Category: Personal Page 1 of 7

So…it’s been a VERY LONG TIME since I updated things around here, and what a time it’s been! Last time I posted, I was just starting a Chronological watchlist project (known to me as Chrono project or sometimes just Chrono), and planned to post an update on that at the end of each year of cinema I finished. That has obviously not happened, for a lot of reasons.

Not the only one, but certainly one of the most prominent, is the arrival of our second child, Thea. Our older daughter is just finishing Kindergarten, the baby is walking, and I’m back to work full-time. This leaves not much time for watching movies, but it’s really the writing about them that’s hard to find time for these days. I’ve also been spending what little blogging time I have writing for Flickchart. That said, I would very much like to get back into things around here!

I don’t have many pictures of them together anymore, and this is why…

I have been plugging along on the Chrono project, though, despite all these life changes, and I’m up to 1913 now, so still quite early going, but I’m through all the Edison and Lumiere and Melies, getting a good start on Griffith and starting to see some more near-feature length films coming along. Watching movies this way has already been quite rewarding, as the innovations in early cinema are easy to see and appreciate – things like closeups and camera movements are VERY exciting the first time you see them, and you wouldn’t get that if you weren’t watching in order.

Let’s be a little honest right now. I started writing this post in October. It’s now May. The busyness has not abated. I can’t and won’t promise to be anything but sporadic, but I do want to post here SOMETIMES and right now I’ve got to get past the whole “but it’s been like two years since I posted anything” mental block. So I have to post SOMETHING now to break my silence, and this is it. I have half a post also started catching up on the 20+ years worth of early cinema I’ve watched, and I hope to have that out before too long. And I just signed up for Raquel’s Classic Film Book Summer Reading challenge – if there is something I’ve taken time to do over the past year or so, it’s read, so hopefully I won’t fail on that too badly. Look for probably brief reviews of those books here in the coming weeks.

I meant to do this post much earlier, but as anyone out there with kids will understand, they’re kind of time-consuming, especially in the first few weeks. Our daughter was born March 1st, and thus is six weeks old today. As may come as no surprise to anyone who recognizes my blog header image, we named her Karina – inspired by, though not necessarily after, actress Anna Karina.

So far she’s shown little interest in any of the fine video content we’ve exposed her to, from Star Trek: The Next Generation to Mildred Pierce to Archer to The Amazing Race. Ah well. On the good side, she seems to enjoy all the music we’ve played, so I’m sure we’ll get there on the visual content when she has the ability to, like, see it.

Here are a few pictures taken throughout the past six weeks. Most were taken by me or Jonathan on our phones or with our Canon Rebel; the hospital ones were taken by our friend and professional photographer Sarah.

Note that this post is the 1000th published post on The Frame. I think that’s appropriate. :)

Observant readers may have noticed that the last post on The Frame is dated something like three months ago, which essentially means I’ve been on unannounced hiatus for a while. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, there’s a good chance you already know my big news, but as I’m starting to get the writing bug again and want to get back into the blog, a bit of an explanation seemed to be in order. My husband Jonathan and I are expecting our first child next March, so the last few months have been spent doing a lot of sleeping and resting as I get used to sharing my body with another person, and the last few weeks have been spent moving into a new apartment with shorter commutes and bigger rooms for all the baby stuff we’ll be acquiring very soon.

Things seem to be settling into more of a routine now, though, and I’m hoping to at least keep up a little better with movie watching and writing than I have been. We found out a few weeks ago that it’s a girl, and we’re pretty stoked to share our love of everything movies with her. (To the question I’m learning is inevitable: yes, we have a name picked out, but we’re keeping it to ourselves for now.) I’m sure as she grows old enough to start watching movies with us, I’ll be posting more about her and the movies we’re watching with her.

I know it’s only a few weeks after my post about our engagement photos, but now there are wedding photos. As previously stated, our photographer is amazing and decided to put together a slideshow of pictures, blending preparations and wedding and reception all together in what is really a wonderful portrait of a wonderful afternoon. Everything turned out exactly how we wanted it, and I couldn’t ask for a better representation than Sarah gave us.

The song is “True Love Will Find You in the End,” a Daniel Johnston song as covered by Mates of State. We chose it not only because, well, it fits us pretty well, but also because Mates of State was the first band Jonathan and I saw together, back in July 2010. We weren’t dating yet at that point, but I think it was already on both of our minds. Mates of State were touring their Crushes album that year, a collection of covers of which this is the last on the record. They’re all great, but I think this one will always hold a special place in our hearts. Especially now, of course!

(for the record, the children are not ours – we had our whole church, which is about half kids, out for the wedding)