Mom: “Oh goodness, how embarassing. Look at your sister, her jeans… so baggy!”

Me: “So, I take it Angel was complaining about her new jeans?”

Angel: “YES. They’re brand new and they’re supposed to be tighter! (pulls at excess fabric)”

(Mom & I roll our eyes)

Angel: “But you know, if I wash and dry these? They’ll stay baggy and shrink five inches in length!”

Mom: “Well, you’ll just have to eat an extra piece of birthday cake tomorrow.”

Me: “That’s another way to fit into your jeans by Friday!”

So I’m here. And back. Or something.

Since I’m still feeling half crazy, I’d like to mention two positive things going on right now:

1. I’ve started making “positivity” posts on my favourite livejournal community, DamnPortlanders.
I wanted a way to make new friends on LJ and just participate in more conversation… without solely getting snarked. (Which is what the Portland community is for, if you’re not familiar with our lovely city.) So far I’ve learned a lot of awesome things about my fellow Portlanders, and made a few new friends, which is totally bonus.

2. Inspired by Daddy Likey, today was my day one of the Couch to 5k program.

I’m kind of superstitious about blogging about something I’ve only done once, but hopefully this will help keep me accountable. Today I did about 1/2 of the first C25k workout (In the rain!!) and nearly died from cramps and pain and rain (did I mention RAIN?!) and terribleness, but now that my body has recovered and relaxed I feel like a totally new person–my lungs burn and it feels great, and I’m proud for, you know, actually following through on a promise to myself.

I’ve done the running thing before, with great results, so now I just have to make it a part of my lifestyle.

What awesome things are going on in your life right now? Sometimes finding a little peice of sunshine is all we’ve got.

ALETHEA: “Really?!”

ME: “Uh, yeah.”

ALETHEA: (leans away)

ME: “In the sense of … ‘Whoops! I have a cough!’ hee!”

ALETHEA: “Oh girrrl, you are not that funny.”

This turned into my Uncle Bob holding the lamp and being my general “best boy”, helping me come up with ideas and lighting effects and such. Neither of us are super photo geniuses, but they turned out good! And it was crazy fun.

I totally look drunk here. Actually wait, yeah, two glasses of wine. It’ll do it.

This is my ‘BETTER THAN YOU’ face. Don’t you feel… less cool than me?!

The one I like best. After being seriously photoshopped. I don’t know. I like it.

What do you think?

I would like to reccommend taking photographs of fruit as a wacky mood lifter. At one point I had four assistants helping me photograph that lemon. My Dad walked in, saw us crowded around the piece of fruit, all holding various lamps and leaning in closely, blinked a few times, and walked out, muttering something that sounded like, “never understand you people….”. Hee!

Also I found a vintage lemon yellow Mercedes Benz for sale in my neighborhood today. You bet I’m going to take pictures of it. And do my best to get my Dad to buy it for me. Even though I don’t drive.

I was given a new camera this weekend by my Aunt & Uncle! It was pretty sweet, apparently my Aunt’s parents were going to throw it out, it was her granddad’s, but nobody had any use for it, except her neice in the US of A! Sweet, eh?

(A friend commented on facebook: “I love how you’re holding a camera taking a picture of yourself pretending to take a picture with a different camera!” Er… yes, that would be me. Being silly.)

Anyhow, it is my new favourite thing and I want to PLAY WITH IT. I ran to Camera World to get a battery, and they immediately did the whole, “Oh yeah! This is such-and-such, we’ll get it for ya….”

And stopped dead when they saw the size ratio difference of the battery they were holding, and the battery that came from inside of my camera. (Let’s just say you can’t replace a basketball with a tennis ball, eh?)

“Oh no. We’ve got to get Bill.”

So my helper runs off, a-shoutin’ for Bill. Bill, is, apparently, the Camera God or something, as my fellow merely holds the battery out in front of his nose and Bill says,
“Oh! Canon. Quickshot. Canonet. Magnesium. Batteries Plus.”

UM, first of all? Identifying the camera by looking at the battery? Very plus. Amazing, in fact. The salesman standing next to me sighed and said, “We reckon he spends his nights with flashcards.”

SO. Magnesium batteries it is. It’s on the list now. Hopefully I’ll get it a-workin’ soon! Not like I really should be paying to develop film at the moment, especially after finding those two necklaces at Forever 21 this morning, but still…

Since there’s been no progress on the boots of my dreams, I suppose I will just move on. Patience tends to be rewarded, right?

This entire week I’ve been dreaming about tourist shopping (you know, where you go into strange little stores and boutiques you would never go in if you lived there and find outrageously strange little things for an outrageous sum of money, and because it’s vacation you actually contemplate buying them?) and so far have purchased a pet rock, an orange mumu, and an ice cream.

I’m pretty sure the only thing I need is the ice cream.

Not only are finals coming up this week (A possible presentation on medieval texts, a Spanish film regarding the state of fish, AND 4 primed, proofed, and perfect copper prints) but my dearest rellies from Australia are visiting. (Australia!)

I swear, being related to them makes me cooler. Not only are they from Australia (Australia!) but they’re pretty much the nicest and most fun people you’ll ever meet. The grammar in that last sentence was basically atrocious, but that’s the only way I know how to describe them.

Anyway, so I have work AND finals AND rellies coming up… I’m starting to get nervous about next week! Maybe my dream self can invest in a healing massage? Or another ice cream.