update-ish

i had a fun week. very unexpected. while the first week of my vacation was painfully boring and slow, the second week was equally fast and enjoyable. some mini-excursions with a surprise guest, including wine and fun food.

i also completed two more items on my "things to do on vacation" list...sort shoes and donate items. it wound up also allowing me to clean up my closet, which was juuuuust super. so, i had all these shoe boxes filled with...shoes. many of them i had not seen in ten years. really. the receipt was in the box with a date of 8/13/98. i remember my mom and i searched and searched for the perfect shoes to wear with a super cute dress for my friend's husband's commissioning in the marine corps. i have not worn the shoes since, i have not worn the dress since, and the couple divorced about 6 years ago. in total, i donated to goodwill...

* 11 pairs of shoes (yes, 11. includes a pair of sneakers in quite good condition)
* 1 pair boots (at least i THINK they were the ones i wanted to give away)
* 5 handbags (i used to like to go through the sale stuff at old navy)
* 1 pair rollerblades with wrist guards (i haven't used them since fall '99...i remember it well)
* 3 t-shirt dresses that just look weird on me now. haven't worn any of them in at least two years.

none of these items were helping me exist. in fact, they were taking up precious closet and karmic space. if you recall, i've spent the better part of the last, oh, 12 to 18 months or so getting rid of things through donation, freecycle, craigslist and such. i've been able to curb my spending and really reform my list of needs. just because the item is there in front of me does not mean i need it!

today (friday) was my last weekday day of vacation. baby nora and i went to the natural history museum and saw "dinosaurs 3d." nora and dolley also met on the floor.


here is nora again.


aw!

new year update and rabbit forts

happy new year!

this year i resolve to have less stuff. i will continue with my freegan attempts with regards to not throwing stuff away if someone else can use it. i still won't dumpster dive, though. i will buy less stuff in general, with the exception of food, polaroid film, hay and socks.

my class has finished! i got an a-. go me. i hope to take another class this semester.

updates...luke's dad finally took a pic of the blue sweater i made for him. it's still a little too big, but aw. satisfaction.


we spent new year's eve with dante and his parents. he will be 1 in a few weeks! here he is showing off his 5 teeth.


my latest post-school hat for happy heads, dc. it's lion brand homespun...cheap but soft.


we made a rabbit fort on sunday night and it was quite popular in the living room.




finally, i worked on a bunch of slides. here are a few. check out the full set here. (these are all copyright 2007, duh.) i would like to do custom pet portraits. so far they've come out very well. here is rana.

different texture paper has very different results, same image and development times.


cool, huh?

and finally, for comparison with the pic from my last post...

i'm still around

so i'm still alive. i'm taking my first graduate class and i have about 7,000,000 hours of reading each week. i got an "A" on my first paper, so i'm feeling pretty good about that. i have another one due on monday, so i hope to return to civilization shortly after that.

i've been off of flickr and blogger for so long both asked me to log in again and i forgot my passwords. that was annoying.

here is a very quick update.
madison wears her new hat...(recap...i made it in august and her mom gave me this pic weeks and weeks ago)

also, though i'm trying to do the freegan thing (slowly) i did buy a new dresser to replace my old one. that kind of defeats the idea, i know, but here's my logic...this new dresser is smaller and therefore i am forced to go through my clothes again and dispose of stuff i won't wear anymore. plus, it's shorter than the old one so i can hang things over it and get some closet space back, meaning my clothes aren't squished anymore and i can again go through and get rid of stuff. i did both of these purgings on monday night and i feel pretty good about it. i have two bags of donations, and i might have some more by next week. here it is...it's a malm by ikea.
or maybe it's a bluurg or a vyorn or heefen or whatever.

i put the other dresser on freecycle and i have found a new home for it already. there's the freegan sprirt!

Freegan Girl : Day One: How to Be a Freegan in Nine Easy Steps

Freegan Girl : Day One: How to Be a Freegan in Nine Easy Steps

i'm going to write more about this later this weekend, but i'm going to try a little bit of the same idea...mainly the using what i have in order to eventually use less. i've already talked about using up stuff in my bathroom cabinet...and using up the yarn i have now before getting more...this will encourage my hat program as well.

more to come...