Fashion Sense

I really am not good with fashion. Whenever I watched the show "What Not To Wear" I think what it would be like if my friends and family picked me to be on there. I'm not a horrible dresser per se, but I dress rather boring. I also don't dress like an adult. Well, actually because of my frame size wearing t-shirts tends to make me look more like a kid instead of an adult that is trying to have fun with their wardrobe. I'm awful at pairing items together, but I love the layered look of things. I've always wanted to look polished, but have a hard time figuring out how to make it look effortless. But there are items that I see that I love that I'm not sure if they're "hip" or "in" that I want to know your stance. I seriously would love to talk to Stacy and Clinton and have their help with my wardrobe.

But anyway, I live in New England and for most of the year my particular region is all about cold and winter days so I am often drawn to fashionable warm weather wear. I like this sweater and I think it's fashionable in a warm way. I just want to snuggle in it. So, what do you think? Is this fashionable or fashion faux pas?

Alphabet Soup

A friend of mine wrote this post and I had to take a page from her book and see what I could come up with. I have literally been filling in the blanks since she posted this. I didn't want it to be meaningless so I took my time finishing this.

A is for "Austen" because Jane knows how to write a romance.
B is for "belly". I'm working on my abs because they need to be flatter. This woman has some great instructional videos for workouts.
C is for "Craftster". My absolute favorite website full of crafty inspiration.
D is for "diet". I'm trying to work more on eating nutritiously so I've been thinking about a well-balanced diet.
E is for "effervescent" which is how I've been described. I happen to agree. ;)
F is for "friendship". This past year has definitely tested some friendships and I love all of you who have stood by me.
G is for "Green". My favorite color and my way of life.
H is for "Harry Potter" Yeah, I'm a fan. Some day I want to have a Harry Potter room in my future house.
L is for "learn". I never realized how much I love to learn new things until I graduated college. Hmm...a little late, right?
M is for "movies". I have too many favorites to name. Yay for Netflix and local libraries.
N is for "naive". Sad, but true. I tend to be naive about life.
P is for "photography". I love my new camera and I've always loved photography.
Q is for "Questions". The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. ~Albert Einstein
R is for "recycle". Did you expect anything else?
S is for "sibling". I've got mad love for my brother. Enough said.
T is for "Tollipop". My new favorite blog. Well, not new since I've been reading it for a long time, but I appreciate her writing style and photography skills more and more.
U is for "USPS" Oldest mail delivery service in America is closing many branches to cut costs and the declining use of our national service.
V is for "Vermont". I will always be a Vermonter at heart. Give me maple syrup, moose, and the great outdoors any day! Oh, yeah, and definitely some Cold Hollow Cider and donuts.
W is for "writing". This is one of my early efforts below. Clearly, it wasn't that good because I only got a B.




X is for "Xylophone". Okay, it's not really, but it reminds me of the book Animalia by Graeme Base. Every letter of the alphabet has a page and every single thing on that page starts with that particular letter of the alphabet. Plus, the illustrations are amazing!
Y is for "yarn." I'm a yarn whore (Thanks to KK I have a sign that says that I am).
Z is for "zest". As in "zest for life". I do have zest, but my zest for life can be lacking at times. I'm trying to experience all those fun things that I got to do growing up that I haven't been able to enjoy in my adult life.


If you read all the way through this, you rock. Hopefully, you learned some fun things about me. Or maybe you already knew them, but too bad, because I got you to read them again. HA!

Instructables

Instructables is one of the coolest websites I have ever bisited. I've known about it for years now, but i forget to share it with people. This is THE website to go to for how-tos on just about everything. Want to make some stairs? Choose from an array of styles, materials, and follow the color pictures. Feel like growing your own veggies, but don't know where to start? This will show simple ways and give you advanced tips too. All you have to do is read the instructions, material lists, and click on the pictures. It's amazing! But there are also some fun articles that link to some pretty amazing projects. Try this out first. Here's the full NY Times slideshow for you to check out.

Glass Explosion

So, I must admit that I am not always, how shall I put it, the tidiest person to live with. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy cleaning. When I had roommates in college they dorm room was always very clean. But if there is one thing that I hate it's doing the dishes. I mean, I despise doing the dishes. Growing up I was always happier washing the bathtub, scrubbing the toilet, and cleaning the sink in the bathroom before I'd ever do the dishes. It's not like I had to hand wash them or anything like that, but the thought of touching dishes grosses me out.

Now, I live in an apartment without a dishwasher and it about kills me. Besides the fact that hand washing uses more water than dishwashers, I don't have the motivation to wash my dishes regularly. Of course, I have dish washing gloves to make it less painful, but I think I need to embarrass myself to actually motivate me to do my dishes. Without further ado. I give you...my kitchen.



So go ahead and make comments. It's true that this is disgusting. I literally have no dishes in my cupboards to speak of. However, the following picture will be even more embarrassing .




Yep, when you don't wash your dishes and you leave glass on the stove and then turn on the wrong burner, it EXPLODES. There's a huge popping noise and then glass shards all over. It's not that fun to clean either. So, in the next few days you will see pictures of a very clean kitchen and you'll see it revamped a little too. Yup, comment away on how dirty I am because it'll make me feel gross and then I'll clean. :(

In the queu

I definitely haven't been blogging as much recently which is strange. It's only strange because I feel I have so much to say to you all. I actually have two posts waiting in the wings, but they need to be tweaked a bit before I release them upon you. There seems to be a lot going on in my life so I definitely want to share with everyone.

Lately, I've been cleaning and rearranging my apartment. Maybe that seems like a trivial thing, but for me it's huge. I hate living in apartments or places that aren't permanent fixtures. I don't get to rearrange things how I want and I don't have enough of the kind of furniture I would like to make it appear permanent. Also, I'm tired of living like a college student. I even had the stupid cable guy fixing something here and he mentioned that I looked like I needed to save money because I looked like a student. I think that was a reflection on my living quarters. ARG! How do you people decorate? I feel like I have no distinct style in any way and that drives me batty. I have so many ideas of how I want my home to look that nothing concrete ever seems to form. Does that make sense? I have colors in my head and patterns that I like, but nothing ever comes to fruition. So I am trying to work with what I have and really make a statement with the objects that I have. I definitely have enough craft supplies and fabric to be able to make almost anything that I desire. I have a lot of unfinished projects so I'm trying to come up with ideas on how to organize them better. I don't want to have a billion unfinished craft projects so I want to work on a system that will keep me from moving on to something else prematurely. Who knows what I'll come up with. So keep reading please! I will get my posts out to you and let you know what's up. Thanks for reading dutifully. I will not go long without posting. :)

Ten paces and then "draw"!

I am not gifted with a sketch book and pencil. I swear that I have tried, but my hands do not guide me in the ways of 2D artistry. My brother was the one blessed with the talent of drawing and decided to take some lessons in that direction. I however, was blessed with the ability to see colors, shapes, and objects and turn them into little gems of brilliance. Okay, maybe not brilliance, but I think you get the idea that I enjoy (ed) working with my hands to make things even when I was little. Today, I found a fabulous post on Crafster that really intrigued me. I definitely don't have the same skills that this girl does, but she inspired me to try my hand at my own mandalas. I never really understood the purpose of these, but they are cathartic for certain. Plus,there are no rules as to what is and isn't right. She drew inspiration from this video and I have to say it gives me some ideas as well. I think I'm going to have to invest in some more pens with finer tips to really make this fun to do.

I just used what I had lying around so it doesn't look quite as cool. Also, I was being a little too ambitious and I was trying to draw a hand holding that thing. It didn't exactly work and I kind of messed up and had to draw a lady bug on the hand. Plus, my scanner wasn't scanning the whole picture clearly.

This shows the top portion a little more clearly. Hope you like it.

Powershot G10

Here's a little preview of what I've been up to with my new camera. By no means are they awesome pictures, but I like how my camera works.