Fun Stuff Around the Web - The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

In honor of Valentine's Day and classic love I wanted to share something fun that I just recently discovered. A few things first - I'm not a Jane Austen fan. I've tried so many times, but I just don't find her stories interesting or engaging. I just don't care. Also, most of the female characters are incredibly annoying and I find myself wanting to bop them over the head instead of continuing the story. So I have no idea why I clicked through on this random link from Pinterest, but I did. And I found the most amazing web series I've seen since "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog" - The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

This is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice set as Lizzie's You Tube video blog. And I kind of love immensely in ways I never got on board with the original book. There are Newsie references! And awkwardness! And sex scandals! And impersonations of crazy southern moms and stuffy dads! And references to the original story! And Darcy is a hipster! And it made me giggle and squee like nothing had in a long time. I only discovered it late in 2013, but it started in early 2013 over several You Tube channels, tumblr, and twitter as the characters had their own accounts. It ended up being an Emmy award winning series, and if you make it all the way through, it's clear as to why. If you follow the link above you can see every part of the story in order. Personally, I discovered Lizzie's blog, and then found out that they had Lydia spin off episodes, which aren't essential, but have fun backstory that they couldn't fit into the main story. Anyway, I found out that I loved the story of these videos, even though I don't really love the original. And that's pretty awesome.

La Petite Fashionista Mag

Open publication - Free publishing - More blog

Lauren over at La Petite Fashionista blog has launched her first online magazine issue! And I'm a contributer! It has some great stuff like fun wine suggestions, recipes, great beach vacation spots, and taking a summer wardrobe into fall. Go check out La Petite Fashionista Magazine and my Jalepeno Watermelon recipe! 

Olympian Olymics

Normally my Olympic viewing consists of the opening ceremonies and a few of my favorite events (gymnastics and diving) but I've been really into it this year and have had the tv on in the background for most of the weekend. Obviously I'm cheering for team USA, but I really like watching the medal ceremonies where the athletes are just so excited and happy while their national anthem is played. It just makes me want to yell "go world!"

I found this fun Olympic themed Grant Snider comic via Automatism and I had to chuckle.

Extreme Violining

Lindsay posted this over on her blog and I just had to repost it.

Apparently Lindsey Stirling was on America's Got Talent, but I never really watch reality tv so she was completely new to me. Man can this girl play! And how adorable is she?? I geeked out and watched most of her YouTube videos. Seriously, check her and her mad violin skills out. 

The future

This cracks me up:

By Grant Snider

Shoot 'Em Up

As I mentioned last year, or last week depending how you look at it, I went sporting clay shooting for the first time in December. It was so much fun!!! We drove out to the foothills in San Jose to a range that had 18 stations set up, similar to a golf course. 

Kacey and one of his best friends, Marc, taught me how to load various shotguns, basic hunters safety rules and protective gear, and how to aim. 

The thing about shooting sporting clays is that disks are actually catapulted into the air so you are shooting at a moving targets as opposed to a fixed target at say a rifle or pistol range. I was hoping to get 1 hit so I could at least leave without feeling like a total noob, but I ended up hitting 4! Now that I sort of know what I'm doing, I want to try it again! 

New Years Resolutions

I'm usually not one for resolutions, I tend to completely forget about them after a few weeks. However, I think these are general enough that I can actually stick to them. I broke my resolutions down into 4 categories to make it simpler.

Make one new project a month: I used to make things all the time and it made me feel so creative and happy. I really want to get back into flexing my artistic muscles and I have a feeling that once I move into my new apartment this summer I'll have decorating projects like crazy!

Eat well, exercise more: Self explanatory. I was really good about this most of the year but I fell off the cart in November and never got back on. The worst part is that I can tell it's taking a toll on my body and health. So come January I'm going to hitch up the oxen and ford that river to better health, stopping in Independence to pick up some bullets so I can go shoot 542 pounds of meat but only carry 165 pounds of it back to my wagon. (What, you never played Oregon Trail?) I have a wedding in about 5 months! I need to get on this stat. (I also need to go track down that game. Do they still make it?)

Start a prayer journal, stop worrying: I read somewhere that to really see how God has been guiding and taking care of you in life to start a prayer journal and record how He has answered your prayers. When I start thinking of big moments in my life over the last years (graduating from school, finding a job, etc) it's obvious that things have worked out way better than I could have ever planned and I think this is a way to remind me of that. As for stop worrying, it goes along with the journal, I need to trust more and worry less.

Take a dance class: I'm out of excuses. I've been telling myself this for 2 years and I won't do it. Which is ridiculous because I've been wanting to take ballet or Irish dance and dancing makes me happy. So I need to stop stopping myself and just do it. And then join a Nike campaign.

Geeking Out Again - Star Wars Style

We're going to do a 180 and move from wedding talk to Star Wars. Yeah that's right. You know what's awesome? A scene from The Empire Strikes Back done as an old black and white silent movie. Observe:

All that's missing is Charlie Chaplin. Now that you've had your geek fill for the day, it's safe to say these aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along.

We take a break from our usual programming for snowpocalypse news

Peoples of the internet, I have been WRONGED.

Living in Wisconsin means you have to deal with snow, that's life. To make things a little easier for us, my apartment complex offers a snow plowing service after major snowfalls. They plow the main lot and the spaces if your car isn't there. If it is, well obviously they don't plow your car.

The past few times it's snowed, I've gotten into my car at the beginning of the day, spent all day at work, and came home to find the lot had been plowed except for 1 spot on the far left by the tree line. Because I'm usually getting back around 5:30 or 6, everyone is there before me. And every single time, someone else was parked in my spot, leaving me to park in the one unplowed, messy one. Let me point out that my apartment complex isn't big. There are 4 units and about 5 of us living here at a time. There are 5 cars in the lot. Because I like to look for the good in people, I always assumed that maybe someone had a visitor, or people had to move cars around, or some such event happened that would coincidentally leave me the one unplowed spot. Oh how wrong I was.

Today, due to the impending BLIZZARDOMGSNOWMAGEDDONOFDOOM that is supposedly coming and was due to hit oh 2 hours ago we were sent home from work early. So when I pulled into the lot, imagine my surprise when there was only one car in the entire lot. PARKED IN MY SPOT. With the unplowed spot next to it.  People, this was a crime of intent! This person was too lazy to move their car when the plow came, and instead of paying the consequences and having to walk in the snowy spot (the way I did when I was too lazy to move my car, because -silly me- I thought it would be unfair to make others park there when it was my fault it wasn't plowed) they decided move their car one spot over to the nice plowed spot. MY SPOT.

So now they can just walk on up to the building without getting their feet dirty knowing that I'll have to sink into the snow in my work clothes because they didn't want to move their car. But now I have proof that they are stealing it! Oh the ideas of revenge...I'll write them a nasty note. I'll park in their spot after mine isn't plowed! I'll egg their car!

I suppose the next step is probably to first determine which one of my evil, treacherous neighbors is doing this to me. I bet is was the lady across the hall who always says hi. I bet she thinks if she's super nice, I'll never suspect her. But I do! It was her! It....oh, she just pulled in and parked. Ok lady, you're in the clear for now. I know, it was the people below me! They probably think I'm too loud so this is how they get back at me. Except that they aren't home. And they always take in my trash can from the curb, so I really hope it's not them. But aha! By process of elimination that leave the little old lady downstairs! .......Oh..... Crap.

I can't egg an old lady's car. I can't tell her not to park in a nice plowed spot. What if she slipped and fell? She's like 70. I guess that leaves me parking in an unplowed spot. But at least I know. The mystery has been solved. I'm like Nancy Drew! Or the Babysitters Club! Better invest in some better boots...

In the Name of Fashion

I had some downtime this weekend and for some reason I decided to go through and read some of posts on my old blog that I kept while I went to FIDM. I found this gem from back in February 2009 when I was interning for BCBG. It still cracks me up, so I wanted to share it here. Oh the things we do in the name of fashion...

Today I flat ironed a dead goat. 

How many of you can say that about your job? (And really, isn’t that a great opening line?) I went to my internship and one of the design departments needed help preparing the clothes for the runway (New York fashion week is coming up in spring) and they took me into a side office where a piece of curly (what I thought was faux) fur was laying. They handed me a comb and a flat iron- as in a hair straightener- and said they needed it straightened. Now I was thinking "why didn’t they just buy straight faux fur?", because I know you can get it. But when I sat down and picked up the fur, I realized it was an actual pelt.  I thought it was a llama originally, but I asked and they said it was a goat. I sat for 3 hours straightening a dead animal’s hair.

And you know what? It was hilarious. I mean really, I get to come home at the end of the day and when people ask “how was work?” I get to reply “I flat ironed a goat, what did you do?” And tell me that is not the best response ever. 

Also, straightened goat hair is really soft. I sort of want a giant one for a rug. 

Also also, besides giving dead things makeovers, I got to sit in on a meeting with the creative director and watch while the different departments showed her their lines. It was very Devil Wears Prada. 

It makes me miss all the crazy adventures I had in LA and school.

Tapas Party

I've had it in my head to throw a belated housewarming party in my apartment, and now that it's finally warm I think I might make it a Spanish tapas themed party.

I would serve:

Links to a few tapas recipes

Along with sangria:

A few variations on sangria

I would decorate like this:

100 Layer Cake

Brides

We would listen to:

Spanish Guitar Music

 

I would wear:

Topshop

What to do with your leftover Christmas Trees

The good old days

This post ended up a little different than I originally intended thanks to youtube, but I'll explain later.

Yesterday I found what has to be one of the best blogs ever. It started when I discovered that Scholastic is re-releasing some of the Baby-Sitters Club books, which got me all excited because I loved those books when I was younger and when I was in 4th grade the girls in my class had this huge fight over them because half of us liked them and half of us didn't and.... um yeah. Anyways, someone posted the link to this blog:

What Claudia Wore

And it's fantastic! It's a blog dedicated to snarking about the hilarious 80s clothes that are described in every single book! And it's rather scary because half of the things they wore are now for sale at American Apparel or Urban Outfitters! And Claudia was my favorite and I loved her clothes and I wanted to be her, only I was too afraid to actually wear anything she did, but I loved it anyway. And why didn't I think of this? So I spent about 3 hours last night reading the archives and laughing myself into an asthma attack (like Abby would have. She had asthma, remember? Sheesh.)

I decided I had to share this gem, so I spent a half hour on Google looking at images of the book covers and then I found THIS:

AHAHAHAHA and the best part is, I TOTALLY remember watching this when I was little, and watching the clips now, wow that acting is terrible. And then, thanks to the related videos, I found this:





Which I also loved, although Alex didn't really have cool clothes, just cool super powers. Clarissa, however, had awesome clothes and her best friend got to climb up a ladder into her bedroom and he was a boy which I thought was the coolest thing ever as a 10 year old (or however old I was)





Seeing all these old tv shows I used to love got me to spend about another hour on youtube finding the openings to other shows I loved. Instead of posting all of them here, I'll just list some for nostalgia's sake.

• Doug
• Pete and Pete
• All That
• Hey Dude
• Boy Meets World (although my favorite ones were the later episodes when they were in college. Those were the funniest and in my opinion, the best)
• What Would You Do?
• Sabrina The Teenage Witch (although I was a little older when this one aired, I think)
• Legends of the Hidden Temple
• Bill Nye the Science Guy
• Ghostwriter

And I know there are more, but those are all I can remember. Can we bring back 90s Nickelodeon tv? Pretty please?!

Wow, I haven't thought about any of these things in ages. I want to be a kid again!!!

What were some of your favorite shows growing up?