That's all, folks!

Day 30. In motion

Just the electric fireplace with "fake fire" flickering in the background. 

And that's the end of this little venture.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks

Day 29. Purchased.

But in this case, it seems you can.

I have always struggled with my hair. It pretty much never looks halfway decent to leave it down plus it bugs the absolute shit out of me.  However, the options then fall to ponytail with I-always-think-they're-a-good-idea-at-the-time-bangs that are pinned back, and I look like a boy.  A 12 year old pre-adolescent boy.  These might just be a godsend.  I have to use 4 normal bobby pins to pin things flat to my head so they aren't in my eyes all day and somehow they end up in my eyes anyways because 1)my hair tie gets loose and 2)my bobby pins start to fall out.  I only need one of these in place of 3 and it holds all day.  So far, so good.  Thumbs up for Goody.  (I've always loved Goody, btw.)

Nonessential essentials

Day 28. Daily routine.

Everyday, I take these off and put them here (on top of my printer) when I get home from campus, and in the morning, I put them on before I head out the door again.

Help! Come quick, they're still extinct!

From the TV show "FRIENDS": 
Joey: What the hell does a paleontologist need a beeper for?
Monica: Is it, like, for dinosaur emergencies? "Help! Come quick, they're still extinct!"

Found this and thought this was so rad.  I've always loved light painting.

 









 

Check out the full photostream by Darius twin at his flickr.

And darkness is real

Day 27. After dark

The creepy sweet darkness of the neighborhood.

((Grim Goodbye by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus))

April showers bring May flowers

Day 26. Something old.

I found a few of these while cleaning out some boxes at home.  These used to belong to a little Fisher-Price desk with these die cut cards and magnetic alphabet letters.  The desk would slide open to store things and the lid was magnetic so we could practice recognizing letters I think?  I distinctly remember playing with this when I was little :)

[Something interesting about the sun]

Day 25. Sun flare.

My usual lens is fairly recessed into the barrel (usually no flares or sun spots) but this came out of my Diana lens.  I'm not entirely sure that this is real sun flare, but I like it :)

Unicorn of the sea

I used a pattern from Ramen Needles.  Turned out pretty cute except that his body is a little weird.  I blame that on my non-knowledge of invisible decreases!  The pattern called for it, but I was too lazy to go and look it up so I made a regular decrease, and it's very visible in the body, but oh well.  Done is done.  One more pattern made and rated ^^

There's some other pretty cute patterns on Ravelry for narwhals if you want to try a different pattern.  I was originally going to use the Wunderkammer pattern for the narwhal, but I, as usual, was being lazy and didn't want to look up the knotting pattern for the horn that she did.  I must say that the spiral staircase horn from the Wunderkammer pattern is really cute and adds a touch of uniqueness to the pattern.

I'm a centenarian!

No, just kidding, but this is my 100th post!  I started this blog a little more than a year ago and have been growing it slowly!  More to come :)

Isn't this butterfly gorgeous?  I managed to snap one picture before it fluttered off.

Sweet Child O' Mine

Day 24. A smile.

A kitty smile that is. I love this picture because she looks so mischievous (like she is).  She usually looks so sweet and innocent in pictures.

Is this the place I've been dreaming of?

Day 23. Sunset.

Oh San Diego, you are beautiful sometimes.

((Somewhere Only We Know: Warblers version))

I speak for the trees

Day 22. Trees.

 

All the trees are in straight lines every way you look.  It's a real artificial forest.

The Lorax.

Boyce Avenue

I saw Boyce Avenue on a whim at House of Blues when they were here last week.  I must say that I'm surprised that I haven't heard of them long before now.  Definitely up my alley music-wise. They put on a really good show too.

 

They played Iris as one of their last songs, it was very touching.  Iris might be my favorite song ever.

They're super popular on YouTube with their covers of songs, but I must say that I am really impressed with their album as well. 

Triangles

Day 21. Pretty pattern.

I love the randomness of the triangles scattered across this gate.  It almost reminds me of paper airplanes.

SMTWThF

Day 20. What I read.

I just started this book, seems good so far.  I picked this up for 50c at the library bookstore, and it's practically brand new!  I almost doubt it's been read before.  I only bought this because I liked Ian McEwan's other book, Atonement.  Do you ever read books by authors that you've heard of/liked before?

Rumpled

Day 19. Where I slept.

None of my bedding matches.  I own only one pillow. Such are the interior decorating choices of a college student.  On another note, I've added my Gryffindor blanket to my bed which means autumn is here!

"Your bag is so colorful"

True story.  I was shopping at White House | Black Market and the sales lady said that to me.

Day 18. In my bag.

This is pretty standard for when I'm not carrying my backpack.  My bag is pretty small as you can see on the left, so it doesn't fit a lot but it can be surprisingly roomy.  This is my most favorite bag that I got as a gift from a friend, a LeSportsac (yes, I do know that "most favorite" is not grammatically correct).  I've never seen another bag like it, including the shape, so I'm hard pressed to let this one go. 

Everything else:
-Vintage Liz Claiborne wallet (swiped from my mom ages ago and used as a play wallet with paper money for the longest time when I was young)
-Canon point and shoot in case with Jane Jenni "shutter bug" pin
-Keys + USB flash drive + quarter with a hole drilled through it
-Moisturizing Chapstick (smells like vanilla!)
-Extra bobby pins
-Pen
-Paper napkin for emergency situations involving spilled liquids
-Leather coin purse from Bolivia
-Purple, foldable, reusable bag in carrying case
-iPod
-cell phone

The only problem is that with all of this stuff, I can't usually carry my DSLR comfortably, so I'm on the lookout for a new bag.  I think I'll stick with a nice smallish bag with cross body strap.

Bob-omb's Away!

I made the Bob-omb from Mario, and he turned out really cute.  I used the Wolfdreamer pattern, and it was great.  Quick and easy. No changes needed.  Definitely check out the rest of her blog, she makes awesome Pokemon crochet dolls! Stocking stuffers for younger cousins/nieces/nephews anyone?

I save up so many neat patterns that I see in a folder on my desktop, and I feel oddly accomplished when I finish one and make a note about the pattern.  I have a weird 5 star system for rating how much I like a particular pattern.

Hodge-podge

 I have a mix of things on my shelves mostly due to the unique design of my bed.  I have one of those Ikea beds with 9 built in cupboards with sliding doors underneath the mattress.  Because of my bed, I don't actually have real shelves on the wall except for one very tall one in my closet that I don't use much.

 Day 17. On the shelf.

Books, oh books.  How I love thee.  I have a variety of novels plus some notebooks and crochet design books on the left and all my textbooks on the right.  Organic chemistry and molecular cell biology don't quite classify as light reading.  In the metaphorical or literal sense of the phrase.

Snuggly blankets because I get really, really cold in the winter even if it's a San Diego "winter".   These are my 3 favorite that stay here in San Diego with me all the time: Gryffindor/high school colors fleece tie blanket, light weight zebra quilt, and pink Hawaiian flower fleece tie blanket.  (Fleece tie blankets were really popular a few years ago).

Jars of things.  I can't throw away glass jars because I know that I'll need them for something. I save yarn bits because I hate to throw them away when I can usually stuff them as extra filler into an amigurumi.  Button jar which is looking sadly empty.  Scary bottle labeled with MSDS symbols and chemical formulas.  [Science side note: Just kidding, I don't take home scary things from work, it's just rubbing alcohol (aka Isopropyl alcohol).  The label fell off some years ago, and I just relabeled with Sharpie and pertinent information; for example, the "3" at the top of the diamond tells me it is a 3 out of 4 on the flammability scale.]

Other miscellaneous craft things.  Paint chips, stamps, finished and half finished amigurumi projects, balls of yarn, embroidery hoop, puffy paint, tacky glue, craft foam.  I pretty much have it all piled haphazardly in here.

National fruit of China

Day 16. What I ate.

Did you know that the actinidin in kiwifruits is what makes your mouth and tongue all sore?  Well, technically, it's an allergy to the actinidin, which I might have a mild form of.  That doesn't stop me from eating them though!  And, they are now known as kiwifruits because of Kiwi birds in New Zealand!  Before that, they were known by a variety of Chinese names. 

The more you know!

St. Maarten

 The boatyard.

I think it's cool to see how far away you are from any given place at any given time.

Woohoo!  There are other yarn bombers outside of the US.  I love it!

Overall, the island was gorgeous, I just wished it hadn't rained so darn much :]

Soles with Souls

Day 15. My shoes.

Halfway through the photo challenge and the month of September!  I can't believe how quickly time passes.

I love these shoes.  I have literally loved them to bits.  These are the Vans Prison Issue #23 in black.  Almost 4 years, every day, I've been wearing these shoes.  I like to think that even though holes are starting to wear into my soles, the velcro is not very velcro-y anymore, and the rubber is coming apart from the canvas, these shoes have character and tell of adventures.

Fortunately for me, I bought a new pair of these exact shoes.  Now I can love my Vans for the next 4+ years.  I will be so sad if Vans ever decides to stop carrying this style.

I guess girls in skate shoes is a SoCal thing?

What's in a name? that which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet

I've collected a massive amount of tutorials on making fabric flowers (of all different kinds), and I'm pretty sure I've made a very small fraction of these.  They're overwhelming my bookmarks!

 

via Filth Wizardry

How to make roses from crepe paper.  I've also seen this done with paper straw wrappers and the rose is left on top of the straw, super cute!

 

Burdastyle via etsy

Same idea as above but with nice ribbon and requiring a tiny bit of sewing.

 

via Martha Stewart Weddings 

This particular tutorial provides a nice template so you're not just cutting out wonky shapes and hoping it ends up looking like flowers when you sew it all together.

 

via Project Wedding

Fantastic step by step pictures and a template to work from.

via Project Wedding

A fairly simple step by step tutorial for making the round circle flowers that seem to have sprung up in every clothing store this season.

via Adventures in Dressmaking

Suzannah made her own wedding dress, isn't that amazing?!  And she made all the pretty flowers that decorated her dress.

Words, food, and music. (One of these things is not like the others.)

A few cool things for today.


First, this wall painted with the entire chapter of The Tale of the Three Brothers from HP & the Deathly Hallows.  How awesome!  This appeals to the HP fan in me and also the fan of the written word.

The Tale of the Three Brothers via when boredom strikes

Second, from the food section of the SD Union Tribune of today's paper.  The Meandering Eats blog.  Ok, so I'm not exactly the best cook, and I almost never talk about food here, but I have to give a special mention to this particular blog.  I was casually browsing the newspaper today, and I saw the food blogger section and saw Marie's blog on there.  Can I just say that I actually know Marie IRL?  I think her blog is awesome, and she's an awesome person.  Awesome.

Third, an open letter from me to that guy on the bus today.  Seriously, heard of common courtesy?

We want.... a shrubbery!

Day 14. Flowers.

These are flowers that grow on very common shrubberies that are used for hedges around many of the houses.  I love how the petals are very full and not simple and flat like daisies.

Incidentally, the title of this post comes courtesy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  You have not earned your nerd card until you've at least seen this movie.

NI!

The Only One

Day 13. From a distance.

I always walk past this little park on my way home, and I've noticed that this is the only bench in the entire area.  There are usually people playing with their dogs or sitting on the grass and reading; it's a very quaint neighborly sort of park.

Hundreds-and-thousands

Day 12. Close up.

I love shaped sprinkles!  Unfortunately, I don't really like the taste of sprinkles, so I'll have to settle for decorating things pretty and then making other people eat them :] 

By the way, I just Wikipedia'd "sprinkles."  I didn't know they are sometimes called hundreds-and-thousands, that's so cute!

10 years

Koalas on Parade

Day 11. Something fun.

Ok, I don't know who has or hasn't seen these but if you live anywhere near an Asian market, I bet you've had these.  These are like the Hello Panda cookies but these feature cute little koalas getting into all kinds of mischief.  Snacking is ridiculously fun when I have these to munch on.  I think my favorite of this bag is the Pharaoh Koala (bottom left) and Mermaid Koala (bottom, 2nd from left). 

Lights Out

 Well, now I know how bored I am during a massive blackout.  Yes, that's right, on Thursday afternoon at 3:38pm, a problem with some transmitter lines between California and Arizona knocked out power to all of San Diego County and affected parts of Southern Orange County, Riverside County, Mexi-Cali, and Yuma, Arizona.

We lost power while I was at work, so we had to stay for a while to make sure critical freezers got plugged into backup generator power and non-critical machines and equipments got unplugged to save them from any power surges.  After that, it was uncertain how long power would be out.  SDG&E was estimating that the power might be back Friday, maybe by the afternoon.

We went home and sat around reading until the sun went down.  We had a couple of small flashlights, but nothing really powerful enough to light up a whole room.  Funny how no power gets people out of their houses and walking around talking to neighbors.  It was almost nice to be "unplugged" even if it was not our intention.

We were debating whether it would be best to leave the refrigerator/freezer closed since the insulation is supposed to hold for about 12 hours before all the food spoils or whether we should just open it and start eating our perishables.  We voted for leaving it closed and hoping the power would come back sooner than 12 hours (even though we later found out that 4 hours is really the max time limit for dairy products in an unplugged fridge).  We ended up sitting around chatting and drinking homemade amaretto :]  I guess it's never not a good time to drink.

 I attempted to crochet in the dark.  By feel and by the flickers of candlelight, I got a few rows of a new hat started, we'll see if it's all wonky later, haha.

And, because it is Saturday, here's something really weird from my sketchbook.  It's a grasshoppper-type insect with an ice cream sundae coming out of his antenna.  I imagine kind of like how a snail's eye stalk unfolds from inside, I imagine that the ice cream sundae is literally oozing out of his antenna, glass and all. 

I'm not entirely sure what my mind was trying to tell me when I had a dream about this.

((Lights Out by Breaking Benjamin))