Tuesday, May 31, 2016

week twenty-one : it's ourselves we find at the sea

we've made it. we're half-way through the year. Does that scare anyone a little bit? I still don't have that summer job I was so sure I would get (I never wrote about it. I was so sure I was too nervous.)

But I do want to tell you that my baseball team (the boston red sox) are doing very, very well. and hey, I'm not complaining about the Warrior's winning, either.

Oh, and happy memorial day! We went to our church's picnic. It was surprisingly nice weather, and then we swam when we came home and water was even lovelier. But my favorite part is always breaking out the beach boys CD to kick-start summer. Because that's how I roll!

and guys I get nasty headaches and it might be dehydration so I'm drinking a lot of water.

Oh! and I thought of something I realized a few weeks ago and it's this simple, it kinda hit me in the face: I'm not awkward, I'm just uncomfortable. a lot. but not ALWAYS and that's how I know I'm not awkward. I just find myself in awkward/uncomfortable situations where I am *ahem* uncomfortable.

but awkward? nope. I'm not identifying with that one.

I just finished washing dishes. I kinda quit because I burned my hand on my sister's beacon pan. I have never had a burn this bad (at least not since I poured hot water down my shirt when I was like eight.) They're turning into burning horrible blisters... I'm typing with one hand.

Here are the last of the vacation pictures... Now it's time to put my video-editing skills to work... and I'm going to need a lot of them. I have a world-class case of camera shake... It was definitely the camera (I SWEAR I don't shake that much in real life!)



But whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
It's ourselves we find at the sea

Friday, May 27, 2016

fabulous friday . sea glass


I finally have almost finished with vacation photos. *pauses while I get a cup of tea, glace at the clock and notice it's 13 minutes to 11. think about tomorrow... keep writing.*

Sometimes I'm just in the zone and sometimes I'm just not. When I'm in, I'm all in. I get stuff done when I'm in. I have a schedule in my head and I get my checklist of things DONE. done well, done right. 

But as soon as I'm out of the zone, I'm out. like, out-out. and quite honestly mostly it's just a mystery of how to get back in?

I saw something the other day: "My life is just like Rihanna's new song. Work, work, work and the rest of it, I don't really understand." 

I can't stop laughing about it.
So. This sea glass stuff. 

To be quite honest, well, let me start with a story...

once a upon a time...

we walked down to the pier one day. (we did not walk on the pier because you had to pay money and no one brought any with them. it's a beach for pete's sake.) the tide was in and bringing in buckets of shells. They were beautiful. I wish I had payed more attention to them, but I didn't because I thought it was just common stuff, we'd come back tomorrow when I wasn't soaked. Well, turns out the storm had brought these beauties in so we had our pickings (along with a lady named Amy and her husband, daughter and son. I know because that's what her husband called her.) one day only. well, along washes this piece of green something and I'm like, oh, it's a beer bottle (it's kinda that same color) but when I pick it up (go green) it's soft on the edges and I'm like, this is actually pretty. and amy goes, oh, that's beautiful! what a find! and I said, I thought it was a beer bottle. and she goes, it's sea glass. it probably was a beer bottle once, but the ocean has worn it down.

So I came across my first piece of sea glass and a friend.

her name was amy.




and I have a question for you: if you saw some kind of compilation of shells like these sealed to card stock... would you frame it and put it on your wall?

and guys being good for the environment is good, but when it comes to sea glass - please, for the next generation, throw your bottles (washed and dried carefully is preferable) into the sea.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

week twenty . lighthouse light

in 2012, the first year we road tripped up (from south carolina) to kitty hawk, we stopped at Currituck lighthouse. and guys, it was cool. like really cool. surprisingly cool for being, a, um, lighthouse.

This year we climbed Cape Hatteras. It's the tallest brick lighthouse in the US. Pretty rad, right?

It was quite a climb!







Here I am: wearing my favorite joggers and Life is Good T. because that's what you wear on a road trip!

What's your favorite outfit for those days you need to be comfy (aka, road trips)?

Friday, May 20, 2016

fabulous friday . life is good .

 one of my favorite things about the east coast is Life is Good... It's such a nice, great vibe place. Their message is a totally positive thing: life is good. It's got great quality stuff, good prices, happy clothes, awesome everything... I also want you to know that life is good is not sponsoring this post. They don't even know my name, for that matter.

Maybe we should change that.
Also, they have an awesome mascot and his name is Jake and how fun is that??

I'm off to wrap a gift for a graduation party, then my sister and I are off to the party and then a baseball game... we're hoping the rain will let up.

We're not hoping too hard, though. 

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

week nineteen // lazy sunday


 Our second day of vacation (first full beach day,) Sunday, was extremely low-key. After church (an experience I won't go into) we hung out til lunch (doing a hot air balloon puzzle that was missing six pieces) and then took a walk down to the beach.
They had a bowl of shells and you leave a note or a picture or the date. (the one pictured is not ours.) It was one of those things that makes it feel so perfect. You get to leave a tiny piece of yourself there, for the next person to enjoy. to remember you by. and you get a different piece of the adventure of the ocean, a different perspective, a new idea.




We didn't walk on the pier, but we walked down to it (it was about a quarter mile) and the first day the tide had brought in just buckets of shells and I found two pieces of green sea glass. and guys, there is nothing like sea glass.

you feel?

Friday, May 13, 2016

fabulous friday // pressing flowers


So a few weeks ago I decided to go a little bit wild with my art journal and try pressing flowers. I had had to press some leaves for a science project (like I had to identify all of that blah blah) and it got me interested in pressing some flowers. like, hey man, I got this.

Note, guys: they leak so bad. I honestly do not remember them being so... fresh

I guess you just kinda never know which way it will go. These guys, though, bleed. big time.

Don't look at Robert Frost's nothing gold can stay. 
No, I'm kidding.

It felt like so many flowers, but when I started to tape them in (is that tacky?) I was like, gee, I should have done a few more. oops.

For more info, check these guys out...


(guys, I know the white balance looks way funky and weird. The last pictures were taken on an overcast day and it made it look all green. I should fix it, but this post is already late and I've already cried too many times today.)
I didn't want the flowers to be on the last page, but I also didn't want to have to write/draw over them when I flipped the page. So I waited until I had finished drawing on the pages and then added the flowers after. 
Also, if anyone was wondering, the page is from Lemony Snicket's book "Series of Unfortunate Events: Slippery Slope." My friend cut it up and put an invitation inside so I used a page she hadn't hot clued to the rest. So, my excuse is that, yes, I tore up a book, but I wasn't the first one to do it and at least this way some of the book gets to be looked at instead of none.
Ever tried drying flowers (or anything else?)

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

week eighteen // ice cream parlor

Wow. long, long week. We're home, now, though...

and I'll break the sad news fast: our little robin friend did not make it. 

We don't know what happened... snake? rat? a hawk? do hawks eat eggs? The nest is still very well intact, but the eggs are just gone. (and we looked up the stats on when birds leave the nest... it's more than a week.)
moving on to other things, last year I did a bad, bad, horrible job of editing photos... I'll just fess up now: I still have not finished editing all the photos from last vacation... and the final count was under three hundred, no joke. I edited every other single photo I took last year, except for vacation shots.

Two things:

#1) you take about a billion photos (by conservative estimation) on your vacations while note: you have endless time, with none of the regular responsibilities of life.

#2) Now we get home and we are worn out, drained, excited, but functioning on adrenaline, and not only overwhelmed by the billion photos, also now to get back to the daily grind, like... keeping up with those blog posts

and that's what killed me last year. blogging was great for the rest of the year... It saved me, kept me working when I didn't want to edit, didn't want to start, and then stabbed me in the back while I wasn't looking.

Thanks blogger.

but now, two things I'm doing to help?

#1) I'm editing everything before I pick my camera up again... (besides those dried flower pictures I promised) and the next few weeks of blog posts? well, guys, let's relive my vacation! you'll love it.

#2) not only did I take quite a bit of video on our trip (I'm going to try my hand at some video editing software this summer. wish me luck,) I also kept it simple, and I'm taking it light. I take one day at a time and it's totally manageable.

and one pro tip: try your very best to not look through all your pictures ten times over, even if you have a eleven hour drive home (ha! who has that, am I right?) It takes all the fun out of reliving your trip and you don't get to edit while they're still, well, fresh! 

So we stopped at a place for lunch and I don't know what they were cooking but man alive they made the best gosh darn blueberry ice cream for a good fifty miles around (please excuse the fact that there were only houses and a car place or two within a two hundred mile radius *cough) I will admit, I'm a little bit biased when it comes to blueberry ice cream... I had a slight break in there where I loved Blue Bell's Happy Tracks and then once when I had a little fad about cookies and cream (still supreme) but thank heaven for blueberry.



I love this one, right here, so much. it's such a classic long-car-ride-my-hair-is-a-mess ponytail. life is life, ya know?