Archives for 2012

RIP Frida

July 13, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

My kid is definitely not missing a sensitivity chip. In fact, I think she got a few extra of them….so if anyone needs an extra let me know. The first sign: she cries at the end of every. single. movie……even Hancock. The more emotional the music, the more emotional she gets. Don’t even get me started on how she reacts at the end of Armageddon…..the whole 10 minutes at the end where everyone is reuniting and Harry dies? Wow. She even cries at those touching ESPN stories.

I get it. I cry at them too. Legends of the Fall. Secretariat. Joy Luck Club. Lifetime Movies. Pixar’s UP. Undercover Bosses when the CEOs surprise the workers at the end. And it used to be every Oprah episode.

Yesterday she saw her friend Elle (Lisa’s daughter) at school for the first time in a few days. She ran up to Elle and hugged her tight. She didn’t let go for a long time. It got kind of awkward so Lisa said she peeked around to see if Boo was joking……but Boo was bawling. Boo, struggling through sobs, said: I missed you Elle……and I’m so sorry your fish died.

I’d forgotten that I told her that Elle’s fish Frida died. I just said it in passing…..not thinking it was something she’d remember. It wasn’t our fish. Poor fish….but it was actually Elle’s second fish Frida….Lisa quickly replaced the first one when it died. It wasn’t even the original Frida. [Read more…]

Lisbeth Saaaahl-Laaaahnder

July 11, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

In college I went 4 months straight eating a mixture of 1 part plain yogurt with 1 part Grapenuts cereal. And it had to be the right ratio. And the Grapenuts had to be added periodically because I have a standard of deviation for sogginess. After 4 months I never ate it again. Ever. I eat other cereals though and I still pay attention to sogginess. I’ll pour a bowl of milk and then add a few Apple Jacks at a time. I’m such a creature of habit. Excess habit. That’s a nicer way of saying OCD. If I find something I like I’ll eat it over and over and over until one day something new comes along.

One thing that I will never eat willfully: plain sandwich bread. I’m not talking about dinner bread…..I’m talking like a loaf of sandwich bread. Unless it’s covered in peanut butter and jelly. But now I can’t eat peanut butter because my mom says it’s full of bacteria. Yesterday the refrigerator was down to a bare minimum and I was so desperate that I ate some Soybutter. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It only took me 2 years to try it. (This is why I can’t make Boo try stuff she insists she doesn’t like…..because I won’t.) Oh yeah, back to the sandwich bread…..just the smell of it makes me nauseous. It smells like fish bait to me. Probably because when I was little we used to ball up little pieces of sandwich bread to catch fish. It reminds me of ducks too…..for the same reason. Not that we tried to catch ducks with hooks. Who would want to catch a duck? And in conclusion, the bread also reminds me of investment banking because everyone knows that if you split a loaf of bread apart you can sell the slices for more than the entire loaf but you have to factor in the costs of separation too.

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What’s Your Focal Length?

July 11, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

All About Photography Focal Length and Lenses from @Gayle Vehar via lilblueboo.com

Don’t let the fact that I am going to write a whole post here about focal length fool you. Focal length seems like it could be a little boring. It is probably the fact that it is measured in millimeters and sounds all “mathy!” But knowing a little about it can help you use and choose your lenses wisely.

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