Filed under: baking, food, holiday, nutella, photography, self-portrait, silliness by ramune

Kisses – People Can Do The Most Amazing Things

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Welcome to another World Nutella Day! This is my third year celebrating World Nutella Day (check out 2009 and 2010) and I think I overdid it a wee bit. I started off by baking extra pizza dough, that I made earlier in the week, into sweet/salty breadsticks (or Nutella Dunkers™) and dunked them into a freshly opened jar of Nutella.

This evening, while at a fancy(pants) restaurant, I slyly wrapped two delicious buns in nakpins and put them in my bag to have for dessert at home . . . with Nutella of course! So delicious.

How did you celebrate World Nutella Day?

Ms Adventures in Italy
Bleeding Espresso

Filed under: food, holiday, nutella, photography, silliness by ramune

Tom Waits – Chocolate Jesus

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It’s that time of year again . . . it’s World Nutella Day! It’s been snowing here most of the day, but I was determined to hunt down the illusive Nutella jar and get its photo (then eat its contents). I found this one attempting to hide in a tree. Busted. Here is last year’s Nutella Day post.

Ms Adventures in Italy
Bleeding Espresso

Filed under: family, friends, holiday, photography, sewing, silliness by ramune

Kasabian – Secret Alphabets

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I hope your Thanksgiving weekend was as delicious and fun as mine was. It’s taken me a while to go through all of my photos from Thanksgiving weekend (and actually I am still not completely done) . . . but here are some of my favorites from the silliness I was up to with the family. When in doubt, go to Carderock.

Sidenote: No one was hurt in the making of these photos . . . except for a few missing limbs by the cleaver (that my great uncle made).

Filed under: collaboration, silliness, words by ramune

I know it’s all trendy to like bacon these days, but when the majority of your nationality’s dishes consist of some kind of pork product, it’s hard not to have had a passion for bacon all your life (note the photo for “Appetizers” in the wikipedia article. Is there any actual meat in that bacon or is it just a slab of fat?). Having said that, I don’t actually eat bacon that often, and usually opt for sausage as a side if I go out for breakfast (picky about bacon). Last week however, my friend Maya invited me along with a few of her friends to a three-course bacon meal. The day of the big meal Maya and I wrote a few bacon haikus. Here they are:

Pre-Bacon Haikus

Bacon, thick and crisp
Artery-clogging goodness
My reason to live
-Maya

Oh happy piglet
Sorry you are so tasty
Get in my belly
-Ramune

Post-Bacon Haikus

Oh bacon coma
Delectable salty dreams
Please pass the water
-Maya

Lifespan cut in half
No need to find a job now
Thanks tasty piglet
-Ramune

Filed under: friends, photography, silliness by ramune

You might be wondering why I call this blog “every.seven” when it’s more like “every.whenever I get around to it” but I do have good intentions and hope to get better about posting when I say I am going to post. Have faith in me.

Anyway . . . the other weekend I went up to Connecticut for my friend’s wedding v2.0. Her husband’s family wanted to have a second reception so they could include more family/friends. We have now decided to take this show on the road and will be coming to a city near you.

After the reception, while hanging out outside the restaurant when the sun went down, I introduced my friends to a little game that has no name yet, so I just call it “1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . POSE!” Years back when I was living in Louisiana, a friend taught a group of us this game and it has been a big hit ever since (Thanks Julie!). The idea is very simple: you get a group (or just one other person) ready, setup your camera, say “1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . ” and shout an animal (popular ones tend to be alligator, bear, shark . . .), then the group poses quickly and you take the photo. It’s a lot of fun and people get really into it (I don’t care for the term “ice breaker,” but it works well as one). We continued the game into the night and took well over 100 photos that ranged from animals (alligator, octopus, toucan . . .) to people and actions like superhero, lead guitarist, blind ballerina and giving birth. Good times were had by all.

I did a search on my computer for songs titled “Alligator” and found this little ditty by Grizzly Bear . . . enjoy.

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Filed under: food, photography, silliness by ramune

February 5th, 2009 is World Nutella Day! Unfortunately I only found this out at 2:30 PM today, but I still had enough time to run out and buy myself a jar of Nutella (I know . . . how could I not already have a case in the pantry?). Initially I had grand visions of dunking my face in a vat (or a smaller vessel for practical purposes) of the amazing hazelnutty chocolaty goodness, but due to plans for the evening (not a wise decision to show up to dinner with a face covered in Nutella . . . or is it?) I decided to share my love with Bobute, who has traveled the world (well only Europe so far) with me. Normally she has Black Raspberry ice cream but for this special day she switched it up and got a special treat.

I was not the only one celebrating World Nutella Day though, Samer actually took my idea and put it to use. If you are on the East Coast you only have another 20 minutes of World Nutella Day, so find the nearest Nutella jar and start scooping.

02.09.09 UPDATE – My entry made it onto the World Nutella Day 2009 roundup!

Filed under: favorites, friends, holiday, photography, silliness by ramune

Happy 2009! Here is my friend “Silly Bob” on New Year’s Eve. She was attempting to do the ol’ push the nose up and pull the cheeks down face. I really love how this fisheye (or as my brother calls “fishbowl”) shot came out. The sparkly shirt with a little bit of blue background all surrounded in a thick blackness just makes the shot for me . . . not to mention her silly face.

All the best to everyone in 2009. If you made resolutions I hope you can stick to them (at least for the first month or so). Other than the usual things I am always trying to improve, I would like to not mull so much. My mother claims that this is just a trait of Aquarians and that’s just the way I am . . . I guess that means I have to work a bit harder at it.

Other than resolutions, these are my hopes for 2009:

1. Get a full-time job that I love (or at least gives me the time and energy needed to work on point 2)
2. Get fig.ments going, have a place where I can house a kiln and sell my goods.
3. Move . . . somewhere, anywhere (well maybe not anywhere, but I am open)
4. Travel overseas. I have made it a point to leave the country every year and fully intend to do so this year. Last year’s destination was Canada, which is somewhat cheating but it was way the heck up there so I think that counts. I would like to visit “Silly Bob” in Shanghai before she leaves, so that might be in the cards. Maybe not this year, but Argentina, Chile and Antarctica are at the top of my list for sometime in the next . . . 5 years?
5. This is about to turn into a list of things I want to do before I die, so I will stop here.

Filed under: collaboration, favorites, photography, silliness by ramune

Attempting to break into National Airport?

The other week when I went to my friends’ Christmas dinner party I got a lomo fisheye camera from my secret santa (Brandy). I was pretty thrilled and have had a chance to play around with it. Normally I post smaller images but I could not help posting these ones large, I think they are so much fun. The ones on this page are from this past Saturday, but you can see more in my Fisheye set on Flickr.

Have a fantastic New Years and see you back here in 2009!

My sister looking “troubled”

Filed under: animation, collaboration, silliness by ramune

Since I have been behind on the posts and it is the last day of the year, I am updating twice so that I can start 2009 on track. This past Saturday my sister, brother and I went to Gravely Point by National Airport with my dad and his wife. What usually ends up happening is we watch the planes for a bit, walk around and then we take random photos of us either frolicking or doing handstands. This time I tried to get a photo of my brother doing a handstand and my sister doing a cartwheel simultaneously with an airplane coming down to land at National Airport. It isn’t meant to be a smooth stop motion animation, it’s more just to show the progression of the motions.

Filed under: collaboration, photography, silliness, travel by ramune

Eeek, I am late late late. In fact as of today I owe three projects! Here is one that I meant to post last weekend but then the week came upon me and before I knew it it was Sunday again and I missed my deadline. So here we go (and with 9 minutes until September) . . .

My sister (being the amazingly talented book binder/conservator/master of all things book and paper related person that she is) has agreed to make me a portfolio case. So the other week I went up to NYC for a few days to pick out leather from Talas and approve the mock up she put together. I am looking forward to having it all done and ready for interviews since all I have now is my online portfolio. Once it’s all put together I will be sure to post it, however that is not what this post is about. This post is about what happened after I bought the leather from Talas.

After Talas and a tasty sandwich, we drove up to Storm King (an hour or so north of NYC) and walked around the park. It was a beautiful day (is anyone else amazed at how mild this August has been?) and although we did not have enough time to bring a picnic, relax and draw, we did have time to walk around half of the park and take some silly photos. A lot of the sculptures are not necessarily my favorite stylistically but it’s great to be surrounded by massive pieces of art out in nature. My favorite was probably the Andy Goldsworthy wall, but I am not as thrilled about the photos I took of it. I guess I will have to go back and take more some other time when the lighting is not quite as harsh.

Below are a few highlights from the day. As usual you can see more here. If you are in or around NYC I recommend packing a picnic and spending some time there. It’s also not far from Dia:Beacon, which I have not visited yet but hope to soon(ish).

With my bare hands I was able to hold the massive steel sculpture “Pyramidian,” by Mark di Suvero.

Balancing “Pyramidian” in the palm of her hands

This is what happens when the tram drivers get out of control. Casualties occur.

My head hurts