Sunday reflections #77

And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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Some jumbled Wednesday thoughts

You know those days where:

– you’re in the office at sunrise, and it’s after sunset when you leave?

– you really want to be outside with your camera but have to settle for your iPod touch and Instagram instead?

– you get nothing productive done even though you’re buzzing around like a bee in a bottle all day?

– you’re reduced to squeezing in workouts and not getting the satisfaction from them that you’d like because you’re focussed on other things?

– too much coffee is never enough?

– you know that there must be something more than this but you just don’t know what that MORE is, no matter how much you think and puzzle and wait for inspiration about it?

Yeah.  THAT.

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(Fairy) Godmother coming through…

Some of you may recall my excitement on the birth of baby E back in July – a Bastille Day baby, for those Francophiles out there.  Baby E is now 13 weeks old and thriving – long legs, frowning determination, delighted with the discovery of her hands, and giving lovely gummy smiles when the joke/noise/action is of an appropriate level of silliness.  She likes goats milk and the Hawthorn Football Club.  She doesn’t like having clothes pulled over her head or being kept waiting for said goats milk.

Last week baby E’s parents asked me if I would be her godmother.  I can’t tell you how thrilled and proud and honoured I feel (I said yes, obviously).  I love that kid, and I love her parents.  That they want me to be a permanent part of baby E’s life – and their family’s life – is enormous and amazing.  I feel so privileged to be able to play this role for baby E, and I love that not only are her parents my always friends, but now they are chosen family as well.

I am very lucky.

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Look above

My obsession with Instagram continues, particularly following my recent trip.  A lot of my addiction to snapping quick vignettes of my life is due to my acquisition last Christmas of an iPod touch.  Its portability and accessibility delights me no end, even though my Canon G12 isn’t that bulky to carry around with me.  And yes, I am a Luddite when it comes to phone technology as I am possibly the only person in the southern hemisphere who has not or does not own an iPhone of some variety.

One of the things I love most about “shooting” with my iPod touch is the immediacy of publishing a photo, and the ease of doing so.  I also love that it reminds me constantly to look at my world as creatively as I can, and to remember that there is beauty and wonder in the smallest of things – in front of me and above and around me.

The pub at sunset:

A first floor door to nowhere:

Electric stars in the “Greek Quarter”:

Weathered old buildings:

Look above – it cracks open the world.

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Three things vol.19

1.  I spotted the print above while having brunch with my parents over the weekend and quickly snapped a photo of it for posterity.  Not that my parents were “blah, blah, blahing”, of course – but I have to say that the memory of this print has made me smile during a couple of work situations in which I would loved to have used this quote!

2.  This blog doesn’t get many hits from search engines – clearly I haven’t got that SEO stuff down at ALL (way too technical for me) – but the searches that do throw up this site amuse me greatly, as well as puzzling me.  The most popular searches are “I’m addicted to Instagram”, “addicted to instagram what do i do”, “instagram addiction help”, “people addicted to instagram” etc.  I think you get the idea – all because of this particularly silly post that I wrote back in June.  I always welcome new readers, naturally, but I kind of wish that some of my more “serious” posts got some love as well.  Ah, the perils of ego.

3.  This morning I went to a MMA fitness class called MMAfit.  I used to do this class regularly last year but I haven’t been for a number of months this year.  The class goes for 45 minutes and involves cardio and body resistance circuit work, boxing drills, and a LOT of sweat.  One of the reasons I hadn’t been for so long was that I had developed a terror of going back to it because it’s so hard.  Anyway, it was super hard this morning but I’m really proud that I managed to (sort of) make it through the class without dying, and I’m also very grateful to my friend for making me step back into the ring.  The plan is to do the class at least twice a week – watch out, world, super fitness is a-coming.

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Three things vol.14

1.  Isn’t this a wonderful sculpture?  It sits in a calm pool in the foyer of an office tower just near where I work.  I happened to be walking through on my way to an early morning meeting and I was struck by the simplicity of the rocking horse’s frame and its stark reflection in the pool.

2.  I’ve discovered Snapseed recently.  At the moment, I just have it as an app on my iPod touch but I’m thinking about buying it for my MacBook Pro as well.  It has a lot more “processing” options than Instagram, so it gives you a lot more flexibility in that regard, but I have to say that I prefer the frames options in Instagram.  Luckily you can process a photo in Snapseed and then transfer it to Instagram to add your favourite frame.  Even better, both Snapseed and Instagram are super easy for photo processing nuff nuffs like me to use.

3.  Just over six weeks until I fly to Vietnam.  I’ve booked my overnight trip from Hanoi to Halong Bay – I’m super excited to see it.  Super excited about this trip in general, really.  I’ve already started a list of things I need to take with me using Evernote, which has to be one of the coolest ways to save and organise information about just about anything that I’ve ever come across.  Also, check out Tripit – it’s a brilliant way to create your itinerary, store your flight and accommodation details, and sightseeing trips.  The app provides Google maps of where your accommodation is located and directions from the airport to your hotel, and lets you add photos to various locations to which you’ve travelled.  Somehow it does all of this completely automatically simply by you emailing your travel plans and arrangements to its website.  Yay.  So much fun.

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