curiousillusion

So I was totally loving my pink theme… until this week.  This week I kept seeing things I wanted to take pictures of that weren’t pink.  It started frustrating me.  But I pushed past it and managed to get some pics that I liked.

day fifty – for peace.  This was the most random thing ever. I just got it into my head that I wanted to take a picture of an origami crane. Problem: I didn’t know how to make one. I looked for directions online and spent 30 minutes trying to make one.  After I made it, I was talking with a co-worker and I liked how the light hit the phone and so that’s why the phone is in the picture. I told you… random.

day fifty one – I wish I was a butterfly… You’d think this was a pink and white theme, because these two colors keep appearing in my pictures.  I just like how clean and simple pink and white seem to be, and I’m starting to find myself loving the color combo. If I could decorate an apartment right now, it would probably have this color scheme.

day fifty two – tied with love.  See, told you – pink and white again.  This ribbon replaced the string I was using to hang pictures on my wall. It didn’t come out how I wanted it though… I like the bow but I don’t like how it looks on the right side of the pic.

day  fifty three – glittery sparkley bokeh love. Meh.  I had a better idea for a pic with glitter but it did not come out well.  I’m not a fan of the tones in this picture at all, and I wish the bokeh would have been more emphasized.  But this was before the macro lens, and I was just using macro filters (hence the natural vignette that occurred).

day fifty four – for every season… there is chocolate.  Now these tones I DO love.  I was inspired by a similar (but much better) picture that I found on flickr.  The colors photographed really brightly, I think because my camera was on a vibrant setting but I sucked the color out in photoshop and I love how pastel it looks.  And I also love that it’s NOT just pink and white here… there are colors, but I’m still sticking to the pink theme.

day fifty five – twinkle.  Again, you can see my rebelling against the pink theme.  Here there is pink (those are twinkle candy lollipops) but since the day before was cloudy and rainy, I loved how blue the sky looked and so I had to put the lollipops against the sky.  I’m tired of shooting indoors!

day fifty six – look closer.  I heart my new macro lens.  Funny thing: I kept trying to take a similar picture at school but the pencil wasn’t looking right (I think my sharpener sharpened it funny).  When I got home I tried it again using pencils I had at home and I like how this came out, especially with the soft white of the sheet and the blue of the window in the background.

And thus concludes week eight (I’m not including yesterday’s pic because it’s not part of week eight and I like to be organized).  Only 3 more days left of the pink theme and then… March!  Already!

[I'm pre-empting my weekly project 365 recap post in favor of a post regarding my birthday.  I'll probably post the recap tomorrow.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It IS my birthday after all. :)]

(Birthday card from Beth.. I LOVE it.)

I love birthdays.  I always have.  Sometimes I think that at this point in my life, I should be one of those who doesn’t say a thing or doesn’t make a big deal out it… but I can’t.  Even this year I wasn’t that excited because I figured it’d be a bust, but as the big day got closer, I got more and more excited.  That’s just the way I am.  And if you know me, you know that.  Last night I got a text from a friend, telling me the countdown to my birthday (1 hour and 55 minutes, at the time).  Now THAT’S someone who really gets me, especially considering that mere minutes earlier, I was tweeting the hours left of being 27.

That being said… I always get super excited about my birthday, only to have it be a bit of a letdown.  I’m not really sure what I expect from the day that I always feel like it doesn’t live up to what I wanted, ah well.

Oh and by the way… You gotta love that, thanks to facebook and other social networking sites, my birthday is the one day a year I hear from some people that I haven’t heard from in… well, a year.  It’s kind of nice and then at the same time it’s like, “thanks for the wishes, hear from ya again next year”.

Anyway, the day went well.   The other kindergarten teacher brought her kids into my room so that both classes could sing happy birthday to me… plus her kids made me little cards that they stuck on my door.

For lunch we went out to Subway and they gave me some Starbucks gift cards (shows how well they know me!), and one of them made all us teachers cupcakes.  A parent of one of my students brought cupcakes for the class, and I got a balloon.

[Sidebar: I'm sure none of you care what happened on my birthday.  But recently I discovered that I cannot, for the life of me, remember what I did a few birthdays ago (and no, it was not due to excessive alcohol) so I figure that by writing it down here, I'll be able to remember for the future.]

Then, in the evening I went to get dinner and drinks with a friend at TGI Fridays, which is like my go-to spot for birthday dinners.  Seriously, I went there last year, I went there when I turned 21… I’m sure there were a few more trips in between.

So all in all, not bad.  In fact, a pretty good way to spend a birthday.

Now I just need to get over tomorrow.  I always say that the day AFTER birthdays are depressing.  That’s when all the love, the facebook posts and tweets on twitter and random “happy birthdays!” go away. But after THAT… I’m 28.. .and feeling great!  And on that note, I think I’m stopping at 28 for a while.  I refuse to turn another year old when I don’t look like my age.  So I’m staying 28 for a few years. :)

Today was a pretty happy picture day, for the most part, one of those days when you almost wish you weren’t taking just ONE picture a day.  And then you remember that you have a blog and can totally put as many pictures up on it as you want.  Whee!

So first of all I have to share the view from my house when I left this morning:

Pretty, right?  37 degrees this morning and I stopped to take a few shots.  I really couldn’t resist.  This was nearly my picture of the day except for 2 things… 1) there’s no pink (stupid February theme I came up with) and 2) I got something in the mail today.

In case you can’t tell by the pic… I got a macro lens.  :)  A very generous new friend sent it as an early birthday present and I probably was supposed to wait til my birthday to use it but I couldn’t resist.

To say I’m in love isn’t truly expressing how I feel. These stickers are the size of my pinky finger.

The back of a $10 bill (which I need to use to pay for my girl scout cookies, if the girl ever comes to collect!)

Happy sigh.  :)

Oh and as for the title… yup, today is my last day being 27.  And yup, that means tomorrow is my birthday. So let’s save the birthday wishes for *tomorrow*, shall we?  I’m already getting birthday emails and I’m like “but it’s not my birthday yet!!”

So I had a work-related blog post planned for today.  But I just don’t want to think about work right now.  I’m tired.  And excited about the fact that I finally, officially have plans for Spring Break.  And more excited about the fact that those plans are going to visit my BFF Beth… in Alabama.

Yeah okay Spring Break in Alabama doesn’t really have a nice ring to it.  But I’ve always wanted to visit Beth because.. well, while she’s been my BFF for the last 5 years, I’ve never met her.  I kind of think BFFs should meet each other in person, no? :)  And while I’m at it, I’m hoping to knock 3 birds out with 1 stone and meet up with 2 other flickr contacts that live somewhat in the area.  (Although as I’m typing this, I’m already finding out from one that she might not be able to make it… sad.) I’m looking forward to a few days being out of my parents’ house, out of Texas and having some fun.

Anyway, it’s been something I had wanted to do for a while but finances were making it look impossible.  And then tickets suddenly dropped in price, and my mom helped out and… voila.

And that’s why I’m all smiley right now, after an exhausting day at work.  :)

So I have this dilemma in my head and I figured I’d take it to the blog and let you guys sort it out for me… as a warning, I tend to go on and on when I write.  Sorry.

A few weekends ago I was supposed to have plans to go out and get drinks with my co-worker.  I was really looking forward to it, as it had been absolutely ages since I’d gone out for drinks with a friend.  For a while it started to look like she wasn’t going to be able to make it and there I was, all dressed up with nowhere to go.  I started to consider going out by myself… and then it all worked out and we went out.

Anyway, when I was debating going out alone, I asked twitter.  An overwhelming amount of people were basically, yes, do it! but a few people were very hesitant about me going out alone, one going so much as saying, nothing good will come of this. Scary words, indeed.

Last week, the very awesome @jamieallison came down and we went to get drinks at a place near my house, which was the bar that I had intended on going to by myself, if it had come to that.  I had never been but always wanted to go, and it turns out to be a very nice bar – kind of posh and swanky, and not crowded at all.  One of her first thoughts was “oh I would totally come here by myself” and I kind of agreed – I didn’t feel unsafe, it seemed very nice and considering it was only a hop, skip and a jump from my house – very convenient.

However… the bar tended to have an older crowd, well… older than me.  The people there were more mostly mid- to late 30-40 years old and while there were a few guys our age (and yes a few were cute and no, sadly, they didn’t hit on us), for the most part it seemed a bit “old” for us.  And knowing my luck, the guys that WOULD hit on me, would be the ones that were out of my age range.

The other thing is, I don’t know how comfortable I’d be going to a bar alone (and it goes beyond the “I don’t feel safe anywhere in Houston alone” issue I have).  Being single for over a year now (sob), I’ve gotten comfortable at doing a lot of things on my own – going to movies, shopping, even eating out… but the bar life isn’t something I’ve attempted.  I’m big on people watching and I think I wouldn’t mind grabbing a drink or two at the bar while watching what everyone was up to, but eventually I think I’d feel silly being all alone.  Like people must be thinking “oh that pathetic girl”.

My brother, actually, was encouraging me to go out to a bar by myself, when I was complaining about sitting at home alone all the time.  He said I should bring a book with me, preferably a semi-popular one, because (in his words), “if I see a girl reading a book in a bar, that tells me that she wants to be in the bar for a drink, but the fact that she brings a book tell me she doesn’t go often.  And a book is a good starting off point for a conversation.”  I kind of think he has a point.

Anyway, for the near future the point is moot – my birthday is Friday and I actually have plans for this weekend, which actually makes the third weekend in a row I’ve had stuff to do – exciting!  But, I am thinking about what will happen after that, when the fun dies down and I start going stir crazy for social interaction.

So, to sum it up… good idea or bad idea for a single girl to go out and get a drink on her own?  Take into consideration the following factors: bar is nearby, girl doesn’t drink that much (aka there’s no concern for having had too much to drink to drive herself home), bar is nice and safe-feeling and girl is starting to get tired of spending weekends home alone.  Thoughts?

I’ll admit it – I’m tired of Danbo. It’s hard enough doing a project 365, I don’t know what made me think I could do 2.  And while I enjoy taking pictures of her, I really don’t know if I’ll be able to finish a 365 with her, at least not right now.  I’m running out of ideas, I’m running out of motivation… and I’m determined to make my other 365 great, which means Danbo takes away from that.  Sigh.  Don’t know what to do.

day thirty three – can we watch Wall-E?  It’s my favorite movie.  And my friend is in it…

 day thirty four – are these all for me??

 day thirty five – now THIS is riding in style.  Danbo really likes my new camera purse bag. :)

 day thirty six – whatcha lookin at?

 day thirty seven – this is a hat?

 day thirty eight – Danbo likes having control of the remote.  She likes watching the Olympics.

  day thirty nine – why do you keep putting things on my head.

So last week I wasn’t really happy with my pictures.  This week I can say that I’m a bit happier with them. I’m not in love with the first or last shot of the week, but the rest make me smile and that’s what counts.

I was asked if I was going to continue my pink theme past Valentine’s Day and I gave a noncommittal answer but truth be told, I’m kind of having fun with it.  And it’s making me realize how many different shades of pink there are!  Check it out:

day forty three – “There’s nothing like unrequited love to take all the flavor out of a peanut butter sandwich.”  Valentine’s class party at work today, and I got quite a few carnations from students (and teachers). I like the effect the plastic wrapping gives.

day forty four – this heart hopes for spring.  While driving around over the weekend, I kept noticing how bare all the trees looked… I’m ready for spring to get here. I had fun playing with this little heart on a stick, although while shooting I remembered how hard it is to shoot against a bright window (the main subject usually gets blown out).  Playing with photoshop helped so that I could keep the colors of the background AND the heart (yay for shooting in RAW).

day forty five – i’ll hold on to your heart.  I got this idea in my head for a picture and I like how simple it came out.  I actually taped this yarn to the wall in the hallway just for this shot (better lighting there) and then when I decided I wanted a permanent one for my room, I went shopping for the screws, etc.

day  forty six -  happy bench monday, new shoes edition.  Over the weekend I went shopping, mainly because it’s my only way to get out of the house these days.  I absolutely fell in love with these ballet flats, I figured they would be perfect for spring.  Unfortunately I learned the hard way (by walking around the mall the next day with a friend for an hour) that they HURT.  Ow.  My poor feet are still sore.

day  forty seven – “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”  (Quote by David Viscott) My co-worker got some flowers for Valentine’s Day and since she didn’t want them (came from an unwelcome someone), she let me have them to photograph. This shot makes me smile because in real life the flower is more of a light purple and the wall is lime green.  A lot of playing in photoshop made the petals pink (so I could stick with my pink theme).  This picture made front page explore, which tickled me.

day  forty eight – as it should be.  Yup, same flower as the day before.  This time randomly playing in photoshop brought out this effect which I LOVE.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if flowers like this really existed?!

day  forty nine – just breathe.  Last shot with the same flower. I kind of don’t like how the note turned out, and in hindsight I think maybe the flower could have been by itself (but that seems too much like the other two shots)… and the colors remind me of day 47. I don’t know. I just liked the flower and it’s starting to wilt so I had to take a picture of it while I still could!

So that’s it.  The first 7 weeks, 49 days of the project done.  Right now I’m trying to focus on getting through February, I’m hoping to stick with the pink theme til the end. 10 more days of pink… I’m open to pic suggestions!

So I did something this weekend.  I got fixated on an idea I had seen somewhere before and decided I wanted to recreate it.  Right then and there.  So… I did:

Ooooh pretty.

I want it to be a constantly changing thing, and I’ll probably post pictures of what’s on it from time to time.  Although I doubt it’ll change TOO much because… well I’m just not that good.   Anyway,  let’s take a look at what is on my wall, shall we?

This is a magnet that I picked up at Michael’s the other day.  Actually I picked up three of them, with different words on each one.  I love words, on everything from magnets to vases to standing up by themselves… and I find myself collecting them.

Birthday card from my cousin.  I think the card itself was made by our aunt, I think it’s so pretty… and I love that she mailed me an actual birthday card. I can’t remember the last time I got one from someone other than my mother.  (oh and yes, my birthday is coming up… feel free to send gifts.)

Ticket stub from the last movie I saw – Valentine’s Day, on Valentine’s Day. :)  And a birthday card from Starbucks… see they love me!  The card itself is for a free drink, yay!  I go there so often, it’s really the least they could do. :)

A card that came in my epiphanie camera bag (have I mentioned how much I love it?!) and just a random rhinestone thingy that I found at Michael’s.  I love the store Michael’s.

I’d love to put actual pictures of mine on it but it’s such a hassle to get them printed.  Makes me kinda want an old school Polaroid although obviously the pictures wouldn’t come out the same, lol!

And that’s it.  Man I’m so exciting. :p

So back in December, I first heard about a new line of camera bags that were coming out…. a brand called epiphanie, which is a line of bags that looked more like purses, that you could carry everywhere (and would WANT to carry everywhere).  As soon as I saw the bag called Lola (which is the same name as my dSLR), I knew I had to have it.  Well, that and there was a discount code that pushed me over the edge.

The first shipment of bags were due to arrive “sometime in February”.  Imagine my delight when I got an email with my tracking number today… and when I read from that tracking number that my bag was supposed to ARRIVE today.  I’ve spent all day eagerly anticipating it and when I finally got it… it was everything I dreamed it could be.

Warning… the color of the bag tends to vary from picture to picture, it’s my fault as I was shooting in bad lighting.  In real life it’s a vibrant red, a cherry red, a bit more red than in the pictures (in the pics below it seems to be almost coral).

First of all, it arrived nicely sealed with a cute little sticker:

I wanted to save the sticker but in my excitement to get at the bag, it tore.

It has it’s own dust cover (to keep the bag in when you’re not using it), mine is purple, which matches my bag’s interior (not sure if they’re all purple or if they all match the interior of the bag).

Isn’t it pretty?!  According to the website, the exterior is supposed to be “water-resistant, high quality synthetic leather”. (It also comes with a detachable long strap, for carrying across your body… not shown).

They slipped some of these cute little cards with quotes in the pockets, it was such a treat to get them (each card was different).  There are two exterior pockets (one on each side) and one interior pocket.

The inside, as I said, is a light purple… and it has removable panels (four small ones and two long ones that you can rearrange in any way you want).

I like this little hangtag, which (if you turn it over) doubles as a mirror (yes, I’m such a girl… that was the first thing that went through my mind).  I also love the attention to detail.  It looks and feels very well-made… my co-worker really likes the knots on each side, as do I.

My new epiphanie bag is currently filled with the following: my Nikon D90, with the kit lens (18-105mm, aka the BIG lens), my 50mm lens, my macro filters, uv filter, lens cleaning pen, wallet, spare battery, iPhone, notebook, and other random odds and ends… oh and mini Danbo, of course.  And there’s still room for more.  I could definitely still have space for a flash or a macro lens (sigh, if only I had a macro lens), possibly even both.

I already got one question about the bag: is it easy to access my camera while carrying it on my shoulder.  And the answer, for me, is yes.  I can take off one strap (keeping the other strap on my shoulder) and easily use one hand to grab my camera out of the bag and put it back when I’m done.   Of course, it all depends on how you arrange the removeable panels inside.

Is there anything I don’t like?  Well, I will say that the zipper isn’t as easy to close as it could be – because of the way it’s designed, you can’t do it one handed (you have to pull out the side of the zipper, hold it straight, zip it, then tuck in the side). But I don’t usually zip up my bags so that’s not a deal-breaker for me.  And even if I did zip up my bag all the time, it’s only a little bit of extra work.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with my purchase… the other day I started having doubts about the fact that I ordered something that no one else had seen or reviewed yet but the quality of the bag, not to mention the style, etc is even better than I could have hoped for. If you have any questions about the bag, feel free to leave it in the comments and I will do my best to try to answer them.  As for me… I’m gonna be rocking this bag for QUITE a long time. :)

So I started hearing about google buzz last week, when I guess google started rolling it out – tech blogs that I follow started writing about it, but I ignored it. I’m one of those “jump on the bandwagon when most everyone has jumped off” type of people. Plus, since I wasn’t reading the articles, I didn’t know where to find google buzz, or anything like that. I have enough going on with flickr, facebook, and twitter anyway.

Then one day I opened up my gmail inbox and saw it… buzz.  Oh, so THAT’S what everyone is talking about… I clicked on it and I kind of dug it.  As a friend on twitter (@jerrytroll) put it – “it’s a bit like twitter-meets-facebook-in-your-gmail.”  I like that you can give your thoughts (ala twitter) but it’s not restricted to 140 characters… people can respond to your thoughts so it’s like a gmail email kind of threaded view and I don’t need to go to a new website, it’s right in my gmail. 

Oh and btw… my google account is my full name (at) gmail.  Which caused a problem in my mind right away - whenever I wanted to buzz something, it would use my first and last name.  Mmmm, not something I like doing.. I keep my full name private, for professional reasons.  Well, I edited my profile so that whenever I buzzed something, it would say Ari (initial)…  I figured, that would work for right now.

Until I went to send an email from my google email account.  You see, my gmail account is what I use for professional purposes as well.  It’s on my resume and it’s approaching that time when I’ll probably be using it to email people regarding job positions.  And when I email them, they really shouldn’t be getting an email from “Ari (initial)”, they should be getting it from my full name, which is on my resume.

Anyway, I only have 9 contacts that I’m “following” on google buzz right now.   And, much like twitter, buzz is more fun when there’s more people to follow.  So I start looking for people to follow when… another conundrum.

You see, my google email address is not something I give out to everyone.  Like I said, it has my full name – and I like to keep that private.  I don’t have it connected with the blog or anything that goes with my curiousillusion identity.  It goes back to my theory for a while ago – while it isn’t hard to put 2 + 2 together and come up with me, I’d still like to make it a little less easy.  So people that only know me as curiousillusion, they usually get my curiousillusion (at) ymail email address, because my first and last name aren’t on there.

And even though I had changed my name on my google account… I still think that they’d see my full name on the email address itself (if they added me as a contact, which you kind of have to do to communicate on buzz).

And yes, there is the option of me opening up a seperate gmail account, for non professional purposes.  I’ve really thought about doing it. But there’s issues with that too:

• I’d have to come up with an email address (I don’t want curiousillusion (at) gmail because 1. it’s taken and 2. because not everyone knows about my blog and I’d like to keep it that way). 
• I’d have to transfer all my contacts from my gmail address to whatever new address I come up with – and that’s a pain.  For everyone involved.  Then some people get confused, “which email address do I email to..”, some people don’t make the transition… sigh.

You see how this is messing with my head?  It’s one of those situations that makes me seriously wish that I could go by my full name everywhere on the internet, but considering my profession – I really just can’t.  And that leads to all sorts of problems in this world where things like google buzz are around. 

I know, someone’s going to say I’m overthinking this.  Welcome to my head. Rawr.