February round-up.
This month I’ve been working on scavenging “extra” time from my day, and one of the biggest time-wasters in my life is, no surprise, the internet. I’ve stopped using my laptop throughout the day almost completely full stop, although I do find myself checking Facebook via my phone a few times. After Moo goes to bed for the night, if I’m going to use my computer I try to stay on task: editing photos, playing a video game, etc. In other words, no more aimless web surfing: it’s a waste of my free time, time that could be spent reading a book or indulging in one of my other hobbies. This is principally how I’ve been burning through a lot of books lately (well, a lot for me, relative to my own goals and schedule, anyways!)
Resolution progress 2012:
- -Pictures taken: 1,472 (3,269 / 15,000)
- -Books read: 4 (8 / 30)
- The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time book 1) by Robert Jordan
- No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem! by Jeff Foxworthy
- Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
- Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
- -Pounds lost: 0 ( 2.6 / 30)
- -Home improvements: 2 (3 /6)
More awesomeness from February:
- I’ve begun Insanity round two! I’m currently on the third week of the first month of the schedule, hence no weight loss this month as I’ve gained quite a bit of muscle mass. In addition to the Insanity schedule, I’m also doing Insane Abs (part of the Insanity “kit”) three days a week. The plan is to do two 60 day schedules back to back, fit for summer!
- This month my second course, Biological Psychology, started. Initially I was worried about the workload of this combined with Human Biology, but for the time being the material is quite complementary. I won’t lie, I am ready for Human Biology to finish in June… I just cannot muster up a great deal of enthusiasm for kidneys! The brain, however, is a different story.
- Decorated the bedroom this month, fourteen months after moving in. This month has been expensive, as we had already bought the stuff to do up the bedroom when the boiler broke down, the clutch on the car went out, the vacuum cleaner died and the fridge stopped working! ARG!! We had the first two fixed and bought replacements for the second two, which we are fortunate enough to do. It only figures the first month we were to start putting money away in savings everything stops working!
- Finally started learning how to use my Canon Speedlite 430ex II and switched over to shooting in manual (as opposed to aperture priority) full time. The result? Amazingly crisp images, shot indoors without natural light, virtually noise-free. This new development in my hobby has really upped my game, especially when it comes to taking photos of my toddler, who ends up as a blur in photos most of the time. I’m learning more and more all the time, and with the resolutions I’ve set for myself (especially the project 366) I’m getting a little practice in every day.
- Took a few maternity shots for my friend, Sarah.
- Thinking I might start incorporating book reviews into my blog, providing I have the time to devote to it.
And finally, a note on following Awesomeville:
I sent out a newsletter to those of you following Awesomeville updates via Google Friend Connect. This feature is disappearing TOMORROW for non-blogger blogs, so please follow Awesomeville using one of these methods:
- “Like” the Facebook page – and receive an update to your Facebook newsfeed every time Awesomeville is updated!
- Follow me on Twitter - Updates, photos, ramblings, and more.
-Subscribe to the RSS Feed – Feed managed through Feedburner, should display all content perfectly regardless of what feed reader you use!
Share on FacebookSlipping through my fingers.
Link up: Show {off} your shot - Sweet Shot Tuesday - Communal Global
Never before motherhood was I ever so obsessed with time: keeping it, gaining it, losing it, missing it, wasting it and savouring it. It always seems like there are too many hours in the day and not enough days in the month, too few months in the year. Our days are planned with detailed schedule and routine, and yet our lives seem to slip by so discreetly one minute at a time. Winter is yet again beginning to wane, the trees and earth and people and city are beginning to stir as the days slowly grows longer and longer each week.
It’s hard to believe the New Year was almost two months ago.
It’s hard to believe we find ourselves in spring time once more, an entire year has passed, it feels both impossibly short and incredibly long.
I can almost see Moo growing bit by tiny bit right before my very eyes, and I cannot believe how amazingly cool she’s become with this larger-than-life personality of hers. When I see a newborn baby I find it hard to imagine my little girl was ever THAT tiny, but I know she was. I thought she had napped on me so many afternoons that I would always have that little snuggle memorized, but already it’s hard to recall. It’s hard to imagine Moo could possibly be any more awesome than she is now, but my friend tells me you’ll always feel that way, no matter what age they are.
And then there are nights like tonight when I feel especially soppy, note the late hour of the evening with bittersweet regard, and go downstairs to disturb a slumbering baby so that I might scoop her up and bring her into our bed for snuggles, which Mark always protests at first but nevertheless ends up laying there, just like me, savouring a few quiet, extra minutes together as a family.
(The text in the photo are lyrics by ABBA)
Share on FacebookProject 366: Week 8.
- Sunday: the view from the office (Instagram).
- “Diamond Necklace” – Picked this up this week, huge Minecraft fan!
- Moo and her cousin Ellie lunching at Jamie Oliver’s (Instagram).
- Fence and field in the countryside, Saturday.
- A rainy day spent indoors playing with blocks.
- Moo in her lion hat at the park
-Tiny toes!
Linking up: http://naptimemomtog.com/ - http://www.theboyandme.co.uk/ - http://www.betweenthelinesblog.net/
Share on FacebookBad Science.
I don’t often rave about whatever I’ve been reading on my blog ( I may start, however), but I just finished a book which almost requires me to do so. Bad Science is a guidebook for wading through the information we are fed about health and pills on a daily basis, and if there is one book you need to read RIGHT NOW (like, seriously… put down whatever you’re reading and get this book) it’s this one. Ben Goldacre offers up the faults of the big pharmaceutics industry, the unsupported pseudo-science of the “alternative therapies” movement, and the failure of journalism and the media to accurately report on either one of them. Yet he doesn’t simply present the side that homoeopathy is a hoax or that a clinical trial on a new pharmaceutical didn’t pan out, he arms readers with the ability to work through the problem to a solution with him, observing available data and even seeking out the published papers on trials in order to come to a conclusion on your own.
Sounds easy, don’t we all do this already? Well, no… we don’t. And that’s the thing: we are so bombarded with information all the time and, unless specifically trained in a science or statistics background, how is the Average Joe supposed to come to a conclusion on his / her own regarding some of the biggest health scare stories of our time, such as MRSA, or the MMR vaccine – autism “link?” And what do you REALLY know about antioxidants and Omega 3 fatty acids? Oftentimes, people are quite happy to buy little vials of water from the homoeopathic remedy shop or take an anti-depressant as prescribed by their doctor which is probably nothing more than a sugar pill. Bad Science draws back the curtains on the “mystery” that, make no mistake, very purposefully clouds our judgement when it comes to making personal, informed decisions regarding everything from the placebo effect, to pill packaging and marketing, to the multi-billion dollar a year industry the homoeopathic empire has built on nothing more than pseudo-science, with a few very science-y words thrown in to make it all sound very complex. Goldacre touches on philosophy and the logical fallacies we all succumb to everyday that skews our perception of the facts, and how journalists are no exception to the rule, complicating matters worse by perpetuating story after story of… well… bad science.
I thoroughly enjoyed Bad Science, both because it’s highly entertaining and I learned something along the way. It was a great brush-up on many principles I’ve studied, from experimental procedure and data correlation to psychology-based science of the placebo effect, to the simple humanity of taking what we are told at face value, because the tabloids told us the MMR vaccine was giving our children autism. Actually, that last point is more than enough reason to read the book, so you can educate the next hippy parent you encounter who didn’t vaccinate their kid, right before you punch them in the neck (I’m only kidding*).
*Maybe.
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Wife. Mother. Daughter. Expat. Photographer. Biology student. Science enthusiast. Freethinker. Caffeine junkie. Book addict. Gamer. Geek. Awesome.
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{ Such a cute and smart girl. Mine amazes me daily with all she is learning and saying lately too!
} – The Amazing Moodini. 9 comments{ Such beautiful photos. You live in an amazing place that makes me miss the countryside I grew up in. } – Project 366: week 19. 13 comments
{ What a cutie! That is awesome!! } – The Amazing Moodini. 9 comments
{ kids are so awesome! } – The Amazing Moodini. 9 comments
{ she is adorable. Great shots of her. Love the zombie thing too. } – The Amazing Moodini. 9 comments
