Friday, July 19, 2013

It's My Party


You guys I am so excited to complain at you today!

First of all, today is my birthday! (No that is not what I am complaining about) but it means that the phrase "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" rings true. Now, keep in mind that I am writing this post on the 18th, so that's not entirely fair. I'm planning on going out to eat with my family, maybe making a cake, and opening lots of presents! Since it's my 21st, I'm going to go out drinking (PARTAY) next weekend with the bros.



Okay so now I will complain.

You may remember I wore this dress 2 months ago. It's from American Apparel, and I mentioned that it was too small for me. Well, I returned it. And the dress that came back to me was a size Large, but that was about the only thing right about it. It was in the wrong color, had a thread loose, and still had the anti-theft sensor on it! You know, those things you can't remove? I was peeved, obvi. AmApp charges $70 for their dresses (mine was on sale and my Mom pitched in), and this is the kinda customer service I get? It gets worse. I sent them an angry message, and got NO reply for 2 weeks. Then the tracking info on my package disappeared. I sent a second message, and they replied to this one to say "Yeah we don't know where your package is," but at least I got the apology I wanted. They eventually found it and the lady who helped me got me the right dress and sent it. So here it is.

It's just such an expensive store, and one that I'm supposed to feel good about purchasing from (all American made, hello!), but they really handled the whole thing poorly. I don't know if I'll be shopping there again.


At least it is a really pretty dress and the whole ordeal is over with. Look how over it I am:



Next order of business:

Today a girl emailed me asking me to lower my prices on custom portraits. She had bought one at $15 before I increased the price to $25, and was asking for a discount code. Maybe she didn't intend to be rude, but man. I was deeply offended by this! She was basically saying to me, "I don't think your art is worth what you are charging." Which, I mean, that's fine, you don't gotta like my art, but it's the difference between not liking someone's outfit and going up and telling someone they dress ugly.

I realize most people don't do art, and art is valued weirdly, but to get my point, think about this: If I spend 2 hours on a portrait for $15, that's $7.50 an hour. That is like, minimum wage, and I'm not even including supplies! Like, gurl, you are equating my art that I work really hard on with bagging groceries at Bi Lo. It was just Dis. Re. Spect.



BTW this dress needs to be taken in lol. I am between a medium and a large there, apparently.



Okay I am really glad I got all that off my chest. Now I am totes ready to go have a beautiful birthday, full of Japanese food and cupcakes.

I'll leave you with this: Today I went to get my license renewed. The only reason I didn't mail it in was because of the way dated picture... I was 15 and in the worst of my awkward teenager days. So here is the new one, guys.


It's like they try to make you look unattractive.


Thursday, July 18, 2013

Boston, Part 2

Here are the rest of the pictures from my journey to Boston.


A bridge in Maryland?




There was some town in NJ we got sidetracked into that had all these huge sculptures. Pretty cool place for us to get lost!




An outfit I wore at the con! A cool thing about the nerdy folks there was that they dressed how the fuck they wanted. While maybe it wasn't how I'd dress, it was neat to see people dressing weirdly and not caring what anyone thought. Can you say 75 year old lady with bright blue hair?

Floral tights didn't even phase those guys.



We drove through NYC and I saw the skyline! It was really amazing. I texted my Mom that I was driving through Brooklyn and she said, and I quote, "where is broklyn?"




I basically wore these over my normal glasses the whole way.



Another driving outfit.


Some cool earrings I got at UO! (We don't have one of those in SC)




Offbrand gummy bears! We were so broke from all the tolls, we ate grocery store food the rest of the trip.
 

On a shopping excursion. U no I wanted these so bad.


Peace the heck out!


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Boston, Part 1

Here are my photos from my trip to Boston!
I'm glad to be back at home, of course. I was in Boston for Readercon, a scifi convention. It was interesting to hear all the talks, but sitting in a room listening to intellectual panelists ALL day long isn't my cup of tea. I left to go shopping a couple of times, and I got some cool stuff at the (huge) mall!



We drove through some seriously beautiful country. I love driving (maybe not for 12 hours straight) but I didn't get as many good shots as I'd have liked. 

I pulled over on the side of the interstate in VA to get some pictures of the Shenandoah Valley, and about 3 minutes later a cop pulls up behind me! He comes up to my window, and when I tell him what I was doing he puts on his most condescending voice and says, "You pulled over on the side of the road. To take a picture." He actually ticketed me, too! I don't know guys, that's not illegal in SC, and I really feel like he should have been nicer to me. I've got no record and I was obvi from out of state. It's not like I was up to no good! Worst part of the story: I didn't even get my pictures. Let that be a lesson to you guys!! Wait and pull over at an exit.



We stayed the night in DC where we have some family and friends. I lived in the area until I was 6, did you know that?




My travel outfit...


And Dad's.



Driving was like, 60% of our trip. And of that 60%, 100% was traffic jams.


I have some more pictures from the trip scheduled for you soon!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Art Lately

Some art I've done lately:



A commission for a girl's Mom who is a realtor


 A portrait for Marie of Lemon Drop Vintage!


You can email me for commissions at ohavalanche@gmail.com, buy one from my etsy, and keep up with my art on tumblr!




Sunday, July 14, 2013

Late

I'm actually in Boston right now! I'm at Readercon, a scifi convention, with my Dad. In the mean time, here are some photos from this past week!

Gettin thunderstorms alla time.

What I wore over the weekend.

The world's greasiest photo of me at the museum. No worries, I loved it. The rest of these photos are from the State Museum in Columbia.

A big old shark.

Mammoth mouth.

Omg a fly!

Hey look I was at the beach! (No it is painted)

This heat sensor thing?

These are my friends Harvey, Laura, and Bryson in a tire. I for real love this picture.

Rainbow shadows!