Grandma North

Yesterday my Grandma died.

Marion North was one of the sweetest, kindest people I'll ever know. Most of my happiest childhood memories took place at grandma's house. Christmases with all our extended family, Saturday nights watching britcoms with our cousins in grandma's living room, even just getting a snack at grandma's like some sharp cheddar cheese and grape juice, or just a cup of plain ice cubes. She had the best snacks.

Grandma lived right next door, so when I was a kid, I used to love going over there to visit, for no particular reason. Usually I would just sit with her and watch Bob Ross, or Julia Child, or some other cooking show on PBS. She also used to love watching golf for some reason, which I thought was so boring, but when that's what she wanted to watch, I would sit with her anyway, and read her Reminisce and Country Magazines. I know it probably doesn't sound that exciting, but I wasn't a particularly excitable kid, and I loved just sitting quietly with grandma.

Living in Ames now, I haven't gotten to see her much lately, but every time I was home I would stop in to see her, or if she felt up to it, take her out to go get coffee. My cousins and I would try to convince her to go out at least once if we were having warm weather. These past few years Grandma hasn't really liked getting out to too many places, but she did enjoy getting coffee and a muffin at the little coffee shop in town. We hadn't done that in awhile, but those trips to the coffee shop with Grandma, Sarah, and Shaina, will be some of my favorite memories from these past few years.

The last couple of times I was home for the weekend, I made sure to go see her as I was leaving for Ames. Both times our final words to each other were exactly the same.

"I love you, Jonathan."
"I love you too, Grandma."

Goodbye, Grandma. I'm going to miss you so much. Say hi to Grandma Lillian for me. I love you.

Random Writing Assignments!

So, it's been almost a year since I took my last fiction writing class, and I got to thinking today, I never posted anything from that class. (Aside from my final project, The Real Story of Little Red Riding Hood - If you missed it, you can find that HERE) So today I decided to just randomly post a bunch of the assignments.

One week our assignments were to observe people. In the first one we were sent out to walk around the campus and follow someone from afar, and write down everything about them with enough detail that you could describe them as though they were a character in a book. We were to give them a name, and read our descriptions to the class, fielding any questions about them that we could. Yeah, that was a weird assignment. So here's mine.

Joseph

I started inside Lagomarcino Hall, and watched out the window until I saw someone coming, so I'd have enough time to make observations and write everything down, without being seen. Once I found someone, I decided he looked like a Joseph, Joe for short. He was walking quickly, with his hands in his pockets, looking straight ahead. He was wearing a maroon jacket, jeans, and white sneakers. He had black hair and glasses, and he was wearing black earbud headphones, and carrying a black backpack. Once he'd passed, I left the building and followed him for a little ways. He cut between Science Hall II and Wilhelm Hall, and went into the backdoor of the Physics Hall. I did not follow any further.

~

The next assignment that was to describe some friends or family. Not so much their personalities, this was more about the way they look or dress, in enough detail that could be used if you were writing them as a character. So I chose my cousins, Shaina, Sasha, and Sarah. They are all sisters, but they are all completely different, and that is very evident, even in just the kinds of clothes they wear, so I thought they'd be perfect for this assignment.

Shaina

Shaina usually wears jeans and t-shirts, though she often wears blouses layered with sweaters. She likes to mix up her look a lot. One day she could be wearing a blouse she got in Latvia, and the next she could be wearing an outfit completely inspired by the 80's. With everything she almost always wears sneakers, and while in the house she wears socks. She has a rather large jewelry collection, with a very eclectic mix of styles. She has everything from vintage 80's jewelry, to a single T-Rex stud that she wears in one ear.

Sasha

Sasha only wears vintage dresses, in sensible styles, usually of a single color, and she probably has around five that she switches out regularly. At least two of them are completely covered in paint splatters, and, as she does a lot of paint/craft work, those are probably the ones she wears the most. When she goes out she usually wears one of the nicer ones, along with a pair of flats. And while she wears flats out, in the house she is always barefoot. She doesn't usually wear much jewelry.

Sarah

Sarah always wears flowy, flowery, full length skirts, along with single color t-shirts or three button tops. On top of that, she almost always wears an apron. When she goes out she often wears a scarf, usually a light silk one, and she usually wears sneakers or boots. In the house she switches between being barefoot and wearing socks. She usually wears earrings and/or a necklace, and many of her pieces of jewelry are inspired by nature, with little creatures like birds or foxes on them.

~

At the end of that week, we were told to listen to people on the bus, or in public, to see if we could overhear any interesting conversations, and then the next week we were to bring them to class to turn into a story. Well, if you know me, then you know I do that already. In fact, I'd already had a conversation ready for the class without even realizing it. (A conversation that you've probably already read HERE.) However, this story was supposed to be written with a partner, taking both of our overheard conversations,  and combining them into one. I'm not sure it was that successful, but you can still read it for yourself.

~

Eustace & Marie

The elderly couples sat quietly, eating their mashed potatoes and meatloaf.

"So I just read about something called biphasal sleeping patterns," Marie said, Breaking the silence.

"What?" asked Eustace.

"Biphasal sleeping patterns." Marie repeated. "There was this study in Minnesota about sleeping patterns." she explained as Eustace turned up his hearing aid.

"There was monophasal, biphasal, and poloyphasal, but biphasal is the best."

"What's that?" he asked.

"That's where people take two, four hour naps instead of sleeping eight hours at night."

"Why?" he asked, just as their cell phone buzzed.

"It's Dylan," Marie said, looking at the phone. "He texted earlier, and said his friend Jaden told him we were dope, so I texted back and told him that I was sorry we were dopey, and he just replied, 'No grandma, being dope is good!' So I guess things have changed. Back in the day, calling someone a dope was an insult!"

"Mmhmm." Eustace replied, and went back to his meatloaf.

~

So that was a bunch of my random fiction class assignments. I do still have a few more though, and those are a lot more fictional than these turned out to be. These ended up being more about real people with some fictional elements thrown in. I'll put together the rest of the actual fiction assignments, and I'll put them out as a seperate post in a couple days.

Eclipse 2017 - My First Vlog!

Well, I figured it was only a matter of time after I started doing YouTube before I decided to vlog something. I've been blogging for years, so I guess this was the natural evolution. One could argue that my movie reviews are a kind of vlog, but this was me, actually going out into the world, filming something I was doing.

My cousins and I were planning on going to see the total eclipse for a few weeks before it actually happened. It wasn't until a few days before the event that I actually thought about vlogging it. Until that point I hadn't given vlogging much thought. I thought it might be fun, but it wasn't, and still isn't, something I was planning to do as a regular thing. But for something as big as the eclipse, what better thing could there be to do for a first vlog?

Sarah and I were planning on going by ourselves, but about a week before the eclipse, we found out that Shaina had the day off, so we convinced her to come. The only problem was, by that point, we still hadn't gotten eclipse glasses. I had planned to buy them on Amazon, but then there was that whole scandal with scammers making fake glasses to cash in on the hysteria, so I never got any there. The store I work at had apparently gotten some in, but they had sold out before I even knew we had them, (allegedly, to one person who bought them all, I'm assuming to resell to desperate people) and they weren't planning on getting any more in.

(Side note, that last week before the eclipse was so much fun at work... *sarcasm* SO many people coming in to ask if we had any of the eclipse glasses left. They all said they'd been all over town and we were their last hope. Apparently my store could have cleaned up if they'd had the foresight.)

The Friday before the eclipse we were down to the wire. I started calling all the local stores, going out wider and wider, until of them told me that they'd heard that the Hy-Vee in Council Bluffs had just gotten some in. So I called them and was told that yes, they had just gotten a shipment, but they were down to the last couple hundred pairs, and they weren't able to hold any for anyone. So Sarah and I jumped in the car right then, and drove to Council Bluffs to get some. We had to wait in line for a lot longer than I expected to, at a register where all they were doing was selling glasses, but we got some!

Monday morning was the day of the eclipse, and since I vlogged all that, there's no need to blog it! You can just watch it all here!



As you could probably tell, I was taking pictures while we were there, and I plan to blog them at some point, but I haven't gotten around to editing them yet. I've actually done a LOT of photography this summer, I just haven't gotten around to blogging any of it. You might have noticed, but YouTube has been my main creative focus this summer. :p

While we were driving, we filmed another episode of Wonderland Wednesday, which has quickly become my channel's main series. We had listened to a radio adaption from 1948 while we drove, so I thought it would be fun to do the review as we drove too. :)



I have no current plans to vlog again, but I did enjoy doing it, and I had fun editing the video, so I will probably do it again someday. I definitely don't want to become a daily vlogger, that just sounds exhausting, but if I'm doing something fun, or going somewhere interesting, I could easily see myself doing it again.

Catch Up 3: Everything Else

So, the past two days I covered everything from the holidays that I'd missed, today, I'm just going to finish it off with everything that happened between January and May.

First up: I learned to knit!

On my way back to Ames for the Spring semester, I stopped at a Barnes & Nobel, where I found a really cheap knitting kit on clearance. I had been talking to a couple people about how I'd kind of wanted to learn, so I impulse bought it on sight.

And I made a scarf!

After I started knitting grandma found this (very) old skein of yarn in a desk and gave it to me. I took me well over an hour, maybe two, to untangle it. :p

Then I started buying more stuff and started a new scarf.

It was done in just a couple of weeks!

I was pretty happy with it!

Then I got some ring looms to help me knit hats.

These were for Shaina, and she loved them. :)

There was a flock of Canada geese on central campus one day!

They just made themselves at home.

There was a lot of melting happening, so maybe they thought it was a lake?

In late January I came home for a family get together, (where I took no pictures) but since I was going to be home, and since we'd had so much fun at the last one, and since we'd already been planning to binge watch the brand new Netflix Series of Unfortunate Events, my cousins decided to throw another themed tea party.

It was not quite as themed as before. No real decorations or costumes.

A lot of it was just stuff they wanted an excuse to make. Like more scones. :p

And eat. :p

Some of the sandwiches had mushrooms on them.

And some had horseradish.

If you've read book 11, then you know why these things are appropriate. :p

I don't think the tea was themed. I just wanted a picture of my cup. :)

Peppermint cream cheese bon bons.

Peppermint being the themed ingredient. Book 3, the Baudelaires were allergic. :)

We also had cold soup. (See book 3 again. :p)

These were basically Little Debbie cakes with gummy snakes frosting'd on.

A nod to the Incredibly Deadly Viper from book 2. (And 13!)

And that was that event. Like I said before, I didn't take any picture at the family thing I'd come home for, but Jackson was with us too, and I did get a couple pictures of him. :p

He was getting swaddled. :)

So cute! :p

The next big thing might be news to you if you haven't seen me in awhile: I got contacts!

I've had glasses since I was 6, so this is kind of a big deal.

This was a picture I took to text to Shaina when I first got them.

The next event was another trip to Minnesota. I was doing a job shadow at my cousin Kyle's workplace, and Shaina and Sasha came along for the ride so we could visit Mandi and Co. Sadly, I again neglected to take many pictures. :( I did take a bunch this one night though. :)

Trinity decided to bury Shaina alive. :p

She wanted me to document it.

Shaina found it hilarious. :)

Then Trinity decided that wasn't enough.

She wanted to model.

And then she wanted my phone. :p

And proceeded to take pictures of everyone and everything.

Most of them were of the floor and halves of faces, so I pruned before posting. :p

Mandi knows what kind of kids she's raising: Goofballs. :p

Awesome goofballs. :)

My last big event was another job shadow, and I did take a few at this one. I was applying for an internship at IPTV. (PBS) I didn't get it, but I had fun that day anyway. :)

I sat in on two episodes of Iowa Press.

In the first episode they were interviewing former governor of Iowa and former US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack.

It was so interesting learning a lot of behind the scenes stuff!

They had these guys standing in the offices.

I think I remember them from PBS pledge drives when I was a kid!

And that's pretty much it. I didn't photograph much else. I am however photographing a LOT of things this summer as I am building a portfolio of my work, photography and otherwise. To do that I'm going to lots of different places and taking a ton of pictures, hoping I'll get just a few awesome ones I can show off in a portfolio. But that means I have tons of other pictures that don't quite make the cut that I can just post on my blog for fun! So stay tuned! I've got lots of stuff coming! I'll leave you with this one picture I took after I got back to Harlan this summer. :)

Catch Up Part 2: Shaina's Birthday

Yesterday I posted pictures from Christmas, these pictures were from Shaina's birthday party, which happened not too much after the holidays. Sarah has always loved making specialty foods, and she recently got into planning tea parties, so for Shaina's birthday we planned an Alice In Wonderland themed tea party.

This was the spread. The Wonderland details are subtle.

The blue butterfly.

A white rabbit.

Sasha even provided Steve, so we'd have a walrus. :p

Sarah made a whole bunch of tiny tarts and muffins.

And she has a large collection of assorted china.

Sasha made a crown for the birthday girl. I should mention that this was a surprise, so she wasn't warned in advance to dress for the occasion. Which explains the hoodie. :p I was the most dressed up, as I own a Mad Hatter costume. However, I neglected to get a picture of myself that day, so here's one from a few years ago instead. :p

A sample of the fare.

Sarah made her own lemon curd, and clotted cream!

Sasha made all the tea sandwiches.

They went all out!

I blew up balloons. :p And these were actually more difficult that they look, because those aren't polka dots, it's confetti that had to be stuffed into the balloons before blowing them up!

After the tea we watched Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

I have like five different versions of the movie, but Sarah wanted to stick with the classic. :)

Later Shaina opened her gifts, I gave her four Funko Pops from one of her all-time favorite movies, Labyrinth. Can you spot the fourth Pop? It's slightly hidden. :p

My friend Sam gave me two Irish unicorns to give to her, because she knew I had a cousin who absolutely loved unicorns. And Shaina absolutely loved them. :p

Sasha made Shaina a rainbow cake, which we had later that night.

Shaina loves rainbow anything.

She LOVES rainbows. :p

Even the inside was rainbow'd. :)

Shaina was suitably impressed. :)

And that's all from that day! I am pretty sure I have some other pictures to catch up on as well, but those were all the other big holiday pictures. I'll get to the others eventually. :)