Gnumoon's Stuff

Spartans! Tonight we dine on candy!

I love Halloween, and I loved 300, so there ya go. I'll post more during the day- right now I'm just aglow with holiday cheer. And by "cheer" I mean "sugar". Sugar from the brazillion cookies and cupcakes we made last night so that we could spread holiday cheer to all. Pookie helped, of course:

ps- I got an email that the Bumbo seat Pooks is sitting in has been recalled. This is true, but it's a voluntary recall because some kids have been tipping the seats over backwards and falling off countertops and such. Pooks is too small currently to do this, and she's also never more than an arm's reach away. Bumbos are really great baby accessories, and I hope that parents don't stop using them because of this. As with everything else involving babies, just be careful!

Halloween eve monsterfest

I have watched some really bad movies this Halloween season. It’s been a veritable Shitfest, in fact. Here are some of the worst:
The Descent – How does this keep getting named to “Top Horror Films” lists? It’s terrible! – bad acting, bad climbing, bad monsters. Seriously, for cave-centered splatfests, at least AVP had good creatures. That's right...I said that AVP was BETTER than something. And I once made a movie better than AVP with a handheld Panasonic VHS camcorder, a blender, and a rubber glove filled with red jello.

Constantine – not a horror film, really, but it’s been on TV a lot. I can’t even say enough bad about this one. It’s like an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer mated with Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, and this was the resulting unholy love child.

Fright Night – As a child, I thought this was scary. I was wrong. Substitute the word “scary” for “boring” and it’s much closer to the truth. And look, it's Prince Humperdink, but he's a vampire. Same basic character, except with fangs instead of tights.
Thanks be to IMDB, as always, though, because without it I wouldn't know that the guy who played "Evil Ed" went on to star in hardcore gay porn (including such cinematic triumphs as the aviation-themed and hilariously-named "Cock Pit")

Halloween – I’m just going to say this. It’s practically sacrilege for a horror fan to say, but here you go: this movie is so excruciatingly boring it puts me to sleep. I appreciate that it lays a lot of groundwork for the genre in general, but it is a snoozer. 

The only redeeming thing about the horror movies on TV this season is that I've gained a new appreciation for the Scream series. They are just very well-done: scary, funny, and smart. All three are great, and I love the Carrie Fisher cameo in the third one, as well as the addition of the always-dependable Lance Henriksen.

A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

Tyler Durden was right about that, because this vibrant scene of Ship Rock, shot Sunday afternoon, is no longer there. The rain and wind have sculpted a landscape of dreary, nearly-naked trees, with their remaining leaves decoupaged to wet trunks or blown into limp soggy piles.
When you're talking about "peak" color, it is a momentary burst. Autumn's beauty is the most fleeting and the most fragile, which is why (up here, anyway) it is the most beautiful of all the seasons.

On this harvest moon

Here's the moon. yay, moon. I'm drinking a Blue Moon "Harvest Moon" pumpkin brew, too, so it's all related.

It's been a busy, and much too short, weekend. Saturday was full of BLACK SATURDAY-ness, and sadly it turned out to be a dark day indeed, as the football team lost at home for the first time in five years. That's quite a streak. But since it was a "blackout", I put the Pookster in her best black finery (a throwback Richie Williams jersey outfit), grabbed her black and gold afghan and hat, and headed out to the stadium. She hung out with us until about an hour before the game, then headed home with grandma when I went in to shoot. I wasn't about to have a baby in that stadium atmosphere for that game... Georgia Southern has the distinction of being the only school where I was ever called the c-word while shooting. And it was from the flute section in the band! That's a classy group, fer shure. (I admit that I saw a lot of bad behavior from our fans as well. Some people really cannot handle their booze.)

Today we lounged around some, then headed to Banner Elk for the Wooly Worm festival, where we partook in some quaint and ate some very yummy and exceedingly unhealthy food. Then we hit the parkway to check out the foliage...along with every other person in the state. Bad move- twas bumper-to-bumper. Perhaps I'll try it again this week sometime. Now we're home, lamenting that tomorrow isn't a Sunday as well, as we could use some more rest. Even the dog is tired.

Here's a nifty shot I grabbed Saturday. I 'shopped it a bit to make it pop. Many thanks to Kevin for hopping this TD in right in front of me:

Nature's garish display

From the deck...gorgeous color this year. Check out the fall color pro BRB for some knock-your-socks-off images.

Here's my own little splash of autumn color (or perhaps it's a splash of drool):

4-Month Appointment : Giganta-baby

We just returned from the pediatrician's office and the big 4-month appointment. Emphasis on the word BIG. Pooks, a "big healthy baby",  is 17.8 pounds (95th+ percentile) and almost 26 inches long (75th to 90th percentile). The doctor was like, "Well, that's breastfeeding for ya."

He said that this is the time they'd normally start formula-fed babies on cereal because they aren't gaining fast enough, but that she was doing just fine with my milk. Honestly it wouldn't have mattered what he said about that...I have my sights set on the 1-year exclusive breastfeeding goal, and will continue running (and nursing and pumping) toward it as long as I am physically able. Besides love, I just truly believe that providing her nature's food is the best thing I can give her. The more I read about it, the more strongly I know it's the right thing to do, even when it's really hard and/or inconvenient.

I'm considering becoming a lactation consultant to help other moms, who might not have as much support as I've had, get through the tough parts of nursing. (And, I'll admit it: I think it would be bitchin' to have business cards printed up that have "Lactation Consultant" as my title. I'd join Rotary and Optimist just to get to hand them out.)

It's my party, and I'll sniffle if I want to

Today is my birthday (well whaddya know, 26 again!), and my daughter has given me the gift of the common cold. She started showing signs on Thursday afternoon, and by that evening her cold was in full effect. It was a very long night. I came down with it yesterday, and the baby and I snotted our way through last night (DJ hooked up the humidifier, brought us tissues and then vacated the sick room, making his way to the hopefully less germ-infested pastures of the guest room).

A few comments about Baby's First Cold:
- I can't take anything for it because it might get into my milk and/or affect my milk production. So it's steam baths and Kleenex for me. But I have learned a very cool thing: my body will produce lots of antibodies in the milk for the baby, which helps her heal and bolsters her immune system. This is how babies develop their immature immune systems. Very cool.

- Pookie has developed the dreaded "crusty nose" syndrome. I used to work with a woman whose children had the crusty nose all the time, and I vowed that if I ever had kids that I would keep their nares booger-crust free. But at that time (and until this weekend) I didn't know that babies REALLY hate to have their noses messed with, especially if they are already sensitive from sneezing. Which segues into:

-the bulb (we call it (noun) the schnorker or (verb) to schnorker/schnorkering). Ohmysweetlordinheaven she hates that thing. She hates it more than tummy time and shots combined. When she turns 14 and hates me anyway, she will cite bulb use as one of the reasons. "I never asked to be born! And who gave you permission to shnorker my tiny little nose?! You sadist!"
The schnorker has introduced her to a myriad of new human emotions: deception, betrayal, hatred, pain, righteous indignance, and loathing.
*Having a schnorker in the whimsical shape of an elephant does not make it better. The snot trunk serves the same purpose as the regular blue barrel, and is received in the same manner.

- My husband is having to be trained in the ways of baby mucous removal and clean-up. When he has a sniffle, DJ reaches for the nearest paper towel to honk his nose into. Despite years of me offering softer, less abrasive options, he prefers the rough grain of kitchen tissue- I'm beginning to think it's because we don't keep sandpaper handy. Anyway, I've had to constantly remind him (occasionally threatening violence) that only the softest Kleenex is to be used on little Pookie's nose.

Breast Fest '07

One of my favorite new sites is the League of Maternal Justice, headed by Lactivista and Pregerella, who champion the causes of the breastfeeding mother. I wish I'd thought of it first. sigh. Oh well, maybe they'll let me be some kind of minor heroine, like a Robin-type character.

Anyway, today is Breast Fest, and I'm supposed to be running a live feed of me nursing. But since Pookie is at daycare, that proves to be problematic. The other option was to post a photo of me breastfeeding, but since there is that one creepy guy who emails me sometimes, I don't think I'll do that either. (I see you, creepy guy. Why must you be so viscerally creepy?)

Here is LMJ's montage of breastfeeding, posted in response to the continuing idiocy of Bill Maher and Facebook:

Clipart backstory

In looking through the ol' clipart directory trying to find a photo of a candle for a project at work I ran across this image, tagged with "candle":
I contend that it is the greatest stock photo. Ever. I've actually become somewhat obsessed with it.  I've left that tab open and click on it periodically to bask in it awesomosity.
Just LOOK at it...let's examine what makes it so magnificent:
1. It obviously wasn't taken with a digital camera, as it is circa 1986. So the purveyors of clipart had to get the photo and SCAN it into the computer to add it to the database. WORK went into making this available for our use.
2. The Woman- ye gods, that hair. I bet she used an entire can of Aquanet on it. And the dress. You can SEE the shoulder pads (right under those decorative buttons on the left should. See that? And her ultra-long string of pearls is dipping temptingly into her frilly librarian decolletage. Add that to her sassy expression and she will be irresistible to
2. The Man - I think it may actually be Robert Redford, relaxing from a long day on the set of Legal Eagles.
3. The candles - not the tapers so much as the champagne-glass flutes they are nestled in.
4. The flowers - those lilies with the white and pink centers are very 80s. (Also, they are much to powerfully-fragranced to grace a dinner table.) There is an auxiliary bunch lurking in the background.
5. The filter - A fellow photographer and I were trying to figure out the last year the "starburst" filter was commonly used.

So the more I look at it the more I start building a backstory. Here's what I have so far:
She's the secretary, he's the investment banker. He asks her out, they go a fancy-schmancy restaurant. If all goes well they will end up back at his bachelor pad, drinking Reunite on his black leather couch while sexy saxophone tunes playing on the laserdisk set the mood. She leans in to drink in the scent of his Old Spice, and the scene fades to black...

Appalachian vs. Gardner-webb

This season I'm shooting for a different company than last year because, well... because they pay more. Take that, loyalty! Also, the purveyor of the new gig understands that with the bebe in tow I can't make it to the away games, and that is really important to me.
There are some more sports shots here.
Some of these are with the 400mm, and it was the first time I'd used it. The first drive Saturday resulted in a TD very near me, and thanks to my newbie-osity with the glass, I managed to capture the moment of the catch beautifully, sharply, and perfectly...except I cut off the receiver's head because he was so close. Whooooopsie.

And BlueRidge, thanks much for NOT posting that picture of me on the sideline. I can't even imagine how idiotic I look.
And for those of you who care none for sports and only log on here for your daily dose of Pookie (I see you, grandma!), here is the kiddo showing her school spirit while hanging out with her grandparents during the game: