Amazing Sand Art!

Get this: today I stumbled on (literally, found using Stumble Upon) an article about sand artists' abilities to render human emotions in sand form. As someone whose childhood sand art consisted of essentially bucket "towers", this blows my mind. They're so realistic! And there's something to be said of artists who slave over these creations for hours, despite knowing that they'll eventually get washed away.

Have you ever seen sand art like this? You can check out the rest of the article (with more pictures!) here.

(PS: I know this is another late post. I hope that you all can please bear with me while I transition into having two jobs taking over my time. Once I get into the swing of things, posting should become less sporadic).

Images via Woman's Day (see link).

Summer Reading List

One of the best parts of summer is that I no longer have a huge pile of required class readings to do. Three months of reading things because I want to, not because I have to, is sheer bliss.

You can see the beginnings of my summer reading list, above. I like to create a big list every summer and see how far I get by fall.

My list so far:

• The Golden Road: Notes on my Gentrification by Caille Millner
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (this one has been on my list for a looong time)
• Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine (and I thought a 3-month spending hiatus was a long time!)
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel

What's on your summer reading list, and what do you think of mine?

Images via barnesandnoble.com

First Jobs

For the past couple of weeks I have been looking hard for a part time summer job, and this past weekend I got hired on at a department store. So it's no wonder that lately I've been thinking about some of the jobs I've held in the past.

My very first job was at Steve and Barry's, a large discount store that sold clothes and shoes, with everything being below $20. I spent entire days folding clothes, making displays look neat, and picking up after messy shoppers (fact: women are slobs when they shop). It wasn't my favorite job, but it did pay for gas and nights out with friends AND I got a 30% discount so pretty much all of my clothes for a year there were bought at Steve and Barry's. The chain finally went out of business last year, though, about a year after I left to go to college.

After Steve and Barry's, I spent a summer pulling weekend shifts with my sister at a dinky little diner that specialized in all-you-can-eat spaghetti and Yum-Yums (ice cream sundaes, essentially). Then I got a job as a lab assistant in my university's medical center, where I still work. And now I'm back to retail, albeit at a much nicer store where things generally cost a good deal more than $20. Guess I'm moving up in the world, right?

Where was your first job? Restaurant? Clothing store? Alpaca farm?

Image via bloggingstocks.com

Thursday Bullets

• It's Thursday and I just got done with finals week yesterday. Two tests and one giant paper later, I'm feeling pretty tuckered out. Tuckered out enough to miss blogging for a day and a half, heh.
  
• On the other hand- it's officially summer break for me! I don't have classes or papers or homework to deal with until September! So hopefully you all can forgive me for my sporadic blogging if I promise to throw in a few extra posts over the summer?
• Summer doesn't mean I get to be lazy. Instead, it means that I have to find a (second) summer job stat if I want to pay my rent. I've got my first job interview Saturday afternoon- wish me luck!
• I want an Organic Chocolate Trio from farmsteadorganic's Etsy shop. Organic chocolate fudge goat milk soap, chocolate body balm, and chocolate lip balm. Sounds good enough to eat (not that I'd recommend it).
  
• I have a giant hot fudge sundae in front of me instead.
  
• I just realized that the first ingredient on my hot fudge is not chocolate, as you might expect, but high fructose corn syrup. That can't be good.
• I couldn't come up with a good picture for this post, so I stuck one of a cute girl from The Sartorialist up there. On a related note, I really wish I was as cute/hip/pretty as anyone that makes it onto The Sartorialist.
  
• That's about all I can think about right now (post-exam brain freeze). I'll be back in normal blogging mode again tomorrow though! :)

How has your week been going?

Image via The Sartorialist.

Let's Go On a Picnic!

(via Real Simple)

Random, but lately I've been thinking a lot about picnics. Maybe it's the warm weather, but I really want to grab some friends and a big blanket and settle down in the park for sun, company, and of course some delicious food.

So let's have a fantasy blog picnic today. I'll be bringing stuffed peppers. Don't they look tasty? (I found the recipe here.) What are you going to bring? And remember, it's a fantasy picnic, so we can bring anything!

If someone wants to bring this cake I'd be cool with that.

Omigosh peanut butter-( via Cup of Jo, via You Are My Fave)

Monday Random List

I can't think of too many intelligent things to say on a Monday after 4 hours of sleep. So here's a bunch of stuff that I've been thinking about instead :)

My walls are feeling a little naked lately, so I've been eyeballing all sorts of art that I'd like to see up there. I love this Red Wattlebird print from Etsy.
Summer is coming, and I am sans air conditioning. I'm going to need more fans (and this vintage one looks way cooler than my ugly plastic dustcatchers).
Whenever I go to Aveda to get my hair cut, one of my favorite parts is the delicious herbal tea they serve there. My only beef is that they only give you a teeny little dixie cup's worth. Now I can get 4.9oz of it (!) off of their website.
They need to make more moisturizers with high SPF. Preferably ones that won't make me look like I dunked my face in oil. This Aveeno one is promising, but it only has SPF 15, which is not going to work for this pasty white girl. The search continues.
In addition to the perfect sunblock, I've been searching high and low for the perfect white casual dress that I can wear with flipflops all summer long. This Modcloth one was in the running because of the cute stripes on the skirt, but unfortunately it's sold out.

All images via their respective websites (see links).

Surprising Clearance Dresses

I must be in a shopping mood today, given my earlier post on colorful coats and now this one.

But I saw these two dresses while flipping through the interwebs and just had to share, as both are from places I don't normally look for inexpensive dresses.

via urbanoutfitters.com

I love all the cute, hip clothes at Urban Outfitters but I feel like a lot of their dresses are a wee bit overpriced. At $25 (on clearance), though, this pretty Kimchi Blue Graphica dress is a steal. They show it with tights, but I'd wear it with flat sandals on warm spring/summer days.

via Alloy.com

And while I know Alloy has great clearances, I have always thought that they were a little bit teeny bopper for my taste. Then one of my friends suggested I take a second look, and I found this cute metallic stripe jumper. It has a sexy/girly feel that wouldn't look totally out of place on someone outside of Jr. High- and it's on clearance for less than $20.

Lesson learned: keep your options open. You never know where you'll find things you love.

Lakeside Vacay Photos

I'm really tired today and didn't have time to come up with a good blog topic so here are some photos from my summer vacation. Last June we went to Lakeside, Oh which is off of Lake Erie. It's this beautiful little town where we rented an above-the-garage apartment and basically relaxed for a long weekend. Very quiet and peaceful.

The lake at sunset.



Along the lake there were all these rocks with little pink/red flowers growing between them. It was a great place to sit and think.

I was lovin' on these glasses from the gift shop. Mostly because they lit up.

If you're ever looking for a place to go that's quaint, peaceful, and not too expensive then Lakeside is a nice one. The town is full of old houses that people rent out and there's a really great old hotel there that would also be a lot of fun to stay in. They're also really close to the Put 'n Bay ferry for what that's worth (you can go get sloshed on cheap wine and not have to pay the ridiculous B&B prices at the island).

Of course, I look back on it fondly now that it's winter and miserable outside but during our vacation it was of course like 94 degrees constantly. Funny how memory works- 95 doesn't sound so bad when it's 15.