Through the Years

Last week, CNN.com posted a story about five friends who had been taking the same picture for 30 years.

 I was immediately drawn to the story since every year my girlfriends and I take self-timer group photos. (Which I'm sure you've seen either on this blog, my Facebook, around my apartment, or hanging in my office.) After sharing the article with my friends and asking for their permission, I submitted our story and photos as an iReport to the original story.

As far as I know, they post everyone's iReport with no approval process, but I'm still happy to have our friendship on display at CNN.

Slow down, 2012

I’m a bad blogger. But I’m an excellent iPhone picture taker. (Probably due in large part to upgrading my phone last month.) So what better way to ease back into blogging then with some of the most random and mundane photos of my life from the past month. And maybe some actual words of my own, too.

I’ve been a New York Giants fan since Eli joined the team and was very excited for the Super Bowl this year. I made myself – and also shared with the roommate – mini pigs in a blanket, spinach dip, and a cheesy bean dip for the occasion.

I believe in celebrating my birthday the whole month. So on the last day of January, on a freakishly warm winter day, I treated myself to froyo and a trip to Anthropologie. (Where I only spent $5 on these two bowls.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m really bad at re-decorating a space once it’s decorated. I get it set a certain way and could leave it for years. (Were I actually ever to stay in a place for years, that is.) But I decided to get crazy and make a few small changes, like reorganizing my bathroom counter and adding a small rug from Pier 1 that so perfectly matches my room.(The bowls were purchased at the Anthro that opened 2 blocks from my office that I’ve only been to once and only spent $10 at. I’ll take my medal for self-control now, please.)

The first week of February marked the 4 year anniversary of being at my job. One of my co-worker’s started the same time as me and bought us each a mini bottle of champagne to celebrate. I was on a call when she brought it and I had to stare at it for a half hour before I could partake. Maddening. We got a drink together after work too and cheersed to the 4 years.

Back to re-decorating, I finally hung one of my Christmas gifts from the roomie: A wordle using the lyrics of the “Alma Mater.” I thought it only right to hang it above the Top of the Hill menu and across from the 2005 national championship newspaper.

Also on the re-decorating list, replacing the photos in two frames that have hung in every bathroom I’ve had since I was 22. (The frames and photos were a 22nd birthday gift from my friend, Ashley.) (I don’t know why I’ve always hung them in a bathroom, that’s just where they go.) But I decided to replace the photos from our Europe trip with two of my photos of D.C.: A column from the Lincoln Memorial and a window from the National Cathedral. (The latter is a bit too dark, though.)

For President’s Day weekend my sister came up to D.C. We’ve never hung out in the city just the two of us and it was really nice to have some one-on-one time. On Friday we had dinner, talked, shopped, and saw “The Vow.” On Saturday we went to Eastern Market, the Portrait Gallery, and then Michael’s. We bought a kit to make our own bath salts, which we did while recovering from our busy day.

While at the Portrait Gallery, we came across Katharine Hepburn’s Oscars. This is me doing a terrible Vanna White impression. 

The past month or so has just been very up and down, good and bad, calm and crazy, chaotic and twirly. Thus I present my purchases on two different Friday nights, about two weeks apart. First, after a particularly bad week, I had to pick something up at CVS and ended up picking up the following, too. Can we say, pathetic? (But exactly what I needed.)

Last Friday was much calmer and after finishing work a bit early I decided to spend some Target gift cards. I bought some wonderfully sparkly shoes and finally got my hands on a Jason Wu piece.

For Fat Tuesday I went with a friend to gab a drink and then she found us a cute Cajun place for dinner and beignets. It also marked my last soft drink for 40 days as I’ve given them and pizza up for Lent.

Finally, even though January was my birthday month, one of my friends is helping me prolong my celebration by giving me a belated gift last week. Both the gift and card are just so perfectly me – according to her, not just me – and I can’t help but smile when looking at them.

And that’s the past month or so. Where I apparently just bought a lot of random things and took a lot of weird pictures. Though it really only covers a fraction of my life. There was dinner and manicures with a friend on Valentine’s Day, book club, breakfast and mimosas at a screening of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” with some girlfriends, award show watching with the roommate, outlet shopping with a friend, basketball games, basketball games, basketball games, drinks with friends, drinks with coworkers, conference calls and deadlines, a visit from a college friend, and a non-terrible haircut. Did I forget anything? Probably so.

Life Lately According to my iPhone

Told you that eventually I'd get back to detailing the mundane details of my life via iPhone. So here we go, glimpses of my life for the past few months, brought to you by poorly lit photos.

My neighborhood has so many beautiful tree-lined streets that are gorgeous in any season, but perhaps especially in fall. This is one of my favorite streets. It was better before a storm when the trees on the right were also full of leaves, forming a golden canopy.

An outpost of the famous New York City restaurant Serendipity 3 opened in Georgetown recently and I went with a friend for dinner, drinks, and desert. This is the chocolate chip cookie dough sundae we split. We only made it about halfway through before crying uncle but it was delicious.

My annual contribution to our Thanksgiving dinner: the relish tray. It really is quite an art form at this point.

The brother in law, sister, mom, and niece dog making T'giving dinner.

Daddy helping me supervise.

Totally random but this good deal had to be blogged about. I've been using Biosilk Silk Therapy for years to prevent tangliness in my hair. I usually get the smaller bottle, which is less than half of this one and still costs $16. (But it lasts forever.) I found this huge bottle, which retails for $40, for just $19.99! Amazing!

The little tree and adorable Christmas skirt I picked up at Target for my office. It makes me and my officemates so darn happy. (Also pictured: our chocolate "presents," the Angel drawn by one of my officemates, and our SAT vocabulary flashcards that we quiz each other with. Because we are amazingly, awesomely cool.)

For the Kentucky bball game last week -- which I don't want to talk about -- Karey, Brandie, and I gathered at mine and K's apartment. I made crescent roll pinwheels or "meat twirls" according to Brandie. They took way too long to make but were really good. (From left: bacon, cheddar and ranch; spinach, mozzarella, and garlic; and turkey sausage, cheddar, and ranch.)

We're having an office decorating contest at work. This is a glimpse of what we're working on.

And that's my life.

So many things to see

My San Francisco pictures are finally uploaded, organized, and semi-captioned on my Flickr.

Still planning on writing more about the trip...eventually.

Day 245: Google domination

I've mentioned before how I hate when something becomes bandwagony. Thus, for years I was a Yahoo! holdout, refusing to embrace the whole Google fad. I even insisted on using the phrase "why don't you yahoo it," as opposed to "why don't you google it," to further my resistance. Alas, while I still frequent Yahoo! for the news directly on their homepage, when it comes to searching, I am a Google gal.

At work I spend a lot of time on the image search, which is how I came across the Google Image Labeler, which I "played" tonite. They make it seem like a game, where you race an unseen partner to label photographs. Of course, in reality, you are doing free work for the billion-dollar Google empire. And it's not that fun; my partner didn't feel the need to label the picture of a mosque with "architecture" or "Islam." He or she is almost as big of a loser as the person who spent her last night for awhile with internet at home, labeling images. (Only two, though, I gave up quickly.)

Day 232: Time travelling

With the exception of maybe my senior year and kindergarten photos, I could do without the rest of my yearbook pictures. But thanks to the funnest web site ever, Yearbook Yourself, I got the chance to try again, in five different decades, by seeing what my yearbook picture would look like in different years.

Some of them were awful, some gave me an unnecessary double chin, and some were just kind of creepy. The highlights:

1950 and 1956


1960 and 1968

1974 and 1990

I like 1974 because it's only two years after my Mom graduated and looks a lot like her hair in her picture. (Sorry, Mom, the 1972 person had a bob.) I like the 1950s and 1960s ones the best. I would totally have been ok in those decades as long as I could be an angry feminist turned hippie. And maybe see the Beatles live, too.

Pictures from the Bloomsbury Festival now added!

This has been a long, frustrating week and I’m glad it’s nearly over. Hoping I can just make it to Friday where I will crash and not wake up for a long time. Or until Saturday morning when I hope to finally make it to Portobello Road and the market, which I haven’t been to this trip.

On the upside Mom and Aunt LuAnn will be here in a week, and the tickets for Scotland and to see “Sound of Music” are all booked!

I really don’t have anything else exciting to add. Been trying to get into the shows they have on BBC, but not much luck. They have a cheap knock-off version of ANTM with Rachel Hunter called “Make me a Supermodel” but it’s not half as good. There’s a trashy new soap called “Goldplated” that’s sort of like OC, but not. “Strictly Come Dancing” was alright, Baby Spice is on so that’s interesting to see her. And sadly the only American shows they seem to be playing right now are “CSI”, “The Simpsons”, and “Battlestar Gallatica.” But luckily for me this means I spend less time watching tv. And more time doing things and reading.

Speaking of reading, I have no one here to discuss books with so I’m including my mini-reviews of what I’ve read recently just because I can. Feel free to skip over. Not sure what my weekend plans are as of yet. Need to definitely buy a winter coat. I’ve tried on a ton but haven’t found just the right one. And I am definitely going to at least one museum, though I’ve been saying that the whole time. Happy almost-Friday everyone!

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
A beautiful book. The way she writes makes me wants to drop everything and write, and the way she talks about writing is exactly how I feel. It was of course a book tinged with sadness as it deals with her husband’s death and her daughter’s near-death illness, but it was touching without being overly emotional, and there was beauty in how she wrote about herself and her husband. I admire her way of writing because it was very stream of consciousness, a way I can not write, and reminded me a lot of Gloria Vanderbilt’s “A Mother’s Story,” another book about grief I found haunting and beautiful.

Saving Fish from Drowning – Amy Tan
She is a great story-teller, and there were a lot of pieces to her plot but they all came together very well without being confusing or annoying. And best of all it took place in Burma/Myanmar, a place I knew very little of, but know feel like I learned a lot about the culture and want to learn more. A book is good in my mind if I learn about a different culture and want to learn more.

The Third Brother – Nick McDonnell
I judged him too soon, and he is actually deserving of the fact that he’s written two books by 21. Though I haven’t read his first. And while it wouldn’t kill him to learn how to properly transition instead of cheating and making each new scene a new chapter, he writes well and is very creative and different. And while the book is not centered on 9/11, a pivotal scene takes place on the day, and he writes about being in the center of the chaos in New York, in a way I haven’t read before. I don’t know how he knows the details he does, or if they’re even true, but I think they are and it was fascinating to read that portion.

Everyone Worth Knowing – Lauren Weisberger
First, I love chick lit. If it is about rich, elitist New Yorkers, I buy it. If it’s about a small town girl who tries to make it in a big city, I read it. If it takes place in New York, Paris, or London, has anything to do with fashionistas or shopaholics, or has a pink, green, or purple cover, I grab it. But sadly, I think I have reached my chick lit peak. Ten pages into this book I knew who she was going to end up with, when she was going to have her breakdown, and who was going to be the secret villain. And I’m not saying this in a cocky “ooh I’m so smart” way. I’m saying this as someone who has, at least for now, reached the end of the chick lit genre, kind of like that commercial where the guy is surfing the Internet and he reaches the end, he’s seen it all. It is a sad sad day for me indeed.


The Lady and the Unicorn – Tracy Chevalier
This book was only ok. I loved “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and read it in one night, but this one just wasn’t as good. It may be because I had never heard of the art she wrote about, whereas I had always admired the pearl earring painting, I don’t know. It just wasn’t as entrancing. But at least I can say I now know how tapestries are made now.

Brighton pictures added to my webshots account - enjoy!

Pictures!

I have finally uploaded the scant pictures I have so far. I don't feel like figuring out how to upload them on here so I've just created another webshots account for them. I'll just upload anything I take there and post a note here when I do. More pictures of the rest of the flat coming later, as I realize I don't have very many.

Link:
http://community.webshots.com/user/learningtofly84