And so it begins…. (Again.)

I attempted Project 365 once a couple years ago, but I heartlessly abandoned it when life got too chaotic to care about taking a picture every day. This year I am trying it again—only differently.

I am adjusting the rules a little bit, making it more user-friendly. This time, if I screw it up and forget to take a picture for a day or two will the whole project be dead to me and ditched like a dirty diaper because it’s hopelessly ruined? Heck no! This time if life gets in the way and I forget to do a photo—*light bulb moment*—I’ll just take two the next day.

(I don’t know why I didn’t think of that last time—duh.)

(And, please, I’ve already had to bend the rules twice in the last 19 days, so I think I can say with confidence that making it user-friendly is a nifty plan.)

(Clearly.)

(Ahem.)

And, hey, it’s not like the Project 365 Fairies are going to go postal if I contort the rules a wee little bit, right? I mean, really, I’m pretty sure they have bigger things to worry about…. like the fact that there are 366 days this year, not 365. (D’oh!)

Anyway, here is what I have accomplished in this year’s Project 365 so far.


DAY 1 (2012-01-01) ~ Visiting Seattle for the holidays. I had forgotten how thick the moss is out there. The trees all looked like Oscar the Grouch!




DAY 2 (2012-01-02) ~ My friend Callista's uber-cute dog.




DAY 3 (2012-01-03) ~ I found this on a wall near the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Bizarre. I have no words.




DAY 4 (2012-01-04) ~ Okay. Fine. I cheated, okay? I forgot to take a picture on January 4 because I was busy with family stuff (Bad Cora! Bad!) So, I'm posting a second picture from January 3 to make up for it. It's the Gum Wall in Seattle.




DAY 5 (2012-01-05) ~ Taking a walk around Gene Coulon Park in Renton, WA.




DAY 6 (2012-01-06) ~ Again, call me a cheater. I was too busy to do a picture on Januray 6 (read: family stuff) so I'm posting a second picture from the 5th in its place. This was taken on my walk around Gene Coulon Park in Renton, WA.




DAY 7 (2012-01-07) ~ Flying home to Chicago. This was the view of Washington from above. Soooooooooo beautiful!




DAY 8 (2012-01-08) ~ A strange, wavy building in Chicago.




DAY 9 (2012-01-09) ~ The sunrise at Welles Park in Chicago.




DAY 10 (2012-01-10) ~ Mmmmmmmmm.




DAY 11 (2012-01-11) ~ My first bokeh attempt using Christmas tree lights. I'm not sure if it qualifies as good bokeh or not, but I kind of like it.




DAY 12 (2012-01-12) ~ Winter has FINALLY arrived in Chicago!




DAY 13 (2012-01-13) ~ A snowy day in the garden.




DAY 14 (2012-01-14) ~ Snow, snow, snow.




DAY 15 (2012-01-15) ~ Another bokeh attempt with Christmas tree lights.




DAY 16 (2012-01-16) ~ An adorable little birdhouse in the snow.




DAY 17 (2012-01-17) ~ My precious.




DAY 18 (2012-01-18) ~ Painting with an LED flashlight.




DAY 19 (2012-01-19) ~ What it looks like when you combine oil, water and food coloring all in one bowl. CooOOooOOool!




And that is what I have so far. Now that we are all caught up, I (hopefully!) will be posting my Project 365 pictures on a more regular basis in smaller posts. I will be using different cameras and trying different things. Some will be good, some won’t, but I hope you enjoy the journey with me.

© Coracabana

Like a bewildered, cranky groundhog being yanked from its den, I am emerging from The Holidaze. Hi, how ya doin’?

Alrighty, let’s just jump right in here. Our Christmases were fantastic, yet mind-bogglingly busy and time-sucking. Frankly, I’m still disoriented and wandering ditzily around in a blind, stupid stupor from it all. I’m going to assume you are too.

And, yes, I said Christmases.

Christmas #1 was spent with Scope’s parents in Kewanee, IL, where we channeled our inner Guy Fieri and played Minute To Win It (Scope’s sister’s idea) and, among other impossible hijinks, attempted to migrate Oreo’s from our foreheads into our mouths using only our facial muscles.



(Not easy, people. Not. Easy.)

(That’s Scope’s sister and nephew pictured above, by the way. *snicker*)

Christmas #2 was just the three of us in our home in Chicago, where my hubby gave me a fragment of Voldemort’s soul (aka a horcrux locket) that I had been eyeing for many a moon (wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!) and Santa visited and noshed himself into an uncomfortable food coma on all the candy-ified cookies we baked for him.



And Christmas #3 was with my family back in Seattle, where we visited the Pike Place Market, left our grody mark on the Gum Wall, hung out with Callista, and celebrated New Year’s Eve AND Christmas all in one night. *whew!*




Of course, Fernando Von Bakonstein was with us the entire time and he enjoyed himself, having lunch with Wednesday and my nephew….



….and having a mondo throw down with Simon from The Chipmunks….



….and hobnobbing with other porcine folk he met in the Pike Place Market….



….and slurping hot chocolate at Seattle’s Best Coffee….



….and, most especially, making faces with Wednesday at poor Scope as he slept on the flight back home.



(Tee hee hee.)

So far 2012 has been little more than a blur, honestly. (It’s the 19th already?! Really?!) I went whole hog and made several resolutions, instead of just one, which I intend to keep this year. My resolutions?:

1. To Eat Healthier Foods. So far so good on that effort! In fact, in the past 19 days I have not only tolerated oatmeal every morning (which I have utterly loathed my entire existence) but I have actually grown to love the stuff. I know! Me liking mushy slop?! No way! But—taa-daa!—it’s happened.

2. To Build Muscle Mass. I have been trying and failing to lose weight since moving to Chicago a year and a half ago. After beating myself up over it all this time, I finally realized what the problem probably is: loss of muscle mass. Back in Seattle I was a nanny, hoisting hefty kids around every day. Sure, it was murder on my back, but it was great for my rear! So, this year, I vow to get strong again. In fact, I filled a suitcase full of hardback books which I have been working out with and toting around almost daily. *whew!* A stronger Cora is in the making! (And hopefully a stronger Cora will fit back into all of Nanny Cora’s cute, teeny former clothes. *fingers crossed*)

3. To Speak The Truth And Not Sugar Coat Things In A Misguided Effort To Try To Keep The Jerks Of The World Calm. This doormat is done playing nicely now. *pounding my fist into my hand*

4. To Take A Picture Each And Every Day In My Second Attempt At Project 365. You may recall I attempted Project 365 back in 2009/2010, but I abandoned it because life got too crazy what with my tonsillectomy, the wedding, and the cross-country move. With everything that was going on, taking a daily picture just fell right off of my list of priorities. I kind of regret that though. I wish I had kept the project up because I would love to have photos documenting my old Seattle house going from bustling home to bare rooms filled with packing boxes, but the sad fact is that I didn’t do it. I felt like I didn’t have time to take a picture every day. (But, really, how much time would it have taken?) Of course, there will be days I screw up and forget to do a picture, inevitably, but when that happens this time I won’t just drop the whole project and walk away, I’ll just take two pictures the next day to even it all out. (See? Thinking!) So far it’s been going splendiferously! I will be posting the project’s pictures here starting with my next post. I hope you guys enjoy seeing them as much as I’m loving taking them.

5. To Get My Bloggy Groove Back And Blog More Often. I figure Project 365 will help with that, right? :-)

So, anyway, Happy New Year!



Up next: Project 365. Stay tuned!

© Coracabana

It’s beginning to look a lot like…. well, you know.

So, my calendar keeps telling me that Christmas is this weekend. Yeah. THIS. WEEKEND. Really? There’s NO WAY that can be right! Right?

R-r-right?

*dazed and crazy-eyed stare*

I simply don’t see how Christmas can be here already. I swear it was just Halloween. I mean, I still have the callous on my finger from sewing our costumes in October, so it can’t be December already. It CAN’T. It just doesn’t add up. I refuse to believe it.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

And yet….

There are trees with twinkly lights in our dining room (yes, TREES—plural—just roll with it), a bulging pile of presents on our floor, stockings hung by our fireplace, and Christmas cards lurking in our mailbox every time I dare to peek inside. Christmas cards like this one….




Isn’t that AWESOME???? It was sent to us from the spectacular Vegetable Assassin and we all busted out in giggles when we saw it. Wednesday is already plotting evil plans to steal it for her sprawling Tim Burton collection, of course.

BUT NOT IF I STEAL IT FIRST!!!!

(Thank you, Veggie!)

Wednesday, Scope and I have been enjoying Christmas in Chicago, even though it is just a thousand shades of wrong that Christmas is here already. A couple of weekends ago, we went downtown to lap up all the in-your-face holiday-osity lurking there. We went to Macy’s….





….where we bought what we thought was chocolate fudge….




….and we were blissful. Until we opened it and realized it was mint.

Dammit.

Mint is Wednesday’s culinary nemesis. It even outranks the unbridled terror which is tomatoes on her list of Foods So Nasty They Prove God Does Not Exist, but only because mint can be a tricky little shape-shifting bugger. Sometimes you don’t even know mint is there until it’s too late! Diabolical is what it is. Wednesday loathes mint in all its many forms and disguises, of course—but especially deceptively delicious-looking chocolate-fudgy ones, which are just SOOOOOO unfair and wrong. So, curse you, Macy’s, for your inadequate fudge labels!

Mint: 1 Wednesday: 0

After Macy’s, we went to the Disney Store where we watched their unintentionally hilarious opening ceremony (I’ll let my hubba hubba hubby tell you that tale of stupidity HERE) and where I felt tall (for once!) inside the princess castle.




Yes, quite tall indeed.

Next, we crossed the street to the Christkindlmarket, which is like a little old fashioned Christmasy German village in the shadows of the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza, where they were advertising free photos with Santa.

FREE?!

My inner penny-pinching cheapskate did cartwheels! So, we got in line to see Santa.




The line looks long in that picture, but it moved quickly and it was about a third as long as the line to see Santa inside Macy’s. We played 20 Questions while we waited. And we laughed at the butt-ugly tree the city put up on display.




(Really, Chicago? Really? That’s the best tree you could find?! Pitiful.)

The Santa setup was really cute and the picture turned out great….




….but, unfortunately, the resolution is really low. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to print a decent 4x6 of it whenever I get around to updating my old school non-digital photo albums.

*sniffle*

So, maybe sometimes a free price tag isn’t the best deal after all. Bummer. Then again….

After Santa we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo (which was also free!) and took care of phase one of a school biology project Wednesday had been assigned.




She had to find five animals which live outside in the zoo during the winter. We found sea lions….






….and a Siberian Tiger….






….and European White Storks….




….and an African Wild Dog….




….and an Amur Leopard….




….and a few others. Then the sun went down and and all the animals went to bed. Shhhhhhh….




And while the zoo inhabitants snoozed, we got to run amok and enjoy the Zoo Lights in the dark, which was a pretty impressive display….







But, best of all, at Zoo Lights Wednesday got a brownie which was NOT mint flavored and then—POOF!—all was right with the world again….




Mint: 1 Wednesday: 64 billion

© Coracabana

Why I have had ABBA perpetually stuck in my head for three months.

*sigh*

I know. I deserve a Crappy Blogger Award. Or a slap on the hand. Or, at the very least, a stern glare and a murmured ‘you stink’.

I feel the shame.

I haven’t really been participating much in Blogaritaville lately. There’s no single big, bad, burly reason to blame it all on explain it. More like a steady stream of distractions—SQUIRREL!—which have kept me preoccupied: I’ve been feverishly job hunting, selling things on eBay, Christmas/birthday shopping, and attempting to write this year’s Christmas Letter completely in rhyme like ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.

It’s a bit surprising how time-consuming those activities can be. However, the guilt and shame of ignoring you all has finally gotten to me, so let’s blog!




Yesterday was a BIG day here in Chicago. Even if I hadn’t been paying attention to the news, I still would have known Rod Blagojevich was wearing the dunce cap again.

I can always tell.

How? Well, I live in Blaggy’s neighborhood and whenever the Governor Gone Bad is having a bad day, helicopters swarm over my house. Yesterday morning there were at least four helicopters hovering overhead waiting for Blaggy to leave his home and head to court for sentencing. This was the view from my deck.




The noise was utterly obnoxious. It sounded like the sky was full of ticked off bees. I decided to take a stroll down the street to see how big the media circus was outside of Blaggy’s house, because how often do you get to see news crews camped out on your neighbor’s front lawn, right?

(Hopefully, not too often.)

There were reporters everywhere. The street was clogged with parked cars and vans. I stood across the street from the mob just kind of taking it all in. I started snapping pictures of the crowd as they waited for Blaggy to appear, when suddenly there he was!

Blaggy and his wife emerged from their house to go to court and I realized—WOAH!—that I was taking pictures of them.







(And, yes, his hair is even MORE ridiculous in person.)

Once Blaggy got into his car, the crowd swarmed around it trying to get pictures of him through the windows.



Then off the ex-governor went to court where he found out he has been sentenced to fourteen years behind bars for being an asshat. Ouch.

And that, my friends, is how I became an accidental paparazzo. I had no idea I would be seeing and snapping pictures of Rod Blagojevich on his way to court! I had only planned on scoping out the media frenzy, not actually participating in it. Whoopsie.


Other news from around here lately? Well….


Our Halloween costumes turned out pretty awesome. Wednesday was Catwoman, I was Poison Ivy, and Scope was a Rastafarian.




(And, yes, Wednesday and I sewed every silver stitch on her costume by hand—and I still have the callous to prove it.)

We spent our Thanksgiving visiting Scope’s family where Wednesday and Scope pulled the wishbone and Wednesday won.



But Wednesday’s most favorite Thanksgiving Day moment was seeing the brand new Tim Burton balloon in the Macy’s Parade!



(She still squeals when she thinks about it!)


Most sadly, one of our little pet frogs, Kermit, died unexpectedly. We don’t know what went wrong. He was swimming happily in his tank one minute, then flat on his back then next. Wednesday and I are completely heartbroken and we miss him very much. I’m just glad we managed to move the little frogs from Seattle to Chicago over the summer, so Kermit could spend his last couple of months with us. I know that means a lot to Wednesday that she got to have that time with him here.

We had a funeral for him. Wednesday picked out a planter that looks like water and a plant that looks like lily pads, then we buried Kermit beside the plant and she wrote his name on a heart-shaped rock.




*sniffle*


And, last but not least, we have been playing bloggy hosts to Blogaritaville’s travelling porcine pal, Fernando Von Bakonstein!




Fernando used to hang out at The International House of Blogcakes (RIP) and has spent the last couple of years travelling around Blogaritaville, visiting his blog buddies. He came to us from our good friend Skyler’s Dad and we have been taking Fernando everywhere around Chicago and showing him a good time.

Hey, we even took Fernando to “The Hog Capital of the World”!!!!



We have been GREAT hosts…. but bad bloggers. We just haven’t gotten around to writing about our adventures with Fernando Von Bakonstein. Yet. However, REAL Fernando posts are in the works and I will be serving them up for you soon, swearsies!

Until then, please sit back and suffer through enjoy the song that has been chronically and mercilessly stuck in my head ever since Fernando arrived on our doorstep: ABBA - “Fernando”.



(SOMEONE HELP ME!!!! I BEG YOU!!!!)

© Coracabana

The seven year bitch.

“How’s it hanging, Death?”

Seven years ago today I beat death.

It went down kinda like this.



:-)


© Coracabana