It's beginning to look a lot like autumn!

Everywhere I go!

I love love love this time of year! Even though it's very cold, it makes me so happy!

A trip home!

I went home this weekend because I needed to get my car inspected. And I needed to get my big girl license, as one of the guys from Bible study put it (I turn 21 in less than a month!). And I needed to figure out my life because I'm changing my major and I need to pick out classes for next semester and I had NO CLUE as to what to do. In the end I got my car inspected and have some idea of what to do next semester...but unfortunately I didn't have much luck at the DMV. Social Security is down till Tuesday so they can't do anything with licenses until then. Oh well, I'll have to do it some other time. Two out of three isn't bad!

In addition to doing those things I just needed to see my family. And I needed to have my retainer adjusted, which I got done on Friday afternoon when I got into town. Not that anyone wants to know that. :) After that my family went to a hotdog roast at my sister's in-laws' house. It was a lot of fun and I got to see friends I haven't seen in quite awhile! The next evening I went to my sister's house for dinner and got to see the Bible study guys and my dear friend Becca for awhile. The visit was not nearly long enough, but at least I got to see them. :) The rest of the time this weekend was spent with my family talking, going to the store, snuggling with my niece, watching The Jungle Book and carving pumpkins. Seriously, we didn't buy the Disney's The Jungle Book OR carve pumpkins until I was 19. I'm catching up on all those kiddie activities now that I'm 20. :) It's great fun!
Here are pictures of the weekend!

I carved the smiling one with the teeth...I think the reason mine got teeth is because I worked for dentists for 2 years. :) Adam carved the one with angry eyes. >:
This little puppy is Abby. She is our other Havanese (Jude's girlfriend) and she is a ball of energy. She's a riot!
And she LOVES pumpkins! She and Jude kept running over and eating the pumpkin guts (I just had to call them that, lol). They couldn't get enough!
I make the weirdest faces when I'm concentrating on things. When I was younger I did ballet and made the funniest faces while dancing. I find that I bite my lower lip while I'm doing ceramics too. Does anyone else do stuff like that while concentrating hard on something?
My *not-so-little* little brother. He came out and carved a pumpkin with me. :) Thank you, Adam!
Holly preferred to just document the whole process on film. She is actually taking a photography class and was doing homework for it. So she missed out on the pumpkin carving fun. :( Maybe next time.
I love going home. Being away makes you appreciate your family and friends and hometown more. I am so glad I live close enough to go home every so often and be with my family.

A little outdoor fun. :)

Last Sunday I had just about had enough of dorms, of towns, of college...so I called up my dear friend and asked her if she wanted to go to the state park just a few miles away and she agreed. I was in the car 5 minutes later to pick her up.
It turned out to be just the thing to cure me of my city blues. The weather was just right for climbing hills and rocks and boulders and by the end of our little visit I felt completely refreshed! Ahh...the great outdoors!
Here are some pictures from our trip!
I love these tree roots.
I'm pretty sure I took this while precariously perched on a ledge in a sort of cave. The place we visited seemed to be like a rock forest. Seriously, I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings. There weren't any real paths like you would find in a regular park. Basically we just got to run around in a forest full of trees and enormous rocks. It was amazing!

This tree is growing right out of the rock. I thought it was so cool!

Me trying to spider crawl up the rock walls...I wasn't very successful.

The overlook...so beautiful!

I loved the railing at the overlook. So cool!Looking down.

I love the colors in this picture. It's like a combination of my favorites: greens, browns...and the rocks are gray of course but they have some blueish and purplish tints to them.

It felt so old. And kind of mysterious. But that was probably just me trying to romanticize the place. It made it more fun. :)

My dear friend...since middle school actually! You can't tell from the picture, but she is pretty high up in the air.

It was such a lovely afternoon. I am such a blessed girl. I am not nearly grateful enough for the blessings in my life. I have a wonderful, supportive family. I have dear friends. I am able to go to college. I have access to a car and am able to get away from college when I've had enough and escape to the beautiful outdoors. :) I just can't begin to number all of my blessings. Most importantly, I have a Savior who loves me so much He died for me and continuously forgives me for my sins and gives me so many wonderful blessings. It's almost too good to be true, but I'm so thankful that it IS true!

Old project...

I made this skirt back in August. It is loosely based on the circle skirt from Chic and Simple Sewing (aka: most awesome sewing book ever!). The way it is different is that the one in the book has a gathered waist while this one does not. It has a zipper closure. This material is rather heavy and it would look terrible gathered. It is still pretty much a circle skirt though. It was pretty easy and quick to make, except for my zipper. I have so much trouble with zippers it's not even funny. Mine always end up looking really wonky! Speaking on wonky, that is exactly how I would describe these two photos. They're both pretty equally bad. The one on top is missing my feet...the one on the bottom is my reflection in the mirror. Our mirror has this funny thing on it...I don't want to call it a residue, but perhaps that's what it is. It won't come off though. Kind of strange, huh? Anyway, I only wore the skirt once...just to take this picture actually, because I was waiting for the weather to cool off before I wore it. Well it cooled off. So much so that now I think it's entirely too cold to wear a skirt. Even with tights (trust me, I've tried). We went straight from summer to late autumn here. I guess that's okay.

It seems sort of 'fallish' to me because of it's muted colors and the fact that it's plaid...lately I've got a thing for plaid. And I kind of like the 'lumberjack' shirts that I've seen around lately. Not that I think I would look good in a flannel lumberjack shirt, but I know people (including my little sister) who pull it off very well. :)

Anyway, I got my sewing machine back! Hopefully there will be some sewing action going on around here. I blame it on fall...my urge to craft seems to have finally found me. Last fall I hardly did any crafting...and I regretted it. One of the things I love about crafting is that it helps me to slow down and be in the now. By being both physically and mentally engaged in a task I can let go of the things that have been occupying my mind and just release some energy in a productive way. It's hard to do that while I'm at school. I guess it's why I am loving my ceramics class so much. It has the same affect. And it's quite a workout too! Boy my arms have taken a beating these past couple of months. I don't mind a bit though. :) I guess when you find something you enjoy you don't mind the little pains that come with it.

More Mail Love!

I received this care package in the mail this week. It is from my cousin Caity, her husband Brian, and my Aunt Liz. It is so fun to get stuff in the mail!

There were all sorts of goodies in here! Thanks so much Caity, Brian, and Aunt Liz. Your kindness means so much to me!
I love you guys!

Jason Lee

I had to go to at least one talk given by a visiting/local artist as an assignment for my ceramics class. I went to one given by Jason Lee. He is a sculptor. One of the reasons I chose to go to this talk as opposed to one of the other talks was because I thought sculpture was fascinating. You know...like real art. Like Michaelangelo's David.

This was NOT that type of sculpture. To be honest, I'm not sure what message Mr. Lee is trying to send through his art. I think that part of it is a protest. A protest against our carbon footprinting, tearing down the rainforests, ruining the earth society. And I think some of it too, especially his earlier stuff, was just to mess with people a little bit. Which is rather amusing.

These are the pieces that were displayed in the gallery.

You can't see it very well in these pictures, but the green stuff in the orange boxes are actually pictures of grass. The lights on the wall are pictures of clouds. It's supposed to be a different take on 'bringing the outdoors in.'

This was my favorite piece...it's supposed to be like a flowing river.

I have mixed feelings about this artwork. I like it well enough, but it's not my style. I feel like Mr. Lee is trying to make you a bit uncomfortable with his work. He is obviously a talented man, though. I enjoyed his lecture a lot. Particularly because it completely changed my ideas on what sculpture is. It's basically anything you want it to be. I was always under the impression that sculptures were made from marble, clay, or wood...but it's not necessarily the case.

Maybe if I paid more attention in my Art Appreciation class last year I would have known that. :) I am glad that I went. Sometimes it is fun to be exposed to new ideas and different interpretations of the world around us. Even if you don't always agree with those ideas and interpretations.

Ceramics update

So I had my first critique in my ceramics class last weekend. It went alright. I made a B+. I was a little bit devastated. I really wanted an A! These are my mugs...most of them. It's not a very good shot of them. Some of them look better in person. I actually threw away quite a few of them. The ones that I didn't like that much went back in the slurry. I think I made more than anybody else did. I didn't reach my goal of 40, but I submitted 21 and had made close to 30. I've made a few more since then too. My classmate, James, made these guys. I liked his monster mug so much I asked if I could take a picture, to which he replied, "please do!" Oh, I might add that I'm the only person who brought my camera to class. :P Apparently no one else in my class knows the bliss that is blogging.

Such awesomeness. :) Now that they've been fired once (I think it's called bisque firing) I think all the mugs look even better! I think we're going to start working on glazing this week too which is exciting.

We're working on pots with lids now. It's quite a bit more complicated...we'll see how this goes! I'll probably be spending a lot of time over there tomorrow working on those. Wish me luck!

What Doesn't Kill You Only Makes You Stronger...Or: Who Needs a Stairclimber in this Place?

I think that statement applies very well to my new town. Seriously, this place is built into and on top of a mountain. I took a few pictures of some of the stairs around here to show you what I'm up against.

Okay, I know this doesn't look like much, but this is just the first flight of stairs. It turns the corner to the right and goes up several more flights.

This looks a little more challenging. But guess what? I took this picture when I was already halfway up the stairs. It's actually about twice this long.

Even though you can't tell, once you get to the bottom of these steps you walk a few feet and then there is another long set of stairs that gets you down to the street/PRT station, etc.

These are the steps to the PRT. I was about halfway up the steps when I turned around and took this picture too. It's not nearly as challenging as the other sets of stairs. I just took it to show you that no matter where you go, you will have to climb stairs.

Oh by the way, this is only about a third of the way up this particular set of stairs. This set has a total of 88 steps...I counted. It's really hard to actually photograph how large these staircases really are. But basically that guy who is walking up the stairs is blocking the view of part of the stair case. I climbed this set of stairs literally 2 hours after giving blood and I almost died while climbing them. It was awful. :*(This doesn't look like very much, but once you get to the top you realize that there is another set of stairs to climb that are past this set. My friend made me climb these the day after I had given blood. I almost died again.

Seriously, I had no idea that giving blood takes so much out of you...no pun intended.

Well, maybe it was intended a little bit. :)

More stairs...

Yep, if they don't kill me then they should definitely make me stronger! In fact, I've heard it said that you can tell what year you are here by the size of your calves. So if you're a junior (like me even though I'm a transfer student so I don't quite apply in this situation) you would supposedly have really big strong calves. I definitely feel a lot stronger than I did when I first got here and I've dropped a few pounds too without even trying. And I'm sure I've increased my cardiovascular health too. :) Win, win, win!

A quick update!

Good morning! I hope everyone is WAY more chipper than I am today! It's 9:30 am and I woke up at 9 am but am completely exhausted! So far out of all my assignments this week I have done 1 test, 1 paper, 1 quiz, and completed 3 homework assignments. So now I just have to go to my critique, take my other two tests, write my other paper, give my presentation, and do 3 more homework assignments (just three as long as none of my teachers surprise us with a last minute assignment...I've already had one of those this week!) before I hit the road and go home for the weekend. :)

Speaking of my critique, I was at the ceramics studio until 12:30 am trying to finish the mugs I had made. I hade this wonderful goal of making at least 30 mugs but after breaking a few and messing a few up I only have 21. My teacher had told me that if I wanted to be good to turn in 10 mugs, but if I wanted to be great to turn in 30. I was going to try and make 40 so I could be superb, but time got away from me. I still made about 30, I just didn't keep all of them. Hopefully I'll get a couple of photos of my slightly-more-completed mugs to post on here.

Oh, PS: I am going to try my hardest to minor in art. I just love this class too much to stop here. :)

(Sigh) I have a meeting to get to in about 25 minutes and then 4 classes today. I am SO tired. I have at least one blog post that I'd like to do once I upload the pictures from my camera onto my computer. I went to a lecture here at the Creative Arts Center given by a sculptor and it was very interesting. I got a few pictures of his work and I'm going to try to write about it.

When I'm not SO tired that is. :) I'll be in touch!

Friday night~

After a long week it was nice to take some time to do something fun and so I went out with my friend to celebrate her 22 birthday. And I felt like celebrating too because I finished my trigonometry homework early that day and was free from the bonds of trigonometry for a whole weekend! Yeehaw! (the sunset from the parking lot)
(ahh chinese food...how I love thee. )

(birthday girl)

My ''fortune.'' Not a bad one actually. Maybe it means I should become an art major...Oh I can dream can't I?

Here I am hugging the craft books at Barnes and Noble. Chinese food, Barnes and Noble and a Pumpkin spice latte...good times. :)

Back to the daily grind tomorrow. This week I have 3 tests, 2 papers, a presentation and a critique and then it's home for the weekend. So wish me luck! I'll probably be kinda MIA for awhile with all that work to do.

Have a lovely week. :)

More handmade jewlery

I got this old Chinese coin (at least that's what they told me it was) at Radiate last year. I was assigned to East Asia for my breakout session and they passed these little things out to everyone. I really liked it and wanted to find some way to wear it. This week I was fooling around with my craft stuff while I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer. It's been acting up. :( But anyway, because I'm not a good jewelry maker and because my idea of making jewelry is to just hang something on a ribbon and call it a day this is what I came up with. I won't show a picture of the clasp. It looks kinda rough.
Not very exciting. But I still like it. Plus it reminds me to be aware of missions and Christians in other countries. :)

Simple pleasures

I checked my mail the other day and found two envelopes addressed to me! Hurray! One from my friend, Sarah, and the other from my sister, Jacqueline (she made the one on the right). Sometimes something like getting something in the mail can really make your day.

It sure made mine. :)

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

Once upon a time, my brother and sister were surfing channels on the TV and they came across an Elvis Presley movie called Girls, Girls, Girls. They thought that was a hilarious name for a movie.

That really doesn't have anything to do with this post except it is the inspiration for my title: Dogs, Dogs, Dogs. Because that's what we're going to look at. These are some pictures of our weimaraners, who are unfortunately no longer with us. Weimaraners are absolutely beautiful dogs. And they're SO intelligent. They're scary they're so smart. You can find stories about the crazy things they do because they're just so intelligent and they're sneaky. They're a handful, but they're wonderful companions because their personalities are so fun and they're very loyal.

I took these pictures at least 3 years ago. I remember it was snowing outside and we had a snow day from college (woohoo!) and I had nothing better to do with myself (like who does homework on a snowday???) than to take glamour shots of our dogs and the puppies they had recently had.

This is Jumper. He's the papa dog. He's a handsome devil! And the funny thing about him was he knew he was being photographed and would usually hold a pose for me until he heard the camera click and then he'd try to get off the coffee table where he was sitting for his picture.

I thought it was fun then, now I have to wonder what kind of sane 17 year old takes glamour photos of their dog? Kinda embarrassing actually.

Weimaraner puppies are so cute! They truly are. They have blue eyes that eventually turn hazel or a whitish blue. Our female, Dancer, had whitish blue eyes that were almost a little creepy. But she was a hoot!

I'm sure I thought I was the feminine version of William Wegman...lol.

This was the whole litter. All seven of them. This was incredibly hard to take because they wouldn't stop moving around. That's why the one on the far right is kind of behind the one next to it. This was the best one I got though.

I just put this one in because it makes me laugh. They were a little older at this point and I was still pretending I was William Wegman. Yawning puppies are so cute, but this one looks like he's laughing at me.

This is Hank. He was a very special puppy. Look how grumpy he looks. We identified with each other.

Hank couldn't find a home. No one wanted him...and he was such a terrific puppy. It just didn't make sense. So we kept him. He got very sick right before Thanksgiving. He stopped eating and drinking on a Friday night and began vomiting and by Monday morning was a very dehydrated puppy! We took him to the vet and had to stay overnight in the vet's office on antibiotics and IVs. We never found out what was wrong with him, but he made a full recovery which made us all happy. Two summers ago my family thought my dad's job was going to transfer him to another state. At the time we had 6 dogs and we knew that if we moved we would not be able to bring all those dogs. Hank was the youngest. My parents decided that it would be best for him if we found him a home with someone. I was so upset. So upset, in fact, that after they told me I left to go to work and instead of putting the car in drive I accidentally put it in reverse and backed over their grill. So not only was I sad about losing our puppy, but I took out my Dad's grill and felt really bad about that. It was such a bad day. In the end Hank found a wonderful home with people who let him sleep in the bed with them and treated him like their son. I'm sure he's very happy. And I'm happy for him. But I still occasionally miss that dog.

So let's talk about a different dog now. While I was pretending to be Wegman I decided to do some glamour shots of my sister's dog, Django. He is a mutt, but he's so pretty. His markings are really symmetrical. I've never seen such a symmetrical dog!
You know, studies have been done that show that the people we rate as "most beautiful" have extremely symmetrical faces. I think that's why I always thought Django was such a handsome boy. That and his ears were too big for his head. Oh so cute!

He looks so miserable. He's saying, "boy dogs shouldn't be covered in tulle!" lol.

This is him now. In a much more manly setting. He still looks a little mournful. The dogs probably know to be wary of me when I get around them with a camera now.

So that is my post about my awkward glamour photos of our dogs. I would like to say that if only my siblings had let me photograph them on that snow day, I wouldn't have subjected the dogs to ribbons and tulle and all that jazz. So it's Adam and Holly's fault.

Yeah...that's right. Adam and Holly's fault. :)