Picnic in the Park

The kids enjoyed a picnic in the park today. The second day of Fall brought us the first cool evening to Houston since early Spring.

Kaila insisted on sitting on a blanket on the grass - "because when we have a picnic, we sit on the ground not on tables."

Daniel was delighted to have all his favorite foods and family together - "Mommy, we have every thing we need!" He said this very same thing on 3 or 4 occasions during our outting. It was pretty sweet. It's nice to hear from a 2-year old that life is just perfect at that very moment.

Abbey Road

Winnie, the Pooh, turned 80 in 2005. Old news, I know, but yesterday I came across the book The Art of Winnie the Pooh by Disney celebrating Pooh's birthday. Richard Sherman, the composer/lyricist for The Many Adventure of Winnie the Pooh, wrote an inspiring foreword describing his adventures with Pooh since the 60's.

Several Disney artists were invited to submit an art piece for the book. One of my favorites was Abbey Bridge by Eric Hutchison inspired by The Beatles' Abbey Road album cover. Hutchison captured the four friends Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet crossing Abbey Bridge. Here is his description: "Tigger displays the same bravado that Lennon made famous. At his heels is Piglet. (Sorry, Ringo!) Behind him is the leader of the pack, Pooh, as Paul McCartney. And last but not least, Eeyore, whose striking similarities to George Harrison are almost eerie."

What do you see?

Earlier this year there was at lot of discussion and controversy around Wikipedia publishing the Rorschach plates and their interpretations.

Well, Daniel's class had a perfect answer to the whole thing with their art project "My Little Alien". They created their own Rorschach plates - or so I say.

This one is Daniel's piece. What do you see?!

Delusion

This quote by Paul Watzlawick just seemed to fit right in here after O'Keeffe, illusions,and hypnic jerks.

"One’s own view of reality as the only reality

is the most dangerous of all delusions."

Hypnic jerks

Sounds bad, but that's what those "electric shocks or jerks" you get just when you're falling asleep are called. Alternatively one may also use hypnagogic massive jerks - even worse.

See wikipedia for more details...hypnic jerks.

I haven't gotten one of these in a while; at least, not that I remember. They are quite disconcerting and annoying to me, since I always take a while to fall asleep. A hypnic jerk sends me right back to the starting line.

As I put Daniel to sleep a couple of days ago he had a pretty big one. It sure startled me as I sat beside him; but Daniel didn't even budge - asleep he was, asleep he stayed. At the end of the day he is one tired boy.

Optical illusion

This has to be the best optical illusion I've ever seen. The magnitude of the movement perceived in the leaves is incredible!

This picture was part of an article in Woman's Day. The magazine links it to a Flickr account that describes the picture as " found on some academic website". (It's sad and unprofessional that the magazine did not credit the author.)

After a brief web research I was able to track the original author: Akiyoshi Kitaoka. He calls it "Plastic Dongurakokko". For great tutorials on how to build optical illusions and other amazing images visit Kitaoka's website.

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

Sea Shells by Georgia O'Keeffe

A few days ago I finished the O'Keeffe Biography. The first few days I missed being transported into the artist's world. Interestingly enough, today through a few unrelated links, I came across a post on the blog Completely Coastal displaying 3 of O'Keeffe's wonderful seashell paintings.

A Flowers link in the Completely Coastal post sends you to art.com that carries a large line of Georgia O'Keeffe prints. The quote in one of the prints pretty much symbolizes who O'Keeffe was:

"Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things."

Umbrella Day

I'm getting ready to go for a run in the morning and I hear this tingling noise on the window...rain...I wait for a while and the weather clears a bit - humidity is at 100%, but it's not too hot. I get home and I poll the kids for a trip to the zoo. Yes! We get ready to go and it starts sprinkling again...hey, get the umbrellas. Let's go. And off we went, umbrellas in hand. The kids actually had fun in the rain - thankfully it never got too hard while we were walking around.

After the zoo, we waited out some showers and went on a train ride around Herman Park.

A fun day. Zoo promise kept.

Trip to the Zoo

I owe Daniel a trip to the zoo.
He asked so politely today - Mommy, can we go on a trip to the zoo?

Jump Rope

Kaila jumped rope for the first time today. It all started with a drawing posted on a cabinet in her class.
Mommy, what is she doing?
Jumping rope.
Do we have jumping rope in school?
I don't think so, Kaila.
(But her teacher readily interjected - Yes, we do!)
You have a fun class, sweetie. Hug and kiss... bye.

When I came to pick her up in the afternoon, she was all excited.
Mommy. Mommy, do you know what I learned today?!
No, what did you learn?
Jump rope!

I hope it takes a while for her to have her "Sally" day with the jump rope... ;)

Keep Seahorses in the Sea

As a family we took the pledge to keep the seahorses at sea.
Please do the same.

"Seahorses and the places they live face a range of threats in the wild, including destruction of the coral reefs and sea grass beds where seahorses live, fishing techniques which mistakenly catch seahorses, and collection of seahorses for souvenirs or for use in traditional medicines.

Each year, millions of seahorses, corals and other marine animals
are collected alive and dried as souvenirs. These products spell serious trouble for declining seahorse populations. "

Pledge to avoid these sea life souvenirs—and spread the word to friends and family.


http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

Sea Horses & Dragons

From tinny tiny to quite large ones, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium put together an amazing new exhibit of seahorses and seadragons.

My everytime favorite in the permanent exhibits is the jellyfish.

Kaila could not get enough of the hammerhead sharks. She also got a kick out of the baby seahorses.

Daniel loved the sharks, period.

It was fun to watch the kids in awe of the fish and otters swimming all around in the giant tanks.

Desk

My computer desk is a mess right now. Maybe if I blog it, I'll get motivated to clean up tonight!