Happy Friday! Many photo memes are here!

Before I get to my photo memes, I have to let you know something amazing.

Last soccer-related babble for a while, honest.

Today? The Netherlands beat Brazil. BRAZIL. Yeah, only the South American soccer kingpin. It was such an amazing game to watch! Brazil got a goal early on and my hopes were crushed -- as they sort of had been when I learned we would face Brazil -- but as the game went on we managed to get two goals and finish them 2-1.

I was shrieking, jumping, hiding behind my hands, running around behind the couch in small circles, and flailing a lot! My throat was sore and I was so amazed and overjoyed that my team came through. We went out to lunch and I wore my Holland jersey and people kept asking us about the Netherlands game and it was fantastic that Americans are really noticing soccer. Okay I'm done with that now, really. :)

Time for photo memes! I have two today. The first one is Tazim's brand new project...

This week's theme due to the impending holidays, is "Iconic Things About Your City/Country". I was going to post some more Wilmington city photos but then remembered I had one better...

It's the Capitol building!

I got the chance to hang out in Washington DC this February while Matt attended a conference; it was snowy and ginormously cold but I managed to go to the Botanical Gardens, and when I realized how close I was to the Capitol, I had to get my nearly frostbitten bum over there for a photo. It really is HUGE close up, and there were all kinds of tours there and kids sledding on the lawn.

At first I was REAL excited, because I thought, hey, maybe Mister Obama's in there! No Sami, that's the White House. .... Oh. This is just where the government meets and stuff? ... Hmm. Still cool, though!

And looking at this photo makes me chilly.

Okay. I'm going to give you a little warning. This week's photo? ... Kinda creepy.

Well, I don't think it's creepy. Some people might, though.

While I was editing it, I had to ask Matt for a bit of Photoshop assistance.

(It's been a while since design school.)

And when he saw it, he said.

"... Whoa. That's kinda freaky."

See what I'm doing here?

Giving you space.

So all of the sudden, on your Google Reader, you don't suddenly come upon ...

... A creepy photo.

I had a lot of fun with this.

And I promise I'll stop taking creepy photos. For a while.






Yay! See? Not so creepy. And also, this is not a tribute to Twilight. Bad werewolf-thing.

Am I a zombie? Have I been chewing on my fingers all morning due to the match, causing mass destruction? Have I run headfirst into a brick wall? Have I had an unfortunate Spaghetti-O mishap??

This was taken in my bathtub because I really wanted the tile as my backdrop. I like the 'clean' feeling it gives the photo, almost like a crazy house. And I also learned something about ketchup that no one else would know, because no one else is wackadoodle enough to leave ketchup on their lips for minutes at a time. It burns. After I washed my face off, my lips tingled for about half an hour. I realized tomatoes were acidic after I worried my lips would fall off for the sake of art, and all turned out well.

I also realized I like ketchup much more as a condiment and less as a main meal. It's very thick and overpowering on its own, and I didn't much care for it smeared everywhere. Yuck. Blargh. Egh.



All right, before I go I have two more photos to show you. They are much friendlier! Remember all those flower seeds I planted a month or two ago?

I have flowers!! My cosmos are in full bloom and I have about 10-12 yellow and orange flowers right now, with more buds on the way. The marigolds are just doing something bizarre and keep growing in snake-like waves, but they are leafy and green and pretty nonetheless. I'm delighted that flowers I planted actually turned into well, you know, flowers.

And this last one is a stuffed sheep that Matt bought me a few weekends ago. He is amazing and flat and soft and yes I'm almost 30 and still love stuffed animals. ;) Have a good Friday night y'all!!

Shiny, shiny pictures!

Yup, it's back. I'm back in the saddle again. (Not unlike that awful screechy Aerosmith song.) After a two week absence I'm ready to go, and I'm beyond thrilled with my results for this week.

Oh, if you haven't the foggiest what I'm babbling about, a trip here may make things a bit easier on the ol' brain.

Anyways, I'd had a pretty solid idea in my head for photo three for quite some time ... you see, there's this soccer thing going on ... what, you didn't know? Well I'll be! But there is a soccer thing going on. It's pretty big time. And I wanted to base my photo around that.

I'm rooting for a place called the Netherlands. Where's that? Uhh... you know, Holland. Huh? You know, up above Germany? Amsterdam? Ahh, now you know, that city. Holland. But that's not why I'm rooting for them, they have some superb players on their national team and... blah blah you really don't care about that part, huh...

Less talky, more Oranje!





I really really really enjoy this photo more than words can tell. (You know you want to see it bigger, don't you? I think you do. As always, BTW, you can click the photo to go to its Flickr page, read more comments by me, and comment on it there if you have a Flickr.) This actually wasn't what I had in mind at all for my finished product, and I took it more as a 'goof off' photo than anything serious at all. But when I uploaded them I saw this one and was like .... yeaaaah... that's totally the one.

I learned a lot about photo editing with this one; I did most of it myself with the exception of one Photoshop action, and I'm extremely pleased with the end result. I kind of look like I may eat your face off but I won't, promise.

... Oh! I'm wearing my Netherlands orange kit jersey! KNVB stands for ... *deep breath* ... Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond, which if not in Dutch would mean the Netherlands Royal Football Club, or something of that ilk. The lion that's sticking his tongue out and not smoking a corncob pipe is their mascot. Holland is obv Netherlands. I'm wearing eyeblacks of the Dutch flag; they feel a lot like those Biore pore strips. And the soccer ball I have is a miniature replica of the Jabulani, which is the ball the World Cup uses in all of their matches.

I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know about the Dutch national team. But hey, trivia...

My hair also had a metric crapton of product in it to get the pigtails right because the heat index here is still hanging around the 500's, which generally means the frizz of doom. Now my hair is crunchy, but it was all for the greater good!

Also, did you know I have a real live orange vuvuzela? That didn't make it into this photo? But may make an appearance in my vlog next week that I've decided to do? Did I just spoil my surprise??... :)

And one outtake from this week also:



I learned a lot about skin editing here. A -lot-. I also learned that my camera is not kind and picks up every pore, freckle, and bit of sunburn I've got. (I also learned a lot about cloning out all the stray eyebrows I had, because yeah, the camera saw those too. Eek.) I even left a few freckles so I wouldn't look like a department store mannequin! Huzzah!



I also want to say that my awesome and super-creative blogfriend Tazim is starting a new photo meme as well...

I am unreasonably excited about this because I love things, and if you love things and taking photos of them I really encourage you to join because it will be full of love and things and amazing happiness! Okay, the end. But really, I am looking forward to this project a lot. :)

Happy weekend y'all! Stay cool and out of the way of the Dutch, because we're going all. The. Way!

Is this week over yet?... It is?? WAHOO!!

Man oh man, what a week it's been over here. Between court hearings and ferrying documents around from bank to lawyer and back again, and job interviews and sinister monsoons trying to attack our house... it's been eventful, folks.

Apparently our home warranty didn't cover our garage electric being busted because it was a lightning storm (hmm), so Matt rolled up his sleeves and ... fixed it himself! Something about a plug with a fuse in it and some wires and shazam! Good as new. (Can you tell I'm sooo not mechanically inclined?)

And my job interview went well today! I'm not going to say it went GRRRREAT! because I said that about the last one and I got the lovely 'thanks but no thanks' email. So we'll see if I get called back next week!



Here's my photo for my 52 this week... I need to start planning ahead for these more, but I blame the hecticness of the week, and the bad weather! Boo, hiss, weather!!

You can click on it to go to the actual photo page. I snapped this real quick after my interview today; the lighting was crappy because a storm had suddenly decided to roll in -- oh boy! -- so there's a little more noise in the photo than I would like. I wanted it to have a little bit of a faded vintage-y look so I did what I could! Voila. (PS - if you ever see those shoes somewhere, even if they're only $15, don't buy them. They hurt and are really just for looks.)

And a fun outtake of my photo shoot... did you know I have the most giant white cat in the WORLD?! Because if you didn't...

AAARGH, HE'LL EAT US ALL!! I took a bunch of photos of me squeezing my marshmallow-like cat, and once I uploaded them, I realized in every single one of them ... his butthole was showing. No, really! So I used the rubber stamp tool to clone it out and replace it with fur! HAH! Take that, unsightly cat butts! You are no match for the cloning tool.

But anyways, I've started a list of ideas that I'll use for future shoots. They include ketchup and old champagne bottles and my feet, but not all at the same time.



I hope everyone has a FANTASTIC weekend!! I've gotten a little behind on blogging, so I'm going to play catch-up and respond to some comments. We have a community BBQ on Sunday that I'm looking forward to a lot, tasty food and meeting our neighbors... I wonder if they'll have pulled pork?? A gal can dream! ;)

My new project ... has begun!

My friends, it is with unbridled excitement and fond delight that I present to you, my new project; something I've had in my head for some time but have now finally brought to fruition...




My 52 self-portrait challenge! It will all be hosted and set up on Flickr, so if you have an account, please add me as a contact, or come and comment on my photos once in a while! (My profile is here; it will also tell you a little more about the project and its name.)

Of course, I will also be posting my photos here as well, so you all can keep me motivated if you're not on Flickr! (I may need the motivation.. tee hee.) It will likely be on the Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of every week, so I can keep a semblance of a schedule with this. And each photo will link to the Flickr page for it, which will have a title for each photo, and more of a description and details there.

So, without further adieu, week one...

Just something simple and fun for my first shot! :) That is the comfiest scarf in the world, for the record. And it's really hard to shoot without a tripod and a remote. Maybe not hard, but tedious. So some accessories may be in order! ;)

Let me know what you think!! I have some photogenic issues -- I think I look goofy in most candid photos of me -- so hopefully this will help in getting over that. I'm enjoying the project already!