Category Archives: UnProfessional Photography & Artwork

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!

Posted on September 25, 2012 by funnygurl2

I flippin’ love this picture!

I totally love this picture of my son. But alas, I seem to be the only one who sees the ultimate beauty and meaning in it. It was taken of my son playing in a gazebo when we visited the Huckleberry Railroad and Crossroads Village earlier this year (for more info on that adventure, click here.)

I took the picture with my old 5 megapixel camera. But I totally love that camera. The sun was shining, so I couldn’t even really tell what I was getting as it was hard to see my LCD screen.

The picture turned out so stinking well!!! The steps draw you in. They are wonderfully aged and crisp white at the same time. The railing and even the beams of the ceiling draw you in to the picture as they head for their unseen point of convergence. (And looking at it I don’t even think about how many bee’s nests are up in the rafters, although I did think that when I was there in person.) The plant life is so green and well balanced. I love the hint of yellow in the upper right corner. Except for the clothing, this picture could have been taken a hundred years ago, or yesterday. (Timeless.) I especially like that you can’t see any hint of his diaper between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his shorts.

I had an 8″ X 10″ made of this photo. (As a print, all the colors and objects totally pop.) I put it in a matted frame. I feel like the picture should come with a great quote about climbing into your future or stepping into your life. (I Googled. I couldn’t find one:( The image just represents so much for me. I see it as my son aging with each step he climbs. And I am so thankful for that, especially after having the same major surgery twice in 2011. He is stepping up into a world of endless possibilities.

It also looks like it could be used for a motivational poster in a corporate office. It would have to have a motto like “No progress is made until we take the first step”, or something boring like that.

I know years from now, he will be all grown up and I will look at that picture and wonder what happened to that little boy. My little boy.

I also think the picture looks like one that might come in a picture frame when you buy it (except then it would probably be black and white–Oooooo. How good would that picture look in black and white?!!) I strive in life for things like that–to meet the standard of consumerism. I sometimes make dinner and try to get it to look like a restaurant meal when it hits the plate or table. I even do it with simple things. I love getting a dill pickle spear with my sandwich at a restaurant, but normally don’t think to add it to my plate with my chips unless I am thinking with the “restaurant” state-of-mind.

It turns out black and white didn’t rock, but blue-tint is awesome!


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Museum of Spam?

Posted on September 5, 2012 by funnygurl2

Behold, The Spam Museum!


In 2004, my husband and I were trying to buy our house. (Yes, as you may guess, it is now valued well below what we paid for it.) The sellers had accepted our offer and we were waiting to hear on a closing date. We were already approved for our mortgage. So what is a couple to do? Take a trip out West for a week!

It was the most ambitious trip we have taken to date. We left Michigan by car ferry into Wisconsin. We toured a submarine. We played at Lake Winnebago (Maybe I will write another post on that someday). We camped every other night in our Pontiac Aztek (with optional tent) and stayed in hotels the rest. We panned for gold. We saw the Badlands. We saw the world’s largest prairie dog. We went all the way to Mt. Rushmore. While Mt. Rushmore was awesome, that is not what we remember most from that trip. We remember the fun we had at the Spam Museum.

The Spam Museum is located in Austin, Minnesota. (I always have to think Austin, Texas to remember the name of the town.) We heard about it because my husband saw a brochure at a freeway welcome center. He insisted that we needed to go. I was very reluctant, as I usually am (sometimes unfairly) of his suggestions. I think he probably purposely steered our route through the town of Austin just so we could go there. And we had a flippin’ blast.

The Hormel factory (makers of Spam) is in Austin. The Spam Museum is next door. Now, I was there 8 years ago. So, if you travel there upon my recommendation, please realize some of my information could be dated.

Spam Museum parking lot


The parking lot spaces were all painted with the Spam logo. A giant metal statue of a farmer and a pair of pigs stood outside the front door. We walked in not knowing what to expect.

Spammy, the Spam Mascot


We were first welcomed by a statue of the Spam mascot, Spammy. He invited us to take a picture with him. There was also a giant floor-to-ceiling wall of Spam. There was a short movie that plays about the history of Spam. There were audio clips and memorabilia from pop culture and historical (war) references to Spam as well. There was a hands-on area that was quite fun. You could dress up like a worker at the Spam factory. You could see how fast you could can Spam (not real Spam, but a Spam-colored bean bag). My husband and I ran around and laughed our heads off.

Can you spot the “fake” Spam worker?


They have a huge gift shop at the museum where you can buy almost anything you can imagine, embelized with the Spam logo. We bought a T-shirt, and of course, some Spam. We ate it that night for dinner while we camped at Lake Mitchell (home of the Corn Palace). It totally cured my usual issue of vacation constipation.

Su-eeey!


We have never forgotten the Spam Museum. We are not real big Spam eaters. My husband will have it occasionally. I mostly love the kitsch factor of it. My husband outgrew the original Spam shirt, so I ordered him a new one from the Spam website (and a pair of sweatpants) for Christmas one year. He handed down the original shirt to me, which, being 8 years old, has now been sewn up about 10 times. Last year, I bought my son his very own Spam shirt for Christmas. We usually do not wear them all at the same time, but someday I would like to get a family picture taken that way. It would be wonderfully cheesy. And maybe we would end up on Ellen or something. Maybe that could be our Christmas card this year. People might think we are weird. But those who know us well already know we are weird.

Our collection of family Spam shirts


A few years ago, we went to a friend’s wedding in Minneapolis. We were right near the Spam Museum and hoping for a return visit. But we were on a tight schedule and the timing just wasn’t right. Man, just writing this, I yearn for another long, leisurely vacation like that one we took out West. We really had no plan when we began, but it turned out nicely. It would probably be a very different experience taking the little one along.

Cute lil’ Spam boy!


So, if you find yourself in Southern Minnesota, for a good time look up the Spam Museum:)

The Spam Museum
1101 N Main St
Austin MN 55912
800-LUV-SPAM

The End


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What I Learned This Week – 8/26/12

Posted on August 26, 2012 by funnygurl2

I learned that it is awesome to have an anniversary date with my husband with NO CHILD with us! We haven’t both been out together without him since before he was conceived (well, I guess the first 40 weeks don’t count). He is 21 months old…TODAY! I felt rushed, because we had to get back before he fell asleep (we failed). But we had a great time.

Thanks again to LazyHippieMama for babysitting.

I also learned that it is awesome to go on a family play day out together (along with our favorite little blue engine). We went to Day Out With Thomas at the Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad in Flint, Michigan.

When I was a kid, we had a brochure in my house for Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad, that we had picked up on some vacation Up North. I used to stare at that brochure and wish we could go there. How sad is that? At that time I had never been on a full-size train ride and had not been pulled by a steam engine. I have done both those things in the almost 30 years since. But, I had still never gone to Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad. I sort of assumed they had gone out of business, because railroads have expensive upkeep.

Then last summer a friend of mine recommended this Thomas event. I figured that my son was sort of too young to get it last year, so we didn’t go. But this year we went. And WE HAVE CREATED A MONSTER! My son can’t say “Thomas” or “train”, but he sure did say “toot-toot” a lot. I witnessed the awesome power of licensed characters and the merchandising machine first hand. But we all had great fun. And the village had lots more to do than I would have thought. We didn’t arrive til 11am, and I felt rushed. We didn’t get to see it all.

When we got home, my son grabbed all his Thomas and Friends books and looked at them more carefully than before, no doubt remembering his awesome day. At least he isn’t old enough to ask for a trip to the Island of Sodor yet.

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Wedding Jeans

Posted on August 23, 2012 by funnygurl2

The gazebo in the park we got married at

As a general rule, I do not wear dresses. Or skirts, for that matter. I don’t wear them on a normal day, to work, or to job interviews. The one exception I make is to wear them to weddings. Other people’s weddings. Not my own. Intrigued? Read on…(And no, I did not get married in the nude!)

My then-boyfriend and I had talked about marriage, but he wasn’t ready to propose to me yet. At twenty-four, he still felt he was too young to get married. But I was still thinking about my wedding, anyway. I was not one of those girls who day dreamed about her wedding for years and what white poofy dress she would wear. Nope. I think about high school age I decided my dream wedding would be to get married in Las Vegas by Elvis. I am still waiting for that wedding. *sigh*

So although my boyfriend hadn’t proposed to me, I was still wondering what I would wear to my own wedding. I knew a big white dress was out. I must have thought “If only I could just wear jeans”. And that is how the “wedding jeans” were born.

Reception


Do you remember how I like unusual sewing projects, such as the pharmacy giraffe, Christmas stockings, and the Werecart? Well, you can add wedding jeans to that list too. I bought all the white patches I could find. Most featured flowers or hearts. I put them on the legs and back pockets of the jeans. Then I bought thin white ribbon and iridescent seed beads. I sewed the ribbon along the tops of the pockets, and down the side seams of both legs. Then I sewed the seed beads on top of the ribbon. By hand. Sewing through a denim seam is no picnic. I bent several needles in the process.

Now, when I started this project, I kept saying I wasn’t really going to wear the jeans for my wedding. But once my future husband saw them being made and how cool they were, he told me I had to wear them. That he would make me. It is a good thing I started them like 6 months before he proposed, because I think I worked on them for a year. I had them ready a few months before we were married. My jeans were a little too big. Which was unfortunate, because I couldn’t try to wash and shrink them now, as it would have ruined the decorations. So I made a white and yellow ribbon braided belt for them. Sort of dorky, but it did the job.

Now, the hard part was finding a shirt to wear with it. I pictured something white and billowy, sort of like a pirate would wear. Not my usual style, but it was for my wedding day. I bought three different white shirts and I was unhappy with all of them. I ended up wearing just a plain white T-shirt. (I am still looking for the perfect shirt to this day. And if I found it I just might buy it.) On my feet I wore my favorite sandals–pretty basic, brown leather. In my hair, I had baby’s breath put into a half a French braid. The bottom of my hair was curled and hung free.

Ta-Da! The Wedding Jeans. (Front View)


On our invitations, we put “Casual Attire Suggested”. We had our wedding and reception outdoors in August, so it was a little warm. It was a sunny day, no rain. My husband wore a gray shirt and black pants. My bridesmaid wore a denim skirt. We got married in a city part that was just a block from our apartment. (We walked to our own wedding.) We had our reception in my mother-in-law’s backyard, with hamburgers and hot dogs. I didn’t have to worry about changing my clothes or “bustling” anything. I didn’t have to worry about wardrobe malfunctions (although I am sure that I probably worried anyway). In our wedding pictures, my husband and I have genuine toothy smiles, not the kind we usually give for pictures where we keep our mouths closed to hide our crooked teeth. All out smiles.

Wedding Jeans (Rear View)…Hey, quit staring at my ass!


My advice to anyone is to have your wedding your way. And ask for lots of help. I tried to do too much on my own. No one ever said a word about my wedding jeans. Which means either everyone liked them or knew how to be polite. What happened to Vegas, you ask? Well, we didn’t have our wedding there because my husband wanted his family to be able to come and they could not have all made it to Vegas. So my plan was that we would go to Vegas to get our vows renewed for our 5 year anniversary. Didn’t happen. But we should definitely go do it for our ten year anniversary–8/23/2013.

HAPPY 9th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TODAY TO MY HUSBAND!

Who doesn’t read my blog, but he supports me writing it, which may be even better.

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Poop Voucher

Posted on August 16, 2012 by funnygurl2

It is just something my husband started.

He would be looking for me in the house and I would be in the bathroom and he would say through the door,”Are you pooping again? Do you have a poop voucher for that?”

What is a poop voucher? I asked myself and him the same question. It is just some imaginary tool he invented to torture me with. So, then I played the game to try and get back at him.

“Are you pooping? You used up all your poop vouchers for this week (or month, etc.),” I would hassle him.

“I am borrowing from next week,” he would reply, or something equally smart ass.

There is no strict allowance or number of vouchers that you get for a time period. Because poop vouchers are entirely imaginary.

Until now.

Behold, the Poop Voucher!


In order to get back at my husband, I spent one night designing an actual poop voucher, according to what it looks like in my head. (My husband fell asleep that night before I got it done to show him.)

The next morning I showed him, and he insisted we make copies. He wanted them big. I wanted them small. I printed off a small batch and a medium batch before we felt like it was a waste of printer ink.

My husband made up some lame, arbitrary rules (he says “overly complicated and unnecessary rules”) for how to use them. Like the big vouchers could only be used Thursday through Monday, except on birthdays, religious holidays, anniversaries, reunions, etc. The little vouchers could only be used Tuesday through Monday 1:15PM EST until 11:31AM PST, with the same exceptions, also excepting February 29th of leap years and the first Thursdays of the month. (No pooping on birthdays? That’s harsh. I guess I know what I will wish for when I blow out the candles.) I laughed til I cried and told him there was no way that I could remember all that.

After my son carried a few vouchers around the house, I realized how very not water-resistant poop vouchers are. Then I laminated them with packing tape. (Yes, I realize at this point I have spent an unusually long amount of time on a product that is just an inside joke between my husband and I. But it makes for a great blog, don’t you think?)

Laminated Poop Vouchers. That is a lot of steaming piles of poo…


There is still no hard and fast number of poop vouchers to be allotted each week. We did agree as long as my son is in diapers, he is off the voucher system. We still have no collection arrangement for them–although I think my son’s shape sorter might handle this job nicely. I asked my husband just today when he came out of the bathroom,”Hey, did you use a poop voucher?”

Possible voucher collection device


“It’s in the living room,” he replied.

Why has the legend of the poop voucher persisted in our household?

I think it all comes down to the fact that it just sounds funny to say “poop voucher”. Heeheehee.

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