Labor Day

It was a relaxing, rainy Labor day in DC and it was hard not to miss our family on this holiday weekend. I definitely miss days like this. It's funny how the littlest things can make you miss home. Like having to buy store-bought jam. Yuck. I was raised on (and spoiled by) my mom's incredible homemade raspberry and strawberry jams. We love and miss you family!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I've been trying to find an affordable stylist ever since we moved to DC. But after finding a girl in our ward that charges $100, and calling a hair school and having them tell me it would be $70 for highlights, and $18 for a cut for a STUDENT, I consigned myself to the fact that it wasn't going to be possible to have it done for less than $100 and quite frankly I can't justify spending that much on hair when Brody's tuition is $40,000 a year. Plus, my stylist back in Utah once told me I should never pay more than $60 to get my hair done because I have such fine hair. So I decided to look into doing it myself.

After doing a lot of online research, watching video tutorials, asking for advice from friends and my old stylist, I decided to give it a try. I picked a L'Oreal home kit and I'm actually pretty pleased with the results. I was terrified, I mean literally petrified, to do my own hair. I've been getting it done since my senior year of high school and I had never dyed my own hair. But I think it turned out alright, and it only cost about $14. It's a little darker overall now and a lot warmer. Now I just need to get it cut! Please excuse how gross I look in the before picture.


before/after

Just a hint

There's not a whole lot to this trailer, but still worth watching...

Where are my Tic-Tac's!!!

I shouldn't have to tell you what movie that incredible line is from, but I will anyway. It's from one of my all-time favorites, You'ev Got Mail, during the scene when Tom Hanks and Parker Posey get stuck on the elevator. I bring it up, because I had my own little similar experience, with someone who would be a kindred spirit to Parker Posey's formiddable character. There I was, going down to grab some lunch when the elevator gave a little lurch and made a odd groan. I looked at the only other patron in there with me, a man in his 40's or 50's from one of the law offices upstairs, who immediately revealed himself as a loud, type-A from Jersey and subsequently starting ringing the emergency bell and yelling through the little intercom thing at whoever would listen. We were only in there for about a half hour, an interesting half hour to be sure, but certainly not a harrowing tell of claustrophobia or panic. I guess I can just chalk-it-up to another new experience.

Experiences

"Some people feel the rain, others just get wet." - Bob Marley

When Brody and I decided to move to DC, we did it in part because we wanted to have an adventure. We wanted to get outside our comfort zone and see what life was like outside the bubble. And in the last week, we got more than we bargained for :) What are the odds of an earthquake and hurricane striking the same week? (really though I would be curious to hear that statistic) and during Brody's first week of law school no less?! It's actually been a great week, we got really lucky with Irene and didn't even lose power. Last night we decided to take a little walk to the fountain to see what the weather was like..

The rain was actually lighter than normal, but there were some powerful gusts of wind.

It was weird to see the fountain completely deserted. Normally it's a feeding ground for homeless, activists, bucket drummers, lovers and everyone in between. It was eerily quiet but kind of fun to be the only ones there.



Brody is doing great in school so far. The amount of reading was a little overwhelming at first but he actually enjoys the subject material.

It's been an exciting week to say the least!

The Map - How To

Okay this project was super super simple and you will be thouroughly UN-impressed when you are done reading :)
I was debating for some time what I wanted to do above our bed. I was toying with the idea of more photos, but didn't want to spend any more on frames and frankly I was too lazy to paint anything. So, thanks so some pinterest inspiration photos, mostly via Restoration Hardware (above), I decided on the triptec-map idea.

1. I love using a series of 3 so I "upcycled" some canvas paintings I had done a few years ago that I was sick of looking at. It might sound crazy but I painted over them with some cream-colored latex wall paint we had in our pantry. Once that was dry, I searched online for an antique map that had the dimensions I needed. Real prints are ridiculously expensive and I wanted this to be as cheap as humanly possible, so I decided to just print my own.


2. So I did like I always do and just google-imaged "Vintage Map of Washington DC" and picked the one I liked the best that had the highest-resolution. Then, I just pasted it into microsoft paint (no really, I don't have photoshop anymore) and stretched the image a little to make it wider and fit the dimensions I needed. I just eye-balled it, but if you want to be super fancy and precise you could measure and then apply that ratio to the picture.


3. Then I opened up a word document, made the margins super small and basically 'selected' sections of the image and printed them from the word doc. I did the images in sections, four sheets of paper for each canvas. I gave myself a little buffer of overlapping to make sure they lined up. Once I had printed them all out, I just modge-podged them on the canvas so that the lines and pictures on the map lined up. I had to trim a lot off the bottom sheets of paper but it actually worked out well. The modge-podge made the ink run just a tad but it ended up adding to the whole antique effect.


4. Once that was dry, I decided it needed a little more tailoring so I just taped off the borders and painted them all black with some acrylic that I already had. And voila, a triptec vintage map of DC! It's definitely not perfect but it literally didn't cost anything and I was pleasantly surprised by how it turned out. It spans almost our entire Queen-sized bed and is a nice focal point since we don't have a headboard.

Earthquake

So I just experienced my first earthquake. I was sitting quietly at my desk at work when I heard a rumble and felt a slight vibration. My first thought was that it sounded like a huge group of people on the floor above me must be running down the hall. But it got stronger and the whole building started shaking kind of violently and I realized it was really an earthquake and I had that oh crap moment of this is real. my family will be so sad if something happens to me.

okay. remember back to elementary school when they taught us what do to in an earthquake....get under your desk, or is it a doorjamb? Or do I put my head between my knees? I felt my desk to feel how sturdy it was and decided to go to a doorjamb of one of the surrounding offices as I heard various expletives from my co-workers down the hall, and heard something fall from a shelf in a nearby office. And then the shaking got softer and turned back into a slight vibration. And then it stopped, and I could still see a street lamp out of the window swaying. It lasted maybe 45 seconds. We all looked at each other with a wow that really just happened expression, not really knowing what to do. I texted Brody to see if he was okay (he was of course), and then the building manager came down the hall and ordered everyone to evacuate. It was kind of crazy to be looking up and down K street and see everyone on the street, cell phones in hand, texting and tweeting away. In a matter of seconds we figured out that people had felt it all the way from Connecticut to North Carolina (thanks to facebook). Gotta love technology in times of "crisis".

It was quick, and really not too bad, I don't think any buildings were damaged and I don't think anyone got hurt. The media is totally blowing it out of proportion, this made me giggle

the extent of the DC Earthquake devastation :)