Nature Woman

This is so cool of Seventh Generation to help women’s shelters, and since I use Seventh Generation products (including the girlie items) I thought I’d pass this along to you:

TamPontification

From their website:

Women’s shelters in the U.S. go through thousands of tampons and pads monthly, and, while agencies generally assist with everyday necessities such as toilet paper, diapers, and clothing, this most basic need is often overlooked. You and I may take our monthly trips down the feminine care aisle for granted, but, for women in shelters, a box of tampons is five dollars they can’t spare. Here’s some good news: you can help us contribute to rectifying this situation by making a virtual donation below! For each virtual donation, Seventh Generation will send a pack of organic cotton tampons or chlorine-free pads to a shelter in your state.

Please clicky and pass it on to your friends. I never thought about this before. I plan on doing a daily click. This is on the list of one of the things I could NOT live without and wouldn’t want to see any woman living without these, either.

While I’m talking about Seventh Generation products, I take it they got their name from The Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy:

‘In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.’

This is from their toilet paper package:

YOU ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE TM

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 500 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissue with 100% recycled ones, we could save:

• 423,900 trees
• 1.0 million cubic feet of landfill space, equal to 1,600 full garbage trucks.
• 153 million gallons of water, a year’s supply for 1,200 families of four.

This product is free of dyes, inks and fragrances.

Safe for septic systems.

Ideal for low-flow toilets.

P.S. Male readers please clicky, too!

I forgot to mention that yesterday when I was working on Tom’s computers at OHA he had jazz playing. These OHA guys always have music playing in their offices which I think is great. One of his computers is on a stand where I had to stand up to reach it, so I was working and dancing at the same time (hey, nobody was around, I thought). But alas I did get caught, and I don’t care! When Tom came back I asked him what he was playing - it is smoothjazz.com. I’m hooked. I’ve got it playing right now. I love instrumental jazz. There is some vocal, but not too much. And what’s really cool is they show the artist, album and song title in case you just *have* to have a particular song or songs for your ipod / computer / etc.

How about you, do you listen to Internet radio, and if so, what do you listen to?

A few weeks ago I put together three panels for Onondaga Historical Association’s “booth” at Central New York Blooms. I was really hoping to see how they came out when I went in today, but they SOLD them! Cool beans. People actually wanted to buy stuff that I put together, including the article I wrote about David Campbell. Mike helped arrange the third panel because it wasn’t looking right to me and he is very artistic. Unfortunately they didn’t take a complete photo of the second and third panels. But here is Scott Peal playing David Campbell standing next to the panel about David Campbell and the Thorden Park Rose arbor.

Let me just say that Scott Peal is an awesome actor. He has one of those faces that can turn into any male character you want him to, and he’s a very nice person in real life, too.

Here’s a photo of a woman reading my article - someone actually stopped to read the article - cool beans!

These photos aren’t mine - they belong to the Onondaga Historical Association, but I had to share them with you. I leave you with some pretty flowers from one of the CNY Blooms displays:

When I went to get to the mail today, I found this tiny feather frozen onto the road. Of course I had to dig it up, let it dry out and photograph it for you. It’s all of 2″ long, and I have no clue who it belonged to or what feather it is. If you know, please let me know! I took the photo on one of the envelopes I received so you could see how small it is:

Today I received a comment on my post here from Dresden Engle, Public Relations Manager, George Eastman House which I found very interesting and I thought you would, too!

Dear Pam,
THANK YOU for sharing your images of George Eastman House with the world (and your devoted readers).

Please allow me to answers two questions, one posted here and one from a late entry:

The Kodak camera of 1888 was loaded for 100 exposures. That camera cost $25, which was about six-weeks wages at the time. Processing was an additional $10. While it did mark the start of mass photography, the camera was expensive for most yet easy to use, sold using Eastman’s clever slogan, “You Press the Button, We Do The Rest.”

The Brownie of 1900, however, truly marked the birth of popular photographer, as it sold for $1 and film for 15 cents. Please note, however, the camera was loaded with only six exposures. Yet, it was a quality camera and a hit with children and adults alike. Eastman knew children were the future of photography, naming the camera after an elfin storybook character created by British author Palmer Cox. He included children in advertisements and noted in ad copy language such as, “The Brownie can we operated by most any schoolboy or schoolgirl.” Eastman also marketed to women, an novelty at the time …

To answer the question about what happened to the Brownie, Kodak produced and sold more than 150 models of the Brownie worldwide from 1900 until 1970, the last year the Brownie was manufactured.

Regarding the motion picture machine you saw in the Machines of Memory gallery, which you referred to as a “coin operated moving picture machine,” it is in fact an Edison Kinetoscope from 1894. The Kinetoscope is one of the earliest commercially produced motion picture systems, and used film Eastman adapted from his 1888 Kodak camera. The label was there, just posted on top of the case and clearly too high for you to see. We’ll see what we can do about moving it lower …

Thank you, again, for featuring Eastman House and our collection!

Dresden Engle, Public Relations Manager,
George Eastman House

Today I woke up to blowing and drifting snow and white-outs. And even though I vowed not to take anymore photos or videos of snow here’s a video of the trees blowing around in back.

Click To Play

Spring will be here soon, it really will! I know it will be!

I have lots to blog about, lots on my mind, but not in the mood to type it out, because some of it would require research, and I want to get back to the book I mentioned yesterday. Which is very good by the way.

So here’s another photo of me as a kid. I just noticed the oil on the driveway from the car - ick! I was pulling our dog Lucky around in the wagon. I could do anything to that dog. I used to play underneath the dining room table with him and dress him up in my clothes and hats. And he just sat there and took it. He was my good pal.

How about you, did you have a favorite pal when you were a kid?

And Happy Birthday to my younger brother - here he is as a little cutie on his third birthday. He came around when I was 5 1/2 and he was my little baby (after he was cleaned up and fed, that is)!

I’m taking a break in the George Eastman House tour to tell you I *did* have plans to go out and capture more photos today to show you during the upcoming week, but I’ve had this cough thing going on and my plans involve being right near the lake, and as anyone who lives near one of the Great Lakes knows, the air around the lake is very very damp and cold in March. (How’s that for a run-on sentence)? Witness every breath I take just to get my mail makes me cough up a storm. So my plans are on hold for now. Instead I am reading the new book “What Wildness Is This : Women Write About the Southwest,” edited by four women, one of them being one of my favorite authors, Susan Wittig Albert who has her Lifescapes blog here. My mind is on breathing in very dry air, feeling hot sunshine on my skin today, and thinking about how truly wild Arizona still is once you get out of the city. It is thrillingly, scaringly, spine-tingling wild, much wilder than anything I consider wild around here.

A pleasant surprise was to see a piece in this book written by Diane Ackerman, who is another one of my favorite authors / lecturers / people.

Oh, and I’m trying to find a new theme for my blog, as I am bored stiff with the mountains with snow one. The caribbean one didn’t work out as well as I had hoped, and this one is a snore. The one I really wanted doesn’t show my blogroll. When I feel more like it I’ll have to dig into the code and fix one up to my liking! Thanks for your patience as I redecorate around here!

I stopped in at the “Machines of Memory” Exhibition at the George Eastman House:

This is one of the first things I saw, no sign, but it looks like one of those coin operated moving picture machines. I like the wooden cabinet.

Next I spied signs above each display case. Notice what the words are printed on:

It’s was hard to take photos of each complete display case, and head on was out because of the reflection, so I’m giving you partial sideviews:

Display #2

Here’s an old fashioned movie camera. Hmmm, I just noticed the little sign I should have taken a photo of so I know exactly what this is!

Some cool old stuff, huh? I’ll be back with more later!

I’m taking a little break from the topic of photography today to show you the various rooms of George Eastman’s home. The first room I walked in to was the dining room, and the first thing I saw was the beautiful original mahogany table and chandelier:

I love the symmetry of this room. The walls are lime-washed carved oak:

And the ceiling is elaborate plaster strapwork:

The next room I walked in to was the Conservatory, but I already blogged about that. After the Conservatory was the Billiard Room. (It’s starting to sound like Clue, isn’t it, Miss Scarlet with the candlestick in the Billiard Room). The billiard room has teak paneling, among many other things I didn’t photograph (yet):

Are you getting that this is definitely a man’s home?

There is a fireplace in this room, but with the ropes keeping us in like cattle, it was hard to take even a somewhat decent photo of it. The next room is on the list of my favs, the Library:

Again with the ropes, so I am using the mirror to show you more of the room than I could photograph:

I love globes,

And what’s that beautiful old book in the corner with the colorful flower photos? Hmmm, I don’t know, do you? I love the brightness of the flowers.

From the library I walked in to the main foyer, with the grand mahogany staircase, and boy do I love the symmetry here!

The finials on top of the newell posts are beautiful!

Walk up the stairs, and you can go left or right - how cool is that? I walked up the stairs, then took a photo looking down into the conservatory from the top:

Look at the spindles and you’ll see they’re not all the same - they represent the ropes on a ship!

Next I walked into George Eastman’s mother’s walk-in closet, and spied hat boxes. The cool thing about these hat boxes is they are from local businesses - stores / businesses that no longer exist:

I walked into the bathroom, but didn’t feel very photographic at that point because, well, I hate bathrooms anyway, and I didn’t think you’d want to see a photo of a john, a sink, or a tub - boring, right? So I walked into her bedroom, and spied this very old sampler from 1831 I’ve been hearing about for a while:

This is a really pretty room done in roses as you can see:

I love full length mirrors so you can see what you look like coming and going before you leave your room:

Back out in the upstairs hallway, I could look up into the third floor through this oculus (oval opening) in the ceiling:

Okay, back down the gorgeous staircase and into the living room:

Hmmm, doesn’t look like my living room. This living room looks like a ballroom to me, with its oak floor, center table with French-polish finish, original chandelier and wall coverings of silk damask. I love the original Steinway grand piano:

and the ceiling medallions, one in each corner, each one representing the four seasons:

I love the detail around the doorway:

Back out in the hallway, I walked underneath the staircase, and found these Aeolian Pipe Organ Duo-Art Music boxes - note: I am now in back of the Aeolian Pipe Organ which is in the conservatory. An Aeolian Pipe Organ is an automatic, self-playing organ.

That’s it for now for the house. I left the main part of the house through this colonnade:

I stopped and looked to the right and I saw the beautiful doorway leading out to the gardens:

And here ends the tour of George Eastman’s home. I’ll get back to cameras and photography tomorrow!