[ lame-o post ]

Here is a lame-o quicky post, because I just got home from shooting a wedding, and I'm tired.

TIATF:

My need to add an extra 30 minutes onto travel time. I got to the main entrance of the place where the wedding was in pretty much the exact amount of time GoogleMaps said it would take me. But getting to the actual location of the wedding took another twenty minutes. So I was still ten minutes early, instead of twenty minutes late. Yay for being anal about being wicked early for things.

[ gingerbread ]

TIATF:

I have got to say, there is only one single reason I get excited for the ridonkulously early holiday shopping season.

GINGERBREAD LATTES, PEOPLE.

I'm usually not a Starbucks person. Personally, I think their coffee tastes like ass, and everything else is too overpriced for it to be worth it.

But, there are two little exceptions.

One, is the glorious Pumpkin Spice Latte, which rocks my October. I still only treat myself to one or two (sometimes three), because they are wicked expensive. But so very very tasty.

And two, is the fan-frickin-tabulous Gingerbread Latte, which comes out the millisecond Halloween is over. Again, I typically only indulge a few times, but mmmmm. The $3.85 I paid for my small (which is called a Tall, never really got that) is totally worth it today. I got it frappuccino-ized too, because it's hot-hot-hot today. Global warming is here, and I'm battling it with my Gingerbread Latte/Frappuccino.

Speaking of the environment, I had to fight the grocery lady today. She wanted to give me THREE bags for: one container of soy milk, two boxes of cereal, five apples and four bananas. Are you serious!?!? AND, the lady at Target DID give me THREE BAGS for three bottles of apple juice. Umm... what?!?!?!?!?

Ladies... you two are the reason the planet is in trouble. Hooooly shit.

Rant over.

Moral of the story:

Today, I am thankful for Gingerbread Lattes. Yummy!

[ seven ]

Well, well. The wonderful Sadira tagged me to list seven random things about myself. So I'm going to mostly participate ("He's only mostly dead..." what's the movie, anyone? I'll send you a prize if you guess!).

I'll definitely do the seven things (mainly because I don't have anything else to post about today!), but I'm not going to tag other people. Call me a rebel. Heeeeeere we go.

1. I cannot eat a food that has chunks in it. It's not just that I don't like it, I have an actual physical reaction, and can't swallow it. Examples are: yogurt with fruit, any baked good with fruit. Basically, if the food is supposed to be smooth, I want it to be smooth. This makes for some awkward moments, like when I worked at a day camp and had to trade my yogurt with a little kid because I had accidentally bought the kind with fruit chunks. Or when my good friend Brent made me apple cinnamon pancakes (with actual apples), and I tried valiantly to eat one, but couldn't, and Jesse had to make me plain pancakes instead.

2. The two toes next to my big toe on my right foot are partially webbed. I'd take a picture, but I'm too lazy this morning. Jesse gets a big kick out of telling me to spread my toes away from each other, because my left-foot toes spread quite wide (which he also tells me are freakish), and my two little webbed toes don't move.

3. I dislike the doctor to the point that it gives me slight panic attacks. I'm okay if it's a routine check-up, but if it isn't, it's pretty hard to keep myself from crying in front of the doctor. I can usually make it through the appointment, but I'm a disaster afterwards. Because of this, I rarely go to the doctor when I'm sick. (Only if my Mummay makes me!)

4. I was born and raised in a town called Sandwich. Yes, like the food. I've heard all the jokes, and none have been very good. "What kind of sandwich is it? Ham and cheese!?!?!" Ha. ha. ha. Now that I think of it, Dustin promised me a good Sandwich joke before we left college. And I never got one!

5. I collect Buddha statues. I have one from just about every country or major city I've been to, with the exception of Amsterdam (I hadn't started collecting them yet) and London (we were running around like crazy, and I simply didn't think of it). I started collecting them when I was 15 or 16, playing soccer in tournaments in Italy and Spain. We drove between the two, and on the way stopped in Nice. We walked through an open-air market, and I saw this awesome little Buddha statue that was black, with a blue glittery cape. Thus started the collection.

6. I was the weirdo in high school that loved math and science, and also art. I (to this day) love doing math... especially geometry and algebra. I LOVED doing proofs. All of my math-loving friends tell me that that is weird by itself. I graduated in the top ten of my HS class, and was the only one in the top 30 or so whose only APs were in math (calculus), science (physics), and art. In college, one of my favorite classes was Logic, even though it had me doing homework for at least two hours every single night. I was told I was nuts for that too. The only reason I didn't take the advanced Logic course the next semester was because I didn't think I'd have time for the workload.

7. I can eat shrimp until I explode. It really is the one food that I can't control myself with. I just eat it and eat it and eat it. At holiday gatherings, my mom would always buy a five-pound bag of shrimp. She'd put aside a certain amount, and that would be my shrimp. After my shrimp was gone, I was cut off. Although, I must admit (sorry Mom!), that I would totally sneak shrimp from the other plate. I couldn't help myself! I love shrimp!


I'm sure there are way more random and quirky things about me, but the rules were for seven. In other news....

Nance! If you're out there, I couldn't reply to your comment about my shot settings for the fair pictures because you didn't comment with any email... so here's what I was going to reply with:

Thanks for commenting. Let's seeeeeeeeee... I shot it all on manual. I kept my ISO at 1600, and kept my aperture pretty wide open: most of the shots are at an f.stop of 3.5 - 5.6. If I wanted a more blurry picture, I closed the aperture way down (some of the rides moving are at about f22). As for shutter speeds, I kept it right around 1/30 - 1/60. Any shots that are pointing directly at a light source, I popped it up to about 1/250, and again, for the motion shots, I slowed it down to about 0.5 seconds.

I hope that helps!

What's your blog?

I'm going to try to find you on NaBloPoMo!




TIATF:

My mummay and my daddy... due to a certain undertaking of mine which must remain a secret, I've been thinking a lot about how much support and love they've given me over the years. Even when I bitched and moaned, and was an all around ass, they had nothing but love and advice.

They fully supported my decision to pursue art as a major in college and as a career (which is actually really hard for a lot of parents... I met a few people in college that said "I would totally be an art major, but it would kill my mother/father."); they fully supported me playing soccer for like twelve or thirteen years, driving me all over the state, letting me go to Europe twice, helping me get over not getting picked for a team I should have been picked for (it's a long story, I won't get into it... and yes, part of me is still bitter about it), supporting me and being there for me when I wanted to quit, and when I got hurt and couldn't play anymore; they fully supported my desire to study in Italy (even though my mom was wicked jealous... one day Mummay, we'll go!); they even fully supported me moving all the way across the country with a boy right after college, even though I know it was hard for them to let the baby go.

I love you Mummay & Daddy!!!! Can't wait for the Vegas!

[ pilates ]

TIATF:

My pilates class. Tonight is the last night, and if there was going to be a class with this instructor again next session, I would totally take it. But she's traveling for most of the session, so someone else is taking over. I don't want a new instructor! Hilde is great. She's all about everyone going at their own pace. She shows us different variations of almost every single move. But she's also sure to challenge us every week. I'll definitely be on the look-out for the Rec Center's spring booklet.

I've got to get better at doing pilates at home. There's no reason I shouldn't be doing it more often than I am, especially since I always feel so great afterwards. Energized, flexible, all the kinks are worked out, taller, more poised. It really is a great exercise.

[ arizona skies ]

TIATF:

The beauty of the sky here. Undeniably the most beautiful I've seen. It's like driving home surrounded by a painting every night.

[ fair photos ]

Some photos from this weekend. I still maintain that AZ has the most beautiful skies ever!








For a whole lot more, check out my Flickr.



TIATF:

That I work from home two days a week. Along with getting work done for Brenda, it gives me time to myself, to work on various projects: organizing, designing, etc. Mondays and Fridays are good alone time. I love having Jesse home, but I also love my alone time!

[ oh so very tired ]

Jesse & I went hiking this morning at Thunderbird Park. It was a good hike, pretty quick and not super hard. Then we came back to the apartment, went grocery shopping, and attempted to make sushi! We did okay... the rolls were all falling apart, but it tasted fine! Go us!

Then we watched Factory Girl, about Edie Sedgewick. It was quite good, but made me quite melancholy. Her life is a sad story, especially when you think about just how much Andy Warhol used her.



TIATF:

Jesse. He puts up with all of my insanity, and loves me in spite of it. He is absolutely wonderful.

[ fried snickers bar ]

This morning, Jesse & I ran a bunch of errands, and thennnnnnnnnn

We went to the State Fair! It was a lot of fun. I haven't been to a fair in ages. The only ride we went on was the Ferris Wheel, but we made it count by going on the biggest one they had... it was called El Grande Wheel. Awesome. Yeah, the AZ State Fair has FOUR Ferris Wheels!!! Insane. We played a couple games, but mostly walked around, enjoying the sites, and having fair food.

We had funnel cake, Jesse had ice cream, I had a root beer float.

And.

I tried a Fried Snickers Bar. I don't usually eat fried food, and this was a good reminder as to why, because about four bites in, and I started to feel sick. But I tried it. It was an experience I felt I needed to have. Good times. Pictures to come!



TIATF:

The joy of children, and the ease with which they are made happy.

I won a little Spiderman stuffed toy at a game (the popping the balloons game, which I don't know why I picked that one to play, seeing as I hate balloons). And on the shuttle ride back to our car, I had taken it out and was jokingly hitting Jesse with it. And this little boy, maybe eight-years-old, was sitting near us, just completely transfixed with the Spiderman. I noticed he had gotten one of the Venom stuffed toys, so when we were about to get off the bus, I held it out to him and asked if he wanted it. Because really, he'll appreciate a stuffed Spiderman way more than I will. I can't remember the last time I've seen a little kid so happy. His dad thanked us profusely, and said that we probably made his century. Yay! It made me happy to make him SO happy.

[ halloween and the beatles ]

I'll quickly say that Halloween was kinda lame. Jesse & I didn't do anything, and we only got two trick-or-treaters. They were two very cute little trick-or-treaters, but there were only two of them. Now Jesse and I have enough candy to feed a small army for a month. Oy.

On Tuesday, we went to (finally) see Across the Universe. Which, if you haven't heard of it, is a musical set in the sixties, and all of the songs are Beatles songs. And it is AMAZING. Visually stunning, the songs are (of course) amazing because they're Beatles songs, but also amazing because of the way they are reworked, visually represented, and performed by the actors (Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Jim Sturgess). The main characters are named after or from Beatles songs (Lucy, Max, Jude, Sadie, etc.). There are pop culture references to events and people from the time period: Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters, electric kool-aid, the violent Columbia University student protest, the Beatles' illegal rooftop concert in 1970, etc. Some of the characters are clear references to real people: Bono as Neal Cassady, Dana Fuchs' Sadie is clearly Janis Joplin, and Martin Luther McCoy's Jojo is obviously Jimi Hendrix. A lot of the dialogue in the film is taken from Beatles songs also: Prudence first enters the apartment through a window and Jude says "She came in through the bathroom window;" Sadie says that Max could be safe or he could have killed someone with a hammer, a reference to my personal favorite Beatles tune "Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

If you've made it through that giant rambling paragraph, or if you haven't, the gist is: I freaking LOVED it. I'm most impressed with the fact that almost all of the songs were actually recorded on set, so when you see the people singing, they are actually singing, not lip syncing to a pre-recorded song. Awesome!

In other movie news, after a slow couple of months, there is a whole slew of films coming out that I want to see: Rendition, American Gangster, Martian Child, Dan in Real Life, Michael Clayton, The Darjeeling Limited, Into the Wild, Gone Baby Gone, August Rush. There goes all my hard-earned money!



TIATF:

The courage I had to move across the country with Jesse. And the courage he had to move across the country with me. We're finally starting to explore more, get out more, and it's starting to feel more like home.


PS: Click on any and all links in this post for film trailers!

[ and so it commences... ]

Welcome to National-Blog-Posting-Month (NaBloPoMo). Thanks to Sadira for inviting me to play along! The deal is, you pledge to blog every-single-day of November. Uhhhh... crap. I usually have a week between posts.

I tried to think of a theme for the month, so it would propel me forward. Let me tell you, it was hard for me to think of something I could actually write about every-single-day for thirty days. I mean, I have passions, but, seriously, overkill city.

I wound up deciding to go kinda-sorta holiday themed. As in, since November is the month of Thanksgiving, the theme of my NaBloPoMo will be giving thanks. Things I'm thankful for. I'm sure I don't consciously think of things I'm thankful for often enough. I'm also sure I should think of things I'm thankful for more often.

So, although I'll continue posting about day-to-day life and random pictures and complete randomness, I will, every-single-day (I'm going to try so very hard!), at least post one thing that I am thankful for.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

Monday, I went to the Ladies Who Launch Second Annual Launch Party. It was down in Tempe, at the Tempe Center for the Arts, which is an absolutely beautiful building, in a quite pretty location as well. I met a bunch of new people, and saw a few people I had met at the beginning of the month. It got me even more excited for my Incubator session in January. I really really can't wait. I was especially impressed (and flattered), that the leader of the sessions, Bevla, actually remembered my name and where we had met. She knows everyone, and actually can keep all of their names straight! That impresses me a lot, because I have trouble remembering people's names, especially if I've only met them once.

I got a whole bag of fun goodies: green cleaner (not even one little bitty toxin in there!), a bag of pasta from an Italian restaurant (which Jesse and I must now go too, I've been hearing great things), information about a bunch of different businesses, bright pink heart-shaped pasties (absolutely hysterical!), a little sample jar of lavendar orange shea butter (also a green product, and smells SO good!), coupons for various things, and a gratitude rock (part of the inspiration for my NaBloPoMo theme).

And the actual bag is made of that crazy indestructible fabric, which means Jesse and I have another grocery bag! Yay for making efforts at being green!

Different people got up and gave what LWL calls Elevator Pitches: you have thirty seconds to sell your business. I was glad I wasn't called to give one, because I have no idea what I would say. I should think about it!

And there were a bunch of raffles, and I actually won something! And in my opinion, it was the best thing to win!

I won hotel accommodations for two people, three days two nights, at any of twenty-six locations!!! It doesn't expire until the end of December 2008, so Jesse and I are going to save up our money for a year, and then go to one of the more fun places next winter! I'm thinking Aruba... or the Bahamas... or Cabo... or maybe St. Thomas!

So much fun!

This weekend, I have off from work, so Jesse and I have planned a fun-filled weekend of Phoenix adventures. I don't want to spoil future posts, so stay tuned!



Today I Am Thankful For (TIATF):

Ladies Who Launch. So inspirational, so motivational, so accepting, so supportive.