New Jewelry

These are some of the new things I've been making lately. Sorry that the pictures are unedited but I just got my camera back and am super busy tonight doing everything I need to get done for tomorrow.  Tomorrow I'll be showing my jewelry to one of the stores, eating sushi, then getting my wisdom teeth removed.  But anyway, here is the jewelry.

 

Vacation: Buildings

I adore the look of old buildings.  Port Townsend had some old buildings in really pretty colors and some other buildings I also took photos of.

I loved blurry photos before Instagram.

I love this color scheme.

I wish that I could have gotten a picture of the rest of this building.  It was like a castle on a hill.

Vacation: Party Crashing

The water was really low when we were in Port Townsend so we were able to walk all the way out on this rocky strip.  (I'm sure there's a name for this type of formation but can't think of what it is.)  There were a bunch of seagulls chilling on the rock across from us, so naturally I waded across and crashed their bird party.  No birds were harmed in the shooting of these photos. Also I got a terrible sunburn that day.  Some people would call that karma.

These birds have no idea what's about to happen.

Consider this bird party crashed.

See those faces? These are what you call angry birds.

My painful sunburned feet

Vacation: The Hotel

I went to Port Townsend, Washington with G and his mom for G's best friend's wedding for the first weekend of August.  We took a ferry over and stayed in this really pretty historic hotel, called the Palace Hotel.  I would definitely not recommend staying in this hotel in the summer, especially not on the third floor where we did, because there is no air conditioning.  There is a ceiling fan and a standing fan, but they are not enough to combat the sweltering temperatures.  Also there isn't an elevator, so every time we went back to the room, even after long days of walking around all day sightseeing, we had to climb three flight of very steep stairs.  I think this hotel would be a great place to stay in the spring or fall though.  Here are the pictures I took.

view from the window

pretty dried white roses and antique furniture

the bathroom mirror was pretty and oval and gilded and I forgot to take a picture of it,
but apparently I remembered to take a picture of my reflection in it

stained glass on the ceiling; fun fact: I love to photograph stuff on ceilings that most people don't even notice

the hallway

pretty artwork in a fancy frame

the floor below; I'm afraid of heights so I took this by holding my camera out over the railing and not looking down

just one of the three flights of stairs we had to climb to get to our room

Where to Go in Seattle: Under the City

This post was meant for Wednesday but that was before my laptop overheated and wouldn't let me use the internet.

I went on an Underground tour of Seattle last Friday and it was pretty much the coolest thing ever!  I wish I could just explore down there for a whole day by myself.  As long as I had spare camera batteries, I would be one happy camper.  As it was, my camera battery died halfway through the 75 minute tour.  I ordered two spares from eBay as soon as I got home.  They should get here the day before I leave for the weekend and G's best friend's wedding.  I took quite a few pictures before the tour started because I like art and I had been going through camera withdrawals when it was away for repairs.  The reason the Underground exists is that some guy wasn't paying attention when he was boiling glue and then it caught on fire.  He tried to put it out with water and that made it worse.  The whole city burned down because the volunteer firefighters realized they didn't want to work when they weren't getting paid.  So then they just built a new city over the top of the old one.  The Underground ended up being used for speakeasies during the Prohibition.  It's kind of crazy ( and super cool!) because there are just random entrances to the Underground in normal buildings.  First, here are some pictures of some above ground stuff.

This mural was so cool!

There are lots of these cube sculptures in Pioneer Square.  I really like the one with the branches.

These clocks are really cool.

I love the architectural details on all the old buildings.

This sign was at a bookstore that sold only mystery books.

This was at the toy store in the baby toys section and I thought this page was perfect.

Our tour guide told us that this pergola cost millions of dollars to rebuild after a truck driver knocked it over,
even though about 98% of it was reused material from the first one.

And now is the part you have all been waiting for: the pictures from the Underground.

This was actually a room above ground, but I really like the wood carving around the mirrors behind the bar.

I think this picture turned out cool and almost ghostly even though it's blurry.

My favorite thing was the old wallpaper.

They built a boardwalk to bypass this pile of earthquake rubble, which wasn't down here until this was the Underground

Tales from the Porch

On Monday I fully intended to go out and get IMPORTANT STUFF done, including finding a flapper dress at Goodwill for G's friend's wedding, which we just found out is 20s themed.  But then social phobia had other plans, so instead I stayed inside and listed jewelry in my Etsy shop all day and talked to exactly no people.  Yesterday, social phobia was gone again and I went out and got IMPORTANT STUFF done, not including flapper dress shopping, but including picking up job applications.  When I got back my room was dreadfully hot so I put my stuff away and went to the breezy shady front porch to do my job applications.  And then there were people on the porch.  It was Old Drunk Guy and Supposedly Anti-social Guy.  I said hi and then tackled my job applications like a boss.  Then I started to eat my peach that I had purchased from Safeway as a refreshing summer treat.  And you guys, it tasted like a bland juiceless apple.  I was so disappointed!  I couldn't even finish half of it before having to throw it away.  I think that Supposedly Anti-social Guy has a crush on me.  For one thing, when he first got to the porch, he was carrying his own chair.  But then he put it down on the other side of the porch and sat in the chair right next to me instead.  He talked to me a lot.  He told lots of really corny jokes, many which I had heard before, but I laughed politely anyway.  Some of them were corny but actually pretty good wordplay so I actually liked them.  He asked me what music I like and he heartily approved.  Then he asked me which authors I enjoy and I told him that Dean Koontz is my favorite.  He said he likes him too and recommended Teri Pratchet (I have no idea if I spelled that right and my laptop is being too slow to Bing it right now), so I'll check her out at some point.  He offered me beer, which I politely declined, then later rum, which I also declined.  He asked me if I had a fake ID because he and some of the other people who live in the building were going to a karaoke thing, but it's 21 and over.  I do not have a fake ID.  I am just 5 months short of 21, but probably could not even remotely pass for 21.  I look closer to 18 or maybe even 16.  Supposedly I will appreciate this when I'm older but right now I do not.  I met some other house people, one of the two other females in the house of about 30 people, who invited me to a movie night she's having in her room soon.  One guy who is nicknamed Captain America.  One guy who Old Drunk Guy was teasing about not having chest hair and then No Chest Hair Dude went on to tell everyone about how he shaves all of his body hair including manscaping.  (Note that he was also not drinking at all.)  So that was a little bit too much information for everyone.  Then we heard about the frat next door having one of their hookahs stolen.  That whole thing got resolved after the frat guy came over and asked to talk to our building manager, who then watched their poor quality security footage of someone climbing over the at least 6 foot tall fence, grabbing the hookah and then climbing back over the fence with it.  It turns out that it wasn't even one of the people in our building.  One of the guys in our building dared his very drunk friend to do it, so he did.  They gave it back with some beers and then the frat guys were happy again.

Today started out with having to call DSHS at 8 because I never received my food stamps this month.  I had to wait on hold for a while, but then they told me that a paper I sent them was never recorded.  They had the paper, so it was an easy fix, and I'll get my food stamps tomorrow.  That was followed by checking my email and finding out that I made my 8th Etsy sale!  That always puts me in a happy mood for the rest of the day at the very least.  Today is my (hopefully last) periodontist follow-up appointment.  From my new place, I don't even have to transfer busses to get there!  So what was once a two hour or longer round-trip, not including the actual check-up time, will now be about an hour.  So that's really exciting.  And then we I get back,  I'll ship the Etsy order and turn in my job applications.  And lastly, since you were so good and read the whole thing, here are some random pictures.

My mother is amazing at plant stuff. Our big old tree died and got cut down,
so she turned the stump into an awesome planter for flowers!

When I was 12, I was in a biker gang.  No, just kidding, my mom's relative visited from Michigan and we took her to this viewpoint
where you can see Mt. St. Helens, and all of these bikers pulled up and parked.  They were headed to a biker rally on the other side of the country and stopped in here to eat and walk around a bit and use the restroom and all that jazz.  This particular bike belonged to an ex-firefighter and he had scenes of 9-11 painted on every single part of his bike.  It was amazing.  And he let me sit on it!
Later that year, we saw him on it in our parade and he recognized me and gave me a hug.

another really cool plant thing, our family friend painted all these flowerpots the same color, then drilled a hole in each flowerpot, then put a big piece of rebar through them all and planted flowers in them. The top one is a birdbath.  I love how whimsical it looks.

Home Sweet Home

So as I mentioned the other day, I'm all moved into my new place now.  My mom doesn't like it because it's right next to some frats and across from some sororities.  Also, she heard a girl on the front steps planning with a couple of guys how much pot they're going to smoke in the park.  I told her that people probably did that in the dorms too. Also, at first she thought that this place was dirty, but later she realized that it's just old and sort of discolored in places.  I met some of the people who live here.  There's Old Drunk Guy, Stand-Up Comic, Ex-Navy Guy, Supposedly Antisocial Guy, Rebel (which is how he introduced himself and I had to clarify if he said Red Bull or Rebel.  He said I can call him either.), and Rebel's Friend Whose Name I Don't Recall.  Those are the only people I've met so far.  I've gotten most of my stuff unpacked.  I took some pictures of stuff in my room.  It's a very small room so every bit of surface space is covered with stuff, but it works.  As an added bonus, none of the mattress springs stab me, unlike at my old apartment.

Some of the stuff that's piled places is really pretty.  I got these lovely teacups for 50 cents each at a
yard sale, and I got this H.G. Wells treasury at a thrift store for 50 cents.  It's 50 years old!

The yard sale where I bought these teacups had so much vintage stuff!  I know of so many Etsy sellers that would have loved those things to sell, or blog people who would have loved those things to have.  But, alas, I am not made of money, far from it.  I just filled out a job application for Jack in the Box, at a really sketchy Jack in the Box location, where what my buildingmates refer to as "wannabe crackheads" hang out in a group of five or more at a time and gawk at passersby.

My parents found me this clothes rack thing at Walmart, because this room has no closet.

I'm actually really liking it here so far.  As you can see from the second picture, my room gets a ton of light.  Everyone I've met has been really nice.  Old Drunk Guy lives on my floor and he likes to come by my room and ask me how my day was.  He always invites me to go hang out on the porch with some of the guys who like to talk and drink PBR around 5 o clock.  I'm not quite ready to be that social yet, but I'm doing pretty well.  I have even left the house at least once every day since I moved.


In other news, I adore Felicia Day in "The Guild" webseries, and I just started watching her vlog called "The Flog" and, unsurprisingly, she's just as awesome as her character in The Guild.  There are only 16 episodes of The Flog so far and I may or may not have watched them all today.  In one of them, she recommended this browser game called Fallen London and I started playing it.  I may or may not be addicted to it now.  It's actually a better game to get addicted to, because you keep on having to wait for all your stuff to refresh after you use it up, for about 8 to 9 minutes.  So during that time, why not do important stuff that you weren't doing while playing the game?!  And then if you do important stuff for about 15 minutes at a time and then play the game as a tiny break, it's actually super efficient and doesn't make you get tired of doing the important stuff.  The storyline for Fallen London is slightly ridiculous and incredibly interesting.  It also lets you choose between lots of different options for things, so everyone's game will end up different.  I think it's pretty wonderful and will definitely keep playing.

So to recap: I like my new place despite it being very very small, Felicia Day is a fantastic role model for females, and Hidden London is a super fun game that also allows you to be productive.


And in other other news, G took me to watch Ted yesterday and it was completely hilarious.  I got an ab workout from all my laughter.  After that we went and cooked dinner at his mom's house, because she has an indoor grill thing to put over the burners.  Protip: Steak tastes really really good if you use a spice rub of salt, pepper, oregano, red pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  And it smells amazing when it's cooking.

Non-Instagram Photos

I mentioned this on Twitter the other day and nobody has murdered me yet, so I thought I'd press my luck by mentioning it on here.  I hate Instagram.  It's not just because my phone is not even remotely capable of having it.  It's because I find the filters annoying and unnecessary, and very overused.  So there you go.  Please don't unfollow me.  I am a huge fan of recording awesome/pretty things in your daily life through photos.  I however, am not a huge fan or even remotely a fan at all, of you taking a picture of every Starbucks beverage you ever have/every pretty baked good you ever eat.  I get it, you like Starbucks and baked goods (especially macarons).  You also have a pet.  That's fantastic that you have a pet, but you don't need to take literally one hundred pictures of it every single day. It's like pictures of a baby; it's only constantly adorable to you and maybe some people who know it personally.  So that's just my two cents. I'm not internet famous so I certainly don't think I can change your personal habits because of my opinions.  With that being said, here are some pictures from my life lately, taken with my real camera.

cute hairstyle I found somewhere on the interwebz and actually managed to copy

just put your hair in a ponytail, separate into two strands, and tie in a knot.

If your hair is really long like mine, you can tie a second knot underneath the first.

Then just secure the ends with pins and your hair will look super fancy.

Huskies/Lakers colored shot thing I made up for G.
Purple gummy butterflies are super manly and sports related.

I still have difficulties with eyeliner, but one day I made spirals instead of cat eyes and it made my whole day more fun.

G and I watched this gorgeous sunset from right outside his apartment the other night.

G's mom is awesome and she got him donuts.  G is awesome and knows how ginormous my sweet tooth is, so he shared them with me : )

altered my dress just slightly by stitching the middle part of the top
down to make a sweetheart neckline; it looks so much better on me now

new shoes which, thanks to Payless' Buy One Get One Free sale, only cost me about $15 each

fresh strawberries and cilantro are colors that just look so pretty together