Fun In The Mud

This, my friends, is quite possibly the most "redneck" photo of me I have ever seen! I mean come on, me standing in mud, the back of a truck and a beer can? haha But I do live in Tennessee, so....

My guy decided to invite me along on his 4-wheeling adventure last weekend with his buddies. Cute, right? (He happens to absolutely love the picture above, which I find strangely odd, but whatever.) :)

Here are five things I didn't expect:

1. The mud! (I knew I'd get a little dirty, but woah! This photo was taken mid day, which means you should have seen me when we left that evening.)


2. To feel like such a redneck. haha


3. To actually learn to ride a manual 4-wheeler. Shifting gears was easier than I thought.


4. That after 3 loops around the "track" I attempted a jump all on my own. (You should have seen the looks on those guys.)


5. To have so much fun!!! It brought out that tom-boyish little girl in me that hadn't been seen in quite a while.

So since we all had so much fun, we're going to do it again tomorrow. And I'm actually really excited about it! haha

I wonder what's next...

Forecast: Foggy & Wet

It's been nothing but foggy and wet here this past week. It's definitely a bit of a damper on the spirit. Not to mention it's made me realize I need to invest in some new windshield wipers! None-the-less, the one thing I can think of where fog might be welcomed is for taking photos.

I've been checking out a local blog called Nashvillest lately and she's been featuring some very cool photos from local artist that best captures how it's looked around here these days. Today I came across a photo that took my breath away. Allow me to share:

This beautiful piece of art is the work of Chris Wage.
Naturally I had to stalk him and go on a link frenzy finding out who this Chris Wage was and what other stuff he had done. Just my luck, he had a web page, a Flickr account and a blog. I was elated as I found more photos like these and could not wait to share them with my friends (You). So I emailed him, asking for his permission to feature his photos and here you go!

One thing you may not know about me is that I love downtown Nashville. I've sat in the isle of bookstores flipping through the books of photos documenting the history of Nashville. (I love history too.) So when I come across a great photo of my hometown, I get so excited.

Enough about me though. Here are the rest of the photos in the series that Chris took this week. They're amazing!

And here is one of the Shelby Street bridge that I love just as much, although I don't think it was taken on the same night, just to clarify.

photos via: Chris Wage

My 100th Post!!!

This is officially my 100th post at Create Yourself. I am very excited about that. Thank you to everyone that reads my blog, and a special thank you to those who leave comments. I love comments! I know I have taken a few long breaks in between posts and even at times have gotten a little dark and depressing, but thank you to those who keep up with me and stick it out. I love you! :-)

In other news, it SNOWED!
I have a new job now and I'm 30 minutes away from home, so I actually got to experience a lovely snow fall. In the valley I live in, this is rare to see. These are the very blurry cell phone pictures from last night as I was leaving work.

I was sooo happy. As I left work I swear there had to be an inch of snow on my car, and it was coming down fast and in huge flakes. And being that I live in Middle Tennessee, you should know that we don't know how to drive in rain, let alone snow! So what is supposed to only take me 30 minutes to get home took an hour and a half! Luckily the snow made all things forgiven and I wasn't mad at all. I did see something very odd though. An ambulance was headed my way, lights and sirens on and it was trying to get through traffic and wasn't having much luck, so it decided to cross the concrete median....and it got stuck! That was a sight to see. I was just hoping that where ever they were going was being taken care of and that no one was actually in the back of the ambulance needing to get to the hospital.

And of course, I was very disappointed when I came down the hill and into my little valley I call home to see NO SNOW AT ALL! How did I just leave what felt like the north pole to arrive at this??? What a bummer!

So this morning I wake up, no snow in sight so I get ready and head to work. Sure enough, get out of the valley and it's a winter wonderland! I took the back roads and the sights I saw were so beautiful that I wished I had brought my camera with me. Barns, evergreen trees, horses, cows, tractors...all covered in a beautiful blanket of white. (Well the animals weren't covered, but they were out there trying to find breakfast that wasn't frozen solid!)

Maybe if there is still snow out there when I leave work today, I'll get up tomorrow and drive back out there on my day off and take some photos. That would be really nice.

Hope everyone is having a good Friday!

letterpress

Browsing through many of my favorite blogs, I often hear a lot about letterpress. At first, I had no idea what letterpress was. Then, thanks to Elise, I came across a blog and actually saw what everyone was talking about and I realized that I did in fact know what letterpress was, I just didn't know that's what it was called. :)

I actually work right down the street from one of the oldest working letterpress print shops in America, Hatch Show Print. Once I put two and two together, I got really excited. Maybe I could take a workshop or class or something to become more familiar with the letterpress. That would rock!

Anyway, I wanted to take a moment out of my day to share with you all this lovely blog, Heart Handmade, and Elise's contribution to it about her letterpress experience. I thought it was very informative and even inspirational. I can't wait to someday try my hand at letterpress. I may even buy a few blocks just for decoration around my apartment. How cute it'd be to have a few blocks spell out something atop one of my bookshelves.

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday. And don't worry, pictures of my apartment will be here shortly. Just have to recharge my camera batteries and finish unpacking. :)

::image via google search::

FINALLY!

The move is over! All last week it was cloudy and rainy and didn't really get too hot. But of course, Saturday, moving day, it was the hottest day ever! Hot, humid, no breeze, and just awful. Everyone's clothes were just sticking to them and the guys were soaking wet. It was horrible. Thankfully though, I had some great people helping me move and they really got the job done.

I LOVE my new apartment. It's even better than I had envisioned. Tons of natural light, open floor plan, huge vaulted ceiling, and so far I haven't even had to turn on the a/c. It's so cold up here on the 3rd floor, which is very odd. Today I have the balcony door open and my 2 bedroom windows open and the ceiling fan going and it feels amazing in here. I always love having air circulating and natural light pouring in. I never even realized how dark and closed off my other apartment was until now. Man, I am thankful I moved. This apartment rocks! :)

The complex is in a beautiful valley with ponds and surrounded by beautiful hills. Being on the 3rd floor, my view is amazing. Hills, hills and more beautiful tree covered hills. I love Tennessee. :)

So the move is over, however the unpacking is not. I'm currently stuck right now trying to plan out my kitchen. Not sure where everything should go, but I'll figure it out.

Once I have everything in place, I'll be sure to post photos. I want to share it with all of you.

P.S. I just saw this country music video on tv and I just laughed. It was filmed on 2nd avenue downtown, right next to my work. He's standing in front of the courthouse. If you watch the video, my building is just off to the right (it's not shown though). The "bar" is actually a lobby to a building with condos in it. (Actually I think only 1 famous person lives in those condos. The 2nd level is always lit up with fancy neon lights and you can see guitars everywhere and a white baby grand piano.) When the couple stops next to a fence to get out from the "rain", it's my parking garage. And when they are in the car, that's either my building in the background or the one across the street from us. I find this so amusing. It's very interesting how they get things to look so ideal on camera. :) See the video here.

always curious

There is an old building along side Interstate 40 that I pass every day on my way home from work. I look at it every day, in awe of it's beauty and wondering what it's story is. I do this with a lot of things in life; old buildings, animals, land...people. Always admiring and wondering from afar.
This building looks abandoned, but luckily many old things these days are being renovated, restored and occupied by someone or something. But for some reason I almost wished that wasn't the case with this building. For some reason I found myself wanting it to be abandoned. It was more beautiful to me that way.
So after one particular sunny day, when my admiration and curiosity couldn't take anymore, I drove past it and decided that I was going to look to see if there was any information about this building online.
And of course there was. (pictures came from online, they are not mine)

The building was built in 1881. Called Marathon Motor Works, it was home of Marathon Motors, where the Marathon Automobile was manufactured from 1914-1918. Left abandoned for who knows how long, it was bought in 1986, and many of the buildings that surround it, and it is now considered "Marathon Village". The Village houses residential studio apartments, shops, art firms, a radio station and a beer brewing company. It also has an event hall for anyone to rent out. I plan on keeping that tidbit in the back of my mind for any possible future happenings. :)
So the story may not have turned out as fascinating as I would have liked for it to, but the beauty is still the same.

You can see more pictures at the following links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chartno3/369237307/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chartno3/369237276/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chartno3/369355348/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chartno3/369355377/in/photostream/

Snow?

So last weekend I shared a photo of my cat molly soaking up the sun rays as I had the door open. What you couldn't tell in that picture is that it was 74 degrees outside and I had all the windows in my apartment open. I love that kind of weather.

Tennessee is known for it's crazy weather. We even have a saying that goes "If you don't like the weather, just wait 24 hours, it'll change." However, this year has really astonished me. It seems to be stranger than ever.

A week and a half ago, it snowed. Six days ago it was 74 degrees and everyone was outside wearing tank tops and shorts. Today......several inches of snow??? Craziness!!! I can't wait for summer!

Spring?

Tennessee weather...one day it's snowing and the next it's 70 degrees. No wonder so many people are sick!

70 degrees called for all the windows and doors open! Here's a picture of Molly enjoying it as well.