Easter Nests.

Happy Easter, Happy hunting! In my family, the tradition of hiding eggs goes farther afield than just the backyard. When my mom was little, my grandma started making little nests out of the field grass and hiding candy in stumps, crevices between rocks, out in the garden. And when I was born, my mom started hiding nests for me. This year Easter ended up being a holiday squashed between the unbearably busy days of my family's different lives, so we didn't do a lot of prep work and there weren't any pre-made nests. But on the day itself, my parents and I went walking in High Cliff state park and brought along some eggs to play with (and snack on, primarily).

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Cats.

I'm going to take a brief break from the travel updates to brag about my Spring Break. This past week, the snow melted and the sun came out, and I got to sleep and watch half a season of Parks and Rec. I spent the first couple of days up at the farm and it was so pleasant that even the compost pail looked pretty.

Swapping.

Everyone, this is my radiant friend Kaitlyn. She's wearing a dress that I've worn in several previous posts that you can see here, and here. Tomorrow morning I'm hopping on a plane and flying out west to help her move back to jolly old Wisconsin. I get 24 hours in her home town and then we're getting in the car and pulling a  Jack Kerouac. I work in the basement of a library, and I've spent the summer looking longingly at pictures on Pinterest of adventures that I want to partake in (while having hometown ones of my own). But as of tomorrow morning, this is in my future, and the open road will feature in some pictures of my own.

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Breathing.

"Inspiration under any circumstances requires active effort on your part." My biology teacher said this. He wasn't talking about art; he was talking about breathing. Something I think I knew but forgot - the act of taking in air is called inspiration. I think that's kind of beautiful. Breathing is inspiration. We wouldn't be alive without it. That's how science can be cool, guys.

Real talk.

My friend Kaitlyn took these pictures. I have a couple sets of photos of her that will be popping up shortly, and while we were taking them, we both kept mentioning how we weren't really sure what to do. How to pose. What exactly is my good side?
We both felt kind of silly, so that's how we acted, and I really like these because of that. We are silly in real life. Although I've certainly done it plenty of times for this blog, I don't generally brood around attempting to take sultry pictures of myself. I'm not going to stop, because I want a sultry picture now and again, but these are pretty good representations of what I actually look like. I'm a doof, and it was really humid, and my hair is always in my mouth, and I don't like wearing shoes in summer. So in addition to being real pretty, these pictures are pretty darn real.

Red carpet smile.

Tina Fey has that joke about how women smile when they're in front of the paparazzi: mouth open, eyes wide, absolutely giddy with joy. And how that makes zero to no sense, because she's never been that happy in her whole life. Here I am, in the woods, practicing for my inevitable red carpet adventure.

Seriously, with this face, it's bound to happen eventually, so I'm just making sure I'm prepared.

Macintosh.

Out of season.

Windswept.

BAM.

Old.

So, I'm sure you're already aware of this, but these pictures are totally fake. I'm not a wood nymph, I don't live in a forest, and therefore I don't change my clothes in one. (And there were plenty of mosquitos lurking while I was taking these pictures back in May.)

Ok, so I don't know when it happened, but somewhere along the line I guess I decided that I was going to stop taking pictures of "outfits" and just start pretending I'm an artist. Whatever, it's not like I ever keep my promises about how I'm going to be so good with updating my blog, so I guess I don't need to make promises about the kind of blog it is. Ya dig?

Finally, thank you so much to all the people that voted for me in Stuck at Prom. I came in 5th place out of 300+ couples, so although I was disappointed that I didn't win one of the major prizes, I'm still very pleased with the results. So, thank you for the part you played in helping me get there!