A Matter of Degrees

It is 8 degrees out right now (feels like -5). Tonight the wind chills will be 20 below zero. The high predicted for Monday will be -4. I don't even want to think about what that night will bring. It's winter, and I'm whining.

Years ago I made a deal with myself that I would only complain about one season. Winter is it. It can be 106 with 80% humidity and I won't say a word. But -4 is some kind of ungodly number. I feel bad for the birds I watch out the window. I'd invite them in if I could. I'm not sure how the rest of the animal kingdom is doing it.

Me, I'm hermiting. I didn't leave the house yesterday. I'm not planning to leave the house tonight. I'll go home, change into sweatpants, put on my slippers, and curl up under a blanket. And all that in a warm house. For the last three days, this has been my routine. New Year's Eve was cold, so we stayed in. Yesterday was barely 10, so we stayed in. And tonight we'll stay in.

I know I've grown up here. I should be used to this kind of weather. And in some ways I am. I can deal with the cold. I just don't want to.

Merry Christmas

I'll be spending tonight and tomorrow with my family for Christmas. We'll eat way too much food, hopefully make a fire and toast marshmallows, and play a ton of games. It should be a wonderful couple of days. I hope wherever you are, you have a very Merry Christmas full of food and family and friends and warmth. Particularly warmth. We could use it this year.

10 Minutes

I have the words "Ten Minutes" on the chalkboard above my bed. These two simple words have changed the way I see myself and life in general. For years I've had big plans of things I'm going to do. Books I'm going to write. Weight I'm going to lose. Skills I'm going to learn. But I always seem to get overwhelmed by how much work it takes to actually achieve these goals. And I always say that if I can't dedicate myself fully to my goal, than it's not worth even trying to achieve anything. In short, I give up. Pretty quickly.

The "10 minutes" idea came into my life after I started learning guitar. My father recommended practicing at least 10 minutes per day. Mostly because my fingers had not developed the strength or calluses needed. But I started thinking about how 10 minutes per day didn't seem like much. I could do that. I can do anything for that amount of time and I know I have at least ten minutes that I could spend each day. Each day I play, at least 10 minutes and most of the time longer. I've also started writing at least 10 minutes per day. Often longer, but at least those few minutes.

And I've realized that breaking my goals into small manageable chunks makes all the difference for me. I don't feel odd about writing when I'm only doing 10 minutes. I don't get self-conscious and stop writing. I don't worry about if the writing is award winning. I just fill those 10 minutes and by the time they are over, I'm normally full tilt into something I've been meaning to write. I've been strength training for at least 10 minutes a day. Everyone can strength train for ten minutes. In fact everyone can dedicated ten minutes to almost anything.

Suddenly things don't seem so insurmountable. I feel like I can achieve all sorts of things, in just 10 minutes per day. And those are minutes that I always feel I have available to spend. If I told myself that I'd be writing for an hour, my mind would say that I don't have that kind of time. I'd talk myself out of it before I even started. But my brain never balks at 10 minutes. I have that kind of time. And using this one little trick, this one little thought, I'm starting to feel better about those goals. Suddenly I might be able to achieve things.

My New Obsession

Meet my new obsession. I'm not sure what to call him yet. I'm leaning towards Jonsi, after the lead singer/guitarist for Sigur Ros. Mostly because he makes beautiful sounds that make me happy. Well...both of them do.

This past year I decided that I want to learn an instrument. I learned the saxophone when I was in grade school but I hated it. I tried the piano at 12 but when I realized I wasn't going to be the next Chopin, I gave up. Neither instrument was practiced enough. This time I knew I wanted to take my time and learn to play slowly, by practicing consistently. The guitar seemed perfect. My father has played guitar the entire time I've been alive. He started taking lessons shortly before I was born when he was 33. Now at 37 I've decided it's my turn.

When Jeff and I came home from St. Louis after Thanksgiving, I went over and my dad taught me the very basics. I learned how to hold the instrument, how to strum with the pick, how to read TAB, and three basic chords. He sent me home with a lovely guitar, an instruction book, an electronic tuner, and some picks. He also sent me home with the directive to practice. And I've been taking him seriously.

I play every night. At first I could only practice for about ten minutes before my fingers hurt so much I had to stop. I'm learning with nylon strings thankfully (Thanks Dad!) but it still hurt for the first week or so. This week I can play for 40 minutes or more a night. I've developed the calluses I need on my fingers. I'm learning my chords. I'm taking my time with this. And I'm practicing hard and I'm not getting frustrated. Suddenly I'm looking at my favorite songs and wondering what key they are in. I'm excited to practice, even if it's just playing with some finger picking.

But the big thing for me is that I'm learning. I didn't think I could learn an instrument. I had told myself that I just wasn't musically inclined. It feels good to have the discipline to practice everyday and the ability to learn. My chord transitions are smoother today than they were two days ago. I feel good to be taking my time. It may take me years to learn the guitar but I'm okay with the slow pace. It feels good to learn and to try.

Grzegorz Wrobel

I read a lot of art blogs. If I like an artist I'll write down their name and go back eventually to look at the rest of their work. Today I read Parka Blogs (one of the best resources on art books) who did a profile on Polish artist Grzegorz Wrobel. Wrobel is an architect so his paintings are often of buildings and cityscapes. The moment I saw his work, I not only wrote down his name but I went out looking for more of his work. I think I'm in love.

Watercolor is one of the hardest mediums to work in. It's unforgiving of mistakes and there is a certain loss of control you have to accept with it. Colors bleed into each other. That just makes Wrobel's work all the more amazing. These are watercolors. And they are so detailed and precise that I'm left shaking my head as to how lovely they are.

Now normally modern cityscape paintings leave me cold. But these are magical. There is an unearthly quality to them. The soft colors and focus makes everything stand all the more for me. It makes me look a little harder at what would have been an ordinary street scene. His palettes are perfect for the scene he is working on. And the details make the images seem all the more real and unreal at the same time. I was blown away by his work.

As with any artist I write about, I recommend you go out and take a closer look at the rest of the artist's work. I only choose a couple of images that strike me. All of this man's work is magical.

Wrobel's website. Sadly my Polish is not so good.
His Deviant Art site.

Sunset on the Road

Jeff and I headed to St. Louis to see his family for Thanksgiving and on the way down I took these photos of the sunset. I love my camera for these kind of shots.

Of course I couldn't get photos without the dirt on the windows (above fuzziness)

The windshield wipers making an appearance.

But you can see how lovely the colors were.

No Service

Two weeks ago Jeff and I drove towards northeast Iowa for an evening (you'll see more pictures from that trip). We had no real plans, just a hotel in Davenport that night. As we were heading out we passed through the town of Grundy Center and Jeff decided to drive around the main square. There was a nice county building in the middle of the square and some shops. We were about to head back onto the road when we turned one of the corners we noticed an abandoned church that demanded more attention. It was slowly being reclaimed by vines and the effect was fascinating. We stopped and walked over to take pictures. I would have taken more but there was a dog barking on the other corner the entire time we were there. I just love the look of the ivy and the general rundown state of what was once a very lovely building (although the Weber grill is a bit confusing).

Selfie with Hat

I'm not a fan of selfies. I take quite a few pictures lately but most of them are not of myself. I don't always like to look at pictures of myself and I certainly don't like the reaching and odd positioning that most selfies require. But since the Oxford English Dictionary has decided to celebrate this word, I'm going to post one. Mostly because of the hat.

I realized that in all my pictures I don't have a single one of me in this hat, which seems amazing. I love this hat. I've practically worn out this hat I've worn it so much. Jeff and I were in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and while walking, we happened upon this old dying shopping district. There were two maybe three stores left in a whole four block area. We stopped into the sporting  goods store, and I decided to buy something. After all we were on vacation and the man running the store was incredible sweet. He told us old stories about when he was a pitcher. I wish I remembered his name. I'd look him up.

I needed a new hat so I was check out his stock. And the hat you see is the one I kept coming back to. I'd look over the hundreds he had but I kept coming back to that hat. So I asked. I thought it was just an odd Boston College logo. He informed me that it was for a minor league baseball team in New York, the Brooklyn Cyclones. And I knew at that moment that I had to have it. I love minor league baseball. I love obscure teams, that people outside of the city of origin might not know. I'd certainly never heard of the Cyclones. I love that I bought a hat for a minor league NY team in Fort Lauderdale. And I loved the hat. I bought it and I've hardly taken it off since. Twice now I've had to wash it but it's still going strong, although it was blue when I bought it. I just hope that the Cyclones are still playing when the hat finally wears out. I'll need to buy another one.

Halloween

The Cardinals were playing the series at the time. Jeff slaved over that one. 

In October, one of our good friends came down from Minneapolis and stayed with us for a couple days. Since it was right before Halloween we decided to carve pumpkins one night. Jeff and I had bought a few to carve and it was a great night. I roasted the seeds (which didn't last two days) and we had jack o'lanterns on the porch for a couple days. The first night we went out with candles and lit them up and took pictures. I love how the camera takes dark shots. The ones above are both Jeff's pumpkins. The ones below were Josh and mine.

 Left to right: Cooperative, Josh's, mine

Rainy Day

It's November and it's raining. I woke up to rain and fog and lovely 50 degree weather. A rare treat this late in the fall. I love rainy days. I feel more energized on rainy days. I get more done. I'm sitting writing right now but I thought I'd actually post a picture since I promised to post one daily. Oops. I have to learn not to make these kind of promises.

This is from a trip that Jeff and I were taking up to Minneapolis this summer. The storm clouds up ahead were impressive and a bit intimidating. But we kept driving anyway. By the time we got up there, it was just the tail end of the rain. But I snapped some pictures of the rather scary clouds.

Misty

This is my favorite picture of my kitty, Misty. I've taken well over a hundred photos of our spoiled kitty but this one is probably the cutest. I love the light and the look on her face. As she gets older I realize how wonderful it is to have photos and videos of her.

In the Spirit of Fairness

To be completely fair and honest, I wanted to show you the difference that the Super Vivid setting on my  camera has on the pictures I take. Here are two pictures, of the exact same tree, taken seconds after each other. The first one has super vivid, which should be apparent.

The one below does not. Now I'll admit that the one above looks more like what I was seeing that day in the bright sun. It is closer to the colors. Which might explain why I took so many pictures that day. All my pictures tend to be dulled just a bit from true color. But this has been the case with every camera I've ever owned. Either way, fake or real, that super vivid is a really cool feature for photos of the fall colors.

Daily Shots

Last November I got a camera for my birthday and wrote about it here. Over the last year the camera has become a regular companion for me. On the weekends I tend to grab it before I leave the house most days. It's light, fits in my pocket, and takes the kind of photos that I always wished I could take. I'm a little in love with it.

And I want to share some of my photos with you. In an attempt to make sure I post a bit more, and to show off some of the beautiful things this camera can do, I'll be posting a picture everyday. We'll see how long this lasts but I love the idea. This will push me to post and push me to get outside to take even more pictures. Win-win, in my book.

So here is my first picture. It was taken with the Super Vivid setting on my camera so the colors are a tad more intense than they would be with other cameras. But this is much closer to what I was seeing that day. It was one of the more glorious days we've had. This was taken right outside the Iowa Arboretum in Boone County. You'll see more pictures from that trip. I took well over 60 in the arboretum alone.

Twitter

So I broke down and started a Twitter account over the last couple of months. A friend of mine talked me into it. While I was signing up I kept wondering how often I would use it. I am not particularly succinct. I have a tendency to use 20 words when 5 will do and I figured I would struggle using only 140 characters.  And that is true to a point. But I was missing the whole point of Twitter. I was worried about posting. Now I realize that Twitter is perfect for listening.

Once I started the account I saw how many of my favorite authors, artists, and musicians happened to have accounts. I started following people I admire, people who's work inspires me. And they posted things about their work and their lives. I found a quick easy way to tell artists how much I admire their work. And I quickly became obsessed.

I have a number of friends that I follow and I love to hear what's going in their life. I use my twitter account the same way I use Facebook. More reading and less posting. And when I do post I try to make it good, not just what I'm eating for lunch that day. If you are interested in seeing me struggle to keep my posts to 140 characters follow me over on @catbier. If you do, let me know you're coming from the blog and I'll try to follow you too. Twitter is fun!

The Green Room

On October 29th I decided that this was the year I was going to do NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month and the NaNoWriMo organization offers a contest to see which writers can write a novel in a month. I've decided to unofficial try it. So my evenings and weekends and any other spare moment, will be spent working on my novel. They suggest about 50,000 words. I'm currently at 6,000. 

But my timing this year is perfect. My back bedroom is clean and ready for use. And to top that off, I decided to paint the place at the beginning of October. I had been talking about painting for months, as one of my friends can attest to. I debated between green and purple. I also debated when to do it. In order to paint, I have a couple of tons of books to move. So I kept putting it off. I had originally planned it to be a spring project, then a summer project, and finally a fall project. 

One Friday evening I came home and told Jeff that we were having dinner near the hardware store. We walked in after dinner and I picked up a lovely shade of green. It's called Lettuce Alone from Olympic paints. The woman at the counter told me it was an "interesting" color. I think she meant that in a good way. I came home that night and started moving stuff. I moved books and bookcases. I moved the bed. The next morning I got up and started taping and then I started painting. I spent the whole day painting and moving things. But by the end of the day, I had a green room. Along with a green paint brush, green ladder, green drop cloth, green edger, and partly green pants. I never said I was a tidy painter. 

A computer, green walls, and a thermos of coffee. All set to write. 

The end result is that I love the color. I love the room. It seems so much brighter and so much warmer. Most of the art I have on the wall doesn't really match but I've decided that I don't care. I love these walls. And I love my new place to write. I sit up here happily, basking in the cheerfulness. At least I have a good place to make my first novel attempt in over 15 years. Now if the book will only come out as good as the color.