Project 365

Just as a recap, Project 365 is a year-long photography endeavor. You take one picture everyday for a year that best encompasses your activities & priorities. I decided to do this for my 24th year.

02/22/2010

My 23rd birthday party, at Blu. I plan on lightening this one....

02/23/2010

Callie came to visit! At the Library

02/24/2010

Lost my voice one day, sick as hell the next. I will not be in any pictures today.

Pretty!

I am addicted to decorating&design. Honestly, I would love to do this for a living more than anything else.

For some people, it is not worth it to spend a lot of time or money decorating a rental space, but it is for me. Most things are ones that I can take with me. Everything else (falls under the category of paint) IS waste of money....but I don't care. So what if I've spent $50-$60 and TOO MANY HOURS painting my place....the process is as good as therapy for me & I enjoy my rooms so much more after the fact!

I haven't even showed the kitchen, which I finished last weekend. When I moved in, the walls were cherry red & the cabinets were yellow. I think they were going for "crimson & cream," but it wasn't working. Plus, the paint was peeling.

Eww

No, thank you!

Isn't the pink great?!

I painted the kitchen walls 2 weeks after moving in to "Sycamore Maple," a mossy green. I worked well with the pale pale yellow. I SERIOUSLY thought I would be able to resist painting the cabinets. Nope.

I love it!!! Now I just need to find a new floor mat and get my cutting board!!

A few weeks ago I had told myself that the FINAL project in my bedroom would be the headboard. I would get a few more throw pillows and new pillow shams...but that was it!

Nope. First, I found a body pillow cover that is fab-u-lous. If I were to take a picture, it would just look black. However, it is plush with a floral pattern on it. Only $10!!

Then, I realized I wasn't enjoying my vanity because of bad lighting. Surely every girl knows how important good lighting is for natural looking makeup. Surely every decorator knows how important good lighting is for a room. I was overdue for fixing both of these issues! I found these wall lights at Ikea!!! $16.99 per lamp.....as far as wall lights go, a steal. I had my dad picked them up, and he helped with the install them while my parents were in town this weekend.

Pretty, pretty, pretty

I also had to rearrange my wall collage because of the new lights and because the shades were covering up 2 of the photos, so this took awhile! My favorite part is the cord covers. For $5 a piece, these are paintable plastic cord covers that stick to your walls. This is great for cord management & for people who aren't able to do integrated lighting/wiring. I'm a fan!!!

I feel like a princess!! I enjoyed getting ready SO MUCH the last two days!

Connected

I've never had good luck with wireless internet.

In high school, we always had issues. Big expensive router would not work when we needed it. When it did work, it was only because it had just been restarted.

In college, I lived in the "old" dorms/non-renovated room without wireless internet. I also went at least 6 months not realizing that my wireless was turned off on my laptop.

Later in college, The Reserves didn't have wireless internet.

Even later in college, we bought a fancy modem+router gateway....made by Linksys, so enough said. It stopped working after a week.

Then I went to France. No internet in the dorms. They later added internet to the main building. The same week my laptop broke. (FML)

I came back from France, and then I was poor. There was this major economic catastrophe in America, which you may or may not remember. I was stuck with the same modem+router that either needed to have an Ethernet cord or be restarted every 2-15 minutes.

Then, I graduated college. Poor again. Love the Ethernet cord stretched through my apartment so I could use my computer in bed? No.

Then, I had this great idea!!! I could go BACK to college, get an AWESOME assistantship to pay for school AND give me lots of money for living expenses. No job, just school. Lots of money saved up. THEN......

I COULD BY THIS:

Airport Express. Why spend $50 on a decent wireless router when you could spend $99 on one of the best wireless routers out there? Definitely worth the extra money. I love it. I'm writing this in my kitchen. No longer do I have connectivity issues. No more cables. Lovelovelove.

Joyeuse Anniversaire?

No post-its yesterday. Sorry.

Yesterday was a no-good-very-bad day, which was made better after celebrating Mardi Gras at Bill's. $1 beers. Awesome.

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about my birthday. Anybody who has been around me as my birthday approaches knows that I love my birthday...I love ALL BIRTHDAYS!....but this one's not that exciting *sad*. 23....I remember Brad's 23rd birthday....his cake said "Only 7 more years 'til 30!" It was hilarious, but please nobody put that on a cake and force me to eat it.

I'm having a little get together....which everyone is invited to, of course (that means you, Jaymee & Laura...Callie, you're coming a day later!!!). Other than that, no big deal. Ugh. I hate being older. I don't feel old. I certainly don't look old (Even though I was id-ed at the bar last night, the bartender asked to see my id AGAIN...she would not take the smiley-face stamp as proof of my legality). I have a whole lotta nothing figured out about my little old self.

Anyway....I'm doing My Year In Pictures to celebrate my 24th year. I hope I don't fail or give up after 2 weeks. I'm really really excited about it, and I hope that not every day is just a picture of my dog. *le sigh*

Lesson Learned?

Today I learned a lesson. Actually, I learned several. Scratch that. Today, I should have learned several lessons....but it is unlikely I will move these from the "ACTIVE" pile to the "FILE" pile (rhymes).

Last night, I drank....I'm not huge on bragging about how much I drink. It's tacky, and it's not a competition. In my case, I just embarrass myself because >2drinks+me=wastyface.

I had 7 shots and a mug of wine. Yes, a mug. CLASSY.

There. I bragged. Now I am left with a sour taste left in my mouth from doing exactly what I said don't like to do (or is that sour taste leftover vom? jk. that's gross).

Lesson 1: Don't drink more than you should.

Lesson 2: Don't mix mediums

I got home around 4:00. Atypical for me. I prefer in bed at 10, asleep at 11 after The Daily Show & Colbert Report. I didn't go to sleep until 6:30. Why is not important. All you need to know is that wasteyface was still drunk and awake when the sun was rising. (Shhh! It was worth it!)

Lesson 3: Don't be awake for 23 hours straight.

Then, wonder of wonders...I rose at 8:30 am. Sometimes (aka every time I drink) my body likes to wake me up as soon as I am sober. It is then impossible to fall back asleep due to 1) sunlight 2) adrenaline as my blood sugar drops 3) nauseau 4) morning after digestive consequences. I could not for the life of me fall back asleep.

So, to nurse my hangover and get things done, I decided to paint.

Lesson 4: Paint fumes do not cure hangovers.

Then again, all of the paint supplies were out (I had one last section in the kitchen to finish, and I decided to paint my closet...I'm so weird) so it only made sense to finish painting so that I could put everything away. There was the paint of course, but also all of the contents of my closet in the bedroom and of my cupboards in the kitchen. Big mess.

Lesson 5: Don't embark on an optional and timely project the night after challenging yourself to Beerfest 2010.

Lesson 6: Clean your place before you go out drinking.

I hate messes. I hate them. They stress me out. They put me in a grumpy mood. If my place is a mess, I want it to be clean. Typically I would clean it UNLESS I am hungover. I don't want to deal with it.

Around 5:00 tonight I decided that walking around in only my underwear covered in paint (Why ruin clothes with paint?) for the last 8 hours was looking a little sad and a lot unattractive. The hangover was really bad. I decided to get in the shower....ahhhhhhh.

Lesson 7: If the shower works, stay in. Run up the water bill.

It was the best shower of my life! I felt refreshed and clean and I no longer felt hungover! Magic!

10 minutes later, hangover symptoms return. Why, oh why would I think I should get out of the magic shower?

After swearing to myself that I will never drink again (false), that I will always remember to drink water before passing out from intoxication (false), that I will not stay up until 6:30 in the morning (false), that I will not make impulsive and timely decorating decision (FALSE!!!) and that I will never again waste a full day do nothing truly productive (false), I've realized that I will do all of these things again.

So much for my lessons learned.

Sidebar: Every time I make a list like this, I consider making it beautiful with lovely paper and fun little doodads put into frames and having all of my rules for living plastered throughout my apartment disguised as decoration. I am so good at living life on the edge.

Elsewares

Is this not the most fabulous website ever?!?!

I just fell in love with Elsewares.com

It's my #1 Favorite New Website.

Coincidentally, I found #1 Favorite New Website courtesty of my #2 Favorite New Website....

It's a really good thing I'm broke so that I didn't try to buy everything on here :o/...

I must have this.

STICKIES!

It's Tuesday! Well, it's really early on Tuesday, but it counts. See first post-it.

a la prochaine.....

A Good Day

Some Great Things.

• I'm learning CS4...and I love the possibilities. I haven't bought it yet, but I reallllyyyyyy want to. **Too bad it's $400**. It all started with the U.S. Citizen's Exchange Grant I am working on...the website is horribly boring. Typical to self, I am looking for the cheapest/most free way to make something ugly look fabulous. I decided that it would be better to just start from scratch...the Dean of Gaylord thinks I'm insane, but I'm going to make everything better. I feel so optimistic about this little side project, and it's great! (btw, I already know HTML & CSS....that's half the battle!)
• Tucker has been doing really really well in his puppy classes! True, he is the oldest puppy. True, he keeps trying to hump Layla The Three Month Old Bloodhound (he's fixed, no worries). True, he's better at jumping than sitting. BUT, I'm very proud of him. He's a very good listener!
• My apartment is fabulously clean! I spent a few hours on Saturday putting out-of-place clutter back where it goes. Usually, 1 or 2 rooms are clean and the crap is moved to one room. Not this week!
• My cabinets are painted! I love love love the Swan White (much better than Banana Cream Pie). It looks so much better, and it was only a $10 fix (I already had brushes and primer). I'm trying to find a few more accents to complete the space, but I am very satisfied with how it looks. Now, I just need THIS! And THIS! And THIS...oh wait I can afford that one!!!
• My bedroom is done, minus a few more little projects...I need lights above my vanity. THESE ones are nice. I want to build myself a headboard...I won't spend more than $50...and it must be fabulous. Then I need to get my rug cleaned...it smells like dog pee. Right now it lives on my screened-in porch protected by the elements.
• School is good. I'm not stressed. Call Guinness.
• My birthday is in two weeks. Those of you who have been around for several years know how much I love birthdays...especially my own.
• I found THE BEST website. I don't know how I've never found it before, but Stumble Upon is quite possibly more entertaining than youtube. Lovesit.
• Forcing myself to "put an effing smile on your face and be happy" works. Everyday. If you believe it, it will happen.
• Tomorrow is Tuesday, which means post-its....who wants one?!?!

Tuesday, A Day Late

Crapcrapcrap I forgot...

Honestly, the last week FLEW by. I honestly forgot, but here's my post-its!!

Maybe a new blog later this week...I hope!