winter

Winter of Discontent

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It’s cliche, that old Richard III phrase. But here we are, almost one year later, still dealing with a pandemic and lockdown orders.

I challenged myself to make something out of all this midwinter cold and isolation. It’s finally getting cold, and the snow is sticking around, so I made a point to capture it as I see it: outside the windows of the house that I barely leave.

It’s hard to be creative, stuck inside. We’ve taken a few walks outside. We even went hiking at a local nature center. But by now, that just feels like therapy. The pandemic makes the lower section of Maslow’s hierarchy that much more important.

I did finish my 2020 family photo album. I didn’t take many photos last year, but the ones that I did take really matter. Someday, we’ll look back and remember. 

Another creative project: posting iPhone photos to Twitter, just to get them out there. Instagram has been a waste for several years now. Twitter is the only social media network I feel I still enjoy (especially now post-Trump) – why not share some old iPhone images I had captured, edited, and saved for Instagram?

It’s all slow, tough going. But I keep going, as much as I can.

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Bio Dome II

The light can fool you in winter. Sure, it looks sunny and bright, but step outside this artificial atmosphere and you’ll pay the price.

The midwest, in all its January glory.

We’ll watch from inside the terrariums, taking our time in both the arid and humid man-made climates.

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Bio Dome

How better to beat the mid winter blues in Michigan than to travel to a jungle and a desert?

That’s what we did when the big snow storm came: a day for sledding in the driveway, and a day for heading out to Hidden Lake Gardens and enjoying the bio domes.

Hidden Lake is truly a hidden gem – out in the middle of nowhere, winding paths and lake trails, plants and trees of all kinds. The bio domes offer a desert environment, a lush tropical environment, and a simple greenhouse. Walk inside, and you’re somewhere else.

It didn’t feel like January in here.

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Make And Take

Leave it to me to schedule our Family Art Studio session for the snow storm weekend.

But so it went. We drove to Ann Arbor, braving the highway traffic and slick conditions, to spend the day making art at my work.

This was the boy’s first trip to an art museum, and he had a lot of questions. Were the statues real? Why can’t you touch the art? That bust of George Washington – where’s the rest of his body? Why was that girl so hairy?

We took inspiration from Japanese graphic design and made our own poster out of cut-out shapes of colored paper. It was us and six other families – half of what was scheduled to show up.

“The difference between your art on the fridge and these drawings is that there’s a frame around them, and they’re hanging in a museum,” I said.

I hope he took the day to heart.

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Snow Day

There’s nothing like a snow storm to get the family out of the cabin fever funk.

It’s also a great excuse to get the ol’ point and shoot camera out, dust off the lens, and take some photos of the outside activities. Despite the broken battery door, my Canon PowerShot SD750 still works great, and shoots fine.

This thing and me go way back. We’ve been on many adventures, from road trips through New England to hiking in Zion, and all of life before I purchased my first DSLR.

This weekend, when the snow started to accumulate, I broke out the SD750 while me and the boy went sledding, and then to capture all the fun in the yard when we got home. After all, if it gets wet, no big loss.

A side benefit: the photo files loaded lickety split into Lightroom.

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Getting Some Fresh Air

Back on New Year’s Day, I came down with something terrible: fever, chills, aches, and an all-encompassing drowsiness. It was so bad I had to cancel holidays plans with my family.

By day three, I was going stir-crazy, so the boy and I headed outside during an unseasonably warm January day to get some fresh air. It had to help, even a little, to take a walk around the neighborhood.

We walked our usual path down by the lake, and through the neighborhood trails – to the giant pile of concrete rubble that sits on the farm property just outside the residential zone.

The walk didn’t end up helping all that much, long-term, but to my feverish head and aching lungs, breathing that foggy Midwestern air provided a much-needed break.

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