if your aren’t going to pay attention in class?” I replied. (I didn’t know the answer but I felt with some crafty blaming and guilting I could avoid having to expose my inadequacies in the insect world.) I’ve come to find out that the real difference is that moths form cocoons by wrapping themselves up in their silk prior to making their pupa. Butterflies don’t. They have silk they just don’t wrap up like the moths do. It’s all very complicated stuff and better suited for discussion involving the minute differences between the butterfly and the moth and their respective chrysalis as opposed to cocoon formation as they enter the pupa stage of complete metamorphosis. And this is not a discussion about the chrysalis so let’s forget I mentioned it and move on, shall we?It’s Sharing Thursday. Essentially, it’s the kindergarten equivalent of show and tell but with a twist. Each week Zane is informed on Monday the topic for the upcoming Sharing Thursday. It’s usually pretty simple stuff: write a word with a long vowel and silent e and draw a picture, bring your favorite stuffed animal, draw a picture that shows under, bring in something that can be recycled…..you get the picture. This week would have been just as easy—for a normal parent.
Our assignment for this week was to bring in a time line of the life of Zane–using no more than five or six pictures. Like I said, an easy task for a normal parent. I’ve been called many things in my lifetime, normal does not spring to mind as being one of them. In the brief span of seven years as self appointed scribe of the family I have no fewer than 9 (NINE) different forms of storage media containing our family photos. I’ve got pictures on floppy discs, on zip drives, on cds, on mini dvds, on vhs, on mini dvs, on compact flash drives, on memory sticks and yes, even on hard copy photographs. Some of these I am completely unable to access as the computer technology used for them is now obsolete. My problem is that the photos are scattered all over the house with no specific order or pattern. Most of the discs aren’t labeled. It is a nightmare!
I should have been able to go to a drawer or shelf and pull off in succession the five specific years without a hint of trouble. In my mind I had envisioned our pictures each Christmas with Santa. We’ve been using the same Santa at the same mall since Zoë had her first Santa pic. I thought it would be a pretty cool way to show Zane on a yearly time line and figured it would be pretty simple to organize six years of Santa. Instead I spent the evening running from the basement to the attic and all points in between to try and locate a suitable set for a representative time line. It took me nearly four hours–long after the kids were in bed. I couldn’t find all of the Santa pictures. Still can’t. I’ve quit looking. But not perseverating.
I suppose I should add *organize photographs* to my list of things that need to get done around here.
