oh, lauren | Page 11

Postcard: Duisburg, Germany

Posted on August 2, 2012

In my last post, I mentioned going to Germany in 2001, when I a senior in high school, so I dug out this postcard.

I have a habit of picking up postcards everywhere I’ve ever gone, so this one is from a place where I’ve actually been.

I remember visiting this church at one point, though the memory is blurry, because well, there are a lot of cathedrals in Germany, haha. It’s the Salvatorkirche/Salvator Church, the city church of Duisburg.

I actually have two pictures of it from when I visited. (Anyone else disturbed by how retro and purposely lo-fi these look? They were taken on a standard disposable camera..)

Visit the rest of my Postcard Project.

Posted by Lauren
2 Comments

Five Interesting Things

Posted on July 31, 2012

I updated my bucket list , thinking about things I want to do. But I got a bit discouraged at the few things I’ve checked off. (I think I need to stick a few easy things on there.. haha!)

So, I thought I’d talk about five interesting things I HAVE done.

1. Gone white water rafting and caving: My senior year of high school, my calculus teacher took the class on a weekend trip to the Youghiogheny River right after we all graduated. We camped, took a bike ride to the place we had to go in for white rafting, and we went caving. And my dad went on the trip too, so that was pretty cool. My favorite part was the white water rafting and that’s definitely something I’d like to do again some day.

2. Moved across country: In 2005, I moved from York, PA to Joplin, Missouri to move closer to my now husband. It was a good experience living there, very different culture, even though it’s still the same country. I’m glad I lived there for four years and got to live near Sam’s family for that time, but truthfully, I have no desire to live in the midwest ever again, haha. I love the east coast. I like the quick paced vibe here, even in the country. I like mountains. I like lakes. The “wide open spaces” of the midwest are cool.. definitely something I’d recommend visiting.. but for living, they aren’t for me.

3. Visited Garden of the Gods: I talked about this one in detail in this post here, about the start of my Colorado trip here, Pike’s Peak here and the rest of the Colorado trip here, but wow, I was really amazed by this place. It’s very beautiful, and there is nothing like being in the rocks of the park and wild animals just walking by you. Amazing.

4. Gone to Toronto, New York, Florida & Germany: In high school, I was in marching band (trumpetz rule & stuff) and every year we went on a spring trip. What I remember about Toronto in 1998 is that it rained. A lot. Constantly. And of course we went to Niagara Falls. I have an awfully huge amount of photos of water, haha. We also saw The Phantom of the Opera at the Phantages Theatre and went up into the CN Tower, which has one of those awesome glass floors you can stand on and see below you.

In New York City, we visited the Statue of Liberty, went on a mini-day cruise, and saw Ragtime on Broadway.

In Florida, we went to Disney World and did all that entails. That was the first time I had gone, actually, as my family never did vacations. I remember being pretty sunburned haha. We also were in a parade there. Um, I don’t think we saw a musical that year. Weird. At least I can’t remember one.

And Germany.. what a way to end your senior year of high school. I loved it and I want to go back so bad. We came in Düsseldorf, stayed with host families in Duisburg, got to attend school there for a day, saw an opera, went to a soccer game.. We spent a day in Köln, which was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. Germany is beautiful. And there are a ton of sheep. haha.

Most of my memories revolving around these trips have to do with friends.

5. Fought off a scary black snake OF DEATH: It was a dark, stormy night and there was a vicious 20 foot long, 2 feet wide snake IN MY BED UNDER MY PILLOW. And I fought it off with a LIGHT SABER.

Wait. Ok, fine. That might not be right. It was more like this.. I was standing outside in the yard with my Stinky Puppy, and a black/rat snake, slithered out from under our grill and gave me a heart attack. You’re not going to believe this, but I was raised in the country and I had never seen snake before, and it just kept slithering out, more and more.. it was huge, maybe 4-5 feet long. I grabbed Stinky Puppy and ran inside, like a big girl, because I am a girl. I texted my hick friend Erica and she made fun of me. The End.

So, those are my experiences. Your turn. Tell me a story.

Tell me five interesting life experiences you’ve had. Leave me comments here, or blog about them and link me because I would love to read them.

Posted by Lauren
4 Comments

Snail Mail Monday

Posted on July 30, 2012

I haven’t had any good mail in a long time, but this one is one that never got posted from.. my gosh.. a year ago. I got this really awesome package from Fritzi Marie, and it came at a perfect time, too.

Since I got it, I used up the dry shampoo – which smelled so good and it was the first time I’ve used dry shampoo and I’m kind of addicted to it now. The nail polish is pretty, I’ve put it over several other colors. The pencil is in my coffee table drawer, it might be the only actual pencil (and a real one at that) in my house, haha!

The fortune teller fish – I don’t know if you’ve seen these before, and I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of the fish itself, but you put it in your hand, and it does a variation of curling and the paper of course tells what the “fortune” means.

I amazingly remember that it curled up completely when I used it, so that means.. passionate. *wink*

Have you gotten any good snail mail recently?

You should probably post it and show it off and then link it to me. 😉

Posted by Lauren
5 Comments

Around the Internet

Posted on July 27, 2012

Yay, it’s Friday! Here are some interesting links I’ve come across this week:

Matt Cusick’s Map Works art

• How specific are you when naming colors? XKCD color survey results.

I know that I personally don’t go very descriptive – I’d probably say something like “blue-green-ish” or “purpley-red”. I would say teal to mean any blue/green combo, but not aqua or magenta. 😉

• In a similar vain, the FM 100 Hue Test – how well do you see color?

The first time I took it I got a score of 4, so I tried again for a perfect score and got it! I think it’s interesting that I can see different hues, but I don’t know the names for them.

• Who do you side with politically? (No surprise, I got 100% Ron Paul).

And one of the coolest things I keep seeing going around:

Posted by Lauren
4 Comments

Postcard: Gadsby’s Tavern

Posted on July 26, 2012

Well, my Postcard Project is back! I hope you don’t mind because this is one of my favorite things, haha. If you don’t remember, this is where I share postcards out of the collection I have, which is made up of a mix I inherited from my mom and her mom and also my own collection.

This one is from Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria, Virginia. Margie is my grandma and Doris is my great aunt.

Gadsby’s Tavern
Social center and meeting place of 18th century Alexandrians. George Washington received his commission at Gadsby’s in 1754 and used this tavern as his headquarters. Today, Gadsby’s Tavern is a restaurant.

Dear Margie,
Having a great time in the D.C. area.
Toured Alexandria yesterday and leave today for Baltimore.
May get in a trip to Gettysburg. Return to N.C. on the 30th.
<3 Doris

I was just thinking it would be kind of cool to visit the places on my postcards, since a lot of ones from this part of the collection are pretty close to me.

It looks like the stamp is from 1980, the date on the postmark.

Obviously, you should go check out the rest of my Postcard Project if you never have!

Posted by Lauren
3 Comments

Quick Tips: Washi Tape

Posted on July 25, 2012

Way back forever ago, I started a regular feature called Quick Tips. I even started taking pictures for my next one, and guess what? I randomly stopped blogging.

And on the desktop of my computer sat this folder called “to blog” filled with pictures of my next quick tip post, until today.. bwah ha ha.

Things you can do with washi tape:

instant photo

or your weird collection of teeth

A few other suggestions:

Do you have, or have come across other suggestions for washi tape?

Posted by Lauren
3 Comments

How do you find a word?

Posted on July 24, 2012

I spend a lot of time exploring the forums at Personality Cafe. One thing many people there are able to do is explain how they think/process very specific information in quite aware and descriptive ways, something I have not been able to do yet.

Then the other day, something interesting happened. I was in the middle of a sentence and I blanked out on a word – something that I’m sure happens to everyone at some point – so I went to *look* for the word in my head. (The word I was looking for was “abstract”.)

So, then out of the corner of the right side of my head, a vague, fuzzy impression of the word “abstract” floated out in front of me, of which I knew was the word “abstract”, and I metaphorically reached out and grabbed it and then, I had it. It was all instantaneous.

I never before would have been able to see something like this and describe what happened! It’s so fascinating to be able to see how your brain processes/looks for information!

I mean, my reaction to watching other people describe this has always been something along the lines of “wow, that’s fascinating, but umm, how the heck did you KNOW that? I mean, if I’ve been doing this my whole life, how I can I recognize it? How can I step back enough to describe it?? I have NO IDEA what I do!”

And then today, I was able to *see* how my brain worked for a short bit and it was awesome!

How do you search for words if you blank out in conversation? Do you know?

Posted by Lauren
4 Comments

Beach pictures

Posted on July 23, 2012

The other day, I came across some photos on my point and shoot that I had never put on my computer, so I thought I’d share them. They’re as is, unedited and I remember mostly taking them to play with the settings on my camera, which was new at the time.

They’re from last August, and taken at the beach at the river near our house.

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But before I share them, I just want to point out that I updated my blog! So, if you’re reading in a reader, click through and come look at it. I’m not quite done, but I really like the way it looks!

Some of the changes I made:

husband

Google + page

Hello Cotton

So, please go have a look! I can wait.

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Alright, now that you’re back, here are the photos! (Ok, the last one is Stinky Puppy and not from the beach. I snuck that one in.) My favorite is the first boat picture.

I actually found a second batch of photos that I’ve never done anything with that I’m going to share later. It’s like a fun surprise, haha. This is actually the first time this has ever happened to me, and it happened twice in a row, ha.

Does this ever happen to you?

Posted by Lauren
4 Comments

Magnetic Nail Polish

Posted on July 20, 2012

Disclaimer: I was given this Sally Hansen nail polish from Influenster for test purposes.

This magnetic nail polish is really cool! You put on two coats and on the second coat, you hold the magnet inside of the cap over the nail polish and it creates this effect. It looks cool AND it fulfills my need to play with magnets, haha!

Posted by Lauren
4 Comments

Brainstorm with me

Posted on July 19, 2012

I’m having a hard time keeping up with this blog. I generally enjoy it, I love that it has become a visual scrapbook of sorts for my life, but I feel as though it has no voice.

I think part of the reason for this is that these hobby type things – decorating, being artsy, etc., are all things that are not natural to me. I am not a hobbyist. I’m more of a people person. And that was part of the point originally – have a place to go where I can explore new things, be more physically creative – except that no one explores new things constantly, and that is why I have an empty blog much of the time.

I guess the next question is – what should I do about this? Do I change the purpose of the blog? And if I do, how? Just.. jump in? Do a visual change? Maybe I don’t change the purpose as much as just making it a catch-all personal blog?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do still want a visual scrapbook. Definitely. It would remain a vital part. In fact, I intent to bring back postcards and snail mail days. It’s just that this isn’t enough.

I’ve already tried inserting a bit of my daily life in among the photos, but I find it.. stilted? Awkward? I am not one to discuss my daily life much.. I prefer discussing ideas and concepts.. which honestly, is my daily life.

I once changed this site before – I used to write more political and religious things – but it would not go that direction again most likely. That’s not really what I want either. And I don’t forsee that kind of drastic change either.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this – perhaps I will just try it on and see where it goes. It might mean less visual posts though. But I think even when I write something like this, I will try to include something visual – it just looks nice and appeals to me.

What do you think? Talk to me. Brainstorm with me.