Smith Family Photo Shoot

Yesterday my sister asked me to take some family photos for them.  We went to Pump House Park in Richmond (creepy park - but I still love it).  Here are some of the photos.

He's a very good friend of mine, he's one of my best friends, he's my ONLY best friend.*

Congratulations to Kathryn for getting the blog bucks last time!  She takes her ranking very seriously and wasn't about to be knocked out of the top 10!

So little known fact, I have a Pinterest account.  Just like Twitter - I don't know how to use it. (Note: I kept calling it "pin-interest" until my 14 year-old cousin corrected me - you don't want to be corrected by a 14 year-old).  Anyway - people are always saying, "Saw this on Pinterest" and they are always cute little things they do.  So I signed up and then left it for a long time.  Then my sister, Joanna, got on there, and she seemed to get it and really enjoy it so I tried again.  I spent a couple minutes one Saturday looking at little "Do it yourself" stuff for the house and then found a bunch of other things.

Then I left it again.

Then my bishop's wife admitted that she is on there and has no clue what is going on.  But she told me that there is a phone app for it - so I downloaded it and then went crazy one day - pinning things I want to do but knew deep down that my lazy personality would probably never get to them.

It's like I want these home improvements, I want to lose weight, I want fun activities to do with the nieces and nephews, and I want those cute, homemade Halloween costumes - but I want someone else to do them for me...cause
                                  I'm
                                            LAZY. 

Goodness - I thought we covered this already, why aren't you retaining that about me?

Usually I would say, "I'm just not crafty" or handy, or creative, or I lack fine motor skills, brain capacity, my eye sight is bad, my fingers are fat, I'm scared of sharp objects and splinters, I don't have the money right now, I'm bad at measuring things, I don't know what supplies I need, etc.  You get the idea right? Cause I really can keep going - I'm an "Excuse Queen" and I can do it for almost any activity (i.e. running - it's cold, my legs hurt, I haven't had any water today, I don't want to pull a hammy*). 

Anyway - to the Pinterest Community,

You guys are freaking creative! I will count myself lucky if I can copy you - much less post something original for others to try and copy.  I'm so grateful for this little community of creative, do-it-yourself-ers who think of cute things to craft, or better ways to function in daily life.  I'm also grateful for Pinterest folders where I can store this stuff away to try when I'm older, a mom, have money, have time, own a dog, eat dinner, or learn to can preserves I'll never eat from my garden I haven't planted yet.

However - I did take a day, when there were so many other things I should have been doing, and tried some of these things out - I started small.  My main goal is to build the giant lazy susan for heaven knows what overall purpose, but even if I just did a few of the small things I would find that my Pinterest account was worth it (you know - cause it cost free-ninety-nine to sign up).

Money well spent...

The Ivory Soap

You can put the bar of soap in whole, or you can break it up in to pieces and then microwave for about two minutes or so and walla -

The Naked Egg:

This one actually took more time.


After a few hours

 



I've lost my marbles*

I might have a problem. I put up my Christmas stuff the day after Thanksgiving and I got to see all of my penguins.

Except - that wasn't all of them, there were also the ones at work that I had forgotten about. Plus, Wanda just gave me the fat penguin on skis...isn't he the cutest little fat penguin ever!?

Not to mention that since then Kathryn has given me a set of penguin salt and pepper shakers and I now have a penguin stocking. (Oh and four penguin cups that match the penguins below and four penguin plates that match the blue penguin set above).

In fact, we all got new stockings. In order from left to right: Kami, me, Lisa, and Ryan.

Happy Holidays.

Is someone smoking within a six mile radius of where I'm standing?*

I recently finished reading the book Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. I have to admit it took me some time to get in to. The book begins in London and then enters into a mirror version of London call "Un Lun Dun" with other places connected to it like, "Parisnt". The reason I had difficulty is because, well because I am from Virginia. Reading a book based in London is one thing, you see a word and you think, "I wonder what that is?" You look it up and find out that it's a telephone or a toilet. But with this book it was, "What's that? Is it from London or is it a made up thing in Un Lun Don?" So, in Jessica fashion, I gave up on the book and read about 15 others before returning to it. Finally I told myself that I just needed to read it. My brother-in-law, Ben, is who lent it to me and I figured one day he'd like to get that book back, and he'd like to get it back knowing my thoughts on it. I can make stuff up pretty well, but not an entire book (...actually, I can) - maybe I should say a summary of a book, I can't make up a summary of a book.


I struggled through the beginning chapters (which were short little heaven sent chapters) and then suddenly, the book took off. Suddenly, I understood what I was reading. Right before I finished the book I wondered if that is what it is like to read Clockwork Orange, all nonsense at first and then the reward for sticking with it is that you will actually know what is happening. Maybe we'll try it (after I finish my 60-some books awaiting perusal).


My point in this blog is that I am jealous of China Mieville. He makes up this entire world Un Lun Dun and plays off of things in the real world, like the black window in Webminister Abbey, which really gives you the heebies. Or how giraffes are not all that cute (let's be honest here, ever since my first encounter with a giraffe I haven't been fooled). In fact, they are crazy carnivores (in Un Lun Dun...see below).


That's not cute. I saw a cute little cartoon drawing of a giraffe today and I thought, "eek, those things scare me." And not the way they used to scare me, it's on a deeper level now.

I'm jealous of China Mieville because I want to write well, I want to write stories that stick with you. I want to have an imagination that can make things up like black windows, binja (ninja trash bins), an ungun...I guess people have different styles, I doubt Charles Dickens could have written Un Lun Dun either, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a kick-butt writer.

When I read a really good book it leaves me with two feelings. I have the feeling of "I love this book!" coupled with the feeling of, "Crap, I'm not good enough." Who knows if I'll ever get published, I hope that I do, I would really, really like to have that happen some day. I'll do what I do and I guess we'll see.