037/365

The Republic of Singapore Air Force has repeatedly been flying jets low and loud over our neighborhood for the last few days.  I am not so happy when they wake Ruby from her afternoon nap.  Ruby, however, is thrilled when we're outside and she sees them thunder by!

036/365

The girls have really been into long walks lately and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be something that they continue to love!

035/365

034/365 - Turf City

Clowning around at Turf City.  At first glance, the place looks mildly frightening.  Imagine falling away from the modern, glassy facades of Singapore and stumbling upon a post-apocalyptic colony.  The massive concrete structure that was the old horse-racing club looms over a poorly maintained field and parking lot.  Within the grime, dilapidated exterior and lingering stench, however, are a wealth of fantastic places for kids to play!  No joke.  A multitude of restaurants, stores, schools and family-friendly businesses have opened up shop in this bizarre location.  We like Marsden Swim School, Sol Playground Cafe, Sky Gym and Fidgets.  There are many more interesting nooks and crannies to visit in Turf City that we haven't discovered - if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

033/365

 

Living in Singapore - going from hawker centre, to mall, to high-rise apartment building - I often forget that I am living in an area that used to be dense tropical rainforest.  Then I notice the dozen or so plants growing on top of each gorgeously green tree on the street.  I glance up at the colorful wild parrots and sunbirds flying around as we walk to school each day.  I flee from the two-inch cockroaches that appear in the bathroom.

032/365

Living on the surface of the sun, as we do, requires the occasional frozen treat.  We try to be healthy and usually don't have anything until Ice Cream Fridays at our house, but today we were desperate.  Soaring temperatures called for frozen yogurt with strawberries and crunchy rainbow flakes.

031/365

It's not easy to live with other people.  It's not easy to share your prized possessions and sometimes see them become damaged, to sleep peacefully with noisy roommates, to find the last cookie always gone or to be teased for no other reason than for entertainment on a slow afternoon.  Here's to families, friends and roommates that make it work.

Thanks to team Ticcioni for permission to use this photo, as well as showing us how it's done!

030/365

Seeking refuge from the scorching sun today, we headed to a cheery indoor playroom for some relaxing with Grandpa.

Grumpy Old Men Birthday

I love this birthday theme - the vintage look to the photos make it even more fun!  Perfect for my grumpy old husband's next birthday party.  Heheh. :)

SLR Camera Simulator

This is interesting - there is a website where you can practice using an SLR camera.  Choose your focal length, ISO, aperture and shutter speed to see how it affects the photo.  Check it out at camerasim.com.

029/365

This is the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.  Or, as Lily calls it when she forgets the name, "The Houses With the Boat On Top."  When I look at it, I see a glittering casino and it's hard not to think about money - all the money that the silly people are losing inside the casino to pay for the construction of the silly roof boat.  The nice thing is, I also get to see it through Lily's eyes - it transforms into a truly magical place.  This is where we saw the Lion King musical.  The shopping mall has a pond through the middle where a gondolier takes people for rides, as well as an open ice skating rink on one end.  You can actually sit and have lunch and watch people ice skate.  There is also a boat on top of the buildings!  A boat!  How did it get there??  It's actually called the Sky Park.  More than 50 floors up, it has an amazing view of the city, as well as a restaurants, bars and the hotel infinity pool.  Pretty magical.

028/365

Caught a fabulous moment to play with backlight and lens flare.  For a few minutes before the sun disappeared behind the houses this evening, it peeked through the trees and onto the swing set.  I love the shadow of the fence on the grass - I think it emphasizes Ruby's radiance as she gleefully swings herself surprisingly high for an 18 month old.

Top 20 Cameras and Gadgets

If you're a shutterbug like me, you'll love this fun roundup of fantastic cameras and gadgets from My Life Scoop.  They feature some beautiful camera straps, and even a teeny, tiny telephoto lens for camera phones!

DIY Bird Mobile

How adorable is this bird mobile??  I haven't done much sewing, but the instructions look simple.  Here is the free pattern from Spool.

027/365

Can you really tell a lot about a person by the shoes that they wear?  Can you tell where I've been?  Where I'm going?  I've been wearing these almost every day for a year.  The schools that I went to when I was growing up had strict dress codes and uniforms.  They did not allow flip flop sandals to be worn and you could, in fact, get detention for doing so.  I wore them anyway (partially hidden under long pants) and got away with it every time.  Going to college in southern California fueled this flip flop obsession and I started wearing them constantly.  New York winters slowed me down, but now they're back!

026/365

 

I still dream of an existence where my kids do not watch television.  In this dream, they happily play for hours, too swept up in their make-believe adventures and back yard discoveries to seek my attention.  As a new parent, I had hoped that they would not lay their eyes on children's programming, especially advertising, until many years later.  However, I caved during the depths of a New York winter when we must have been snowed in for days - I was exhausted and out of ideas for entertaining a toddler.  I let Lily watch one episode of Sesame Street... and we were hooked.  

025/365

Abstract - detail of a paper lampshade.

Photography Cheat Sheet

Nice!!  I need to glue this to the back of my camera.

024/365

Lily now wears this bracelet to school every day.  Each morning, she asks, "Mommy, can I wear my tutu to school?"  In the car this afternoon, she tells me, "My favorite colors are all the pinks."  She sees a picture of high-heeled shoes in a magazine and says, "I want to wear shoes like that!"  We have entered the realm of the four-year-old princesses - I foresee tulle and pink and all thinks sparkly.

023/365

So I've been consistently shooting every day for the better part of a month now, and I think I'm getting the hang of this!  My new EOS 600D is starting to feel more familiar to me - I still shoot mostly using the aperture priority setting, but my goal is to shoot only on manual by the end of the project.  I've discovered an ebb and flow to my work.  Some days the photo I choose is one of 80 or so shots, inspired by the place I'm in or a technique I want to try.  Other days, I putter around the house after the kids have gone to sleep, examining the debris around our apartment for a last-minute photograph.  Here's tonight's last-minute photo - a self portrait.  

022/365

Ah, airports! The stress of potentially missing a flight, losing baggage, waiting in long lines, dealing with grumpy people and juggling heavy bags is inevitable. But hiding in the whiff of jet fuel and bustle of people is the promise of escape, adventure and homecoming.  

021/365

This is my favorite vessel.  Simple and elegant.  Bonus - the glass is tempered so I use it for hot AND cold beverages that I make at home!  It very nicely holds everything from a large morning coffee to a can of beer, from tall drinks of water to smoothies with a straw.  I highly recommend.

020/365

Lily didn't take her first independent steps until she was 18 months old.  We worried about her not meeting the developmental milestones, we worried about her being overly-cautious, we worried about potentially needing physical therapy...  We worried and worried.  Now look - she's four years old and flying!  And hopping and jumping and insisting that she climb stairs two-by-two.  Lily zooms around on her scooter, scales the climbing wall at the playground surprisingly well and teaches Ruby how to get up on the coffee table (the only activity which I do not approve).  What a big girl you've become!

019/365

Ruby was super restless at bedtime, so we went for a twilight walk and she insisted on bringing her sunglasses.  What do you do when you, or your little ones, can't fall asleep?

018/365

My husband, Steven - hard at work, or hardly working?

I love Hipstamatic.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the iPhone app, it basically takes photos mimicking the style of different antique cameras.  There are different "lenses," "films" and colored "flashes" to play around with.  The result - distorted, fun, unpredictable images.  Much, much easier than doing the actual darkroom processing or using photoshop to achieve the same look.

017/365

I rarely see much of the outside world at nighttime these days and I have been loving the night photography.  I don't have a tripod yet, so for all of my long exposure shots the camera has rested on tables or window sills.  All of these things also remind me of the pinhole photography I used to do in college - so much fun!  In this image, a two or three second exposure time really lets the light from the apartments burn brightly.  A nice surprise - I discovered the person having dinner on his balcony after I uploaded the images to my computer.  I would love to take more photos of apartment buildings at night and see people in the windows!  Would that be illegal?

016/365

As I type, a mysterious, mustachioed man is eyeing my tea.  We took Lily to see the matinee of the Lion King musical today - what a sensational show!!  Makes me want to drum on things and build paper mache African animal costumes for next Halloween.  Not to mention plan an adventure to Africa!  We had a lovely afternoon.  Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there - I wish you all hakuna matata (no worries).

015/365

Singapore went to the polls today for the 11th time since it's independence in 1965.  My parents, sister and I all cast our ballots for the first time ever!  Everything at our polling station ran like clockwork and the whole process took about five minutes.  Children and cameras were not allowed at the voting booths (90% of the things that are usually attached to my body these days), so Steven got to spend a little time with the girls while the rest of us were out.  No photo of the historic moment, but I did get a snapshot of Ruby trying to eat Steven's face.

014/365

Have you ever had your fortune told?  I haven't done it in years.  My husband and I took a stroll through Chinatown tonight, ate fabulous Korean food, took this magical photo of the Hindu temple, played darts in an empty bar and giggled at the Austrian vendor who seemed out of place.  At least the fortune teller was Chinese!  He told us we'd never have to worry about money, and to eat healthily.  He said something about past lives, and some things about our future.  But then he was surprised to find out that we had been married to each other for years!  Even if it's all nonsense, it's still a really fun thing to do on a date night.

013/365

This is the afternoon madness at our house.  Dadu gets home and it's all running around, jumping on sofas and general acrobatics (mostly the monkeys, not so much with me).

012/365

Today, we drove through a really intense downpour!  Storm drains were overflowing, streets were flooding and everyone was driving extremely slowly because it was impossible to see much through the windshield of the car.

011/365

I'm back!  We were hit by yet another mysterious illness last night - we've been plagued by annoying little colds and coughs ever since we moved to Singapore.I was too wiped out to post last night, but I did take pictures yesterday!  I went out to lunch with my sister, Myrah, and Ruby.  Here is Myrah choosing her lunch from a fabulous-looking spread of Indonesian food.

010/365

Ahh, a relaxing long weekend for Labour Day with a 'u' (May 1) and not Labor Day (1st Monday in September).  This is my evening view from the sofa in our living room.

009/365

This is Lily after a hard day of play - hair messy, face grubby, a little sweaty, quite happy.  She's getting bored waiting for her ravioli at a lovely, rustic Italian place that my mom took us to for dinner.  She's threatening to play with her silverware - something she knows I don't like.