Picture Day

So I started this little project as a way to document adventure...but it really has turned into a sounding board for all the embarrassing, awkward, and slightly pathetic things that happen to me. These are my stories (dundun). Here is a pathetic little gem to make you chuckle, I have to laugh at it too...
Every few years our church puts out a new photo directory, pictures of the families, contact information, etc. As I was signing up to have my picture taken for our directory I had the following conversation with one of the older women who were manning the sign up table
Woman: "Are you going to be taking your photo all by yourself?"
Me: "Yes"
Woman: "Do you have a pet, like a dog or a kitty or something you want to have in the photo with you?"
Me: "Nope, it's just me"
Woman: "Well, it won't always be, dear."

Really?

Seriously?

Stuff.

Most of us have too much of stuff. I have too much stuff. So much stuff that there is a storage unit full of my stuff.

Stuff from my apartment: Pots and pans, dishes, a microwave, a crockpot, furniture, lamps, silverware, shoes, pictures, blankets, odds and ends, gadgets and gizmos, whosits and whatsits...you name it!

I miss my stuff. I miss my knick-knacks, I miss my refrigerator magnets, I miss the chairs I fixed up, I miss my random assortment of framed pictures and allllllll the stuff from my Alice in Wonderland kitchen. And most of all I miss my mugs. Yes, I am quite attached to my mugs.

For some reason, it makes me a little sad when I open the cupboard to grab a coffee cup each morning and I only have 3 options. I've had the same 3 options for the last 7 months and I will continue to have the same 3 options until I can move out of my parents' house.

I am waiting very impatiently for the day I can unpack this box (and the two others just like it) and have multiple mug options. Until then I will have to settle for the 3 I have here.

A Place of One's Own

Once upon a time I had my own apartment. The rent was too high, the neighborhood wasn't great, and my air conditioner didn't work. On several occasions I had to re-light my heater pilot with a match when it went out, and once my toilet broke and it took two days before someone came to fix it. My kitchen had the ugliest brown lacquered cabinets, and I swear my upstairs neighbors had a pet elephant who enjoyed tap-dancing. The frat boy wannabes (who were in their mid-thirties) across the way played their awful music too loud, and if the kids weren't using my back-patio to play hide and seek on, they would always be screaming in the pool (which was right on the other side of my patio).

But, despite all of this...I had my own apartment. I had my own living room, and my own bedroom, and my own kitchen, and my own bathroom. I could decorate however I wanted, and watch whatever I wanted on TV.

I'm starting to really miss my old place...especially today when I'm being charged with the task of cleaning 'my' room.

A sampling of photos from my apartment in Simi

First off, it's really hard to keep your room clean when you have to figure out a way to keep all of your stuff in there...which is tough, since my room at my parents' house isn't that much bigger than my queen-sized bed that's in there. I have maybe a 12"-border around my bed, and mom won't let me hang anything on the walls (which are no longer the teal of my teen-hood, but a shade of gray that reminds me somewhat of a prison cell...apparently it's supposed to be 'classy' but it just feels depressing). How am I supposed to feel like this is my room if I'm not allowed to put any of myself into it? With none of my travel pictures, or even pictures of my friends the blank walls just make me sad. Plus, I am really starting to miss my stuff. Every time I visit the storage unit, I see all my chairs, and my lamps and my decor...and I just miss it.

Working less than 30 hours a week, along with the three semesters it will take (at least) to get all my ECE certification means it's going to be a long while before I'll be able to see the light at the end of the 'living with my parents' tunnel.

I feel like the only way I'm ever going to be able to move out is if I:

a) Inherit a house that is already paid off and has no property taxes attached to it

b) Win a bajillion dollars by playing the lottery, because a bajillion dollars should cover rent for a while

-or-

c) Get married

none of these are likely solutions...especially since I don't even play the lottery.

I guess I'm just destined to live the life of a twenty-five year old teenager...

Just another story caught up in another photograph I found

During crazy Christmas family extravaganza of 2010, the grown-ups decided to pull out a box of old pictures...which was so much fun.
Aside from a bunch of pictures of some really stern looking German people, (which my mom has been able to trace back to the mid 1800's), there were baby pictures of my mom and my uncles, photos that gave me insight to what my mom's life was like as a teenager (there were lots of sheep), and some precious shots of us cousins with the g'parents from way back in the diaper days!
I love sorting through old pictures, and I'm afraid that my generation has gotten so digital that my grandkids aren't going to have anything to sort through. 50 years from now when I have my own crazy family Christmas gatherings, they're just going to sit in front of my computer and click through thousands pictures. Plus, I'm not really sure that I want my grandkids to see all my pictures...
I love my digital camera and its convenience. No film + immediate results means I can take several versions of the same picture until I get the exact one I want, it's great!! But I think that there is something to be said of using an old 35mm (or whatever). Film definitely limits the amount of pictures you can take, but I think it also allows you to be more selective in your photography. For instance, do I really need to take 20 pictures of Sleeping Beauty's castle EVERY TIME I GO TO DISNEYLAND?? Probably not...
I'm sure with film cameras, there were quite a few moments missed, but there were also some significant moments captured.
I had my mom make some copies for me of a few pictures of my grandparents, and they are just so classic

This my grandparents leaving for their honeymoon, something about this picture reminds me of a couple of old fashioned movie stars being caught my the paparazzi!

And here's my grandpa!
When we were going through pictures and I commented about how handsome my grandpa was...my gramma's reply was "yeah he was"...oh, Gramma

Wonderfultown

New York, New York!!
I've only been to NYC twice in my entire life. And the last time I was there, it was hardly for more than 36 hours. But I loved it!! I wouldn't want to live there, or anything...it's a little 'I don't want to live on the moon'
There is just something about a big city (and all that theatre!!) that has a wonderfully strange effect on me. It's such a high to be around all that hustle and bustle. Besides the fact that I wander around looking like a country bug...
The first time I went was with my sister, and I can't imagine anyone else who I'd rather go with! We were there for a week and we saw Broadway shows and went to museums and spent almost a whole day in Central Park. We went to Ellis Island and found 'Grandpa Tony' in the immigration records (my dad's mom's dad). We went to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building. We saw the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero, we shopped and ate hotdogs from a cart. We had breakfast at Tiffany's on 5th Avenue and we saw a taping of the Today Show. And we barely scraped the surface of what the city has to offer.
I can't wait to go back again. But until then I have my memories, my pictures and my mug:


In other news...I got a new computer, so I've been working on transferring all my files. It took me almost all day yesterday to make sure I had all my music. I thought that was complicated (3228 songs...whew)--I am dreading trudging through all my pictures. Trying to figure out which ones transferred on my external hard-drive and which ones didn't. And sorting them because they didn't stay in their files when I stuck them in iPhoto...urgh