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Bananas and Chicken (Long, Pictures)

Actually, this post won’t have anything to do with bananas and chicken, but it’s something I say often, so it’s only fitting I’d finally use it as a subject heading.

Today, despite the 90 degree heat, we headed to Millennium Park so Aidan could play in the big fountains. We had promised him, and he was being pretty good, so we wanted to definitely follow through.

Playing at Millennium Park

Playing at Millennium Park

He had a good time, even though it was blasted hot! At one point, he had gotten so cold that he was huddled under the towel. I couldn’t believe it, not as hot as it was outside. Still, even when it’s like that and I know I can’t stay out there long because I’ll faint, I’ll take this weather over the dead of winter any day.

The cats are getting along great. Yesterday, Helena and Crookshanks spent a great deal of time cuddling on the bed. It was so sweet.

Cuddly Kitties

Helena is amazing. Once it’s bedtime, she follows me into bed and cuddles and purrs and rolls all over the place. When I have to use the bathroom, she comes with me. Sometimes, she gets adventurous. A couple nights ago, I kept hearing plastic bags. Nervous that she might get caught in a bag, I searched high and low for a plastic bag. No such thing. Turns out that she had gotten into the bread. I’ve lived with cats who loved bread. It’s an adventure keeping buns, bread, etc. away from them. So far, she hasn’t realized that I just moved it to the butcher block (AKA Carb City), and hopefully she won’t discover it.

I’ve been in touch with some old friends from my intermediate school days. My friend Jessica found me on MySpace a few weeks ago, but as I never log into MySpace, I didn’t know until she found me on Facebook yesterday. I found a couple of other people because of that. Chain reaction. A good one. It’s nice to catch up with old friends.

I’ve been rediscovering “Girl World” on the Internet. I remember when I first found it, late 1999, early 2000. I’d thought the Internet was dominated by geeky guys, and even though I’d have my site since 1997, I had found only a very few girls. Domain ownership was for the “elitist of the elite” and it was a great honor to get “hosted.” I remember Amy was the first person to host me at thesedreams.net. How awesome that was! As a result, we became good friends, and I even got the chance to meet her in September of 2005. Star was someone who I’d felt like was a billion years above me in design skills and therefore pure WIN. But getting to meet her as well in 2005 (the same trip where I met Amy) was incredible.

Anyway, virtue.nu and envy.nu, altern.net, all of those sites is what I think started the “Girl World” revolution. And there were trends. Oh Lord, there were trends. The “ME YOU WWW” layouts. Frames. Pop Ups. Iframes with the matching windows. UBBs. Blinkies. Pixels (Oh how I miss The Cutie Factory). Kaos. (I still like kaos and pixels, actually!) Surveys. Blogger to Greymatter to B2. Diary-X. Diaryland. Friendster. MySpace. Lots of interactive stuff. Some of that stuff carries over ’til now. Like imood. I totally still use imood. :) And there is the new stuff. Plurk, Twitter. Facebook. Netvibes. Flickr. What will be next?

Back then, I think it was a popularity contest, but at least it was based on skill. EVERYONE knew Star and Tash and all those people who still have awesome design skills. With one really cool layout, all of a sudden, Anywhere Is bloomed overnight in popularity. Having a cool layout, getting into the elite cliques (anyone remember woogoo?), posting on the right UBBs… that was the way to go!

Nowadays, I don’t seek cliques to join, or webrings, or affiliations. I couldn’t care less if someone decides to design her site to look just like mine (as long as s/he doesn’t steal my personal stuff). Nowadays, my site crossposts to Live Journal, because most of my friends are there now, having moved away from domains. (Although I’m seeing that many people are moving back to domains because of WP.) Nowadays, I use premade Word Press layouts because I don’t have the imagination, time, or energy to design a layout. And that’s OK. I like to see a pretty and well-designed site, but honestly, I’m a lot more interested in what the person’s writing about these days.

I met a lot of awesome people during those years, and I’m still meeting cool people. And that whole online friend vs. “real life” friend line is so blurred now–I mean, everyone has a Facebook or MySpace these days–that it’s easier than ever to actually meet and forge real, true friendships with people you meet through Live Journal or a message board.

One cool thing I’m seeing now is that many of the women whose sites I’d visited back in the day of cliques, awards, and all that good stuff, is that many of them are moms and wives now. They post about their day-to-day lives with their husbands and their kids. They post the pictures they take, and show us what they’ve knitted. They talk about their jobs and their families and I find that to be so fascinating. The past couple of days, I’ve been surfing site after site after site and feeling that sense of nostalgia for those days. Now, there is less drama because we’re simply trying to live our lives the best we can. We’ve all matured and started focusing on what’s important, but we’re sharing our lives with each other. And that is awesome.

And on that note, I’m going to try to finish reading Firestarter. I didn’t realize it was such a hard book to get through. Not because it isn’t interesting. It’s amazing. But it’s long and dense. Stephen King was and is a freaking genius.

(Originally published at Anywhere Is…)

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Ronni’s July 4, 2008 (Multimedia)

This was the coolest July 4th I’ve had in a long time.

Jeff and Deborah came over to hang out and celebrate with us.

Deborah

Jeff!

Adam fired up the grill.

Adam is Lighting the Grill

I put on my patriotic gear.

Patriotic Me!

The boys made dinner.

Mmm, Dinner!

Then we walked around the neighborhood to see fireworks!

Fireworks in the Neighborhood

When Adam told me about the fireworks in his neighborhood, I had a feeling they were impressive, but I really had no idea they were like this (you MUST watch this video, keeping in mind that these are not put on by the city or anything–these are private people’s displays):


Imagine four of these displays, happening at the same time, for about four hours. Yeah, it’s like that. Who needs to go to Navy Pier? We just need to walk three blocks.

They were almost too loud for Aidan:

Protecting His Ears

But he had a good time anyway.

Right now, everyone’s playing Wii and eating ice cream. A fun Fourth of July in Chicago. ๐Ÿ™‚

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New Camera & Zoo! (Pictures)

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo Today, Aidan, Adam, and I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo so I could see giraffes AND play with the new camera. Let me tell you, it was an adventure getting there. First, we hopped on one bus, then we got off to transfer to another bus, only the other bus only runs on weekdays. THEN Aidan had to potty, so we had to backtrack a lot to get to McDonald’s so Aidan could use the bathroom. (I had to go too, so it was fine.) Then we waited FOREVER for the Clark Street bus, and it just got more and more crowded. But there were some really good-natured people on the bus, and I had a lot of fun. Aidan yelled at me three times for laughing in his ear. :O

We ended up getting off a few stops before because the bus was just getting out of control with the number of people on it. It was nice out (at the time), so the walk was pleasant. The Zoo is free (except for parking [$12], which is why we decided to take the CTA instead of drive), and it wasn’t too crowded. Both cameras got quite a workout.

These are from my new camera:

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo
Ostriches!

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo
Deer

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo
Flowers (with the macro setting)

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo
Lion

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo
Lion again

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo
Aidan and me with the giraffes, ostriches, and a gazelle.

There are these pictures too, taken with the SLR:

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo

Sunday at the Lincoln Park Zoo

More here.

The Sony camera has this vivid color setting which I love, and a mode which automatically detects if a person smiles. You go into this mode, push the shutter down, and the camera waits for the person to smile before taking the picture. This one was taken with the smile detector last night:

Smile!

Pretty neat, huh?

I also took this one last night of Aidan and Crookshanks:

Aidan & Crookshanks: Booknerds in Training

I’m enjoying the camera. It’s a cool little machine and will be great to carry around with me when I don’t want to deal with the big SLR. Now, here’s the question. What do I do to get that kind of rich color in the photos I take with the SLR? When I first got it, I was getting AMAZING pictures with beautiful color. I typically don’t retouch any of my pictures, but now I’m having desperate urges to, just to get the saturation up. Now, I can’t seem to get anything that doesn’t look washed out, whether I’m inside or outside. Any tips?

That’s all for now. See ya! :)

(Originally published at Anywhere Is…)

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YAY and BOO & Other Stuff (Long, Pictures)

Monday was an up and down kind of day.

BOO
– Adam was sick.
– I was feeling really depressed and discouraged about you-know-what.
– Someone broke into my car. Almost a year to the day of it getting broken in last year.
– Now I have to shell out $$ to get the window fixed again. >:(
– I went to Barnes & Noble to use my giftcard to buy THE PATRON SAINT OF BUTTERFLIES and they didn’t have it.

YAY
– I booked a nice work-from-home freelance gig for Tuesday.
– I got a package from zenosidal full of Aidan goodness. There were school pictures, handwriting, progress sheets, a Mother’s Day card made by him (best Mother’s Day gift EVER) and an interview paper about me for Mother’s Day. It said the following:

What is Mom’s name? Ronni
How old is Mom? 43
How tall is Mom? Smaller than Daddy
How much does Mom weigh? 50 lbs.
What is Mom’s favorite food? Everything and spinach
What is Mom’s favorite drink? Fruit punch
What is Mom’s favorite color? Pink
What is Mom’s favorite television show? The Power Puff Girls
What is Mom’s favorite thing to do around the house? Bake
What is Mom’s favorite thing to say? Everything
My mom is the best because… She loves me.

(The last sentence made me cry).

– Adam and I got a package from Adam’s mom and dad that included cool things such as brandy snifters, cheese, and chocolate-covered sunflower seeds.
Adam: They’re trying to turn us into alcoholics!
– There was nothing in the car that interested the thieves, so nothing got taken out of it. Although I can’t imagine why they broke in to begin with. I guess to rifle through the glove compartment. I’m glad to have disappointed them.
– Got new books out of the library. Only 15 more days until I can take out more than five items at a time.
– Adam got me some Garrett Popcorn. OK, I know I know, I normally don’t like popcorn, but this, ladies and gentlemen, is no ordinary popcorn. If *I* am eating it, you know it’s good. I like the CaramelCrisp. Mmm. *pops some in mouth*
– I took a bath with a bath bomb. ๐Ÿ™‚
– Gossip Girl. HOLY CRAP!
– This list is longer than the BOO list.

Cut for …. The Weekend with Rosa!

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