the slump

Continuing into early February, here's a week that felt like a bit of a slump. After taking pictures every day for a couple years in a row, I've definitely noticed the occasional period of "meh." Actually, since Evan was born and my priorities have shifted, it seems like there have been a lot more days when I've taken a mediocre picture and decided it was good enough.

I started week 6 with a walk to Noe Valley. Heading past Phoenix Books, I noticed C is for Cooking in the sale rack. Nothing else really caught my eye while I was out, so that became the picture for the day.

35/365 c is for cooking

Tuesday felt like a good time to take pictures of Evan again. He was wearing the Mongabay onesie that Rhett and Alyson had given to him, which I believe was on my to-photograph list before he outgrew it. My first thought when I look at this shot now? Evan didn't have much hair back then...

36/365 love

I remember that Wednesday being kind of chilly and windy. In the late afternoon, I bundled up Evan, put him in the Baby Bjorn, and walked to Martha & Bros. for some coffee. I read some of the book I was working my way through on my phone (Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton) and drank my coffee while Evan took a short nap. I wasn't terribly enthused with the picture I took of the coffee, but again, I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to find another subject.

37/365 latte afternoon

I got the idea for Thursday's picture during Evan's second nap that day. For a while there, I spent a lot of time putting his pacifier back in his mouth at naptime, often in an effort to get him to go back to sleep after he inevitably woke up about 40 minutes in. This time when I went in to do just that, I found the pacifier just waiting to be knocked through the crib bars and onto the floor. Of course, I put it back in his mouth as planned, but I recreated the scene for the picture once Evan was done napping.

38/365 pacifier in peril

On Friday, I was actually inspired by my picture from exactly one year before. (It was right around the time I got pregnant with Evan.) But this time, instead of ready-made elderflower soda for my picture, I had elderflower syrup from Ikea—purchased around the time of our anniversary last year—that I mixed with soda water. I even got to use one of the paper straws that I bought last fall. FYI, elderflower syrup is also good mixed into cava or prosecco.

39/365 saft fläder

The next day, Steve went to the Saturday farmers market at the Ferry Building so that he could get the ingredients for our Valentine's Day dinner. One of the desserts we were considering called for lavender, so he picked up some dried stuff at the market. I took pictures of it when he got home, but it was actually a shot that I took of the lavender outside of The French Tulip in Noe Valley later in the day that made it into the project.

40/365 lavender

And finally, Sunday's picture was of the wings and pita bread with pepperoni sauce that we had for lunch. I hadn't taken pictures when Steve made this the week before—on Superbowl Sunday—so it was good that he made it again. The wings with pepperoni sauce was a Mike Isabella recipe, and it went so well with the pita that Steve had made as an experiment that he decided to make the pita bread again. It was a good way to use some of the extra pepperoni sauce as a dip, and it rounded out the meal a bit.

41/365 wings & pepperoni sauce

done with january

Let's finally finish up January, shall we?

Evan was really starting to grow out of his 0-3 month clothes by the end of the month, so I made an effort to take pictures of some of my favorite outfits of his before retiring them. First picture of the week: his "daddy's little buddy" onesie. We've been calling him "buddy" pretty much from the beginning, which made this onesie especially fitting. It was part of a set of three onesies that we got from Danielle and Brian at our baby shower. I did get a shot of Steve with Evan wearing this the next Saturday, but I decided not to use it for the picture of the day, since the onesie had already appeared once that week.

28/365 daddy's little buddy

On Tuesday, I decided to take Evan and drive to DayOne to do a little shopping. I'm pretty sure this was the last time we used Evan's car seat until we went to the Presidio with Steve's parents... three months later. No wonder I was surprised by how much bigger he was every time I put him in the car seat. I use the baby carrier for walking so much that we rarely need to put him in the car seat.

Anyway, we went to Laurel Heights that day in January, and the most interesting thing I found to photograph was a cabbage flower in a planter. The colors really didn't match the rest of the month's pictures very well, but I liked the details in the leaves. (Also, it was my only choice for the day.)

29/365 cabbage flower

Wednesday's picture was of Evan watching me while I folded laundry in his room. We got a lot of use out of that bouncy seat. It was a good way to keep him contained and happy while I got things done around the house.

30/365 i always feel like somebody's watching me

Thursday was January 31, so I figured it was a good time to finally use the January calendar page for a picture. I had ordered this year's calendar from Irene Suchocki on Etsy, after thoroughly searching for a photo calendar that I liked. (She happened to be one of the people I had followed on Flickr long ago.) Unfortunately, I ordered the calendar after Christmas, and it didn't make it in time for the first of the month/year.

31/365 (the end of) january

So I took two calendar pictures in a row. For Friday's, I took a walk down Valencia in search of an appropriate background. (The footstool in the nursery was my backdrop for the January picture.) I also had lunch at Mission Cheese that day, but I found a table in one of the parklets on my way back to coordinate with the February calendar page.

32/365 february

I had a haircut on Saturday, which meant that I was downtown with no baby in tow for once. He was at home with Steve, napping, so I took the opportunity to go to the mall. I think I bought a Valentine's card, and I probably ran an errand or something. While I was there, I remembered that I had previously thought about taking a picture of the topiaries at La Boulange, so I did that too.

33/365 mall topiaries

Superbowl Sunday was next, although we didn't really do much for it. Steve made wings for lunch, Evan laughed out loud for the first time, we took a walk to get some coffee in the late afternoon, and we checked the score of the game once or twice. The picture of the day was from the coffee outing: Evan in his bear jacket, in the Baby Bjorn.

34/365 hiding out

And here's the mosaic for January:

january: week 4

I've been busy lately. The other day, in the midst of the busyness, I remembered that I have a blog. And that blog is terribly behind—over 3 months behind, in fact.

The fourth weekly installment of 2013 begins with a picture from the early days of Evan playing with his hands. Now, at 6 months old, he's pretty comfortable picking up toys, turning them over, passing them from hand to hand, and getting them into his mouth. He also has a lot more hair.

21/365 hands for the win

That Tuesday's picture was taken outside of the crepe restaurant on Valencia, during a late-afternoon walk. If I remember correctly, it was somewhat chilly that day, so there was no one sitting in the parklet across from the restaurant.

22/365 beer list

For Wednesday's picture, I shot the flowers in Evan's room. They were part of a bunch that Carmen had put out when we came home from the hospital with Evan, and apparently this kind dries quite well. The rest of the flowers are long gone, but these are still doing their part to add a pop of color to the top of Evan's shelves. 

23/365 puff balls

Evan and I took a walk down Valencia once again on Thursday, with him in the stroller this time. We went to Craftsman & Wolves, where I got a croissant and some drinking chocolate with violet marshmallows. I had ordered the drinking chocolate back when they first opened, but they seem to have acquired more specialized servingware for it since then.

24/365 drinking chocolate

I guess I was less ambitious again on Friday, because my picture of the day was of the bunting above Evan's crib. He seemed to like it quite a bit back then, though. He would look at it and coo or gurgle when I put him in his crib for naps.

25/365 something to look at

It was time for another Evan picture on Saturday, which ended up being a tummy time shot. He was still working on holding himself up for longer periods of time then. He rolls out of it consistently now, but these sessions used to end one of two ways: with him spitting up or with him rubbing his face into the floor and whining. If we were especially unlucky, he'd spit up and then rub his face into the floor before I could turn him over. I had to clean off his face and suction spit-up out of his nose once or twice...

26/365 daily workout

Last is a food picture for Sunday. These have obviously gotten less frequent in the last year, as feeding the baby has been a little higher priority than feeding ourselves new and fun recipes. Hopefully, we'll get back into the habit a little more soon, now that spring and summer produce are coming up.

But back to the picture below. Steve made Black Spaghetti with Clams, Pancetta and Red Chili from Mike Isabella's Crazy Good Italian. It was a homemade squid ink pasta that went well with the ham, the clams, and the white wine sauce. It was good both times that we made it—half of the pasta went in the freezer for the second go-round—but it was the kind of meal that didn't stick with me for very long. I was hungry again an hour or two later.

27/365 black spaghetti