Anne Peattie

I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: my daughter was born a year ago today. I put this video together for her.

First Year of Maeve from Anne Peattie [...]

I discovered, via fortunate coincidence, that this Victorian on the corner of 7th and Channing – which I walk by and admire every day – is an official Berkeley landmark. As is this former factory, which was across the street from our previous Berkeley residence. I admit, I sometimes get the impression that there is a [...]

This week, Oakland elected Jean Quan mayor, the first woman to hold the job. She will also be the nation’s first female Asian-American mayor. But the real story is how she was elected. November 2010 marked the introduction of ranked choice voting (RCV) to several Bay Area cities’ ballots. San Francisco residents have been using RCV [...]

Earlier today, I read a very interesting NY Times article about the vast sums of money spent by the USDA, on campaigns benefitting companies like Domino’s and Taco Bell, to promote ever greater cheese consumption – in direct contradiction with our federal dietary guidelines and the food pyramid, which are established by… the USDA. Between discovering [...]

I spent way too much time yesterday (including my extra daylight savings hour) trying to figure out how to speed up video in QuickTime. Hopefully somebody out there can learn from my experience.

How to speed up/slow down video in QuickTime:

1. Open original movie in QT.
Optional: Copy segment to be altered into a new player (I do [...]

The One Day On Earth Project asked people across the world to document their lives on October 10th, 2010, using video or photography, and upload the results to onedayonearth.org. I realized pretty quickly that 10.10.10 was going to be a very normal, boring Sunday for us. I had little chance of contributing something Great and Meaningful [...]

Hard for me to forget because it’s my husband’s birthday. Here’s a poem he wrote.

Chicago Poem #46

They lost again.
And after all of that.
We pinned so much
hope, prized possessions, plastic googaw -
Remember that Ernie
never even tasted
the chilly, sweet dusk
on an October field
Under bright lights.
(The want is more/contains more)
Never heard the release
of a bellow and a linsky
like Novembers
that [...]

I made sure we took a Four Generations photo of Maeve, myself, my mother and grandmother this summer in Yosemite.

Unfortunately no photo was taken of my mom as a baby with her antecedents, but my grandmother provided me with two more, of me as a baby and herself as a child.

When I uploaded the photos [...]

I’ve decided to participate in that historic, annual November web event… no, I’m not writing a novel. Or growing a mustache. I’m talking about National Blog Posting Month, or BaNaNaPlaMo. I mean, NoPaBoHo. Whatever.

I don’t like the term stay-at-home mom. I could just as easily say I’m a stay-at-home scientist, but it’s the staying at [...]