Good Will

So I donated my scarf to Good Will today. I suppose it was a bartering situation, because I came out with a trench coat. I was talking on the phone to Sarah while I shopped and I went into the dressing room to try on some skirts over my clothes and took off my coat and scarf to do so. Luckily I decided to try something else on later, and when I did I saw a strangely familiar coat hanging on the rack to be restocked. I felt like a thief as a grabbed the coat off the wrack and looked around me as I slipped my arms back into the sleeves. I checked the pockets for good measure, there was the reassuring jingle of the many discarded pennies that I pick up walking to and from the train. I looked around for my scarf, which is really more of a shawl. My dad bought it for me last time he was in town. It was our China town purchase. No green patterned scarf was in the area. I can only assume that some thrifty shopper knew a quality scarf when they saw one and bought it. Either that or someone returned it to the scarf section, but I have absolutely no idea where that may have been. So I walked to the line with my purchase in hand. I'd decided to splurge for my Halloween costume and get the $20.00 trench coat. Everything turned out for the best though because the person at the register rang it up for $11.99. Hopefully they get some of my discount back when they sell my unwittingly donated scarf. I've been working on a theme. For the moment my theme is sleeping in public. Or maybe just sleeping on the train. Argh, I can't seem to access Picasa right now. Sometimes my computer thinks it needs to save me from too many things. Well I can't post photos. I know there are some duplicates in there, but I can't get into it to delete them. I'll try to ammend this post when I get a chance.

Ok Here are the Pictures..
I'm proud of the last one.

Photo Class

Sometimes I get so distracted taking pictures that I have no time to share them. So I've had my first and second photography classes since my last post. They went pretty well. I wasn't thrilled with the pictures I took Saturday, but they weren't too badly critiqued by the instructor tonight. I'm learning more about how to really use my camera which is good, and now that it's back all fixed and functional it's great! On Saturday it was raining and we walked around Bryant Park, which is a very pretty park for being so small. Holding the umbrella and shooting was a fun trick, and I really need to get a filter so my lens is protected from raindrops etc. I feel like I've been going non-stop lately. Saturday after class Scott and I met up with Sky and Anna for dinner and then they dressed up to go out to a party that I had to skip since I worked WonderWeen on Sunday. WonderWeen is our annual Halloween party for the little ones. We have crafts, face painting, goody bags and movies for the little ones. I just love seeing their costumes. Soo adorable. Phew, well I've been carrying my camera more and Wednesday is the Halloween parade, but that's always a tough shoot since it's dark and there are a lot of people moving. I'm definitely enjoying my class though and I really hope to improve by the end. I also have to come up with a "project" for my class. He wants us to come up with a body of work that we can have as a result of the class, so I need a theme of some sort. I've been tossing around ideas like decay, sunglasses, glasses, maybe even just choosing a color. Any suggestions?
Trivia for the day: The first Jack-O-Lantern was carved out of a turnip. They say it was givin to some guy named Jack with a burning coal in it when he was tossed out of hell for playing too many tricks. Happy Halloween everyone!

The Babysitter Diaries

I've never read The Nanny Diaries or seen the movie, but I can certainly see where these things come from. I work for a babysitters club type agency that I can get jobs with whenever I want some extra money called Pinch Sitters. This has me going into wealthy people's homes to take care of their children, who are usually very sweet. It's just astounding to think of how much money these people have. I'm guessing it's pretty hard not to have a warped perspective on life when you have so much, but most people I've met have been very nice. One house I visited was a brownstone just around the corner from Washington Square Park. This place was 5-6 stories high, and beautiful. It was all one house, but it could have easily been 4-5 apartments. If we're talking NYC apartments then it could have been 12 apartments. Anyway, I'm guessing that place probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Sometimes these things are hard to wrap my head around. Especially when I'm hoping for a tip at the end of the night and they ask for their $5 change back. I suppose I understand, $5 is a lot of money to me, but to them it's not. Sometimes I get excellent tips and sometimes the people don't quite pay me everything and I have to tell them so. Ugh, things like that make me so uncomfortable that I'd rather take a pay cut than say anything. Not that tipping is mandatory, but I do put in extra work and create crafts and activities to bring with me and work to play with the kids and teach them something and convince them not to watch TV. I'm not saying that I'm not well off, I really am and I very much appreciate that I am able to live the way I do. I'm just amazed at the lifestyle some people have. Scott always tips waiters well because he was one for so long. Now I'll always know to tip the babysitter!

Oh yeah, and I got my camera back all fixed!! Just in time for my first class Saturday. SOOOO Exciting.

No Zombies

I haven't been posting a lot lately because not a lot has been going on. I had my Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) kickoff on Thursday. That was excellent and it was great to see Shaniqua, my "little." Other than that it's just been work and not any visually interesting things. I almost went to Zombiecon today, but I couldn't find anyone to go with me so I decided I'd wait for the next Zombiecon. It's really too bad since that would have made for really excellent pictures. I'm babysitting for a 9 year old girl and her twin 5 year old sisters tonight. Sounds like a fun girls night! Hopefully Scott won't have to work so much tomorrow and we can go play.

Fall Adventure

It's been awhile, but I've been busy. Lots of good news to report. Last week we won all three sets of our volleyball game. Whooo hooo! No games this week, so hopefully we don't lose our momentum. This weekend Sky, Anna, Scott and I all went on a road trip to Salem. It was great! A nice fall trip. The leaves hadn't really started changing too much yet since the weather has been so warm, but it was still nice to see the New England Coastline. Salem is about 10 miles outside of Boston, and it's a funny little town. Of course it's famous for the Salem Witch Trials where they burned a lot of innocent women at the stake for being "witches." These days it's just a nice town that really likes Halloween. There were people already dressed up in costume just because it was October. We went to the psychic fair, Scott got his Aura read, and Sky and Anna had a Tarot card reading. All very amusing. We saw a historical play where we were the audience/jury for a witch trial. Then in the end we convinced our hotel to bake a pumpkin pie that we brought them since Anna really wanted some and we couldn't find anywhere but the grocery store to buy one. The next day we tried to visit a cranberry bog but didn't quite succeed.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Instead we walked around in a corn maze, even though there was no one there for us to pay. I'll have to try to find a cranberry bog next year.

From Salem Fall Tr...

From Salem Fall Tr...

After traveling through 4 states we added a new one to the list, and stopped for lunch in the 5th state, Rhode Island. Providence is a nice town and we found the Brown University Campus and relived our college days sitting on the lawn. The buildings were all quite beautiful, and it made me think for half a minute that it would have been nice to go to school there. Then I remembered that it would be cold in the winter and was glad that I didn't. All in all it was a fantastic weekend. We love hanging out with Sky and Anna who are so fun and such great friends. This last picture is of a sign post that I saw in Providence covered with staples from flyers that have been posted there. I thought it looked neat.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Oh one more good thing. I heard from the camera repair people that they would fix my DSLR under warranty. Now I just hope it gets back to me in time for my class.

Healthy

Today was the annual Health Fair at work. I go every year and have things checked out. I think I must use it in place of an annual doctor's visit, because I definitely get ever get a check-up. So even though I have a slight cold at the moment (Thanks Scott) I went on over to the fair. They gave me a semi-nice Sony backpack type bag thing, and some candy. I also got a massage which was pretty nice, and some information from all our insurance providers. Oh the exciting life of adults. Anyway, I was proud because this year when I got all my levels back I was finally in the "Average Risk" category as opposed to the "High Risk" category for HDL which is the good cholesterol. The past two years my HDL has been too low and the only way I can raise it apparently is through exercise. I still do my same walk to and from work and up the stairs at the subway station every day with a few team sports mixed in, the same as always. In general it looks like I should probably still exercise more to reach "Optimal" levels in all the categories. Maybe I should let Scott drag me to the gym more often. I am not a big fan of places like that, but apparently it's good for you. Go figure. Your body trivia for today is - You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television. Great! I think I'll take more naps.

P.S. I found a mosquito flying in my office today. Further proof that they're out to get me. That mosquito would have had to go through at least 5 doors to get in, there are no windows in my office or anywhere in the building that open to the outside.

Art Forms

Fall isn't quite in the air with our 80 degree heat, but I think my internal clock knows that I'll be hunkering down for winter soon because I'm feeling crafty. I've always loved creating things and the other day when I was blog hopping/stalking off Tammie and Chris's blog over to a friend of thiers named Raya who has some crafty ideas and a great sense of style. She turned me on to the idea of something called a Gocco printer, which is kind of like a screen printer only more portable. I also found out about a group called Etsy which is a website which sells homemade crafts. Now I totally know where I'm doing Christmas shopping, so people who want to be surprised don't look, and people who are particular, let me know what you like :) The best part of all this Blog/website surfing is that I found out that there is a place called Esty Labs in Brooklyn, a crafting space that I can visit. They even have Gocco classes, though unfortunately I have a different class the day they offer it. But I'm super excited to get back into crafting and making things. Who knows, maybe I'll start selling things on Etsy. Anyway, I'm excited to try to find a Monday night when I can go check it all out. I think Etsy Labs even has a little photo studio set up. I can't wait to start creating. Signing off with a quote... "I always think I don't do the first one good, so I try to do it more." - Andy Warhol. Apparently Andy and I have a lot in common :)

Art Project

Nothing too exciting going on around here. I decided not to go out tonight to the rescheduled bachelorette party. This is the one that I didn't go to a few weeks ago when we were stood up. I've already seen the show and I don't think I need to pay to see it again. Anyway, I did take a picture of my beautiful project that I had the kiddies do last Thursday. Theirs came out almost as good as mine, which is impressive for 3-4 year olds. I also like to pat myself on the back when they manage to duplicate my level of artistry because that means I designed a program that they could actually do. Sometimes it's hard to gauge how nimble or slow to develop coordination these kids will be. I feel like I always end up guessing wrong. When I make things super simple a little bit older kids come and they're bored. When I make things a little more involved, kids who can barely hold a crayon come and they just let their babysitters do it. Even if only 3 kids came this time. They were just the right age, and I loved how their projects came out. I don't have pictures of theirs, but here's mine.

I'll Soon Be Class-ified

So the class that I was on the waitlist for at NYU had an opening and I signed up. I'm pretty excited about it since it's a digital photography shooting workshop. I'm crossing my fingers that my DSLR gets back from the shop in time. If not, I'll make do with my point and shoot. I'm just excited to learn. I checked out the professor's website and it looks like he went to Vietnam at some point too. This is his Bio:
Bruce Byers BA; Instructor. Professional Photographer; http://www.brucebyers.com/ http://www.streetmoments.com/
Short but sweet I suppose. It's interesting to see a professional photographer and the things they have in their portfolio. I don't know why I expect to see things that are a little more flamboyant and not so everyday, but I will be interested to learn what other people think makes a good picture. To me, a good picture is one that tells a story or makes you think or feel something. Maybe I'm trying to say a good picture is one that gets a reaction from the audience? That doesn't seem quite right though. Well, I'll let you all know once I find out, and we can follow my picture taking progress to see if I become a "photographer" after my 8 classes.

I have mosquitos in my house from time to time. I have no idea how they get in but they eat me alive. I think it's just one at a time and that one hunts me down and torments me all evening. I really am mosquito bait. I can go out in the backyard for one minute and come in with 5 bites. Yes, I've timed it. I don't know why they like to eat me, but I itch like crazy, and large red dots all over including on my face just aren't attractive. I don't use smelly things so I don't know what it is about me, they don't seem to bother Scott. Last night I was out collecting some leaves for a workshop at work, which turned out really cute by the way. I'll have to take a picture and show you. And I was fully clothed and I got 2 bites on my rear! I don't know if you really needed to know that, but I am trying to convey how serious my mosquito attracting condition is. I do own repellent, even some stuff that is 99% deet, crazy strong and probably awful, but I don't want to get all slicked up every time I want to spend five minutes in my own backyard. I guess that's one good thing about the weather cooling down. At least the mosquitos will go away, though it's still 80 around here today.

Trivia for the day: There are over 3,000 species of mosquitoes worldwide! I think every one of them is out to get me. I wonder how many species I've been bitten by.

Atlantic Antic

Last Sunday I went to the Atlantic Antic street fair with my friend Jaclyn. We wandered the street looking at the random stalls. There was everything there from spices to postcards. We smelled some pretty delicious smells with key lime pie and pizza and barbeque all around. I tried some Greek spinach pie and feta spinach pockets. They were pretty tasty. There were also musicians every once in awhile and we'd usually stop and watch them for a song before wandering on. The musicians ranged from drum lines to belly-dancing music to old man band to female singer with Rap man mixed in. The last one was the most eccentric. Her keyboard player's dance moves were really hilarious. I tried to capture them for you all to see, but I don't have a lot of practice with the still camera's video function so forgive the quality.
But he went from jumping up and down to jogging in place. Then we were listening to a song and I thought I caught the words "ice tea" Then I realized that was all the lady was singing over and over, trying to sell some iced tea. I finally made a purchase of some 100% Shea butter, it looked very interesting and the vendor guy just hacked me off a cake of the stuff. Afterwards when we were tired of the crowds we headed back into the city and got some Pinkberry, because you know I can't resist introducing new people to my favorite dessert. Another Volleyball game on Tuesday. Let's just say that the highlight was when I got to hold someone's baby. So cute! I don't think I need to talk about the score.