10,000 hours

According to recent pop social science it takes approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill. Whether or not you subscribe fully to Malcolm Gladwell's arguments, it's generally not considered a bad idea that practicing something will make you better at it.  I read somewhere (I wish I could find the quote) that Harriet Hargrave says you have to practice your machine quilting everyday for at least six months before you can start feeling somewhat proficient.  Sigh.  So true. 

Today I put the Juki back in the table and got to work finishing the quilting on a charity quilt.  I also ordered the parts to make a speed-limiter as the foot pedal is the only reason I was thinking of giving up the machine. I'm not going to keep track of my hours thank you very much, that would be way too discouraging, but I do need to get cracking and get a bunch of UFOs and charity quilts quilted.  No excuses!  :-)

I also have a new camera with a 160 page manual and lots of bells and whistles.  Urgh.  I sure hope I can master the thing without 10,000 hours!  In the interest of experimentation and practice I've been steadily snapping pictures since Sunday afternoon.  The pond is always a good photo subject...brown though it is at the moment.  The storm and flooding left lots of debris on the overflow pipe.  Ms. Goose is still over there at her post under the red tree.

The ducks and geese are unperturbed...by me and my camera or the brown water.

And the turtles come to peer up at me.  I don't know how they see under there!

The bluebirds have been building a nest over the chickadee nest in the box.  There were four chickadee eggs.  No blue eggs yet though.

Mastering the action shot....except the cardinal stayed still!

Charlie is always interested in what's pointing at him.  He never stays still.  :-)

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Yikes!  Our vacuum cleaners are multiplying.  I couldn't resist a family grouping.  LOL

Sitting in the living room fooling with camera settings.  Pinhole setting.  This could be fun.

Grainy B&W.

Oh my!

"Happy" setting maybe?  I forget!

Regular B&W.

Funky frames.

Macro...which I clearly haven't mastered.

Sitting at my desk reading the manual and snapping photos.  The Tramp is carefully ignoring me.  :-)

Zoom!

Sigh.  Maybe it will take 10,000 hours.  Oh well.  It's pretty hard to go wrong with pictures of the pond....or my honey!  :-)