The Best of 2010

A year end review of photos I took in 2010 (not of family or the kids). Starts at New Year's 2009, ends December 27th, 2010. Not a lot to show for 2010, I was pregnant and bought my first house. Hence, I was too busy, too hot, and didn't feel like taking much. A new year awaits.....














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Ten Things, a List

Ten Things You Should Always Bite The Bullet And Spend Money On

1. Hair Cuts. Ten dollar haircuts are out. Unless you're a dude- then this doesn't apply to you. "Hi I'm Brittany, I just got out of beauty school five months ago." That's not gonna fly with me at this age. It worked when I was twenty five and very poor, but at 31 I'm sorta poor, I can splurge for the person with more work experience.

2. Hair Dye. Even I get tempted by that box of $2.99 Revlon. But in the end, I've still got white old lady hairs poking out. Until I can look like Emmy Lou Harris, I cannot have this.

3. Underwear. Five pairs (25 bucks) from Vicky's last forever (Seriously, forever). Fiver pairs from Hanes last..actually I don't know, I haven't boughten them in years. Middle ground, that "Gillian what's it called" brand at Target.

4. Gin. If you are lucky enough to get out of the house and get drinks with your friends, then by god you get the Tangeray or the Sapphire damnit. No house gin for your tonic..I never get to do this, does it show?

5. Clothes. The more expensive clothing (on sale!! End of season clearance!!) the longer it lasts, holds it's shape, and also the more tailored. If it's expensive it shows, and you look good. Target, lasts me one season and I have to throw it away! Old Navy, never really fits right..is that just me?

6. Bras. Yeah, once again, no one ever sees it, but if you put the money into it, it lasts longer and it holds you up higher..and we can all see that. Especially for big boobied girls like me. If it can't hold you up, it's not doing it's job and should be taken out back and burned.

7. Things you love that make you smile. If you love little jumping wooden puppets (I just started buying them for Maya, love em) then by god you buy that ten dollar toy made in Austria. If you love hot pink 1950's Pyrex, then by god you have your momma buy you some (thanks momma). If you love the color turquoise, then just keep buying vintage blue stuff....because it's pretty and it makes you smile.

8. Chocolate. We can't always buy expensive chocolate, sometimes Hershey's is easiest to get. But oh, my god, handmade chocolates taste soooooo much better that you can actually taste the weird chemicals in Russell Stover's and your face goes, "blaghh." So, treat yourself every once in a while and buy something made fresh. Your face will go "aaawwweesooomme!"

9. Cheese. Once again, can't do it everyday but if you get to Wisconsin, you buy the damn nine year old sharp cheddar and you love every morsel of it...and that wine from that place in Door County.

10. This is the most important thing you can spend your money on. SHOES. Especially RUNNING SHOES. Your feet, which you walk on everyday, will thank you. They will thank you by not having severe pains that plague you your whole life. They will thank you when you're eight months pregnant and you can barely walk it hurts so bad, but at least those expensive shoes help a little. They will help you on that last push of a quarter mile with Led Zeppelin in your ipod cheering you on.

They will help you not cry too much when you look at your purple italian leather stilettos that don't fit anymore after having a baby. (100 dollars marked down to 15 at Dillard's.) At least they look pretty!

Off Days

Sometimes pictures look better on a tiny LCD screen, less pixelidated, more vibrant. Then you get home and see them in their actually size and you deflate. And these sometimes are when you realize, you really know nothing about photography and how fancy SLR cameras work. These sometimes are when I miss film, but at the same time don't. These sometimes are when I wish talent grew on trees, good photography was just point and click, and cookies didn't make you fat.

I threw in that last part not because it works in context, but because it's true. I really wish cookies didn't make you fat.

Frozen Fog

New layout. Because everything looks better in black.

No More Dramsies in Distress

I want real friends. I want girl friends that don't have issues. I have issues. I don't share them with everyone, but I have them. One of my issues, is that I tend to collect people with issues. I try to mother them or fix them or be the shrink to their Woody Allen. Something like that.

I'm tired of these people. They're starting to get boring. Which is funny because normal people who don't have issues seems boring. (But it's the stories I like best). I don't want to fix them anymore, I don't want to listen to their crazy, I don't even want to play cards with them. They are crazymakers. No matter what you do, how you do it, how you say it, what you cover it with be it chocolate or banana, they won't really be your friend. They can't cause they're caught up in their own crazy. And that's cool. I have done that too. But there comes a time when you have to just grow the fuck up.

No more martyrs, no more sensitives, no more drunks or druggies, no more narcissists, no more big dreamers living in poverty, no more OCD/ADD/BPD or any other mental disorders. If I don't want to be any of those, then naturally I don't want to be around any either. And yet I am one of those people because I'm incredibly insecure and I use humor as a way of masking that insecurity. I make my self crazy a lot of the time.
I want people I can talk about art with. and poets, and history, and beatniks, and babies, and arty movies, and girly things, and fashion, and nature of course, and camping, and photography.

I have trapped myself in this guise of "she's the crazy one". (I call it "I'm so sleep deprived I'm starting to sound like Chris when he's riffing") I'm not just silly and crazy (that's the freaked out insecure me). I don't just know about movies. I know about a lot of things.

But so far, I have a hard time finding anyone who's even heard of Jean Michel Baquiat or Emil Nolde or Stuart Sutcliffe (as a painter and not a Beatle). Or Margaret Bourke White. Or Jim Nachtwey. Or "The Bang Bang Club"....

soon to be a major motion picture. (I love movies about artists...Basquiat, Backbeat..I lovvve Harrison's Flowers)...

Stop whining Clare.

Or read the Dharma Bums, or who love The Hours, or who gets Shakespeare..

Okay, maybe not the Shakespeare..I know that's a tough one for peeps.

2010 this time I mean it

Okay, so last year I was all "Oh, I'm so happy and cool like all these blogs I read and I'm gonna be that way all year."

Well, I was lying and this year I'm not. Truth is I desperately want to be one of those people who has those blogs that you read where they're all in love with every aspect of life down to the tags in the back of their shirts. They seem, according to their blogs, perpetually happy and blissed out on the universe. It's all totally swell to them. Truth is I am not one of these people. Damn it, I wish I was, but I'm not.
These people make me crazy jealous.

I am jealous of their blissed outness.
I am wanting to think the world is amazing and great and everyone around me is nice and mature and level headed.

Truth is, they are not. Most of them are overly sensitive and pains in the ass. Truth is a lot of them don't like me, and I'm okay with that. That's growing up I think, not being so sensitive and being okay with people not liking you. If they were writing blogs about being blissed out on snow flakes I think I'd die inside if they didn't like me....but that's different....

Truth is, I had a baby and my life changed so drastically that it's taking some getting used to. I miss the me time and the solo art time. But she is so great it doesn't matter.

So instead of making a list of all the things I'd like to accomplish because I want to be one of those people who I can not be because I'm not like them, I think I'll just sayz;

In 2010 I'm gonna try really hard to paint and take photos because those things make me happy. Even if I'm no good, and I very seldom feel I'm any good at either, they still make me happy.

I'm going to stop working so hard at work because it doesn't matter, and I'm going to put the hard work where it matters, at home, for Maya, for Kyle, and for the things that make me happy.

In 2010 I'm gonna try to do some traveling. But I'm afraid to go away from Maya. I've never been more than twelve hours away from her and the thought of her begging daddy to make momma suddenly appear makes me very sad (she does this when I'm gone for work).
I'm going to buy a house soon, so in 2010 I'm going to garden. Although too many choices sometimes perplexes me.

Most importantly, I'm going to work at loving myself so that I don't sit around wishing I was somebody else's blog. I'll blog all that I can be, and stop fake blogging. The real me is not blissed out, the real me is tired, a little stressed, missing alone time and art time, sick of working, and loves her daughter more than anything. That's me. In a nut. Any questions? Next time, my over whelming desire to cut wacko's out of my life. Or as the Celestine Prophecy calls them (Kyle read it out loud along time ago- it made me laugh)
CRAZY MAKERS.