Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Things to do’ Category

Oct 14

3 Comments

Let me try that again

Remember I said I’d come back and show you my new tricks?

Look what Mama learned to do:

lovesome gif

Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks to Angela for taking the portraits and to both Angela and Bri for hovering nearby to answer all my questions.  I reached crisis mode a few times.  But they held my hand and talked me through it.  Hip hip hooray for Blogshop!

We spent some time learning how to “retouch” our portraits and let me tell you, that is a dangerous endeavor.  Zooming in on your own face, smoothing here, erasing there.  It gets kind of hard to stop.  Oh, and mood boards.  That is some good, wholesome fun that is also hard to stop once you get going.  (For my non-bloggy friends who don’t know what a mood board is?  Look here for a lovely example).

Sep 23

Blogshop here I come.

I am busy making arrangements for my personable and entrepreneurial young neighbor, Graham, (who had just come to my door earlier this week with copies of his hand-scrawled flyers advertising his new pet care venture), to care for my dog, Sweetiepie, for the weekend while I off here:

That’s right, I will be attending a two-day Photoshop boot camp workshop led by the lovely creative duo, Bri + Angela.  While I can’t exactly remember what led me to believe back in June that I actually need to, or want to learn Photoshop, here I am, registered, tuition paid in full, Photoshop trial downloaded on my laptop.  I’m just telling myself something about old dogs and new tricks being a good thing, (me being the old dog, in case you’re not following), and trying to not over think this.  One just never knows where life will take you, and if you’ll be glad you’ve got Photoshop in your back pocket when you get there.

I have dabbled with Photoshop, trying to learn it myself, with some minor victories (see previous post here).  I do love how this came out.  And it only took me about 15 hours to figure out how to get this text over this photo I love of James and his shopping cart.

Most of my self-guided efforts have ended more like this (see previous post where I simply surrendered here):

That exercise also took about 15 hours.  And raised my blood pressure a few points.  Hopefully by Monday I will finally be able to solve the great big question of why this text kept coming out blurry.

I’ll report back next week on my voyage into technology and beyond.  I may even show off some of my new deftly Photoshopped images. Unless I’m a terrible student.  But I’m hoping Bri + Angela won’t let that happen.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Blogshop offers classes in cities around the country (and now a few international cities, Paris + Berlin coming up).  Check the website for upcoming locations.

Alix, my friend who knows things, recommends the online courses for Photoshop and Illustrator offered by Nicole’s classes.  I personally need the instructor-standing-next-to-me experience that Blogshop offers, but she swears by these online courses.

Mar 14

5 Comments

Things to do with kids, NYC: Get your tech on

Mr. Sweetpea had an early flight this weekend which left me with a full Sunday to fill.  Here’s what I came up with:

 

Find it on the corner of Madison and 56th.

Carol ann. . . turn away from the light. . .

 

Thomas performing virtual surgery. He needs a little more practice before we put out his shingle.

Robots. Need I say more?

After our visit, we sat in the connected Sony Atrium kicking back with our Starbucks booty (may I recommend the chocolate peanut butter mini cupcakes if you can find them? Whoa.)  I said something like, Gee, I was a little disappointed.  I thought it was going to be a little better.  Which was met with, What?  How could it have been any better?  It was awesome!  Like the best thing we’ve done, ever! So apparently this trip comes kid recommended.

So did I enjoy Sony’s offering?  Not exactly.  But I notice, with some shame, that I don’t really enjoy many of the things I do for their enjoyment.  I enjoy them, sometimes bickering, whiny, ungrateful them.  There were lots of flashing lights and other people and opportunities for playing video games.  Not to mention that the whole thing is pretty much one big promo for Sony.  But I guess sometimes, for some things, I say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  We have different interests.  We just do.  And sometimes, just sometimes, you end up with a gem like this:

At the end of the day we had some time to kill while waiting for our train.  Thomas asked to borrow money from me at the Grand Central Market.  I resisted, lecturing (once again) that we just had such a nice day and that was enough and blah blah blah. . . but he was so insistent, promised that he would pay me back when we got home and you just have to let me, he kept imploring.  He wasn’t letting it go.  Fine, it’s your money.  Ugh. . . it’s just never enough for them, I think as he walks away.

My boy returns, grinning proudly.

Flowers, for me.

Be still, my heart.

 

Feb 24

3 Comments

Namaste

Thomas, age 4, tree pose. photo Jodi Komiter

So there I am, trying to find something to occupy James (that makes me feel a little less guilty than all that tv he’s been watching) while I’m working, and I rediscover something I used to LOVE to do with my boys years and years ago.  I found an old kids yoga dvd I had used with Thomas and Ben up on a high dusty shelf and put it on for James.  In one way, this appeared to back-fire because of course he wouldn’t just DO YOGA with the teacher on the video.  NOOOOOOOOO. . . he wanted me to do it with him.  This was a little frustrating.  But once I just gave in and got down on the floor with him, it brought me right back to some of my favorite times with Thomas and Ben (now 11 1/2 and nearly 9) when they were sweet wee ones. Don’t get me wrong, they are still awfully sweet in their own ways, but let’s put it this way-  I started my day today with an all-out tag team wrestlemania session where they took turns trying to take me down, all before 7 am.  Interests change.  As do lives, sometimes without us even realizing it.

I started doing Yoga with Thomas when he was an infant, which meant that I was doing yoga while he was lying on my mat wiggling and watching, nursing while I om-ed, or resting on my hip while I was in warrior pose.  We continued this way until he could crawl and then it was clearly time to get him on his own mat.  Enter Jodi Komiter, one charismatic juicy living gal with a vision to spread yoga and love through her Next Generation Yoga venture.  When I walked into her Upper West Side studio with its rainbow streamers and twirling crystals I knew we had found a home.  It was a love affair for a few years there.  Jodi moved to the West Coast around the same time we moved from the city and the picture above was taken on our last day with Jodi before we all moved onto our next thing.

From what I can tell from her website, Jodi is still teaching and training teachers and working with families and children and spreading her light wherever she goes.  From what I can tell by looking in the mirror (I mean this both literally and figuratively, friends), I have strayed further than I want to admit from my more connected, more idealistic, parenting of my younger mothering days.  This morning I ordered her yoga dvd and a lavender filled monkey eye pillow for my monkey.  Here’s to getting some of that back.

Namaste.

Feb 22

2 Comments

Dinowhore

Full disclosure- no nursery school this week.  Which is to say, I am attempting this over the din of a video which is babysitting James for the next 52 minutes.  Thank you “Is Your Mama a Llama and Other Stories about Growing Up”.  So James and I will be constant companions until Monday.  Which is mostly sweet.  Just don’t expect a whole lot from me this week.  And DO expect to hear the name JAMES  a lot.

I am on my third male toddler here, but somehow the first who is seriously into dinosaurs–obsessed like only little people can be.  He has been imploring me to take him to the “nooseeum” (museum) to see the dinosaur bones.  Randomly lamenting how “no one takes me dare. . .”  No one takes him A LOT of places.  I’m kinda over Mommy & Me classes eleven and a half years in. Heck, I’m kind of even over the park.  But I’m definitely NOT over the chance to spend the day with a wide-eyed little guy accompanying him on one of his firsts.

Friday was our big date.

Fueling up across the street from the Museum of Natural History at Shake Shack.

Having spent the last few years toying with veganism/vegetarianism/at the very least aiming for whole foods as much of the time as possible, (except all those cookies, of course), this snapped me out of all THAT:

Behold: a thing of beauty.

I’ve pretty much been on a bender since.

In the main entrance atrium, James's first up close and personal. "Oh my gawd! Oh my gawd!", he ran around shouting. I'm thinking I need to encourage OTHER exclamations of awe.

It was pretty much a perfect day.  Even the loud altercation we had in one of the large echo-y halls on the fourth floor.  Is it an altercation if only ONE person is shouting?  That would be JAMES yelling at ME  as I explained (once again) that Dinosaurs are EXTINCT which means NO LONGER ALIVE ANYPLACE.  Which is why I can’t take him to the Jungle to see the real ones.  Agreeing to disagree didn’t cut it.  To make peace, in the moment, I did what any reasonable parent would do:  Agreed that maybe he was right and I was wrong (with a straight face, no less).

It was 63 degrees outside and the sidewalks were soaked with melted ice and snow.  I could practically hear the crocus pushing through the crusty frozen dirt. We even took our jackets off in the afternoon.  It comes in the nick of time every year, doesn’t it??   One of those spring teaser days that make you feel like everything is going to be alright after all.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 110 other followers