We weren't sure we would be attending the 4th festivities this year. Our movers were scheduled to load this day. By the end of Monday they had nearly packed the house so we wrapped up a day early on Tuesday. We went back to the house to clean up and touch up paint Wednesday morning and then regrouped and headed to the base late afternoon for our last American celebration in Germany.
My kids sometimes argue that they are never going to need to use their math. I beg to differ. Printing and framing your photographs is a good example of real like application and this article helps to explain why.
Digital images from a cropped sensor camera (which is what the consumer dslr and point and shoot cameras are) produce prints with a 3:2 ratio. (full frame or pro cameras have a 4:3 as a rule) That means they print a standard 4x6in photo. However, that also means the next size "up" is not a 5×7 nor even an 8×10. It is an 8×12. (16×24 and so on) That is a bummer because photo frames are not typically those dimensions. Most online photo labs will give you a crop tool to use as you select sizes. It is still helpful to have a fair idea in your mind of what different ratios look like so you can plan enough margin into your shots to all for the inevitable cropping of parts of your image for framing.
I had the advice "fill the frame" drilled into my head early on in film days. It isn't such good policy for digital. Zoom in close enough to isolate your subject, yes, but leave enough room around the edges to crop comfortably for enlargements while retaining all the essential elements of your image.
(I am mid-relocation so if my math was off I beg pardon <g> It is all in the linked article.)
The kids had a party for their last night at the dance studio. Games, candy, lots of dancing. Lots of laughing. Lots of wonderful people. I was doing really well ri-i-i-ght up until Miss Mary told them to line up for the last time they would dance out the door. Agh. Last times are hard for me. Very hard.
My lovely Moira put on a brave face for her dance-around but this was a rough night for her. It is hard to remember this is the same girl who cried for having to come to Germany.
These three look like trouble. <g>
Rousing game of freeze tag here, hand in hand.
Watching Tess looking so very big also caught my breath. She began to dance two years ago and stumbled over her own feet for months. Several weeks into it I wasn't sure she was ever going to get it. But suddenly she is no longer round and tentative but this lanky, confident girl in long braids who knows many dances. And I am happy for her, for them all. Happy they pushed through their sadness over leaving the ranch to have this German adventure. Happy for all they have seen and done. Happy that they are well and strong and so very alive.
But there were still tears over here, because that is how milestones go for me.
Well, not our border but you know what I mean, right? Allen wanted Mexican for his birthday dinner last week and Alannah obliged with enchiladas from the Pioneer Woman and a Coconut Pistaschio pie. Good stuff! There were no leftovers from this one. Everyone but Abbie ate, although Tess kept saying, "It's good…but spicy!"
Oh the things I see while washing up dishes at the kitchen window.
"What is a brad?" Kieran was reading the directions in his craft book and puzzled over the unfamiliar word. I explained it was a little brass fastener that would make the paper doll's joints bend. "Do we have any?" he wanted to know. We did. That was all he wanted to know. He had spotted this project and he was sure his little sisters would love it.
He was right.
I remember standing in the driveway chatting with the neighbors many years ago. We had just learned we were expecting our fourth child. The beautiful blonde nurse across the street was flabbergasted. "Don't you want the best things for your kids?" she asked rhetorically feeling, as she did, that there would not have been a third much less a fourth if we did.
In fact I wanted the very best. I wanted them to have trusted friends. I wanted them to have good advice and a helping hand. I wanted them to have a sympathetic comrade, one so familiar he knew exactly what would make your day – and then set out to do just that.
Watching Kieran invest hours in his younger brothers and sisters – as his older brothers and sisters have done for him – I feel pretty sure they've got that.
I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.
James Boswell
One of these nights soon will be the last we hike through the forest surrounding our village. I can't seem to get enough and wish to plant these sights deep in my memory, for we will not be back down these roads.
I did a quick spin in my spot listening to the birds on this damp evening. It probably loses something in recording but it was a beautiful walk nonetheless.
Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that – one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Up through the doors, out through the back door…"
(back stitch, chain stitch, running stitch, blanket stitch)
A big project around here lately has been scanning all the shoeboxes of old pictures. There were a lot of them. I am ashamed to say we are just now doing this. SO many disasters could have befallen them over the years. I shudder to think. 15 houses, 10 babies, 5 states, a couple countries, and a fair number of miscellaneous crises in the intervening years kept me preoccupied. Being the poster child for biting off more than I could chew didn't help either. Which brings us to date and saddled with all these vulnerable pictures.
My solution was to pay the 12 yr old to sit here and scan pictures while watching netflix. Brilliant. <g> He was happy as a lark and more than qualified to move pictures from box, to scanner bed, to another box. A couple movies and several hundred pictures later we are nearly done. If you find the prospect daunting I suggest tapping your young people. No willing workers? There are national scanning services and many local printers or photography shops will do the job as well.
I am sharing some links with tips for scanning your old photos here and here Basically you want to be sure your scanner is set to 'photo' vs document and at 300dpi.
When you are done scanning consider saving copies of the files to an external hard drive. Cpu's fail. Hard drives fail. One copy is unwise.
And don't forget the whole point of having these pictures is that they are part of your story. Tell it. The most important book you will ever write is the one you write for your family. What happened? When? Where? and more importantly – how did you feel about that? This is what I am working on now.
It's ok to document random memories out of 'order'. If they come to mind when you see an old picture, write it down. If you don't have photoshop, start a photobook at Shutterfly and drag an old photo over to your project here and there as the mood strikes. They keep your stuff saved a long time. (another back up)
The Homburg flea market yielded what, for me, was an awesome snag – an old volksmarching walking stick. When we were here in the 80s volksmarching was huge. They were 10km walks which drew large crowds. People joined volksmarch clubs and hiked together socially. When you participated in a walk you would earn a small metal badge which you tacked onto a walking stick like this one. People collected badges from all over.
People still walk here with great enthusiasm, but I see few sticks. Nordic walking poles have largely replaced the old canes. I was glad to find this one which was covered in badges. The others I have seen have had far fewer. Must have been a well-traveled volksmarcher. : )
Starry Sky Journal 