Pinterest Pin Favorites

I started a Pinterest account many years ago. The focus was to highlight my digital art - mostly pet portraits. But I also have other boards for Capitol Hill - which is mostly made up of my blog contents, garden, baseball autographs, France, England, Copenhagen and Iran. I rarely look at the stats for these boards, but for whatever reason I checked them out the other day. I wanted to see which images had more than 100 impressions. By far and away the highest pin at 966 impressions was columns at Shiraz. It seemed a lot of the highest numbers were related to Iran - Persian new year and museum pieces. Modigliani Art from the National gallery were also well liked and I can see why. The images are very quirky and he has quite a style. All the others are a mixed bag of Alexandria Halloween and tunnels, parking garage, and DC attractions. So what I learned is is that none of my digital art gets a lot of attention. So in the end the original intention hasn’t been realized. But I’ll keep posting images ecause it’s an enjoyable hobby. 

Calligaris or Crate and Barrel? Neither

It’s probably the worst time to buy anything - especially furniture. When we moved from Capitol Hill to northern Virginia three years ago it was the first time we had a dining room in thirteen years. We had a calligaris table that extended to seat many people, but it didn’t work quite as well in the new space. But we kept it anyway. Under the huge mirror in the dining room we added a distressed white console table to put a bunch of plants on and fill in the space. Lately we have been thinking about getting a sideboard. I really didn’t know what would look good there, but we decided something of a similar color would be best. I’ve been researching options for the last several weeks. So we visited crate and barrel to see what we thought might work. But it ended up looking much too large for the space. So we went back to calligaris for a match. The sideboard was still a bit too wide and long and I didn’t care for the top insert. And the price tag was ridiculous! We didn’t need it that bad. So this week we may check out Room and Board as there is something there that might work and won’t break the bank. I don’t have a lot of hope, and I’m not that interested either. I never thought we would be back in the 80’s with high inflation. My mortgage rate was 13-16% back then! Being on a fixed income doesn’t help either. So the furniture is a nice to have and certainly not an essential. I don’t like this feeling. 

Roosevelt Island to Arlington

We have visited Roosevelt island in all seasons. It’s an interesting spot for a morning walk. One wouldn’t expect to see the wilderness in the middle of DC, in the middle of the Potomac River, in between Arlington and DC. After we crossed over the bridge, we walked around the island and back - skipping the midsection that has the huge Roosevelt memorial and pools - and back over the bridge. The planes flying overhead were quite distracting! Rather than get in the car we kept walking towards the pedestrian bridge that crosses over the GW Parkway over to Arlington. We had never been that way before so we decided to explore what was on the other side. Along the way we came across a sign for the Potomac Heritage Trail. It takes you along the Potomac River all the way to the chain bridge and American legion bridge - 4 and 10 miles down the way. We saved that route for another time. So we proceeded across the bridge to Arlington. The end result was unremarkable. If you kept walking it would take you in to town - not something we were interested in. So we finally found out what was on the other side of that bridge. It’s probably not something we would visit again, but worth the time to satisfy our curiosity. 

52Frames Long Shutter Photo Challenge

This week’s 52Frames photo challenge was “long shutter.” Since my iPhone is my camera, I need to use an app to achieve this type of thing. We started out in Old Town Alexandria hoping to find something. But the bird photos didn’t turn out and neither did anything else. So that left us having to try and find something somewhere else. So later in the week we drove down to the Tidal Basin to see what we could find. We had just been there the week before on a very foggy morning - just before full bloom. Only now, we didn’t want to get out of the car because it was too crowded. So we drove around the basin. That movement doesn’t help trying to get a long shutter shot. The idea is to keep the camera very still so that the interesting movement is capture - not the whole scene. I have two apps that I attempted to use to achieve this. Since I didn’t have a tripod and the car was stopping and starting so much the end results were less than desirable. Because of that I selected the image that was the most outlandish since everything else was just not very good. There is usually one image that sticks out from the rest. This week was another story. Since the idea is to submit something every week regardless of how it ends up looking I met the challenge. That in itself should make me feel better. I suppose I could blame it on my iPhone. This week I will. 

Ali Shokri Photography

I belong to the 52Frames photo challenge group. Every week we need to take a photo of a specific subject matter and then submit one image to the website. It’s been a great hobby to have during the pandemic - an excuse to get out of the house. My iPhone is my camera so I’m a bit limited trying to learn a variety of techniques. But I have learned a lot and have gotten apps to assist in some of the more interesting challenges. Last November the challenge was to imitate a photographer. So I found Ali Shokri who specializes in black and white tree photography. While in central Virginia for Thanksgiving visiting family I mentioned that I needed to get a good tree photo. I got a few reasonably decent ones along the James River. Our son mentioned that we should stop in Arrington Virginia on our way back home to visit a single huge oak tree that sits on an old plantation. So we did. And there it was - a HUGE white oak on the farmland. So I submitted that image to the challenge that week. I always post my images on Instagram as well to see which ones resonate with the audience. Last week Ali Shokri “liked” two of the images I had posted. His work is really quite lovely and I developed a liking for black and white photography - I never cared for it before. So, thanks for noticing my images - and thanks for sharing your work! 

A Birthday in the House

There is a big birthday in the house today. You may never know it. My husband never celebrated birthdays - for anyone. So I got out of the habit too - except for my parents, friends, siblings, and other family members. I think he likes to be remembered in spite of it. In error, someone mentioned his birthday on Facebook (two days before the actual date) and a lot of people noticed. And he enjoyed getting all of the comments. The problem is is that the comments are all on my account, so I have to speak on his behalf to reply. Sometimes having a single account has its drawbacks. I’m sure a lot of birthdays would be missed if not for Facebook reminders. Today he got an E-card from our dear friends in the Midwest and a text from our daughter in law who never forgets. It’s funny how she always remembers and our son never comments. The day is not over yet so there may be a few more well wishers out there. The dental office from Capitol Hill sent a card last week - we don’t even go there anymore. His office nurse passed away last year and she always sent a card. We will order pick up from Moby Dick tonight for dinner. It’s our favorite Persian place. Tonight I’ll put a candle on his cookies served along with tea so he can blow out a candle. I always have to put on my own candle and sing to myself! Reaching 83 is a huge milestone. I can hardly believe it. I’m wishing for another year of good health and happiness. After all that’s all that really matters since every day is a birthday.