Exotic yet ordinary

So, shopping? Not a big fan. I hate crowds and hovering sales clerks and dressing rooms and the fact that I'm thirty miles from the nearest shopping center, so I typically do what I can (tickle Maya, clean, purchase bulky exercise equipment) to avoid the whole shopping thing. But I needed shoes. In the absolute worst way. Ask any of my co-workers, because that is exactly the sort of thing they notice: clothing, hair, weight, condition of shoes. It is also exactly the sort of thing that they will nag you about eleventy times a day until you finally give in and arrange a trip in the middle of the work week to rid yourself of 'The Shoes', the ones you've worn day after day for the last two years and stubbornly continue to shuffle around in despite the exposed screw in the insole, enormous crack in the heel, and pained feet.




After walking aisle after aisle of narrow loafers, frayed shoes, boots, sandals, and every sort of pointy shoe with heels you could imagine, I finally found a pair I could live with. And then another. By 4:30, I had three pairs of shoes (somewhat impressive for a girl who, up until yesterday, only had two pairs of shoes - and even then, I only wore one pair with any frequency), two happy feet, and one less resolution to worry about. Now, if I could just make myself shop for new clothes...

This morning I was thinking about self-portraits and how it's two days past Sunday and I still haven't posted mine for the week and how, gosh, I've done one (nearly) every Sunday for a while now and I bet people are getting tired of it and I'm bound to start running out of new ways to photograph myself so, huh, maybe I should just quit before someone gouges out an eye. And then I remembered I wasn't permitted to make such decisions so early in the day and instead wandered over to to check my email. Sandwiched in between today's headlines from NYtimes.com, Netflix notices, hot airfare alerts, taunts from eDiets, and groups urging me to sign a new petition was a message from Zooomr Notify. Someone had left a comment on one of my photos. Turns out, it was Thomas Hawk.

Hey Nanda, User Thomas Hawk has commented on Yellow. They said:
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Great portrait... blogged it here.

Thomas had created a smartset by searching for photos tagged "me" or "selfportrait". A couple of my self-portraits are in the set and Yellow made it onto the Zooomr blog. Very cool. And the encouragement I needed to continue to put myself in front of the camera.

So, here is Sunday's self-portrait, a bit late.

Earlier this week, I finally sat down to watch An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary film about climate change and global warming. And while it didn't make me cry, it did make me want to take action as soon as the credits rolled. Luckily, it was during the closing credits that the film offers some suggestions, 10 simple things to help do your part to stop global warming. Things as easy as replacing regular light bulbs with energy saving light bulbs, turning off electronic devices not in use, using less hot water, and, of course, recycling.

I had a similarly strong reaction to Supersize Me. After watching the film, I was determined to stop eating fast food. Right. I think I lasted a month or so before hitting a drive-thru. This time, I wanted to do something and I wanted it to stick. So, we're slowly replacing our light bulbs at the house and I've been doing a bit o' scouting to see where the local recycling centers are tucked away. In the meantime, I've taken my mini crusade to the office. I noticed that my co-workers had become quite the avid water drinkers, so today I finally suggested setting up a receptacle for plastic bottles. So we did. There is now a lined box on the 3rd floor next to the bins for aluminum cans. I even had someone volunteer to drop off the bottles as needed (thanks, Holly!). It's not much, but it's a start.

On Sunday afternoon, we decided to venture out to play in the snow. I played at digging out the driveway while Maya and her dad played at building her first snowman. With a shingle mouth and cigar nose and two eyes made out of rocks.






Once finished, Maya excitedly waived me over to meet her new friend, Snowman. Re.peat.ed.ly. "Hi, Snowman," she would say, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm Maya, and this is Mama." She gestured to me with both hands each time as she explained who I was.




After awhile, I thought I'd try to learn a bit more about Snowman, like his favorite color or where he's from. So I followed up my latest "Nice to meet you" with "Hey, Maya, where does Snowman come from?" Maya stopped gesturing. "Snowman come from?" I watched her turn this over before replying, "Ice, Mama. Snowman come from ice." And then she went back to introducing the two of us to our silent companion.

Because it's easier to fudge on a few items on your smallish list of 'secret' goals if no one knows...

In 2007, I resolve to:

* ditch thirty pounds
* start monthly outings up again (see there? two resolutions into the list and I'm already thinking about food)
* learn more about photography
* make better use of my camera
* buy this lens
* read at least one book each month (and JS&MN must be one of the titles)
* attend a service at Mayflower Church
* potty train little girl
* get more organized at work and home
* buy some new shoes already

M: Dad, can I have apple juice?

J: (distracted) Uh, sure. Just a second.

M: Daaaaaddy. Apple juice?

J: (still distracted) Okay. Okay...

M: Dad, knock knock.

J: Who's there?

M: APPLE JUICE!

Several months ago, say, Septemberish? we were told by our phone company, during, I might add, a call that had absolutely nothing to do with our internet service, that Yahoo! DSL had an upgrade for our area. Not one to look faster service in the mouth, we said yes have some and signed on. At first there didn't appear to be much of a difference, but we couldn't really be bothered with that because we still had access to the web and all was right with the world. And then we noticed that instead of our service being faster, it had slowed down, and still we didn't call because it was annoying but somehow tolerable. Eventually, things went from slow to stop and we were forced to call in. Turns out the lines in our one-stop-light little town are not conditioned for the upgrade we signed on for. So, we were knocked back down to our previous package and everything was a go once more. Long story short (too late), I was on a forced hiatus. But now I'm back, and just in time for self-portrait Sunday! How excited are you?


To be fair, this is portrait rather than a self-portrait. It was taken by Katie on the last evening of the last day of 2006.