125:365 Love My Parts

Anna: Today, I joined my first flickr photo group. It's called Love My Parts, and is a particular self-portrait group. While I don't expect to be doing anything as fantastically creative as some talented people, I have been interested in the concept, and I think this group fits the bill.

The purpose of the group is to take pictures of those parts of your body you might not be comfortable with, and to learn learn to accept our bodies as they are. Personally, I really don't have any parts that bother me. Living in a culture that constantly bombards us with images of what we "should" look like, or what beauty is suppose to be, I think it's a great idea to show what real, non airbrushed bodies look like.

This is my first Love My Parts photo. My broken up, battered feet.


Some 15 years ago, I was a little more active than I should've been (ha! Now that's an understatement!) and hurt them pretty badly. I did mention them to the doctor during one of my regular visits, but it seemed downright silly to complain about sore feet. After all, everyone gets sore feet, right? I also come from a family that, if it isn't broken or bleeding profusely, we just patch ourselves up and keep on going. Sometimes, we keep on going even when things *are* broken, which I seem to have done all those years ago. I now believe I had developed a whole bunch of stress fractures. I should've stayed off my feet to let them heal, but that just wasn't an option.

It was about 3 years before I was able to walk without constant pain, though the bones did sometimes dislocate unexpectedly.

About 6 years later, the pain came back - and then some. Not only did my feet hurt as badly as when I'd first injured them, but I began to have shooting pains in my lower legs. It got to the point that just getting out of bed was almost more than I could bear, and walking from one end of the house to the other was a major accomplishment. I've never lived with such pain before in my life - and that's saying a lot with me!

I finally dragged myself to a doctor; someone I'd never seen before, as we were in a new province. When I told her why I was there, she looked me up and down and gently suggested that it "might be because you're a bit large." Which is a polite way of saying, your feet hurt because your fat. *eyeroll* I pointed out to her that she had it backwards. I was gaining weight because I could barely friggin' walk. So she sent me for blood tests to make sure my thyroid wasn't screwy, and that I wasn't diabetic. *sigh* I figured it would be faster to just go for the blood tests, which I was due for anyways, than argue with her. My blood tests came back, in her word, "perfect." When I reminded her of why I was there, she sent me for X-rays.

Which is when I found out that I had developed severe osteoarthritis in both feet and both knees. I also had bunions. And bones spurs in both knees. And a bone spur in one heel (I now have them in both heels).

Getting that diagnosis was the best thing ever. It didn't help my feet any - nothing helped until we moved away from the "wet coast" and back to the dry prairies - but knowing that I wasn't actually a wuss complaining about my 'poor widdle tootsies' changed my thinking.

Today, my feet still hurt sometimes, though nothing like they did while we were living on the coast. The bones still dislocate, and sometimes my knees like to "sing" to me, letting me know it's time to slow things down.

But - I can walk. Not very fast and sometimes not very far, but that's ok. I can walk. And that's something I've learned to appreciate a great deal.

Take a moment...

Anna: I just wanted to take a moment to mention I've added some new links to the column on the side. There are a lot of talented photographers out there, and these are some of the ones I enjoy visiting regularly. The new ones on the list are labeled, creatively enough, (new). :-D

124:365 Stormy weather

Anna: I really feel for the performers scheduled for today at the Street Performers Festival - it was probably a total loss for all of them. Not only did it rain for most of the day, we had a series of thunderstorms sweep through as well. It's the time of year for it, and I guess a street performer gets stuff like this happening fairly often, but it must still hurt the pocket book a fair bit, since this is how they make a living.

This was the view off our balcony, facing downtown, this evening. It was pouring rain at the time, though nothing like it had been earlier (I'm pretty sure I heard hail, at one point), and with no where near as much wind. I wouldn't have gone out on the balcony with the camera, otherwise! *L*

This is good news for the folks in Saskatchewan, though. Every little bit helps with the fires they've been having lately, and some of the evacuees were actually able to return home, thanks to the rain.

Now if only some of this rain will make it's way to California, too, I'm sure it would be appreciated!

123:365 - Up close and Personal - updated: Street Performers Festival

Philippe: Headed out to the street performer's festival today; we got there early so I looked around for other photo ops :)














































Anna: More photos of the Street Performers Festival here.

We headed out to the square a bit too early. The booths were still being set up and the square was mostly empty. There was this one early bird performer already entertaining the crowd, though.


























As well as the scheduled performers at specific stations, there are always roving performers, such as these stilt walkers.


























This performer started up while we were wandering around, so we were able to find places to sit or stand and actually see him! *L*




























After the show, we'd had enough of the heat and were looking to go indoors for a nice cold drink at the Three Bananas Cafe on the square. I couldn't resist taking some shots of the beautiful cloud formations.

By the time we finished our drinks, the white fluffies were starting to give way to dark and forbidding. Shortly after, as we were going through one of the pedway overpasses to get back to our car, we saw it was pouring rain! It was a fairly quick storm that passed through, but harsh enough to actually interrupt power, as we came home to find both computers had shut down. It's starting all ready! *L* Last year, the festival was frequently interrupted by sudden rainfalls.

122:365 Our best friend these days - and AAAHHH!!!!

Anna: First, I'd like to wish our friends in the US a very happy Independence Day. I hope you all had a great day celebrating. :-D

My day started out with some "fun" of a different sort. An early morning appointment for my lung tests to rule out asthma. The tests were much the same as what I had done back in Manitoba several years ago, but with different equipment and a very enthusiastic tech. She really got into her work! *L* I got to sit in this little glass booth and do some heavy breathing. Now, there's a reason I breath shallow. Deep breaths make me cough. Today, I had to repeatedly take super deep breaths, then punch out the exhale as hard as I could for as long as I could. By the end of the testing, my lungs were on fire, and I was making interesting noises as I coughed. The worst of the tests, though, was when she shut the door of the booth, then had me doing these quick little puffs. I had a nose clip, and part way through my puffing, she shut the air off while I kept puffing. She warned me about all this, and told me that it would be like I was holding my breath. No, it wasn't. It was like suffocating. Thankfully, I only had to do it twice.

For the last test, she had me use an inhaler first. That certainly didn't help the burning in my lungs. :-P Since I was planning to go for my chest X-rays next, I had to ask if any of this would mess things up for those. She assured me it wouldn't, though she acknowledged is was a very valid question.

So the lung test and X-rays are now done. Now, I just have to wait for the results to come in and see my doctor. And hopefully, he won't call in sick, like he did for my last two appointments. :-/

Today was another hot day, and when I got home, I was glad to spend some quality time with our new best friend these days...


... our air conditioner. It's one of those portable ones that comes with special pieces that allow us to set it up in our sliding door. It would've been much cheaper to get a window type, but we don't have the right kind of windows to install one of those. We keep this guy running pretty much all day, then we shut it down and open the windows for the night.

You'll notice it reads 26C. It always seems to read 26C, no matter how long it's been on. It rarely changes, and even when it does, it's quickly back at 26C. I don't get it.

Although it helps a lot, our apartment building accumulates and holds heat like nobody's business. Air circulation in the apartment itself is very poor. The girls' bedroom is the worst for that, so we broke out the industrial fan we got to deal with the heat last year. The girls frequently pause in front of it to enjoy the cool breeze. Which is how we got this photo from Philippe of our youngest daughter...


Philippe: Medusa in training.

121:365 Teenie Tiny

Anna: I have a thing for tiny bowls.

I use them for pre-measuring ingredients when I'm cooking. I use them to hold different colored beads when I'm crafting. The kids use them to hold water for their paints. They're handy for holding whatever small items I happen to need a container for on short notice. My favorite use of the prettiest ones is to hold food items in our Easter basket. I never seem to have enough of them.

When we were at the museum yesterday, which has a dragon theme going on for the summer, we stopped at the gift shop to see what new dragon items they had. I instantly fell in love with these teenie, tiny bowls. I also loved the price. ;-) That blue is my favorite colour didn't hurt, either.

I have no idea what I'll use them for yet, but I'm sure I'll find something soon.

I took these using the light box and the D70 on auto. I did end up needing to lighten it so that the colours matched the real thing a bit better. Gotta figure out the white balance settings. Finding the button for it first helps a lot... ;-)

120:365 Experimenting

Anna: Our building managers had a parking ban on our level for cleaning, so we had to have our car out. With no nearby parking that's more than half an hour (though the cars parked in our access lane never seem to be ticketed), or wasn't on a residential only street, we decided to head to the museum for the day. It's a good place to practice low-light photography - and the parking is free. ;-)

When we got there, however, we discovered that tripods and monopods aren't allowed in any of the galleries without special permission from the marketing director. This was a surprise, as we've used both a number of times. We just happened to get someone at the admissions desk that remembered they weren't allowed - she even double checked the book, just to be sure.

This made things a bit more challenging. Especially for someone with shaky hands, like me!

One of the main problems with using the S3 is that, in situations like the museum, the camera wants to focus on the glass instead of what's behind it. It does have manual focus, but it's very limited. It's one of the main reasons I wanted to try out the D70, now that Philippe has stepped up to the D80. How I would do this without my monopod, I wasn't sure. Most of my photos didn't turn out. I'm just too shaky for longer exposures. I did manage a few that worked. The following pictures were resized to 35%, but are otherwise unaltered.

This silver cigarette case seems to have worked out. I could probably improve it with PSP X2, but not by much.











I actually got two shots of this that worked, though the other came out looking misty because of the reflection on the glass. From this angle, I only had the one spot light's glare to deal with. I love the intense blue of the glass inside, though it's a little hard to see it here.









The minerals collection in this museum is really impressive - and extremely difficult to photograph even with a tripod. This is pretty much the only one I took that was clear.

I had the camera on aperture priority. I can't say I'm happy with it. I might play around with the multi-program setting, instead.

Either way, I have a lot to learn about this camera.