So I have this trip planned for the summer… a friend is getting married in England and the original plan was for me to go to England for a week.  My dad forked over his frequent flier miles (poor guy didn’t really have a choice, there’s no way I could’ve afforded it on my own) and a few weeks ago my flight was booked.  That in itself is exciting, but there’s more.

You see, my brother really wanted to go somewhere while he was in Europe, he didn’t care where.  My parents and him were gonna go but then the parents bailed and my brother was all, I’ll go alone then.  And then I was told that a ticket to Italy from England wasn’t very expensive and I decided… why not?  I mean, it’s freaking Italy! And so all of a sudden, my flight has been changed and… I’m going to Italy too!!

I’m so excited, words don’t even describe.  Being in Italy, seeing the sights, TAKING THE PICTURES. My camera is drooling at the bit.  Oh wait, that’s me.  And we have plans: to take tours around Rome, Vatican City and Venice.  But I don’t even mind what we do… as I’ve said, I’m going to be in ITALY.  I’m over the moon thrilled, anything else is icing on the cake.

I will admit, I’m a bit nervous too.  I don’t speak the language at all… I’m trying to learn a bit and so far I can say hi, bye, thank you, please, excuse me and, well my favorite word is… you’re welcome (prego!  I love it… I saw the jar of Prego sauce this morning at home and had to snap a pic). I have 3 months to learn as much as I can.  The other part that I’m nervous about is the fact that my brother goes home on a Monday… and I don’t leave til Tuesday.  Which means I’ll be on my own for an entire day and night.  In a country I don’t know, around people I don’t know, speaking a language I don’t know.  Gulp.  I’m also kinda paranoid for Lola, walking around Houston makes me nervous and now I’m gonna heft it around countries overseas.  My dad seems to think people are just gonna cut my bag, grab it (and my cam in it) and run -is that as common as he says it is?  I would die if something happened to her. 

But still, this is such a fantastic opportunity. My brother can actually afford to go and take care of me, so he’s basically covering most everything and I’m just gonna have to owe him my half…  basically for the rest of my life.  But, it’s as he said… how often do you get to go to Italy?!  (Well hopefully more than once. And hopefully next time I’ll come back with someone other than my brother.  As in, maybe with a boyfriend?  That would be romantic. Sigh.)

Now the next 2 and a half (or so) months need to hurry up and pass so I can GO!  To ITALY!  EEK!  Are we there yet?!

Related posts:

1. Paranoia, Paranoia.. Big day today.  Huge.  In fact, I’m a little over...
2. Where I make my dad proud… again. When I was about 13 years old or so, my...
3. Spoiler-free movie review: Avatar [As always, my movie reviews are spoiler-free.  If you were...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I love shopping for “school supplies”.  Ever since I was little, Office Max/Office Depot has been my happy place.  Is it just me?  I always loved shopping for things to take to school, and now that I’m “all grown up”, I’m the exact same way.

Colorful binder clips.

I’m not a fan of plain Jane manilla folders… I like mine to be colorful.

I love sticky notes, of any shape, color and style.   You should see my collection! And do you see how I keep finding myself drawn to birds?

Now if only I knew how to take better pictures of them. Sigh.

Related posts:

1. Good end to the first week of school Good news to report, finally. Today was a pretty good...
2. Colors So I have a bad feeling about the rest...
3. On project 365, take 2. Maybe. I’m jealous.  I’ll admit it.  I’m thoroughly jealous.  A lot...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A bit early, but it IS Texas, after all.  I don’t mind, I love this time of year…

It means… buying new clothes (short/no sleeves!) in my favorite colors:

Flowers…

Of all different colors…

It also means rain, which is what is happening right now.  But that’s okay too.  I think even the rain can be beautiful..

Unless you’re trying to dismiss students outside in it.  But that’s another story.

Related posts:

1. three sixty five. spring arrives. I had a thought the other day, about project 365. ...
2. I love spring… Well, I love this part of spring… the rare...
3. A white… tomorrow? Left my camera at home today.   Which was kind of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I had a thought the other day, about project 365.  Actually, a series of rapid, contradictory thoughts.  It went like this:

Yes, I had a complete conversation with myself.  It happens.  This one stemmed from the fact that this week I’ve just been having so much FUN with my pictures.  Not just for project 365, but in general… I’m loving being able to take my camera everywhere thanks to my pretty camera bag, and I’m using my camera everywhere too.  I’m hoping this excitement stays around for a while.

Anyway, on to the pictures…

day fifty seven – 28 and feeling great… My picture for my birthday.  I didn’t spend a lot of time on this shot, and it shows.  Two confessions: 1) I bought myself the cake, and the candles, especially for this picture and 2) the #8 candle is actually white.  I realized once I got home how white does not photograph well, so I had to change the color of the candle, and I didn’t do a great job.  Oh and confession 3… I didn’t eat the cake.

day fifty eight – in the middle of it all… My mom bought this gerbera daisy the other day and I couldn’t resist playing with it and my new macro lens.  I love the colors and detail it captured.

day fifty nine – spring arrives with an explosion.  Okay, I have to confess… this is my favorite picture that I’ve taken of this project.  Hands freaking down.  I absolutely LOVE the colors the macro lens picked up, love the detail, love the focus.  Sorry, that sounds like bragging but… damn.  And screw Explore, because in my eyes it totally deserved it. :p

day sixty – after the rain.  My first picture of March… looks a lot like the last picture of February.   But I was trying to capture some droplets (obviously didn’t work out) and fell in love with all the green.

day sixty one – “Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.  Every day, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.”  Quote by Dr. Seuss.  And now my pictures are starting to look alike.  I’m just happy to be shooting outside, to not being stuck in a pink theme, and to have a fun lens that picks up all sorts of colors.

day sixty two – the birds sing to welcome the sun to another day.  I decided I had to try to “spice things up” and quit taking pictures that were looking all the same, and these birds caught my eye while I was waiting in the Starbucks drive thru.  Oh and, gotta love that I’m not doing a pink theme anymore, but pink keeps showing up anyways.

day sixty three – bloom.  And back to flowers.  I found these blossoms on the tree at work, I swear they just appeared overnight, and I had to take pictures of them.  I think the crop is odd, but I like the flare at the top left corner and didn’t want to lose it.

And there we go.  2 whole months, or 9 whole weeks, completed.

Related posts:

1. three sixty five. pink weariness. So I was totally loving my pink theme… until this...
2. three sixty five. take two. So here I go again with the project 365. I’m...
3. three sixty five. pink overload… and disappointment. Week six of project three sixty five.  I have to say, I’m...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I kept noticing a theme yesterday:

 Waiting at the Starbucks drive-thru (yesterday’s project 365 pic outtake).

A magnet I bought the other day.

Some Galison file folders that I bought, came in a pack of 4 different colors.

Related posts:

1. “School” supplies… I love shopping for “school supplies”.  Ever since I was...
2. NOW what have I gotten myself into?! So I talked someone into doing NaBloPoMo for December.  And...
3. three sixty five. spring arrives. I had a thought the other day, about project 365. ...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Okay, not really under the boardwalk.  More like on the boardwalk.  And there’s no pictures of the boardwalk because the boardwalk was kinda winding and not really straight, which would have made for a great shot.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last Saturday.  I had nothing really big planned, except for an evening out with a friend (who later bailed).  My parents have friends that are staying with us for the week and so they were all going to go to Kemah (about an hour and a bit of a drive) and walk around on the boardwalk for the day.  They asked if I wanted to come, saying that I would get to take loads of pictures. I thought about it, googled Kemah (I’d never been) and then when I saw what it looked like, agreed on the spot.

This was my first trip with Lola since my trip to the park back in December, and it was good to get out with her and take pictures of whatever I wanted, not being restricted to my project 365 or pink theme.  Since Kemah is kind of a touristy place, I totally felt empowered to take pictures pretty much non-stop.  And I started thinking I just wanted to take pictures of whatever I found interesting, regardless of what other people thought.

I love being by the water, I think that’s the pisces in me. Even if it’s just dirty, Gulf of Mexico water.

I liked these different colored lamps a lot for some reason. I noticed the flare when I got home (it’s kind of subtle, blink and you miss it) and thought it was a nice bonus.

I become utterly obsessed with getting a picture of a bird in flight, and spent forever taking a ton of pictures… to the point that my arm and hand started hurting from the weight of the camera and aiming up. But I think this shot worked out pretty well… two for one!

And another picture of a bird in flight.

This seemed a bit out of place so I had to take a shot of it. I like how the wall to the right of it looks too.

Lines, water and reflections make me happy.

More water and reflections. I saw these boats from when we drove in and insisted that I get a shot of them.

Was taking pictures of the sky changing colors as the sun went down, when I noticed the moon looking pretty full, and I became determined to get a shot of it. This probably would’ve come out a bit better if we hadn’t been driving 60mph on the freeway, huh? At least *I* wasn’t the one driving…

And our trip ended with a pretty pink sunset. I can’t think of a better ending. :)

Related posts:

1. for the birds Decided to get out of the house today and take...
2. Recovering… I’m tons better than I was yesterday, phew.  Well, I’d...
3. Wherein I sneeze all over my book… A word about my project 365 picture for today. ...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday.  Or rather, it would be if he were still alive – he would be 106 years old.  I never really make a big deal out of it but for some reason this year I have.  For the past week, my students and I have been reading as many Dr. Seuss books as we can get our hands on, to see how many we can read.  And suddenly, I have a lot to say about Dr. Seuss.

I’ll admit it, I never was a big fan of Dr. Seuss before.  Sometimes the creatures he created were a bit creepy to me, and I remember not liking the way they looked.  But he’s starting to grow on me.  A lot.  I mean, I always enjoyed How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  But I’ve come to appreciate so many more of his other books.

For my college gradution, I got the book Oh, the Places You’ll Go from a friend.  Didn’t everyone get that book for graduation?  Anyway, I think that was my first Dr Seuss book, which is pretty remarkable because most of my students, at the age of six, pretty much own the entire collection already, while I got my first Dr. Seuss at 22.  I read it once, put it on the bookshelf, and never really looked at it again - it is currently in my storage unit.

A few years ago I fell in love with The Lorax, “I speak for the trees!” and the passionate message the little character by the same name stood for.  “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It’s not.” My students, year after year, never understand the message because they’re too little, even though I try to explain it.   They’re just concerned about why you can never see the once-ler.  Today I realized how utterly depressing the book is.  I read it to the class and afterwards I kinda did a sad sigh.

Last year I discovered Horton Hears a Who! and, well, how can your heart not be warmed by a Dumbo-looking elephant and the theme that “a person’s a person, no matter how small”?!  My students aren’t really as impressed with the movie (the old school cartoon version) as I am, which I think rather sweet.

Then this year I fell in love with Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? And promptly fell out of love with it, after hearing it multiple times a day since I decided to have my kids memorize it for a performance on Thursday.  But it was fun to read to the class, since they have all the sounds memorized.

And then today, in honor of his birthday, I read his book Happy Birthday To You!, which I only received this year and had never read before.  And I fell in love with this:

That Dr. Seuss, he’s a wise one.  Full of encouraging words and “be happy, silly, have an imagination” thoughts.  I love that.  As a teacher, that’s what I want to instill in my students… and I hope to be able to instill that in my future children too.

So yes, I’ll admit it, I’m a recent Dr. Seuss convert.  I’ve started collecting his books and, well, there are a lot of them (he wrote 44, and there are others published under his name) so it may take me my entire teaching career to collect them all.. especially considering how expensive they are.  I currently only have eleven of his books, but somehow I have doubles and even triples of some of them.  Which is fine, my students enjoy reading it… although I will say that while his books are considered “easy reader, beginner books” some are hard and long!

Then again, his books give us an excuse to eat this:

That’s right… green eggs and ham. (Oh and m&ms, because they were green too.  No I didn’t try any, but the kids said it was good.  Well, for the most part anyways.)

“Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.  Every day, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.” -One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Related posts:

1. On being the birthday girl. [I'm pre-empting my weekly project 365 recap post in favor...
2. What a difference… I’ve spent a lot of time noticing the differences between...
3. So I’ve been in another world… A world where vampires, werewolves, and other magically creatures reside. ...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So last week I felt frustrated with Danbo.  This week… well.  Let’s look at the pictures for this week, shall we:

day forty – Danbo drinks her orange juice every morning.

Yeah… that’s the only pic I posted this week for Danbo.  And that picture was taken back in January, as you can tell by the snowflake tin that she’s standing on.

I just haven’t wanted to take pictures of her.  It isn’t personal, and I’m not cranky with her… and looking at pictures of her still makes me smile.  It’s just that… well, for a while Danbo was my inspiration, as others had noticed.  But lately, she hasn’t been inspiring me.  And, as someone pointed out in the comments last week, if I’m tired of her, I should let her go.  So… I’m letting her go for right now.  I’m not saying I’m done taking pictures of her, or that I’m done with her 365… but for now, she’s on hold.

And in case you were wondering, THIS is the type of picture I’m currently inspired by.  (Yes, that is my own picture… I’m allowed to be inspired by my own pictures, right?)

Related posts:

1. 365 Days of Danbo I apparently am crazy.  Really. But I got a new...
2. 365 Days of Danbo: love and time out. Okay I’ll admit it.  I got jealous.  Super jealous.  Danbo...
3. 365 Days of Danbo: sigh. I’ll admit it – I’m tired of Danbo. It’s hard...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So I was totally loving my pink theme… until this week.  This week I kept seeing things I wanted to take pictures of that weren’t pink.  It started frustrating me.  But I pushed past it and managed to get some pics that I liked.

day fifty – for peace.  This was the most random thing ever. I just got it into my head that I wanted to take a picture of an origami crane. Problem: I didn’t know how to make one. I looked for directions online and spent 30 minutes trying to make one.  After I made it, I was talking with a co-worker and I liked how the light hit the phone and so that’s why the phone is in the picture. I told you… random.

day fifty one – I wish I was a butterfly… You’d think this was a pink and white theme, because these two colors keep appearing in my pictures.  I just like how clean and simple pink and white seem to be, and I’m starting to find myself loving the color combo. If I could decorate an apartment right now, it would probably have this color scheme.

day fifty two – tied with love.  See, told you – pink and white again.  This ribbon replaced the string I was using to hang pictures on my wall. It didn’t come out how I wanted it though… I like the bow but I don’t like how it looks on the right side of the pic.

day  fifty three – glittery sparkley bokeh love. Meh.  I had a better idea for a pic with glitter but it did not come out well.  I’m not a fan of the tones in this picture at all, and I wish the bokeh would have been more emphasized.  But this was before the macro lens, and I was just using macro filters (hence the natural vignette that occurred).

day fifty four – for every season… there is chocolate.  Now these tones I DO love.  I was inspired by a similar (but much better) picture that I found on flickr.  The colors photographed really brightly, I think because my camera was on a vibrant setting but I sucked the color out in photoshop and I love how pastel it looks.  And I also love that it’s NOT just pink and white here… there are colors, but I’m still sticking to the pink theme.

day fifty five – twinkle.  Again, you can see my rebelling against the pink theme.  Here there is pink (those are twinkle candy lollipops) but since the day before was cloudy and rainy, I loved how blue the sky looked and so I had to put the lollipops against the sky.  I’m tired of shooting indoors!

day fifty six – look closer.  I heart my new macro lens.  Funny thing: I kept trying to take a similar picture at school but the pencil wasn’t looking right (I think my sharpener sharpened it funny).  When I got home I tried it again using pencils I had at home and I like how this came out, especially with the soft white of the sheet and the blue of the window in the background.

And thus concludes week eight (I’m not including yesterday’s pic because it’s not part of week eight and I like to be organized).  Only 3 more days left of the pink theme and then… March!  Already!

Related posts:

1. three sixty five. spring arrives. I had a thought the other day, about project 365. ...
2. three sixty five. the many shades of pink. So last week I wasn’t really happy with my pictures. ...
3. three sixty five. pink overload… and disappointment. Week six of project three sixty five.  I have to say, I’m...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

[I'm pre-empting my weekly project 365 recap post in favor of a post regarding my birthday.  I'll probably post the recap tomorrow.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It IS my birthday after all. :)]

(Birthday card from Beth.. I LOVE it.)

I love birthdays.  I always have.  Sometimes I think that at this point in my life, I should be one of those who doesn’t say a thing or doesn’t make a big deal out it… but I can’t.  Even this year I wasn’t that excited because I figured it’d be a bust, but as the big day got closer, I got more and more excited.  That’s just the way I am.  And if you know me, you know that.  Last night I got a text from a friend, telling me the countdown to my birthday (1 hour and 55 minutes, at the time).  Now THAT’S someone who really gets me, especially considering that mere minutes earlier, I was tweeting the hours left of being 27.

That being said… I always get super excited about my birthday, only to have it be a bit of a letdown.  I’m not really sure what I expect from the day that I always feel like it doesn’t live up to what I wanted, ah well.

Oh and by the way… You gotta love that, thanks to facebook and other social networking sites, my birthday is the one day a year I hear from some people that I haven’t heard from in… well, a year.  It’s kind of nice and then at the same time it’s like, “thanks for the wishes, hear from ya again next year”.

Anyway, the day went well.   The other kindergarten teacher brought her kids into my room so that both classes could sing happy birthday to me… plus her kids made me little cards that they stuck on my door.

For lunch we went out to Subway and they gave me some Starbucks gift cards (shows how well they know me!), and one of them made all us teachers cupcakes.  A parent of one of my students brought cupcakes for the class, and I got a balloon.

[Sidebar: I'm sure none of you care what happened on my birthday.  But recently I discovered that I cannot, for the life of me, remember what I did a few birthdays ago (and no, it was not due to excessive alcohol) so I figure that by writing it down here, I'll be able to remember for the future.]

Then, in the evening I went to get dinner and drinks with a friend at TGI Fridays, which is like my go-to spot for birthday dinners.  Seriously, I went there last year, I went there when I turned 21… I’m sure there were a few more trips in between.

So all in all, not bad.  In fact, a pretty good way to spend a birthday.

Now I just need to get over tomorrow.  I always say that the day AFTER birthdays are depressing.  That’s when all the love, the facebook posts and tweets on twitter and random “happy birthdays!” go away. But after THAT… I’m 28.. .and feeling great!  And on that note, I think I’m stopping at 28 for a while.  I refuse to turn another year old when I don’t look like my age.  So I’m staying 28 for a few years. :)

Related posts:

1. Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss. Today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday.  Or rather, it would be...
2. You think you know me… but you have no idea. This is part one of two, in an attempt to...
3. Last day being 27. Today was a pretty happy picture day, for the most...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.