Analog My World

I shoot film much faster than I can afford to get it developed so I have a giant pile of it on the desk and whenever I have a few extra dollars I’ll go get a roll or two done.  That happened yesterday so I thought I’d show y’all what my world looks like… analog style.

This is what my world looked like growing up.  Pinecones, the tree where David and I got married, the truck stop where I spent a bazillion late nights in high school and college, and the playhouse in my mom’s backyard.

This is what my life looks like in Phoenix.  Cacti and palm trees.  P.S. That light flare in the last one makes me giddy.

And this is what my life looks like right now.  Searching for ladybugs, couch cushion forts or attempts at forts, David Boring, endless dishes, sweet spoiled dogs, ice cream with friends, and squirrels eating cereal on the couch in the morning.

It’s a beautiful world.

Hipsters make me poor.

I’m really into crappy old cameras right now.  Why?  Why do I want crappy film when I have an awesome DSLR to shoot with?  Who the hell knows.  Why am I also into making paninis?  Why is my husband into rock climbing?  Why is my dog Barney really into meticulously cleaning his balls with his tongue 9 times a day?  It just is what it is… and right now what it is is me and weird old analog pieces.

Last summer I got a giant box of old analog cameras from some friends who were getting rid of everything they owned to go overseas.  Some of them didn’t work, some were even crappier than I was interested in, but some were great… including an old giant polaroid instant camera and one pack of film for it.

I LOVE the polaroid.  I love it’s mediocre quality.  I love sitting there for five minutes staring intently at it while it slowly develops.  I love shaking it because Andre 3000 told me to… hey ya!  What I don’t love?  The fact that the film is stupid expensive.  Craaaazy stupid expensive.

Damn you hipsters… driving up the price with your perfect example of supply and demand!

I didn’t use it at all for more than six months because the idea of using film that was that expensive made me want to wet my pants with fear, but told Kristen if we ever went on our epic adventure I’d use at least one picture for it and did.  Then today I was feeling squirrely and said “What the hell, I’ll take a polaroid.  That film isn’t going to last forever… I’ll just use one.  It will be fine.”  And took this picture of Verona wearing the pipe cleaner crown we’d made this morning.

Then, as the polaroid rush wore off, I thought “Oh I’ll just take one more.”

Then reasoned, “Well if I’m using the super expensive film and I’ll probably never be able to afford anymore in my life ever I may as well do a whole series with that damn little crown so I can frame the whole thing and hang it somewhere.”

And now I’m doing some deep breathing, trying to calm myself down over the fact that I just used $20-$25 worth of film in one afternoon.  I’m out of control… and being out of control feels kinda good.  (Insert evil laughter here.)

My Epic Weekend Adventure

An epic adventure was needed.  It was desperately, desperately needed.  So a month or two ago Kristen and I planned an epic adventure that we knew we couldn’t do until both of us had baby sitters on the same day.

Then suddenly, the stars aligned.  Our friend Megan was going to be in town for a weekend.  The same weekend David’s mom wanted to take the kids.  The same weekend Kristen already had a baby sitter on Saturday because she was working later that day.  And the clouds opened above us, and the angels sang, and we all ran away to a day of much drinking and picture taking together.

Our first stop on the lightrail we got off, ready for fun.  We were immediately approached by a homeless man who asked if we had a dollar. We didn’t… who carries cash anymore?  ”No no, don’t be sorry.” he told us.  ”No problem.  Thank you for your time.”  We kept on walking until the man’s demeanor completely changed and he turned to Kristen and said “I have a plan for today.  And that plan is to eat.”  We all laughed politely but he stopped us.  ”No, you don’t understand.  I’ve been asking people for a dollar all morning and nobody’s given me one.  If somebody doesn’t give me a dollar, I’m going to rob somebody.”

We all laughed uncomfortably and I moved behind David in one quick motion.  (David, for those of you who don’t know, is reasonably big and people are highly intimidated by him.)  Maybe it makes me a bad friend but the truth is I suspect Kristen and Megan can run away fast than I can, I’m going to take my advantages where I can get them.

He looked us up and down then added.  ”I’m going to rob someone.  If you don’t want it to be you ladies, you need to go that way.” pointing the direct we weren’t going.  We went that way anyway… wasting a few minutes going the wrong direction seemed a small price to pay.  Afterall, nothing fucks up an epic adventure more than getting stabbed before it’s even begun.

When we finally resumed our first stop (if you can’t read the instructions we had to stop at the third restaurant to the east) was this adorable little place called Fez.  None of us had ever been there but I’d recommend it.  We told the bartender to get us whatever four drinks he thought we would like the most and he did a fabulous job.

He then surprised us with a round of shots.  Huzzah!

Our bartenders name was Jesus and we started talking to him, explaining out whole epic adventure plan and telling him about almost getting robbed when in the middle of our story crazy homeless man shows up outside the restaurant.  ”That’s him!  That’s him right there!  Holy cow!” we exclaimed.

Jesus threw the towel he was using down on the bar and charged outside announcing “Don’t worry ladies, I’ll take care of this.”  We don’t know what he did or said, but he took care of it.  The crazy guy left and we didn’t see him again.

Proving once and for all that Jesus saves.

We took the next train south after that and ended up at the park behind the library.

We had as much fun at the park as we could, but the truth was we were raging hungry.  The instructions said we had to find a man with a mustache to tell us where to have lunch so we went on a hunt for a mustached man.  We searched…

…and we searched…

…and we searched…

…and we searched.

We searched for so much longer than it seemed possible we would have to search… although that could have just been the hunger talking.  After what seemed like a million years we found someone with sufficient facial hair who told us to go to The Spaghetti Factory, which we gladly did.

Oh lord it was delicious.  We didn’t have a bartender to tell us what to drink so David declared he was our bartender and ordered us stuff he thought we’d like and he was correct.  There are very few pictures of the food because everyone was too hungry to do anything with it that wasn’t digging in.

We did, however, take plenty of pictures afterward.

“““

The rest of the day was lots of walking, lots of picture taking, lots of talking and searching and fun.  Eventually we were suppose to find someone on a skateboard to tell us where to drink next but if we thought finding someone with a mustache was hard it was only because we didn’t try to find someone on a skateboard.

Eventually we gave up because we were thirsty and decided to just go the next place we saw that we could drink.  Then, like magic, a Hard Rock appeared before us.

Hurray for epic adventures!

That Time I Abandoned Y’all

I’m sure you’ve all noticed, since reading this blog is probably the most important thing going on in any of your lives, that I haven’t been here for a while.  About a month to be exact.  I’m glad you survived.  Here’s the quick run down of what I’ve been doing the past month.

1. I wrote a book.  The main reason I haven’t been here is because at the very last minute I told someone I would do NaNoWriMo with them.  For those of you who don’t like to put yourself through completely unnecessary torture, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month and every November a bunch of crazy people try to crank out a 50,000+ word novel in those 30 days.  They call it “30 days and nights of literary abandon”, I call it “30 days and nights of wanting to punch my laptop”.

I broke away from the hilarity I normally write and tried my hand at a tragedy.  That’s right, the woman who brought you such literary masterpieces as “The Night Of Bodily Fluids” and “Jesus Scratched His Balls” wrote a novel about death and sadness and teenagers burning themselves with cigarettes.  There was lots of late night crying into wine… and when you’re writing so much so quickly you’re kind of forced to eat and breath your story so it was really hard to get away from it.  It was a weird month.

Also, because it’s not what I normally write there’s a good chance it sucks.  Like, a lot.  So there’s also a very good chance I will never show it to anyone, but I still did it… hurray!

And for all of you wanting a funny Plaid Sheep book don’t worry, a book of hilarity much like this blog (some straight from this blog) called ”The Foul Mouthed Mennonite” and a parenting book called “The Zen Art of Chilling the Fuck Out” are still squshing around in my mind grapes.  And those I will definitely show you when/if they’re done.

2. Thanksgiving.  I’ll spare you all my Thanksgiving rant, but I will say it’s my least favorite holiday.  I don’t understand the point and I hate the food.  I’m weirded out by meat that still looks like an animal because I’m the most hypocritical kind of omnivour, so the turkey is just upsetting, and it seems like the theme of typical Thanksgiving food is taking something good and adding more things to it till it’s just weird.  Sweet potatoes are delicious on their own, they don’t need marshmellows, go put those in some hot chocolate where they belong.  And green beans are a tasty side dish, I will never understand the insistance on drowning them in cream of something gross soup… you can leave the crispy onion on top though, I approve of those.

And as it turns out I didn’t spare you my Thanksgiving rant at all.  You’re welcome.

3. I taught myself to knit.  I haven’t decided yet if knitting makes me an old lady or a hipster, because on one hand I did have my hair in a bun while I did it, but on the other hand I did instagram a picture of it… so the jury is still out on that one.

4. I learned that I hate knitting.  Knitting is just crocheting for people who like unnecessary work and are wayyyyyy more cordinated than I am.

5. I attempted once again to get organized and whatnot.  Read this if you want to know what my life looks like.  Choosing to dive into that again while attempting the novel business was a bad idea but, ya know.

6. I went to the fair multiple times where my daughter kissed all manner of barnyard animal,

Finn and a goat fell deeply in love with each other,

and I took a million gratutitous pictures of the most awkward furry creatures I could find that I now have no use for.

Darla’s Getting Ready to Explode

Steve and Darla: they’re fabulous, they’re strange, they’re reproducing, and I got it all on film (figuratively speaking).

We strolled around downtown Glendale… by which I mean I hobbled along, trying not to die a terrible death while attempting to navigate cobblestone streets on crutches, while they did their best to not to laugh at my general physical ineptitude.  We found some cool backdrops, some funky benches (I have a huge photography boner for funky benches), and eventually settled on the back patio of The Gaslight Inn and spent the rest of the evening doing our best to try everything on their extensive fancy beer menu.

Well, not Darla.  She had a Sprite.  Because fetuses ruin all your fun like that.

These are a few of my favorite things.

A few of my favorite things… all of which magically collided over the past week.

1. Hula hooping
2. Hoop decorating
3. Kids
4. Community
5. Bev Fong

Our whole church goes up to the moutains every fall to hangout for a weekend, and this year David and I made a bazillion plain hoops to be decorated by all the hoop virgins we know.  I was hoping for at least 10 people to show up… we had about 40.  It was super super fun.  And of course there was Bev (in that last picture), who is probably the coolest person I know (if I can be half as cool as Bev when I grow up I will be happy) and she became my hoop star, learning new tricks and rocking out.

6. Reading
7. Writing

Since I came home from retreat on crutches (I hurt myself saving a van full of orphans from a run away train.) I’ve had a ton of “couch time”, meaning so much reading and writing.  Incidentally, if I wrote a parenting book called “The Zen Art of Chilling The Fuck Out” do you think anyone would read it?

8. Coffee time
9. Birthdays
10. My baby
11. Bagels

My sweet little baby pterodactyl turned one this past Thursday so that morning at coffee time he had a birthday bagel.  I’m pretty sure he likes bagels more than cake anyway… actually I’m pretty sure he likes bagels more than anything.  There’s a good chance he likes bagels more than he likes me.

12. Hookah
13. Fabulous ladies

Hookah and fabulous ladies… do I really need to say more?

10 on 10

10 photos, 10 hours, on the 10th of the month.  To play along go to Rebekah’s blog.

1. Hoops and iced tea. 2. Dishes 3. Finn 4. Tea stage one. 5. Tea stage two. 6. Kisses 7. Kid art. 8. Pax. 9. Stirfry. 10. Sleep

10 on 10

Simple premise, 10 pictures in 10 hours on the 10th of every month.  If you want to play along hop on over to Rebekah’s blog and enjoy.

My daily breakfast hooping.  I’ll write more about that later.

Yes, I went a little nuts with the black and white.  Don’t judge me.

Those gingers sure do love their cookies.

David didn’t work this afternoon so we took the little monsters to the mall to play at the indoor park since it’s 115 outside and ride the carousel.

We also went to the food court…

…because David has a thing for pretzles.

We also stopped by the candy store where we came across cricket snacks, sour cream and onion flavored.  Verona loved them but I was too weirded out that their little legs kept getting stuck in my teeth.

Photography Adventures

Project “Summer of Whimsy” Days 2 and 3

Downtown has awesome things to take pictures of, everywhere you look there’s some fabulous architecture, or funky cafe, street performers, a protest of some sort… you name it, it’s happening.  If I could I would take solo photography adventures down there every third day of my life.

It should be noted that we live all of 15 minutes away from downtown.  It’s not like going is a big damn deal in reality… only in my mind.

Tuesday I took the kids down for a photography adventure… which amounted to me taking about four shitty pictures, realizing the kids were bored as hell and I wasn’t getting anything good, before scrapping the whole plan because there were more fun ways we could be spending the day.

So I called a friend that lived close, we took all our kids to one of those frozen yogurt buffets, to the library, then let them run around in the shade outside the library where all the skater kids were doing cool tricks and the homeless people were napping… you know, urban culture and all that.

Not the adventure I had in mind, but fun for everyone anyway and that’s the point.

Wednesday nights I have small group at a coffee shop down there so yesterday I left early to try again, sans little monsters.  I knew of some funky street art I wanted to see if I could capture… I didn’t get as much as I wanted cause the lighting was weird, but here’s a few of the more decent ones.

Birds and Butterflies on Roosevelt

Wine and skulls at the coffee shop.

Project ‘Summer of Whimsy’

My official summer goal:

This summer I want to do something every single day that I really want to do.  (Inspiration credit to Tiff over at FreePlayLife.)  It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be a big huge deal, it just has to be something that I REALLY want to do.  If there’s nothing already happening that day that fits into that fits into that category… well damn it I’m going to find something.

I’ll also take picture of most of it for y’all.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post.  Not even a little bit.  It’s also not special, just the Barns and Noble at Desert Ridge, but I took it last night and really like it without being able to explain why, so I’m sharing it.