fun stuff | Change Is Hard

March 14, 2015
by dawnkinster 15 Comments

Winged signs of hope

About this time every year I get so tired of it all. Tired of the snow and cold and slush and wind and dark and…well…those of you that have ever lived up this way know. I looked back at the blog for a few years and guess what? Regardless of how easy or difficult the winter was, about this time of year I’m just over it and I start searching for signs that winter is over and spring has moved into my little part of the world. Now I can’t guarantee that this winter is over, but here are a few things I’ve seen or heard in the past two days that might give us all a little hope.

Friday evening as I got home and went inside to gather Katie for our trek to the mailbox there was the sound of a robin singing somewhere near. The light was bad but I searched the tops of trees and found a dark roundish bit of shadow that I believe was Mr. Robin. This winter I spotted a robin at our bird bath, looking decidedly disgruntled with the snow. Maybe yesterday’s was the same one, just a little happier.

Cold and hungry in January

This morning as Katie and I were out in the predawn darkness I heard a sound up in the neighbor’s oak trees that I’ve never heard before. I couldn’t place it, and each time I looked toward the sound (which was coming from multiple trees) all I could see was a blue jay. Couldn’t be, I thought, and went on my way. This afternoon I went online and looked for some video of blue jay sounds. Listen to the first few seconds of this. Did you know blue jays make this sound? I sure didn’t. I wonder if it’s something they do in the spring?

Later in the morning as I drove to work a sandhill crane flew overhead. Just one, which made me a little sad — I hope the spouse is somewhere near in a nest. Still, it’s good to know at least one has come back for the summer.

And then the absolutely positively sure fired proof it’s spring – when I got home from work this afternoon the red winged blackbirds were decimating my bird feeders.

Hungry!

I hadn’t even heard them yet this year, and that’s usually my first sign. But there they were, a whole flock of them hungrily scratching at the ground under the feeder. They seemed a bit frantic. These birds eat so much so fast that sometimes in the fall I stop filling the feeder until after they’ve left for the season as the rest of my birds can’t get near it to eat. But they are a sure sign it’s spring, so today, in appreciation, I’m filling it back up just for them.

And for this guy.

Also hungry

Wordless Wednesday

March 11, 2015 by dawnkinster 14 Comments

March 8, 2015
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

WordPress photo challenge: Orange

Oddly enough this week’s photo challenge is ‘orange.’ It’s ironic, because I used orange as a unifying color in a photo challenge a couple of weeks ago. So of course I can’t use my photo of oranges from that post. And that would be too obvious anyway. So I spent Saturday and a bit of Sunday scouting out orange things that represent life here in Michigan in March. When there aren’t any orange things blooming.

Once I started looking for orange I found it everywhere. From my toast in the morning, to the bittersweet vine on a bush down the street, to the orange snow fencing everywhere, the gumballs at the mall, the lights on the side of a restaurant, the Detroit Tiger English D, the New Balance shoe in a shop window, to the ever present orange barrels, orange is everywhere! And the orange car? I followed it for a few miles before it turned into a Wall-mart parking lot. Then I circled the lot until the driver went inside. Couldn’t resist showing you an orange car, right? Cars + Michigan. Can’t beat that.

You can see other interpretations of orange here, here and here. And I bet, if you look around, you’ve got a little bit of orange somewhere near you! It’s nice to look for some color during these last long days of winter. Show us what you found!

March 7, 2015
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Kids say it like it is

This box has no calories.

Heading out of the grocery store this morning I had my $4 ready for the girl scout cookie table waiting at the entry. It’s that season when moms and little girls wait by the chilly front doors near a table filled with overpriced snacks. Sometimes I plan my shopping for times I think there won’t be kids with big hopeful eyes selling stuff, but this morning I was on a mission.

It was early, and there was only one very young girl standing uncertainly in front of the table. She wouldn’t look at me and seemed shy, so I thought I’d engage her. As her mom smiled from behind the table I asked her:

“How much for one box of thin mints?”

The girl looked up, frowned and turned her back to me. I only realized she was pointing when she said.

“It says on the sign.”

And then she sighed.

I gave my four dollars to the embarrassed mom and scurried out of the store with my cookies.

Old people need the obvious pointed out to them.

Yes we do.

Yum

March 4, 2015
by dawnkinster 11 Comments

WordPress photo challenge: Reward

If you look at the latest Wordless Wednesdays on this blog you’ll understand why this is a reward.

You can see other interpretations of ‘reward’ at the original challenge. Or stop by here, here, here and here.

And don’t miss this one. It’s the kind of place I’d use as a reward myself.

What’s a reward for you? Have you treated yourself lately?

It’s time.

March 1, 2015
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Lip synching

You’re all waiting to hear about Saturday’s concert aren’t you? I imagine you couldn’t sleep for wanting to know.

Our band was the first one performing Saturday morning, and we had to be there by 8. Since I live more than an hour away I booked myself into a hotel down the street from the venue so I could have a relaxing morning. And so I could sleep in without having to deal with a particular sheltie girl who shall remain nameless. But I didn’t sleep well. The room was hot and eventually I just turned the heater off completely. I was worried about sleeping through the two alarms I had set. I had a long and detailed dream about not being able to find the high school room where we leave our cases and coats, and being late, and running through school hallways. I worried that the car wouldn’t start in the morning, having sat outside in below zero temperatures all night. Maybe I’d spill something on my black dress clothes at breakfast. Maybe I’d fall down the hotel stairs or slip on the ice in the parking lot. Maybe I’d forget my instrument or lose the keys to the car.

None of that happened.

Everything went smoothly according to my detailed plan. Up at 6:30, downstairs for breakfast at 7:00 (wearing my jeans and a sweatshirt just in case), load the car up at 7:45, drive to venue, arrive at 7:48. Meet the rest of the band members in appointed room, get escorted to our warmup room. Things were good. The director was relaxed. So were we. Even the thought of being critiqued by the composer of our most difficult piece didn’t bother us any more. We had prepared. We were the best that we could be. She ran us through the first piece of music, reminding us to watch her at a certain spot, not to slow down at another. Things were normal.

And then it happened.

My clarinet ceased to make any noise. No matter how I blew nothing happened. As the band continued to play I switched reeds. Nothing. I went to the third reed. Nothing. I went back to the first, checked pads, springs, nothing seemed out of order. They were playing the difficult UFO Concerto now, and they never sounded better. I was frantically trying to blow any note. Eventually I got a few notes out, but only those that were the most open, meaning the fewest fingers closing the fewest keys. And by then it was time to move to the stage.

I basically lip synched the entire concert. I could play at best 7 notes. I fingered along, breathed in all the right places and when one of those 7 notes came along I played enthusiastically. Thank goodness there was nothing in the program that required a third clarinet solo! And even though I wasn’t really playing, as I counted out the rests and played what I could, fingering the rest, I have to say I really enjoyed myself. The band was focused, as we always are at this event. Things we had worked on came together. The music soared just the way it was meant to.

And our world renown judge? Johan de Meij was a gentleman and obviously a talented artist with a vision. We played two of his pieces at the concert, and he went through a good portion of each with us, adjusting nuances of single notes, phrasing, instrumentation. We played. He directed, head tilted as he concentrated. He waved us to a stop and explained the meaning behind the sound, why a chord was structured the way it was, what it must convey. We played again, he nodded. At one point he flung out his hands and, grinning like a little boy, said “This is just so much fun!”

I agree Mr. de Meij. It was so much fun. Thank you for making our day. On the drive home I popped last year’s festival CD into the radio and turned it up. Loud. He told us that wherever he goes, as he teaches students he begs them not to stop playing when they get out of school. Join a community band, he says, they are everywhere. Keep playing. Don’t put that instrument away in the attic. He’s right. I am so blessed to still have music in my life.

The drive home took my by the town I grew up and I considered driving through it just for nostalgia. I thought of my folks and all the band concerts they’d been to, all the support they gave us all to follow whatever moved us. I wished they had been in the audience to see this one.

And then I thought… odds are good that they were.

At home, tired and happy I went out to get the mail. And there, among the bills and statements was a handwritten envelope with a return address and name I recognized as old friends of my parents. I worried that they were giving me news that one or the other was gone; I hadn’t heard from this couple since my parents died in 2004. I hurried inside and opened the letter. Out fell two photographs of my parents, taken in 1954, one year after they were married. They are sitting together, holding hands and smiling big happy grins.

There they were. On a day that I wished for them to be near, they fell out of an envelope sent to me by people I had forgotten all about. Just because she ran across the photos, she said, and thought I’d like to have them. So she sent them to me on a day I was missing them.

Love works in mysterious ways doesn’t it.

Yes. Yes it does. This morning my clarinet plays perfectly. Guess Mom worked on it over night.

Love you guys.

February 25, 2015
by dawnkinster 15 Comments

Weekend concert

Most of you know that I play in a local community band. Each year in February we attend a community band festival in a town about an hour away. Community bands come from all over to perform for 3 adjudicators who give us feedback on our work. For those of you that have been in a high school band, it’s like going to band festival. Without the sight reading part thank goodness! It’s exciting and fun and stressful all rolled into one music filled day.

And this Saturday is the day. We’ve been working really hard on the UFO Concerto by Johan de Meij. The piece is in 5 movements and we’re doing the first two. You can listen to some of it here. The first movement runs, on this particular recording, from 00.0 until 5 minutes and 9 seconds. It’s really beautiful. But what I really want you to hear is the second movement…starting at 5 minutes and 9 seconds and going until 10 minutes and 49 seconds. It’s crazy and it’s taken awhile to grow on me. But I found myself humming this at work on Tuesday.

Believe it or not.

What makes this Saturday even more stressful, other than this being a very difficult piece to play, is that the composer is one of the adjudicators! And to top it all off, he’s the one that will be meeting with us after our performance to give us his perspective on how well we played. Yes indeed. I have never played anything knowing the composer was in the audience, much less knowing he’s going to critique us after!

So what I need from you guys is a whole lot of strong good luck, musical vibes headed over to Okemos Michigan at 9:00 a.m. this Saturday. We’ve worked hard, but a little extra luck can’t hurt!

I’ll let you know how it goes.

February 21, 2015
by dawnkinster 19 Comments

WordPress photo challenge: Rule of Thirds

Some of you have heard about the rule of thirds; the placement within a composed photo of the point of interest near the intersection of lines drawn dissecting the entire image into thirds. It’s one way of adding interest to a photo. Katie the sheltie-girl and I went out to see what we could find that was fun and interesting. And though I took plenty of photos of her sitting dutifully in her lower right corner, the photo I like best out of all of them was this, a hurriedly composed shot, with only one chance to get it before he moved out of sight.

Going for a walk

It was the man’s orange hat that caught my eye just as I was putting Katie back in the car. I rushed her back out into the parking lot and grabbed the shot. This is not a classic rule of thirds image as the rest of the image surrounding the subject is not empty. If I’d had more time I’d have raised the camera a bit and had less snow, (you know, about a third of the photograph) in the foreground. But I only had one split second, and I like the result.

If you go to the original challenge post you’ll see an absolutely beautiful redbud leaf and the description of doing the rule of thirds while also focusing on creating a bokeh, that interesting and beautifully blurred background. I messed around at home trying for something similar. This is as close as I got before the afternoon sun sank and my kitchen reverted to uninspiring.

Orange afternoon light.

This also is not classic. The background isn’t blurry enough and the subject is certainly taking up more than a third of the foreground. I’ll be trying this technique again. But still. I like the color and the warmth and the light.

The fun about these photo challenges is that they make me think a little bit about how to answer creatively before I run out to find the actual image. I like the adventure of finding new photos, trying new things, and the challenge both gets me out of the house with the camera (and sometimes the dog) and makes me see the world around me in a slightly different way. Today while driving I was looking for something that divided into thirds. This morning at the grocery store I was looking for something interesting for a an indoor bokeh.

Without the photo challenge I’d probably have spent the afternoon doing laundry, and how fun is that? For more fun rule of thirds images go here, here, here and here.

And this one too.

Katie’s kind of miffed that she’s not the star of this post. But she’ll get her turn.

She always does.

Never ignore a princess.

February 14, 2015
by dawnkinster 19 Comments

WordPress photo challenge: Symmetry

If you go to the original post you’ll see inspirational photo which is gorgeous…and looks just like shots we took of a similar fort in Maine this past summer. Friday I had lots of ideas about things to photograph that show symmetry. I had plans for heading out on Monday, a holiday from work, to see what I could see. But it’s 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15C) right now and it’s going to get colder the rest of this long weekend and the wind is blowing making it even worse. So it’s very possible I won’t be going anywhere. I figured this would be yet another photo challenge that I missed because I just can’t get out of the house with my camera.

Then I looked out my kitchen window, watching the wind whip snow across the back yard. And I saw it.

Alien?

I have no idea what sort of animal would make tracks like this. It looks like a giant turtle pulled itself up to the bird feeder and then back out to the woods. But it’s certainly not turtle weather at the moment. Here’s a closer image. What do you think made these?

Two aliens

Maybe it was Winnie the Pooh’s mysterious Heffalump, but whatever it was I like the symmetry.

The wind has now covered up the tracks; I was lucky to notice it when I did. If you’d like to see some other images of symmetry, try here, here, here and here. Or go to the original post and look at all that have been submitted so far. The challenge lasts for a week, so check there again later and you’ll see even more!

What’s symmetric in your life? I hope it’s a warmer image than mine. I, for one, am thoroughly done with all the winter snow and wind. I’d like to photograph a symmetric field of corn or the symmetry of a dahlia blossom. I might still go and try to find some colorful symmetry. We’ll see.

How about you? Can you find a bit of symmetry somewhere around you?

February 14, 2015
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Happy Valentines Day!

Katie here. Guess what? Mama saw all the dogs on Facebook dressed up in Valentine garb and she got all wistful. Cause she knows better than to dress me up in any hat or glasses or dress or anything. I won’t stand for it! No siree. Unless maybe she has a crown. I’d consider that I suppose – if it’s real gold. With jewels.

Anyway…

I am somewhat of a camera hog. I know when my mama gets the camera out that I should look real pretty and turn my head just so and smile. That usually gets me a treat. But last night when my mama brought out this heart boa I was kinda scared at first. Then she put it on my pillow and said ‘touch!’ and I did and I got a treat! And we did that for a little bit until I was touching it on my own, and sniffing it and pushing my face into it and mama said she thought I was ready for my closeup.

Whatever that means.

Glamor girl

So what do you think? I’m a cover girl in front of the fire on Valentines Day! I wasn’t afraid of the boa at all! And as soon as I heard that camera click I was up and sitting in front of my mama for my treat. Because I know the most important part about this modeling business.

No glamor shots without pay.

Don’t you know.

Where’s my treat mama?

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: fun stuff