Changes

Changes. That's what has been going on. 

My blog looks a but different these days. It's probably just a temporary change since I'm permanently dissatisfied with the look, but never committed enough to really fix what I want. Life goes on.

I'm a college graduate now, and have been living with my parents for nearly a month. I've returned to the house I grew up in, cats & few selected possessions in tow, to figure out where to go. To use this as an opportunity to be a floater, to be without a lease and rent to hold me down, to let the right job be an anchor. Find a job, then plant some roots.

This all sounds like a splendid plan, except for the fact that I am  impatient. Three weeks has felt like an eternity. I know I'm being dramatic, but I will continue to hope that every single day will be the day that the perfect job and the new apartment will all fall into place. So, fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Charlie and I spent a couple days in Milwaukee, walking around, pondering if it is a place we could call home. We stayed with Charlie's brother Jeremy and his girlfriend Vanessa. I wish I would have taken more photos during the visit. The above photo of Charlie was taken in their home. There is a comforting and all around pleasant feeling I get whenever we spend time with those two. Though I'm not sure if Milwaukee will be our future home, I sure do like spending time with the people I know there.

So for now I am spending my days working a few hours here and there, helping a friend decorate her apartment (living vicariously), doing odd chores around my parents home, and job & apartment hunting like it is my job.

On that note, I am done with college now, so send your design and/or photographic projects over to me. My doors are open for business. You can even see my website by clicking the portfolio link on the right side bar.

Love,

Lu

P.S. fun fact: it's a saturday night. I'm watching You've Got Mail, and am making serious plans to take a bath. Welcome to my life.

Bits & Pieces

Ahhhh, it's been so long since I've taken anytime to blog, which kind of bums me out, because I would really love to grow this blog into something more than it has been, but for various reasons, I just haven't been devoting the time.

SO, lets talk about these reasons (read: listen to me talk about my life lately).
It is my last semester, and graduation is in five weeks! Despite my light course load of only 12 credits I still find myself completely busy, overwhelmed, and beat by this semester! A lot of this has to do with my anxiousness to end this semester, so any and every task related to school pretty much seems like the worst thing I've ever had to do in my life. 

One of my classes actually made us finger paint a 24"x33" poster sized recreation of a painting with cattle markers. Yes, cattle markers, oily sticks intended for writing/drawing farmer things onto cows. Though some of my peers seem to enjoy working with these sloppy oversized oil pastels, I am not fan. Drawing/painting/messy media in general are not really my thing which is why I stick to graphic design and photography for my artistic fulfillment. 

Another part of my frantic life lately is the impending deadline of getting my portfolio printed! I will not lie, I slacked off a bit during a class or two throughout my student career, which is becoming a pain now as I realize that I don't feel that a lot of my design student work really showcases my ability and talents. I devised a plan to fix this, but it means creating and completing a design project a day for almost two weeks to build a new body of work to show off! It's time to send this baby to press at the end of the week, and I am certainly feeling the stress, since this will be my job getting tool.

The photo pictured above is a screenshot of a bizarre and hilarious error message photoshop gave me last week. I panicked briefly, then then googled, and learned that it is more or less a joke and accident that it even made it through to the finished product. All issues were resolved by restarting the program.

OH! I got a new camera. I sold my panasonic lumix lx-5 and promptly purchased a used sony alpha nex-5 for about the same price! So far I am enjoying this mutant camera. I call it that because it has a skinny, portable body like a point & shoot, but features large interchangeable lenses, so it looks a little different than most cameras. I love it, because it's a nice purse companion, and allows me to have the convenience of digital photography with me all the time. I also appreciate the easy manual controls and focusing via lens ring that makes it feel real. It also can take some nice photos.

That's the first picture I took while I was playing around with it the day I got it. Yes, I do have a basset hound mug, and yes, that's an iFixit sticker proudly displayed on my coffee table, earned after a time when i fixed it (it being a broken inverter cable on my laptop, and when I say "I" I mean I investigated, purchased, and gave directions while Charlie did most of the fixing). 

I got to test the camera out a bit while working on a photo class assignment with my friend and beloved photo-subject Sarah. I haven't really looked at, or edited her photos much, but here's a picture of some worn out, but cute/charming shoes that were in her room.

There's just something I love about a beat up pair of shoes!

So in other news, I have given up pants for the spring/summer season starting now. I just need the beautiful weather to come back fully and embrace my pale, pale legs.

My apartment and job search in the Fox Valley presses on, and I am still sitting with fingers crossed over one particularly great photo-job opportunity that had a promising interview. I am eagerly looking forward to a change of scenery, living affordably, and seeing my family more (especially the baby nephew) and feeling good about graduating college/summer/life.

I would love it if we all talked a bit more, what's new with you, my dear readers?

Lu

These Days

Hey friends,

Something wild happened today, in the blink of an eye my life suddenly became very very busy. I woke up and began my day disconnected with the reality of my life. I thought this week would breeze by and I would float through my three day school week, and find my pleasantly eventful weekend at the end.

Well, what a joke those thoughts were.

As of today these things became parts of my life:

- I am a hostess to an out of town friend, who is visiting for us to tie up loose ends of some design work, which means trying to make my apartment look cleaner, and actually devoting some time to organizing this design project.

- Homework is real in my life. I've spent the last three weeks mainly ignoring it, and now it's here at my doorstep, needing to be worked on, and there's a lot of it. Naturally this is difficult to accept, since my mentality is three months ahead of my reality, waiting for graduation.

- I got a new job, that involves a commute to a neighboring city. I am very very thrilled by this opportunity, but for the next week or so it will be a bit complicated while I finish up my last shifts at my previous job, which usually takes over my weekend.

- A vet appointment snuck up on me, so I will be driving to a suburb to take my cat to a low-cost clinic for vaccine updates.

- I will also be making a day trip to Oshkosh on Sunday to meet with my favorite bride Dani to map out a design plan for invitations.

- Aside from these bigger things worth noting, there is also a never ending list of small tasks, chores, and errands that need to be taken care of this week. I won't list them all, because that would be annoying, but knowing they are hanging around each corner might be most stressful.

Ok now it's all out in words, and even that makes me feel a bit better, sort of like list making therapy I guess. Hopefully I make this week successful, and can stay more put together in weeks to come. 

Oh, happy Valentines Day! This is a small clipping from a digital collage type of shoe advertisement assignment I am working on for the Valentines Day season.

Lu

New Apartment, New Job

I am at times a very neglectful blogger, which is ok since most of the people who read this are my friends, and all know what is happening in my life anyways, but I do like to document these events.


Charlie and I moved two and a half weeks ago. The previous apartment was a nightmare, and I bitched about it enough already. I am thankful to no longer be living there, and am beginning the battle over my security deposit with those shitty landlords. 
The new place is really lovely, and I finally have everything cleaned and in place. The only thing it seems to be lacking now is wall stuff. Warning: there are a lot of blank white walls in the following pictures.

This is our living room, it is spacious and a bit awkward since we have a large fire place we aren't allowed to use. The framed print currently serves as a cat blocker, so they are not crawling around and getting dirty in said fireplace. 

I am really really in love with our kitchen sink, which is why it gets it's own photo. Having a table is a nice change, even if we have only eaten at it twice so far. The bottom right picture of is a little olden days telephone nook that is now a bills, keys, and knick-knack holder. Most shelfs (see dining nook, mantle) in this place get filled with carefully curated collections of our things.

I think our bathroom is nice, functional, and has real tiles. I'm really over the floral shower curtain, if any one knows were to get a burlap, or similar material, shower curtain that does not cost $70 on etsy, please let me know.

Our bedroom is probably the most boring looking room in the apartment since we have absolutely nothing on the walls, but hey! look it's my jewelry box, remember that when it got a makeover? We have two bedroom closets which I really love, and there is a cat crawling into mine in the photo. 

So that's the new place! It's great, and has like five closets that I didn't photograph! Oh, and covered parking, which has me feeling better about the impending winter season.

The apartment isn't the only thing new in my life, I also just started a new job! I got hired last week and a dress boutique called Citrine. I will still be working for the On The Edge as the graphic designer, but the hours there fluctuate a lot and aren't sufficient, so I picked up this part time retail job. I actually really like working in small business retail so I am looking forward to working there, and have good, solid hours, which will be nice for my upcoming six week long winter break :) 

In other news, I had a great Thanksgiving with the Charlie's family in Green Bay. My relatives were sort of scattered this year, so we got to spend a nice amount of time with his family, and it's so lovely because they are such a fun and welcoming bunch. I feel like part of the family around them, which is wonderful, since I plan on sticking around. 

Charlie took some photos in the car while we were driving back to Madison, and I think they are very charming, please forgive my visibly dirty windshield.

There are two remaining weeks of my semester, so take that as an apology for the lack of upcoming posts.

Lu

What is New

Hey Friends,


What is new with all of you? For me not much, but a few interesting things have been happening. First of all, I took some photos of my sweetest pal Sarah, aside from being cute, I think they really express parts of her personality like the way she manages to have so much child-like enthusiasm and joy without being the slightest bit immature. 

Here are a couple of my favorites. I have more on Flickr, so go check that out!

Also, I didn't do any color editing, her eyes are just that great!

In other news, I have a job now, which is pretty neat. I am now working as the designer for Edgewood's newspaper On The Edge, and it really needs an overhaul design wise, so it should be a fun challenge. I also get to work from home, so with that, and the fact that is is only ten hours a week,it doesn't really feel like a job, which is exactly what I need during this 18 credit semester!

Hmmm, what else? I am now the proud owner of a swimsuit I will hopefully wear at least once in the upcoming year. 

It is very cute, and definitely my style, so I am hoping that just owning it alone with be a reason to go swimming sometime. It's odd, I love swimming but haven't really done any of it in the last two years. 

If any of you like the suit, maybe you can still snag one on sale the way I did. It's the high sun bikini from Anthropologie, and it is currently clearanced to be a fraction of it's original price.

I am in a great mood this afternoon, I am almost fully recovered from what a nightmare yesterday was, I impressed myself this morning by managing to stay asleep through my alarm for three hours, and my weekend began at 2:00. I am looking forward to it greatly. I have very few responsibilities, so I plan on sleeping, cooking some great food, enjoying the cool weather, and making a little art.

Lu