Surprise: Complicate/Simplify

Surprise! I'm at Fashion Week India in Mumbai!



You all are following the newest Indian fashion trends, right?



Eagerly awaiting our First Lady's dress choices while she is in Mumbai this weekend?











Just kidding...although I have added "Go to India Fashion Week" to my life's bucket list.

I'd think about going to Milan's or Paris or even New York's Fashion week, but frankly, most of the European fashions are just icky.

Admittedly I doubt I would be more likely to wear any of these India fashions, but for daydreaming value, I think these outfits win hands down.

So what is my big surprise really?

I'm now entering serious camera land: Just got us a Canon Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera this week, using bonus points from all of Bernie's travels. This camera has all the new goodies including HD movie capacity.

Not that that is such a selling point since Blogger doesn't allow HD movies to be posted...yet.


So I am fiddling with all the buttons and knobs, wondering if I will ever get to the place where I can adjust setting as naturally as I do with my pocket sized digital Sony camera.



I'm wondering if all the seemingly random number will eventually have meaning to me.



Bernie took a serious photography class in high school and can rattle off what all the numbers and ISO and such things mean. (Picture your camera shutting down, the lens closing and the screen going black. That is what happens in my head when I start trying to understand all that kind of stuff.)


After visiting a few photography galleries recently, I realized that the super amazing pictures had meta data that was like a foreign language to me. But obviously it all had something to do with why the picture WAS amazing.

BTW: meta data is information about how the picture was taken, not information about what was in the picture.

So the Canon's handbook has 255 pages of information for me to digest...slowly.

I can take pictures quite easily right now using the automatic settings; I'm sure I will be doing a lot of that kind of photography too. But I am also hoping to learn to use all the camera features...and become a far more creative photograph of my world.


Since April I have been shooting with the Sony DSC and it has been great fun. The camera was expensive enough that I bought a policy to cover all possible problems with the camera; this time it is going to pay off having that policy. There have been several minor problems lately and so it will be going back to the factory for repairs.

I about died when the store told me to expect the repairs to take six to eight weeks.

I'll be turning in my camera, and will pocket my older Sony camera in my purse for the duration. It has a cracked display screen, but still takes good enough pictures to get me through my need to whip out a camera at all times.

BUT WAIT!!!!

There is more excitement around here:

My co-cook Bernie has re-worked my kitchen cabinets!

It is a pity he didn't take a before picture before he started; all the pots and pans rested on installed shelves inside the cabinet.

That meant that every time either of us wanted a pot or pan that was not right in the front of the cabinet, we would have to bend ourselves in half to peer inside the cabinet, then wrangle the desired pot/pan out and also attempt to find the correct pot/pan lid too.

We had acquired a few sets of pot/pans, and it always seemed that the correct lid was on the lam in that cabinet.

I hated it.

He hated it.

Finally he took off to IKEA and talked with the Kitchen Subject Matter Expert about our problem

She discussed two possible solutions; B. thought sliding shelving would work best, she pointed out what he needed and moments later he was checking out with the needed components.

He had also been unhappy with our hodge podge pot/pan collection so last weekend a complete new set of Faberware was purchased. Wheee!!!! I love the soft handles, glass lids (with no "sharing" lids, each pot/pan came with a lid!)

We did hang on to two non-stick heavy fry pans, (and one non-stick pot), so now we have four pans. Perhaps Chinese food cooking night will make that decision a wise one. We will see....

A rubbery cut to size mat keep everything in place; it is quieter to put the pans in place plus there is no sliding around when the shelf is pulled opened.


The baking cabinet got one slider and some metal upright sheet holders.

It is better now than when everything was piled up. I'm still not perfectly happy with the top shelf, but it works for now.
There are a few more drawers and cabinets that need tweaking. Less really is more, and I want to store large items that I use like maybe once a year or so.

Bernie did arrange things to a rough order as a surprise to me while I was at work. He graciously suggested that I was welcomed to re-arrange it all to my satisfaction. He sat and watched me as I pondered how to arrange everything to be most efficient and culled items as I went along.

Wouldn't it be interesting to put all the stuff on the floor, round up about five to ten women, and ask them to arrange the cooking items to their own satisfaction.

Is there just one right way to organize a kitchen?

If there is...I'd love to know.

Well, I think I've managed to make my kitchen much more simplifed, and my photography much more complicated.
I'm hoping this represent a balance in my life.
Hoping...

(Anyone want to go with me to Fashion Week in Mumbai some year???? Anyone?????)