My Weekend: Flamingos at the Zoo!

Posted on August 22, 2013 by jesseesuem

I took so many pictures of flamingos at the National Zoo this past weekend, I felt they needed their own post! They have always been my favorite exhibit. They are just so colorful and pretty!

When I was younger the entire bird exhibit was hard for me to get to, they were up a huge hill and I have pretty bad asthma. The temperature and humidity level had to be just right for me to make it up without an attack. I was so excited to find out that they have remodeled a few parts of the zoo and have made it super easy to get to the birds now. No huge hill! Just a nice little bridge that goes over the new elephant exhibit (which is cool and all, but now they don’t have giraffes and hippos, the elephants took over. But I won’t rant about that now)

I think we caught the flamingos during naptime, because most of them had their heads hidden in their feathers and had one leg up. That means naptime right? They also seemed a bit cranky, because a few were fighting non stop. Maybe CT’s loud voice was irritating them during their “naptime”?

I hope when we go back in the fall I can get even more photos of them, I seriously LOVE flamingos!

My Weekend: A Few Days Away & The National Zoo

Posted on August 21, 2013 by jesseesuem

This past weekend we took a short vacation! My husband was already off for 5 days because we had originally planned on going to Busch gardens or Raleigh. Both plans were cancelled and we were left with a 5 day weekend!

I have been working a lot more than normal lately and we haven’t really done much this summer due to colds and other illnesses. My husband, JC, thought we needed to do SOMETHING! So he used some hotel rewards points he had and booked us a hotel about a half hour outside Washington DC at no cost. It was only 30 mins away from our house, but it had an indoor pool, lots of neat restaurants close by and IT WASNT HOME! We spent the first day there kinda wandering around the local mall, eating good food and relaxing! For me relaxing meant reading the new Martha Stewart’s Living and sketching and for JC and CT it meant swimming. It was nice.

The second day away we spent at the National Zoo in Washington DC. One of my favorite places! It was supposed to rain, but apparently we had some luck for once and it was just a bit overcast. It WAS super humid, even though it was only 75*F out! My lungs hated it, but I pushed myself to keep walking. It was also CT’s first time visiting the zoo, I wanted to make sure she saw as much as possible.

Oh and of course I took a load of photos, so prepare yourselves, there are a bunch…

I treat my trips to the zoo like photography challenges. It probably has something to do with the yearly field trips my photo class took to the zoo in high school (and the few times I chaperoned my siblings trips later on) We were let loose on the zoo for an entire day and told to take photos certain ways of certain subjects. I loved it! One of the nice perks of living near a big city growing up. We also did Baltimore trips, but nothing beat the zoo!

My personal challenge this time was to only use my 75-300mm Lens and the largest aperture my camera would let me. Nothing else. Its obviously not a hard challenge, but I still like the limits. This did mean that whenever I wanted to take a picture of something close by, I had to back up really far and look like a fool. The photos came out with such a nice depth of field that I don’t care!

(This ragged looking little bird wasn’t part of any exhibit, he was just wandering around. I just wanted to share a photo of him because he was so friendly and came right up to me!)

Anyway, back to our trip…

The zoo ended up being a huge hit with CT. Though her favorite part ended up being an orangutan who would throw up on the glass and eat it again. She’s STILL talking about that! I’m so happy we finally went. It’s hard to justify not going when we live so damn close to the city. I’m going to make it a personal goal to visit DC more often. We even live down the street from MARC train stop that goes into the city every weekday!!! No excuses.

The rest of our time away was spent wandering IKEA and thrift stores. I ended up with some Blythe furniture from IKEA and a sweet Pyrex bowl from the thrift store. CT found a huge wooden modern dollhouse for $10!! SCORE!

I’m so happy we were able to do this and its made me a little more excited, and less nervous, for our NYC trip coming up in October. I’m going for BlytheCon, my family is just going for fun. Any of you guys going too?

My Weekend: the Brunswick Heritage Museum

Posted on June 26, 2013 by jesseesuem

This past weekend My Sister in law, her husband and three adorable kids came up to visit the railroad museum we have in town. It’s in downtown Brunswick and about a block away from the train tracks (which are right next to the Potomac River). I was a little unsure about how exciting it would be at first. I just went along with it because I enjoy seeing them.

What I did not take into account was that model trains come with little model houses! Loads of little houses!! I LOVE little houses! (you can read more about my love for them here) Some were even interactive! You could press a button and a house would look like it was on fire, or a ferris wheel would turn. It was so neat. Plus all of the sets were based off of local areas. There was a Washington DC train yard, Gaithersburg in the early 1900′s, Brunswick in the 50′s and a bunch more.

It was really hot inside though, and my nephews weren’t really tall enough to see most of the exhibit without being held, and holding one year olds while being really hot isn’t exciting. So we didn’t stick around too long. I really want to go back in the cooler months and get some better pictures, because again, I really LOVE little houses!

The rest of the weekend was also spent with family. We had lunch and play time with my sister in laws family, which was great. We then went to a birthday dinner for my husband and baby brother with my family that same night! On sunday we went and saw Monsters University with my sister and her family. That was really nice too and the movie was AWESOME!!!! Which means we’ll probably see it again soon.

I really needed this past weekend. I haven’t completely been myself and have been feeling really sick. I’ve had two colds in two weeks and also super horrible stomach pains. I found out I’m so bad off with gluten that I can’t even have dark colored sodas!! Caramel coloring has a little wheat in it! Ugh. My husband had bought a case of bottled coke a few weeks back, and I think me drinking one every so often really screwed with me. So no more soda for me! I hardly ever drank it anyway, so it’s no big loss. Today has been the first day were I actually have the strength to really work and get some stuff done. I’m probably more excited than I should be.

My Weekend: Boonsboro Carnival

Posted on May 31, 2013 by jesseesuem

We spent last Sunday afternoon checking out a local carnival. It was CT’s first time at one actually! She rode a few rides and ate a bunch of carnival food, and only really enjoyed the funnel cake. She loved it all so much that I doubt this will be the only carnival or fair of the year. We have a bunch of towns around us that do them, and I can’t wait.

A Quick Cuckoo Clock Painting

Posted on May 29, 2013 by jesseesuem

For mother’s day I tried to come up with something original for my mom. She loves cuckoo clocks as of late and I thought maybe I could make something to go along with that. I did a quick sketch of a cuckoo clock using elements from numerous clocks I saw online. I inked it soon after. However I had no idea what to do with it. Most of my ideas would take too long. So I just took a picture of the sketch and showed my mom saying I’d make something with it soon. It’s the thought that counts right?

Fast forward a few days and I finally decided on painting it. A simple sketch like painting at first and then later I’d do a more colorful version for my mom. I bought a wooden canvas at a local craft shop and a few new brushes. I transferred the basic shape of the cuckoo clock and then freehanded the rest. I figured this first version would be great as my white elephant gift for Heidi’s crafternoon. I knew it was too simple for my mom and not really her style. It ended up going home with Molly, which made me super happy.

This very simple painting exercise has put me back in the mood to paint. Something I haven’t had the urge to do in almost a decade. I’m hoping it’s kinda like riding a bike, like you never really forget how to do it. I shake a bit now, which might make it difficult and things may not look as precise, but I’m still up for the challenge!

Plus I still need to paint my mom a damn cuckoo clock!!!

May Crafternoon

Posted on May 23, 2013 by jesseesuem

Look! I actually took nice enough photos at this months crafternoon! I kinda was on the ball and remembered my camera. Woohoo! (This is a big milestone for me, seriously big).

This months crafternoon was embroidery themed. Heidi provided all the materials and patterns and just let us do our thing while chatting away. It was a bit earlier in the day than it usually is, so I was kinda tired (I’m not a morning person) but I was totally fine with that since the earlier time meant people who normally couldn’t come, could.

I was also jolted awake a bit by all the awesome gluten free treats that were offered! Heidi made gluten free coffee cake (I should have asked to take some home!). Tasha made gluten free orange scones (which I DID take home and am still eating here and there) and Molly made sure her egg casserole was GF. How sweet are these girls? My plan was just to eat beforehand and then afterwards, but instead I was able to indulge in things I don’t get to eat often! Thank you girls!!! Oh and the cat donuts Heidi made weren’t gluten free, but I still had the pleasure of staring at their cuteness the entire time.

The embroidery part was really nice and calming. I usually do this type of craft at home, alone, while watching TV. It was neat doing it while talking to others. I might want to do that again. Maybe I can try a Skype type of thing? An internet embroidery/cross stitch party? Hmmm.

I missed last months crafternoon due to my irrational fear of getting sick and possibly having to reschedule my endoscopy again. (I know, super crazy, but I just had to do it) I’m really happy I was able to go to this months. I needed to get out socially and interact with other like minded people. Working from home can really get to a person sometimes. Especially when your only interaction with others is the people you live with and online social networks. I absolutely love being able to interact with everyone online, but it sure is nice to hear a real laugh instead of “haha” and see real facial expressions instead of emoticons. I’m beyond thankful for it all.

Ok, I’m done being sappy now, I think I’m going to go look into this Skype thing…

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