October- Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Hello again! I'm sorry I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I even skipped two Wordy Wednesdays! How horrible of me! I don't really have a whole bunch of school work or anything like that preventing me from blogging, I just kept forgetting about it.
But yesterday was the first day of October, which, as most of you should know, is breast cancer awareness month. This past year, my grandma, who I call Nana, was diagnosed with breast cancer and had the surgery to remove it. I feel like this is a great opportunity to bring up a few pictures I took back in 2011.
When I was still really into photography and Deviant Art, I made my own little photography challenge called "25 Days of Pink" during the month of October. The reason it's only 25 days is because I didn't start it until the 7th of the month. So in honor of this month, I thought I would share a few of those pictures with you!

Day 1:

Day 2. I was so excited when I found this car.

Day 8:

Day 11. Apparently I found this bear while cleaning my room.

Day 12. My friend Maura always wears cute dresses and hair bows. I wasn't very good at photo editing at this time...

Day 15:

Day 21:

Day 22. I wonder if Michaela still has these pajama pants.

Day 24. Let's appreciate that we still used mp3 players 3 years ago.

Day 25. I had a lot of fun painting these pumpkins and slinging paint at the one.

So that was basically how my photography skills were in 2011. I mean, not too bad to be honest, but I'm glad I've learned photoshop now... I really like that I still have these pictures. 

This year I'm participating in the Ribbon Run with my sister and her dance company. Apparently I also have to wear a pink tutu. Our grandma's name is going to be on the back of the shirts we're going to wear.

On another note, not only is October breast cancer awareness month, but this week, October 1st through 7th, is Body Focused Repetitive Behavior (BFRB) awareness week! And if you've been keeping up with my blog since the beginning, you know that I have one of those! So I'll be pretty decked out in green and blue this week (or I'll at least wear my bracelet) and for the rest of the month I'll wear pink as much as I can and use my pink polkadot phone case. I encourage you all to become aware of Breast Cancer and BFRBs this week and month, learn as much as you can about them. The internet is a grand place to learn about these things. 

Now I have to go to my second to last Orientation class, so I'm off! I hope to blog more soon, although tech week is next week... Happy October!

The Surprise Going Away Halloween Party

For the past week I have been planning something very special for my best friend. It's been so hard to avoid posting about it! I put together a surprise Halloween themed Going Away party for Michaela with the help of our friends.

When I first asked her if she was available for "dinner" on Saturday, it turned out that she was also planning something that night. She had already invited people to a bonfire at her house, and was just getting ready to invite me. Instead of throwing my plans out the window, I figured we could still make it work. I told her she could still have dinner with my family beforehand, and then we'd both go back to her house together for the bonfire. 

I painted some Halloween lanterns,

Dipped some chocolate strawberries,

And decorated our living room.

I also pulled together a few presents for Michaela.

The "Memories" binder is full of 17 photo collages that I made online in 4 hours on Thursday night. The camera is a bank I found at a craft store. 

Katie came over about two hours before everyone else to help finish setting up and planning the surprise. We got everyone to park their cars reasonable distances from my house so she didn't suspect anything, and once everyone had arrived and my dad came back with the pizza, I left to get Michaela. I was so nervous and excited the whole way there and back. When I came to the closest stop sign to my house in the neighborhood, I told Michaela someone kept texting me, so I stopped and sent Katie a pre-written text to let her know that we were close. 

Once we got to my house, I told Michaela that the keypad for the garage door was broken, so we walked to the front door and knocked. Katie opened the door, hiding behind it, and Michaela stepped in to see the decorations and our friends.

Then Katie snuck up behind her and put the Halloween feather boa on her.

Once everyone gave Michaela hugs, we had our dinner and snacks and gave her presents. I love this picture of everyone gathered around the memory book and Klifton recording it.

After presents, we all played truth or dare, which turned into a dance party when Michaela was dared to dance with somebody (which turned out to be me). I was also dared at one point to sit in someone's lap while holding their leg, so this happened:

Before we left for the bonfire, we got a group picture and a hug picture:

The surprise party was a big success, and she never expected a thing. She was clueless about it until the last moment. The bonfire was also a lot of fun, as always. 

We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and talked about life and memories. 

I'm so happy that this all went so wonderfully. Everyone was so helpful with the surprise party and I'm glad we were able to give Michaela such a great last Saturday in Alabama to remember. She's going to have a wonderful time in California. I'll hopefully get to see her before she leaves on Monday, which will probably prompt another blog post, possibly entitled "I'm Even More Emotional." 

Wordy Wednesday: I'm Emotional

I was debating on not doing a Wordy Wednesday post today because this week is being kind of mean to me, but I figured I'd do it anyway. The bad part is, it's going to be sappy. So, I apologize for that.

"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

I really didn't think I would get so emotional about this, but I've cried about 6 times in the past 3 days because it's hitting me really hard that Michaela is leaving for college on Monday. The last time I see her before she leaves will be Saturday night at her bonfire, and I probably won't see her again until Christmas time. 

I've known Michaela for 5 years. Ever since that day in science class when we were assigned to be lab partners. I knew of Michaela before then because Katie introduced us the year before, so I was happy to have a partner that I had at least spoken to once. As we sat at our lab table and waited for the teacher, Michaela put a tiny marble on the desk between us. When I say tiny, I mean literally the smallest marble I had ever seen. I was very excited about it. That marble broke the awkwardness barrier between us and our friendship instantly began to bloom. 

Soon after we became friends, we both started to take an interest in photography. After a while, however, my interest slowly dulled. Michaela continued to enjoy taking pictures and has improved so much, especially just in the past summer. She's decided to major in photography and some day set up her own business. In order to accomplish that, she's going to college all the way in California. She won scholarships that will pay for her tuition and already has a job as a local photographer's assistant secured. I'm so proud of her for pursuing her dreams, even though it means she'll be so far away from me. 

I'll be sure to blog about dinner and the bonfire and how she likes her gifts. I'm going to miss being her model and going on adventures at the creek. I hope she has a wonderful time in California and enjoys her classes and her school. 

Photoshop Experiments

Recently I've become somewhat obsessed with Photoshop. I downloaded a bunch of new brushes and had some fun with them. These are what I've made so far:

The flower was a stock photo, so the quality isn't all that great. I was playing with my paint splatter brushes, which I've had for a while. The last two were mostly for experimenting with my new brushes. The hand and the leaves were outlines, and I colored them in. The green in the hand picture is all brushes. They're not super great because I'm just starting, but practice makes perfect, and I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of practice.

It turns out that Photoshop is really calming to me and it helps me when I'm feeling anxious and stressed. I made the leaves when I was having some anxiety, and it took a couple hours but it really helped a lot and turned out better than I had expected it to. I've been hoping to find a good outlet for my anxiety, and I'm pretty sure this is it. I'm so happy that I've finally figured it out. I don't know why drawing and hand lettering never helped and this does. I assume it's because this requires a little more thought and focus which helps me to think about something other than my worries. 

When I realized how much fun I have in Photoshop, both with editing pictures and making graphic art like the pictures above, I texted Michaela and told her that I'll happily be her personal photo editor since she's majoring in photography. I'm still going to major in English and edit for newspapers and magazines and such, but I'll need something fun to do as well. English is really boring me at the moment. 

On another note, I started doing some tech work yesterday morning! I'm so excited to be back in a scene shop working on a set. Katie and I finished painting a wall and a ceiling. The first thing we heard when we walked in was the sound of a saw, and I think we both got excited because it had been a while since we had heard that. It had also been a long time since we got sawdust in our eyes, but that's kind of inevitable in a scene shop. After we finished the set piece, we went to Panera for lunch because we realized how hungry we were. After we ate, we went to Oktoberfest! We were there for the rest of the day, riding rides and playing stupid games and eating funnel cakes. We waited in the hour-long line for the ferris wheel, and we were pretty disappointed that we were the last ones to get on and the first ones to get off. Other than that, the whole day was awesome and fun and exhausting. I don't know if I'll go back today or not, but I'm hoping I do so I can take Tessa and introduce her to it.

So that was my little update. I'll be back on Wednesday with the weekly quote!