What's the Story, Morning Glory?

The Ah-Ha Moment

Anyone who has ever done any kind of computer coding will know exactly what I'm talking about here. I'm sitting here at work, at 8:45 p.m., getting very frustrated because I have to have approximately 20 different models estimated by Monday, and I can't even get one to work. It doesn't exactly help matters that I'm using a new program that I just learned yesterday. So awesome. I was pretty much at the bang my head on my desk until I knock myself unconscious stage, when lo and behold, I thought about a tiny little adjustment I could make, and voila! A model is born. Now off to see about the 19...

A Different View

I haven't been playing with my fisheye lens nearly as much lately, and looking through these pictures reminds me I have to get it out more often.

Plants to the Second Power

Here are a few more of my favorites from my last visit to the U.S. Botanic Gardens.

These first two are a plant called the Rattlesnake Master. You have to respect a plant with a name like that.




Stoke's Aster

I've fallen a bit behind, but I plan on putting up some new photos to ViewFound Photography, so stay tuned!

Dining Dilemma

My design brain has been turned off, it seems. Due to some recent rearranging of furniture and transporting a love seat to boyfriend's house, my apartment is ripe for a reinvention, but I just can't seem to make it work in my head. Case in point - my dining "room". Before, it looked like this:

That was, until a week or so ago, when a friend was leaning on the table to examine my tree frogs, who now live on the table. Turns out, drywall gets a little moist due to humidity, and down came tumbling the table. The wall was really soft, so now I'm afraid to put it back up, so I'm searching for a new table. I've been angling for my parents' dining table for a while now, but I've finally accepted it just won't fit in my apartment. I wouldn't mind taking the opportunity to upgrade a bit, and get something with leaves, or at least that can fit four people for entertaining, but it's hard to find anything on a budget.

I found this beautiful table on Overstock.com, but it's a bit more than I would like to spend.

I can always go the Ikea route, and I picked on this one from there, but I'm not sure I love it:
Browsing around a little more, I came up with this one, but it's again maybe a little more than I want to spend:
So as you can see, I have no clear idea in my head what I want to do, and I should probably figure it out soon, so if you have any ideas, let me know!

Guardians of DC

So I've been horrible lax lately in blogging, but I promise I'll be better! :) I decided to go through some pictures I took earlier this summer that I still haven't sorted, and I ran across one of my favorite subjects - lions. I normally don't wander around the Capitol building that much, as I like to distance myself from the tourists, but I happened by the statue by the reflecting pond in front of it, and got to see this statue for the first time up close.

I just never happened to notice there were lions on it, but they turned out to be difficult to get a good shot of, as the structure is so tall.

I liked how regal these particular lions were, rather than the typical sleeping or roaring lion statues.

And the actual subject of the statue, whoever he may be:

According to statue myth, he died of natural causes, as all four legs of his horse are on the ground.

The statue next to the lions/unknown man was also pretty cool, so I got a couple of shots of it as well.

Breaking All the Rules - Wearing the Short Pants

So, all the fashion rules say short people shouldn't wear short pants or capris. I've been a big fan of the capris for a while, blinding flying in the face of the fashion gurus, but I've avoided the short pant (i.e., just above the ankle). This week I wore two pairs of short pants, and I love it! It gives me a chance to show off my shoes, while still not freezing in the refrigerator that is my cubicle.

What are your thoughts on short pants? And do they look better with heels or flats?

(Image courtesy of gap.com, aren't those sandals adorable?)

Treasury Time, No. 3!

I've made it into my third treasury! Well, two of them were for ViewFound Photography and one was for Totables, but third total, I guess. This one is for DC artists, which I think is a great theme! It was created by hitchcockcreative, another fantastic DC photographer.

Ready for my Close-up

This past weekend we got to put boyfriend's birthday present of photography lighting to use and have a model shoot of all the purses...now I do modeling both in my day job and my side job, although purse modeling is a little more glamorous than transportation modeling.

We had originally intended to take the photos on my roofdeck, as I was going for romantic urban, and it's nice up there with plants and a railing and pretty buildings in the background. But unfortunately, it turns out that you have to get up there at like 6 a.m. in order to get non-completely harsh light, so instead we had to go around to the alley behind my building and do a gritty urban shoot instead. I thought they came out really interesting, and it was a lot of fun.

A few of my listings with updated pictures:

Red Hot Necklace - Fabric Flowers and Clay Beads

Tailored Tote - Felted Red and Gray Wool

Look Ma, No Hands - Crocheted Orange Cross-Body Bag

A Change is Coming...

So boyfriend is probably relieved that I've been caught up with my Etsy shops lately, as it means that I have no time to contemplate changes to my apartment. Well, too bad, because I'm back on the decorating bandwagon. So you may remember that when I was in Honduras, I bought a couple of chairs on the side of the road. They have now been taken apart, sanded, stained, sanded again because I did a crappy job, stained again, and put back together about 8 times, because I kept doing it wrong. So anyway, the plan was that once I had them put together I was going to sell my white loveseat and use these chairs instead. When I got them put together and was contemplating selling the white loveseat, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It was my first real furniture purchase as a non-student adult. So that produced a conundrum...I had two loveseats, two chairs, and a small apartment. So, seeing as how I also love my chesterfield loveseat and am not about to let go of that one, but it does cramp my style color-wise, it will be migrating over to boyfriend's house for a while. This frees me up, as it is the single item that dictated my color scheme of yellows, oranges, and reds, while I really prefer cool colors like teal and turquoise and green. So now I have ideas swirling around in my head, but nothing concrete yet. Stay tuned to see what I come up with!

And I'm Back, Not to Mention Pink Poodles Actually Exist

So my vacation was way too short, but it was a good time. Despite the fact it rained at the cottage and we had to play games inside all day, instead of playing on the water outside, it was great to see all my friends and family. I had a few ideas about blog posts this morning, but then I happened to run across this photo on Habitually Chic:


Now, you may not know this, but when I was little, I was obsessed with the color pink. Really obsessed. My bedroom was pepto bismol pink. And, since I like to plan out every aspect of my life, I had a plan for my future that contained a lot of pink. I was going to live in a pink house, with pink furnishings, and I was going to have a poodle and dye it pink. So there you go, it's my dream dog.

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

I almost forgot to mention the fact I am off to the homeland this evening! I will be flying to Traverse City to spend time with the fam, and then to Houghton Lake for a weekend with my Calvin peeps. Fun times will be had all around, and I will be back on Tuesday!

Froggie Update

So I mentioned last week that I have recently acquired three tadpoles. I had found a nifty container to bring them home in at the dollar store, and they seemed to be quite happy in it at home as well, as you can see below.

The appearance of legs!

Well, Sunday boyfriend and I went to change the water in the container, and flipping open the top revealed a little baby frog, holding on upside down! Yes, it turns out I have adopted tree frogs. As it was getting to be very obvious that they needed a new home and some live food in the form of mealworms, boyfriend and I spent a couple of hours at the Petco last night, deciding how to set up my terrarium.

So far, two of three have become frogs and the third tadpole has sprouted back legs. The terrarium will be overhauled next week as well, as I will get a waterpump and make a waterfall for them. The frogs were a little terrified of having so much space I think, after hanging around upside down in the other container, so they stayed away from the plant for a while and instead just clung to the glass. They eventually realized it's much nicer to chill on a leaf, and so now that is their favorite place to be. Boyfriend has christened the two frogs Lewis and Clark, and the more adventurous one is Lewis.

The pictures aren't great, as the lighting isn't super in my apartment in the morning, but I will post better ones later.

This one is hard to see, but their second favorite place to hang out is right on the lip of the bowl.

The Reinvention of Michigan

So I was reading the Washington Post this morning and came across an article about the possibility of the Standish prison housing Guantanamo Bay detainees. As can be expected, there is a lot of debate about this, but I'm not really sure how I feel about it. A lot of the residents are actually for it, as the prison is set to be shut down, and it would potentially save jobs or bring people to the area to do the jobs, which is good news for the economy, I guess.

I personally just enjoyed the quote by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who said, "Michigan can do a lot better than becoming the federal government's penal colony." Woohoo - Michigan can possibly be the new Australia.

Most Useful Free Tool Ever

So I pulled one of those paper Ikea yardstick tape measure things out of my drawer today, and I thought to myself, this is the most useful free item I've ever gotten. I'm not going to lie, I have about 40 of the things between work and home and my purse, but I use them all the time. Maybe I'm just an obsessive measurer, but I love them. Anyone else care to offer up a contender for the most useful free tool ever?