Last Saturday, I attend a natural hair meet up for the first time. It was held that afternoon at a popular restaurant, The Spot of Tea (everything is good there). I initially found out about the group while browsing Meetup.com. There I came across the group for naturals in my area, founded by Tanene Jackson, a local hair stylist. Thing is, when I first went to my old hair dresser, asking her for tips on caring for my newly natural teeny weeny afro (TWA), she gave me Tanene’s number. That was almost two years ago, and I never followed up.

A few months ago, I picked up a flyer featuring community activities held at my old high school, and there was a class called Natural Hair 101, taught by none other than this same Tanene. I couldn’t arrange my schedule to attend that class either, but still, I thought it was pretty cool that this person’s name kept popping up, particularly in association with natural hair.

So, I signed up for the local natural hair group on Meetup and waited for notification of the next get-together. The first one I missed, but I had signed up my older sister and hair-inspiration to attend with me. The next meetup that came around, Crystal was the one that signed me and my mom up as her +2.

Saturday rolled around, and I had forgotten all about the meet until Crystal reminded me a few hours before. So, I drag up the will to get ready and go. My hair was currently flat-ironed, and I had really wanted to rock a nice twist-out for my first meet, but whatever. As I we approached the restaurant, we saw a girl walking down the street with her hair pulled back in a puffed. My mom wondered out loud if maybe the girl was going to the meetup, and my sister and I were like, “Nah.” Of course, we get to the restaurant, and the same girl is sitting at the table. I found out she’s from St. Kitts, here attending university because the University of South Alabama (my alma mater) has this amazing meteorology program that no one ever talks about.

Long story a little shorter, I got to meet some really nice naturalistas, including the elusive Tanene. She was very warm and personable and I would really like to visit her salon soon. (I usually like to take pictures at this sort of thing, but I felt wasn’t comfortable taking photos of complete strangers in such an intimate setting. Next time though…) Tanene told us about the Natural Hair and Wellness Expo that she was hosting next month on June 18. I will definitely try to attend. However, I literally just signed up for Art as Business: Using Social Media to Promote the Arts which happens to be the same day, but the times overlap so I will be able to attend the Natural Hair Expo later in the day.

I’m going to have to get some pieces together to bring to the seminar. I just ordered a new set of Moo cards that will be in next week. They’re regular size this time rather than the mini cards that I usually order. I can’t wait to see them. I just received the card holder in the mail today and it’s so great. I was delighted simply by the way it was packaged, not to mention what was actually inside.

That last bullet is a doozy. As I was updating my age on the various profiles I have online, I was blindsided by an overwhelming feeling of “oh my God.” That’s the best approximation I can give to it. I am in my late twenties now and I believe a result of this is the sudden grown-up feeling I have when thinking about doing certain things, like washing dishes, cleaning my room, applying for jobs and seriously considering learning how to cook whole meals rather than random dishes like rice, box-macaroni and cheese or scrambled eggs.

11.02.2009 . shopping

Earrings from Lotus Boutique

11.03.2009 . around the house

11.07.2009 . My sister’s wedding

Me

My sister, Laura

Nicole & Charles

11.13.2009 . self portraits

11.17.2009 . before work

Lunch from Panera

11.25.2009 . at the office

Maya

11.26.2009 . visiting family

cousins: Kyra & Laura

This year, thankfully, that isn’t the case, and so I decided to scope the commercial center and see what was available. I’ve slowly been building up my wardrobe from ill-fitting jeans and oversized shirts to better-fitting jeans and cute and well-fitting tops that better express my quirky personality. After losing all that weight, many of my clothes no longer fit. Some items are out of style, but I’ve also been trying to acquire things more appropriate for my age (gah! 27 next b-day, late twenties, OH NOEZ).

I’m a late-bloomer in a lot of things, and finding my style seems to be one of them. What Not To Wear is one of my favorite television shows. Stacy and Clinton provide truly practical tips for dressing to fit “the body you have right now” so that you can look your best at whatever stage of life you’re in. If you’ve gained weight, and you know you’re not going to lose it anytime soon, suck it up and buy and bigger size, because you only look fatter wearing too-small clothes. I know this. Conversely, the same thing works if you lose weight. I’ve never hated shopping, but I guess it’s just a frustrating experience when you don’t actually know what looks good on you, or what you like is too expensive, or OMG, this “dress” is really cute up top, but are they sure this isn’t mislabeled, like, it’s having an identity crisis where it was born a shirt but really wants to be a dress?

However it does pay off to take the time to find things that look nice and actually TRY THINGS ON. I finally figured out what size I actually am, but all designers don’t fit the same, so a cute party dress by Max Izaria in a size 6 (small) fits great, a small sweater from Old Navy it too small.

It’s an insane rush to be this excited about buying clothes for the first time, like, ever in my life. Seriously, when I got to work after my mini-spree, I was all a-twitter to my co-worker, Dave, about the experience. Thankfully, he’s nice enough to humor me. I think he just find my kid-genius antics amusing. Incidentally, if possible, I would marry this online store: ModCloth.com. I tweeted about some of my longings while browsing their selection yesterday.

The point? Oh yes. I was originally going to begin this entry talking about how the store XXI gives me the barely controllable urge to leap from the nearest window whenever I cross its threshold. They do, however, have very cute clothes. And the store is only one story. There’s just SO MUCH STUFF. There’s no discernible (to me, at least) rhyme or reason to how they’ve organized the selection, except that the really dressy stuff is on one room and all the Sale and Clearance stuff crammed on racks and walls in another.

TL;DR version: I bought some really cute clothes. I dress from a boutique called Hourglass and a cream colored sweater and deep blue-green woven shirt from Forever 21.

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In other news, I applied for a job. I hope something comes of it.

But, geez, I’m already looking to see if I can somehow get a MacBook Pro. It’s always important to count the cost of things, though. I already have an insane phone bill for how little I actually talk on it. I currently have 4,999 roll-over minutes, 480 of which expire in the next few days. Yeah.

I have a new favorite show: The Big Bang Theory. I saw one episode and the geek in me melted in squee.

Behold the awesomeness that is Sheldon Cooper:

That being said, Season 1 of the show is currently in my shopping cart on Amazon.com. :)

I also like The Mentalist quite a bit. I started watching it because I like Simon Baker (Something New). I watched the first two episodes of Dollhouse. The first ep was blah, the second still eh, but a bit more interesting. I’m not sold on Eliza Dushku’s performance. She seems really cool, but I don’t find myself investing in her character like I want to fully enjoy the show. Other shows I’m enjoying are Burn Notice and Leverage. Only seen two episodes of the latter, but I really enjoyed the chemistry of the cast, especially Parker and Hardison, and the finale had me hooked.

“Sharon,” she said as she entered the darkened recesses of my room. “You got a package in the mail. It was too big to fit in the mailbox.”

It took only a moment for me to register she was saying, and what I could possibly have received. It was too soon for my Old Navy order of my new checks to have arrived.

“Ooh!” I sat up quickly to meet the package in her profferred hand. A white cardboard envelope with the distinctive dA logo emblazoned on the top center. It was the calendar I had ordered from dA as a result of an email I received announcing a sale they were having on those items. I followed the link and scrolled the selection, thinking getting an art-themed wall calendar would be a good investment in my goal of becoming more organized. So, in the form of Parka Blogs, here’s what I got.

Lois van Baarle (loish.net) is a young artist whose work I’ve been following for a while. I really love her style and the textures she uses in her colors, where they look more like she used real rather than virtual media.

I was really impressed with the size of the calendar. It’s one thing reading the dimensions on the screen, and quite another seeing it in your hand.

I like it.

Alrighty.

I got back home from the trip yesterday evening at around 8pm. I would have gotten home sooner, but when we were about 15 minutes away from home I got lost decided to take the scenic route home down this recently constructed section of highway. My mom was real happy about that, lemme tell ya.

Of course, after I got home I found the battery charger to my dslr. It was miraculously appeared in my computer bag like it had been there the entire time. Then I misplaced my pocket camera, but found it again this morning in the car. So now I can post the few pictures I was able to take. I’ve seriously been neglecting my SD1000 anyway, so I’ll try to used it more from now on. It had just been sitting in its cute little case in the bottom of my bag, all lonely.

But back to the trip. Before we left, my mother expressed the desire to visit a place called The Cheesecake Factory in order to acquire (duh) some cheesecake for my sister. I got a piece as well, while we got my sister a slice of white chocolate macadamia nut caramel. I didn’t taste her slice, but it sounds good enough. I still have a few bites of my piece of original cheesecake chillin’ in the fridge.

Mom & me walking to The Cheesecake Factory

The Cheesecake factory was located in this upscale shopping center known as The Summit. It’s aptly named, because the place is basically built on the top of a mountain. For those of you unfamiliar with the terrain of Birmingham, AL, it’s quite hilly, as a result of the tail end of the Appalachian Mountain range (one of the few things I learned in Alabama history, mandatory in the curriculum in 4th and 9th grade).

The Summit

It’s me!

Right as I was turning into the parking lot of The Cheesecake Factory, I spotted an beacon of light some may call the Apple logo. OMG*SQUEEE!!! An Apple retail store! Of course, I had to check it out. There wasn’t much to the inside. I mean, I like how everything was stocked neatly on the shelves.The people working there were pretty friendly, but the first guy that helped me didn’t seem very knowledgeable about the merchandise.

I ended up buying a new laptop bag and some fonts for my Mac. The bag is awesome, but I’m rethinking the font purchase. At least I can write it off on my taxes for business use. *shrug*

I am so needing my tax return right about now.

Wednesday, I go up to my school to pay some outstanding parking tickets. A few weeks ago I got an email saying that my graduation ticket had expired, and that I needed to reapply for graduation. I was really confused by this since I already walked and everything. So, I assume the tickets are what’s holding things up. So I pay the tickets, and then go to the registrar to find that the college of Art & Sciences has declined my graduation because I hadn’t completed the requirements for my major.

What?!?

So, I go over to the advising office (across campus), and see what that’s about. I turns out that the class substitution form that I submitted over a year ago, hadn’t been completed. I don’t feel like going into all the details, but it was really frustrating finding this out. So, I went to the Visual Arts office, and it turns out my advisor signed the form about 2 weeks ago, the department chair signed it Tuesday. That was crazy.

So, I turned the form into the Advising office and they sent a memo to the registrar. So, I should be getting my diploma in a few weeks.

I’m doing this thing on flickr where I take a self portrait every day for a year. This will be good for me since I’ve been trying to be more comfortable in front of the camera. I’ll also help me be more creative (yay!).

I love my new boots. I just got them in the mail today, ordered from Journey’s. This is my first ever pair of nice leather boots. They were on sale.

I almost forgot I need to send off my portfolio and resume’. . . Yeah, getting a regular job is pretty important right now.

So, about the title of the entry, I ordered a bunch of stuff today:
• 3 shirts from forever21.

• 3 pairs of shoes from journey’s, including another pair of Onitsukas. I also got a cute bag.

• 1 30G iPod, black from Apple.

I suppose the iPod was a little graduation gift to myself. The thing is, I like to buy cool things, including clothes, but I don’t like to drop a bunch of money on stuff, and usually go straight to the “sale” or “clearance” section. However, I will drop the dough on things like computers & electronics, because you definitely get what you pay for in that regard. Sometimes, however, it’s good to put down the extra buck on clothing, because I’ve discovered that the nicer stuff is a bit more expensive, but you’re paying for the quality.

Seriously, though, I’m in desperate need of some new shoes, but I’m the practical type that want’s to be able to wear stuff with more than one outfit. Sometimes it’s hard finding the pair that’s just right. I also still need to purchase a winter coat. I didn’t have much luck finding something I really liked on line, so it looks like I’ll have to brave the holiday crowds and go to the mall and try to find something.

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Well, now that I’m done with school and have all this free time on my hands before I get a job, I suppose I can work on some art that’s way overdue to be finished. My friend Ashely got me a sketchbook as a graduation gift, so I’ll be breaking that in over the holiday.

I would also like to do some photo shoots and independent graphic desingn stuff to exercise my skills and help my portfolio. It’s gotten no love, lately.

I got a new digital camera today. I got tired of waiting for my order to be shipped from Amazon, so I just canceled the order and went and bought the camera from Wal-Mart instead. I was trying to be patient and save money, but the screen on my old camera died out, and the images won’t show up without the display screen working. . . and there are things that need to be photographed by me, so I had to get a replacement camera.

So, I’ve had fun today testing it out. It’s a Canon Powershot SD400 Digital Elph (5MP). I had lots of fun with the Macro mode.

One of the first images I took with the camera.

You can see my freckles and blemishes. . .

. . .and the texture of my corduroy jacket.

Macro shot of my sister’s wrap scarf

My lovely little sister, Laura

macro shot of Laura’s hair

C’est moi, encore. I look so petite here.

I edited this image in Photoshop a bit.

I never realized how inadequate my other camera was. Well, I did have somewhat of an idea, because 2.8 megapixels really wasn’t giving me the level of detail I desired in my photographs. I like to find beauty in relatively mundane objects, and hopefully, this new camera will help me realize some ideas. I know it’s just a camera, but I’m so excited with something new, and it’s actually mine. I bought it with my own funds, unlike my former camera. And hopefully, I can take better care of this oneÂ?I already almost dropped it twice. I’m a bit of a techno-clutz.

In other news
I just downloaded Yellowcard’s new album, Lights and Sounds, from iTunes. It’s awesome. There’s definitely been a musical development, this album being a bit more orchestral than their last effort. I could be more articulate about how the band has progressed and such, but it’s late/early, and I’m lazy. It’s just good, is all I can manage to say about it right now. It’s one of those albums you can listen to all the way through and groove to it because all the songs have a decent melody, yet some songs stand out more than others. Oh look. . .I am being a bit more descriptive, let me stop rambling.

I’ve a morning of more internship goodnesss to which to look forward.

^_^