Pinholes

Latest pinhole shot. From this afternoon, as I ate some peanut butter and honey sandwiches

27- That is how old I am now.

So it's been hard the last couple of years to get older.  Now I know I am not OLD, but I am older than I was :).  When I was a teenager, I thought that 30 would be the best age.  At 30 years old you should be old enough to have your life in order and have some sort of plan in place for you life... but you should still be young enough to do whatever you want.  So this was the ideal age for me.
Well- now that it is creeping closer and closer... I don't like it! 30 is just....its just.... so old!  So much has happened in my 20's and you are so young in your 20's.  30 is practically 40 which is practically 50 which is just about 60 which is just about dead! (yes I am exaggerating.... a little bit).
Yesterday was my 27th birthday.  27 years on this Earth.  Pretty amazing when you think about it.  I have managed to do the things I should to keep myself alive for 27 whole years (well my parents helped me with about 12 of those years).  My birthday was good.  I woke up with a killer migraine and then had to work.  That part kinda sucked.  But I got home and Harrison and I went to dinner at Serendipity 3.  It is probably my favorite place to eat here in Vegas.  We shared an amazing taco salad (that was large enough to feed a small country) and then we went and got a Nutella and banana crepe for my birthday dessert.  I also snagged a couple of chocolate covered strawberries (I have been craving them for the last month or so).

Well- I guess 27 years old isn't so bad.  I am sure that 30 won't be so bad either when it comes.  I am thankful for all that I have in my life.  I am thankful for a loving and supportive husband... who knows how to take and tell a joke, for a home and a job, for a (very large) family who support and love me... and for the knowledge and success that I have had in my life thus far.  Here's to 27 more years I guess (no really... I do want to live a long time).

PS- Jehosephat..... please identify yourself!  We are dying to figure out who you are.... :)

American Pickers

That show is awesome. I really want to move to Iowa now.



in other news. I worked on this photo in between homework:

Those are really my teeth

Negative scanners

So I found out last semester that our library at UNLV has a negative scanner that you are able to check out and use for personal projects. I have been waiting for a time to check out said scanner since then.
I had that opportunity yesterday
I wasn't sure what the quality of the scanner was, although I had seen it and it didn't look too impressive, so I just took one set of 35mm B&W negatives and a set of 120mm (medium format) negatives that I have never been able to print. and the results were fun but not that great for archival purposes.

These two are from our engagement photos. Taken by Crystal D. I developed the film but never printed any except those that we needed for the announcements. The scanner got them super grainy and also very purple. Which technically is a quality of the film they were shot on. But overall I was not very happy with the results. But it's fun for snapshots or whatever.

these ones are from the medium format camera, but the scanner only covered 35mm and they are on a different film.

So with a little manipulation and color correction I was able to come up with this:

Oh and here is another pinhole shot that I did a long time ago.

Words of Wisdom... from someone who doesn't have any anymore...

So last Friday, I went to Nevada Oral and Facial Surgery and had all four wisdom teeth extracted.  My bottom wisdom teeth were getting close to the nerve in the bottom of my jaw and had the potential to wrap around the nerve and cause some damage... AND... the bottom ones were coming in crooked (almost impacted) so... I decided to get them out.  LUCKILY- I work in the field, so I got a great deal on getting my teeth extracted by a WONDERFUL office.  

Here is my x-ray pre-surgery! 

I was pretty nervous having to go through this whole thing.  You see, I have never been put under anesthesia before... and I was pretty nervous about it.  Well- Dr. Johnson and his WONDERFUL staff made me feel a lot better about things (especially when they shot my IV up with some anti-anxiety meds).  The last thing I remember was Dr. Johnson putting the "white stuff" in my IV and me telling him, "Oh- I have watched enough episodes of Dr. 90210 to know what the white stuff is for".... and then I remember waking up and my mouth being full of gauze and PAIN!

The next couple of days were filled with pain meds, ice packs, and naps.  It was quite painful to tell you the truth.  People my age shouldn't be having their wisdom teeth pulled.  It is a lot harder for somebody over the age of about 20 to recover from having their wisdom teeth extracted (being almost 27... I am WELL past the fast and easy recovery age).  So- my recovery has been LONG and pretty painful.
 

I have been afraid to eat a lot of things for fear that I might get pieces of food stuck in the healing sockets... so my diet has consisted of Slim Fast, yogurt, jello, ramen noodles (which I have been swallowing whole) and Popsicles.  I have loved it all... even if I have been EXTREMELY hungry for 5 days!

Harrison has been a good egg.  He has spent time with me in bed while I have been resting and napping and watching TV.  He has been a dang good support to me while I have been ill and cranky.

Attempt at daily posts

Well I have a friend from school who is so good about posting on her blog daily even if the topic is somewhat mundane. She has inspired me at least to share a bit more about our life as a married couple and just some of the things that are going on, even though they are not groundbreaking or incredibly exciting. So here goes:






These photos are from this awesome iPhone app, that I'm sure most have heard of, called hipstamatic. It takes square pictures that are reminiscent of the pictures produced by Holga and Lomo cameras . Two very elementary yet effective photographic tools.

Anyway, I have found that in my hobbying life I often oscillate through certain obsessions. Because of this app my interest in kit cameras, pinhole cameras:

(a 1 hour pinhole exposure during practice for a band I was in, look closely you can see us in the chairs)

and non-traditional photographic processes has fired up again (luckily it seems that my oscillation tends to make circles, otherwise I would have lots of gear and no real expertise).

So now I am figuring out how I can use the little toy cameras that I have acquired over the years to shoot slide film and get the effects that are mimicked in the hipstamatic app, in the real way. That is, through cross processing. It seems that if I use 35mm film and a little trickery I can even get my local 1 hour place to do it, but these toy cameras use 120 (medium format) film that is generally not processed at the CVS photo lab. The larger size film is where the square prints come from.


The other thing that has been taking up the time I spend with Jaala is that she had her wisdom teeth pulled last Friday. This is somewhat of an ordeal for a person over 18 years, since they don't heal as quickly, and Jaala is doing a very good job at being a trooper. She saw the doctor today and he said that she is progressing very well and that her last day of real pain should be tomorrow. Here's hopin!

Trip to LA

Well, we went to LA a couple of weeks ago. Mostly just for an escape seeing as how it was spring break and all. And that classes are getting to the point where I literally want to kill everyone. Well, almost everyone.
It was a time for us to relax and to have a little bit of fun as well.

we went downtown to visit a screen printing shop called McLogan. They were very helpful with getting info and products for paper-based screen printing. And the Downtown area of LA is a very interesting place. Lot's of manufacturing and such.


Nearby is the campus of USC. where the La Memorial Colosseum is located which was also very fun to see. There is also a science museum there with some attractions outside.

Jaala lifted this truck with the help of Physics.
This airplane was a trainer airplane for the Sr-71. As you can see there is a second cockpit behind the first one, for a flight instructor. Who knew?



We also paid a visit to Rachel Ashwell's store in Santa Monica. The neighborhood surrounding it is very very pretty and quiet. Jaala and I went for a walk around the place and it was very relaxing.



We went to Manhattan Beach and the fog was so thick that we didn't even see this pier until we were actually on the beach. The water was ice cold owing to the month of March and turbulent owing to the Sendai Earthquake. But we both just read our books and magazines and chilled out.



and I looked awesome next to the graffiti.


And the Goodyear blimp

Thankful Thursday

Another round of Thankful Thursday for all!  I know it's been a LONG time since I have posted one of these.  I am the one to blame.  So here we go:

I found my sleeping pills this week.  They have been lost for a month.  I found them in the cupboard with the canned food.  Weird.  I am pretty sure they were tossed in there when I put some new cupcake sprinkles away that I bought at Target around Valentine's Day.  So silly.  But- it does make me hopeful that I will find my wedding ring.  I misplaced that about 3 weeks ago.  So... I will keep praying... and hoping that I didn't toss it someplace bad.. like the trash or something.

Spring is here in Las Vegas.  Such an amazing thing.  The trees are in full bloom.  So bring on the tanning oil and shorts!  

Weight loss is hard.  I was one of those people who rolled her eyes when people told me that even though I was stick thin when I was younger, I would probably gain weight when I got to be an adult.  Well- they were right.  Oh were those people right!  Well- I have been re-dedicated to losing the extra weight that I have been toting around.  It has been fun for me to go to the gym by myself and run the treadmill and lift weights.  It has also been an interesting journey with watching what I eat and counting calories.  Not my favorite thing... and I have given some of my favorite things up... but it will all be worth it.

I am thankful for a husband that wants to communicate.  It is amazing to me that Harrison and I have been married for almost 6 years!  On some days I think that I know everything about my husband... and other days I think... WHO THE CRAP DID I MARRY?  I don't even know a single thing about him!!!  But I am so thankful that he is always willing to talk about things and work things out when we find a bump in the road.  I am so thankful that there are not many bumps in our road... we paved ourselves a pretty smooth road actually.  So the bumps that do come up are just cracks and we are able to re-surface those cracks pretty easily (yes- I just used an asphalt analogy... corny... yet it totally makes sense.).

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Well- take time to think about things that you are thankful for today!  Thanks for reading this.  I sometimes feel like I am talking into the black abyss of the "inter-webs".  Leave a comment and let me know I am talking to a human being.  
Tell somebody you love them today and that they mean something to you.  Take time to notice the little things (the fact that you didn't have to sit at the stop light for long today... and if you did... you were able to think about something silly for a moment).   

And I cannot lie

Last night Harrison told me to blog.  I told him I couldn't think of anything to blog about.  I asked him what I should blog about... he said "your butt".  So- here it goes:

My butt is just fine... although it is getting large.  I don't really mind it though.  I kinda like bigger butts.  Take Kim K for instance:

I wish I had her butt.

Tredmill Terrors

So it is no surprise that I am clumsy or that I have really stupid accidents and get reallt stupid injuries.  Well- I had another one last night.  I was at the gym (trying to get into shape) and through a series of unfortunate events... I dislocated my shoulder.  What the what!?  Who the heck does that.  Well- me!  So after some help, I got it back into place and I am now in a shoulder brace.  Looks like I will be in a brace for at least a couple of weeks.  BOO. 

Note to all others: Don't try to talk to your gym mate, sneeze, run on the treadmill, and try to catch yourself all at the same time.  It just doesn't go well.

I hope all of you are having a great day!