you know you want one

one of my favorite food snacks - my dad calls them sue-moy. little salty dried plum goodness - they're basically little sour salt bombs with pits in the center. i had my first one when i was a baby and promptly threw up. so they're a bit of an acquired taste.

should i ever offer you one, you should try it, because these babies can cost upwards of $36/lb. who wouldn't want to try something so extravagant? (at least it's not coffee roasted from the anus of an exotic mammal.) this image doesn't really give you an indication of their size - they're approximately the size of a small peach pit, maybe an inch in width.

i tricked friends in elementary school by touting them as candy and that the best way to eat them was to pop the whole thing in one's mouth.

wonk'd

lightroom is my new bestest friend in the whole wide world!

i stayed up past 12 last night playing with photos and trying to figure out the program on my own. hopefully i can watch some tutorials sometime in the near future so i can learn how to... umm... save a RAW file as a JPG. it seems so simple!! and yet... i'm at a total loss. then again, brain power at 12 am is rather lessened...

this morning when i, naturally, awoke almost an hour late, i thought it was saturday. how sad i was when i realized it was friday! anthony and i both agreed that we must have forgotten to set the alarms until we shared our respective "dreams incorporating a strange repetitive, loud and annoying beeping noise". his involved working at borders, with stryker (from x-men) as the new shipping manager who didn't turn off the door alarm. mine involved a VHS-tape-sized (alarm-clock-sized?) cell phone with many strange buttons in a clear case that i couldn't turn off - while feeling saddened that ira glass never called us to talk about a multi-level marketing business opportunity.

SO. WEIRD.

needless to say, i can't wait until 5:00.

15 minute laughing cryfest in the middle of panera

me (after doing something very clever, which i cannot remember): i am SO smart!!
anthony: it's because of all those pigeon heads you eat.
me: and those turtle heads.

druthers

disney_21, originally uploaded by gimchi.

i'd far rather be on my back, on a blanket, looking at this, than here at work, half alive.

of course, the temperature right now is 94 with a heat index of 104.
this MORNING was 87/101.

the hell, peoples?! there's even a heat advisory. i need to shower 5 minutes after i walk out the front door. i really WILL be able to move to chicago in a few years, when the winters there are temperate and mild.

yesterday, it got up to 107 (w/ the heat index) and a humidity of 77%! illegal - it should be illegal. i piggybacked on jacques videography business and took some wedding photos for my portfolio. i sweated and stuck to my pants. the ceremony was on a boat and i was able to get through w/o getting violently ill. some of the parents almost fell walking down the aisle, the seas were so choppy.

i have learned a few things:

1) i need to be more involved, in a directorial way
2) i need to know more about lighting and flash
3) i need more equipment (lenses and the like)
4) i need lightroom

hopefully i can post some photos in the next few days and start culling for a portfolio.

last night i got home at 11 pm and flopped into bed a little after midnight. today i am sooooooooooooooo exhausted. sore all over and probably still dehydrated. two cups of tea have done almost nothing. the pasta i had for lunch was probably not a good idea, for i am now foggier and sleepier.

disney!

this past weekend, anthony and i met my mom, vivian and tiffany out in orlando for some disney excitement! and sweat, lots of happy disney sweat. our friend, louise, works at disney and is able to get 3 people in for free. SCORE!


she's the cute short one.

my mom had planned on completely bailing on us, opting instead to sit by the pool and relax. in fact, when louise picked us up at 9 am, she was still in her jammies and hadn't brushed her teeth. she had forgotten to pack regular shoes and was wearing her (very attractive) house slippers.



louise hijacked my mom's plans and dragged her out, house slippers and jammies and all, to come with us to the disney gate and to take her to lunch (she ended up hanging out with my mom until 7 pm). louise rocks because she's 1) lived in london, 2) doesn't let the english language stop her and 3) doesn't care what anyone thinks about her. check out this hat:



it's a headband with an adjustable visor attached. isn't it a hoot?! those are my mom's jammies. you can tell at this point that she knows the pool and sudoku are no longer in her near future. she's sad, but a trooper. (we took the convoluted way to The Kingdom - hotel to downtown disney to wilderness lodge to The Kingdom.)


no sunburn for us! i went with white trash chic and let my bra strap hang out.

we finally got in and louise hooked us up with buttons - it was vivian's first time (true), tiffany's birthday (false) and mine & anthony's anniversary (false).

but oh, so enjoyable, even with coming out like a salt lick! we had a lot more fun than we thought we would and tiffany enjoyed it better than hong kong disney (which is quite tiny). she even rode the roller coasters, after some cajoling and pointing out the little little kids in line.

park arrival time: 11 am
park departure time: 10:30 pm

it was a long, long day and took anthony and i 3 days of recuperation before we finally rehydrated and felt the soreness leave our bodies.


i like this because it feels slightly ominous.


thunder on the big thunder mountain. luckily, the skies never opened.


jungle cruise time! it looks like we're moving willy-wonka-boat fast, however, this was not the case. we were subjected to many long minutes of painful tour guide jokes. i hid behind anthony so i wouldn't have to look at the guide - he was terrible.


tiffany *really* hated the jungle cruise tour guide. her eye started twitching.


splash mountain aftermath.


sweat. all of us. from all pores. all day. hydration was key.


The Kingdom

and lastly, what, my friends, is this?


the mom is on the left and can you believe this?! this girl looks like a minnie prostitute!! (pun not intended.) PROS-TI-TUTE. heels and garters and wha?! sometimes, there's just so much wrong with disney... i have no words.

why, hello mister dino!

a preview of our exciting disney weekend!

i'm still sore, dehydrated and insanely exhausted. my eyeballs hurt when i blink. my shoulders are slightly pink. (hey, that rhymed!) i need something to drink. my mind, it cannot think.

*bow*







(pics are from downtown disney, for those of you confused as to why there are dinosaurs at the magic kingdom.)

you know...

it's really hard to balance out time enough for:

work
hygiene
exercise
playing with the cats
laundry
cleaning
things i want to cook
books i'm reading
books i want to read
gifts i want to make
things i want to sew
things i want to paint
chairs i want to sand/repaint/recover
plants i want to thrive
photographs i want to take
photographs i want to work on
photographs i want to scan
website i want to design
movies i want to watch
relaxing and drinking coffee
visiting family
sleep

erika's sleepytime 30th!

this past weekend, anthony and i went to gainesville to stay at meaghan's and usher in erika's 30th birthday. we celebrated at las mas (las margarita's) and the two of us split a pitcher of margarita deliciousness!



amazingly enough, erika did not fall asleep at the table after half a cup. once she started leaning onto nick's shoulder, we ordered her a coke to get hopped up on caffeine. the girl has seriously no alcohol tolerance.

owen was, sadly, away visiting family, so the sheer quantity of my photos was not as overwhelming for this visit.


anthony's ginormous glass of beer


craig's strange wayward pop tart, abandoned on the counter


at the waldo flea market


from the waldo antique shop - what the heck kind of pyrex design IS this?! i love it!

...clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick...

so, once i put my old lens on my new camera... i've kind of been a picture taking fool.

IT'S TEH AWESOME.

i'm really trying to learn about lenses. fixed lenses and compound lenses and focal lengths, because they completely and utterly confound me. my brain turns into 3-day old odiferous oatmeal when i try to mentally parse it out, but i must grasp it before i go insane.

basically, my fixed lens (50 mm?) allows for a super big (small #?) aperture (f1.4). yay for easier low light photos! is that what they mean by a "fast" lens? it also turns my camera fully manual, which i'm kind of liking.

• focusing is done manually, which is rather hard. my fe2 had this... split screen focusing "thing" so that it was a lot easier to see the focus through the viewfinder. i'm not sure if my new camera has something to replicate this feature.
• exposure is also manual, so i'm doing a lot of guesstimation in my head on the fly. i'll take a photo outside at f1.4 at 1/250 and end up with a white screen. oops! so it's making a lot more aware of what's going on with my camera, which i had sorely missed when i went digital. i loved that little bar that moved up and down, helping me find the right balance of aperture and shutter speed. i just need to create the bar in my head...
• it's WEIRD not being able to zoom. i've read some articles that say that a fixed lens makes you a better photographer, and while i think that's kind of rubbish, it does make you a hell of a lot less lazy. the view is completely different through this old lens and i often find myself way too close to objects i'm trying to photograph. i end up thinking a lot more about my photos, rather than just turning my hand to either zoom in or out.
  

and so, without further ado, cute pictures of my cats! i know i can't ever get enough.

contained

memory, originally uploaded by gimchi.

if you've written me a letter, a real letter, chances are, it's in here, one of my many metal boxes.

metal boxes are my complete and utter downfall at thrift stores. i see them, i pick them up, no matter how broken or battered, fondle it gently and then usually carry it around in my arms until i either let it go (with love) or purchase it to stack in my craft room. *wistful sigh*

these letters help to categorize and plot moments in my life. my memory is SO spotty, i remember things that happened in the past in terms of decades. "oh yea, that happened... a... while... ... back. was that in high school? i think. ... wait, was that last year?!" it's that bad.

letters from high school, from cousins, from friends, from exes. from italy, california, new york, DC, florida, the ukraine. lots of memories, the majority of which would probably put all of us to sleep.

erika gave me this absolutely amazing xerox'd copy of a letter journal we kept in high school. it's in code and everything! names of crushes, at least.

and it's just. so. boring. we thought we were HI-FUCKING-LARIOUS. but unfortunately, we were just... high schoolers. writing out our thoughts and lives in painful, sometimes amusing, minutiae.

i'm hoping to find some of erika's old letters in here for her birthday (don't worry, i'd bet my life savings that she doesn't read my blog). i know for a fact that we have one wherein she describes a musical code for writing letters using music paper and musical notes. it's seriously genius, just time consuming and rather tedious to actually implement. and decipher.

ooo, i'm sensing a birthday card in the works...

it's official, i'm a hippie

a dirty, dirty, hippie.

i like granola and gardening and thrift stores and sewing and recycling and now.... i'm attempting to no longer use shampoo to wash my hair.

after positive results from here, and reading more information here, i checked my pantry last night and realized i had the 2 essential ingredients! baking soda and apple cider vinegar.

my only "concern" was that i might smell like vinegar, or the bathroom would smell like vinegar, but that actually wouldn't be a huge problem for me (just for everyone else). i LOVE vinegar! bathing in vinegar would be like sweet, sweet (sour?) heaven. my mouth is slavering right now. how gross is that?

anyways, it's simple.

1 tbsp baking soda + 1 cup warm water. pour. wait a minute.
rinse.
and for a rinse, 2-3 tbsp apple cider vinegar + 1 cup warm water.
rinse w/ cold water.

i think i did it wrong. i think i was supposed to do the baking soda, rinse, and then the cider rinse. instead, i did baking soda, waited a minute, and did the vinegar rinse right away. mini volcano in my hair? the "rinse" term confused me. did they mean rinse w/ water and then the vinegar "rinse", by which they meant "conditioner rinse"?!

my hair doesn't feel really bad. immediately after i rinsed out the vinegar rinse, my hair felt way thicker. like, not-my-hair-thick. the ends feel a little dry, but not sure if it's because it probably needs to be cut off (split-end-badness) or because of the baking soda. or the lack of a water rinse between the 2.

also, how often do i do this? every night? every other night? i need more instruction!

so we'll see how it goes! ant said i didn't smell like a tossed salad, which is, really, a good thing on multiple levels.

[EDIT: way better instructions here.]

of furry spiders

disclaimer for s.g. - pictures of spiders to follow along w/ blog post. do not commence reading unless you are ok with the heebie jeebies. cover thine eyes.








































this past weekend was spent at the homefront and much fun and eating and drinking and reuniting and sweating and slapping at mosquitoes was had. i'm working on uploading photos to flickr, but i wanted to share these crazy spider pics! it was hanging out on top of my mom's car and was terribly difficult to photograph - mostly because it was in the low light in the garage and i was using my old manual lens. so hard to focus!!




a zoomed in detail


another zoomed in detail

are those 4 eyes? is that its attractive rear?! i have no idea. and we can't question it, because jesse, in one fell swoop, destroyed its little life. at least the death was quick and painless.