Finishing touches!

Our project is probably 3-4 hours from being done! We just need some final finishing touches (put doors on closet drawers, touch-up the paint, etc.), but from a functional perspective, we're done. This morning, I took my first shower in the new bathroom and last night, Colin and I slept in our master bedroom for the first time in over a year. I know, embarrassing!

We also got a new king-sized bed, which got delivered yesterday...and I have to say, it's super comfy!

Easter's coming

This Sunday is Easter and this year it's a special one in that the Orthodox and non-Orthodox Easter actually coincide. We'll be having brunch at home for the occasion. I'm planning to make Easter eggs tomorrow, but here's the decoration I put together this evening:



M

Western party

This Saturday, Colin and I were invited at a Western-style party, held at a barn. We remembered to snap a couple of shots on our way out to show off our (mostly newly acquired) Western outfits.

Color

This week, my assignment for my photo class was based on color. We were to photograph a series of 4 images with a cast of Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. We could use gels over the flash or lens, or we could set an in-camera custom white balance, as to "trick" it to photograph in various casts. No post-processing was allowed (of course, one could achieve very easily similar results in Photoshop, but that defeats the purpose of the assignment).

As usual, I had way too much going on during the week and didn't have the time to buy gels and filters for my lens, so I went for what I thought was easiest, but also most insightful: customizing the white balance in the camera. Here's how it works: If you point the camera to a pure Blue and you tell it that it's pure White, your image will end up having a Yellow cast, or the equivalent effect of putting a Yellow gel in front of the lens.

It sounds confusing but it's pretty easy when you think about the RGB (red, green, blue) color wheel. To achieve a particular overall color, you have to set the custom white balance to the color resulting from the combination of the other two colors in the color wheel:

To get Red --> set to Cyan (= Green + Blue)

To get Green --> set to Magenta (= Blue + Red)

To get Blue --> set to Yellow (= Green + Red)

To get Yellow (= Green + Red) --> set to Blue

Before going out to photograph, I took an image of pure Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Blue, achieved directly in Photoshop by controlling the R-G-B values. I essentially filled my frame with the color displayed on my screen and took a picture. Throughout the shoot, I used those four images to set my custom white balance on the fly. This worked out really well, because I was able to take the four images of desired colors pretty quickly; less than a minute in total, including the time required to manipulate my camera settings and re-set the white balance.

Below is what I'm submitting this week. I saw the girl at Pike Place market; liked her style and the gorgeous red truck she was sitting in front of, and thought it was the perfect composition for a color assignment. I had to work pretty fast, so that she didn't see me and realize that I was photographing her, despite the fact that I was right in front of her. Unbelievably, she didn't realize! I've learnt that the best way to do street photography is to wear clothes that blend in as much as possible, look and act pretty anonymously and hang out in crowded places (ideally, where there are lots of tourists, so people are used to seeing cameras). Also, I try to look distracted and point my camera in various directions, without actually shooting. As part of this shoot, I ended up photographing a cop and a guy on a balcony, using the same technique...they didn't realize they were my subjects either :-)

Milkana

Blue:

Green:


Yellow:


Red:

Bathroom/closet progress

With less than 2 weeks before Misho & Dad's arrival (!!!), the race to finishing our master bathroom/closet area is definitely on. There's a good chance we'll be all done, but one never knows :-). Here's the latest progress...it's looking great!

Around the garden

The last few weeks have been unusually cold in the NW and it seems like everything I'd planted in my garden is having second thoughts on coming out. Weeds, on the other hand, are unstoppable. I spent a few hours in the yard today, fighting with the usual suspects: blackberries, salal, Oregon grape and ivy. Blackberries, in particular, are so invasive in this area, that if not kept in check in early spring, they might just take over the island. For folks who have large properties or for parks and open industrial spaces, the solution for dealing with blackberries is easy and green: rent goats.

It may sound crazy to those who don't live around here, but goats are unbelievably effective in clearing overgrown areas. They are indiscriminating in what they eat and for some reason, the thorns on the blackberry vines don't bother them. So, one has to call a 1-800 number, hire a heard of goats for a few hours and come back to an immaculately cleared area. No pesticides, no scratched hands, no sweat.

Since I can't train my whippets to act like goats, I had to fight with my blackberry bushes on my own, armed with two pairs of garden gloves and sharp shears. I collected six large bags of yard waste today. Things should stay clean until next weekend or so.

I've realized that gardening has a strange law of irreciprocity: nobody notices a day's worth of work done in the garden, but everybody notices when that work is not done. In other words, it's easy for things to look unkept, but when you get them to a good state, they somehow go unnoticed.

Despite the cold weather and stunted growth, spring is definitely here. Here's what the garden looks today:

The Asian pear planted last summer is blooming

These bushes are on the side of the house and they have a divine scent. The whole backyard smells of summer because of them. They are also evergreen and pretty sturdy and resistant to two crazy whippets running over them every day. I don't know what they are called, but they've worked out great.

We had to take down a beautiful Camelia tree last summer because of the renovations and planted three smaller ones when we finished. These have gorgeous red blooms. We also have pink and white Camelias around the yard and they've been blooming non-stop for the last month. Bubbles loves picking the buds off the bush and chewing them - how exciting it must be for him to rip out the green leaves and discover tight bright red leaves inside.

Here's a pink one:

The red currant planted a few weeks ago seems to be doing very well

The kiwi vine is getting outfitted with pretty green leaves

Slower progress in my veggie garden:

The chevril is looking so beautifully lacy

As I was trying to focus on the blooming bush in the background, Bubbles suddenly got in my frame and started barking. Apparently, he didn't appreciate me going around with the camera and taking pictures when I could have been playing with him. I thought he was hilarious and managed to snap him while he was vocally expressing himself :-)

And here's Tiger peeking through (you see him? you may have to click on the picture to enlarge!), as I walked outside to take a picture of the climbing hydrangeas on the sides of the garden entrance:

Bathroom remodel...the saga continues

Since buying this house, we've gained lots of rich experiences and emptied our pockets several times over. Some projects have gone very well (e.g., backyard remodel) and some have been less successful. Our biggest disaster to date has been the master bathroom, which we started a year ago. Since our master bathroom is connected to the master bedroom, we moved to another room last April.

After a rocky start, an incompetent contractor and some money gone down the drain, we paused the project. Both of us were so frustrated that we closed the door to the master bedroom and didn't look back. We realized that this other room where we moved into was not all that bad and really, who needs a master bedroom and a real closet and a master bathroom? What's wrong with the "kids" bathroom and its orange walls? There's water there too, you know.

But after many months, we eventually opened that door and decided to re-tackle the project. Tony helped us define the work scope more tightly, Colin found a great contractor - a true professional this time around - and the project has been moving ahead nicely. We hope to have everything done (bathroom and closet) by end of this month. And if we're so lucky, we'll actually move back to our bedroom! For that special occasion, we plan to even buy a king-sized bed!

Here are some pictures from today:

Ring found!

I had a pretty bad weekend - headache throughout and nothing seem to go right. This all changed when I uncovered my engagement ring, which had gone missing over a year ago! I thought I'd lost it, though I secretly hoped I'd only misplaced it. I may be a bit absent-minded at times, but I'm not all that irresponsible and I was truly surprised I'd lose my engagement ring. I don't think I've lost anything of value in my life.

Well, it turned out that I'd put it in a very safe and secret place before we went on vacation, but I'd completely forgotten about it. Anyway, I was super excited to find it, it looks just as gorgeous as before :-) And now I don't have to feel guilty about being a bad fiancee :-)