Farmer’s Market

Today we woke up early and headed out to the Farmer’s Market over on Findley Ave.

Normally we go to the Pepper Place farmer’s market, but I kept reading comments on Chowhound about how only yuppies go to Pepper Place and how the one on Findley is SO much better. Well, I certainly don’t consider myself a yuppie, but I happen to like the music, cooking demonstrations, and artisanal bread selections at Pepper Place. And it’s much closer. Anyway, we didn’t end up buying anything at the market. We might try it again later this summer, but for now there was very little to choose from. And I didn’t notice anything specifically labeled organic. Later in the day we just went to Whole Foods.

The main reason we went produce shopping was so I could start making baby food for Daphne. I had every intention of making all her baby food, but since she had no interest in solids for the first 7 1/2 months I just bought Earth’s Best organic jarred baby food. She must be going through a growth spurt now because she has been HUNGRY this week. Like finishing off several jars of baby food (with a little rice cereal), a teething biscuit and some sweet potato puffs at one meal. So hopefully she’ll enjoy my homemade stuff.

And since I’m on the topic of making baby food, if I had a huge kitchen with tons of space for frivolous small appliances I would totally get this Beaba Babycook from Williams-Sonoma.

It steams your food, then blends it to the desired consistency. It’s the lazy way to make your own baby food.

Sunday in the Park

After brunch we went to a park in Homewood just to stretch our legs and let Daphne play.  She enjoyed the kiddie bucket swings.  Here’s a pic of Chris and Daphne.  (It’s not great, but soon after I was attacked by ants and lets just say the photo shoot was OVER!)

I need to get more pictures of the two of them together.

More MCAC Photos

Just a few more pictures from last weekend’s Art Connection. One of the things I really like about MCAC is its focus on art and being family friendly. That sounds silly to say, shouldn’t an art festival be about art? Well, I’ve seen my share of art shows/festivals that seem to really get going after dark when the bands and booze come out (cough * Mayfest * cough). I must be getting old.

Flamenco dancer. I really enjoy watching this group perform.

Russian dancers. These ladies had the BEST costumes. And at least 4 costume changes, I believe.

The Neo Jazz group. I think this is the 3rd or 4th time my husband has shot this group. Very photogenic kids.

This little girl is so cute I can’t stand it!! Love the color combination in her costume.

Tamales from the Corks & Chefs tent.

And finally, one of the winning artists.

Little Notinee Dancers

Today at the Magic City Art Connection:

How cute are these little girls? I love their brightly colored costumes.  And the colors were really this intense.  I actually turned down the saturation and vibrance a bit in Lightroom.

Editing

What are your plans this weekend? Me? I’ll be editing about a million of Chris’ photos. In fact, he just ran in from the Mayor’s Sackcloth and Ashes prayer rally and threw the SD card my direction while he was on the phone with one of his buddies who runs a Birmingham information/news site. He wanted to get the photos out before the major media outlets had a chance. Hey, no problem. Tomorrow I’ll start on his shots from the Magic City Art Connection. He only took 500 photos today in 3 hours. And he’ll be there a total of another 10 hours or so.  Not that I’ll have to edit all those photos, maybe only 10 or 20% of them.  Thank God for Lightroom presets.

I actually really enjoy the editing process. We went ahead and got a year subscription to Lynda.com, so I need to get back into learning more about Photoshop and Lightroom.  I constantly amazed at Adobe products.  You can do so many different things with them, if you just take the time to learn.

Magic City Art Connection

If you are in the Birmingham area this weekend (and aren’t already sucked into the NASCAR/Talladega vortex) make plans to attend the Magic City Art Connection. Lots of great artists, food, entertainment and kids activities. Chris will be there Fri-Sun shooting the event for ONB. Here are a few pictures he took at last year’s event, plus a link to his MCAC Flickr set.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Daphne & I celebrated Earth Day by driving all over town, wasting gas and idling in traffic on 280. We are just doing our part to save the planet.

Actually we did leave the A/C off for most of the day. I say most of the day because when it got to be 77 degrees inside the house I couldn’t stand it anymore. We normally keep it warm (74-76) in the house over the summer, but 77 is my breaking point. I also used my new Charlie’s Soap (for the laundry). It’s a vegetable based, biodegradable cleaner. I don’t think our towels have ever been more clean. And it gets out poop, even says so on the bottle. Which is handy with Princess Poop-A-Lot. And again, I contemplated buying a few cloth diapers. Currently our dryer is on the fritz, so I think I’ll wait. We’ve already had our fridge break down, now the dryer (I think it’s the heating element), and usually these things come in threes. I predict the A/C compressor will be next. Why didn’t these things break down last year, when I was employed???

I swear I’ve seen a million blog posts today with environmentally friendly green topics. I saved a few, in particular ones about making your own cleaning products. Here’s another one I might actually try: fusing together your plastic bags. I think I might do this and sew up a few reusable shopping totes.  Which might come in handy when we go CAMPING.

Yep, me… camping.  I mentioned a few days ago that Chris really needed to use his camping equipment.  We have a tent, kayak, portable stove, sleeping bags.. all that junk.  Tonight he’s headed to Whole Foods to hear a presentation from Fresh Air Family and Mountain High Outfitters about camping locally with kids.  Lord help me.  I told Chris I would be glad to go camping as long as it wasn’t too hot and we had access to showers and toilets.  He just laughed and told me that wasn’t camping.   What do you mean it’s not camping?  It’s not like we are setting up camp in our front yard.  I’m not an outdoor girl.  The last time I attempted to try to bond with Chris and enjoy nature was an afternoon spent hiking in Feb 2007.  Little did I know this would involve fording a river and then climbing up a steep path.  I was pregnant at the time.  Sucked.  But I don’t want Daphne to be as prissy as I am, so I’m going to suck up my hatred of the outdoors and irrational fear of tree filled spaces (I’ve watched way too many Friday the 13th/camp killing movies, plus Blair Witch) and start planning a camping menu.  

TGIF

Today completely felt like a Saturday. Daphne & I had a leisurely morning, then watched movies (finally saw Juno). Chris was working from home. Later in the afternoon we went to Aldridge Gardens. Daphne was not in the mood for photos:

She did enjoy riding on Daddy’s shoulders:

We left Aldridge and went down the road to our favorite cheapo Mexican restaurant. I’ve never been a restaurant regular before, but we’ve been going to Amigo’s for about 4 years now and everyone knows us and fawns all over Daphne. One of our favorite waitresses, Victoria, tries her best to pronounce Daphne, but it always comes out “Baffaney.”  After quesadillas and margaritas we left for Babies R Us.  I find it’s always good to have a little alcohol in your system before going to BRU.  That place can be a madhouse and margaritas relax me.  Miss Daphne is pulling up on everything, and even walked a little while holding on to Chris last night, so we decided it was time to get our baby-proofing items.  We had already purchased a gate for the top of our stairs, but needed to pick up a stair rail guard, outlet covers, furniture wall straps.  And of course we also left with two books and a few toys (including My First Purse, too fricking cute!!).  After stops at Old Navy (Why must they make such cute clothes for little girls? Daphne is going to need a bigger closet.) and Publix we finally got home and are settling in to watch BSG.  I’m tired.

WTH?

Chris took this pic today at a gas station across from Innovation Depot. This might tie with Fireworks as Stocking Stuffers as the strangest sign I’ve seen in Alabama. Or maybe a three way tie with the small Baptist church down the road with Turn or Burn on their sign. Subtle.

Do people eat pig lips? Really? The city girl in me was thinking at first this might be a joke. Do pigs have lips? Isn’t that a joke? Wait, maybe the joke’s about chickens with lips. My one up close moment with a pig came when I was a teenager and we went to Tahlequah, OK to my great grandfather’s for a pig roast. They roasted the whole hog on a spit and when it came time to eat someone would take a huge machete and just whack off a piece of meat. I’d probably be ok with that now, but as a young teen I was thinking, “you’ve got to be kidding me?” This was also the trip where my brother and I were invited down to the “crik” and had no idea what they were talking about. They were talking about the nearby creek. City kids.  My husband is a city boy too.  At one time he thought that brush hogging involved people actually brushing hogs.  Ha!

Sackcloth and Ashes

It’s amazing the number of insane people elected to local office in Birmingham. Really, who votes for these people? And how did Larry Langford, the snake oil salesman, get elected mayor? Anyway, Crazy Larry’s latest project is to buy 2,000 burlap sacks to hand out at a city prayer meeting. The meeting is for crime reduction and the sacks are references to the biblical sackcloth and ashes. No word as to if ashes will be provided or if you have to bring your own. Will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth? How about the rending of garments? I would totally show up to take pictures of that. I liked John Archibald’s comment, “I just don’t know if it’s wise to go all Old Testament on crime.” Bwahaha… What’s insane to me is that the city has money to buy burlap sacks, but is facing bankruptcy because they have defaulted on $3.2 billion dollars of sewer bond debt. This is a messed up city.

Update- the sacks will be bought with private funds, which still doesn’t make it any less weird.  And it’s the county facing bankruptcy, which I meant to type.  This is what happens when I’m blogging instead of sleeping.