Small Canvas

Kendra recently snapped a photo with her phone that I absolutely LOVED. She'd been running in Williamsburg the other morning and captured the city skyline. A while back, I learned how to do transfers. I've had all the supplies but had yet to try it out for myself. Her photo inspired me.

This canvas has probably 20+ layers of paint as I tried to get the coloring right. I still don't know if I'm completely happy with it, but when am I ever TRULY happy with something I create. I transferred the definition for the word run on it since she was running when she captured the moment. Then I used her photo and transferred it onto the canvas too. This was the first photo transfer I've done, and it's not perfect (right in the middle, some of the coloring came off). It's also the first time I've used acrylic paint (which I also don't know if I'm doing it "right"... taking a class next month on painting with acrylic, hopefully that will help). This canvas was mostly an experiment. I liked it enough to give to Kendra. (Giving it away says Something. I usually find everything unworthy.)

Impressive Yoga

I'm nowhere NEAR flexible or strong enough for something like this...

Morning Sunshine on the Snow

I love the way the sunshine glitters off the snow in the morning. It's a masterpiece that is quietly created while most people are unaware and sleeping. The colors of the lighting are the most beautiful in this time of morning, the magic hour. Sunset has a similar time (yet I never see it much living where I live with buildings blocking the falling sun's rays). 

Time is going so quickly. Here we are with most of January done. Even my kiddos mentioned how quickly time was flying for them the other morning. I explained to them how each year, time goes by faster and faster. Yet, I may have found a secret to slowing it down. Change. Mostly change of location. When we moved to NYC, the seasons lasted longer. The fall had so many days of beautiful leaves and fall adventures. The winters of cold days and a few magical, glistening snow days. The springs lasting forever with flowers budding from trees for what felt like ages. So many things to see, so many things to photograph. And summers. The adventures and fun never seemed to end. We were always doing something new. Yet, as our years have passed here in NYC, the new has worn off and the norm has set in. Making everything pass by so quickly without as much wonder, without as much notice. And even though I try to make a conscious effort to savor the moments, even if they are just the ordinary moments I'm used to in my day-to-day life, I am often too busy, too tired, too forgetful. And off passes the time without me realizing it flying by. So while it's nice to keep life the same (especially for someone who has had past trouble with change), maybe it is actually the change that makes you slow life down.

Kentile Floors: Another

snow

Finally a morning when we wake up to snow! And a day to get to watch it fall! (Our next wish will be for a snow storm that gives us an actual snow day - I'm getting the feeling that it won't happen this winter, but I guess we still have a bit more time.) 

21 Day Challenge

At my last doctor's appointment, I was told my "running up stairs from the subway" workout wasn't actually reliably counted as a "formal" workout. I was advised to start a moderate workout at least 3 times a week. She suggested walking. Yet, the freezing temperature and the early darkness completely keeps me from even considering it. When I get home, I'm ready to stay in. 

I've been throwing around the idea of taking Yoga classes again at a place about 5 blocks from my house. Yet, there are multiple things pulling me away from that - I'd have to actually have the motivation/time/energy to go, which includes leaving my house and going out in the cold - most likely NOT going to happen after a long day of work. I'd be spending the money (and when you add it up over a month it's a bit more than I want to spend - especially right now, when I'm trying to get my loans paid off & my extra money should be going towards loan payments). 

I somehow found (can't remember where) a link to a 21-day Yoga Challenge via YogaJournal.com. I signed up and for the past week, I've been receiving daily yoga emails. The first few days, I ignored them. I guess I wasn't really ready to sign up for that 21-day challenge. When I finally looked at them, I realized they came with a yoga video each day. Yesterday was my first day of doing yoga using one of the videos linked. It was actually VERY nice. It wasn't too intense (which I like) and the teacher had a calming voice, plus she and the model are very clear in instructing/showing the poses. Today, instead of going to the next video, I went back to the first one because I liked it so much! Maybe tonight I'll try to second day's video. 

Climbing

Seth and I joined Kendra and Ian for an afternoon of climbing at Brooklyn Boulders this weekend. It was my first climbing experience, and I am pretty convinced that I to want to go climbing again!

I am a bit out of shape (well - I don't formally workout - ever) and I would say I have pretty weak arms. Yet, I was able to feel some success with a couple tries and a few deep breaths to take away my fears of being high up off the ground (high up off the ground = 20 feet... high for me;)!

We climbed until we physically couldn't climb anymore. Our arms got so shaky that we both finally had to stop! We are both feeling a bit sore today (so sore that we can't even massage each other's arms to make them feel better!)

Love.

Date Night: The New Museum

Months ago, I found a great idea for a date for Seth and me. We don't often go on "real" dates, but after our mystery date to Sleep No More I decided it'd be fun to plan dates for each other... Unfortunately, this date has been postponed Thursday after Thursday. 

We were down to the wire with this one though. I hadn't told Seth much about it, because I thought it'd be fun for it to be a surprise. Yet, he figured it out after I mentioned I had seen an ad on the subway (of course, immediately after that, the subway we were riding on happened to have the ad right in front of our faces & Seth figured it out!) 

 One of the highlights of the exhibit was called Untitled (Slide). It was, in fact, a huge slide. One that went started on the 4th floor and ended on the 2nd floor!

 It was quite a fast ride and over in only moments! The gallery on the 2nd floor had bright flashing lights and a few other exhibits to experience.

Another highlight was a slow moving, shiny swing. 

There were mushrooms which contained 3 different mushrooms in one. 

The one thing we didn't get to try out were the goggles (if you look in the mushroom photo you can kind of see the person to the left who has a pair of the goggles on). Thursdays are Free night (we didn't take advantage of it - standing in line outside just didn't sound too ideal for this cold evening & paying money towards art is ok by me) and by the time it had started the line for the goggles made us quickly lose motivation. 

Anyway, date night was a success - fish tacos before and our first visit to the New Museum with a ride on one of the biggest slides I've ever been on (inside a building ;). 

kentile floors

i love taking photos of the kentile floors sign from the f and g trains. i actually have two other photos of this same sign... one of the morning sunrise and one in the fog. the photo above was taken mid-afternoon on the first day of 2012. the sun case a perfect soft light across the city as it headed down. 

waiting room

Kendra gave me an iPhonography book about iPhone photos for Christmas. It's inspired me to get back to using my photo to see again. I am often taking photos with my phone, but using some cool aps and being more purposeful, I'd like to try take more artsy photos.

pinterest obsession

it seems like everyone has become obsessed with pinterest lately (ME INCLUDED!) my boards are here, if you are interested to see what i've been pinning.

what i thought was interesting tonight, as i continue to pin past my bedtime, is the pins that have been posted of some of my photos that i didn't realize were posted... check them out here.

happy new year!

i always have the best intentions of sending out some sort of card, letter, photo around the end of the year/beginning of the new year... i rarely succeed at getting it sent out. this year, i even painted our holiday greetings and still didn't get them sent out! AND because i stamped the date (including the year) i can't reuse them next year... they ended up being gift tags on a few gifts we gave, but otherwise, i have a pile of them to admire or something.



as a backup, seth and i picked out a favorite photo from 2011 to share in an email greeting, and then i left it up to the blog to share the updates of the past year (not that i've been the best blogger this year... maybe in 2012 i'll be better.)

hope you 2011 ended nicely & the start of 2012 has been enjoyable so far! we celebrated the ending of 2011 with dinner at manhattan inn (a piano bar in williamsburg/greenpoint, bk) with family and friends and an evening of games, dancing (kendra was teaching me lady gaga dance to her song bad romance), champagne, and lots of laughs. and since our night didn't end until early in the morning, we spent the first day of the year sleeping in late and heading to rockefeller center, grand central station, dumbo, and back to relax at home this evening.

Top of the Rock

We have guests in town visiting. Having guests is about the only time we really get out and do any sort of "sight seeing" in the city. Today, we were off to the Rock to see the view after sundown.