drenched in pixels

posted by Melissa


Amy and I had an impromptu meeting yesterday, it started because of the need to celebrate a tiny technical victory that I achieved.  The picture you see to your right, with us holding our hand drawn (and one print out) tai chi signs, was always showing up too big and overlapping the box it belongs in, or it was too small and hard to see.  After hours, seriously, I finally remember how we did it before and figured it out.  For some unknown reason, you can only get it the right size by saving the photo to a picasa web album, and then copying the link and pasting it into Blogger.  So, if may of you bloggers are reading this, there is your tip for the day.  I just saved you 2 hours!

Not the sky we woke up to.

We had set our alarms for a very early hour since we both had busy days and pre dawn seemed to be the only time we had available.   Our plan was to head to Volunteer Park and take it in front of a beautiful sculpture there, overlooking the Sound and the Space Needle...very Seattle.  Well, in very Seattle fashion...it was pouring rain.  There would be to blue skies with crisp white clouds, and certainly no view.  And while we could weather that, I think it would have given us  a problem for our tai chi sign idea.  So, we once again, made the most out of my apartment.  We moved a little furniture and voila, a makeshift photo shoot set.  That and getting one of my kids up out of bed to take the picture and we were in business.

After the photo session and the hours spent fitting pixels into an accepted form, I am really liking how the blog looks.  I like how the background changes every month to suit what our new challenge is.  I missed the veggies for a minute, but now I am settling in to the warm yellow, with black and white photos.
What do you think?


And some thoughts on tai chi.  At the end of our meeting, Amy and I set up an instructional you tube video on our TV.  We found a tutorial for the first three movements of the tai chi form.  I have practiced tai chi in the past.  Me, Jamie and our friend Steve took tai chi lessons in an old church in Baltimore city when I was pregnant with Lily.  It all came flooding back to me.  Not that I can remember each step, but the feeling of doing it, the form, and some of the movement, I feel like I already have a basic understanding, a foundation for this month.

In fact, Jamie and I still have an inside joke from that class.  One of our instructors was from India and we loved when he was our teacher because we adored his accent.  Our favorite line was when he would remind us to imagine there was a string going from the heavens that would pull you up from the top of your head "all the way down to your pinky toe."  Oh, the pinky toe...the peenky toe.  So cute.  It always makes us smile.

We followed the instructional video as best we could, with kids popping in and out and whining at me for something or another, Lily in pre-rage about something not being fair.  The video was hard to follow, it was backwards and he changed outfits a lot.  I think we definitely need to find a class.  But for now, I will keep searching online and maybe find a video at the Public Library.

Well, now I am off to get the kids to school, rush to yoga, and hopefully make it to a job interview that I don't even know if want.  I just find it so darn hard to not come across like I want them to hire me.  I need to channel my inner George Costanza. (update, post interview....it was a really sweet place, with super sweet people, and now maybe I do want it.  If only I knew if I could get into this nursing school program.)

-Melissa