1. Me: last night was the rehearsal dinner etc. The tensions were running high. I could feel the anxious energy very well. I have been SO anxious lately. I cannot sleep I am clenching my teeth so much my jaw is actually sore. I have to iron the brides made dress today, I am nervous about that, I do not want to be the brides made with the burned iron shape in my dress. In the line up of all the brides mades I am physically in between Mother and teen aged daughter. great, I got snide comments from in front and behind me. Really universe? Me in between? sigh... I have been fighting to not be there, let them duke it out. sigh.... enough about me.
2. Church: I have a funny relationship with churches. Since I was raised a Jehovah's Witness the inside of different churches is absolutely alien to me. Whenever I find myself in one, I can feel the teeny part of me say "I am not supposed to be here" I feel like I am breaking the rules. Speaking of breaking the rules in church I accidentally dropped the F bomb inside of that holy house. I was not struck by lightening, I think God allowed me that because I am physically in between the feuding mother and daughter. God understood I was tense. Thanks God. ;-) You know, just in case God reads my blog.
3. the Girl: she was so hyper and sassy yesterday. It hurts my head to watch her this way. Funny enough, her mother was acting the same way. sigh.... head hurts more
4. Nephew: he wanted to ride with us to the church. We sang along with the flight of the conchords CD and laughed. It is so strange the older he gets, the more and more he looks like Uncle Lavender.
5. Denise: She was originally going to just be a fly on the wall and snap shots of the weeding but after the other gal decided to up the price, she became the head photographer. I am happily letting her take over. This woman has more neergy than I think I have ever had. seriously! Ha! She fit in well with the rest of the group, she did not even flinch when shown a photo on SIL's phone of her own boobs. Yes, SIL keeps a photo in her phone of her own rack. and shows people. It is a huge family joke, she never wears a bra. NEVER..... and she wears thin tank tops. I will stop now.
6. Mr Lavender and his Mom: just after this was taken I had to get in line behind them and saw and heard the following joke. SIL (no bra) was at the front of the church and needed to get in line in front of me quickly. She ran up the aisle in front of these two. Mr. Lavender being the most witty man said "It is like watching a national geographic special" at his sisters boobs swaying all over. My MIL laughed so hard that tears were streaming down her cheeks.
7. The Boys side: This is what I will see on Saturday. I will look over at Mr. Lavender lovingly and hear vows similar to the ones we made to each other 11 years ago to the day. Saturday is not only the wedding, but Our wedding anniversary as well. People find this strange, like I should be offended or something. I just hope that the 19th is a lucky date, and it continues to be lucky for the new couple as well as it has worked for us. Mr. Lavender looks so cute in his vintage western shirt.
8. Practice Run: The happy couple. If he looks at her like this and shows any sign of emotion, I am going to cry. A Lot. I am washing 7 vintage hankies for all us gals so we can wipe away our tears.
9. Remember to not lock my knees! I am nearvous about standing so long in those high heels. I am afraid I am going to fall or faint. If I do, this is what I will see above me. The Ceiling.
10. Worship: This is Mr. Lavender illustrating how we feel about the word worship. The word creeps me out for some reason. We both were raised with very unbalanced views of God and religion in your life. That you use everything you have for God and then whatever is left for life. I just believe I am here to live, if I really really live and be a beacon of light and positivity, God does not care if you are affiliated with any sort of church or anything. As long as you value the life you have. Still, the word worship scares me a little.
11. The Bar: The wedding party then went to a bar for drinks. There were shots and beer and girly foofy drinks. I had water. I do not drink, it never settles well. The music was so loud and it was top 40 type rap. I have not been at a "club" that plays this kind of music since the running man was still okay to do on the dance floor. There was also Kareoke, I spelled that wrong I just know it. Here is Mr. Lavender showing his appreciation for the singer on the stage behind him. There was also another gal who sang, she was an obvious smoker since age two. Also her pants were SOOOOO tight that is smoothed out her camel toe and made her belly button look like a butt crack about 6 inches long. Something tells me that just because you can zip (I am baffled at how this happened) a size 3 pant, does not mean you should wear said size 3 pant. She seriously had to wrestle those on, had to take hours to do! still quite baffled.
12. Lavender and Mr. Lavender: we had a good time, we did not stay long enough to see anyone get too drunk, it is enough to know that they did. Ha!
13. The night ended with a hug from Mr. L to the new BIL. Good Times!
cool
dark
aloof
comforting
reducing objects to simple shapes
flowers fences and people
just a plain flat shape
no complications, easy
shadows are not harmed by being stomped upon
they remain the same ambiguous shape
most visible upon sunshiny days
the yin to the suns yang
balance
the sun is hiding this morning
my shadows are gone
my many forms
I walk along the sidewalk
my own shadows merge
I am the flowers
I am the leaves
I am the fence
I am the pole
I am the sign
I am the person
the top photo capture how she must feel right now. Poor thing is carrying more than she should have to.
The weather has been sunny and warm
I have so much to do, there is the mush brain thing.
1.print 16 model release forms for the friend who is helping shoot SIL's wedding, make sure all are signed for her.
2. print off photos for class tonight illustrating the change of aperture (sherry? Did you get your homework done?)
3. go to the store to pick up black ink for the printer
4. continue epic battle against the evil and slightly damp dirty laundry monster, I gave it a few huge blows yesterday, lets see how well it survives today!
5. put together the portrait I took of BIL and SIL for the reception hall
The weather has been sunny and warm
I have so much to do, there is the mush brain thing.
1.print 16 model release forms for the friend who is helping shoot SIL's wedding, make sure all are signed for her.
2. print off photos for class tonight illustrating the change of aperture (sherry? Did you get your homework done?)
3. go to the store to pick up black ink for the printer
4. continue epic battle against the evil and slightly damp dirty laundry monster, I gave it a few huge blows yesterday, lets see how well it survives today!
5. put together the portrait I took of BIL and SIL for the reception hall
Although we typically post on Team Vox to let you know about things that are going on with Vox (to, uh, state the obvious), once in a while, we like to let you know about other cool things that are happening around the blogosphere. And we think the idea of four hilarious mommy bloggers traveling across the U.S. on their way to the BlogHer '08 conference - all the while blogging and video blogging the journey - is one trip you will not want to miss.
Four adventurous bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group were selected to participate in the Summer Road Trip '08 and blog about their travels, hotel stays, media appearances, time away from their families, and life on the road. Six Apart helped them partner up with General Motors, who provided the blogging mommies with a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV to help make their journey comfy, safe, and a little more green.
In case you're not familiar with them, SV Moms is a group of over 200 bloggers who showcase the ups, downs, outrages, struggles, victories, and everyday humor of motherhood. There are currently nine regional and demographically tailored sites that give mothers from D.C., New Jersey, the Deep South, Rocky Mountains, L.A., and Silicon Valley a powerful voice and sense of camaraderie across the country. Whether you're a mother, a child, or just a person who enjoys a good blog, you'll really love reading the words of these amazing women.
The moms buckled into their Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV on July 11th and even got an encouraging message from Katie Couric to kick things off! They are currently somewhere in the middle of America making their way to San Francisco where they'll attend an SV Moms Group Party, as well as BlogHer '08.
You do not want to miss these entertaining and irreverent bloggers -- or their spontaneous contest giveaways! -- as they blog from the road. Experience the journey at MomRoadTrip.com.
And let us know about your summer road trip - or plane/boat/bus trip - in the comments! (I like to live vicariously.)
negative -
1. the situation with the girl is still in serious limbo
2. both are being such stubborn bitches
3. anxiety attacks are happening
4. I bruised my heel doing something stupid today, I was perching myself on a large rock waiting for the girl to come out of class so we could go have lunch, I slipped and smacked heel on rock trying not to fall all the way off.
5. I have a feeling that the girl I fired from the photography gig for SIL's wedding is in my photography class, Wednesday might be awkward
positive +
1. the sun is shining and it is warm and beautiful outside
2. after this weekend the wedding will be over
3. I have class tomorrow and get to see friend in class there, see what she has been up to
4. husband and I went for a nice early morning bike ride on Sunday
5. I took bunches of really nice portraits of the girl while she was here yesterday, she will be back here in about an hour. I need to get housework done. she kind of breaks up my day weird
6. I lost another pound of flubber
7. I am craving nasty food less and less
9. I feel like I have pulled myself out of my heavy mood, I am feeling much lighter and I know after the wedding I will feel Bunches lighter still
10. My sister had her gall bladder removed on friday and all went well, but I am unsure of how to spell gall, or is it gull, that is the bird right? Well she did not have a bird removed from her. You get it right?
11. I have kept the rooms that I cleaned last week clean, for the most part.
1. the situation with the girl is still in serious limbo
2. both are being such stubborn bitches
3. anxiety attacks are happening
4. I bruised my heel doing something stupid today, I was perching myself on a large rock waiting for the girl to come out of class so we could go have lunch, I slipped and smacked heel on rock trying not to fall all the way off.
5. I have a feeling that the girl I fired from the photography gig for SIL's wedding is in my photography class, Wednesday might be awkward
positive +
1. the sun is shining and it is warm and beautiful outside
2. after this weekend the wedding will be over
3. I have class tomorrow and get to see friend in class there, see what she has been up to
4. husband and I went for a nice early morning bike ride on Sunday
5. I took bunches of really nice portraits of the girl while she was here yesterday, she will be back here in about an hour. I need to get housework done. she kind of breaks up my day weird
6. I lost another pound of flubber
7. I am craving nasty food less and less
9. I feel like I have pulled myself out of my heavy mood, I am feeling much lighter and I know after the wedding I will feel Bunches lighter still
10. My sister had her gall bladder removed on friday and all went well, but I am unsure of how to spell gall, or is it gull, that is the bird right? Well she did not have a bird removed from her. You get it right?
11. I have kept the rooms that I cleaned last week clean, for the most part.
I longed to get the Fujifilm Pivi MP-300 and finally last week in Tokyo I bought it. I wish I bought it earlier because instantly my travel journaling or photo journaling becomes much much easier.
The size of Pivi's photo is just fit for my Moleskine notebook. For Traveler's Notebook, it leaves a lot of space good for writing and sticking precious stickers/tickets/etc things you collect in travel. I love the fact that it is instant yet not wasting any of your film because you can choose which photo on your digital camera to print. My Canon support pictbridge so there was no problem at all. I can now journal with photos whenever I can have a coffee stop, instant!
Delfonics just released a series of new albums, which one of the ranges allows you to put pivi sized photos in the paper album. I'm not particularly fond of the quality because the photo pocket openings are on the edge of each page instead of near the spine, which makes it easy for photos to fall out. In addition, the album pages are bound by just one staple, so inserting 10 photos (half of the album's capacity) already makes the album bulky. However, I love the colors of the covers they offer and bought 4.
Catchy title isn't it? No they don't produce an orange leather Moleskine, it was just me playing around with colors to decorate my Moleskine. Gfeller leather cover was a gift from friend Kelly, which was painted with black shoe polish, a technique taught by illustrator/artist Steve Light, Faber Castell perfect pencil in orange, a promotional leaflet in the form of typewriter from Orange Airline (a stationery company in Japan), and orange/red brick floor tiles.
Tokyo, 8th - 13th July 2008, trip for the ISOT (International Stationery Show).
It has been less fun to see all those Moleskine exhibitions nowadays, for me. In June I visited Tokyo's Lifestyle show and just last week I visited Tokyo again for the International Stationery show. In both event, Moleskine was elaborately exhibited there. My feeling towards the writing, journaling, drawing culture of the Moleskiners lowered significantly simply because it all became too commercial.
In both events, I got a little time to look at all those drawings from the Detour project, (as corrected by Paola - Moleskine brand equity & network relations, "the exhibition in Lifestyle show did not contain any works from Detour project, all the Detour events are listed on the official website www.moleskine.com/detour where you can take a look at the notebook and also read some lines on the single author's biography. The Detour Project is not a commercial event and it's meant to support the non profit foundation lettera27") as well as those from Invitation au Voyage. Who were the artists and what's their stories? I didn't care to find out anymore. They became one of the thousands of notebooks with drawings. The booth design and display however was great.
One large table was dedicated to all those examples of corporate-premium-limited editions. Do I want to collect them all? No. And look, in June I went to Shibuya's Loft and the space dedicated to a short-term promotion of Moleskine was so huge it spans nearly 4 meters wide.
The ever increasing SKU now becomes unbearable to me. Now the spinners made by Modo e Modo are invading retailers especially department stores. Yes these are negative feelings of me not liking product marketing being too commercial and people forget about the artists who contributed. I even heard that there will be more stationery products from Moleskine, e.g. maybe a ring binders with an elastic band (which was used as a catalog distributed to distributors last year).
Now many asked about when the leather version of 2009 diary will be launched. I heard that it will arrive in Hong Kong around end-August. So it will be around mid-August for people in Europe to buy them. The catch, only 1 retailer per country is allowed to sell the limited edition. It will be disappointing a lot of fans, I love the look and feel of the notebook though :)
A note from a recent meeting with a French stationery maker: Société Générale, one of the main European financial services companies which acquired Moleskine for 60 euros (3 times Moleskine's market value back then?) back in 2006, experienced a 4.9 billion euros trading lost in just three days in January 2008. They are going to milk the Moleskine cow!
Well, I have a thought. The tremendous success of Moleskine's revival is a true marketing success story. Millions of community effort to promote its branding. What have Moleskine done to return favor to the community? Now that Moleskine is made in China, a fact that not many people adore, what did Moleskine do when there was a great earthquake in SiChuan China when more than 71,000 people were dead? Well I did a search on Google "Moleskine Charity" and nothing really came up. Enlighten me if I'm wrong (and Paola did, the lettera27 projects are making changes that will certainly produce a larger results in longer run, the next Chatwin waves may change the world as we know it. As a retailer we are increasing our efforts to source from companies that encourage food chain sustainability such as farming/fishing, while on the product manufacturing side the burden is now on top tier vendors/manufacturers to set examples when fair trade, environmental protection and cultural preservation become common terms. I hope Moleskine as a global brand will create conscious efforts to localize the such practice in countries they appear and source from, especially when they enter the CHINA market in the near future. Yes, a huge challenge for a company with only a dozen of staff, but the impact they can make will be tremendous.). I mean I love the brand and product, just that I expected a little more from it to be more cultural instead of commercial, more world-class in terms of charity instead of world-domination.
My hair seems to be getting darker as I get older, but it is sprinkled with grey hairs now. I am okay with that. I don't mind looking my age, my age is not so bad!
My weekend was really nice and relaxing, we got all of our stuff we needed to get done on Saturday so we had Sunday to be lazy. Nice!
I guess I really don't have much to say today.
So I am posting my to do list.
*clean kitchen
*clean dining room
*clean bathroom
*litterboxes
*put more laundry away
*take a walk
*take pictures of the niece for a modeling agency appointment tonight
*start and finish two loads of laundry (this is the week to get all of it done!)
My weekend was really nice and relaxing, we got all of our stuff we needed to get done on Saturday so we had Sunday to be lazy. Nice!
I guess I really don't have much to say today.
So I am posting my to do list.
*clean kitchen
*clean dining room
*clean bathroom
*litterboxes
*put more laundry away
*take a walk
*take pictures of the niece for a modeling agency appointment tonight
*start and finish two loads of laundry (this is the week to get all of it done!)