Throw Away Camera 4

Here's disposable camera #4. The first photo was from when I fell and busted my butt in the creek. These photos are from a camera I dropped in the water as I fell. Luckily it floated and they were able to salvage most of the film a day later. The picture of Mike with mud on his face.... yeah that mud is also a result of the graceful fall that I took. Anyway, here you go!


















I got tattooed last night, and I'll have plenty to blog about later but as for right now, I have to finish writing a 12+ page paper.. and when I say finish, I really mean begin. Okay!

PS; Today is TOMS' One Day Without Shoes! I'm going barefoot and so should you! It's easy!

Busy Bee.

I wasn't lying when I said I'd be going full throttle this week. So far, I've thrown out a book concept, come up with another one (on Monday morning), started designing it, laid out a dummy book and labeled every single page while planning, wrote the full text/copy, took photos, then took photos OF photos, laid them out, manually paginated all 168 pages, printed, trimmed, comped, hand-bound the book, padded a cover, upholstered the cover, drilled holes through the whole thing and then attached it all with bolts. I did all of that within 36 hours. How I managed to create and design 168 pages.... I'll never know. But I did. it's done. 6 hours at Kinko's and I have a 99% finished book (I say 99% because in reality, I'd have to switch out some of the photos for other ones but I didnt get them developed in time. oh film!)

I was giddy last night when I left Kinkos right before midnight. GIDDY! So giddy that I allowed myself to come home and watch 2 episodes of Dexter with Mike. Eep! Presentations are today at 1pm. I have to head over to school early though because I have a Student Government meeting. After class we're heading to Nashville to get my calf tattooed. I'm nervous as balls but hopefully all goes well.

Yesterday while trying to lay out the rest of my book and come up with copy, we took Georgia to the puppy park. She has fun and is distracted and I get to sit on the bench and be productive. She had so much fun. However, one mean dog was rolling her on the ground and biting her. G's tongue was bleeding at one point but she didn't care. She's so unphased by that stuff. She just ran and ran and ran, and then swam some and then rolled in the dirt. She LOVES the puppy park and I love to take her. I feel like a good Momma. One lady kept getting angry at her dog for getting wet/dirty... uh hello... this is a puppy park. With other puppies. That play. and get muddy. Dogs will be dogs. By the time we got G to the car, she was covered head to toe in mud. I love that little stinker.

Oh speaking of G.... She's having her eye surgery on Friday! It was scheduled with a dental clean on May 3rd but we called and had it bumped up to April 9th! SO EXCITED!

Here's some silly pictures of her yesterday while she slept on my fabric while I was trying to make my book cover.



We used a drill to drill through the book and apply the bolts. This was the dummy mockup that I did so I could make sure every single page was laid out correctly and so that when I paginated it by hand, I did so correctly. It was time consuming to make this dummy book but SO worth it in the end. It saved my butt so many times these past 2 days.



Here's some rough photos of my book. This is the cover (it's padded) and it's bound with 2 bolts. The 1 inch on the left side stays flat and the rest of the book is scored to bend and open easily.


This is an interior spread. Each "day" has an assignment, paired with a photo (this one doesn't relate), and then the next spread is a page for you to journal about what you did, and then a page for you to attach a photo that you took to represent that day. (The kit also comes with photo corners that are black so that you can put any size photo in there, be it a polaroid or 4x6 etc)


Apparently Mello Yello did a redesign?! IDK but I love it. I hate mello yello but I bought it just because of the packaging. Yes, I'm a packaging nerd.



xo

PS: I've been asked a few times what my calf tattoos were going to be and I'm not sure I ever mentioned so here you go... the one I'm getting today is on my right calf and it's a traditional piece with roses, swallow, a banner that reads "Nana" and a vintage sewing machine/spool of thread/needle because my Nana was a seamstress all her life. The one on my left calf (to come later) is the same idea, but with the masonic symbol and stonemason tools because my Papa was a stonemason :) so there you have it :) *(I just told my artist what I was thinking... I said "traditional pieces, flowers and a vintage sewing machine with the words in a banner saying Nana" and she came up with a really great sketch that I went to see yesterday. Oddly enough, it's very reminiscent of the adorable Silje's calf tattoos, but don't worry, I didn't copy her or steal her design or anything. But if you haven't read her blog, go check it out HERE. She did a wonderful watercolor painting of Bert for me! She's adorable!)*

PPS: To clear up any confusion with the last photo post... NO, Mike and I are NOT engaged! haha! I realize I'm sporting a big rock on that left ring finger but I can assure you that it's a $12.99 Target special! I wear it while I'm at work/the bar so when drunk fellas come calling, I can flash it and say "I'm taken". It really really gets old in the bar. Mike and I both hope that one day that time will come for us, and I will be very excited for it so I'll probably blog immediately :P As much as I'd love to get engaged right now, I feel like an engagement puts pressure on you to start planning the wedding immediately (and even though I've been planning it my whole life, I don't want to rush to the altar just yet!) Rest assured, I will let you know if and when!

Throw Away Cameras 2 & 3

Miike beat me to posting a few on his blog... I can't even begin to describe how busy yesterday was. This whole week will continue to be. I promise I'll be around, though. But everything (facebook, formspring, twitter for the most part) is taking a breather. I'm swamped! If you're on FLICKR, let's be ~contacts.

PS; Here's another Shop It To Me invite-only code if you want to join (30%+ off Marc Jacobs, Free People, Miu Miu, etc!) And you get free giftcards for stuff! :D (I've received $100 in giftcards so far).

xo

Easter Weekend

Work definitely wasn't any better on Saturday night... I held out hope but the bar was stocked and ready to go well over an hour and a half before closing. I sat down at the bar in a stool, played on my phone, and hung around until Mike showed up about a quarter after 1am. He drove down in his car to pick me up and we drove to my parents' house because we brought laundry and Georgia with us. I left my car at work overnight.

We were coming into town a little after 2am and all of a sudden Mike asks "Did you just see what I saw?!" I had no clue what he was talking about so we turned around really quickly and looked again... It was a big ol' cow.. a big cow, standing directly on the side of the 4 lane highway... just chewing some grass. Our lights spooked it a bit and it ran down the hill a little. Hohenwald is a tiny tiny rural town, so this WOULD seem normal... except that part of "town" isn't really near any farms. So I called it into 911 (couldn't get my iPhone to process the police #) and told the dispatch that there was a loose cow that looked like it wanted to dodge some traffic. Then I said "Well I'm only calling it in because I'm assuming someone will probably report it missing". The dispatch (who was audibly an older gentleman) exclaimed "I WISH someone would report that thing! It's been evading me for four weeks now! I'll get a call, send someone out there, then the dang thing will just run off! It's bigfoot! You just saw bigfoot!" At this point I'm cracking up, about to pee my pants, and just trying to stay with the dispatch. He was such a friendly fellow, and that conversation pretty much made my week. My parents got a kick out of it Sunday morning, too.

Anywhoo, after sleeping and waking up early (9am-ish?!), mom made breakfast and we ate. After that, I spent some time getting ready and we went to Walmart to grab a couple Easter cards for family. Here's the floppy hat I bought the other day (I didn't wear it yesterday), but the photo below was what I wore for Easter (new dress... but it's a halter top and I'm not crazy about it. I'm thinking it's too poofy).



And a photo of Georgia after running around outside for a while. She was exhausted and hot.


After the Walmart trip, on the way home, I happened to see someone I knew... someone I haven't seen or spoken to in a few years... my father. If you've never seen me post anything really emotional or honest, here's your chance. I recognized him immediately and I couldn't help but start bawling uncontrollably. Mike pulled over to talk to me and stuff, but I just wiped my face, said I wanted to go home, and that was that. Well, until my Mom saw my face. She could tell I was upset about something and I told her. She asked "Did you talk to him?" I said no. She said "Well you're about to" and she walked into her room, called him, and handed me the phone. I was literally running down the hallway opposite of her crying "No, I don't want to! I don't want to!" but alas, she handed the phone off and I spoke. He could tell I was crying but I lied. Regular small talk like work and weather... things you'd talk to your old neighbor about if you hadn't seen one another in a few years. He didn't know what I was going to college for, He didn't know that I graduate in December, blah blah blah. A man... A FATHER... who sees his daughter's name and handwriting EVERY Sunday at work... yet never thinks about calling to check up on her or to say Happy Birthday. This has been going on my entire life. 22 years. A vicious cycle where we'll talk and visit each other for a few months, then we'll fight about something and not speak for years. He says it's because we both have tempers... I say "I got it honestly". Instead of spending time with me, he'd buy me things, take me to the mall, sit me in front of a new flat screen computer, etc. All I wanted was him to take an interest in a volleyball game or a softball scrimmage. Come see me go to Prom or maybe lunch in Franklin. People say I'm lucky to even know who my father is in this day and age... but how easy do you think it is to be 100% sure your father KNOWS of your existence, yet he blatantly avoids you and wants nothing to do with it? We have a house on the Tennessee River with lots of boats and 4wheeelrs and fun stuff. He said he'd like for Mike and I to come down in 4 weeks when I get out of school for the summer. We'll see.... Anyway, whatever.

We ventured out to my Nana's house with part of my extended family. We had a nice lunch (though Mike and I could barely eat anything... My family thinks meat should go in EVERYTHING! And few people were aware of the fact that we don't eat meat.... even though I went vegetarian when I was thirteen haha), good conversation, I met my cousin's new baby (she's adorable!), and we shot some more pictures with our throw away cameras (post soon!).

After a while we gathered our things, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Franklin. Well, Mike drove me to get my car in Columbia. I passed out the whole way. As we were pulling out of work, low-and-behold, guess who is pulling in to do Sunday inventory? My father. As if yesterday couldn't have gotten any more awkward. It was casual small talk once more. The first time he's seen me in years. Red hair. Tattoos. It's all new to him. We drove back home and dropped off some film. I tried getting into school to do some work but it was locked so I came home and worked on it. Mike and I brainstormed my book idea once more and came up with something better. (Thank you if you submitted stuff! I'll still try to use it!) We made dinner and tried watching Dexter but the website was shoddy. We caught up on Community and Modern Family before hitting the hay.

I've been up for an our already (early to rise at 8:30am) and I'm about to wake up Mike. We've got things to do!

I'm headed to Nashville tomorrow to go approve the sketch for my calf tattoo on Wednesday. This week is going to be so incredibly hectic. The book/super comp is due on Wednesday, and a million page paper is due on Friday. Just let me get through this week!

I have to pay my NYC rent this week too.... $4600 for 2.5 months. GEEEEZE!

Happy New Week!
xo