I stopped being interested in posting. In general. Although a lot of times I might have come across a project or an event I went to and thought to myself "I should blog this!" My immediate thought response was, "...Nah."
So now here I am, blogging. Because I actually feel like it. I believe in the past I've "played catch up" before by creating a week's worth of blog posts on individual topics until I've completely caught up. I'm... not doing that this time. This time I'm thinking this post and maybe one more will be the catching up, and that's it. Within this post and possibly another, I'll mainly just either write a bit about projects, or share some photos. I've gone through the past few months, almost a year, and chosen over 60 pictures to share. And probably some bits I didn't manage to take pictures of. So here we go!!
Next up, a couple of pictures from my guy's and my trips to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and the Sears Tower.
And then just two pics from the Sears Tower trip:
Me and my guy. I have to say, I'm afraid of heights. It's one thing for me to be up in a skyscraper looking out the window, an entirely other thing for me to be looking straight down. My guy took my camera and asked me sit on this window lookout thing. I originally sat as close as I could to the actual building, but he made me back up against the furthest window from it. Needless to say, I was terrified. I tried my hardest to not look it though. And then, I got my payback when a nice fellow offered to take a picture of the both of us sitting out on this thing. So my guy could join me in this terrifying experience. Ha.
Next, a couple pics from the Bridal Shower (in April) and then the wedding. (In June)
Me and my now sis-in-law.
Now the wedding...
The ceremony was outdoors, and although you can't tell from this picture, it had started to rain almost immediately once the ceremony started, and stopped raining immediately after the ceremony finished.
Chicago Comic Con.... and the day after
Me and a comic book rose, which I plan to try and recreate. And that's a pic of me and Tom. I got him to sign it the next day (Hence the photo of him above)
Comic Con was a lot of fun. Again, it was a lot of walking, and they extended the Thursday hours, so it was even more walking. We were there til the end. The main difference I recall from this CCC and last CCC? My shoes. The previous year, I had cushioned shoes. They'd long since broken, so this year I wore my old Chucks. No support at all. I will need to get a new pair of shoes this year before going to another con. Or at least some insoles. lol.
For those unfamiliar, there's a well known Harry Potter convention called Leaky Con. It's not always held in just one place every year, and for 2012, they announced that Leaky Con was going to be in Chicago. I was ecstatic for all of two minutes - the time it took for me to question and confirm that they'd chosen the same four days to hold Leaky Con as the Chicago Comic Con was being held. So, no Leaky Con for me. A plus though, one of the Five Awesome BenPals was going to Leaky Con, and staying for a couple days after. So the Monday following CCC, I headed on a train back to Chicago to meet Jaine, FABP Tuesday.
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The lemonade was quite tasty, lovely and fresh. The sweet potato fries were the best sweet potato fries I'd ever had. The bacon didn't taste like bacon, but was still delicious. And there were fried pickles on the burger that were so good I wanted to order a side of just fried pickles.
The "meat" on the burger? Had the color, smell, texture, look, and consistency of sliced ground turkey.... but tasted like bread. lol. I think the vegan alternative that made the "meat" was made of wheat, so it made sense that it tasted like bread, but it was weird. Looking at it, my brain had acknowledged how much it looked like sliced ground turkey, expecting it to taste like that, and BAM, nope, it's bread. Mind BLOWN. It's like when you take a sip of a friend's drink, seeing and expecting to taste what you assume is Coke and BAM! It's Dr. Pepper. Your mind immediately freaks and thinks "That Coke is WRONG! It's gone BAD!! PANIC!" Before it realizes that no, it was your mind that was wrong in the first place. lol.
A pic of my and Jaine, Tuesday and Thursday BenPals. :)
I had planned on posting a video shortly after this on the BenPals channel, but never did. Whilst with Jaine, we also liked thinking of the possibility that BenPals could keep going, but realistically speaking? I think the BenPals channel might be dead. We've been reduced to online/twitter/facebook friends, like so many other channels. Ah well. That's life.
Next fast forward to Halloween. I hadn't planned on anything, just passing out candy, and then, the night before, I got an email saying John Barrowman was going to be at my local independent book store. GASP! I immediately remembered C2E2, where I saw him during an Q and A and he had mentioned that he was going to be promoting a book in the fall. I kicked myself for not remembering to look in to it, mainly because I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull off going to see him on Halloween. But I was. My guy agreed to take me a couple hours early so I'd have time to buy the book and wait for John to get there. I'm lucky I'm a paranoid person though, I was convinced I wouldn't be able to get my book by then, and I needed one in order to get the signing.
So I went as soon as the store opened Halloween morning. Sure enough, there were maybe a dozen books left. And when I went to checkout, I got my signing ticket - which was number 201 - and the lady at the counter asked who John Barrowman was. Who is John Barrowman?!! The bookstore at which you're employed is having him there for a book signing that very night and you don't know who he is?! That was a red flag for me. I'm number 201 in the signing line, which meant 200 other books were already purchased, and these people don't know who John Barrowman is. Great. I went back home with dashed hopes but in denial.
You see, normally, if there's a big name coming to the bookshop, like John Green or the author of the Diary of the Wimpy Kid books, etc., the bookshop has the event at a school auditorium or gymnasium, in order to allow proper seating and room for everyone. Then the big name says a few words about his book, might read from it, small QandA, and last the signing. So it's a good idea to get to the event a couple hours early to get good seats. This was not the case for John Barrowman.
We got there early, as planned, only to find out they had not expected such a large turnout, (HOW DID THEY NOT WHEN I WAS NUMBER TWO HUNDRED) so the signing was still happening in the store. They were letting people know that numbers in the 200's should probably come a couple hours late so the store didn't get too crowded. Awesome. So my guy and I went to IKEA to kill some time. I'd never been to IKEA before, so I enjoyed it.
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| My guy and a hugging heart pillow at IKEA. |
Finally, we went back and waited a while for the signing.
I should also mention that after a while, I got really bored of my plain black phone case, so just a couple weeks before Halloween, I painted it:
John's smile is so cute. lol.
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| And there's me and my guy with John and his sister, who co wrote the book. |
I have yet to read the book, I have so many "to read" books at this point and currently? I'm rereading the Harry Potter series. Ha. Makes sense right? XD
He was only supposed to be signing books, but he was kind enough to sign my phone too.
Since then, my phone has encountered nail polish remover and sadly lost part of the left side of the tardis, and the last part of his siggy. So sad, and mad, because I was stupid. But it's on my to do list to try and repair the damage. Hopefully it'll be good as new.
Oh and one more pic relevant to Halloween. I felt bad that I wouldn't be around to pass out candy, and no one would be home at the beginning of trick or treating, so I put this bowl out and filled it with candy.
Just a few more pictures for today, and probably a story. About December.
I'd decided back in November that I would bake things for my friends for Christmas. As in, just some cookies. Inexpensive gifts, but still require work. Perfect. Then... the idea got bigger. I kept finding recipes. I ended up giving boxes full of all things homemade. White cocoa mix, hot cocoa mix, marshmallows, sugar cookies, white chocolate cranberry scones, chocolate truffles, bacon pecan brittle, and peppermint bark.
The kicker? I only took two pictures. This project ended up taking me most of December to finish, and all I have is a picture of the sugar cookies, and some duct tape bows that were placed on the boxes. *kicks self* I had to make 15 boxes total, because once my guy found out there was going to be more than just cookies, he asked for 5 boxes to give out to some his family. So instead of making ten plus extra for me and my family, I just made fifteen total and hoped there'd be some leftovers. There weren't many leftovers. Turns out most of the recipes I'd made had worked out to be just enough for the fifteen. Oh well. I'll just have to remake everything eventually. I've already remade the scones. They're delicious. lol.
My ten got dorkier cookies. Everyone got at least one generic tree cookie, and a couple got snowmen, but there were also Star Trek symbols, ninjas, mustaches, tardis boxes, bowties, and stars that got eyes like the ones in Super Mario Brothers.
I had a lot of fun decorating them all, but it sure was time consuming. These cookies took three days alone to make. (A hundred and seventy five cookies to decorate! There were even more cookies originally, but they broke or got burnt because I'm not so great at a consistent thickness when rolling dough. I assure you none got thrown away though. All were eaten. lol)
I reeeeally wish I had taken photos of the boxes. I thought they were so cute. First I made boxes from larger boxes. Then I covered them in paper to have a clean slate. Originally I was going to wrap the outside all in plain brown craft paper, but at some point in time, that idea changed. Instead, I printed out some free Christmas sheet music, dyed them all with coffee, then cut the sheet music in to shapes and pieces and decoupaged each of the ten boxes in holiday sheet music. I only did that for my ten though. Reason being, I had printed almost exactly the right amount of sheet music to cover exactly ten of the boxes, (I was quite surprised at my guesstimating skills. lol) then by the time I was finishing the last of the ten boxes and considering printing/dyeing more sheet music for the last five, I realized I was almost out of the glue needed, and I'd run out of money to buy more. So the last five boxes were all wrapped each in a different wrapping paper. I had happened to buy five new rolls of wrapping paper so that worked out.
I also included, on eight of my boxes, (the ones going out to individual people) some coin art from the Coin Cut Art Guy. Each lady got a heart penny, and each guy got a four leaf clover penny.
I love that guy. I had also purchased some quarters for myself and my guy.
I'm thinking I might save up for some coin puzzles for Christmas this year. They're so cute!!
Anyhoo, two of my friends also got digital art. The three of us, a couple years ago now, decided on stripper names. So I went and made retro style pics of our strippers.
That's Buttercup, Easter, and Mercy. Heh. Originally I was going to paint them on canvas. But whilst I was sketching them out, I realized my vision required a more digital approach. So I just made them in MS Paint, printed them out and framed them instead.
...
For Christmas my guy got me this mystery box from the American Science and Surplus Store:
So I open it up and start sharing what was inside. A lot of cute things, a lot of fun things, and then I notice the back of something. The barcode on the back says it's a glasses case. Flipped it over...
...
...
BAM
...
...
For those who know me, and I've shared before here on this blog, I am DEATHLY AFRAID OF BUGS. Upon immediately recognizing butterflies, I screamed, dropped the case back in to the box, and backed away, already deciding that since I knew there were butterflies in the box, there was no way I could continue investigating the other treasures in the box.
But as soon as I said "...Butterflies." my guy was quick to hop up and take the glasses case out of the box so I could keep looking. I was later informed by my sis-in-law that they were only butterfly wings, but that matters not to me. They are real, dead, butterfly wings. And as pretty as some might apparently be, I do not know if I'll ever be able to use them. *shudders* Even now, I avoid directly looking at the picture above. Heh.
Only one more pic to share, a bunch of my presents:
That'll be it for now. That's a bit more than half of the pics I think. Next post I'll just be sharing random pics that don't really have a category to them. Granted, I shouldn't have been writing this post right now in the first place. I was supposed to be using this time to work on a contest entry. Ha. Oops. So ta for now.
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