The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
Thanks to the wonder of eBay, I now own a pair of moss green Carhartt overalls. Thus I shall conquer the world. BOW, MERE MORTALS!!!
And in other news of All Things Green, The Wife crocheted me a new scarf.
Chronicling some recent adventures, misadventures, and regular old humdrum ventures of life, through the magic of digital photography! Huzzah!!!
Photos after the break….
First of all, Winter Storm Nemo came through the Northeast, as some of you may have heard. As is usually the case with Nor’easters, Buffalo-Niagara was mainly spared the big hit. Northern Niagara County (about 40 miles north of Casa Jaquandor) got hit with about a foot and a half of snow, but down here in the Southtowns, we didn’t get much at all, about four or five inches. Here’s what it looked like when the snow was starting to accumulate:
Of course, the cats responded to this climatic threat as they always do:
Speaking of food, here’s what I look like when shopping:
Anyway, on with the shopping….
I continue to be fascinated with my two pairs of Carhartt overalls, which are amazingly comfy and cozy in the cool weather. The only problem I have thus far is that, being as they are, respectively, black and brown (instead of blue denim or hickory striped), they attract cat hair like crazy. So every time I wear them out of the apartment, I have to go through this ritual first:
And finally, I had a moment the other day wherein I fully embraced my inner twelve-year-old. When I was leaving work for the day, I noticed a large sheet of bubble wrap blowing around the parking lot. It was about six feet long and one foot wide, with the larger air pockets. I didn’t want it floating around out there forever, so I grabbed it to put it in the trash dumpster outside…and then, the thought occurred to me. What thought? This thought:
And that’s the fun that’s been had lately! It’s always an adventure, here at Casa Jaquandor!
This weekend was the annual “International Overalls Weekend”, which is an event that a bunch of us overalls afficionadoes online cooked up. It used to actually be “International Overalls Day“, but I suggested that instead of always having it the same date, it be held on a floating date, such as the third Saturday of November, thus accommodating folks like me who have jobs with required uniforms during the week. This expanded out to an entire weekend.
Oddly, this weekend I only wore overalls one of the two days — today, as a matter of fact. My newest pair, actually: a pair of black Carhartt’s.
And they are awesome. Seriously. I love these things, even though they have little brass rivets everywhere (next time I fly I won’t be wearing these through the metal detector) and even though these buckles take a bit of getting used to.
So yeah, Carhartt makes a keen pair of overalls. I already want to get a dark brown pair, and I’m keeping an eye on eBay for a hunter green pair — they don’t make that color anymore, but it sounds really cool. I also find these a lot thicker and probably warmer than my other usual pairs, so these might get heavy wear during winter. We’ll see. I do like to go out in winter with a couple layers under a pair of overalls, with a scarf around the whole:
As for International Overalls Weekend, it was fun as always. In honor of the event I made a photomosaic consisting of some favorite photos of mine from my adventures in overalls since the last Overalls Day:
Yup, everybody loves to complain about Instagram, the photo app that has turned everyone with a camera phone into a snooty nitwit who thinks that taking a quick snapshot and applying a filter makes them into photographic geniuses. Yeah, I thought that, too. But the thing is…Instagram makes taking photos and getting them onto Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and many other places ridiculously easy. I think that’s the real attraction here: not the facile photos, but just how easy it makes it to get them out there.
So yeah…I’ve jumped on the Instagram bandwagon.
I’m not going to be using it exclusively, because my heart of hearts still belongs to Flickr, even though it’s…well, it’s right out of the Web of 2006. But it’s still more tailored to nicer photos, and I’ve got too many years invested in using it to just stop. Flickr isn’t as easy to use as Instagram, but so what? It’s not like it was ever hard to use. Viva la Flickr, says I! But also, given my 7-inch Samsung Galaxy tablet, I just can’t turn down Instagram.
Below the fold are some of my first efforts using Instagram.
It turns out that ramen noodles with a fried egg is really pretty delicious:
We went to Pumpkinville the other day, and The Daughter took a nice photo of The Wife and I, which I Instagram’d:
Yup, Instagram is pretty cool!
I’m in the midst of a vacation from work which started last Thursday and ends this Thursday morning. We took our annual trip to Ithaca for the Apple Harvest Festival, I’ve spent a lot of quality time with The Book, and in general, I’ve relaxed. Huzzah for relaxing! (Although, the joke’s on me as far as sleeping a little later than 5:50 am goes…The Daughter has to get up for school at 6:00 anyway. So I’m pretty much up at the same time that I’m up anyway.)
Yup, it’s been a nice vacation…and today we took care of another item on the list: my quasi-annual pies in the face.
As usual, I made a video of the event, and here it is. It’s quite a bit longer than usual, mainly because I didn’t have the heart to edit Mozart, so I padded it out to the full length of the piano concerto movement.
Some outfit has decided that Buffalo is the ‘least fashionable’ large city in the United States.
I wonder what made them come to that conclusion….
Sorry, Buffalo. I’ll try better.*
* No, I won’t.
Victory is mine! Let the streets flow with wine and song!
Yes, earlier today I finished the first draft of Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title). And since a while back I figured on being done by Memorial Day Weekend, I’m actually a month and a half early. Future editors, take note. Deadlines are nothing to me! Ha!!!
By way of some stats: the final word count of this first draft is 178,575 words — under my target of 180,000, which makes me happy, especially since that word count is likely to plunge when I get to the editing. Since I started tracking my daily production, I’ve produced over 28,000 words, for an average of over 1500 words a day on the days that I’ve written. And in that time, I only missed three days — this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, which I’m fine with given that Thursday involved preparations for a trip and Friday and Saturday were, you know, the actual trip.
In truth, I must admit that over the last couple weeks, I’ve felt a subconscious applying of the brakes, as if I wasn’t really ready to leave this world yet. And in a way, I’m not…but it’s time. This tale is done, in its first telling, and now I need to just let the manuscript sit for three months. I won’t allow myself to even look at it again until July 16 at the earliest. I’m a firm believer in letting writing fade into memory a bit before moving onto the “Kill your darlings” phase.
So what now, then? No writing? Perish the thought! I’m going to move seamlessly right into the next project, “The Lighthouse Boy Who Ran Away” (not the actual title). Who knows — I may even start that one tonight. I can’t be stopped, man!
(By the way, how much of a dork am I? It was 80 degrees here today, which I deem ‘too hot for overalls’. So for this photo I put ’em on, took the photo, and went back to shorts. There’s a cautionary tale in that, but I’m not sure what it is.)
Today was International Overalls Day, which is a day set aside by various crazies afflicted with the enjoyment of bib overalls to…well, wear overalls and commiserate with one another online. This year’s event was less eventful than last year‘s, but hey, any day in overalls is a better day than a day not in overalls. Or something like that.
(I’m not at my most eloquent today, I’m noticing.)
Anyway, I chose to go with vintage Lee overalls today. Here’s to next year!
More images on Flickr.
