Make Over

Today I sent out a survey to Tealtown's biggest fans, our family! I asked if they preferred our shop photos to be outside with some fancy background, or just a white wall with the focus on our t-shirts. Not only did all of them get back to me super fast, they all unanimously agreed that the fancy outside ones make for a more interesting shop.

So I guess what I will be doing this weekend.

Thank you to everyone who responded! I really didn't know which way to go and your opinions really helped.

The Word

Second Best Present Ever.

The Wii. This one was also from Donna and Jim. After many months of searching one was finally found and Mark's 2006 Christmas present was complete.

I have been playing Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit lately. Aside from The Disney Princess Game I think WiiFit is the only other game that I have bought for myself. It was the first thing to come out on Wii that I was more excited about than Mark was.


I always feel bad about buying things. Even though I had been reading about WiiFit and counting down the days until it was released, the day it did come out I was unsure if I should really spend that much money on a game. I always do that, I feel guilty about having the privilege to be able to buy something even if it is something I have wanted and put some money away for.

In the end the thing that made me but it was my recent health kick. As of now I think it is more than just a kick and I am hoping I can turn this in to a permanent life style and part of the reason I think I have made it this far is WiiFit. Knowing it is going to hold me accountable for that second whatever totally helps. While I don't play the games as much as I did when I first got it, weighing in everyday it has made me aware of my weight and that helps a lot.

LIvinging In Oxford

"What should we do today?"

"Same thing we do everyday..... try and take over the world."

"Got to WalMart?"

"Yup."

A combination of two things I love.

If I had a coffee table this would be sitting on it.


Henri Cartier Bresson: Scrapbook
Mr Bresson on Wikipedia.

Best Present Ever.

Donna and Jim got us a Weber grill as a engagement present, we were excited at the time but if we had known all the awesome things that we were going to make with it we probably would had done cartwheels.

As soon as it got warm we started grilling out. Steaks, salmon, hamburgers, chicken wings. But then we got in to a rut where we were grilling the same things over and over again even though they were delicious every time we wanted something new.

A couple cook books have been inspiring us this week and we had the best dinner that has come off the grill yet.



Grilled Shrimp
1/3 Cup Olive Oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon garlic powder pepper blend
Jumbo Shrimp, peeled

Put everything in a zip lock and let the shrimp marinate in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes. Then throw the shrimp on the grill until they look like they are done.

Grilled Pineapple and Watermelon
Drizzle some honey of the pieces of fruit and throw em on the grill. Mark says to take it off when the char marks appear. The pineapple was awesome, the watermelon was watermelon, you cant really mess that up.

Asparagus
Cover with Olive Oil and season with salt and pepper, then throw them on the grill until they are done how you like them.

Emma

Emma wanted to sleep with Mark and me while we were at Grandma's last weekend, but there was no way that all three of us were going to fit in a bed so she begged and begged to sleep in the crib that was in the room.

This is her realizing that I am taking a picture to post on my blog.

Kit-teh

My aunt found this little guy on the side of the road. They named him Lucky. This is him big compared to what he was when she found him. He is obviously way to young to be away from his mother but he is still very sweet and gentle. While we were there she asked me if I wanted him and if Autumn and Conner weren't so attached to him Mark and I would totally have a new little kitten to play with.

Baby Mania

This weekend Mom, Mark, the girls and I went to Defiance, or as we like to call it home. The weekend was full of babies. Ridick, who was eight days old was there. I didn't get to see him that much and I decided to enjoy my time with him instead trying to get that perfect picture.


Sunday was Brody's, the two month old, baptism. It was a lovely ceremony. It was a little weird to watch Barney and Alyssa with their little baby standing up there in the exact same place I watched them get married two years ago. Change is always weird I guess, but at least some change is wonderful.



We also got to spend the weekend with my niece Jane, who is almost six months old already. We all had a great time with her, her mom, and her grandma who also came to visit with everybody. Her Mom and I talked about getting together so I could take some pictures of her, and I can't wait.

Finally!

Today is Mark's 21st. If i remember correctly the first birthday of his that I celebrated with him was his 15th. He has stayed pretty amazing through all of these years. I am very excited to be celebrating this years as his wife. I can't think of anything that makes me happier.




Happy Birthday Markie!

Making Nindento even better.

This is the only thing that has ever made me want a Gamecube.

These are way more interesting than emails.

I wish we still sent Telegrams.

It all starts in Michigan

Well, we started out in Ohio but we needed some music to help us make it to Michigan.

I don't think that is native to South Ohio

This is a real bug thing we saw outside of a little antique store. No one knew what it was, or had ever seen one before.

My Dream Scooter

Before Mark got his scooter he talked about scooters and all the cool things he could do if he had a scooter like ride it to class, put blades on it and cut the grass, sleep with it. All those things sounded pretty cool to me, and I thought scooters were pretty awesome but I never really wanted to get one of my own. Until he started talking about planning a camping trip and using the back roads to get to some place pretty. Then I got really excited until I realized that either I couldn't go with him, or I would have to drive by myself in my boring car. So I did something stupid and started looking at scooters and I thought both the Honda Metropolitan and Yamaha Vino were pretty cool, but then I saw that the Vino is coming out in this color this year and I think my heart might have skipped a beat.

Now all I have to do is wait three or four years when someone wants to sell their used one and I have a job.

Oxford, the new severe thunder storm alley

I don't know what is going on this summer but thunder storms keep magically appearing around Liberty and quickly make their way here. The forecast for the next three days is nothing but pop up thunder storms. It's getting kind of annoying. I had just fished picking up all the sticks out of the front yard a couple days ago and about an hour after that we had a crazy 30 second storm pass through. In those 30 seconds huge trees were ripped out of the ground all over the city a couple of cars were totaled, but no one was hurt. It was raining so hard that I could not see a couple feet out of my front window. When the rain passed I saw that huge tree limbs were covering our front yard. Our car managed to survive with out so much as a scratch, even though the largest of the branches fell right next to the brand new front right tire. I think mother nature feels obligated to give us some big shows since the first time a huge storm came through the weathermen told us for sure that Oxford would no longer exist after it passed, and since nothing happened at all she needs to make up for that.

Our first big idea

Mark and I got another order for some chandelier curtains a couple weeks ago and we have yet to send them out. There are a couple reasons for this

1. Every place we have gone to find white curtains has been sold out of white curtains and only white curtains. Who knew that white curtains were so popular? We sure didn't when we came up with this awesome idea of screen printing curtains. But be warned white and natural colored curtains are no where to be found when you need them.

2. Getting that huge chandelier printed on anything is a big, big pain in the butt. So much so that the red pair of curtains I bought specifically to print the chandelier on is hanging in our front room chandelierless. They look O.K. right now, but I do have to admit they would look awesome if with a big white chandelier silhouette on them. I like things to look awesome, but what we would have to do to make them look awesome sucks so much I have neglected to make my living room look awesome.

So. Yesterday we finally found white curtains. Today we are going to print them. I am going to be stressed out through the whole process, but I am going to suppress it because Mark will have completely lost his mind the second he sees the white curtains stretched out and ironed waiting to have him smear black paint expertly all over them. BUT DONT MESS IT UP! And yes he is going to be the one doing the smearing cause I can't handle that kind of stress so I am going turn on some George Michael and pretend like, heey time to party! A screen printing party! Yay! After all that I will heat set them and we will mail them out proud to be sending out another awesome looking pair of TealTown curtains and continue ignoring the painfully blank red curtains we have to walk by to head out to the post office.

For all of us Mac nerds out there

Available at Atmostheory.

Drawing III Final

I volunteered to go first during my final critique for drawing three. It went really well, everyone seemed to like my project and had some really good ideas on how I could display it better. Plus, now all I have to do is sit back and listen for my last couple days of class.

For our final we could come up with our own project so I decided to mess around more with drawing with light in photographs.

I looked at old masters works, and modern works of art to find the lines I wanted to create. Then I set up a scene and tried to take a picture of something that I felt represented those artists works.

This one turned out to be my favorite.

I used this work from Leonardo DeVinci as the master work. Then set Haley up in bed with a book and tried to recreate the lines from DeVinci's work to give the felling of knowledge or enlightenment coming from the book. The line didn't turn out how I wanted it to at all, but I think it works.

Up!

Weekend Recap

Friday:
Donna and Jim took me out to Maggiano's Little Italy for my birthday, and got me this awesome chandelier!




Saturday:

Went out with Mark's family to Terry's Turf club, The Wooden Nickel, and Findley Market where we successfully tracked down the Waffle Guy.



Then we went back to my house to see the new floors and celebrate my birthday again! Emma got me this pig. The cicada didn't come with it. Mark put it there to be funny.



Father's Day :

Mark got his new scooter working and we spent most of the day riding it around the neighborhood.

And tested out my new remote Mark got me for my birthday!




Finished the day off with a lovely Father's Day cook out.

Ohhhh

Best studio space ever.



Theresa Grey has converted this 1953 Airsteam into her traveling studio. Love the uncluttered feel. And her tribute to David Hockney in her collage she uses to show off all of the back.

TealTown Annoucment

After months and months of nothing, Mark and I have finally gotten a new design up.




We are both pretty partial to it. Everyone else has said they like it, but we havent gotten the "ooohhh I want one" that usally comes when my family sees a new shirt. Maybe this one is a little to hipster for them.

Summer Days

The internet can be so boring sometimes.

A little light

This what we do when we have no power.

Tornadic

The past couple days the tri-state has had a constant line of storms coming in. Tuesday the channel nine weather guy informed us that the worst of the weather was headed straight for us and if we live around where we live it might be a good idea to take cover.

I was freaking out. Mark on the other hand found the whole thing annoying. He really didn't want to have to spend all night in the bathroom. The thunder was pretty scary, but other than that nothing to horrible happened.

Last night another storm came through, the weather guy didn't tell us to take cover, this one seemed a lot worse to me. Sheets of rain were pouring down, the wind was really heavy, and the thunder was just a little scary. I was talking to Kendra on the computer when the storm was coming in. When the lights started flickering I let her know I was probably going to loose power soon, and that is when the lights started doing this.....

See what I mean about the thunder?

Look What I Can Do

Always loved this style, but I have never had the money to out and buy a Duaflex. Tonight I found this lovely flickr group. A gold mine of TTV textures.

Happy Memorial Day!

It's a good thing Mom and the girls came up on Saturday to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend the weather was perfect and we pretty much had the park all to ourselves. The weather is kinda crappy today and I bet people are fighting over that one table in the gazebo.

I Want To Believe

Donna and Jim took us out to see the new Indiana Jones Movie yesterday. As we were walking out of the theater I noticed this poster.

They're back! I have seen the boot legged preview, but now they have an official site and an official trailer posted at xfiles.com. I am hoping this one will be better than the last movie. The only season Mark and I haven't watch is Season 8, but that is the season where there is no Mulder. I don't think I can handle X-Files with no Mulder. I guess I am going to have to before July 25th.

Yay Adam!!!

Last weekend Mark's brother graduated cum laude from law school. We spent the weekend in Cleveland with them to celebrate. I didn't realize until we got to the graduation luncheon what a huge deal it was. Adam made his three years at law school look easy and when you are used to someone constantly impressing you it is easy to glide through those big days like graduation because you always knew that you would be there watching them walk across the stage.

As I was eating lunch, while I was watching his family settle around him to take pictures, and when his graduating class walked in and everyone stood and cheered I found myself trying to hide a couple tears that made their way up. This was such a huge day. He accomplished something truly amazing that took an tremendous amount of dedication, patience and bravery. Mark and I are so happy for him and we are very excited to see what comes next.

BEST THING I HAVE EVER HAD!

Tyler got a 24oz bucket of this stuff for helping out some of his rich friends. I don't think he liked it to much, Mike didnt really care for it, and Mark said he didn't understand it. I on the other hand think it might be my new most favorite thing. You can get it at peterbrook.com
soo yummy.

For all you artist out there

I am Banksy T- Shirts.


Wish I had thought of it.

The Visitor

After a long period of not being able to think of anything to take a picture of that I felt was worth it I thought of this today.

SPC

Strange Pretty Things

Maybe it is my final photo project but lately I have really been drawn to things that are.... a little vintage, a little foggy, a little surreal.







Miss Lulu's Flickr, Take my World Apart Flickr, Print by Devon Kelley-Yurdin
Found at charmignwall.com, Akihisa Nakamura Flickr

Happy Sunday

One good thing about being constantly busy is that when you finally get time to do something you want it feels decadent. Friday we went out to see Iron Man, we both really enjoyed it. Yesterday I spent trying to get more stuff done. Today we are riding our bikes over to the tennis courts for a little friendly competition. I was also finally able to process the pictures I took of our family weekend last weekend.

A Little Media Attention

Check out who was caught smooshing it up with President Hodge on the front page of Friday's Miami Student.