Bearcat Getaway

This is what our float trip a few weeks back looked like. It was a ton of fun and by the end of the day I thought my arms were going to fall off. Totally worth it though! We went to a place called Bearcat Getaway. We had been there a few years ago, picking it mostly for its funny name, and turns out it's an awesome place! The weekend was filled with so much sun, beer, grilled food (all of the peppers were my favorite!), swimming, chit chat and a bunch more beer. It was a great weekend!

Aprilween!

Traveling back in time to a whole month ago, here's the Aprilween fbc ride. As you can see our group has some fantastic costumes (haha) including just a normal dude, a basketball player, some school girls, a couple from the future and a pokemon trainer! Not only were there costumes, but we all rode to the water tower, paid $5 to climb a billion steps and got to check out the city from way up there. AND I took my first spill on my bike which resulted in ripped tights, a bloody knee and a pretty gnarly bruise. All of this was followed by a trip to Atomic Cowboy for a whole bunch of dancing!

The fbc rides are always a ton of fun and I'm super bummed that I'm going to miss tomorrow night's ride which is the best one of the year, prom ride. I had a great time last year. But there's always next month.

Do you guys have anything like this where you live?

Fiending Fun

Come on school! Get outta here so I can do more of this stuff! Like hang out with friends, go swimming, get back to working on my shop, start making some more money and just having fun! Plus I have some fun ideas brewing for some stuff around here once I'm free again.

I know I keep popping up around here once a week to talk about how much I have to do, how much school stinks and stuff like that, but its getting sooo close now. I have a total of 4 class days left, one full day of finals and then one final after that. Even though it seems like every day lately another project pops up out of the blue I'm trying to stay positive and just knock it all out!

photo from a day spent at a river last summer filled with friends and fun.

P.S. Today's Groupon deal was for a stay at the haunted hotel at this river, which may or may not be that building right behind us. After reading about the haunting I'm not sure I want to go swimming/camping here again. Yikes!

FBC!

 Here are a few pictures I snatched from the FBC blog (of some people I don't know) from Sunday night's Aprilween ride. We didn't make it into any of their pictures, but I once again made sure to bring along a disposable camera and get some pictures of our little group. I'm actually really surprised that the camera lasted the whole night and made it back home with me, it was a very eventful night that you'll hear all about when I get my pictures back.

There were some pretty awesome costumes on the ride. I think my favorite was PeeWee Herman. I didn't get to take a picture of him, but he was in the gray suit with all of the details right down to the red cruiser! Another funny one was Santa (above) who was riding some super crazy double decker bike! In the picture below you can kind of see that it was a really big crowd, a couple hundred probably!

I tweeted this picture right before we left, just a sneak peak at my costume.

I can't wait to get my pictures back and share!

I hope you guys are all having a great week!!

Diana Fail.

I just picked up my first pictures taken with my new Diana Mini the other day. Unfortunately these are the only ones that turned out (very poorly, might I add) from 3 rolls of film! I guess it's a fail on my part though, they were all in dim lighting and probably on the wrong setting. I'll have to do more research on my camera and try again, but for now here's my first attempt.

 

I'm off to take some new shop photos now, so expect to see some new stuff in the next day or so! As well as my quickly fading strawberry blonde hair!

happy birthday!!

Happy birthday to my boyfriend, Rickey. As you can probably tell he certainly did have a happy birthday! He turned 21 last week, but since not everyone in our group was 21 we headed out to the sketchiest bar we knew and had some fun there. Super cheap drink specials, karaoke and strange bar regulars definitely made for an interesting night! After a little bit everyone started getting pretty messy, but really, how couldn't you with $2 pitchers? The last picture is my favorite--a nice action shot of Will pouring that beer all over himself while John is trying to get it back!

p.s. sorry about all the ugly red eye.

New Years Eve

 I'll admit right away that this New Years was not my favorite. We spent the majority of the night driving around waiting to hear what was going on. The friends we were talking to must have changed their minds at least 1,000 times throughout the course of the night. And what was the worst was that Rickey turned 21 only two days later, so we JUST missed all of the bar parties. After multiple stops we finally ended up at the house of a friend of a friend at about 11:45. Just in time! 

We of course, had to take a few silly girl pictures. Am I the only one who knows that New Years Eve is the best time to get glammed up and wear sequins and sparkles?? I am now determined to make next year's events at least 10 times better!

How was your new years?

I was wearing

Dress & belt: thrifted

Headband: made by me

Tights: Target

Clogs: F21

2010

In 2009 I managed to kind of stumble into the blog world. I had googled "zooey deschanel hair" one day which led me to discovering Liebemarlene. I thought this crazy thing she was doing was so cool and soon discovered there were actually tons of girls out there doing the same kind of thing! So, after much thinking and decision making I decided I wanted to be a part of it all. In February I started this blog and opened my Etsy shop. In 11 days I sold my first item (the dress above) and was thrilled that I could be making money off of something that fun!

In the beginning I was much better about taking outfit photos, now I've gotten to be pretty lame with it. But you'll soon find out that it's going to be one of my new years resolutions. 

In March we went all out while celebrating St. Patrick's day. We woke up early made breakfast for everyone and headed to Dogtown for the parade. Afterwards we went back to the apartment for a bbq and more fun, followed by a much needed fat nap all through the evening. 

Around this time Rickey was still working nights, so we started having nice little 'girls nights' at the apartment. They mostly consisted of drinking, chit-chatting and chatroulette. One night among the sea of penises and weirdos we got the Jonas brothers (not that we're fans, but hey, they're famous!) This picture is so funny and I love that all we were able to say was "rhats heyy" "what the" and "what are yiy doing"

Our lease was ending in May and it was about time for Rickey and I to live on our own and say goodbye to our awesome apartment in Tower Grove. So, in April we started looking for our new home.

 

In May Rickey and I moved into our new apartment in Dogtown. I had the best time doing all of the decorating! 

 

In May we also participated in the FBC prom ride. We all dressed up in funny prom attire and rode our bikes around town all the way to a sketchy bar in East St. Louis.

May was also when we threw our first party in our new home in celebration of Mary Kate's (my best friend and our old roommate) birthday. It was a great party, everyone was just coming home from college for summer, so it was fun to see everyone again!

During June I was pretty busy with work and babysitting my cousins, but Rickey and I did find the time to make our way out to Mizzou to celebrate Sara's birthday. And I managed to take one outfit photo. (hah) I'm taking more this year! I think I had a total of six, which is even less than I thought.

In July I discovered stick and poke tattoos. Rickey thought they were cool too and let me give him one! Other than that it was still all work and babysitting.

In August we found the perfect river spot and spent the day there. We drank, bbq-ed, played and even met a man that was just released from jail for trying to kill his step father! He kind of tagged along with us that day. Definitely weird. Also in August Rickey got hit by a car while riding his bike to work. And soon after that broke his foot while playing soccer. With all of these injuries he was out of work for quite a while, which led to us being kind of poor and eventually having to move out of our apartment. :(

 

In September we spent most of the month preparing to move out and for the music festival that I signed up to sell at. I spent so much time that month hemming, altering, crafting and coming up with all kinds of ideas only to go to the festival and be terribly let down by the tiny turnout.

In October we went to the festival. I was relieved to come back home and finally get back into the swing of things with the shop and life in general--having to adjust to living back at home.

In November I celebrated my 21st birthday! And saw Ben Kweller!

And finally in December I've worked more hours, put updating the shop on hold and enjoyed the holiday season. Oh! And saw Tim Kasher!

With a new year beginning I am excited to start fresh with new resolutions and plans for a wonderful 2011. I can't wait to resume shop updates and carry out plans for expansion, go back to school and take some fun trips!!

Happy New Year to you all!!

ben kweller & tim kasher

all other photos my own