Week 29 and I hit a low point in my project. I just got very frustrated. 200 pictures, one per day, is a lot of pictures, ESPECIALLY when you take into account that I technically got through 261 pictures last year too. I got tired of the pressure of needing a new shot for each day, of carrying my camera everywhere as it hurts my shoulder, of trying to be creative when I think all my creativity is gone. But I’m pushing through, hoping that this year I’ll actually make it to day #365.

day one ninety seven – a wanna be dandelion.. aka a random pink flower I found outside. When in doubt, look for flowers, right?

day one ninety eight – “hey, that’s not for you!” Just a picture of our new hummingbird feeder.. that seems to get more love from butterflies and wasps. :p

day one ninety nine – green. This is the day when my frustration was at its peak. That said, I’ve always loved looking out the window and seeing the different shades of green in one tree.

day two hundred – rain, rain, go away… My cat doesn’t like posing for me, and she doesn’t like thunderstorms, but here she let me get a shot of her and her reflection.

day two oh one – feathers. While in Austin I fell in love with this peacock and his gorgeous feathers, I must have spent a half hour trying to get a good shot! Here I just like how his feathers cascade away from him.

day two oh two – Texas State Capitol. ‘Nuff said, right?

day two oh three – pop! Aka, a purple coneflower outside where I was staying.

More pictures from Austin to come. And hopefully more project 365 to come too, assuming I don’t give up once and for all!

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It wasn’t intentional but week 28 seemed to be full of self-portraits, more so than usual… Most months I’m lucky to get more than a handful of pictures of me in and this week has 3 (although one is just a partial). And, unfortunately for this blog post, I don’t put self-portraits on this blog, mainly for safety reasons.

But I will post, as always, the other pictures of the week, with placeholders indicating where the self-portraits went… as always, they’re up on flickr if you’re curious.

day one ninety – self-portrait featuring my new pink Converse chucks. :) It’s actually a fun photo, taken in the bathtub, I think it rather came out well.

day one ninety one – ninety nine bottles of… While in San Antonio for the weekend, I went out with a friend for dinner and drinks and couldn’t resist taking a picture of the colorful bottles behind the bar. And yes, I felt embarrassed pulling out the huge D90. :p

day one ninety two – memories, like the corners of my mind… Just a quick little shot of a photo album that I bought, which holds my pictures from Europe. At some point, when I have money, I might want to make a blurb book from my pictures but the photo album was cheaper.. and instant.

day one ninety three is a self-portrait of my new hair color. Not to be confused with the picture below. :)

day one ninety four – still red. This picture I used in a blog post announcing the new hair color, but then I liked it so much I decided to keep it as my 365 shot.

day one ninety five – fading away. I decided to take a break from obsessing over myself and my hair and focus on the gerbera daisies I bought last week, that are slowly dying.

day one ninety six – scenic view.. And the odd picture out of the week… I went with a friend to take pictures of her house that she’s trying to lease, and we stopped at the entrance of the neighborhood to get some shots of the lake/pond with fountains in front. Truly a nice place to live. If only I could afford the rent which is like 3 times my budget!

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Still working on catching up with my project 365 blog posts… here is week 27.

one eighty three is a self portrait, actually a pretty neat one if you ask me, but it’s only up on flickr so you’ll have to check it out there. Sorry!

day one eighty four – tranquility. Went to a wedding where the reception was held at a golf course and I thought the fountain and all the trees looked so peaceful.

day one eighty five – red white and blue. For 4th of July, of course.

day one eighty six – the grass is always greener. Just a shot I’ve always wanted to do, although it didn’t come out how I pictured it.

day one eighty seven – wistful. A gerbera daisy that I bought, I liked playing with the picture in Lightroom to make it look more sad and gloomy – in real life the flower is a bright pink.

day one eighty eight – a stitch in time. I started cross stitching again, this is an old one that I started and then put down over 3 years ago. The focus looks a bit soft but I think I’m going to blame it on the Lightroom preset I used. That and it’s really hard to get a crisp shot of a tiny needle!

day one eighty nine – raindropkeh. Went to Target and on my way in, some raindrop covered shopping carts caught my eye. :)

And now I’m caught up! This Friday will bring your regularly scheduled project 365 post… woohoo! Let’s hope I don’t ever get that far behind posting my 365 again!

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I’ve always had a thing for redheads. Not in the way that most guys say that phrase, I didn’t want to get with one, I wanted to be one.

I want to say it started with Scully from The X-Files. I mean, her hair was awesome. I remember being 12, laying in bed, pouring over some magazine and wishing I had her hair. But it wasn’t over after Gillian Anderson… oh no. Everywhere I looked, people had red hair – a character in a novel I read (over and over again), in bands (Shirley Manson from Garbage), TV shows (Alyson Hannigan from HIMYM, Debra Messing from Will & Grace, Cynthia Nixon on Sex & the City, etc) and so on. I drooled over the hair colors, convinced that I was born with the wrong one.

In college I decided to take the plunge. I had my mom take me to a salon and get my hair dyed. And I was so pleased… until I realized that NO ONE could see that my hair color was different. My hair, being a dark brown naturally, didn’t take the red too well and so it ended up being a “if I squint, in the sun, maybe I can see something” type of red. Very disappointing. After that, I had one of those impulsive moments where I dyed my hair black (not a good look for me, considering my skin tone) and it eventually had to be bleached to restore it to a normal color. That was the last time I dyed my hair, about 7 years ago or so.

But… Friday night, I came across an article about the actress Christina Hendricks, best known for her role on Mad Men (a show that I have yet to watch, but which IS on my Netflix queue). In the article she talked about how she started dying her hair from the age of 10, after becoming obessessed with the Anne of Green Gables character (a series of books I had also read when I was younger, and I also loved her hair color!). Looking at pictures of Christina Hendricks, with her fabulous red hair, brought back all those years of wishing and I started thinking about getting my hair dyed. Friends and family tried to talk me out of it, saying that the color faded quickly, that they would have to bleach my hair to get the color I wanted… but I was a woman obsessed. And everyone knows what happens when I get obsessed…

Saturday, on my way to San Antonio for the weekend, I called and made an appointment to get my hair done right as I got into town. The results were… not good. Very not good. My friend that I was staying with acted like it was my fine but when I went out Sunday night with my girl friends, I knew it was not good. It was orange on the top and then brown from my eyes down. It was a mess. It was not what I wanted. I could not go back home like that.

So Monday I went to the hair dresser again, hoping my hair could be salvaged. The guy kinda was a brat about the whole thing, making it seem like all hope was lost, but eventually he worked his magic and I got my wish:

(More pictures are up on flickr/facebook)

It’s almost perfect. I say almost because the ends still look a rather dark brown but it might be just one of those things, as there’s only so much red my hair can be without being bleached. Plus I had a hard time articulating the specific shade I wanted but next time I can bring in this picture and be like, I want this… all over!

Other than the dark brown on the bottom, I kind of love it. I love the fire engine red highlights at the top, the way it brightens up my whole face (that could also be because they lightened up my eyebrows a tad), the way you can tell from first glance that my hair is RED, you don’t need me to stand in the sun or under the right lighting. 16 years after first getting the idea to become a redhead, I finally had my wish.

I know, that red hair is hard to keep up with and usually I’m not the kind of person that goes to the hair dresser on a regular basis, so who knows how long I’ll keep up with it. Part of me is kind of worried that my work won’t like it as it’s not a completely natural color… but it’s not like I dyed my hair pink or anything. I guess we’ll have to see. But for right now, I am finally a redhead… and very much happy about it. And very much determined to stay this color for as long as I can! :)

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Week 26 marks a turning point for me in two ways: first it marks the halfway point of the project, and also it marks where my project LAST YEAR started to go downhill. So far I think I’m holding up pretty strong, although it’s rather early to tell. :p

day one seventy six – raindrops on… Sunny and raining, go figure. :)

day one seventy seven – Wall-E is SO cliche… Another picture for the cliche group, a shot of Wall-E. Not very exciting but I wasn’t feeling very creative.

day one seventy eight – i’ve got my eye on you… My trip to the museum led to this great shot of dinosaur figurines, I really like the depth of field and how just the one in focus is staring at me.

day one seventy nine – this is what summer’s about. A lovely summer day spent in the garden, enjoying an ice coffee from Starbucks and a new book from the library… perfect!

day one eighty – not just another flower picture. An interesting looking flower found in the garden, identified as a passion flower. Bizarre, no?

day one eighty one – smile. Having a good day, had to let the world see it. :)

day one eighty two is another self-portrait so that’s up on flickr.

And that’s that. The end of the first half of project 365! To be continued…

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Still playing catch up with my project 365 posts… here’s week 25. I find this week slightly less exciting now that my pictures aren’t from England or Italy. :p

day one sixty nine – creepy crawler…

day one seventy – flip flops are *so* cliche… For my friend’s cliche group on flickr, I had just bought some new flip flops (my first pair since college, I usually don’t wear traditional flip flops as I don’t like things in between my toes) and had to think of a shot for them.

day one seventy one – you spin me… A cop out of a shot. I was spending all day making videos using my vacation pictures and burning them to disc… this is a DVD that I was burning some too, and I liked the colors.

day one seventy two – “if you can’t beat them, join them.” I got carded at the movies the other day, someone thought I looked 16 (and I’m really 28). Instead of being insulted and vowing to try to appear older, I thought “eff it”… I’m not going to stop wearing cute headbands or bows in my hair just to look my age. Although maybe I should…

day one seventy three – “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep…” Went to a retreat to pick up something for my mom and the woods made it look so far away from the middle of the city.

day one seventy four is another self portrait of me, this time with my mask from Venice. It’s up on flickr, plus I’ve been using it as a twitter and foursquare icon, I love it so much.

day one seventy five – focus. I’ve always liked the colors that are INSIDE the lens of a camera, and I tried to capture it. I don’t think I did well though.

And another week done. Whee. :)

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Still playing catch up on my project 365 posting… here’s week 24. Awww… more Italy pics. :)

day one sixty two – coliseum.

day one sixty three – trevi fountain. Beautiful, no?

day one sixty four – pompeii.

day one sixty five – frascati. Our last day in Italy, we went on a vineyard tour and I thought this place, outside of Rome, was the most beautiful place ever.

day one sixty six – home sweet home. Happy kitty. Also known as tired Ari, who couldn’t be bothered to take a more interesting pic.

day one sixty seven was a selfie of me, and you know how that goes….

day one sixty eight – memories… Aka, a macro of a stack of photos that I printed out from my trip to Europe.

And that’s week 24. Hmm. I think I’m still a few weeks behind on the blog. Hey, at least I’ve been taking my pictures every day, right? :)

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So my return to blogging didn’t go as awesomely as planned… heaps of people didn’t fall on their knees, immensely grateful that I graced this blog with my presence.  In fact, I got all of one comment yesterday… Cammy I love you. :)

And so it is. But, since it’s summer vacation and I have, oh, really, NOTHING going on… we’ll see if I can get back into this blogging groove. And what better way to start than by catching up with my project 365 pictures. I think I’m like 3 tragic weeks behind, but to maintain order, I’m going to keep doing them week by week. So here’s week 23.

day one fifty five – happy fence friday, uk edition. For the wedding I attended, we ended up staying the weekend at this really nice hotel, that had some great grounds. Friday evening, while everyone was having drinks (and yes, so was I), I wandered around with my camera and found a fence. See, even in England I’m thinking about dang flickr groups like Fence Friday!

day one fifty six – happily ever after. I don’t have many pictures from the actual wedding because we weren’t ALLOWED to take pictures, so this shot was while the couple was posing for pictures for the professional photographer. I love the groom’s pose, with his hands behind his back, and I love the bride’s look. And I love her dress.

day one fifty seven – simplicity. Freaking cop out shot. What happened was, the day after the wedding we went back to the parents of the bride’s house for tea and and an Indian buffet… and we ended up just talking and talking until it got late. And I think I was all photographed out from the wedding that this was the only picture I shot. Ah well.

day one fifty eight – london bridge is… Actually I’ve been informed that this is Tower Bridge, not London Bridge. Either way, I like how it looks in front of the sun.

day one fifty nine – burano. Italy!!  This is a little island called Burano, a short water bus ride away from Venice, and it is well known for it’s brightly colored buildings. I thought it was absolutely beautiful and was convinced I was in heaven. I was, wasn’t I?

day one sixty – high tide. St. Mark’s Square, in Venice. My brother and I had got done meeting up with some random Australian guys that were on our tour, and they had been drinking (sadly, I just watched for the most part) and we crossed by and found this sight. We were so excited to see St. Mark’s Square flooding and I was just in love with the reflections.

day one sixty one – night falls… Our first night in Rome, my brother signed us up for a tour down the Tiber River. Or so I thought. Actually it was a dinner cruise. And all they served was seafood, which I don’t eat. Anyway, at one point they stopped the boat in the middle of the river and everyone was wondering why they did that. So you could take pictures, of course!

And that’s the end of week 23.

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Let’s see if I can get into the swing of blogging my pictures, for old time’s sake.

So on Sunday I was able to go to an after hours event flickr meetup at the Houston Museum of Natural Science Sugar Land. It was a lot of fun to walk in and see so many people that were on flickr and loved taking pictures. And even though I don’t think I did that well, I think I got a few shots that I liked.

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Dear blog,

I’ve been avoiding you. I know you’ve probably noticed it, and I guess you shouldn’t be all that surprised – avoidance has always been my preferred way of handling uncomfortable situations. And I know I’ve been really distant for a few weeks now but… well I guess there’s no real good way of saying this. I think I need some time to myself. It’s not you, it’s me…

Blah. If you have noticed (or maybe you haven’t and then, well, shame on you), I haven’t blogged in about 2 and a half weeks. At first it wasn’t intentional – I was having far too much fun in England to blog – and then suddenly it was. Allow me to explain…

The first thing that led to my blogging departure wasn’t really a one time occurrance, it has happened a few times in the past – friends that know of my blog will leave a comment on my personal facebook page, referring to said blog. Which is all fine and dandy except that not everyone knows about my blog. In fact, I tend to keep my blog private from most people that I know in real life, which means I usually have to delete any comments referring to it. Which kinda sucks.

But it also got me thinking. I know some bloggers who have friends and family that know that they blog and it’s great for them.. but it never will be like that for me. I know for a fact that I can never merge this online identity of curiousillusion with my real life and juggling it gets so exhausting at times.

So that was in the back of my head while I was walking around in Italy (!) and I just thought, why am I blogging? If I can’t share it with people that I’m close to, if I feel absolutely ridiculous if someone offhandedly asks me if I have a blog, then why am I doing it?

Plus being a blogger eats up so much time. There’s composing posts, replying to comments (which I got really bad at doing), reading other blogs, commenting on other blogs… it shouldn’t feel like a chore to leave a comment on a friend’s blog but when you have so many blogs to keep up with, it really started to be something I HAD to do. Which meant between flickr, blogging, clearing out my google reader.. I had very little time after work and before bed to just relax.

But… when I came to my blog (just to change my email account, because my yahoo account is currently having ridiculous amounts of spam and I’m through with it), I saw the pictures I had posted. I saw the theme I had specifically chosen and the sidebars I spent so much time working on. I read the comments people had left me. And I felt nostalgic and it made me want to blog, at least to blog my absence.

I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if this absence is permanent or not. Part of me is tempted to use the whiny “well no one noticed I was gone so maybe I should just officially quit already” approach, but the rest of me thinks I made up my mind without the help of anyone else. And yet a small part (damn how many parts do I have?) kinda misses blogging.

So basically.. I’m at an impasse. I guess what happens next remains to be seen…

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