Monsters and Fires and Popcorn, Oh My!

Today was much more eventful than I initially thought it would be.  Around lunchtime, my Dad announced he was taking my younger siblings to see Monsters University, and I decided to come too, as I've been pretty excited about it, being both a major Disney fan and a fan of Monsters Inc itself.

So, I settled in with my family and my super nutritional lunch of popcorn and m&ms to watch a delightful movie.  We got a little over halfway through, when suddenly the lights came back on.  We didn't really know what was going on, thinking it was just a malfunction.  But then there was a faint blaring (the monsters were roaring so it was hard to tell) and people started leaving the theatre.  Turns out the fire alarm was going off.  Exciting stuff!

Well, we all gathered outside the theatre and waited for the firetrucks to show up.  There wasn't a fire, which luckily was very clear the entire time, so nobody panicked.  Turns out one of the air conditioners was malfunctioning.  Eventually the firemen checked everything out and declared it safe, so we went back in to finish the movie.

For the rest of the movie, the lights kept starting to come back on, but every time I would whisper "Stop," and, much to my surprise, they listened to me.  This seemed to amuse my Dad and brother very much.

So, my opinion of the movie.  I, personally, really liked the movie.  It was adorable and funny and sweet, and presented a really great back story leading up to Monsters Inc.  The story line didn't turn out as predictable as I thought it would be, and everything seemed to tie in well with the original movie.  It was particularly interesting to see the characters develop and become the personalities we know and love.  I certainly recommend it to any Disney fans or kids at heart.  (And adults and actual kids too.  It's just a great movie for everyone.)

Me and Violette.  I admit I look not-so-great in this picture, but I didn't get any sleep last night--stupid insomnia--and didn't put all that much effort into looking cute, as I was just sitting in a dark theatre where no one could see me.

The summary of my day:  I was going to watch a movie, but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Just Another Day at Work

I have the greatest summer job.  Ever.  I work for my Nana and Papa.  Papa is a mechanic and owns his own business, conveniently located at his house.  During the summer, my sister and I work there.  We don't actually work in the garage, as I know next to nothing about cars, but we work more for my Nana.  Our job entails a ton of different things, including cooking, cleaning, gardening, running errands, doing taxes, sorting paper work, and doing any other odd jobs that crop up.

Us last summer at work.

The downside is that their house doesn't have air conditioning.  Have you ever tried cooking in an un-air conditioned kitchen in 95 degree weather?  I think everyone should try it at least once, just so they can fully appreciate air conditioning.  One of our main concerns during the hottest parts of the summer is making sure the guys at the garage don't die of heat stroke.  We make sure they have a cooler full of ice water and we take them lemonade and occasionally ice cream during the afternoons.

The odd jobs are definitely the most diverse, including decorating an apartment, beautifying a brick (I wasn't there for that one), defrosting the freezer (multiple times), re-bricking the sunroom, sorting and documenting the entire inventory of car parts (which included three days in the tin storage unit with no air conditioning during the hottest part of the summer), typing and organizing hundreds of recipes, covering the inside of a barn with tulle, installing air conditioners, and a ton of other random things.

We also have lots of fun, of course.  Last summer, I made a sword out of insulation board, and a couple days ago we climbed out on the roof and discovered the joys of shade-bathing.  It's like sun-bathing for pale people who hate the sun.  And we often burst out in song and dance while washing dishes or making lunch.  (Or when grocery shopping, which gets us weird looks sometimes.)

Shade bathing on the roof.

One of the most useful skills I've learned from this job is how to cook.  Unfortunately, I've only learned how to cook for large groups.  We make lunch every day for about a dozen people:  the three of us, eight guys who work at the garage (and they eat a ton), the new intern, and occasionally others who wander in, usually Mom or various Aunts or Uncles.  Many of the things we make don't really have recipes, so I only learned how to make them in the large quantities we use.  One of my favorites is a delicious pasta salad with pepperoni, Greek dressing, kalamata olives, feta cheese, and other yummy stuff.  During the school year, I'll make the pasta salad and have enough to take it for lunch for an entire week, and eat it for breakfast every day.  It's a good thing I never get sick of it.

Lunch today!  We had a Greek theme, with a salad filled with delicious kalamata olives, artichokes, and Greek dresssing, chicken with Greek seasoning, and homemade spanakopita!  The spanakopita took a ton of work, but it turned out wonderful!

Given the fact that I end every day sweaty and gross, I love any opportunity in the summer to dress up and look cute.  I had a lovely opportunity today, when I went shopping and hung out with my friend Eleanore before she leaves for a trip to Hawaii.  It was great fun, and there was much craziness, as there always is when we're together.

So, after this long explanation of my work, I actually won't even be back at work for a while.  I'm heading off to a writing camp for two weeks and I'm really excited!  I love writing, so spending two weeks doing just that, though the thought made my friends cringe, sounds like so much fun!

I hope everyone else is having a great summer, too!

Happy St. Audrey Day!

Guess what today is!  It's St. Audrey Day!  This isn't quite so significant in the US, but in France at least, your saint day is kind of like your second birthday.  I had no idea there even was a St. Audrey until one year I was in France with my grandparents and their friends surprised me with a cake on St. Audrey Day.  I'm not actually doing anything exciting for St. Audrey Day (I'm basically just drinking tea and watching X-Files), so I'll tell you about my more exciting time yesterday.

Big Sis and Olivia

Yesterday I went to a graduation party for a very wonderful person, Olivia, who I've known pretty much my entire life.  I had a wonderful time hanging out with some of my very favorite people all evening.  There were many laughs and much random dancing and singing.

My friend, who has elected to be called Tallulah, and I can never be serious in pictures.

Actually, none of us can ever be serious in pictures.

Frisbee Golf in the rain!

Funny faces are half the fun!

Sam's Frisbee throwing skills are greatly in doubt.

We all had lots of fun despite the rainy weather.  And, of course, the food was all delicious, home-cooked goodness.  Unfortunately, my parents couldn't come because my little sister was sick. 

As usual, at some point my phone disappeared and I got it back a while later with lots of selfies of Tallulah making funny faces.  I've decided that I should start compiling my favorites in preparation for Tallulah's graduation party in a few years.  She's probably got a good number of funny pictures of me, too.

Sam moseying along in the rain.  We all stayed resolutely on the cabin porch when the downpour started, until they announced there was food, at which point Tallulah decided we should brave the rain as nothing would keep her from the food.

Is there anything better than spending an evening with friends?  And I have the great luck to be friends with some of the most amusing people in the world.  My siblings are also amusing, so we all have great fun together.

I hope you all have a fabulous St. Audrey Day, whether or not your name is Audrey. 

Seeing the World through {Purple} Colored Glasses

I love sewing.  I'm not the best at it, and my sewing machine likes to freak out at me, but I still love sewing.  My Nana is the one who taught me to sew, and we always have a ton of fun together sewing fun dresses.  (Though, admittedly, she does most of the sewing and I generally do most of the cutting-things-out.)

The other day, I had a random urge to look at some sewing patterns, only to find that the website (McCalls, Butterick, and Vogue) was having a huge sale!  And by huge, I mean nothing was over four bucks, and most of the patterns I got were under $2.  So I bought 15 patterns.  I was actually going to buy 16, but the shipping went up $8, so I had to decide which I liked more: the somewhat more practical blazer, or the completely awesome Renaissance style dress.  The Renaissance gown won, of course.

The patterns arrived yesterday and I am so insanely excited!

A lot of the patterns I got are from the vintage collections, and are original patterns from the '50s.  I can't wait until I find time and fabric to make some of these dresses!

This is one of my favorites, and also one I'm not sure I'll ever have the occasion or the fabric to complete, but why not have it on hand anyway?  If I get my way, I will definitely attend a ball at some point in my life.

This pattern might be my absolute favorite.  It has so much potential!  I also now have an assortment of historical dress patterns and a brilliant pattern for super fun full-skirted aprons.  (I adore aprons and am building a collection.)

And there's more exciting news as well!  I got glasses!  I'm still trying to get used to them, as I've never had glasses before.  My family, who have all had glasses for years, made fun of me because I was constantly raising and lowering my glasses trying to see the difference.  (It's a very slight prescription, basically just a magnifying glass for far away objects.)

I'm actually quite pleased with how my glasses look, as I should be, considering I spent over an hour trying on almost every pair of frames at the eye doctor's.  The only thing I really don't like are the nose pieces, because, as I'm not used to wearing glasses, I keep putting them on my head and getting them caught in my hair.  I guess eventually I'll get used to it.  I really wanted some Ray-Ban, hipster-type glasses, because I think they look awesome, but they didn't look good on me.

In other exciting news, my parents recently informed us that we're going to Disney World this Christmas break!  I cannot even begin to explain how super excited I am!  I don't really remember much from our last trip to Disney, about six years ago.  To make things even more exciting, we're also visiting Harry Potter World!  There is so much excitement I can't even contain it!

I've decided that I want to make Disney princess outfits to wear at Disney, because I think it's silly that generally only little kids dress up.  I'm definitely thinking about a Merida dress (I have a medieval dress pattern), a provincial Belle outfit (my favorite princess!), an Alice dress, and shortened versions of Ariel's pink dress and maybe Cinderella's dress.

I found a thing online that matches the different Myers-Briggs personality types with Disney characters.  I am the same personality type as Belle, my older sister is Tiana, my brother is Roger from 101 Dalmations, and my little sister is Peter Pan.  I was more interested in the fact that Sarah (older sis) is the exact opposite of Jack Sparrow and Sam (brother) is the opposite of Gaston.

Well, that's all the interesting things I can think of for today.  Have a lovely weekend!

Older and Wiser

Hello again!  The big excitement this week has been me getting my wisdom teeth out.  I have one word to describe the experience: Ouch!  I got them out last Monday, and I'm doing much better since then, but I can still only eat soft food and can't touch the sides of my mouth.

I don't remember much of the actual process of getting them out, thank goodness!  I vaguely remember someone helping me to the car and seeing double the whole way home.  Mom has filled me in a bit since then.  Apparently I was weeping when she came in to get me after the surgery.  I can sort of remember the nurse telling Mom the anesthesia would make me weepy, but I don't remember actually crying. 

Also, on the way home Mom says I continually poked myself in the eye.  I think I was trying to cover one eye at a time because of the double vision, but wasn't coordinated enough.  I was also mumbling very quietly, because I had very important things to tell Mom, though they didn't really make any sense.  Mom says this was actually pretty funny, though I remember being very successful with the talking and covering my eyes.

Anyway, I got home, curled up on the couch, and proceeded to watch five Disney movies in a row.  I remember being pretty pitiful.  My brother and sister went to the mall and made me a Build-a-Bear, which was very sweet.  It's a Time Lord Bear with two hearts, and when you squeeze her hand, she says "I love you."  I named her Andromeda, and I carried her everywhere with me for the first few days of my recovery.

I've gotten much better in the past week, so my advice to anyone getting their wisdom teeth out is to just stick it out and know that eventually you will be able to eat something other than mashed potatoes. 

By the way, if anyone is going through this soon, some great foods to eat are: mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, meatloaf, ice cream, fruit smoothies, bananas, rice, creamed spinach, and nutella on soft bread.  And keep lots of ice packs on hand.

It doesn't feel like it's only been a week and a half of summer vacation.  Well, I guess it's closer to two weeks now.  This isn't even the busy part of my summer and it feels like so much has happened already.  Mom and I have joked that it's "Extreme Makeover" time before I start all my camps and trips later in the summer.  So far I've gotten my wisdom teeth out, gotten my hair re-dyed, and am getting glasses for the first time.  Exciting stuff!

Because this has been long and ramble-y about a not-so-fun subject, I'll leave you with a picture of my awesome new shoes!

Introducing Audrey!

Hello!  I'm Audrey (as you probably figured out) and this is my new blog!  It's also my only blog, so I honestly have very little idea what I'm doing.  Should be fun!

This post is a random collection of odds and ends so you can get to know me a little.  Hopefully this blog will be a lovely chronicle of my life, which may or may not end up seeming much more exciting than it actually is.

In case you were wondering, the skirt is from H&M, the shirt is from the Limited, the tights and purse are from Target, and the shoes are from Poetic License.

This is me!  I'm planning on this being at least partially a fashion blog, so I'll go ahead and tell you that this is a very normal outfit for me.  I love wearing skirts and dresses and wear them almost all the time.  I definitely love vintage-styled clothing--and actual vintage--and try to incorporate it into most of my wardrobe.

Please excuse the large blob of light on my nose.

This is a couple of my friends, Kali and Hana, and me at Duke University for a Model UN competition.  Also notable is that I am completely and totally obsessed with Harry Potter!

Some of my favorite things in life are reading and writing.  I find myself happiest when I'm curled up with a mug of tea and a good book, listening to raindrops on the roof.

I'm hoping that this blog will help improve my writing and photography abilities, and help me document my life, as I've been trying for years to keep a regular journal with very little success.

 Well, I guess I'll leave it here before I start rambling.  I'm pretty excited about this experiment, and I hope it turns out well!