Erik Loves Jacquie!

Over Thanksgiving, my cousin Erik, who currently lives in North Carolina, brought his fiance, Jacquie, down to meet the family. We had a blast with them, and they are a super cute couple, so we are very excited for their wedding next September 22 at Duke Chapel in Durham, NC.
While they were here they gave everybody a Save the Date magnet with Jacquie's dog, Molly on it.

I have no idea where they ordered these from, but probably one of the many super cute online wedding boutiques. Follow details about their wedding and other great things to do and places to eat in Durham on their new blog Erik Loves Jacquie!, which you can find under Blogs I Love, over to your right. So while sleigh bells begin to ring, so do the wedding bells...
Happy Sunday!

Black Friday Deals

While most people consider the day after Thanksgiving to be the craziest day of the holiday weekend because of the crazy crowds that respond to all night sales at various stores, I think Thanksgiving itself was a little more crazy, as we hosted seventeen people for lunch/dinner.  Lots of fun though.
The day after Thanksgiving, my cousins came back up to my house and we went out shopping around noon, when most of the crowd had died down a bit. I got two great deals on clothing for myself.
First, I bought a shirt/dress by Gianni Bini at Dillards for around $20 (usually 65) that I plan to wear with leggings (perhaps, even tomorrow if the weather permits)

Then after hitting a couple more stores, I hit my second deal of the day at Anthropologie. I usually don't shop there because it can be really pricey, but I went in the back sale room and scored a dress that was $65 for $15. It's kind of springy, but I think it will work well for Junior-Senior Tea.

A close up of the pattern

I hope everyone had a safe and blessed Thanksgiving holiday!

Cat Got Your Tongue?

For my art class, we all picked artists for our final project. Mine is Barbara Kruger. She does some strange work -- very idiomatic and ironic black and white photography. We have to make a couple of pictures in the style of our artists, so I've been working with Picasa and trying to color my pictures well and  arrange them in a Kruger-like way. Here goes nothing...
Cat Got Your Tongue? I don't know what arrangement I like better, but I think the one on the left looks more like something Barbara Kruger would have put together.

Skirt the Rules. Again, don't know which I will actually use -- probably the left again.

Imitation is the sincerest form of Flattery. I might try another arrangement of this.

Curiosity killed the cat. Only one arrangement of this picture made.

Happy Sunday!



Sweet Home Texas!

Okay, so the movie's real title is Sweet Home Alabama, but who doesn't love Texas? (That was completely rhetorical...) Anyways Sweet Home Alabama, starring Reese Witherspoon, is another romantic chick-flick. Basically Melanie (Reese's character) has become engaged to Patrick Dempsey's character, but technically she's still married to Josh Lucas's character back in Alabama. She goes back home to get the divorce papers figured out and is met with many an obstacle along the way. Eventually when Dempsey shows up in this little Alabama town, she must come forth with the truth about who she really is, and through this realizes something about herself -- she is still in love with her first love and husband. Cute movie, but definitely a chick flick.

The Terminal

The movie marathon continues with The Terminal starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It was a really cute movie. It's kind of a romance/comedy, but not a romantic comedy. Basically, Tom Hanks needs to go to New York as part of a personal mission, but due to a war in his country is detained in the airport, where he lives for nine months. Along the way, he meets Catherine Zeta-Jones' character, who is a flight attendant, and falls in love with her, although she has an on and off relationship with another man and is frequently out of the country. He takes up work as a handyman around the airport until he can be released. I don't want to spoil the end, but it was good. Overall a four star movie, that I would recommend.

Movie Reel

With my mom's breast cancer, she had to take a leave from work. One of her co-workers brought over a set of around 30 movies for my mom to watch while she's recovering. So we've been watching a lot of movies. Some are kind of older, but still good. First one on the list was The Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Aykroyd. Because it had John Candy in it, I expected it to be really funny. It was funny but not as good as Uncle Buck. The scenes were kind of choppy-- they would show one, and then the next scene wouldn't fit in. The plot was pretty static, no real development of characters, scenes, subplots, etc. Overall I'd give it two and half to three stars.

The End of October is Not the End of Pink

Many of you well know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Many Octobers have passed by with out me acknowledging this too much, but this October was different.
In late September, my mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Beginning of October, she had a double mastectomy. In a couple of days she'll be starting chemotherapy. It's been a really hard time, and it's not over yet. Please keep her in your prayers.
In my art class, we were recently doing figure-ground reversals. In honor of my mom, and another very close friend of mine who celebrated her 2nd anniversary breast cancer free September 16th, I made them these Hope Figure-Ground Reversals.