Ready for my close-up
Uptown Frog came out in front of the plant that serves as the wall of his private residence and actually stayed quite still for a long while as I moved around with the tripod and camera. He dashed under as soon as my shadow altered the sun – I’d like to be able to use that to get better photos, but it’s hard to get into the right place and not have a shadow sometimes. I really love how his greens complement the greens in the plant’s stalks.
I’ve been using a FitBit Ultra recently – and in a future entry I will talk about the great things it does for my motivation to be more healthy, but that is not what this post is about.
One thing the FitBit Ultra does is track how well you’re sleeping. You wear it on a wristband and I assume however much your wrist moves around is related to how well you’re sleeping and if it should call you “awake” or not. It actually seems pretty accurate.
Last night I went to bed at a reasonable hour – around 10pm local time. I had worked hard during the day putting in many hours of yard work (including a grueling session of deadheading the day lilies – which results in something nice but in the hours I’m doing it I mostly hate). I was tired and sore.
I was, apparently, too tired to sleep. I hate that.
When I went to bed I called my cat – Stray Cat (that’s her name, don’t judge) – and she mrowled a lot. I explained to her that I was not about to go back downstairs to give her tuna or anything else and that her only options were come upstairs to sleep or not. She came upstairs. Here is a picture of her when she’s less annoyed:
sitting on mom’s lap on the deck
Now might be a time to admit that while I had been on the computer earlier in the evening I had a weird feeling that someone else was in the house. Mind you, I knew this was impossible – I had been walking around the house downstairs to get my 5 miles of walking in (for the FitBit, you see) and I had carefully checked all the locks on the downstairs doors. So I knew no-one was in the house but me and Stray Cat (my husband being away on business travel). I shook off the feeling because it was silly.
I went to bed. I tossed and turned. I tried multiple varieties of sound on the sound machine to help me sleep. Stray Cat did come up and jump onto the bed. She slept. I tried.
Around 2:30am I heard noises – then LOUD CAT MROWLS and more LOUD CAT MROWLS – only one of which sounded like my cat.
Now might be a time to tell you that Stray Cat has a pretty cool cat door – it is tied to her microchip and only opens for her. So another cat being in the house is hard, but not impossible. There are a couple of cats who hang around the house but are too skittish to approach. The will come in the garage (where Stray Cat’s food bowl is kept) and eat her food if we leave the door open. I try hard not to do that but I had been doing a lot of yard work. It was not impossible that someone had been inside the garage/shop when I went to bed and who then came inside (through a non-microchip door) from the garage later. Weird, certainly. Unprecedented, even. But not impossible.
The Suspects
There is a ginger cat and a black cat who hang out. We call the ginger one Rudy – either short for Rutabaga or Rudolph (red-nosed cat) depending on whether you ask me or my husband respectively. The other is Black Cat. We’re not that creative.
In any case – at 2:30am I’m awakened to what sounds like a cat fight. Stray Cat is not known for her bravery in defending her territory. This could be ugly. I rush downstairs sans glasses (not a great plan). I see no cats. I hear no cats. Eventually I spot Stray Cat wild-eyed on the stairs heading back up. I walk around downstairs and in the garage and find no one.
Stray Cat and I go back to bed. She sleeps. I get up twice more to investigate and make sure there is no other cat in the house or garage. Apparently there is not.
It is possible the other cat was never in the house and the mrowling was through a window – they can be quite loud. But usually Stray Cat ignores any cat “through glass.” I have no idea. All I know is that all of this combined meant that I reset my 5:30am alarm to 6:30am (thankful that I could) and regardless it was the worst night of sleep my FitBit has recorded since I got it:
Mind you – only the 2:30 – 3:00am part is what I can blame on the cats. The rest is just me having a bad night. All in all, I am truly hoping for better tonight.
It seems Brave Frog (you’ll have to just trust me on that) enjoys sitting outside contemplating the sunset as much as we do. I like the silhouette even if the image isn’t quite a crisp as I’d hoped.
I can always count on Brave Frog to pose on a sunny rock for me! I am fascinated by the coloring – it’s not just the water making a difference. He is green at the head and brown at the back/legs. While this does help him blend into the algae-covered rocks (honestly, I do try to keep that from being too much of a problem) his bright green/black/white head also make him easy for me to spot, even without binoculars.
So, we thought that the fourth tadpole had not survived and we had three frogs. But when I spotted one upstream near the bridge, we did wonder if that was truly Eyeballs or not. It looked like Eyeballs and is certainly skittish like Eyeballs but….
So yesterday I spotted all three (Eyeballs was staring at Cave Frog, who was in is cave, and Brave Frog was on a sunny rock) and I decided to look upstream. Lo and behold! The newly named “Uptown Frog” was sitting behind the plant, peeking out at us. In fact, this means he’s usually much closer to us than the others, because we sit near that part of the water most often.
Uptown frog has no roommates and a much better view of the waterfall. He’s also less bothered by the fish, we imagine. Smart move, Uptown.
I see you!
I love how the water is so reflective it looks like he’s poking through opaque glass – but you can still see his little hand and arm through the reflection of his chin and eyeball. This is also a nice demonstration of the surface tension of water – look how curved it is above and to the right.
It’s a two-for!
When I got home Cave Frog (who is getting big quickly!) and Brave Frog were both out on rocks. I was lucky to get them both in frame (and I had to be in a weird place, hence the odd angle) – and I couldn’t get them both totally in focus (Brave Frog lost out there) because Brave Frog is closer to me (he actually is smaller than Cave Frog) and the depth of focus with this lens is pretty tight. Nonetheless, pretty happy to have them both showing and facing the camera!
Nice Hips!
Yes, for those who follow me on twitter and are friends on facebook, this is a repeat. However, this may be my favorite photo of Brave Frog. He’s looking straight at me, is up on a rock, and I just love how he’s all flattened out. Tomorrow I’ll post a new photo of someone, but today I wanted to add this to the collection here. Enjoy!
peekaboo!
All this time I thought that Eyeballs was hiding – [UPDATE August 11, 2012 – Turns out this is NOT Eyeballs! This is a fourth frog newly named “Uptown Frog” – see the August 11 entry for more information]. However, it’s not like I thought! While Brave Frog and Cave Frog hang out mostly by the pond edge (or in the lilypads!) it appears Eyeballs is a bit more adventurous. I spotted him tucked between a plant and a boulder upstream of the bridge! He’s still skittish, but with patience and stealth I got a good photo of his cute little face.
After reading on my friend Rich’s site about his experiment with making salads-in-a-mason-jar I decided to give it a go myself. I find that despite my best intentions if I buy lunch during the day at work I don’t always make healthy choices. I make sandwiches sometimes but honestly it’s a little tedious and I wasn’t always taking the time. I also took frozen meals – those are okay sometimes but I always like salad as long as it’s got good variety. By making a week’s worth myself on Sunday, I’ve got the whole lunch thing dealt with and no stress or excuses about eating healthy.
The first week I had two working lunches, so I only made three salads. The key to this is the order in which the ingredients are placed into the jar. A wide-mouth quart mason jar is what I used based on Rich’s recommendation. Since this is the whole meal, I want it to be satisfying.
The order is this:
dressing on the bottom (I used low-fat dressing and am in love with a toasted sesame ginger version right now) – I just pour it into the bottom of the jar. Not all of it will be coming back out. This is (for the dressings I’m using) 100-150 calories based on probably putting more than 2 tablespoons into the jar.
veggies that can handle being on contact with the dressing for a while come next – I put matchstick carrots on, and the coleslaw mix (just the cabbage, not actual coleslaw). I just got some broccoli slaw to try next time, which I already know I love.
I add chopped red pepper and red onion on top of that, and then chopped cucumber. I also sometimes add sugar snap peas if I have them. And grape tomatoes work really well because you don’t have to slice them. I’m all for less work.
If you want, you can also add cheese. I’ve used crumbled feta but honestly you can also skip it if you have enough variety and a tasty dressing.
Next I add a protein (hey, this is the whole meal!). I’ve gotten the pre-cooked chicken breasts and they work great. I also used chopped ham and enjoyed that. The first time I tried an experiment with lump crab meat I happened to have on hand. More later on that. Total calories for average protein input for me is about 100 calories. That means even if I add a bit of cheese, which I usually forget to do, the whole thing is still under 300 calories and is mostly colorful veggies.
Finally, cram the top with lettuce. You need a lettuce that can stand up to the test for a week – so softer varieties are probably a bad idea. I’ve been sticking with romaine (because iceberg lettuce is just stupid) and it’s worked great!
the first three salads-in-mason-jars
Here are the three I made the first week (left to right):
1. light blue cheese dressing and chicken breast
2. light toasted sesame ginger dressing and chicken breast
3. light blue cheese dressing and crab meat
All the rest the veggies were the same though others would probably tailor this more. For the assembly line version, it’s easier not to bother and just let the dressing be the variety.
Day one I took the crab salad to work.
salad and bowl, time for lunch!
I had a large soup bowl in my office, but it wasn’t up to the task.
we’re gonna need a bigger bowl…
Fortunately I also had a supply of plates:
not as pretty as it could have been
It’s great how when you dump the salad out it’s in the right order and the interesting veggies and dressing are all on top! That didn’t happen the first time since I had to move from bowl to plate. Lesson learned. I use the plate now.
So – the crab. It was fine. It was not oh-my-gosh-awesome to be worth the expense and I do worry that it might not hold up as well over time. The chicken was very tasty and has been my favorite protein addition so far.
The salads are large, flavorful, and filling. I am carving out time on Sunday (it takes about 30 minutes total) to make my lunches for the week. I have had one that I ended up waiting 8 days to eat, and it was just as fresh and tasty as the first one. I highly recommend this for busy people who want to eat well. This way, you know exactly what is in your salad. Bon appetit!
@KellyOSullivan 