up close and blurry
I’m kinda feeling under the weather today. Don’t feel too bad for me. I’ve been healthy as an ox all winter and just now caught something. It’s about time I caught one of the many viruses Bug brings home from preschool. I also attended a Bikram Yoga class on Saturday for the first time in my life and I am sore!! Oh my goodness, hot sweaty yoga is not for wimps! Have you ever tried it?
It’s regular yoga with simple poses except they crank up the heater to 110°F or something. I’m so proud of myself for making it through all the way to the end and not fainting. At first I thought it was a cinch. I thought, I can totally do yoga even though I haven’t worked out in an entire year. Ha!
Then I woke up the next day and I couldn’t bend my legs. So yeah, I’m not feeling so hot. I am also worried about all the other people in the class who were sitting in a hot damp petri dish with all of my germs. It was pretty gross. I wonder how they clean those rooms after everyone has dripped five pounds of sweat each onto the sticky carpet. It was low pile carpet, thankfully, but it still looked pretty gross. I’m just going to stop thinking about it and tell myself that the benefits of a deep workout offset the grossness of hot damp germy floors.
I’m sorry I had to drag your mind over to that ugly place. Here, feast your eyes on some blurry coasters from Paris! Aren’t they pretty? Everything is prettier with a 50mm lens blurring out the background. Today I wish I could wear 50mm glasses and then crawl into bed and read a book very close up. Maybe I will if I can convince Bug to nap with me (not likely).
I just thought I’d check in and do a quick blog. Maybe I’ll start a habit of it. Probably not. I’m always promising things and then not following through. But I’ve been working really hard on a post about painting and my insecurities about it and I’m not making very much progress. I’m starting to think that posts that take more than a week to write aren’t meant to be shared. Blogging is not supposed to be work. I don’t have time to be that deep. I should take the time but I have a five year old bopping around interrupting me constantly.
Bug’s bopping is so awesome though. She drives me crazy regularly but the minute she’s not around, I miss her with the heat of a thousands suns. I wouldn’t want her any other way.
Look at her messy desk. I used to brag to anyone that would listen that my child was naturally neat. She does like to match things up and put out of order products back in order in the grocery store but her OCD stops there. Her room is a mess daily. I think I’m going to have to take back all that bragging. I’ve probably spoiled her by tidying up after her. I can’t help myself sometimes. I just hate clutter! She will clean up with a lot nagging of course (maybe even less nagging than most kids) but she often drags her feet and tells me that cleaning up is so BOOOOORRRING. To which I roll my eyes. A lot of things in life are boring, kid.
I guess compared to her imaginary world where she changes characters hourly, cleaning is very boring. Does your kid do this? She’s a cat on the left and a knight or a Barbie Musketeer or something on the right.
Then she’s a hula girl…it never ends. I’m thankful for her imagination but I’ve had to make a rule that she has to keep whatever outfit she’s wearing on until she puts the last one away. This has helped with the constant piles of clothes on the floor but now I’m finding perfectly clean clothes stashed in the laundry and behind hanging clothes in the closet. Kids!
Sometimes I get in on the action too. But not very often.
Definitely not today.
Today I’m going to hide behind my 50mm lens and pretend the world is blurry around the edges.
17 Comments
bethany actually
Oh dear, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well and that the Bikram yoga didn’t work to sweat it out of you! Also, uh…Bug’s dressing-up and “cleaning-up” habits (i.e., clean clothes in the laundry hamper, stuffed behind the clothes hanging in the closet) sound very much like Annalie’s. She probably picked up a few tips from Annalie when you guys were here. Sorry about that! I am forever finding laundry stuffed in the toyboxes and under the bed, and dress-up clothes and shirts she only wore for ten minutes stuffed in the laundry hamper, and all kinds of crazy things tucked behind the clothes in her closet!
So no, Bug isn’t the only kid who does that stuff. :-)
bethany
feel better soon, and i love this post. deliciously real and candid. sometimes those posts that percolate for a long time lose their fizz, but sometimes it’s just a matter of figuring out how you actually feel about something. hope bug napped for you! i bribe with cartoons to get my naps …
Martha
I just did Bikram for the first time a week ago, and now I’ve done it twice. It is weird that the room has carpet. In my session, every one was on yoga mats and you have to bring a towel to drape over the yoga mat. Afterwards, everybody sprays down their yoga mat with a tea tree oil solution and wipes it down, then hangs it up to dry. It was pretty gross still though, I’m always next to some really sweaty dude. At my first session the instructor dripped sweat on me when he was standing over me – you really have to shower afterwards!
SAJ
I imagine they have carpet because if the floor was wood, you’d slip! But still, so gross! And yes, I had a big towel and a mat too. Maybe they turn up the heat to 200 degrees and burn up all the germs after class. Is that even possible? I’ll have to ask next time I go. If I go again.
Kuky
Ok now I’m fixated on the yoga and other gross things that are making my skin crawl. I’m sure I was originally going to write something else but then got distracted with the comment about being sweat on. That thought is just stuck in my head now. Reminds me of years ago, hmmmm maybe even a decade ago, when I was working behind a register. A customer dripped on the counter. Not sweat. Their runny nose. Ok. Now I’m grossing myself out.
heather
My daughter and Bug are sooooooo much alike. They are about 6 months apart in age. I wish we lived closer so that they could play together. That would be an imagination extravaganza! I feel the exact same way when Sasha isn’t around. Sometimes she drives me mad but not long after she’s gone I’m crying cause i miss her. :) Feel better Brenda!
a chris
Pretty full post for “no work.” All those photos! 50mm lens is looking nice. I just swapped my 35mm back onto my camera after a couple of months being too lazy to move from the zoom kit lens (and pretty much too lazy to take pictures). The low-light performance is the main advantage for me. It’s winter. It’s north(ish). I need all the help I can get!
This heated yoga thing. Is it wise? Without having heard of it, it sounds kind of counter-intuitive… I’ll read Wikipedia…OK, done. I’m a bit speechless. :/ I’ll take my exercise at ambient temperature any day.
Heidi
When I first started doing Bikram I also thought that I was getting sick. I would go to class and then feel pretty crumby the rest of the day and maybe the next day. All I wanted to do was sleep. Turns out I had an electrolyte imbalance. It’s really important to replenish the electrolytes you lost in all that sweat or you will feel pretty bad until your body does it on it’s own. Coconut water is a great way to do it.
Hope you feel better soon!
Cc
Oy, the outfit changing. It never stops.
I list count of how many times Suki changed yesterday, and honestly I was to nasueas to really care.
I hope you are feeling better today.
Mallory Sinclair
I’ve done Bikram for about 10 years. The carpets are often gross. But I feel so amazing afterwards….it’s addicting. Try it a few times before deciding whether you’ll stick with it. The only problem I have with it is that the guy who founded it (he’s still alive) refers to himself as God.
Joe
50mm bokeh FTW. Cute pics too.
Sarah
That mug photo is just beautiful.
TexasLea
Great pics Brenda and I love Bug’s tattoo! She never fails to entertain.
I hope you are feeling better soon. On one hand I hope it’s just the yoga made you feel sore and maybe a little dehydrated so it feels like your sick, but on the other hand if you really do have something it would make me think twice about the yoga place you went to. I wouldn’t be so sure Bug’s preschool is to blame. If you ever did go again, I think you should go at the end of a class and make sure they actually do clean the place. Ick.
Elizabeth
I love your posts no matter what they are about — your photos are wonderful and you are such an interesting writer that you make even “boring” things interesting. I always like hearing about what the imaginative Bug is up to as well. And I think you are a terrific graphic artist. You cat paintings were adorable. I hope they all sold!
Hey — I have a little money making idea for you. What would you think about having people commission you to do a painting of their kid based on a photo they would send you? I like the kind of cartoon-like style in which you do people so much that I think it would be fun to have you do paintings of my kids. I wouldn’t expect them to be “realistic” or “accurate” — rather, I’m thinking about something in the style of your banners or the cat paintings you did last week. I bet other readers of your blog might commission you, too. Interested?
Elizabeth
a long-time reader and most of the time lurker, but a fan of your art
gingermog
Hi how did I miss this delightful post! I guess I should be signed up to a RSS feed or something. Shh tell you the truth I don’t know what one is …
I still have insecurities about my design, drawing ability as well,how i shoudl be better than Iam and make time to try this and that, silly I know, but maybe that is just a sign we are good artists always striving to be better not settling for one level/skill?
I’m glad Bug is a hula girl. I am too. I have a stuffed parrot (not real) in the my kitchen (with your lovely cat plate) and a pink flower garland hanging in my bathroom. If the girl can’t go to Hawaii then Hawaii comes to the girl.
I hope your feeling better today. xxx
p.s. Every day is 50mm lenses day in my house as I am so short sighted even with contact lenses my world is slightly out of focus and I like it, my friends never develop laugh lines.
P.p.s. Now I’m thinking of all that sweat in the carpet at Bikram Yoga class. Ew! they should have different flooring. Ew! Ew! Ew!
Jeanie
I have those coasters, too! I got them at a thrift store — and they taped the clear packing tape right across the Eiffel Tower so I had to throw that one out…sigh…that was the one I wanted! But there were goodies undiscovered underneath.
Glad to see I’m in good company with you in coaster choice.
BeachMama
Hope you feel better soon. I have never done a Bikram yoga class for that very reason you state, hot and sweaty who cleans up after???
I am lovin’ your 50mm shots, you were meant to have that camera in your hands I love seeing how your photos have changed ever so slightly.