BORED.

Today has been so painfully boring. I can not even conceive the fact that this rain is actually going to continue for two more days.
I am pulling my hair out.
Even the cats are pissed.

Anyway, here are some things that I've accumulated recently that I think to be rather nice:

1: Matryoshka measuring cups for the new apartment, discovered by Liz at Urban Outfitters.
They are so damn cute, and practical as they all fit inside each other. I'm on a quest to find matching measuring spoons, and have dreams of an entirely Russian inspired kitchen...

2: New fan, found at Lowes. Unfortunately, the pickings were slim. If it were not for the fact that I can't sleep without the noise of a fan in the background, I would have waited to buy a cuter one. I wanted light blue or red...but this one is growing on me.

3: Dr. Bronner's magic soap. It's of the hyper-organic, fair trade, new-age hippie type. I like that when I use it I'm smelling real lavender oil, and not synthetic bullshit that is concocted to smell like lavender. Also, a little goes a long way. Found at target, about $8 for a decent sized bottle. I'm getting the peppermint kind next time, it smelled like straight-up altoids.

So yeah. I'm bored enough to blog about measuring cups, a table fan and soap.
So be it.

Salad Champion

This weekend, inspired by a recipe from the lovely Marisa, I made the salad to end all salads.
Here's how it goes:
spring mix, sliced pears, craisins, chopped walnuts, tomatoes and chevre cheese.
Those things + Brianna's poppy seed dressing...I'll be eating this all week. And so should you.
Also, don't be afraid of chevre...it is your friend.

A Saturday and 1/2 of a Sunday.

Yesterday was officially the day I decided to give up morning coffee entirely. It's a sad thing when something you once loved so much suddenly turns on you and ruins shit instead of making it better...dizziness, jittery-ness and over-all yuck.
It seems that once I've been up a while and have eaten, I can handle the caffeine, but not before that. So farewell my beloved 3-cup and chain smoking morning bonanzas...I will miss you something terrible.

Here is how yesterday went after I recovered from acute caffeine poisoning:
1: Went about Plymouth finishing up what turned out to be the best Lomo roll I've had of recent. I'm thinking the Fuji 200 speed film is the hero in this story. The first four shots above are from that. Now why in the world has nobody mass produced a vignetting filter for dslrs?
Oh what I would pay for a filter like that....

Anyway, I would have liked to have gone down to the water, but the beach was still damn cold yesterday.

2: Snacked out on my favorite new chip ever: baked sea salt + vinegar.
With oolong tea.

3: Once again rejoiced in wearing fancy shoes outdoors.

4: Discovered new technicolor spring munchkins at Dunkin Donuts while visiting Policecop on his lunch break today. While they really do not taste all that good, they are very pleasant to look at.

So nothing extremely entertaining happened this weekend, but it was nice. Except my fan broke. Because appliances are now designed to kick it after about three years. Otherwise, the manufacturers would go broke, I suppose. Someday when I am president of my own island, I'll make sure to pass a bill that enforces quality shit.

Diana!

So the photolab at CVS is finally up and running again, and I was able to get my first roll of Diana mini prints!
I did the whole roll in half-frame, just to simplify things for myself. I'm going to mix things up a bit next time.
Here are some of my favorites.

Almost Friday, Almost Spring.

Yesterday I decided it was time for my first annual Salvation Army spring clothes hunt.
Wednesday being 1/2 off everything (except white tags), it was a good call.
Results: two dresses and three shirts for a total of $15.00.
I'm really kind of feeling the flowy-feminine thing after being trapped in hard knits, wool and the like for months. In addition, I have another new love: sleeve straps.
The blue and white striped dress is actually a maternity piece. It had a satin ribbon empire waist which did a fantastic job of making me look entirely knocked up. After a quick intervention involving an exacto knife, the ribbon is gone and my red belt is in. No babies here. Just some winter pudge.
And then there is the pink number...I made a promise to myself to not buy any more black clothes for a while. As it is, I could probably attend 500 different funerals and never wear the same exact outfit twice. Not good.

In other news, I broke down and bought storage boxes for my camera goods and ever-growing collection of prints. I opted for the Target Liberty collection, which is cheap and expertly designed to make me want every last piece of it.

I spent this afternoon wandering about downtown Plymouth finishing up my first roll of Diana Mini film. I'm pretty sure I did a good job with it, but who really knows? Not me, because today of all days the photolab at CVS is down for repairs. We will just have to wait and see.

On my photographic journey I decided to pay a visit to the local florist and buy myself a piece of spring, seeing as tomorrow winter is expected to make a bitchy comeback.
To which I say, fuck that, and goodnight.

Mid-Week Review (nothing better to do).

Random recap of things I enjoyed this past week:

1: Cake decorating lessons with Elliot. While I am completely over the whole cupcake thing (making and decorating them on a very regular basis for a year has rendered me painfully bored with them...), I had a moment of inspiration last week while listening to my ipod surrounded by all sorts of buttercream...just making roses on top somehow made my day. And the cake? 100% Elliot, 0% Jackie. I've got a long way to go.

2: Spending an entire Saturday searching for neat things to buy for cheap, only to come out with a pack of glittery fish stickers to decorate your cell phone, which will inevitably fall off. Anyway, I'm rather fond of my phone aquarium.

3:Being able to wear monster heels again, now that the world has thawed out a little bit.

4: Irish sessions with Dad, Hilary and Policecop at the ICC.

5: Being the proud co-owner of a new Mini Diana 35mm, with Policecop. It's fickle, and while it's hard to get properly made prints with square and half frame exposures, I'm very excited to get some good use out of her. Also, I very much like the idea of sharing a camera. It takes 1/2 of the shame of buying yet another camera off of my shoulders.

6: Hayashi rice dinner on Monday. After all these years my rice cooker still works. Hoping to use it later this week for a super exciting adventure in Korean cooking.

What's bad this week? Random vague stomach pain that has me convinced my spleen is ready to rupture. Does it hurt that bad? No. It's more along the lines of a slightly pulled muscle. But after the whole hospital ordeal I'm becoming a hypochondriac...for the first time in my life. I am turning into my Grandmother.
Efffff.........
Walk it off, walk it off.

The 35mm Turn On:

So as it turns out, it took the grand purchase of a fancy DSLR camera for me to re-appreciate how magnificent cameras are all together, and bring me back to the roots...I'm suddenly in lust with all things 35 millimeter.
After all, what is the one thing that a DSLR can't do? The legendary "happy mistake".
The kind of photo that isn't necessarily in focus, light blobs all over the place, colors invading spaces where they shouldn't be....
After more than a decade, my heart still belongs to Lomo.

So here are some of my recent 35mm adventures.
All of the single-frame color shots were taken with my Lomo LC-A, a present from my father way back in high school. (Oh how I begged, and I'm still so glad I did....)

The black+whites are from the Yashica Minimatic-C, found at the Wareham flea market for $20.

The 9-frames are from my Pop-9, a gift from long ago found under my bed after an extensive search. To my absolute delight there was a roll of mystery time capsule film inside...turns out the last time I used this camera was while I was living in Japan. I really, really wish I had used it more....