Pajama Days & To-Do Lists

It’s one of those days today. You know the ones. Where it’s been raining since last night and the wind keeps mounting. Where the only thing you really want to do is stay in your pajamas and drink hot chocolate and read. In bed. 

It was also one of those days with a list. Where things were written down and nodded at and told, “You will be crossed off.” (Which is why this blog post is happening close to midnight. Because it wasn’t on the list and so it didn’t have to be crossed off.)

But! But then the list was finished and all the things were crossed off (except for phoning that one place because on Wednesdays they’re closed in the afternoon, apparently.). And I still hadn’t written a blog post. However, I was in my pajamas, catching up on reading my issues of Popular Photography and scribbling down names of photographers to check out and drinking hot chocolate. So, you know, all in all, not bad. 

As I was brushing my teeth I went, “D’oh!” and scurried to my computer, searching for something to post. And then I found these. 

Welcome to my cousin’s house. Where I’ve spent the last two weekends. I’ve always known I wanted a yellow kitchen, ever since we painted the kitchen in house number 4 ‘Spanish Moon’ and house number 5 was just some soft, buttery yellow. But now I also know I want a world map on my kitchen wall. Preferably one that’s hung straight. 

Things I’m Loving:

+  12 Boardgames Pitched As Movies – I’d watch Jenga and I have a feeling that Guess Who really wouldn’t be that far off…

+  Colourblock Toe Ballet Flats – I have a pair of black penny loafers I’m going to do this too. As soon as I get the paint and some nice weather. 

+ Strawberry Ice – This is up there on my summer ‘will dos’ along with freezing coffee into ice cubes and putting them in a glass of cold (lactose free) milk. 

+ Observatory – this picture by Brian Ferry. Because it reminds me of Taiwan last summer and when we went to the mountains for the weekend. And I had never been that high up but the sun set and I couldn’t stop taking pictures and there were all these little huts on the sides (literally, the sides. You always hear that and think it can’t be true but it is.). The sun was setting and everything just got kind of hazy and I knew that, while I might not want to go back, I was just really glad I was there. So yes, that picture. 

Reading Rainbow

Bro #1 is almost like the younger, male version of myself. Now me, though. Young me, not so much. Apparently at that age I was more of a tyrant, but to each their own. Now, however, we’re on the same wavelength. So as I was hiding out in the garage earlier this week, cleaning out all of the things, he can to see if ‘there was anything he could do’. Since there wasn’t and I had just finished going through all my books and comics, he fished through the pile and came up with some solid reading material (which is to be expected since it is mine and all). 

That was when I noticed, really noticed that, hey, maybe I could pull out some of my other favourites and leave them with him. So out came The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, out came the Redwall series (almost a full set) and Montmorency and my sets of mystery novels. I’ll leave them for him and Bro #2 to read in the coming months. Books that I remember loving and devouring, reading over and over again, they deserve to have that again. And next time, there’ll be more books to pull out to be discovered once again. 

Things I’m Loving:

+ How to Get That Perfect Beach Body – Some ‘advice’ about how to get that elusive summer beach body. Hint: do absolutely nothing. 

+ The Mindy Project – This trailer has me oh so excited for the beginning of this series. Mindy Kaling is a comedic queen and the first oh, 30 seconds, had me clapping my hands together in delight. 

+ New York City Ballet ‘Pointe Shoes’ – A five minute piece on ballet shoes from the factory to the stage. Everything about is what I’d associate with ballet: beautiful and delicate looking but strong. The music and the shots are so well done. 

Growing Pains

Two years ago I graduated high school and the next day left town. My family moved and all of my things were crammed into boxes, some of it left for my dad to take care of. Since then a lot of it has just sat in the garage, boxes being added last summer when I came home from Taiwan and there’s more in my room from when I moved back from Ontario. 

My parents told me that that’s just not going to fly anymore (I completely agree) and I spent all of yesterday going through these boxes (note: there were thirteen. Holy crap.) and sorting through to give away, to recycle, to donate to the library.  I didn’t take a picture of it because my camera died, but it was sorted down to five boxes, two of which are dedicated entirely to books, one that’s filled with kitchen ware I got from grad and the other two with things that, under no uncertain terms, I couldn’t part with. (The thirteen boxes were that to begin with, too.)

It was interesting, though, to see the ways I’ve grown and changed. Those thirteen boxes contained things I loved and put value in over a six year period and then to see how that has changed in just two years….it wasn’t entirely surprising, but it was a little emotional. 

That baseball glove is the first ball glove I ever had. There’s another, bigger one with my name on it and this one now has the initials É.R.C on it for Bro #2, but it came with a rush of memories of baseball practices and the really irritatingly hot uniforms that we played in, the weight of the bat catchers’ equipment (my position for three years), and all the people I’ve played with over the years. One glove. 

There were art assignments and my collections of Writer’s Digest, Nylon, ION magazine, issues of magazines with Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor on the front (Marie Claire and Men’s Health, respectively), some of my favourite books and books by my favourite authors (found The Ring that my sister gave me for Christmas one year), the Star Wars Legacy comics that I devoured and searched for for ages, letters I exchanged with a deceased aunt, clothes from when I graduated, things that I had forgotten about but yet were still important to me. I kept the big ones (the art, the letters, the books, the comics) and am giving away or donating the rest (the magazines, some other books, the clothes). 

I may not be getting my own place anytime soon (yes, that’s a hint that there’s ‘news’ coming), but I now have the space to grow some more. To find new things that interest me and to fill my life with. Yes, it was sad. I did need a moment to pause over something that I’d found and look back to where that fit back in my life, but it’s also exciting, that there’s room for the new to fit in there as well. 

 

Things I’m Loving: 

+ One Last Mother’s Day – I found this via A Cup of Jo and couldn’t help but share as well. Motherlode shared an essay about a woman whose friend had found out, two years ago, that she had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and wasn’t eligible for surgery. It’s an absolutely beautifully written essay and so worth the five minutes it takes to read. The last paragraph is my favourite. Because what word other than ‘Mom’ can be traded so easily with the word ‘Love’?

+ Educated for Unemployment –  An article that a classmate of mine posted up on Facebook earlier today. Relevant to all of us since, well, we all just graduated from Photojournalism, a form of journalism and the article talks about how students in a ‘soft’ area of study (sociology, psych, art history or, well, journalism) are a ‘dime a dozen’ and the courses are full, they’re giving you a wonderful education, but they’re not giving you a job. This was something that my fellow classmates and I heard about constantly and yet we still stuck it out. I wonder what that says…

+ Around the World – Garance Dore travels. A lot. So she took shots of her favourite bag in the different cities and countries that she’s travelled to and then put it together in a multimedia-esque slideshow with a voice over and sound effects. 

+ 5 Classic Cocktails – I’ve been following Jennilee Marigomen for awhile now and her photos are of the day to day and the simple, things you see but don’t see. For each cocktail that there is listed, there’s also a photograph that she’s taken that embodies what she thinks of that cocktail. It’s simple but oh so effective. 

Birthday Boy

With ten people in a family, there is some serious birthday partying that we do. Two of us in February, two in March, my mom’s birthday and their wedding anniversary in April, this minion’s birthday on the first of May, a birthday in June and July. Then we wait a full three months for the next one in November and the last in December. That is a lot of cake. A lot. (Not that we’re complaining. We kind of like our cake in this family.) 

(Don’t worry. Birthday boy got that piece he accidentally spit on. Because he’s cute, but not quite that cute. He also made money off his birthday and is now the richest person in our family. However, the fake dirty dishes for the bathtub and the lion captured his attention. Just wait until he gets older. He’s going to judge his choices too. However, he does have the most adorable little look of concentration, so I can forgive his err in best present judgement.) 

Things I’ve Loving: 

+ Things I’m Afraid To Tell You – To tell it simply: some bloggers got together and realized that they agreed on something. That'”Yes, they too were concerned / frustrated / flummoxed about the vast cavern between true reality and the presentation of “reality” on blogs.” So they decided to start sharing truths on their blogs. There’s a list of blogs that are sharing their own little truths about how they’re blog doesn’t quite reflect their real life. I think it’s a breath of fresh air in the fairly ‘perfect’ world of blogging that we’ve created for ourselves. 

+ Thoughts on the Lack of Diversity in the Media – The new HBO series Girls has been attracting a lot of attention lately. And not just because of how it’s supposed to portray the ‘real life’ of a twenty something. A lot of my friends have been noting that the representation is all white. (Lena Dunham has commented on that, saying that she didn’t include black people just to have black people as the show is semi-autobiographical and she didn’t have friends who were. Which, ok.) However, since it is based in New York, the lack of diversity is a little concerning. This post takes a different approach to talking about the subject that I really enjoyed. While it’s not something I can talk about from experience, I do have friends who talk about it and as someone who would like to work in media, it’s something I want to stay very conscious of. 

+ 100 PIeces of Advice from Movies – No, I haven’t made it all the way through.  But, from the many previews I’ve clicked, they hit the whole gamut of feelings from funny to touching to maybe just a little side eying. 

+  27 Things That Will Make Life Easier – This was exactly what I needed to see this afternoon. Another example of how the things that are the most obvious and practical are sometimes the ones that we choose to ignore, time and again, until they’re in black and white in front of us. 

Dressed Like a Grown Up

I don’t think I’ve ever put a picture of myself on my blog. Hmmm. Well, here you go. It’s terrible quality and I’m concentrating really hard on making sure my phone doesn’t move but! it’s something. (No, I’m not planning on posting just Instagram photos. But I have all of five minutes to do up this post before the WiFi cuts out and that means that uploading from the pictures that I have painstakingly shot and edited for you will have to wait. So cruel and unfair, I know.) 

But this is me. On my first day of freelancing (aka: today). I attempted to dress like a grown up. I think I succeeded.  There were no jeans or Star Wars t-shirts, so I feel like that’s a step in the right direction. Right?