Quenching

 The prompt for today of "quenching" could be deemed met in these photos of a lazy Saturdays spent quenching our thirst for knowledge and staying cool. Sitting by the open window with a breeze blowing through one person doing an online course.

I was quenching my desire to maintain and catch up on challenges I had set myself including  this blog to capture the photos and aspects of my every day life and also the Capture my 365 :).

Great shadows as the sun set.

The day progressed and I was lucky enough to have two mates prepare our dinner before watching "Finding Nemo"- ashamed to say I've never seen it before. Spent the movie trying to recognize all the Australian actors in it.

Imperfect

 My timing was imperfect as imperfect as this photo...blogger won't let me crop it but I like all the heads against the painting.
I took it waiting at the bar,in the air conditioning, for  my lunch companions.
It was our farewell to Louise...Arlene and Louise and I then walked to the crosstown bus via a market on 43rd Street- a sun hat and bag later and Louise and I were sitting on the bus heading for the A train.

Runes

Wow Bernadette did my runes at last!

What a great way to manage my thinking about what has happened and where I'm going!

It is such a nice process for helping make sense of some of the incomprehensible things that have happened of late.

Contrast

Inside one of the "pantry cupboards". Apartment living means that space is at a premium and finding ways to have space for all the components one needs to cook a reasonable meal... spices and the sugar bowl.. and then storage of dry biscuits and snacks and breakfast cereal. There's another cupboard for oils and dry pasta and other cooking ingredients. Then another double cupboard of similar size for tins of stuff and flour and extra cooking materials plus those items that may need to be replaced soon...unfortunately no mirin or soy sauce...go figure!

Made my heart skip...

...well sort of...

Walking out of the building at the same time as us this morning was...???

I wasn't going to rush around and take a photo of the guy but yep that's Mr Big on his way somewhere with his tatty old briefcase.

 My heart missed a beat seeing what was once the glorious Lennox Lounge in such disrepair and abandonment.

 Further down Lennox avenue was this sign that made my heart stop actually- how can they think the Trump is going to be good for Harlem?

A little flutter of the heart looking at these lovely styled stoops.

 A bit of a racing heart trying yo capture this other "passenger"- I had to wait for the swing of the train to catch the photo between two other passengers.

And back home in the warmth watching the snow fall- happy heart.

BLogtoberfest #12 Five Fings on Friday

 A bit stuck what to write for today so came up with my own little list idea (someone esle in the blog world has probably done this already). I thought I could make a list of Five Fings on Friday.

But I couldn't go without putting photos so the first fing first.... These pages are from  October 12 2010

The second Friday Fing. It really was so cold this morning I was so pleased that I chose to get some extra layers on. It seems that it suddenly gets cold and I guess will remain so until spring. It reminds me of the part in the book "Goodnight Mr Tom" when the mother said she had "sewn him into his underwear for the winter". I'm beginning to feel that way already and it's really only day two of cold weather.

  The third thing for this Friday fing- I don't know what it is about my sense of direction but it is totally hopeless. I know now that when I come up out of the subway and want to head in what I believe to be the right direction I need to stop and turn and go the other way as it is sure to be the right way.
This morning going to the school I went the wrong way out of the subway and then coming home I went the wrong way from the school to the subway. Thank goodness for maps on phones even if they are not the best!

The fourth fing is why has it taken me so long to work out a system that means I know what I'll be doing the next time I go back to a place I have worked in. Too difficult to expand on in this space but gosh I think i have got something that is going to work!

The fifth and final fing is thank goodness for Fridays! And so much to look forward to over the weekend and I'm not traveling out of the city :)

Blogtoberfest # 11 Ten-Eleven-Twelve

Here in the US where the months are put in the wrong order in the date, I noticed as i signed in with the security person at the school that the date was 10/11/12. Cool.

What made the day even cooler (other than the weather- we have begun to have to wear socks and real shoes and jackets- suddenly- it seems to happen overnight) well what made it truly cool was it was our second Kitchen Table meeting.

The crew pulled up a seat at our kitchen table to provide support for each other in our work and thinking.

The Kitchen Table idea was born at the last professional development day we had in June. The group of random consultants seated at the table group i was in were sharing ideas and issues about their work from during the year but hankered after an ongoing relaxed conversation about the work they were doing and the sharing of resources.

I gathered everyone's email addresses and we set a date for our first meeting in the new school year and gathered around the Kitchen Table to talk about our work. The Inaugural Table was two weeks ago and the tradition of wine and snacks helped the conversation rock along.

It is a truly splendid and precious group that I for one am really enjoying and value.

Tony

The gift of sympathy from AUSSIE

 He has been there all my life and is no longer. My big brother Tony died suddenly and unexpectedly on Thursday 22 March at home in Perth Australia.
He was only 65- we are all still coming to terms with the shock of it all.
Time will help me to find ways to  acknowledge all that he was to me and our family. I know we'll miss his "big brother" taking care of us attitude and actions; his capacity to laugh at himself; his dedication to his family- kids and grandkids; his love of the sea; his preparedness to get in there and sort out problems; his grandiose statements of absolutes.
He was a good big brother to us all.

Blog-tober nineteenth

The chicken pie

Bernadette whipped up the chicken pie for our dinner

And the veges

A quiet pottering sort of day

The flurry of activity to get some aspects of my life and with it my blog in order has kinda died down a bit but there are still loads of photos to be used to get the great Kimberley journey finished.
Michele is recuperating from her "day surgery",  I am recuperating from nothing other than rushing around pretending to be a nurse, gathering provisions for dinner and for our trip to Rawson tomorrow, while trying to keep out of my mind the trip to the dermatologist and the checking for my own skin cancers tomorrow before we head up the bush for our scrapbooking retreat.
I have mountains of photos printed off, I have some sort of plan for them in mind but will need to access/ download some page plans so that they don't end up in a mess.
I have even managed a little work in preparation for one of the school reviews I am doing later next month.
And given that I haven't taken my camera out today I thought I would pop in some of my photos from the Greece cruise done in April.

A boat on Delos

The poppies on Delos

Waiting for diners

Steps in Stamos

Ephesus

Blue beyond blue

Miss me?

I certainly have been feeling as though I have deserted a special place. No excuse is accepatable I know and the mere reason that I have been caught up in having too good a time traveling to Gerece, hosting visitors and trying to fit my work into the spaces in between it all.
I have started a new photography course so a few of the photos that have been finding their way into my class follow.
There you go Martha you said you like the photos- don't worry about the writing!
Theme for this photography project "From the Ground up"

Photos from our trip to Montauk

A photos from the walk along the Highline.... a new "garden area created on the Highline former railway highline...

It's IWD!

So happy International Women's Day to you- it is tempting to try to write this all in purple green and white (the colours of the suffragette's and IWD but it would make it even harder to read I think.
I found nothing in my day to mark the day so resorted to Google who provided a visual for me.

This is very unlike my experiences in other years of IWD although not necessarily here. In schools at home things were often planned with people dressing in appropriate colours. One year when I was at Mackellar PS (a school named after a female Australian poet who wrote the iconic poem "I love a sunburnt country") we the staff decided to have a morning tea to celebrate International Women's Day and asked the men on the staff of which there were a few to bring the morning tea, which they duly did- not a lavish one of great cakes and delicious hot samplings but a substantial one that all could enjoy. George (the principal) had brought a special gift for Rhonda and myself which he had in a brown paper bag and which he said summed us up- he knew we could take a joke- it was a prickly pear because we were a prickly pair. Surprisingly enough I did find it amusing and was not at all offended.

On another occasion on IWD a group of us went to a fund raiser which was a literary one with Sara Paretsky. The quiz was about her books and the prize was ten (?) copies (that's how many were on each team) of her book. We thought it a great night as we won and then had the books signed by her.

And then this year I found out far too late that there were events to celebrate the centenary  of International Women's Day. The bridge walks sounded great but apart from anything else I was working so couldn't participate anyway but such a shame.
And so a little history or should I say herstory...

1911
Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women's Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events. 1911 also saw women's 'Bread and Roses' campaign.

Afternoon light

The changing light patterns over the day give  amazing colours and reflections of building on other buildings. Gave me an excuse to muck around with the new camera and the new knowledge from the photography course.

The pink tinged sky reflection provides a pink tinge to the building

As the light drops the detail in the reflections changes

Ah Google!

The source of answers to many arguments, as long as you happen upon the correct answer from a reliable source!

I love when they celebrate a particular day and this particular day ...

If you moved the lever up( red dot) or down or across you traveled to the bottom or top of the ocean with creatures swimming past.

Jules Verne's birthday- I hadn't realized how many books Jules Verne wrote- quite prolific really. I probably missed many of them as they may well not have been translated from French.

It's a snow day!

  I was awake early enough to hear the great news... A snow day! The Mayor must have looked out of his window and realized that this time it really was going to take a lot to clear the streets and not having school buses on the roads would help.
Perhaps not great news for you as it means more snow photos but I just had to get out and go down to Bryant Park to get more photos of the fountain. It has been relatively warm the past few days and the icicles have melted but the winter wonderland that was is Bryant Park was fabulous.
But first I too looked out the window and loved the view of our own balcony...

It accumulated overnight

Even on the balcony wall giving a lovely frame

The Times Square crew worked overnight and had it quite clear-ish.

Love the juxtaposition of the snow and the palm tree

There were a few traffic light around like this one.

"And who will love a little sparrow?"

Still running but no longer icicles.

A snow lady

The depths of field lesson came in handy!

View across Bryant Park

On opening the balcony door these icicles stayed in place