Like A Perfect Song: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Train Yard, Day Two

Don't they almost look like tiny little toy train cars? With the lighting and such. Beautiful. I love this place. I think we should make a trip there weekly.

Corpse is over with my little ferret nephews. Off to spend some quality time..

xo, Linds

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Teacher Mode

I am tired I worked nearly 12 hours today. It's back to teacher mode for me. Sometime this can be extra exhausting. We had our first Open House today. Unfortunately, less than half of the parents we had invited today decided or remembered to show up. We have several more days set up this week and next. I got to meet some parents and children. I got to play a little and take some photos. It's awesome to finally visually see how your classroom will work out when you see little ones in it. Your visions literally come to life. It's pretty special. Of course, things will be tweaked once we get to know these little people.

Miss Brenda stopped in to visit her old classroom this evening also. I think she was happy with how colorful and inviting we made the room. It just needed a little TLC. She said she would give our classroom five stars! I respect her opinion a lot even though her classroom was a little more on the institutional looking side and it was ran in an extremely structured manner. I know some people probably wouldn't agree but I think she was a great teacher. She had good intentions with the children. She knew what she was doing and didn't mess around.

I am pleased at how our classroom team is working together. I'm happy they rely on me for my artistic abilities. I know this makes my job a lot less challenging but I still struggle with communicating with families more than anything. I am feeling pretty confident and I think I have a lot of good ideas to contribute. Sticking with this job for over three years is already showing signs of paying off. It feels good when people come to me to ask me questions because they know I know the process and have had the experience.

Just sharing some work related Instagrams from the past few months. I'll show off my classroom at a later date. I'm in the process of collecting photos of our class with their family during Open House. Hopefully I'll get to snap some more photos of the room.

xo, Linds

Monday, August 29, 2011

August and Everything After

That is a little snippet of a small painting I ended up buying at Italian Fest. I love it. The colors of the waves are perfect. My favorite. It makes me have a homesick, longing feeling that I don't even understand. The artist was very kind to Michael and I, talking about painting and art in general.

Today I had 8 hours of training for work up the road at the VFW. Actually, it wasn't too bad. I dreaded it because I knew it was about music and movement. Luckily, it didn't require too much participation and I made it through. The presenter was a man who, well, basically writes children's songs based on research on social and emotion skills developing in young children. It was quite interesting. He played keyboard and was very good at making up songs, from silly to sweet. They were extremely catchy. He was very talented. The instructor from our classroom ended up winning one of his CDs and we are suppose to get another one for each of our classrooms. I'm looking forward to seeing how our children take to it.

After work, I went with Michael and Levi to go check out a Subaru for Michael. It ended up that there wasn't a notary open by time we got there. We will have to go back to do all the paperwork part sometime soon but Michael got to speak to the guy and express how interested he was in the car. I'm crossing my fingers that it all works out. It will all take time but I'm sure it will all work out. It was a nice little road trip anyway.

I guess apologizing on my blog is unnecessary but I really do have a lot of photos I was really excited to take and to share on my blog that I haven't got around to editing and uploading. My to-do list always seems to take a lot longer than I anticipate but I am still really pleased with myself for taking photos of things I enjoy more and more often. I still have a lot to overcome but no one said this would be easy. I've been working out a lot of thoughts and feelings lately. It has honestly been a really rough week and weekend for me. I am struggling a lot in many different aspects. Everything from friendships to financial problems are weighing on my mind. I'm thinking too deeply and highly of my past. It's something I have always done and it can get very crippling at times.

Another young Brownsvillian recently had got into a fatal accident. Though I have only met this person once before to my knowledge, it has, without a doubt, been pulling on my heartstrings to see my close friends, whom were his close friends, either presently or during childhood, have to go through this.... again. We are all still mourning here. There just seems to be a dark cloud over Brownsville. I have found myself crying at the death of people I don't even know now. This event has stirred up a lot of emotions in me, bringing back a lot of thoughts and feelings I had when Jake passed and again with Chuckie. It really just jolts you back to reality and makes you want to show appreciation from everything around you and everyone near you, old friends, potential friends, and all those in between. It's kind of an impossible task to complete and leaves me feeling a little hopeless, alone, and distant.

Well, I've poured my heart of more than I expected to on this post. As I continue to blog, I do find myself more motivated to take and post more photos but at the same time, I am becoming comfortable with my own words and my feelings and letting them flow a lot easier from my brain and my heart, out through my fingertips and onto the screen, for all the world to see. It kind of puts you in a vulnerable spot when you open yourself up like that but there is certainly something therapeutic about sorting things out mentally enough to... make them real? I hope that makes sense.

Tomorrow I work a very long shift from 8AM to 7:30PM. Our first Open House for families and children is tomorrow. I hope all goes well. It is going to be long day for us all. Luckily, I will get to adjust late in the week and leave early. Plus payday on Friday and Labor Day Holiday on Monday. That will help to get me through the rest of this week..

Off to adore the ferrets and escape reality for a little by watching Mad Men before bed.

xo, Linds

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Favorite Posts

Red Velvet Forever @ A Beautiful Mess

Not Your Average Dog Crate @ Frecklewonder

Friendship Bracelet @ Elsie Marley

Camera Bag Essentials @ I Go By Katie

Home Sweet Brave @ Delightfully Tacky

Film From Fall & Winter 2010 @ The Dainty Squid

Just trying to keep my mind from wandering in a negative direction on this lovely Sunday... sigh.

xo, Linds

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Italian

Can you guess what was so special about today?

Italian Fest 2011!

Italian Fest is finally here. It's a pretty big deal in Uniontown. I could almost bet the festivities are still going on only a few blocks away from here. Today it was kind of a special event for me because well.. I had never been to Italian Fest before, but I heard all about it. When my parents were younger, they had also had an apartment together in Uniontown, not really too far from where we are living. They went to Italian Fest back in the day and my mom has this really entertaining story about how they woke up early to go and she ended up drinking too many glasses of wine and she walked back to the apartment and fell asleep. When she had woke up, she thought it was the next day, but it was actually just a few hours later. Well, I guess she got up and went back for some more wine. She's really funny. When I met up with my parents this evening to grab some dinner from some of the street vendors, she told me that her parents had told her when she was younger "There's only two kind of people in the world.. There's Italians and then there are people who wish they were Italian." Ha ha. So dinner had been my second stop at Italian Fest. We ended up functioning early enough this morning to be able to walk down to check out the car show. I'm really glad we did. There were sooooo many cars there! So many good looking cars. I don't know if I mentioned this on here or not, but I really enjoy taking pictures of cars. It's one of my other favorite photo subjects but one I rarely have the chance to photograph. I did get a chance to snap some pictures but not a lot because there were so many cars and so many people and it got kinda' hot and miserable out pretty quickly. I will share more pictures soon. It's about time to back up all the pictures on the hard drive so I will be doing some editing and cleaning up on the laptop. Hopefully.. tomorrow if things turn out like I plan. You know how that goes, though. I'm off to spend some time with Michael before we fall asleep because he has to work in the morning.

Hope everyone is having an eventful weekend, too. I've had a lot on my mind lately and I'm really thankful to be keeping busy or else I'd surly go insane.

xo, Linds

Friday, August 26, 2011

Float like a Feather

Yesterday, two of my favorite friends, Lauren and Angel stopped over the house after like.. 10PM. I was so ready for bed but I'm glad they came a-knockin' on my door. They brought me over some new vinyl. Radiohead. Good stuff. Maestro seemed to enjoy it today, also.

These records came from good ol' Gabriel Bros. Not sure what store they had been originally shipped from. I'm guessing Hot Topic. I ran over there this evening to check out the selection but there wasn't as much of a variety as I was hoping. I ended up picking up another decent Radiohead record and an Animal Collective record. I had never listened to Animal Collective but I've heard a lot about them and Michael said they weren't bad, so I'm going to trust his judgement and for that cheap of a price, I think it's worth giving a try.

Also on our adventure this evening, we stopped at PetSmart for crickets and then headed over to Target so I could check out all the new Littlest Pet Shop firsthand. I ended up picking up three new ones; a centipede, dragonfly, and a walrus. I know, I know, I really need to get on taking pictures to update my collection! I've been putting it off for so long!

There are several new types of Littlest Pet Shop. Firstly, they came out with ones that actually move. I believe they're called Walkables. They're pretty cute. I mostly just wish Michael could snag me the display from Target someday whenever they decide to take it down! Ha. They also have these ones I've never saw called Shimmer 'N Shine Pets. They have glitter sparkles stuff on 'em! I know it sounds a bit excessive but it's cute! I promise! Plus, they did have this big box set called Black and White photo shoot or something along those lines. It came with like six animals that were all black and white and a tiny Blythe doll and a bunch of little accessories, one being a camera on a little tripod! It's oh so adorable. I kinda want it...

They finally have a new pet out that you are able to get in the mail for free once you mail in 8 stickers. I totally have more than 8 stickers! I probably just have to purchase something to get the little sheet to mail in! I'm sooo on it. It's a rooster! The comb thing on top of his head is red and glittery! Oh my! Also, looking through the booklet that came with the ones I bought today.. they have an owl with gold sparkles around his eyes, a pink sparkly elephant, a purple sparkly bat, and what looks to be a gray ferret with lots of sparkles on him! I'm DYING from cuteness over here today, if you couldn't tell....

Okay, enough Littlest Pet Shop talk... Let's share some ferret lovin'. Tonight, my little Junebug had her first bath... in the sink. To be honest, they all had an emergency flea bath. Michael is visiting Jeff right now so I felt like a single ferret mother all alone over here, washing each one, one by one in the sink! It wasn't a bad things. It was kinda' cute. We have all been itching like crazy over here. I hope we can get this taken care of. :(

I love my little fur babies. :)

I'm off to lounge around and watch more Mad Men until Michael gets home. I know it's a Friday and I should be up to a lot of no good fun times but bed time is probably not too far off in the future for me. Italian Fest is finally this weekend. It's about time make it, especially since it is literally rightttt down the street from our apartment! I wish I could have such good stories as my parents do when they went to Italian Fest when they were living in town when they were younger! No promises yet on making it because who knows what could happen tomorrow morning! BUT that is the plan, so I'm trying not to sleep in too late so Michael and I get some hang out time before he hast to go into work!

xo, Linds