Hold me closer, tiny dancer

Aaaaaaaand now for another update on this year’s Project 365….


Day 154 (2012-06-02) ~ Okay, so was there a girl who did NOT have a jewelry box with a little twirling ballerina inside back in the 70's? I think every girl I knew had one. I suppose I don't really have a need for it now, but couldn't resist picking this up when I saw it on eBay.





Day 155 (2012-06-03) ~ Just a quick macro of the inside of a cracked red glass candle holder I keep on the mantle. I love how it looks like splattered paint when magnified like this.





Day 156 (2012-06-04) ~ Wednesday spent ALL WEEKEND LONG creating a model of a warrior for an English class assignment. (And she loved every minute of it too!!) Our living room was covered with clay, beads, ribbon, yarn, feathers, and all kinds of crafty things once she was through. I think it is incredible how it turned out. She's such a creative soul! (And, yes, this picture is a cheat. I took it on the 3rd, not the 4th. Somehow I got my days mixed up a bit. Whoopsie!)





Day 157 (2012-06-05) ~ Completely out of time, I quickly shot a macro of the hem of my skirt the evening of Day 157. I wish the sequin was actually in focus (d'oh!) but oh well. It will have to do.





Day 158 (2012-06-06) ~ So, not only do we have strawberries growing on our deck, but our carrots have started sprouting too. Maybe next year we will try to grow some lettuce as well!





Day 159 (2012-06-07) ~ Wednesday is in beginners French this year. There was a voluntary nation-wide test a month or so ago which she took part in and last week she brought home a medal for placing in the top 15%. (Dang. That kid makes me look like a slacker.) It's so cute though watching her strut around wearing it on her school lanyard. :-)





Day 160 (2012-06-08) ~ I met Scope for lunch in The Loop this day and he showed me "Color Jam", an artsy explosion that popped up in the intersection of State and Adams. The crosswalks and corners of the buildings are all painted in primary colors so bold they practically poke your eyes out. It was actually kind of fun. I felt like I was walking through a cartoon. (More info on Color Jam, if you're interested: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-06-04/entertainment/ct-ent-0605-color-jam-loop-20120604_1_state-street-building-art-loop-installation-city-intersection.)





And now we are approximately 42% of the way through the project. More will be updated soon.





© Coracabana

A picture a day keeps the doctor away. (I wish!)

Aaaaaaaand now for another update on this year’s Project 365. Because of recent events, I am WAAAAYYYYYYYY behind schedule on posting these. I’m going to try to catch up today, so hold on. Here we go!


Day 74 (2012-03-14) ~ It’s not easy being…. well…. you know….




Day 75 (2012-03-15) ~ It was St Patrick’s Day this week, so I painted a shamrock (well, kinda!) with a flashlight in the dark.




Day 76 (2012-03-16) ~ Hey, I like crude humor too, alright? But not enough to go writing it on a door! Some graffiti just baffles me. ????




Day 77 (2012-03-17) ~ We went downtown to watch the Chicago River dyed green in honor of St Patrick's Day. It's a big, BIG deal around here and thousands upon thousands of green clad people line the river banks watching the dye being poured into the water and then mixed in by a speed boat zooming through it. It was an unusually warm day with bright, blinding sunshine and temperatures at about 80 degrees. Unlike last year when everyone was bundled up in their winter coats, this year everyone was in shorts, tank tops and flip-flops! AWESOME!!!! As the river was in the process of being colored, I was busy snapping pictures of the boat zipping by when I noticed how cool and swirly the water looked in the glare of the summery sun and I quickly shot a picture of it.




Day 78 (2012-03-18) ~ The bangles.




Day 79 (2012-03-19) ~ *sigh* I would love to tell you the story behind this picture, but the censors (as I told you about yesterday) won’t let me. You’ll just have to invent your own description of this one. Sorry.




Day 80 (2012-03-20) ~ My poor, poor kiddo came down with the flu. We spent the morning at the doctor's office and then I spent all the rest of the day hovering over her on the couch, trying to bring her fever down. *sad sigh*




Day 81 (2012-03-21) ~ All of a sudden--*BOOM!*--Spring has sprung. There are blossoms everywhere and the air is fragrant, sweet and delicious. *le sigh*




Day 82 (2012-03-22) ~ A shortcake in the making. We have had temps in the 80's and suddenly my strawberry plants started to come back to life. Yay!




Day 83 (2012-03-23) ~ I forgot to eat before we got to the movie theater.... so my stomach was growling all through The Hunger Games! :-( The kiddo had only just started recovering from the flu and was feeling very shaky, but she tolerated my taking her picture anyway. Because she’s AWESOME!!




Day 84 (2012-03-24) ~ A mini storm was a-brewin’ while I was up on my rooftop trying to get a picture of the sunset.




Day 85 (2012-03-25) ~ One way or another, I’m gonna find ya, I’m gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha…. I dunno, it just kind of sums up the week in a way, right?




Day 86 (2012-03-26) ~ Twiggy!




Day 87 (2012-03-27) ~ She’s a brick…. house! Only had time for a quickie picture this day. I shot it while waiting for my kiddo by a wall.




Day 88 (2012-03-28) ~ Tulip Sniper!! The tulips are out in full force now.

And, there! Now we’re caught up. *whew!* I’m about 24% of the way through the project so far. More on the way soon!




© Coracabana

Mad as a hatter

Aaaaaaaand now for another update on this year’s Project 365….


Day 62 (2012-03-02) ~ Wednesday was planning an Alice In Wonderland tea party with some friends over at our house. I couldn't resist making a little decoration for the party out of some modeling clay, a pack of playing cards and some silk flowers to look like the guys who get in trouble for painting the Queen's roses red. (I'm a dork. I know. I know.)




Day 63 (2012-03-03) ~ Wednesday (yes, that's her!) had her Alice In Wonderland tea party this day and this was the costume she wore: the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp version of The Mad Hatter. We pieced the costume together bit by bit in thrift stores and on eBay and it turned out FABULOUS!! And the party wasn’t too shabby either. :-)




Day 64 (2012-03-04) ~ My grandmother used to have a collection of thimbles. I remember being really small and staring up at all the precious little white porcelain domes on display on her wall. I could never imagine what on earth would make someone want to collect thimbles, of all things. I never asked her how her collection started.... and maybe I should have. When she passed away, I was allowed to pick some thimbles from the collection. Most of the thimbles were white and no-nonsense, but there amid the sea of snowy white figures was this quirky fella! A chipped, painted metal owl who has, clearly, seen a beating or two in his day. And it was love at first sight. This was the only thimble I wanted out of all the dozens and dozens of them. I don't know anything about him or why he looks so battered and woebegone or how he ended up in my grandma's collection in the first place, but these days he spends his time sitting on a shelf in my den guarding my Harry Potter books. (Harry Potter. Owl. It fits somehow.)

Day 65 (2012-03-05) ~ I met up with my hubby, Scope, for lunch in the city and then I walked over to Millennium Park to get a picture of this. It's a mammoth mirrored bean-shaped sculpture which everyone calls—what else?—“The Bean." Its real name, though, is Cloud Gate. I love The Bean. It reflects the city, the sky and all the people in a silly distorted fun-house-mirror kind of way. The sky was so perfectly blue this day that The Bean was just simply gorgeous!

And there we go for now. I’m about 17% of the way through the project. There will be more on the way soon!

© Coracabana

The limelight

Aaaaaaaand now for another update on this year’s Project 365….


Day 46 (2012-02-15) ~ So, I decided to try doing a re-shoot today of a photo I did in a black and white photography class I took about 18 years ago. Back in those old pre-digital days (let's call 'em the Darkroom Ages) (ba da dum tish) editing my pictures was a lot different than it is now, obviously. Back then I had an image in my head of a lime under a light which I was going to call "The Limelight". I wanted the photo to be all black and white except for the lime which I wanted to be neon green. However, creating the picture back then was not easy. I shot it on black and white film and tried coloring, painting, dying, and even putting food coloring on the lime on the print to make it bright green, but I could never get it right. Grr. Thanks to the digital camera and Picnik, creating the picture this time was SO MUCH EASIER. Is it the way I pictured it originally? Not yet.... but it's closer. I think the light was a bit too harsh, but otherwise I'm happy. I think this is a shot I will be revisiting again in the near future with a softer light source. I'll get it right one day. Yep! :-)

Day 47 (2012-02-16) ~ Not a lot of time for picture taking this day--*sniffle*--so I just snapped a quickie of a heavily graffitied wall that I pass by roughly three times a day. Usually, I'm not a fan of graffiti, but somehow I really like this wall. The colors are so vivid that they just seem to pop right off the bricks and practically poke you in the eye!




Day 48 (2012-02-17) ~ We saw the play "Grease" at Wednesday's school. At the end of it, she turned to us and said, "So, what the heck is the moral of this play anyway?!" "If you dress trashy, you get the guy," said Scope, jokingly. "I thought so," she said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head in disgust. God, I LOVE having a bookworm for a daughter!!!!

Day 49 (2012-02-18) ~ The stairwells in our condo building have these windows which always remind me of ice cubes in stacks. When the light hits them just right, they're really quite beautiful. Because of the windows, I actually enjoy climbing up all those flights of stairs each day and I rarely take the elevator anymore.




Day 50 (2012-02-19) ~ Bokeh and clover, over and over! This was my first attempt at creating custom shaped bokeh. I read some how-to guides and then figured, whattheheck, I would just wing it and see what happened. It’s not really what I wanted, but for a first try, I think it turned out pretty well. Next time I take a whack at it, I think I would do better to use a shaped hole punch with smooth edges to make the shape in the lens cover instead of trying to cut my own (which resulted in more raggedy-looking clovers than I was hoping for.) I'm also suspecting that I might have cut the shape too big and perhaps that's why a lot of the clovers ended up only partially visible in the image.... or maybe the clover just wasn’t centered, I’m not sure. (????) If any of you awesome creative souls out there have played around with shaped bokeh before and have any suggestions for the next time I try this experiment, your tips and advice are absolutely welcome! :-)

Day 51 (2012-02-20) ~ A ticket to ride…. Remember back when Disneyland had tickets for all the rides? I have a small stack of them and they are kind of fun to look at every now and then. I still remember being small with ribbons in my hair and flipping through the little ticket books with my dad to see which ride we might go on next. I'll probably end up using these in a craft or scrapbook at some point. But until then, I think they make a pretty nice picture. :-)




Day 52 (2012-02-21) ~ It was a rainy day at the park. All the squirrels were hiding up in their trees and no-one was out walking their dogs, but I was there with my camera and I thought it was kind of pretty with the trees all glistening with beads of water.




Okidoki! We are 14% done already! Sweet! :-)

© Coracabana

Who knew Smurf butt cheeks were so darn cute?!?!

Aaaaaaaand now for another update on this year’s Project 365….


Day 36 (2012-02-05) ~ I toyed around with a levitating Froot Loop a couple of weeks ago and thought I would take another whack at it with Valentine Conversation Hearts this time. I definitely like the Froot Loop one better, but this one makes me giggle too in its own way.




Day 37 (2012-02-06) ~ Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone…. Yes. It's a Smurf butt. I was taking pictures of a Valentine's Day cupid Smurf I have had since I was a little kid and I couldn't resist turning him around for one last picture from behind. Of course, the behind picture ended up being my favorite by far, because.... well.... how often do you get to see a Smurf derriere?!

Day 38 (2012-02-07) ~ A proud mama moment. Wednesday brought home her first semester Freshman report card and it’s straight A’s! And she’s in the extra-tough honors classes too! Incredible.




Day 39 (2012-02-08) ~ I took this macro picture of my deck and I can't stop staring at it. Seeing it so up close, looking all rickety like this just makes me marvel at how buildings even manage to stand at all, really. Just amazing.




Okay, so I’m 10% done with the project now. Woot!

© Coracabana

Oh, To Be a Teenage Girl!

My daughter has a friend. Let’s call her “Dippy,” because she is.

Dippy got mad at Gwen the other day because Gwen invited another girl over to our house this weekend. Dippy decided to get revenge. Her revenge? She claimed she fell, hit her head, got amnesia, and didn’t remember who Gwen was anymore.

Uhh…. okaaaayyyyyyyy.

(You see why I call her Dippy, right? Sharpest knife in the drawer, she is NOT.)

So, Gwen got HER revenge by “reminding” Dippy in front of everyone at school that before she got “amnesia” she lost a bet to Gwen and owes Gwen $1000!

And suddenly—*POOF*—just like magic, Dippy’s “amnesia” was cured.

GOD, I ADORE TEENAGE GIRLS!!!!

© Coracabana

Seeing red

[….and the Corascope Chronicles continue….]

Saturday, Scope, Gwen (my daughter), and I cuddled up together again on my couch to finish watching the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy which we’d started the night before.

(ARRRRRGH!)

Apparently, I’d forgotten how much of “At World’s End” I had—well—forgotten. There are some good parts, true, but overall, it pales pitifully in confusing comparison to the sheer, giggle-inducing awesomeness that is “Curse of the Black Pearl” that I never really watch Pirates 3. Ahh well. It doesn’t stop me from thirsting for Pirates 4 in any respect though!

Bring. It. On. Johnny.

Anyway….

After Pirates I made lunch.

Yes, lun—HEY!!!! STOP THAT!!!!

DON’T GIVE ME THAT LOOK!!!!

AND NO GASPING IN HORROR EITHER!!!!

PUNK!!!!

I KNOW, ALRIGHT?! I, TOO, FULLY REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO POOR, POOR SCOPE THE LAST TIME I COOKED FOR HIM, OKAY?! THAT WAS A FLUKE! A FLUKE!! AND HE CLEARLY SURVIVED, SO LET IT GO, PEOPLE!! JEEZ!!

This time Scope did not opt to let me make him some scrambled eggs. Go figure. Instead he bravely ate a Boca Burger. And then he had seconds. And he liked it. Yes, really. And he did not go running for the bathroom in terrified, sweaty panic either.

So, see? I CAN TOO COOK.

Or microwave.

Whatever.

After our very yummy, delicious, nutritious, fresh, non-poisonous lunch we ventured off to All About Weddings to browse the wedding invitation samples.

Most of them were gaudy, I won’t lie.

*gag*

Most of them brought to mind frightening visions of frilly, pastel-clad, cheek-pinching Grannies - or, worse, tantrum-throwing, perfection-mining, uber snooty Bridezillas.

*eek*

But we did find one we really liked….


Yes. It’s red. Well spotted.

Now, I can’t say for sure this will end up being what our wedding invitations look like. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find something else we like even better. But right now this puppy is soooooooo the leader of the pack! :-)

For dinner, we met up with my mom and daughter at Olive Garden. I had the tilapia, which I absolutely recommend. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Then for dessert, the four of us went over to Cold Stone.







**For legal reasons, I had to delete a huge portion of this post, which is why some of the following comments now make no sense. Sorry about that.**


[....to be continued....]

© Love Letters By Cora

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face, pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case….

Late last Thursday night Scope hopped an airplane and flew 2000 miles alllllllllllllllll the waaaaaayyyyyy over to Seattle to spend the weekend with me and my daughter, Gwen.

*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!*

Actually, it was scheduled to be a weekend with just little ol' me. Gwen was supposed to be visiting her dad that weekend, but when she got word that Scope would be in town she asked me if I’d switch weekends with her dad so that she could be with me and Scope “just like a family” instead. And I did. You see, it turns out my lovely kid is quite fond of my lovely fiancé (whom she calls “FBD” for Future Bonus Dad.)

All together now, shall we? ~ AWWWWWWWWW.

:-)

Okay, now *ZIIIIIIIP* let's fast-forward to Friday morning, shall we?: someone innocently uttered the words “toothbrush” and “toothpaste,” which “Tempted” Scope and me to break out in song.

Most understandably.

Of course.

*snicker*

After my daughter was done savagely pelting us with OH-MY-GOD-WHAT-WAS-THAT?!?! looks, the three of us leapt in my car and went to the theater (because the kiddo had no school that day) where we saw Avatar in 3-D.

The movie? Very, VERY cool. And so were the glasses….


Well, kinda. ;-)

After the movie, we had a date with Cassi, our adorable wedding coordinator, to go over some details at the Fairwood Golf & Country Club where we’ll be tying the knot this July. In my opinion, the meeting went fabulously. For us, especially!!!! You see, it turns out we’re getting TWICE the room space we thought we were!

SCORE!!

What was already a stunningly-great deal has now revealed itself to be an uber-amazingly-jaw-droppingly-stunningly-great deal. OooOOooOOooh, baby.

Wanna take a little peek at our spectacular venue? Sure you do….








Beautiful, huh?

I know!

*happy, glowing sigh*

After running around our future wedding hall taking pictures and congratulating ourselves on our good fortune, we went back home and my daughter and I took Scope’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” virginity (nope, he’d never seen any Jack Sparrow antics on film before) by watching “Curse of the Black Pearl” AND “Dead Man’s Chest” back-to-back.

ARRRRRRGH!

(….to be continued tomorrow where you’ll find me spinning yarns about gorgeous ruby red wedding invitations, Cold Stone ice cream, and Jack Sparrow. Again. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!….]

© Love Letters By Cora