Stalking my prey...

I see great blue herons around my house all the time...just off the road teasing me with their proximity. The only problem, these are busy roads with narrow shoulders. I also rarely have my camera in my car. Well tonight there was one very close to my house, so I decided to go home grab my camera and go back for it. It definitely noticed me, especially as I got out of my car. It started to walk lower and lower, kind of like when you pretend to go down a flight of stairs...



Then I got back in my car, turned around to get closer, and there was a car behind me, so I couldn't get quite as close as I wanted. Turned around again, slowed next to it, spooked it a little...


And finally got pretty close. I was satisfied. I would have loved to get closer, but it was a bad time of day to try with traffic. Yeah for more zoom than I've ever had before!



Amber - I jacked up my ISO...maybe I shouldn't have. It's a bit grainy, but I was thinking it was a little dark and maybe that would be a good way to get more light? I guess that is why we practice these things at home, so we are ready to go when something big comes along.

Whew!

What a productive night and it's only 7:30! I think just about being done with chem has really lifted a weight from me (not eating 10 fun sized candy bars a day might have helped too). The last few months I've just felt sooo drained with school and work and applications and Aaron gone and not knowing what's in my future. I am done with all chemistry homework, just have a final. I finished an application tonight. Just one left now, I need to study for and take a Spanish test first though. It's good to not feel like a slug.

Paper Clips

I just watched this movie. It's a documentary on a small town in Tennessee whose middle school's holocaust project became known world wide. I thought it was really well done, and encouraging to know that this tiny southern town learned so much from the experience. If I am ever in the neighborhood I will definitely be checking out their memorial.

Frittata!!!!

So I've been getting bon appetit and getting excited about all these things I want to make. In the latest one I got was this frittata recipe. To my knowledge I have never had "frittata", but it looked good and easy. I like recipes with just a few ingredients, cheese being one of them. I sauteed onion, asparagus, crimini mushrooms and garlic. The recipe called for mushrooms and baby artichokes...baby artichokes?


Six eggs:

Add the eggs and some sharp cheddar to the vegetables.
Cook them all together until nearly set, more than this picture. Then you are supposed to put more cheese on top and put the whole thing in the broiler. Well I only have on small All Clad pan that wasn't big enough, and honestly I was a little scared to try it.


So I put it on a greased cookie sheet.


I totally didn't broil it long enough, at least it doesn't look like the magazine picture, which is probably a normal thing. It would have been good a little crispier. They said to broil for a minute, I had it in there for 3 or so. Next time...

What it was supposed to look like:


Dessert. Man I am such a total cereal junkie. I love the stuff and I could eat it 3 times a day easily. Sometimes I do. I am so happy there are strawberries in the store again, even if they are over $3 a carton. I eat them on cereal, of course, oatmeal, salads, ice cream (if I ate that sort of thing).


I had my teeth cleaned today, and then ran over to Chemeketa to try and figure out this big mess of an application process. For PCC and Lane, I needed course descriptions for my writing classes from the year I took the class. Which wouldn't be such a big deal, if I hadn't taken them through my high school 10 years ago! What a mess. I am glad though that I went, after not being able to find anyone to help me, I just went into the library, found the catalogs and made copies. Done. Also, on my OSU transcripts it showed these weird course numbers, I hadn't thought to look on my actual CCC transcript to see what they called the courses. Luckily, OSU had just given them weird numbers which is great, I was worried they weren't going to transfer, or if they did that I would have to run around and get them approved (Portland, Salem, Eugene).

I have a play off game tonight, but...I dove last night and jammed my arm into the floor and hurt my elbow pretty bad. It hurt at first, and then went away. So when I got home last night, it didn't hurt, and although I was mentally wired, my body was pretty tired. I was watching Curb your Enthusiasm, and thought to myself, hey I should ice this and take an anti-inflammatory. But my body didn't want to move. An hour later, it started aching, so I put some frozen peas on it and took a Tylenol (which apparently does not have strong anti-inflammatory properties. News to me.) So I went to bed and woke up at 5:22 am, with this throbbing arm that I couldn't straighten or bend fully without pain. I couldn't sleep and knew I also wouldn't be playing in my game tonight. I waited for Aaron to wake up (even though he is two hours later :( ) He was nice enough to talk to me for a while even though he was trying to get to class. He told me to take two Advil and ice it again. I love that he knows all that stuff, I'm always calling him for some sports injury or another and he always knows what to do. Hey Aaron, that degree did come in handy!!
Long story short, since it's the playoffs, we are down to two girls and if one of them doesn't show tonight we have to forfeit and we're eliminated from the playoffs. So I am going to go and hope they both show up. I really don't want to get on the court, it will hurt. I'm sure they will show though, and hopefully we will go up a level for next season.

Energized

Such a good day today, I finally feel like I had a nice break from work. I found out I'm done with chemistry homework, so that was a big burden lifted. I met up with Kathy, an old friend and we had a great time catching up and talking about all the crafting, batiking, photographing we want to do. Then 4 hours of volleyball, what a perfect day! I love daylight savings but I am so wound up right now, there is no way I'm sleeping for a while. I think I could have played volleyball until 11 easily. I did manage to coerce everyone into playing for a half hour longer. I have another game tomorrow and one Tuesday as well, so that will be fun, we made it to the playoffs. Tomorrow I am making an mushroom and onion frittata, I'm pretty excited about it. I've been getting bon appetit magazine and some of the recipes in there are so fun, I like to take them and modify them. Especially when there is some weird kind of cheese in there that I've never heard of or something. Well I think I need to start winding down over here. Shower and maybe a movie or something.

It turned into a really nice day. I went on a walk with my neighbor and her dog. These cows are pregnant and were not going to take any crap from some dog. These two were following her and giving her the stink eye. The dog, on the other hand, was not even paying attention to them. There are a few calves around, and they are so cute and little. I'll have to try to get some pictures of them.

The ants are back. I think there are more of them this time. Hopefully the boric acid will get rid of this bunch too. I couldn't get as close to them as I would have liked, but I had a miniature studio set up on my kitchen floor.



Behind the scenes view of the ant photo shoot.


In other news my first hat is coming along, with only a few mishaps along the way. I think it will be too big, and I may run out of yarn. But it is all a learning process, and if it sucks I will just rip the whole thing out and make something else with it.

Spring

Just a quick spring photo shoot. Some taken with my macro lens and some taken in macro mode with my normal lens.
I can't wait until the tulips are up.