And playing the role of Madame Buzzkill

Last night a colleague of mine and yours truly were invited to give a talk to 170 sorority girls at Wake Forest University. Apparently the Greek system at Wake is in some hot water for getting a little out of hand at this year's initiation party. So our job was to go talk some sense into these girls- by which I mean tell them the facts about alcohol use and how it affects your brain (and self-esteem the following morning!). Being that I still sometimes see myself as a PYT, I wanted to come off as smart and authoritative, with a dash of coolness. Yet, I think I just came off as a buzzkill.

As we were waiting outside the doors of the secret sorority meeting taking place on the other side, we started to chat up the two young lads in Wake Forest polos also waiting outside of the doors. We proceeded to find out that they were there to speak to the girls also, and that they were going to step inside and give a little spiel right before us. They said that they just needed a few minutes to tell the girls that if they came to the baseball games then free beer would be provided to all the senior girls. Huh, interesting tactic. Bad timing for us though, this offer of free beer coming before our talk on the badness of alcohol.

*Sidenote: the boys then asked us what we were there to talk about. Feeling a bit silly saying that we were there to try and persuade these girls to drink less, we told them we were there to talk about "science". I love to tell people that my job is science. I think it conjures up all sorts of weird images in their head involving bubbling beakers and people with white lab coats and a crazy look in their eyes. Just  to clarify, this is NOT the type of scientist I am. Instead if you imagined me sitting in a windowless office all day staring at a computer screen then you have the exact image of what type of scientist I am.*

So we did our job, gave the girls the low down on how many drinks lead to an intoxicated state, how many beers they're chugging when they play games like century club, and how their brains deteriorate as they chug-a-lug. Pretty much acting the part of Madame Buzzkill, squashing their enthusiasm for daytime drunkness at all the baseball games. While we were diligent in consulting the scientific literature to find the most compelling results as to why they shouldn't be drinking so much, I think all we really needed to do was inform them of the calories they were consuming during a game of century club (over 800 calories!). Then we probably would have captured their attention (and in advertently promoted skipping meals to save calories for alcohol binges!). Oh well ladies, go ahead and drink your gin and tonica- who needs a frontal cortex anyways?

Easter Fun 2010

Three Easter egg hunts equating to less than a dozen eggs brought home. But at least Conner and Lizzie seemed to enjoy Easter festivities this year more than previous years. Of course we did stay far away from the Easter bunny!

I got over it

Last weekend all four of the Hatzi took a trip down to Charleston to watch Mommy run in the Cooper River Bridge Run. It was a 10K race, which to many seems like a run around the block. But it was a big deal to me for a couple of reasons.

1. My sister was traveling 11 hours to come run the race with me. I always have a great time when I am with my sister and I knew that having her run the race with me would make it less grueling.

2. The last time I ran this race was a few months before I got pregnant with the dynamic duo. Back in those days I was in great shape. I taught spinning classes, ran on a regular basis, and got my butt kicked at least once a week by my trainer Joe. So running a 10K was not a big deal at all to me. And I ran it in 59 minutes, 3 seconds. Not a incredibly fast time but a time I was happy with. So this year when I decided to run the race I knew that it wasn't going to be quite so easy. Surprisingly enough, I no longer have time to teach spinning classes and about the only time I find to run is the one hour in the afternoon when the twosome is busy watching Sesame Street. But, I was going to train as much as possible and just hope that whatever I put in would be enough to get me through the race. Well, if you've read my sister's blog then you already know the last page of this story (and my sister wrote such a touching entry about the race!). Indeed, I did survive- and I even ran the whole way! And finished in 1 hour, 3 minutes. Finishing the race, running the entire race, and completing it in a time that wasn't too much slower than my pre-mom days time just reminded me that life can return to normal after having twins (or even one child for that matter), and it's so important to find time to do those things that you loved before you became a mom.

And, not to let you think that I was the only one who got a workout when we were down in Charleston, both Conner and Lizzie ran in the toddler 25 yard run. Lizzie fell in the middle of the race (I'm sure she was tripped by those kids who saw her threatening skills) but both kids managed to snag a medal from the race.

Playmate, come out and play with me

Conner and Elizabeth are really starting to become interested in entertaining each other. The usual events unroll in this manner:

1. Conner surveys the situation, identifies all of the items/actions that are not intended for little ones

2. Conner, when no one is looking, gets into afore mentioned items/actions

3. Lizzie immediately follows

4. Lizzie though is not as sly, and calls attention to the forbidden items/actions and the game comes to an end

5. Conner gets in trouble, Lizzie smiles and acts innocent and somehow comes away undisciplined.

It's actually really rewarding to see them interact with each other, and it's nice to send them outside to play with each other for a few minutes each day. It seems all the hard work of raising two children at the same time is finally starting to reap some benefits.

Random acts of snuggling

Followed by random acts of torment

And a game of row, row, row your boat

A day at the park

60+ degrees, first weekend in March. Can't beat that. Conner and Elizabeth took turns going up and down the slides at the park in the beautiful weather. Mommy took advantage of the weather to run 5 miles in preparation for the Cooper River Bridge Run at the end of the month. Daddy missed all the weather because he was stuck inside taking care of sick people all weekend. Again I'm reminded, it's good to be a kid.

Adventures in photography- color and light

So I have been taking a class entitled Introduction to SLR photography and have been learning lots of new things. Many of you may not be at all interested in what I've learned so if that's you, just go ahead and stop reading here. But, I once heard that if you want to really learn something you should read it, then write it, and then teach it. And so I will try and teach you what I've learned in hopes of it sticking and making sense to me. Each week in class the teacher presents a few concepts and then gives us the homework assignment of employing these concepts in pictures that we are supposed to take and bring to class the next week. Well, let me tell you, I take crappy pictures! Especially when compared to the rest of the class. The pictures people brought in for the first assignment blew mine away and I was really ashamed of the pictures that were mine. I think this intimidation made me blow off doing the assignment for the following week's class by claiming that I was just too busy to take pictures for my homework. Now in most classes that I have taken I have never been the smartest or highest achieving one in the class, but I have never felt like the most inferior one in the class (well except for the one lecture of the college physics class that I sat in for 20 minutes before I walked out and went straight to the registrar's office to drop). So this was a new feeling, and it didn't feel good. But you've got to start somewhere, right?

So the assignment for this week was incorporating the concepts we learned last week which were light and color. Here is what I learned about light- there are two kinds of light, soft and hard.
1. Hard light- a light source that is smaller than the subject you are photographing. An example is the sun- it's a hard light source because it's small in comparison to all the subjects you are photographing. Hard light produces crazy shadows because it only hits one part of the subject and most of the time is really unflattering for portraits. Hard light though shows textures really well though so it has a use. Here is my example of hard light- see the harsh shadow but also notice how you can really see the texture of the sidewalk:

2. Soft light- a light source that is bigger than the subject you are photographing. An example is a lamp in your house, or those crazy lighting sources that you seen in photography studios. Soft light is just as it sounds, nice and soft. Since it is a larger light source it can wrap around the subject illuminating it from all angles. Good for portraits, though textures aren't as apparent. An example of soft light- how majestic does Daisie look?

And then of course soft or hard light can be direct or indirect. Direct light is light that does not have anything in the path between the light source and the subject. An example of direct light is the flash on top of your camera. Indirect light is light that has something in the path between the light source and the subject. An example would be if you bounced your flash off the ceiling and onto your subject. Or, if you placed a piece of scotch tape over your flash. In most cases, indirect light is better.

And that's all I've got for light. Next we move on to color. We all know that the primary colors are red, green, and blue. Well, these are the primary colors of light. The primary colors of pigments are yellow, magneta, and cyan. I only tell you this because I learned something new here, in that cyan is sort of an aqua color when all along I thought it was a yellow color for some reason.

And so now that we know the primary colors, here is how to use color theory to compose photographs:
1. Analagous colors. Analagous colors are colors that lie next to each other on the color wheel. Using colors that are analagous in a picture creates a more soothing picture.

2. Complimentary colors. Complimentary colors lie directly across from each other on the color wheel. So, purple and yellow, red and green, orange and blue, etc. Having complimentary colors in a photograph makes the colors seem more vivid. Color theory of complimentary colors isn't just applicable to photographs, its also really helpful when trying to pull together a great outfit. Lets say you've got this cute cardigan (and yes, I would love this cardigan) and you want to wear something underneath it that's more fun than a basic white or black, but you're just not sure what color. Then you remember reading this way too long blog post and take the one piece of useful information from the post to pick out this shirt to wear underneath the sweater. And you're welcome, you will look fabulous in that outfit. Here's my picture for this portion of the assignment (it's a lame attempt but I couldn't find any complimentary colors in nature since there aren't any flowers in bloom right now. But a great example of this would have been the purple and yellow pansies that people often plant together).

3. Monochromatic colors. Just as it sounds, monochromatic photos have one predominant color running throughout the picture.

Well, that about raps up week three of my photography class. If you're still awake- well done. I'll try to come up with something more exciting for the next post.

But I was just getting used to you

It's March already? Seriously, where did February go? I was just coming to grips with all that you had to offer, the cold dreary days and all. And now, just like that, February has passed me by again. I wasn't even lucky enough to get an extra day out of you this year (and unfortunately for my dad, another year substituting an alternate day for his birthday). Maybe I'm so shocked about the turning of the months because in our house we're still living by the calendar month of December 2009.

But with March comes the prospect of warmer and longer days. And signs of spring are starting to peak out around these parts.

Inside the warmth of the house, a little girl with a cold cuddles up to her Daddy for comfort...

and a little boy cuddles up with not one, but two snugs for comfort...

Here's hoping y'all were more prepared for the arrival of March than I.