Thanksgiving

This week I pretty much learned how to prepare a turkey for thanksgiving dinner. It was pretty gross. I have decided I am not the kind of person who likes to touch raw meat. I don't think I will ever attempt at pulling out the insides of a turkey again in my life. The neck just did it for me I think it was the single most gross thing I have ever touched. Over all the turkey turned out nicely I made it with my dad. (he is the expert on meat in my family) We basted it then seasoned it, put a dry rub on it and then started to bake it. The coolest part I think is was the baking part, my family has this really cool oven that has a setting called speed bake it is tri-vection, and it finished baking our turkey in 1 hour and 30 minutes. It was amazing. Everyone enjoyed a delicious turkey and a happy thanksgiving.

My Projects!

Here are some pictures of the stuff I am learning: just providing a visual aid for those out there who like the pictures. Hope ya'll like em

Uneventful

Well i have been a slacker this week and I didn't get anything learned or started to learn something new! I will work on it this week and have something awesome to post next week! For now keep reading!

Sewing

well since it is halloween I thought I would be creative and make my own halloween costume. This has proven to be a lot harder than I anticipated. I chose to be Miley Cyrus in her Fly on the Wall outfit from her tour (here is a pic: http://dresslikemiley.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=7&pos=14) Well I went out shopping found the tank top, easy check it off. Then I was in search of the footwear. I went to 3 or 4 places and then I found the socks, not a knock off but pretty much IDENTICAL to the ones she wore! so cool. check it off. Next was the boots she wears combat boots that have white stripes on them... a little harder to do so I went to the army navy store bought some boots for 25$ and I am duct taping white stripes on with white duct tape, pretty creative I thought. Now for the shorts I am still in serious pursuit of these worst comes to worst I will have to wear just black or white spandex shorts hopefully though I will be able to find the patterned ones she wears, it would be amazing if the same thing that happened to the socks happened with the shorts, oh I am keeping my fingers crossed (if you have any leads help a sista out). Now for the skirt, this is where the sewing part comes in, I have had a hay day figuring out how to make this. First I was going to buy a nasty white prom or wedding dress from DI and cut it up, then I decided eh why not just buy a white skirt and attach a bunch of fabric to it? Well this is exactly what I decided to do the dress isn't finished but so far it seems pretty simple, I can't wait to show it off this halloween weekend!

Poker Night.

Well while I am attempting at the guitar I thought I would take time to learn something fun along with it. So this week I went over to a friend of a friends house and attempted my hand at the game of Poker. I will tell you this much I didn't win any money ha ha but I didn't loose it either. Mostly I just played alongside my friend Corey, he tried to teach me a few things and I am still a complete novice but I at least tried, Corey insisted that night that we play again so that I can actually have fun doing it. Don't get me wrong I completely enjoyed the night but left only knowing a few things. I am still getting a hang of what hands to play and what ones to fold but I am sure with time and experience I will get better. At least that is what we are hoping for.

As far as the Guitar is coming I was having trouble finding someone to learn from so I have decided to go the self teaching route and do what any do-it-your-selfer does: YouTube it. Details forthcoming.

Ok so the guitar learning didn't go so well this week. I wasn't able to get my guitar fixed so it didn't get started I am now on the mission of looking for a place to repair my guitar. (any suggestions would be helpful) So, since that plan fell through for this week we will give it ago this week. Hopefully it all works out oh boy life gets busy sometimes! I will keep you all posted!

Well this week has been a really busy week I wasn't able to get a start on anything I did however choose something to start on its going to take a while but its something I have always wanted to do, and that is play the guitar. So I got a guitar and just need to get a string fixed and we are on our way I will keep you all posted!

SAY CHEESE!.. pinhole style...

So I am a photography major and I have been exploring alternative processes. One that is simple and cheap to do is Pinhole Photography. Basically pinhole photography is taking pictures on photo-paper without a viewfinder or way to frame the image before you take it. I started by making a pinhole camera which is really simple and easy to do you can make it out of pretty much anything, all you have to do is make it light tight. The images are pretty unpredictable which makes it exciting you never know if it is going to be sharp or fuzzy or how the much of the picture you wanted is actually exposed onto the page. Its always interesting to see what the camera catches.

It was really tricky trying to find the right exposure time (the amount of time you let light into your camera to expose the picture) luckily mine all worked out pretty much the first and second time I used them. Most of my exposures were 30-45 seconds. I did a lot of different shots and was really happy with the way some of them turned out. It was really interesting to see what would actually be captured in the shot and how it would turn out. Sometimes the shot didn't turn out anything like I wanted at all but it still looked really cool. I love the unpredictable art it creates and the fact that it is so simple and has been a way of taking pictures for a very long time and it still works today! Its really exciting.

So if you are interested google making a pinhole camera and get out there and start shooting see what kind of unpredictable photographs you can take.

Well I finished my car purchasing. I bought a Nissan Xterra 2000 this week for $4900. It is exactly what I was looking for, it covered the whole check list. I even caught a problem that the David Neilson extensive inspection missed. It all happened when I took it for a final test drive. The door ajar light was on and I was wondering why so I went around opening and closing all the doors only to find that the passenger door had a clunk in it. So decided to bring it up with the dealership. After we took a look inside and decided that it wasn't fixable right then and needed to go to a mechanic. Well 2 weeks later and $400 the problem was fixed and I had my new car. In total I saved $800. Half from the repairs (the dealership paid for that) and half from doing a taxable tow away. This is when you decide to take care the the registration and licensing, that way the dealership doesn't have to charge your for it and you don't have to worry about docking fees. Over all I learned a lot about buying a car, how to inspect it, finding the best price, financing, and everything else that goes with it. I just hope I don't have to go car shopping for a long time... ha ha. I hope you all learned something along the way with me.

Car Shopping!

So I recently was in a car accident that left me car-less as my Suzuki Grand Vitara was totaled from the accident, may it rest in peace. So, as I had no car and a check from the insurance agency for 5,000 dollars was on its way, I went shopping. Well in case you didn't know when buying a car 5,000 dollars is just a nice down payment, for me it was all I had to spend so this was a tricky situation, luckily, my father is a seasoned car shopper and took me under his wing and showed me the ways of used car shopping.

KSL.com became my new friend, I spent countless hours searching the classifieds for a car. The requirements:

-AWD or 4WD

-good gas milage

-low miles

-reliable

-fit my personality

-$5,000 or less

well I thought that this was a reasonable request, not to much to ask for, well for 5,000 dollars it was asking a lot. To my surprise nothing I liked was in my price range, and if it was well it had problems that would cost me some major dollars and cents down the road. So the question became should I get a clunker and save the money now or splurge a little and get the nicer car with less repairs. Well i chose the later of the two and continued my pursuit.

My process was simple search KSL then when I found a car that met the requirements take it to the books; NADA or Kelly Blue Book. These guides are the bible when it comes to used car shopping. They provide you with the cold hard facts about what the car is worth and when it comes to working on a price with your dealer/private seller they come in very handy. So after the car made it through the price machine I would call and set up a test drive. My dad and I test drove close to 15 cars putting each one through (as I affectionately like to call it) the David Neilson inspection. My dad and I would go through the car down to the last bolt making sure everything was in order we did everything, I even got down on all fours in a dress to look under the car with my dad. After the car went through this it was taken for a test drive to fully complete the inspection make sure no noises and clunks came up while we were driving. Most of the cars had a few hitches in the works they needed some work but that only furthered my frustration.

So now I have found a car and I am in the process of buying it. I will keep you posted on what happens next! Hopefully it will be done this week!

Cross your fingers