In other news, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich last night that was made with blackberry jam, and it took me back in time to gourmet toast breakfasts with my grandparents. I’ll have to tell you about it someday.
I’ve been living in my new apartment for three days now, and I’m hesitant to write about it, because I’m pretty sure this whole post will come off as obnoxiously gushy. But oh! I can barely contain myself because my new apartment is so much more awesome than my old one and I’m so excited about it.
Before I write any more, though, I have to say that my Very First Apartment was a good one. I learned to love it, and even though the astronomical cost of heating it was a big part of what made me leave, I feel a need to remind myself that my first apartment was not a dump, it was a perfectly wonderful place to live, and it was noteworthy if only because it was just that – my first place. But! Despite the fact that I only moved across the parking lot, into another apartment in the very same building, Apartment the Second is kind of shockingly nicer than the first one. It’s the little things like the lack of water damage, or the missing funny smell in the kitchen, or the fact that the doors shut properly, or the fake-swanky “marble” countertop in the bathroom, or the not-completely-ugly linoleum floors in the kitchen and bathroom, or the simple notion that the doorknobs have been replaced in the last ten years. Being on the second floor is infinitely better than the first floor, and the balcony doesn’t even face a whole bunch of other balconies. I might even use it!
But it’s more than all of that – (and I promise that I know how zen/new-agey this sounds) the feeling in this apartment, the vibe, it’s just more. There’s more light, and air, and I don’t know how to describe it, because the layout is almost entirely the same, but it feels different, better, prettier, homier.
On Saturday I had more people helping me than I could have ever asked for, and I’m BEYOND grateful to each of them for every single thing they carried, put away, every curtain rod they hung up. It was amazing. The next day I just couldn’t believe (a) how much was done in literally less than TWO HOURS, (b) how many things made it from one apartment across the parking lot and up the stairs into the second apartment without touching my hands once, and (c) how much – dare I say it? – FUN it was. Despite the whole drenched-in-sweat part. And the fact that someone moved into the apartment above my old one the same afternoon as I moved out. It just meant a lot to me that so many of the people I care about were able to just be there.
Ugh, it’s too gushy even for me. But it’s all TRUE. Dan kept telling me after it was all over that I just looked HAPPY. And he’s right. I made the right call.
- Yoda and Ewok pez dispensers
- Lenses (just lenses) from the glasses I broke at least five years ago
- A compass. No, not that kind. The kind you use in geometry. It stabbed me.
- The lava lamp that was my most prized birthday gift when I was 14? 15? That I don’t necessarily want but feel guilty getting rid of.
- Awkward college student ID to match the awkward high school student ID I found last time I moved.
- 35mm film camera with film in it; 3 pictures taken who even knows when?
- 12 floppy disks, all labeled with just my name and a number. Helpful!
- The shower curtain we had in our bathroom in college. (Why?)
- Massive key chain collection
- Three sets of caps and gowns. (Again, I saved them because it feels wrong to throw them away; but why on earth would I ever need them?)
- Light purple barrettes with my name on them.
This item on my 28 To Do List was meant to be an ongoing one. This one was meant to inspire me to go on as MANY photo-taking excursions as possible. A week and a half into my 28th year, I think I’m doing pretty darn well. (I’ve also finished rolls on both of my film cameras. While that’s not strictly an excursion, it goes along with the whole spirit of #24, I think.)
Last Friday, Pete, Sheryl and I went out to western NJ to take photos at the 27th Annual New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. We stood at the edge of the farm where she keeps her horses and took pictures through the haze as the balloons inflated and gently rose up and floated away in groups of two and three, until there were well more than 20 visible at once. Hot air balloons are surprisingly soothing, the way they move about so gracefully. It was also almost nostalgic, because my grandmother lives in that general part of New Jersey, and there were times visiting her as a kid that we’d see hot air balloons flying over her house. So that part was cool, too.
Then on Saturday, I met up with a bunch of my flickr friends at Coney Island in Brooklyn, a place I’ve never been, despite hearing about it during Mets games (“The Cyclones are Brooklyn!”). We ate hot dogs at the original Nathan’s, and then walked up and down the boardwalk, taking in the sights, and thousands and thousands of scantily clad people. Then the skies opened up; we heard a wave of screams as the folks on the beach ran toward the boardwalk, and we were all drenched within seconds. (No camera equipment was harmed, thank goodness.) We took cover under a cheery white and red striped tent, splashing in puddles, and once the rain stopped, we recommenced our walking on the boardwalk. We took pictures in a photobooth, we took photos of and with each other, we couldn’t quite understand the wacky weather, and mostly we just enjoyed each other’s company. The weather sucked, yes. My shoes and socks and jeans were still quite damp when I got back. But it was worth it.
And then this past Wednesday, Pete had an extra ticket to see the Daily Show, so we decided to make a photo-taking day of it. Did we realize it was going to rain again? Well, maybe. But we couldn’t let the tickets go to waste, so we brought an umbrella (okay, Pete brought an umbrella; I didn’t want to carry one around so I stuck with my superpowered gor-tex raincoat) and figured we’d suck it up. We went to the Intrepid and managed to take a whole lot of hurried shots as the rain began, trying desperately not to slip on the wet deck of the aircraft carrier. We then headed down to the hangar deck, where the main museumy parts are located. I didn’t bother reading any of the descriptions, but just took pictures of things that looked cool. I also couldn’t help thinking that a visit to the Intrepid would have been just as much fun with my dad, who could have explained all of the planes and helicopters for me. It was an amazing place, even if we did get totally soaked walking over to the Daily Show studio.
So all in all, my first few photo-taking excursions were fantastic. Let’s just hope future ones don’t all involve weird weather and waterlogged sneakers. Seriously.
- Take pictures in a photobooth.
- Visit local breweries.
- Complete the Couch to 5k program for real this time.
- Learn how to knit.
- Bake cupcakes.
- Relax. The real way other people do, instead of the way where I force myself to.
- Take more pictures of people.
- Go on a trip.
- Write a list of 365 things that make me happy.
- Have people over.
- Watch some of those movies everyone thinks I should have seen but I haven’t.
- Have plants. Don’t kill them.
- Finish those damn cross stitches for my mom already!
- Take a good picture of me and Dan.
- Go to as many baseball games as possible.
- Make my new apartment feel like home without spending too much money.
- Don’t let my handwriting go to waste.
- Write 28 lists.
- Spend more time outside.
- Banish my beer-sponsored belly and fit into those skinny jeans after all.
- Learn how to cook at least three new things.
- Say what I think. Ask for what I want.
- Love the people who matter to me.
- Go on interesting photo-taking excursions.
- Take a risk or two.
- Work toward completing a rainbow of shoes.
- Lie in the grass, look at the sky, and feel the wind.
- No really, age is just a number. Grow up. Stay young. Be silly. Talk a lot. Take pictures. Hug more. Be happy.
So back on my 27th birthday, I wrote a list of 27 Things to Do While I Was 27. Yesterday, I finished the minibook I’ve been working on for a few months documenting my progress through the list. Having a list of goals for the year, some silly, others more serious, has been a lot of fun. I didn’t finish everything on the list, and that’s okay. I’m really proud of this little book, and I’m sure I’ll love having it when I’m older as a time capsule chronicling my 27th year.
Because it’s more fun to see the book in person, I’m only posting photos of my very favorite pages here. I blogged about the minibook a few months ago, though, and you can see a few more pages over there. These minibooks are quite possibly the most fun thing to make ever.
If you know me in person, you’re no stranger to my constant, incessant hairstyle polling. “Should I keep my hair long?” “Did you like my hair better when it was short?” “Should I get bangs?” In fact, for quite some time, a now-deleted post on this very website was the number one Google result for “Finola Hughes hairstyle” after I posted a keep it short vs. grow it long poll. Or maybe you’re more familiar with my chronicling of the length of my hair over on flickr.
So given all of that history, I’m totally psyched to share the fact that I’ve been selected as a participant on Hair Thursday! People send in photos of their hair, and Sarah and her team of readers help them decide what style they should try. It’s completely addictive, and I didn’t really ever expect to be selected.
But I was, so head on over to the post and accompanying poll on Hair Thursday and help me decide if I can pull off bangs with my long hair. This is going to be so fun.
So I tried to sneak away in the night a week and a half ago, taking down what little remained of my archives here and redirecting to flickr and/or twitter. Except that the day after I did that, “stopped blogging” officially so I could finally stop feeling guilty about how rarely I write anymore, I had at least three things I wanted to write about. So I’m back. My fake hiatus may have gone largely unnoticed by the interwebs at large, and that’s okay too.
