Wednesday, October 7, 2015

A day in pictures

Yesterday, I did a photography project, a "challenge within a challenge." The goal of the project was for me to document my day with pictures. Thus, my camera became my constant companion. I started in the morning by going outside to get the newspaper. It was my introduction to the outdoor world for Tuesday. I noticed that, for the most part, the black-eyed Susans are dying. Here is one flower that is resilient and still colorful, despite a few rough edges.


One of the mums looks as if it is wilting away. This one seems to be welcoming the autumn morning. It was a cloudy day. The leaves are starting to change color but it will be a while before they are at peak.

I continue to take pictures of the bear. They will be reference photos for a series of paintings.


It is apple season. Here is one of the apples on the tree. There used to be two apple trees in front of my mom's house, but one of them sustained a direct lighting strike and did not survive that trauma.


Back in the house. I pose the bear with my journal and with the book that I am currently reading with my book club: All the Light You Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is a beautifully written book. The characters are such fascinating people. I feel their existence, even though they are fictitious. I feel their pain and I feel their joy and I feel their hopes and their dreams. If you get a chance, read it. 


Breakfast time! I start off with one grapefruit.


The grapefruit is prepared. Note the handy dandy grapefruit knife. Utensils are cool things.


What is morning without a bear and a newspaper (or a newspaper-reading bear?)? This one looks as if it would rather nap on the newspaper than read it.


Cooking oatmeal for my mom and me.


This is one of the bowls that I got at the Earth Bowl, which was a fundraiser for World on Your Plate, an event about food and the environment, which is held every October at Daemen College in Amherst, New York. The Earth Bowl was not held this year. Fortunately, I still have three of these lovely bowls, and I do enjoy using them.


Breakfast is served! Oatmeal is very yummy when good stuff is added to it. I chose to add slivered almonds, golden raisins, and pumpkin seeds to my oatmeal.


After breakfast, it's off to Zumba class. At the plaza where the dance studio is located, I saw this concrete mixer truck.




It looks as if there must have been an old, broken-down sidewalk. This group of workers is covering the bad sidewalk with new materials.



"Just posing. Aren't I cute up here?"

The bear makes a new friend.


I try to take a picture of myself while standing on one leg. It's more challenging than I anticipated. It feels like chewing gum and walking at the same time!


Mary decides to get in on the act.

My feet on... um... the dance floor. (what else would my feet be on??) OK... maybe one foot...


Kayla, the Zumba instructor, truly enjoys what she does.


The concrete project is completed and blocked off.


Back at home, the bear contemplates the world through the window.


Having cheese and tea with my mom...


On Tuesday, I get the garbage ready to go out and I get the newspapers ready for the recycle bin. Here is the bear, in the box with the newspapers. I decided to depict the bear and newspapers in black and white because it gave a dramatic effect.


I add a blanket to my mom's bed. The bear poses there with two bearish friends.


I work on gathering information for my article about the CROP walk. The CROP walk, which happened on Sunday afternoon at Beaver Island State Park, is about raising money to help people overseas and here in this community get enough food to eat and water to drink. It's also about attracting attention to the problem of hunger and about the concept that people in communities both near and far don't have enough food to eat or enough safe water to drink. This year, a troop of Boy Scouts participated in the CROP walk. 

I work on the computer, both on my article, with photographs, and on my blog post about stupid laws.


I understand that I am fortunate to have enough to eat.

I can enjoy delicious fresh fruit every day.


Dinnertime with my mom. The part that I made is the pear-apple sauce, from pears and apples that I collected outside.


After dinner, I go with my friend Amy to the Niagara Dance Centre, near the Niagara Falls airport, for a tap dance class. I am a total beginner at tap dance. It's never too late to learn! I can be the Grandma Moses of dance.


Cute shoes that have the potential to make a racket. In fact, the more noise you make, the better. The class is fun, and I learn a few new steps. 


The Niagara Dance Centre.


I go home and play Monopoly with my mom. We call the game "monotony" because, sometimes, it can be a bit boring. This game was anything but boring. I managed to amass quite the fortune in the beginning of the game...

... only to lose it in a financial meltdown. Alas, no bailouts in Monopoly. You run out of money... that's it... you're done. 


After the Monopoly game, the world starts getting smaller. It's time to go to sleep. The bear is wrapped up in the "modern art afghan" that I crocheted a few years ago.


I remove my glasses and the world becomes fuzzier and less defined. My documented day has come to an end.
Tomorrow is a new day, with new adventures waiting. It was a good challenge. Maybe I'll do it again some time.

5 comments:

Alxandra said...

Wow... what a lovely day, and a great way to document what happened. I might try that out myself. Your grapefruit knife reminded me of my mom and her grapefruit knife, alas I lack one, but yours looks a lot like my mom's.

Alxandra said...

Oops... I didn't realize I was on Blogger... My current URL is https://rittlesnbittles.wordpress.com

emilia said...

wow!!!! Loved it. The pics are such great tool to freeze the moment, aren't they?

Alice Gerard said...

That grapefruit knife is my mom's. Thank you for visiting my world.

Yvona said...

Nice pics. I am surprised you can do zumba and tap dance with your auditory sensitivities. They have zumba class at my church but I never go 'cause it is way too loud for me.