i n • p u r s u i t

The wings from Jade's halloween costume were just begging to have their picture taken.

Earlier this year, I went down to visit my brother and we took a ton of pictures. Here, he's taking pictures of a nasty murky tunnel. I'm on the other end. I actually took this upside down because on my end was the pond. I was lying flat on my belly with my head hanging down. Turned out to be one of my most favorite pictures! Also, it's was tons of fun to bike around and take pictures with my big brother. Who is, admittedly, a much better photographer than I. You can see his pictures here .

I know that plenty of your read this by RSS--not that I'm not complaining, I'm an RSS addict myself. But if you haven't visited my blog in the past 24 hours, you're missing something. I totally changed the look! Okay, okay, I know I change my look a lot, but this one is worth me writing a post about. My friend Alanna recently started up a blog and I saw that her cute background and buttons and such were all from a place called shabbyblogs.com . So, naturally, I had to check it out! It's not too different from thecutestblogontheblog.com , which I know several of us use. It's the same idea: free backgrounds and such, but, oh my gosh, the ones on shabbyblogs.com are so cute! I swear I'm not getting paid to say this. I just had to share. So, if you're in the mood for a shabby chic little change, you might want to check it out.

After reading Allure's beauty breakthrough, I went out and bought Sally Hansen Insta-Dry nail polish . My opinion? It's okay. It wasn't very breakthrough for me. Be careful with the application because the polish dries very quickly and if you try to put another coat on top of the almost dry polish, it gets goopy and yucky. The brush also takes some getting used to because it is so different. Necessary, I think, for sufficient application within the drying time. I love how fast it dries. As for lasting power, well, I'm pretty rough on my nails. It lasted fair through all of that, but my N.Y.C. Long-Wearing Nail Enamel ( purple pizzaz! ) is lasting much better with a Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps acrylic top coat. And by "much better" I mean almost TWO WEEKS! I tried the Insta-Dry with the Hard as Wraps acrylic top coat and TWO DAYS later its already chipping. I'm very disappointed. I had high hopes for this nail polish because it was an allure "beauty br

Maybe it's because I like words, (even though you'd never know that thanks to my frequent typos) but I don't get the shortening of words that has become trendy. The first time I got an emails that said " totes " and was not referring to bags, I had to ask my trust friend Google. Of course, I'm not entirely about scrutiny. I use vaycay , I have been known to refer to my parents as the ' rents and I definitely have some faves . But... obvi? presh? perf? din-din??? I'm reminded of talking with Davis who is two and does not have a proper grasp on the English language. He calls me "tee" and says "ga-bu" for thank you. It is so dang cute. If you're a lover of these cute abbrevs, I found this cute guide . However, I would strongly advise against saying din-din or night-night unless you are a) under five-years-old or b) talking to someone who is under five-years-old.

Like the photo of Mike from 2 weeks ago, this photo was also taken at the 2008 New Attitude conference in Louisville. Being in a different place with your camera on your person at all times makes for lots of pictures. And lots of pictures means at least some of them will be good. It was a good few picture taking days. This picture was taken while hurriedly walking from dinner back to the convention center for another session. There was what seemed to be a whole street of abandoned or at least unloved buildings that were dying for their picture to be taken. This street was so different from where our hotel was--on 4th street, a bustling part of Louisville.

For my minorities in the media class, we have a final paper that is supposed to be about any subject pertaining to any minority in the media. I decided to pick women in the media, particularly the way that media lays pressure on women to have some sort of unattainable beauty. One thing that came across my path today will probably find its way into my paper. I read an article at the timesonline.co.uk that says that this particular model was not at all happy about her retouched photo. To add insult to injury, she has been fired, she says, for being too fat. That picture just makes her look odd and terribly disporpotionate. Today's blog on I Heart Daily featured an interview with a woman who retouches photos for fashion magazines and campaign ads. This woman herself says, when retouching, "you're just making them look like this unattainable, unrealistic image." It's one thing to remove zits or leg hair, but to make them look like the victim of a victor

We were engaged for a grand total of five weeks. (Less a few hours if you're really nit picky.) Some people, upon finding out I was getting, or, if afterwards, had gotten, married so quickly, asked if I was pregnant. No. Most definitely not pregnant. Though, Mike did like to joke that I was. This joke, by the way, was NOT FUNNY. This joke accompanies other jokes Mike enjoys that are actually not funny, examples of which include farting in enclosed elevators and scaring Tiffany while she is taking a peaceful shower. Jokes aside, why did we get married so quickly? It all started the day after we got engaged when Mike asked if we could...maybe...see about planning this thing quickly? Like in six weeks? Other that the three-or-four-months that we were thinking about? Is he CRAZY? Was my first thought. No, wait, that was my second thought. My first thought was Awwwww, he can't wait to marry me!!! *insert goofy smile here* I said that sure, we could try. And then, while meeting wit

This photo was taken after my dear friend Sharon's wedding at which I was a bridesmaid and paired off with the left most brother, Joe. Sharon's wedding is definitely up there in my top three of all time most-fun weddings. This picture was taken after the newlyweds had taken off. The sun was setting and we were cleaning up and right before these three dispersed for more clean up, I told them to stand together and I snapped this picture.

Today was one of those days when, on a whim, I wore mineral makeup (which I got a while ago from Stargirl ). Today was also one of those days when I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered why in the heck I don't wear this stuff more often???

The tragedy is not that I have a Miley Cyrus song stuck in my head. The tragedy is that I know the words.

playing with photobooth between classes

My sister and her boyfriend, Kevvie, came over to hang out with Mike and I today. We all went to check out the house and show them our renovations. We had stir-fry for dinner. We had monkey bread for dessert. We played Wii Fit. We played Rock Band. And Stargirl and I made some amazing vids.

I put some of my favorite photos on my flickr photostream. People mostly visit my flickr to see pictures of the house, so I figured I would start sharing some of my favorites. This was taken before Mike was my husband. This was taken while we weren't even dating. A big group of us from church were at the 2008 New Attitude conference in Louisville, KY and while some of us were hanging out in the lobby of the hotel, I snapped this photo. That probably wasn't a good idea because I was struggling with feelings for him. And he looks way hot in this photo. Luckily, it all turned out well a few months later :)

So, last night, while playing Wii Tennis with the dear Anne Marie , it was decided that Wii was racist. Or, perhaps, all of Nintendo, I don't know. We have yet to do research on other platforms. Why did we decide this? Because the computer tennis players that we were matched with while playing doubles. Each time, I was paired with a person with a darker skin tone and Anne Marie who is a full-on caucasian, was paired with another whitey. We named our teams: Team Aryan and Team Not White . It was very funny for us because we are very good friends (she was my bridesmaid , after all) and not all in the manner of hating each other. What's cool, is that those few segregated tennis matches led us to interesting discussions about racism. I love having friends that I can talk so openly about this with. Like, when I find myself in discussions about race-- ---Speaking of the word "race" by the way. I don't like that word. Because we're all part of the human race and no

black and white, black lit lighting, the lines of the bookcase symbolizing a cage, and the femme fatale of course...

A headline on timesonline.co.uk reads " Obama’s Olympic failure will only add to doubts about his presidency ." Is that true? Should we really judge our President's success based on where the Olympics were held? I didn't vote for Obama and I'm certainly not his number one fan, but I don't agree that we should be doubting his abilities as our President because the 2016 Olympic games will be held in Rio De Janero. People were upset that he wasn't going to Coppenhagen to support Chicago. Then they were upset that he was going. He went, he supported Chicago as the site of the 2016 summer Olympics, and Chicago got taken out in the first round. And that's okay. Yay for Rio de Janeiro getting to hold the first Olympic games ever in South America! I realize that the Olympics are a huge deal in so many ways, but let's not be searching for reasons to diss our President.

Secrets secrets are no fun Secrets secrets hurt someone Ever hear that? I don't remember where I heard it, but to me, it's just a poem about someone who is jealous that they don't get in on the gossip. The person that is really hurt by the secret is the person that holds it inside. What you discover from PostSecret is that these secrets, when released, are so liberating for the secret keepers. Mike and I just got back from the PostSecret event. We bought the cheapest tickets, but because the center wasn't full and because there would be an open mic at the end of the presentation, we got to upgrade. Level A tickets for a Level C price, thanks Frank! It was pretty much Mike's first exposure to PostSecret except for a postcard or two that he may have seen on my weekly perusal of the PostSecret blog. I loved Frank's stories and the whole event sparked some interesting conversation between us. (More about that later, because it's a heavy blog that I can't ju