Cassatt's Woman Reading

Fragonard's picture of Girl Reading Etexts on Her PalmTX got outdated since I (and the rest of the world, it seems) have traded my PDA in for an iPod Touch as an ereading device. This is Mary Cassatt, with a bit of modernized touching-up by moi.




(That's The Brothers Karamazov that she's reading. She can't figure out why Dmitri is acting so odd as he's being questioned about his father's murder.)

How to Make a Pizza (or Two)

As Brother J and I were coming home yesterday around dinner time, we had one of those rare moments of creative genius that only happens when brilliant, hungry minds meet.

      "You know what sounds good right now?" I said, thinking aloud as I drove. "Homemade pizza."
     "You mean like the Jones's homemade pizza?"
     "No, like our homemade pizza. The way we used to make it, only better."
     "That does sound good. We could do that."
     "We could."
     "We should."
     "Let's do it!"

We phoned home to change dinner plans, stopped at the store to purchase some necessary supplies... and this is what ensued.

Step 1: Gather a selection of fine ingredients. We used freshly made dough, red bell peppers, feta cheese, tomato sauce, shredded Italian cheeses, and pepperoni.

Step 2: Stretch out your dough. You can use the tossing method...

...or the rolling method.

Step 3: Spoon on sauce. Not too much; remember, it's just for flavor.

Step 4: Add pepperoni. You can do this before adding cheese...

...or after.

Step 5: Cover liberally with cheese--whatever cheese you like best. Ours was a combination of mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, asiago, fontina, and romano. Vive le fromage!

Step 6: Add whatever other toppings your heart desires.

Now they're ready to be baked!

Step 7: Put your pizza in the oven and bake. 400 degrees, 8 minutes in our oven. Take it out just as the crust begins to brown.

Step 8: Let your pizza cool for a few minutes.

You can use this time to admire your handiwork.

Step 9: Cut into four parts and repeat for eight slices.

Step 10: Eat and enjoy.

Bon appetite!

New Photoblog!

I am moving my Blogger photoblog, de Lumine, to a new account with a dedicated photoblogging host. Blogger has proved to be unwieldy; I guess it wasn't really made for photoblogging. My new host is Aminus3, and I already love the features they have: archives, and a portfolio page, and automated updates, and more, all for free! My new photoblog is http://delumine.aminus3.com/. Check it out!

Aaand I just figured out how to put a feed from my photoblog on our sidebar, so now if you scroll down you can see a slideshow of pictures from de Lumine!

Trim

I've been getting frustrated with my hair lately - too many tangles. So I decided to give myself a trim. Looking in the bathroom mirror, I cut off about six inches. I actually didn't too badly, although a friend helped even it up a little later.

Not content with that, I did Miss M's. She loves it!
I think it gives her a Dakota Fanning kind of look.

I told her I wanted to see the back,
and she turned around and struck a pose!
Those are leaves in the hood of her jacket;
she was using the hood as a pocket.

Five Years Old!

Miss M had her fifth birthday while we were out of town. So we took her to the park, bought a cake and a local grocery store, and had hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts.



There are a few more pictures here.

A product of the day's work

Although it's not really fair to call it work, because it's a lot of fun. Today in photography class we made prints from our negatives. This is a crop from one of mine. (The full size is a much larger version of the same crop.)

J's Violin Concert

J had an outdoor violin concert/recital today. Sorry I can't post any video or audio, but here are a couple of pictures.

Nature Day at our CM Co-op

Our local CM mom's group started a weekly co-op. It's a combination play-group, field trip, nature study - the week's activities rotate.

Yesterday was Nature Day at a local forested area.

This is a very pretty weed that grew in the shade of the trees. The leaves are heart-shaped and the flowers look like little stars among the leaves.



And here's L and Miss M recording in their nature notebooks.

Random Photos Around the Yard

Miss M found a rock and wanted to paint it for nature study. She both painted its likeness, and she painted some color directly onto the rock.


Meanwhile, Mr. B and J played basketball -


And L watched (spectated?)


This guy was on our screen this morning; we don't see many katydids.

History Repeats Itself

About 15 years ago, I had a little cowboy. Well, sometimes he was a cowboy, and sometimes he was Timmy Martin, with his faithful dog Lassie. I'd have to be Ruth Martin and he'd ask me for a sandwich and a glass of milk so he could have a lunch just like Timmy on the TV. But he was sometimes a cowboy, too, with a horse and a bent stick in his homemade holster for a gun.

That little boy grew up and is in college now, but now I have another Timmy Martin asking me to be Ruth Martin and make a sandwich and glass of milk, and I hear yells of, "LASSIE!" ("woof woof!") "LASSIE!"

And now the chaps, boots and cowboy hat are being used again . . . only this time, it's a little girl, and she wants to be Roy Rogers. I like how the smiles are almost identical.


And this is ten years ago, when I had three cowboys:

Evening Walk

The light was great yesterday evening - I still don't know what I'm doing with my camera and lighting, but these caught some of the golden/rose anyway.

Miss M in Motion

This is an accidental shot, snapped randomly before all the light was gone as we went home from a walk a few weeks ago.

Camera Experiments: ISO

I'm trying to figure out what difference ISO settings make. I remember that you were supposed to use 100 film when you were going to take pictures in bright light, and 800 or even higher (1000!) for low light, although that would make the resulting picture grainier. But on a digital camera that uses no film? Hmmm.

So I stayed up late last night and played with my camera, using the subject I happened to have at hand - a sleeping child laying next to a stuffed dog. I didn't use a flash, although the camera's auto-focus works by shining a light on the subject, so she still ended up getting light in her eyes. She didn't stir, though.

The main difference I noticed is that, using 100 ISO, the lens/shutter stayed open longer - it took longer to take the picture.

[Images Moved]

I'll do more now that I have natural light.

I think I've learned that, in order to get the crisp, clear portraits I want, I need to select 100 ISO instead of letting the camera decide which ISO it wants.




I also think that, if I'm going to do any more of this, I need to do it somewhere other than my blog. How about a blog for this kind of silly stuff? It'll just be for my photo experiments.

The Fair

Today we went to our local fair. We met Tim and Giselle and her family, which includes Miss M's best friend, C. Miss M was thrilled to see Tim.



The big kids went off by themselves, so all of my pictures are of Miss M and C on the kiddie rides. Miss M was a bit of a surprise - she wasn't scared of any of the rides, as I expected from my experience with her brothers (although she was afraid in a wildlife exhibit that looked like the inside of a cave, and she thought the loud rock music blaring in the midway was scary).




And Miss M had some ice cream just before we left.

Red Moon at Night

That always reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon where Snoopy and Woodstock can't remember the last line and get silly making things up.

L and I both tried to get this full red moon on digital film. L's (the first one) is more successful, I think - the color is truer.




Here's my try; it shows the moon with a few other lights. It was too dark to get any horizon or anything.



And the least blurry image I was able to get:

Snake

This fellow (or was it a she?) showed up on our porch yesterday. It was about four feet long and was in no hurry to leave, so we got a good long look at it.

Graduation

This post has been long delayed. First, following right on the heels of my graduation, was the Charlotte Mason conference (whence we came home full of bloggables), and then we were waiting for my official diploma, which took a lot longer to process than it should have because of paperwork problems. (For my graduation ceremony we used a fake--ahem--symbolic document.) But now my diploma has finally come in and it's time to blog about my graduation.



Every year our local homeschool group does a graduation ceremony at a nearby church, with caps and gowns and a commencement speech and all of that, just like a real school. It's nice, but after seeing their ceremony, I decided I wanted to do something smaller and more intimate. And once that was decided we thought that this would be a good opportunity to have the formal dinner party that I'd been wanting to have since before the prom. (Bother--I didn't blog about that either, did I? That was remiss of me.)



So we started planning. Date: June 10, 2008. Location: our house. Guests: a handful of close friends. Programme: a round of drinks from the bar during introductions, then dinner and table games, then the ceremony, followed by music to be provided by self and guests. Menu: (on an Italian theme) salad and pasta and cheesecake. Theme: words--books, authors, word games, etc. Colors: light blue and peach. Decorations: chinese lanterns, candles, table runners, special place settings.

A dish for each place: two clear plates stacked together, with a piece of paper between them. The papers are title pages photocopied from my favorite books and dyed in tea.

The bit that was the most fun to plan was the bar. We decided to give it a poets' theme, so the bar itself (arranged on one end of the kitchen counter) was called the Poets' Corner, and each of the drinks (all virgin, of course) was named after a poet. We spent many fun hours in the kitchen beforehand with bottles of juice and grenadine and club soda, experimenting with drink mixes and trying to decide what drink went best with which poet. Edgar Allen Poe, for instance? Dark red, I think; deep and heady; with a mysterious flavor. (Result: a concoction of pomegranate and cranberry and some other juices that looked and tasted a bit like wine.)



The dinner was also fun to plan. A salad of romaine and arugula, followed by chicken fettucine alfredo with peppers and onions, and then cheesecake with a berry topping for dessert. I originally wanted to make the whole dinner ourselves, but when it came time we decided to buy the cheesecake already made (there is nothing to compare with a slice of Johnny Carino's vanilla bean cheesecake). The other parts of the meal my mom and dad ended up making the morning before the party while the rest of us cleaned house and decorated.



My first thought was to have the party outside, but the nearer the day of the party came the hotter that idea sounded (some of us had to wear tuxes, after all), and on the day of the party I changed my mind. (Or had my mind changed for me. You'd have to ask the others on that point.) And it proved well that we moved the party inside, because we had a lovely rain just as we were sitting down to dinner. However, because of that last minute decision carefully orchestrated adjustment to the plans, the boys and Giselle and I were still setting places and putting up decorations when the rest of the guests arrived. It's the first rule of planning, but may I restate it one more time? Always assume that you'll need more time than you think you will. Even when you think that you're assuming that you'll need more time.

We put the grown-ups at one table and the rest of us at the other. Our house wasn't really made for this many people...but we managed to fit.

The dinner went splendidly. Afterwards we played Bananagrams (which is like Scrabble solitaire among eight people) and talked and worked on the cheesecake. After that was the actual graduation ceremony: my dad made a short speech about my education up till this point, then I made a short speech about things changing, and then he gave me my diploma (the symbolic one). Cheers and toasts and perhaps some tears.



By that time it was dark outside and the weather had cleared up, so we moved to the deck and had an impromptu concert / worship session.

The boys enjoy a serious moment, expressing themselves...artistically.

After that people began to leave and the party slowly ended. I was left with graduation cards and a diploma, a mess of tables and decorations and a suitcase to be packed for the conference next day--but above all those the feeling of blessedness which David put into words so beautifully:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul...

Life's a bit daunting at times, but I'd have to agree with Clarence: no man is a failure who has friends.

The deck, when all the guests had gone away.