o

a dandelion has shedded its shielding feathers leaving an “o” behind

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

W

wind and water have weathered a “W”

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

H

aging bark suggests an “H”

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

B

atypical arrangement of flower petals makes a “B”

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

P

a blade curls as a “P”

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

i

an “i” hanging from a branch

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

Or shall it be 8th time is a charm?

SIGH! I can’t believe I got this far knitting without realizing how BIG it was coming out —keeping it shrinked on the double needles does not give you an idea.

Taking a look at this photo, it is obvious that Uma is not happy about how her sweater is coming out :P Not that she’ll need it for the summer, but at this pace, it will be well into wintertime by the time it’s ready!!

See more progress on: knit a sweater for my dog

New tires and general service

I got a free bike in craigslist —and a bike rack along :). The bike had been abandoned in the previous owner’s garage, so I just need to do a little fixer-upper. The weather is getting so much nicer, and I miss riding my bike. We’ll see how it turns out.

See more progress on: fix my bicycle

I'm giving up for now :(

With longer days ahead and being relatively far south, the chance of viewing an aurora seems dim. I signed up for an alert in case the planetary magnetic disturbance index is significant enough.

So, until late fall…

See more progress on: view an aurora borealis

A tradition

Today we’re having some friends over for paella. I’ve been wanting to cook it for a while. The other day I stopped procrastinating and went ahead and picked up the ingredients at the grocery store.

After we cook this first one, I want to cook it more frequently and incorporate this Spanish tradition back in my life. Being both my paternal grandparents from Alacant (in the Valencian Community), paella has been in my life since I was a child, and it always was a BIG event when we had it (like cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving!). But when I lived in Spain —first in Madrid and then in Valencia—, I learned this was a dish to be cooked every Sunday in the company of family and friends :)

With the weather starting to get nicer and nicer, I’ll aim to cook it at least once every 2 or 3 Sundays!

See more progress on: Cook Paella

zeitgeist |ˈtsītˌgīst; ˈzīt-|

What a brilliant and seemly word the Robots have appointed :) Kudos!!

zeitgeist |ˈtsītˌgīst; ˈzīt-|
noun [in sing. ]
the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time : the story captured the zeitgeist of the late 1960s.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from German Zeitgeist, from Zeit ‘time’ + Geist ‘spirit’

See more progress on: Find out what "Zeitgeist" means

My first entry this is...

...although I adopted this goal more than a month ago. However, I’ve been drinking more water than I used to, but I haven’t accurately tallied how many glasses —will have to start on that.

I’ve given up on soda —except 2 or 3 times :P, and I have replaced it with orange juice when I need a little sugar boost.

I feel better. My body feels better. I still have a looong way to go to reach my goal, but it’s one step at a time :)

See more progress on: drink more water

Love it!

It just integrates perfectly in the Mac environment, and the way I can manage my bookmarks is a big plus.

But I’ll keep Firefox whenever I need to have a million tabs open or when Safari is not fully supported by a website… hmmm, or is it the other way around?

See more progress on: Make Safari my default browser

Switched back to Safari :)

Firefox pros:

1. has the most amazing feature that recovers your workspace if the application crashes —all tabs and windows
2. works with most websites —but displays weird characters in 43T tho :S
3. has spelling checker built in

Firefox cons:

1. terrible in its way of organizing bookmarks

So it’s 3 to 1 in favor of Firefox, but I work with bookmarks a lot, so that one counts as a 5. So I’m keeping Safari as my default, but will be using Firefox whenever I need any of its 3 good reasons to have it as a default ;)

PS
Explorer? That one was ditched a while ago…

See more progress on: Make Firefox my default browser

q

I first took this photograph as a “4”, but with a little imagination it could also be a lowercase “q” :P

Well, the Greeks had even greater imagination with the constelations ;)

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

J

a branch shaped as a “J”

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

e

a hand-written “e”

See more progress on: take an alphabet of photos

Major withdrawal from the library

After returning about 10 books, we checked out another good 12 or so books to get a lot of ideas. I’ve been reading and jotting down in my “visual portfolio” :)

It’s coming; it’s coming…

See more progress on: open a restaurant

OK, World, watch Arrested Development!

Come on! (in Gob’s scratchy voice) —I’m such an AD geek ;)

Here it is this list of bests, so all 43Ters fans can keep track of all the episodes they’ve watched. Enjoy!

See more progress on: get everyone in the world to watch Arrested Development

My grain of sand to save Arrested Development

Well, we couldn’t keep the show going on, but at least it will be saved in memory. So here it is this list of bests, so all 43Ters fans can keep track of all the episodes they’ve watched. Enjoy!

See more progress on: Save Arrested Development

6am...

...and I’m just going to bed :P OMG!! It’s light already outside!!!

I’m doing sooo bad with this goal :S

See more progress on: Early to bed, Early to rise

On and off

I’ve been on and off with my schedule, and it’s messing up the rest of my goals :S

Today, I completely did not follow it and, instead, spent half a day and well into the night at 43T and 43Pl. Love this place ;)

See more progress on: follow a schedule

7th time is a charm

This is the ONE goal I’ve been constant about —within my current goals—, and it’s taking me the longest time :P

I knitted almost all the way to her front paws —twice as much as shown in the picture—, and I realized I didn’t quite like part of the pattern :S

So I unknitted it once more and started over for the 7th time, or is it the 8th already?

See more progress on: knit a sweater for my dog

Breathtaking

I’ve seen tulip plantations in photos before, but when I first spotted the open fields of tulips this past weekend at the festival, I just gazed with delight. Wonderful :o)

See more progress on: Go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

No luck so far

Last month, we took the car to the lake where there could be a better view. Unfortunately, the city lights helped none. It seems tomorrow will be another active day level 4; we’ll see.

I realize it’s like I wished the aurora would light over my backyard —I do; I really do ;)

See more progress on: view an aurora borealis

Early morning

I ought to re-establish this goal since I have done nothing to accomplish it. I need to get the early to bed, early to rise goal in order as they both go hand in hand.

See more progress on: Create a beautiful uplifting morning routine

Rewarding experience!!

Last Sunday night, we hung down my exhibition. It was nostalgic, but fulfilling in the same way.

I sold one photograph, and I’m ecstatic since this is my very first solo exhibition!! I want to continue showing my photographs, so I’ll pursue this goal once again before long.

See more progress on: exhibit my photography

Mailed on the 16th!! LOL

Oh, well, that’s what deadlines are for!! It was so easy, I can’t believe we waited until now!

But I still have my Mexican taxes to file, so I’m not checking off this goal just yet. The deadline is on April 30th… so there’s still time… ;)

See more progress on: file my taxes

Major spring cleaning!!

Well, not only did I clean and back up my mac, but I completely erased it and reinstalled all the software again.

It was displaying obvious crashing symptoms, so I took the decision to start from scratch again before it died on me and lose all my stuff! Gasp!

I feel so much better now —sigh— It’s running super smoothly :)

I still need to organize it better, so I’m not yet checking off this goal just yet… but soooo much I’ve accomplished so far :)

See more progress on: clean, organize, and back up my mac

So I did not meet the challenge...

Well, my time was up, and I’m just halfway through the 4th chapter!!

So I’ll honor my unmet challenge by giving up tv until I finish the book —except half hour a day to achieve this goal ;)

See more progress on: read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

:S

I woke up at 10 this morning instead of 9am :S

I really did not hear the alarm go off. Well, no wonder given the fact that I went to bed at 3:38am last night. Why do I have to keep pushing my sleep limit? I was already sleepy before 2am, but why I kept myself awake for two more hours is beyond me…

Even though I broke the rules of the experiment last night, I’ll be back on to it tonight.

See more progress on: Early to bed, Early to rise

Sooo many years, sooo many photographs

I just keep staring at my truck-load of photographs. I already bought a pack of negative holders and started filing the negatives in them. I’m about halfway through I guess.

After that, I’ll try to match the photos to the negatives. Then get rid of a good third of the photos —the ones that are too dark, light, blurry, out of focus, duplicate, unimportant, or plainly bad :P

Hmmm, I really need to write down a plan for this major project. Another day…

See more progress on: organize my photographs

32%

One episode a day, I’m done with 32% of the list. I am sooo enjoying watching the episodes all in a row :)

See more progress on: watch all episodes of arrested development

Jinxed the weather :P

Of course, it rained today on and off. I jinxed it for saying it was getting sooo much nicer :P

I started sorting clothes, but got into organizing papers and more papers. I sorted out 90% of it, whoohoo!!

See more progress on: spring clean

The experiment

I went to bed at 4:35am (!) last night, and woke up at 9am (my set time). I napped for about 25 minutes in the afternoon, but didn’t really go to sleep, just relaxed.
It’s 1:48am already tonight, and I’m feeling really sleepy, but I decided to post this before I went to bed, so I have a log of my ‘experiment’.

See more progress on: Early to bed, Early to rise

Weather's getting nicer...

...so spring cleaning before it gets even nicer that I’ll dread being inside spring cleaning :P

First step
Take all the winter clothes and stuff and either:

• donate
• discard
• dryclean/wash/repair, and then store for next winter

See more progress on: spring clean

How to Become an Early Riser

Somewhere in the many ‘sleeping goals’ of 43 Things, someone recommended the article How to Become an Early Riser.

Basically, Steve Pavlina proposes two things:

1. Going to bed when —and only when— you’re sleepy
2. Get up at the same time everyday no matter how long you slept

He expands on the process and goes further to clarify in a second part.

Consequently, he states, your body will adjust and will demand to go to bed at a decent hour ;)

It really makes a lot of sense, so I’ll give it a try.

See more progress on: Early to bed, Early to rise

I'm on it

It’s taking forever. How someone can accumulate such a load of files is beyond me :S

Plus I have backups here, duplicates there, and just a bunch of unfiled and unorganized files everywhere...

This is a major spring cleaning I need to do.

See more progress on: clean, organize, and back up my mac

Relearning HTML

I started a ‘refreshing course’ by doing some tutorials at http://www.htmlgoodies.com/. I bought their book 8-9 years ago and, of course, many things were outdated, but they have updated and expanded them in their website. I’m liking it; it’s very easy, and I already got started in the page I want to post.

I wish the website had ‘numbered steps’ for the tutorials. I’m very methodical in this respect, and I very easily get lost in the maze of links and options :S I could still jump around and skip if I’d wish to, but numbered steps would be a great plus. After this I’ll go onto CSS.

See more progress on: learn html

Got another bath today

Not yet two weeks have gone by, and Uma needed another bath today. I originally scheduled one bath a month, but with spring in full bloom, I’ll make it every 3 weeks. Today I made an exception, because we went to the park, and she got into some resin of some tree, which smelled badly :P

Her nails didn’t need any trimming, and she looks good all around. Her hair is so fluffed, she looks like a bear :o) I wanted to trim her hair, but the trimmer is not working right. She’ll need a good trim before the summer’s here.

See more progress on: groom my dog

Knitted, unknitted 4+ times already!!

I measured my dog, I did the gauging, and I still can’t get it right :S

First couldn’t get the neck right.

Then it came out waaaay too big —about 20 stitches too big. See photo. Isn’t she a supermodel? ;)

Then I didn’t get the pattern right.

And then, I was on a roll knitting away… when I realized the cables were too thick and were shrinking the width very much —so much, it looks ugly, and now the sweater is too small :S

So here we go unknitting once again. I’ll add stitches where the cable is, and reduce it from 6 to 4 stitches. That’ll do. Well, we’ll see about that…

See more progress on: knit a sweater for my dog

Not gonna happen :P

So I just have 3 chapters down and 6 days to go. I’m sooo not gonna make it :P

Not that I regret giving up tv because, frankly, I have hardly watched it at all —I’ve been reading other things and kept myself busy. However, this challenge will disrupt my other goal.

So I’ll give up all tv except that half hour a day to watch Arrested Development.

One thing is for sure. I definitely must finish the book before they release it in theaters this summer. That I can manage ;)

See more progress on: read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Got my brushes out!

Well, the weather does help a lot. With the winter blues gone, I finally reached for my brushes and a sketchbook —not yet ready to use the nice watercolor paper after 10+ years of not painting.

I did a very basic sketch of some peppers that were in a photo ad of our local grocery store :P I know, I know, but I had to start with something… I’ll eventually move on to more elaborate themes and right out of nature and real life.

So for practice and “warm up”, here’s my first piece :o)

See more progress on: watercolor paint again

Extended 15 more days :)

Well… got extended really more because the next exhibitor wasn’t ready to put up his work than because of the success of mine :P

I’ve got good reviews nonetheless. Even though I haven’t sold anything, I still think it’s a success because it’s my first solo exhibit, and I’m new in town, so it’ll take a while to spread the word.

But still, these extra 15 days will hopefully give me a chance to sell my first piece… crossing fingers…

If you’re in the Seattle area, go take a look!! Here’s the invite that I forgot to post earlier. Café Septième at 214 Broadway E in Capitol Hill.

See more progress on: exhibit my photography