Happy 24th Anniversary of MLK Weekend!

This past weekend happen to be Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. I was lucky enough to get to venture up to D.C. and visit my older sister and her fiance. I helped them do a little planning. Tagged along on random outings to paper stores (for invitations), dress stores (for the obvious), and reception halls (duh). Chimed in with my opinion, when asked, not over-stepping any bridal boundaries, and provided a little comic relief when differing opinions got heated.

I had quite the adventure from the moment I stepped off the plane. Mom and Dad were supposed to pick me up from the Baltimore airport, having decided to forgo the rental car and just rely on Jordan's car (a 1989 Volvo, mind you) and the D.C. Metro (by far more reliable than aforementioned Volvo) as means of transportation, Murphy's Law kicked in. Jordan's car decided to break down a block away from her apartment as they were coming to get me. So, me with large suitcase in hand (well, on wheels) decided to figure out the train/subway/bus route between Baltimore and Washington D.C.

Everyone knows my amazing ability to get lost anywhere, no lie, I have even gotten lost driving down to south Florida and all that entails is hopping on I-95. Yeah, judge me. I'm even judging myself right now. I was hoping since I didn't have to do any of the actual driving I might actually be able to get by without getting lost. Wishful thinking that was. Let me count the ways I managed:

1) in the airport. Couldn't find the baggage claim, bus stop, or even the information desk. I blame it on poor planning on the airports end. Not my own. 2) the train station. Couldn't find the right ticket counter to buy my $6 MARC train ticket to Union Station, almost gave in and purchased a $35 Amtrak train ticket to Union Station because I was so frustrated and people in Baltimore were not being helpful. 3) once at Union Station I had to catch the Circular Bus. Was unable to find the parking garage that the bus stop was located in and almost ended up on a Metro that would have taken me in the complete opposite direction. Finally, a homeless man, who had already seen me pass by a million times pointed me in the right direction. 4) once I was sitting on the bus, map in hand, confused look on my face, waiting for us to leave the Union Station bus stop, a friendly fellow bus rider asked me where I was headed and if they could help me in anyway. I pointed to the general location that I wanted to go on the map and they pointed to a bus that had just pulled out and said "you need to be on that bus." Great. 5) I got on the correct bus, but almost got off at the wrong stop. I mean really, why exactly would you have TWO bus stops called 'Navy Yard' on the same bus route, and blocks apart?

Laugh. Go ahead. I give you permission. That's the point. I often times laugh at my own stupidity.

I finally, ended up finding my parents on the street corner across from Jordan's apartment waiting for a tow truck for the Volvo.

Just in case you were wondering...

We saw snow.

We got eaten by dinosaurs.

We sold slaves.
Side Note: We DID NOT sell slaves. Obvi. This building (currently the City Hall for Alexandria, VA) was once a slave market (where slaves had once been sold. You know, before Honest Abe and all).

We drank in the park.

We went to church.

We got mooned.

We drank copious amounts of Bailey's. Yum.

My apologies for the picture being blurry....it was from my cell.

Dear John

I just finished reading my 3rd Nicholas Sparks book. The first 2 are probably obvious, The Notebook and A Walk to Remember, but the 3rd one is going to be his most recent book that has been turned into a movie, Dear John. Out of the 3 books, Dear John is the first one that I have read before seeing the movie, and it is by far my favorite. Obviously, I'm not going to give away anything that happened in it for those of you who are going to see it on Febuary 5th when it comes out in theaters, but trust me, it would definitly be worth going to see! I will more than likely be a bawling mess when I go and see it, suprisingly enough I managed to keep it together throughout the entire book up until the last 3 pages...for some reason those last 3 pages just got to me.


Unfortunately, I have no idea how to post a video on here. I Googled it, and cannot for the life of me figure out how to do it soooooooo here is the link for ya'll to go check it out.



Dear John Offical Trailer

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

I just wanted to take the time out to wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas. Don't ever forget that Christmas isn't about how many presents that you get, but it's about the friends and family that you are with. Happy Birthday Jesus!

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day; their old familiar carols play, and wild and sweet the word repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

"A picture is a poem without words"

The past semester I have been taking a few art classes (Drawing I and Design I) to prepare myself for going back to UCF in August (I started the classes before I decided on the Navy btw). We have one week left of classes and then finals the week after. Needless to say, we are done doing all of our at for the semester. I thought I would share some of pieces (the good, the bad, and the ugly).

Drawing I: this is the first still life that we did in class. It's a little loose and unfinished looking because it was the first one that we did. Gray tone pastels.

Drawing I: this was one of our homework assignments for still life. More complete looking than the first one, but still very loose looking.Gray tone pastel.

Drawing I: yet another still life. Shows a little bit more depth and what not. Gray tone pastels.

Drawing I: another still life. More complex objects (column and bust). Value reduction - covering the entire page with black charcoal and then using different textured erasers to draw the objects.


Drawing I: still life. Value reduction. My favorite piece.
Drawing I: natural object still life. Cow skull. Ink wash and charcoal pencil.

Drawing I: natural object still life. Homework assignment. Pumpkin and squash (it was around Halloween, so of course I took advantage. lol). Ink wash and charcoal pencil.

Drawing I: natural object still life. Value reduction.

Drawing I: self portraits. Gray tone pastels. I HATED doing these. I have a whole collection of random drawings that definitly look like people (extremely awkward looking people) but they look nothing like me. Proportions are off.

Drawing I: landscape/random twisted tree. The assignment was to do a landscape scene, but I ended up accidentally zooming in to much on the tree and not getting enough detail in the background. It is definitly not anywhere near being complete, but this is all I could complete in class. Ink wash and charcoal.

Design I, Assignment #1: we used a white piece of cardboard and black construction paper and had to cut out at least 65 of the same geometric shape (that we made up) in different sizes. The whole point was for it to be a study of negative space.


Design I, Assignment #2: kind of the same as the first assignment. But we had to have at least 65 pieces (combined) of black or grey, and organic (the curvy shapes) or geometric (the angled shapes). Another study on negative space.

Design I, Assignment #3: we had to take 5 different print sources and make 5 photocopies of each and make a collage out of them. We had to photocopy them in black & white so they had that "photocopied texture" as my professor said. I'm pretty sure she's legit insane.

Design I, Assignment #4: a study on grey tones. every single "shape" is a different value of grey. We all had to create our own pattern for this. She told me to enter this one in the spring Valencia art show. **btw, I'm a dumbass and forgot to crop this one and Blogger wouldn't let me delete it. Lame.**
Design I, Assignment #5: this assignment was kind of the same thing as the above but with color. We had to use 5 colors out of the 6 we had (red, yellow, green, blue, black, white) and make different colors with them. But every new color that we mae had to have at least a little of all 5 colors that you picked. I used red, yellow, blue, green, and white. My professor also told me to enter this one in the spring art show. The photo for this one and the one above really don't give them justice. They are really cool looking in real life - all the colors and lines kinda vibrate together.

My final thought of the day:

When did we actually start growing up?

I was at work today and got a phone call from my older sister, that in it's self was odd because nowadays we pretty much keep in contact via email and text messages due to both of our randomly busy schedules. After I didn't answer I got a text message from her, "answer your phone asap!" I was instantly concerned. My first reaction, someone had died. Worried, I head back into the break room at work and call her back. She answers the phone and all I hear is:

"WILL YOU BE IN MY WEDDING PARTY!?!"

Obvi, the answer was yes, I'm pretty sure that was a given since, well, forever. I'm not even anywhere near being engaged and the one thing I am 100% sure about is that my older and younger sister will be standing next to me when I am getting married.

I was bouncing around work the rest of the day. I couldn't wait to get out and call my sister back and get all the important details.