Weekend Recap, May 6

1. Sweet Thea (minus the collar) | 2. Medicinal hike | 3. Early to bed | 4. Gray Field Day | 5. Warm Food | 6. School Mascot | 7. Blue Sky! | 8. Faculty Follies | 9. Raffle Rain | 10. Much-needed cocktail | 11. Jackie at work | 12. Pizza holding pattern | 13. One in the oven | 14. One from the oven | 15. Tres Leches | 16. Morning Routine, local candidate, friend | 17. Lazy Sunday | 18. Necessary shopping | 19. New friend | 20. Practice | 21. Hydration | 22. Neel cooks! | 23. Amadeus | 24. Sunday supper

Well, first off, our sweet Thea is doing much better than we'd anticipated at this point. Even by Friday she'd wanted to bounce around the yard doing those funny hops that corgis do. No hopping for our girl just yet. We've reintroduced her and Lucy and they eye each other warily from across the yard. Let's be honest. Thea eyes Lucy warily and Lucy follows Thea around. We're with them at all times, but right now Thea seems more hindered by the stupid collar than anything else. She gets the drains out today and the stitches out in a week. Love bug.

I don't need to tell you we're tired. I went to bed early both nights this weekend, but especially Friday night, and it's still not enough. That is all.

Field Day at Cal's school dawned cold, gray and drizzly. We've only been to four of these, so who knows how many have dawned cold, gray and drizzly in the past? For us, it's always been warm, sunny and sunscreen-y. I ran into one of Callum's teachers who is also an alumna of the school and she told us it was the coldest, grayest, drizzliest Field Day she can remember. Enough said. I won't say much more now and will instead will save Field Day for tomorrow. Let me just say this: having just attended Fiddler on the Roof a couple weekends ago, I spent a lot of the day humming, "Tradition!"

Thank God someone offered to make us dinner.

My dear friend Jackie, who is always teaching me about photography (among other things) and giving us wonderful bread invited us to dinner with her and her partner Saturday night. She made pizzas in her wood-fired oven, and they were ah-maz-ing. No. Words. Really. It was just the thing we needed after a long day. Wonderful conversation, delicious food, much laughter and new friendships. About a perfect Saturday night. Poor Callum was exhausted and wishes he'd been better company. We all do I think. We'll just have to do it again.

I wanted to be lazy on Sunday but we cleaned the house. Oh well. It feels good to have a clean house. I played with my new baby a bit (more on that in a blog post soon) and ran some skin-care errands (aren't those fun?) and we had a deliciously delightfully boring Sunday night at home. Amadeus again, Neel made his mom's famous Chicken with Stones for dinner. It was perfect.

And my new favorite drink? You guys are going to be so disappointed! Pinapple/Coconut juice and seltzer. That's all! I hope everybody had a great weekend. I feel like I could sleep for a month, but it's all good.

five things, may 3

1. I think, one week in, that this new planner has been a success. So far. I thought I wouldn't like that it's even smaller than my old planner, but it's easier to write in somehow, and I really like the one page devoted to the week and the facing page devoted to notes. Because I'm sure you'll be dying to know how I get on, I'll let you know if we're still getting along a few weeks from now. ;)

2. I think we can feel the school year winding down. We can't feel it, as we shivered our way through yet another frigid baseball game, but it feels (and I hesitate to say it out loud in case, poof, next week the feeling is gone) as if the homework load is easing up, just a bit, and the days are easing up, just a bit, too. I'm ready. It's been a great year, but we're all tired. Bring on summer.

3. I think, however, that this week has been a doozy. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen that we had some canine drama around here. As if one cancer-ridden (and milking it for all it's worth) hound wasn't enough. As Neel says of our beagle Lucy, "The dog ain't right." She and our corgi Thea have had occasional dust-ups but not in quite awhile. Wednesday night, while we were eating dinner, they got into a fight in the back yard. Neel was on it in an instant and got them apart before I could even unwind the hose to try to speay them apart. Still, Thea was hurt pretty badly. She spent the night at the Emergency Vet (Neel came home after several hours), and is home with us now in a Cone of Shame. Thea will be fine, but I hate like crazy that this has happened to her. I can't even tell you. There's a bigger worry here and that's our funny Lucy. She's always been a skittish creature (this is a dog who freaks out and runs away from a dryer sheet lying on the ground) but lately she seems more so. And yet, she is the dearest, leaning-est, sweetest beagle too. When Violet was diagnosed with cancer, and I sat on our stairs with tears pouring down my face and texted Neel to call me, it was Lucy who quite literally crawled into my lap and leaned on me with all her weight. She put her head on my shoulder. No one should feel as aggitated as she does, and no one especially should get hurt the way our sweet Thea Turbo McFatty has. As if we didn't have enough puppy-worry going on.

4. I think, on another note, that as I work on my river series of photos each week, I find stories like these particularly inspiring. My photogroup had an assignment this past week to bring in work or other photographers that inspired you. Only a couple of us completed the assignment (I'm looking at you, Jackie!), but I did (go me! I never complete things!). It felt really good to look out for work other than those that I normally have my eye out for and to start to dissect why I find certain photographers so compelling. Thank you to all of you who weighed in on my lens questions yesterday. Investing in gear is important, but investing in time and education is important too. I'm just as un-good at that as I am at spending money on myself! Everyone seems to be making goals for the month. Maybe I'll make some too and include some work related goals. Couldn't hurt, right?

5. I think we have another fun weekend coming up. It's Field Day at Callum's school, which, trust me when I say, is a Big Deal. Our reward for surviving the festivities will be dinner with some friends Saturday night. I hope they can handle a face-painted, hair spray-painted Callum. Sunday, well. Maybe we'll get a little caught up on Sunday! Groceries, laundry, mopping. I asked Neel, is there anything wrong with wanting to just sit around all day for Mother's Day?! So who else is going to Field Day? I kid! What fun stuff do you guys have going on? I haven't said this in awhile, but thank you, thank you for hanging in and listening. XO

pancaked {life}

The title of this post is a total and complete misnomer because it's all about camera lenses and not at all about pancakes. The basil might have been the first to throw you, yes? Here's the deal. I finally pulled the trigger and bought a much-needed lens for work this week. Look. I love nice things, but I absolutely loathe spending money on myself. It's nearly impossible for me to do it. I have been in such a creative/photographic/blogging rut lately, and this is such a story for another day, but one thing I continue to come back to is the fact that I need to be willing to invest in myself. In gear, in education, in time, the works. We can talk about that later. Let's talk about lenses. This post is not about the lens I just bought. It's about another lens I want.

And herein lies the trouble with buying things. There's always something more, yes? Yes.

Anyhoo.

I mentioned a few weeks back that a friend from my photography group loaned me his 40mm pancake lens. It's this guy, in case you're interested in taking a peek. Look how wee! I adore my 50 mm lens and use it a lot. It's my go-to and it's on my camera 75% of the time. In fact, you might remember that I recently upgraded from El Cheapo to this baby, and we have since become very close. However. Even on a full-frame camera, 50 mm can be a bit tight. Inside, you can need to back way the heck up to get all you want in your shot, and outside can be a pain too. Here's an example, shot this weekend of the window at Can Can.

Me no likey.

So I want something a bit wider, and generally when I want to open things up, I can use my favorite zoom lens, the 28-135mm. This guy. We're also close. But the truth of the matter is that while my zoom can be very versatile, it does have it's limitations. One of which is the fact that it's heavy and cumbersome, especially when attached to my already heavy camera. So it seems to make sense that I should add another, wider telephoto to my arsenal of lenses, and here's why. I'm hoping to continue to add more architecture work to my portfolio, and the 50 mm is too tight for that. Also, we'll be traveling this summer, and the 28-135 mm is too heavy for that. (People, don't let them fool you. It's not the camera that's the investment. It's the lenses.)

Enter the 40 mm pancake. I'm so glad I got a chance to borrow it, and it was a ton of fun to play with, but really, I'm not closer to a decision. Let me show you the differences and you can tell me what you think.

We'll start with the basil.

Same angle, same location. See the diff? What do you think? The pancake would travel great and for the price ($150) it's an awesome lens, but is it enough of a difference from the 50 mm that I already have?

Let's make it a little easier and use my family room.

You can really see the difference here, can't you? A lot more room top to bottom and side to side on the 40 mm. But just for fun, I set my 28-135 to 35 mm, so we could see what we'd get if I went that route. Same spot, different day.

And Violet hiding behind the coffee table (totally hate that table, by the way and want a new one)! Even more room top to bottom and side to side.

So where am I? If it were just a vacation piece, I'd lean toward the 40. Like I said, awesome lens for the price. But for work and play? I'm tempted to put that $150 toward the $350 price tag of the 35. But gulp. What think you, my lovelies? Help a sister out!

pancaked {still}

Figaro-ed {life}

So. I'll admit. I've never been to the opera. Neel's mom was on a culture mission when he was growing up (she was a better woman than I), and he got to lots of things that came through Wilmington, DE and he went to see Don Giovanni with some music nerdy friends, but the closest I've ever come to the opera is when Nicholas Cage takes Cher to the Met to see La Bohème in Moonstruck.

What took me so long?

Because we missed the Norfolk showing of The Marriage of Figaro, we made a day of it. Brunch at Can Can, which we never get to, and afterwards the matinee. Pretty much perfect, if you ask me. It turned out better than I expected even. We started with cocktails at the bar while we waited for our table. I had a bloody (duh) with bacon vodka, bitters and fresh muddled tomato and bacon garnish. Neel had a breakfast martini. I wish I had grabbed a closer look at the ingredients for that one because it was a surprising delight. Something, something, something and butterscotch something. What? I expected sweet and instead it was tart and citrusy and perfect. The one small sip I got of it was, at least.

We went brunchy instead of breakfasty for our meal, and Neel had a cheeseburger while Callum had steak frites with maitre'd butter. I had the tartine. Hello. A thick slice of crusty bread, white bean tapenade, lardons of bacon, artichokes, a fried egg and sherry vinaigrette.

After a Spiced Brown Sugar Latte (to keep me awake after the bloody), we were off to the Opera. Not after Neel and Callum made a quick purchase outside the restaurant.

The Carpenter Theater is stunningly beautiful, but moody and dark. Hard to photograph. At that point, I was pretty ready to put my camera away and enjoy the show. The Virginia Opera did a fabulous job, and I was captivated from the first note. The 3+ hour opera when by in a flash, and we were enthralled from start to finish. There was a moment, at the very start, as the orchestra begins the overture and the curtain begins to pull open that my chest feels tight and my eyes fill with tears. I'm just so moved by all the effort and beauty that these humans are going to give us. We talked about it on the way home...Mozart could have sat beside us and aside from the electric "candles," that was his opera, just as he intended it.

This was all Callum's doing (although I did check to see what operas the VA Opera was putting on), and he pushed us to bypass other obligations to go. I'm so glad we did it. It was so good to do as a family and to keep doing. The Magic Flute comes in November. I can't wait to go again.