Sunday, August 24, 2008

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 22, 2008

Friday night. My favorite part of the week. The entire weekend lies ahead. Unfortuanately, I was in excruciating pain. I am not sure what I have done to myself, but my back is killing me. It isn't like a pulled muscle, it is more like a sharp knife in my lower back. I have a doctor's appointment next week, but in the meantime, I am popping Advils and leaning on ice packs.

I stayed home while the girls went out with Joel for dinner. When they came back they brought a tiny stuffed toy filled with catnip and the kitties took turns playing with it. I snapped these as I was relaxing in bed.


Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 20, 2008

After two days of cleaning the house, checking emails, watching movies, catching up on my new favorite TV show, "Mad Men," it was the first day of school. Since I leave the house at 7 a.m. I didn't see my girls up and dressed. So Joel came home from work to snap the obligatory first day of school photos!!

Every other year Adina had to stand on the rock that you can see behind her, but this year the girls are almost the same height! Wow, that just says it all about time passing. This is Rachel's senior year and Adina's last year in middle school. So it is a big year for everyone!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 18, 2008

So the first day of school was delayed by a very, very stubborn Tropical Storm Fay. This storm worked its way through the Caribbean, across Cuba, got stronger, crossed over the Keys and slammed into the west coast of Florida and slowly, very, very slowly traveled across the state dumping up to 30 inches of rain in some cities and creating a messy situation.

I had to go to work until noon and then the County sent everyone home. Only a few essential people had to work at the Emergency Operating Center. School was called off and what did my children do? Sit at their computers and chill out all day long.



I found myself wandering around the house, cleaning and vacuuming and then looking out the window to see what was going on. There really wasn't much of anything. The actual storm wouldn't come through until the middle of the night.

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 17, 2008

Amid all of the school shopping, we had to make the day a bit more enjoyable. So here is Joel, well, being Joel! We found some Halloween costumes and I just thought this one was adorable!!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 17, 2008

Getting ready for school always involves many female rituals, like shopping for office supplies, shopping for new clothing and of course, getting your hair cut!

So here are two photos of the girls after their haircuts. Rachel finally got brave and went a bit shorter with the sides angle cut almost to bangs. Adina wanted bangs, but I talked her out of it.

This was all fun and they spent many hours in front of the mirror with the hair dryer and the straightener.

Makes them look quite grown up and that makes me squirm.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 16, 2008

My Saturday started out with a quick breakfast of cereal and then I ran out to the gym for a quick workout. I have been newly motivated to get into shape and stay there. I visited my doctor and he said that my cholesterol is lower than a few months ago, but still too high. So, with a proper diet, exercise and a glass of red wine now and then, perhaps I can lower that number?



I snapped this photo with my new Verizon Dare touchscreen phone. It is a cool phone, and makes me want to play with the technology. I really took this photo to tease Rachel because she went to the beach and I wanted her to come to the gym with me. But how can you possibly compete with the beach??



I took this photo at BJs while we were shopping for hurricane supplies (yes, there is one brewing out there . . . it is only a Tropical Storm, but once it passes over Cuba into 85 degree water, it will most certainly whip up into something to stay clear of! So this is a Halloween costume! I can't believe we already have Halloween stuff in the stores. Although, the other day I actually saw a Christmas item. Why can't the merchandisers wait???



This photo was taken after the girls had their hair cut at the salon for their first day of school . . which may be delayed due to Tropical Storm Fay!



I took this photo at the salon before Rachel started to play with her hair . . . as we all do once we get home from the salon. Or is that only females?

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 15, 2008

Rachel and her friend, Taylor, were playing with their phones during dinner. I just had to take this photo. They were both so involved in whatever was on their screens. Probably talking to boys!

I did have a funny feeling on the way home. I felt like I was intruding on their evening. I remember when my friend, Susan and I got together. We used to tune the entire world out and be in our own bubble world. So I just sat in the car, very quietly and let them talk and I played solitare on my Palm. Strange how quickly your children grow up?

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 13, 2008

Wednesday started out at 5 a.m. for me because we had the Arts Integration conference at Dillard Center for the Arts. The school is our performing arts magnet high school. It is an incredible facility with three theaters and many other performances spaces and exhibit spaces for visual artists. This is the fifth year that our office has presented this conference. We bring teaching artists to the conference from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. These teachers teach our school teachers how to integrate the arts into their normal curriculum.






Rachel came along with me so that if we needed an extra hand, she was there. Before I put her to work, she was busy doing the crossword puzzle!











This is Roshunda, one of my employees with Colin, the son of another employee. Colin was entertaining Roshunda. I thought he was adorable. He is only four years old and he is extremely talkative.



In case you follow football at all . . . this is a former Miami Dolphin who now owns a chain of restaurants. His name is John Offerdahl and he is THE nicest guy you would want to meet. He is truly a hands-on kind of guy. He made sure that the food was perfect for both breakfast AND lunch.



In one session, we had a dancer teaching Flamenco dance moves to a group of Physical Education teachers. It was quite interesting watching them. But I was crawling around on the floor taking photos of Damaris' feet! I like the blur here because you can feel the motion of her feet.



And of course we have to have the cute animal photo. Grace was sound asleep and Newton quietly crawled up next to her and tried to cuddle with her. You can see that Newton was watching Grace to make sure that Grace wouldn't wake up and start growling!!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 11, 2008

Monday night was nail night for me. I don't really like to do my nails, but I don't like anyone else to do my nails either. But I like the way they look with a clear pink on them. So once a week I sit myself down and do my nails. Here are my products. Nothing fancy, but it does the trick!



And while I was waiting for the polish to dry, I was reading emails and watching TV in bed. Newton climbed into bed with me and started doing his kitten thing where he grabs my fuzzy blanket in his mouth and then walks around in circles until he finds the perfect position and then kneads the blanket with his front paws while he chews on the fabric.

It is cute, but my blanket ends with with kitty spit!!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 10, 2008

A very, very lazy day for me. It was storming . . . raining and thundering. I curled up on the bed with Adina and watched the Discovery Channel, but half way through, I fell asleep. At some point before I fell asleep, I was playing with my new touchscreen phone and taking photos with it. It has a very impressive camera in it with 3.1 megapixels.

This photo is looking out of Adina's window at the very grey day. I liked the way the tree looked through the window panes and I liked the way the room framed the window with darkness.

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 9, 2008

Just a quiet moment with Newton.



He was snoozing by the window and I laid down on my stomach to take photos of him.




Of course, being the curious animal that he is . . . he came over to visit me once I was comfortable with the camera and ready to shoot! He had to wrap himself around my hand.


I had to give up because he started to chew on my fingers. It doesn't really hurt though!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 8, 2008

Adina had the pleasure of cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. The girls completely resist any housework at all. It is usually an argument before we get them to actually do the work, but we have laid down the law lately. Everyone pitches in and everyone does something whether it is changing the kitty litter or sweeping the floor or doing the laundry. And this won't change when school starts!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 5, 2008

School is almost here and Adina still hasn't read all of the summer reading. So we went out for a quick dinner and ended up at Barnes and Nobel to pick up one of the books for Adina.

Here she is flipping through a pile of fun books. We spent about two hours there! Each of us had our own pile of fun books. I enjoyed it a lot but missed having Rachel with us. She went to the movies with her friends. I don't mind her going with her friends, but I do miss her when she isn't with us. It is such a funny feeling.

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 4, 2008

It was an uneventful day. However I happened to walk into the girl's bathroom to do something and when I looked into the bathtub, I noticed that there was water in the tub.

Then when I questioned the girls what the problem was, they said the drain has been clogged for a long time. Of course instead of asking for one of us to help them fix it . . . they just lived with the clog. Is it me or is it weird that your children just think it is normal to take a shower with the water up to your knees??

Anyway, this photo captures Rachel digging the clumps of hair out of the drain, while Joel is reading the directions on the can of Drano, while Adina watches and learns.

Notice I get to take pictures instead of slogging through the gross water!

After the clog was cured, Adina had the pleasure of scrubbing the tub out with cleaning fluids.

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 3, 2008

Sunday was a VERY long day. It started out with breakfast with the girls and we moved on to shopping for school supplies. We know the basics, but we won't know exactly what is needed until they go to school.



Here we are in Target. Who knew that they had such beautiful flowers??

















Now we are in Office Max. Rachel wanted to know how she looked in a backpack because she hasn't used one since Middle School!

I think that she looks cute. But then again, I am her mother, that is my job!











Later in the evening we headed over to the Kaplan's for dinner and game night. Lynn insisted that we come over and play games. We brought one game, Apples to Apples, which is a very simple card game where everyone is dealt cards with nouns on them and one at a time each person becomes the judge and turns over a card that is an adjective. We have to decide which noun matches the adjective and sometimes it is so funny that we just laugh instead of moving on to the next play.

Later in the evening we played Pictionary. It was a wholesome evening and we really did have a good time!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - August 1, 2008

It was Friday night and we were playing games in the living room. Adina had a friend at the house and we were laughing pretty hard. The first two photos were of the girls being very silly.





When we got hungry we went out for pizza. There was a terrible storm while we were eating and when we came out into the parking lot I looked up and saw this beautiful rainbow. I wasn't sure if I could capture it, but I did fairly well and this was with the pocket Nikon camera.



And this photo just made me laugh. Joel was taking a photo of Robert with his new cell phone so that Robert's photo will come up when he calls Joel. You would have thought that they were doing a professional photo shoot just listening to Joel direct Robert to turn away from the camera and back and tilt this way and that!! So I captured this moment to remember that I was laughing!

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - July 31, 2008

On Thursday, we HAD to finish the graphic design for the invitations to Adina's Bat Mitzvah. So Jose and his fiance, Sandra, came over so that Joel and Jose could put their heads together and finish it.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, Jose came straight from work and had to bring his two dogs since they spent the day at Canine Camp (yeah, I know, I know, no comment there).

So Jose made me grab my camera and we ran out to the golf course which hasn't been taken care of in the past three years and is very much overgrown and looks very wild out there. We let the dogs run around and I took photos. These two are the ones that I liked the best.

The dogs are very sweet, it is just that Joel doesn't like dogs so we had to put them into the den so that the cats wouldn't attack them. Both cats are larger than their smaller dog!!

After dinner, Rachel and i cleaned up the kitchen and I tortured her by taking photos while she was loading the dishwasher. My family is about over it when I pull out the camera.

And last but not least, I had to take a photo of Grace as she wrapped herself up in the towels that we had put on the floor for the dogs. She was being cute and asking for me to take her photo!






Project 365 - Photo of the Day - July 30, 2008

A lone flower in the early morning sunlight as I waited for Robert to come out of the house. We were on our way to work on a Monday morning.

Nothing exciting, just an observation.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Project 365 - Photo of the Day - July 27, 2008

It has been way too long since I last posted anything at all. I was overwhelmed by the volume of photos and just very lazy in sitting down and writing.

The summer has flown by but I have taken photos, I just haven't uploaded anything.

On July 27 I insisted that the family -- yes ALL four of us -- take a trip to Miami and visit Vizcaya. it is an amazing place. It was the home of James Deering who built the home in 1916. He was an agricultural industrialist and now the home is a national historical landmark and is on ten acres of land and includes formal gardens and an unbelievable house made out of stone and other natural materials.

These photos were taken throughout the property. Mind you, the temperature was in the range of about 98 degrees and we were dying of the heat and humidity, but it was very worth it.

Enjoy my photos.