I love to walk around like a total tourist when I’m visiting a place. And particularly cities with lots of cool architecture.
I think it would be sad if you lived or worked every day somewhere like downtown Chicago and became inured to the beautiful buildings all around you. I suppose it’s inevitable to some degree, humans being what they are.
I try my best to keep my eyes open when I’m moving around my own town, which I’ve lived in for…oh boy…almost 32 years now. It’s comforting and exciting at once to watch familiar things and places take on a different appearance as time goes on. Leah teases me sometimes for taking so many pictures; “What are you taking a picture of now?” I get a lot of that. But digital film is cheap, as are external hard drives (relatively speaking), so why not shoot away?
In other news, my hands are still a bit greasy this morning from slathering sunblock over Ava before she headed off to “school.” Every time I rub my thumb and index finger together I’m reminded of her squirming away as I worked the white lotion over her tiny belly, arms, and legs.
Ava’s such a spunky little kid. Lately she’s into helping with everything. She wants to put on her clothes (backwards and/or inside out, two legs in the same pant leg, head through the arm hole, etc.) by herself. She wants to comb her hair by herself. She wants to make her own bed. She wants to stir her own scrambled eggs. She stood at the foot of her freshly-made bed this morning, beaming with pride as she brushed golden strands of hair from her face, and I marveled at the little girl she’s becoming. She’s still just a tiny thing outside, but there’s a lot going on in that skinny little body. As we sat down to dinner the other night, she bellied up to the table and said, “What a wonderful supper!” Seems like we should be ready for things like that by now, but she still catches us off guard all the time. Leah and I look at each other, as if to say, “How did we make her?”
My next goal for this blog is to find a reliable means of posting video clips (no child was hurt in the making of this video). YouTube and Google Video are the two big names, but I know there are many other candidates crowding the field out there these days. My worry is that I may have to fuss with my CSS to get the clips to show up properly, but if it has to be done, it has to be done. I’m open to player software recommendations (and encoding tips, for that matter)….