It's the Holiday Season

The past few weeks have been great. I feel good about my teaching, we've become just a little bit more monetarily stable, we put up our Christmas tree, and all is well with the world. In general, at least. I haven't been taking as many photographs, or, well, more honestly, I haven't been loading too many onto my computer. So, here are a few that I have uploaded, and some little stories behind them.

Enjoy!
A Happy Holiday season to you all!

Danny surprised me at work two days ago with two dozen roses!  We were going out to a quick lunch, but it wasn't a special occasion or anything.  He was just being super sweet.  I love him.  Seriously- he brought me roses at work.  It made my week!

This is the interior of the comfy Think Coffee this past Friday night.  Because, that's how I spend my Friday nights.  Sitting alone in coffee shops.  Perfection!  Danny and I ended up seeing "The Immortals" at the movie theatre in 3D later in the evening, and had a blast.

Here is the interior of the very not-comfy Maryland commuter train that Amtrak used for my ride back to NYC on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Not stellar for $90, but hey, I got home.

And, here is the tasty and simple croissant sandwich I ate on the train.  I barely had time to grab lunch before the journey, but I'm glad that I did.  Since it was a commuter train and not a standard Amtrak coach, there was no dining car.  If you know me, which you might, if you're reading this blog, or, at least, know a little bit about me, which you do, if you've read this blog before, you'll know that I paired this with a coffee.

This is a pair of boots that my mom gifted to me while I was staying at my parents' house over the Thanksgiving holiday.  They are 90's granny-like ankle boots, and they are some of the most comfortable things I've ever worn.  Despite how they look in this photograph, they are brown, but the furry lining is very real.  Yay.  Comfort.

I went to go see Philip Glass's "Satyagrahya" with my friend Ginny at the Met last Thursday night.  The opera was stunning, and beautifully done.  I had such a wonderful night!    

Post show, we walked out, and saw this incredible sight- Occupy set up outside of Lincoln Center to emphasize to the People who just viewed Satyagraha, an opera about Gandhi’s years in South Africa, and his development of nonviolent resistance, or “satyagraha” (truth force), that peaceful protest, police brutality, etc exist, and are important in this city and country, now. The police were being insane. Saw them manhandle a guy for standing and watching from the other side of the barrier! A bystander.   They were telling people they weren’t allowed to watch, and asking people not to take photos until Philip Glass and his entourage showed up.  Philip Glass, then, started speaking to the crowd or protesters!!  After Glass showed up the police seemed to calm down, despite the fact that the barrier was broken. However, the barrier was broken from the outside- the opera viewers allowed the protester into the square! Art in action.

Mmmm... Coffee at Soup and Burger, a diner in the village, yesterday.  Danny and I had a breakfast-for-lunch date.

MMMMMMmmmmore coffee....

We set up our Christmas decorations a few days ago!  Here is our mini blue tinsel tree, covered in ornaments, and a little snowman table topper.

Some pretty ornamental cabbage currently growing in Madison Square Park.

Speaking of Madison Square Park, here is a shockingly gaudy and unattractive ad for the Lady Gaga Thanksgiving special that was up in MSP for... a whole entire day!  Installations like this make me mad.  It was so un-obvious that this was even an ad for the TV show.  Couldn't you have done something better with your money, Gaga?  Like donated to charity or something?  Outrageous, and ostentatious.  Not in a good way. 

Here is a beautiful sunlit view of houses from the train platform, early in the morning.  I love my days.

Treats popped up in the teachers' lounge at work a few days ago.  It was awesome.

Here is a shot of the subway platform at night, with the train coming in. Always such a welcome sight.

No, I don't know this guy.  Yes, this photograph was an accident.  Yes, I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

Here is another shot of the 34th St Herald Square subway station.  I like this platform a lot.  So colourful!!

I wish many happy days to you all.

Cheers :)

Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Sunday Style: First Try

As I said on Friday, I love fashion.  I love being creative, and putting clothing and accessories together to create a unique look.  I enjoy observing the outfits of others to come up with new ideas of how to coordinate different items.  I love fashion.  

I've been wanting to add fashion posts to this blog since it started, and well, folks, today, it's time!   I have been excited about this all day!  I took a whole bunch of what I hoped would be excellent photographs of myself... and they were bad.  

 It's been a bit of a frustrating process though because, well,  I'm not going to post them.  Yeah.

I'm awful at photographing myself.  First of all, I'm not as photogenic as I would like.  I can pull a sultry/ seductive thing moderately well, but I try to smile, and I look like a bit of an idiot a lot of the time.  

Kind of like that.  Also, I like macro effects for fashion photography, and these are hard to pull on yourself.  Along with this, the lighting in my apartment really isn't conducive.  Basically, I should have waited for Danny to get home from work so that he could help me with this, but, I didn't.  One of these days I'll ask him to take me outside and photograph me until I feel really pretty.  One of these days.  He's just busy, and there aren't too many daylight hours at this time of year.

So, my first set of photographs were pretty much failures.  I was using a flash, and you can tell.  It's washed out.  Like, really washed out.  Also, the flash is reflecting off of my tights, which is not cute.  I was having a hard time posing for the still camera, which was lower than my face.  I wasn't particularly pleased with any of them, and my self esteem was a bit low.  Then, I got on my computer to complain about blah blah blah, I'm so not photogenic, blah blah wahhhh blah fat blah so bad photography no photo good wahhhhhhhhh.... and I noticed that my Photobooth was open from when I was playing with it earlier.  Because I like to try and fix the problem when I'm upset, instead of wallowing in self pity and loathing like an obnoxious and toxic pessimist, I started taking some photographs.  The light was shining down through my window, my makeup, so carefully applied, looked much better close-up.    The shots weren't full body, and it was easier to use angles to make my legs look longer. I am very, very pleased with the resultsAre they amazing quality?  No.  Was this a good lesson for me in creativity and self-esteem?  Yes.  I learned something today.  Today is a great day.

I'll be trying to post a new Sunday Style every week, to keep me on track with dressing well.  My real reason, though, is that getting my photo taken, when it turns out well, increases my self esteem immensely, and, since like most young women, my self esteem could be measured in mililitres,  I'm going to decide that this is a good thing.  Even though my self esteem has increased tenfold over the past year or so, I'd like to feel even better about myself than I do, because it gets in my way, so if this is going to help, fabulous.  I'll take it.  I'll have it.  I'd like to feel consistently confident.

So, I hope that you enjoy.  I hope that you like my outfit, and think that I look pretty neat. I love how these turned out, and I feel great about them, which makes me so happy. I hope that you like the photographs.  I'm going to stop rambling now.  Or, at least try.

Uhhhh.... here I am (below) with an Abraham Lincoln mug covering my face.  Yay!  Fun, right?

Sorry about the rambling.  I get caught up  in things sometimes when I'm writing posts for this blog, and then try to apologize with silly photographs that have no relevance to what I'm posting about with the hopes that they will fix what I may have broken by making things more complicated with my rambling that happens when I'm nervous and oh god, I'm rambling again now, aren't I?  Ahhhhh....

Have a nice Sunday.  Here I am in some clothes.

Dress: H&M

Shoes: Aerosoles

Tights: Kmart... yes, really.

Earrings: Street Vendor

Sweatshirt (also seen in the Lincoln mug photo): Forever 21

Shorts: Target

That's How We Keep it Popping

I found an app on my iPhone called Toon Paint, and I went a little bit crazy.  Danny and I like to think that we're total badasses, and though we are simply on our way to ultimate awesomeness, these photos made us feel like we are there.  I had a lot of fun making these cartoon/ pop art style images, and I hope you have fun looking at them too!

Taken all over the place... 

Bronxville, New York, USA

Brooklyn, New York, USA

Austin, Texas, USA

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

London, England, UK

Inspiration Fridays: Cold Weather Style

I like fashion.  I've always liked fashion.  When I was younger, I wasn't particularly good at it, but, in recent years, I've gotten much better.  I love looking at photographs of people wearing creative and adorable outfits, and with the weather achieving a level of cold that prohibits short sleeves, I'm getting really into long-sleeved dresses.  As a matter of fact, I'm wearing one right now.

So, here are some cute fall/winter appropriate outfits from some of my favourite bloggers.  I hope that they inspire you to dress cute... it has worked for me!

Skunkboy Creatures

Hello It's Valentine

Fancy Fine

Here Comes the Sun

Tiny Toadstool

Clothes, Cameras and Coffee

Another Day to Dress Up

Travel and Toile ... That's my sister, Julianna (right) and me (left).