Gimpy

Photography has always been something I’ve enjoyed and dabbled with. In my high school journalism classes more than a decade ago (yikes!), we learned all about composure and framing, contrast and light, as well the technical aspects of using SLR cameras -- film back in those days, not digital. Another aspect of those classes was learning to use Photoshop for editing the photos. I quickly learned that just as a good editor can turn an average piece of writing into a literary masterpiece, a good photo editor can do the same for a photograph, albeit with more technical tools. Luckily (?) for me, I was in school for many, many years beyond high school, so I was able to keep easy access to Photoshop. Those academics love their fancy software. But ever since I’ve been out in the *real* world, my life has been sadly Photoshop-free.

I still enjoy photography. And I have still edited my photos -- to some degree. But until recently, it was not at the level that I would have liked. I got a free copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements somewhere, but it just offended me with its simplicity. So essentially I haven’t had access to good photo-editing software since 2006. Until now.

Thanks to my good friend Hilary’s advice, I downloaded Gimp. It’s freeware, which is awesome compared with $700 for CS4. But it’s got a lot of the capabilities -- and functions very similarly to -- the old Photoshop I know and love. So far I’ve just used it on my PC at work because I don’t have Internet at home. So I don’t know how it will work on my Mac, but as soon as Verizon stops hating me and I’m back in Web-land, I plan on downloading that version and testing it out as well.

I’m an idiot and forgot my jump drive at home today with all my before-and-after edited photos to show off (again, no Internet at home -- so frustrating). I had all these lovely images of fall leaves and DC scenes. But oh well. Instead, I’ll show you Richele. Richele is Washington’s newest Examiner blogger, and she needed a profile picture for her bio. So she called on me, her trusty life assistant, to help out. Here’s the picture we started with. Obviously she didn’t want other people in the shot, but she liked this picture. So I told her I’d work some magic.



Normally I’m not one to alter reality (i.e., delete light posts, flip images, etc.), but I figured since this was for a bio picture, it was OK to take out all the background noise so it didn’t appear that she had strange plastic things growing out of her head. I didn’t have a lot of time to work on it, so the contrast between her head and the background is a little fuzzier than I'd like. But all in all, I -- and she -- was pleased. And now I'm spreading the word about Gimp, which I'm the last person in the world to know about, per usual.

The best time of year

Every now and again, I get a mild case of homesicknesses -- crazy, I know, for someone who has lived in seven cities in five states during the past 10 years (I just counted, I've moved 15 times in that period!). And rarer still, are the times that I feel nostalgia for Subtropical Paradise. But one of those rare occurrences has been happening during the past month or so. Chalk it up to missing out on a presidential debate in my hometown as well as some golden gridiron moments or turning a year older, but nonetheless I've been missing recently the rolling hills of Oxford, Saturday afternoons in the Grove, and humid Wednesday evenings spent sweating and listening to jazz in Lafayette Square.

But then something happened. The days started getting shorter. The nights started getting chilly. And before I knew it, fall was here, and I remembered why I love the East Coast so much.

Last weekend, I drove a friend to her hometown in West Virginia and decided to take the long way back to enjoy a solo romantic drive through the mountains to see the leaves that are beginning to change -- and let's be honest, to stop by Sonic in Winchester (a tried and true homesickness remedy). Doing so also allowed me to snag a whole bushel of freshly picked West Virginia apples (or maybe it's a peck -- I can never remember the difference).

I must backtrack now and explain that my family is known for our love of apples. I do, after all, share my birthday with John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. There's a story that often gets shared at holiday gatherings about the time I told my parents' friend who was offering a much-younger me something to drink that no, I wouldn't like a Coke or milk. "I'd like apple juice, please." And my sister has a similar penchant for the fruit. In fact, one of her many nicknames, Teej, is strangely enough derived from her affinity for apple juice.

But this is all an aside from the story at hand: my elation at scoring the mother lode.

Obviously I had to do something with my apples. I ate a bunch. And I made some applesauce. But my honest-to-goodness "grown-up" favorite way to use apples is to make apple pie.

So I made some -- lots, in fact.



And they were delicious. My favorite apple pie recipe has been stiched together from several years of trial and error. And I'm pretty pleased with the current product. Or at least I was until I saw this recipe today. Thank goodness I'm going apple picking next weekend, so I can try it out.

But until then, here's the current front-runner. Enjoy!

Katie's Apple Crumb Pie

Ingredients:
1 pie shell (store-bought or I usually use a generic Better Homes and Garden recipe)
6 cups peeled and sliced cooking apples
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinammon
Dash of nutmeg
1 cup flour (sifted)
1/2 cup brown sugar
Dash of salt
Stick of butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash, peel, and slice the apples. Toss apple slices with lemon juice in a large bowl. Add sugar, cinammon, and nutmeg. Stir to coat all the apples, then add the apple mixture to the pie shell. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, and salt with butter until the mixture is crumbly. (I usually let my butter sit out for a while first so it's softer to work with, but don't wait too long or your crumb topping will end up runny).

Sprinkle the crumb mixture on top of the apples and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until the apples are soft.

Geez, can't there be any good news?

'Traspasar os sete mares, espellismo tatuado, labirinto de consciencia e nacen cantes.'

Just about a year ago, I was madly working on two giant freelance projects about Barcelona and Dubai. And even though they took up every waking minute of my spare time for about five weeks last September and October, I look back on the time fondly because I discovered all sorts of fantastic things about both Barcelona and Dubai in the process. The lyrics in the title of this post are from a song called "Todo Tiende" by Ojos de Brujo, a Barcelona-based hip hop-flamenco band (with quite a few other influences as well). The group and song are just one of the gems I discovered on those projects. Among some others are a Filipino pop group popular among the expat set in Dubai and Pink Sushi, a fabulously awesome Emirati designer, whose quirky handbags are unfortunately only available in the Gulf.




But all this is just an aside to the main purpose of this post: to showcase my new -- OK, new-ish -- Barcelona skirt. I made this on a whim back in the summer. I'd gotten some cute Free Spirit fabric at Ipso Crafto and already had the pattern from my apron overlay. So I cranked out the layered skirt. I love the frayed look on the unfinished edges, though it could use a few more washings for an extra distressed look.

Suspense

I'm nothing if not good at keeping you in suspense. At long last, here are the some pictures glamour shots of the lacy dress in action. And yes, I realize it's way too late after Labor Day to be wearing white, but I'll hope you'll forgive when you think how long this thing took to make... (Special shout out to Richele for being my Tyra.)




(And no, I don't know why my eyes look even squintier than normal in these pics. They don't look like this on flickr.)

This is what I like to see

'Some days go on forever, sometimes the weatherman says rain'

1. Isabel, 2. Ivan, 3. Cindy, 4. Katrina, 5. Rita, 6. Ernesto, 7. Humberto, 8. Fay, 9. Gustav

Tomorrow is a special day. It's my blog's first birthday. It's also the day that Tropical Storm Hanna is expected to douse the eastern seaboard. One of the biggest pitfalls of living in subtropical paradise was the likelihood for violent storms to roll through the region, wreaking havoc, flooding my apartments, leaving death and destruction in their wakes. When I left New Orleans in the spring, I was quite happy at the thought of getting out of Dodge before another hurricane season. And with Gustav's pummeling the region earlier this week, I can see that I left not a moment too soon.

But now, come hurricane season, I've been lulled into a false sense of security on the east coast -- thinking I'm safe and secure in my high-ish ground, miles inland position. Yeah, not so much. I should have known it was too good to be true. Hurricanes have been following me all over southeastern coastlines -- and inland mountain valleys (thanks, Isabel '03) -- for the past five years.

So now it's time to batten down the hatches and hunker down. Here's hoping this apartment doesn't flood!