Dinner Downtown, and Airbrush Shirts!

Gatlinburg is for photo ops. You could see the snow capped Smoky Mountains from this spot, but they didn't show up in this photo. Ah well, the view is still pretty great, amirite?

You always have to stop in front of Ripley's and spin the giant rock ball. 

When I go anywhere with Crystal, a full quarter of our photos are of us posing. And that is perfect. Also, I've wanted to get one of those wooden signs forever. but I don't know where we would hang it. Or what it would say since I didn't change my name when we got married. I do know I love that cat sign.

While in the hot tub we discussed what Disney characters we all are. Marc is Aladdin (lies, steals, still nice) and I was called Belle (likes books and beasts). We laughed when we found these two "cool" Disney shirts in one of the shops.

There are still a few kitschy things left. Like some of these cute mugs. 

Jamie was talking about visiting the Donut Friar the whole drive into town. They only accepted cash so we had to find an ATM and on the way found a sweet SOCK store. I bought three pairs! Bunnies and pugs and Spock socks.

The only vegan food I know of in Gatlinburg is at the Mellow Mushroom. Thankfully all our friends were down for that, because we ate there three days in a row! At least there are two so we were able to mix it up a little.

It is right above Ole Smoky Moonshine which is really popular. There are always tons of people doing tastings, even though moonshine is GROSS.

Couple shots while waiting for our food. Our waiter was very strange. I asked him for the cocktail menu and he pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket with it photocopied on it. So weird.

It is also nice when Crystal comes along because then there are pictures of me. 

I got a "Shroom Tea." It was really good! 

I probably could eat pizza every day. 

Crystal copied me and got a Shroom Tea as well. I can't wait for our trip to LA in May. It is going to be all selfies and peace signs and eyeliner.

We got tempeh on our pizza for the first time, and it was GOOD! That is the new standard. Tempeh and spinach and pineapple.

We wanted to get air brush shirts so we went into all the shops we saw looking for a good design. There are very view that are actually good. We saw LOTS of this scary dog thing, and apparently it is from a popular video game? I hate it!

We finally found one with some we liked. I would give you the name of the shop but the ladies working were so RUDE I wouldn't recommend them. Also, they totally trick you with the posted prices vs. what you pay. But our shirts turned out awesome. I'll show you lots of pics of us in them soon. We got matching ones!

Here is me awkwardly standing, being berated by the ladies working there maybe. 

We got this design. But instead of "Greg & Tara" we got "Hot Tub Club"

We walked around the weird four story "mall" and posed with some bears but were cold and had to get back to the cabin (and the hot tub!).

See ya later downtown Gatlinburg! Where the Christmas decorations come down the first week in March.

To Gatlinburg with Friends

A couple weekends ago we took a little trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee with some friends. I was a little bit skeptical of the time we picked, at the end of February, but it ended up being beautiful! When we left Nashville it was snowing, by the end of the trip is was in the low 70s!
Gatlinburg is awful and awesome at the same time. We spent most of our time in the cabin we rented (which was amazing, I'll show you soon!) but we spent one afternoon shopping.
Travis has been on a knife buying ban for a while now (he has SO MANY) but we made a deal that if he scooped the litter box every day in February he could buy whatever knife he wanted at Smokey Mountain Knife Works. Unbeknownst to me he offered anyone that went with him a ten dollar gift? Because he thought no one would want to go. Probably because I never want to go. I know you are on the edge of your seat, this is what he got!

(Some kind of Swiss Army Knife)

The Knife store is great if you are interested in seeing the largest indoor waterfall in the Smoky Mountains. Or if you need to buy an assault rifle or a toilet paper stand shaped like a black bear.

There were also two bins of buttons that us weirdos were drawn too. There were lots of horror movie and old comic buttons. I bought a Worf one! Oh, and Kimmie came with us! We went on a trip with more than just our usual crew of four. It was fun!

In addition to the waterfall, they have a "shank museum". 

There were a few levels and one was full of rocks and cases of antiques and "vintage" gems. Like this David Hasselhoff yearbook. Why didn't they have it open to the page with his photo on it?

You read that right: "Official Exact Reproduction Alien Egg Used in the Movie "Aliens." What? 

Aubrey bought a cool pink crystal thing. Crystal bought some cute pins. I creeped on everyone from the walkway above.
We left the knife place (I bought some Thin Mints at the door!) and went to downtown Gatlinburg to the main strip. When I was a kid it was full of kitschy  shops, now it is mostly stuff like Claire's and hot sauce stores. There are a few good ones left. My favorite is the Smokey Mountain Candy Kitchen. Their graphics are perfect.

Gorgeous hook rug!

I really enjoy the hand made signs. 

Aubrey is showing off the yummy salt water taffy, Crystal is crying over how cute the chocolate box is. Sadly the taffy isn't vegan. I wish I could still eat it!

The taffy box! I have part of my vintage photo collection in one of these boxes. 

I ended up buying some cashew brittle. Mostly for the cute tub it comes in. 

The bears! Every time we go I threaten to get a tattoo of one of these guys. 

Group shot! 

Aubrey took this amazing shot of Crystal and me. Hah! It's the thought that counts.

More to come! (As I'm sure you know. Crystal and I on the same trip equals over 1,000 photos in four days! )

2015 Photobook! A Blurb Review

One of my goals for 2016 was to make at least two photo books with the hundreds of photos I've taken over the past few years. At the end of February I finished my first one, not too bad! I worked on it on and off for several months, so I'm not sure how many I'll be able to get to this year, but I think I will at least meet my goal of two!
I decided to make each book cover one calendar year and started with 2015. I didn't feel like I took that many photos last year, but this book ended up being three hundred and eight pages! Woah! I was so nervous waiting for it to come in the mail, hoping the quality would be good. I have used Blurb before to make two smaller books, but never something I invested so much time into. Here is how it turned out. Spoiler alert: I'm in love!

I went with an 8x10 hardcover book because of the size. I had a really hard time trying to pick something for the cover! If the book is about an event or a trip, you just pick a favorite image from that, but what kind of photo can represent an entire year? I googled lots of examples, and in the end decided to go with some of my favorite instagram photos from the year in a grid. Next time I think I'll add the year as well.

One of the few things I'm not happy with is how the title isn't centered on the side. When it is on the shelf that is all you can see, and I think it looks silly.

I picked a few more instagram photos for the title page as well. Since my book was so long I couldn't upgrade to the premium luster paper, but the standard paper feels fine. It is thick and my photos printed really nicely. Even the instagram photos! I was concerned they would be pixelated, but Blurb warns you if you are making something too big. I left one photo even though I had a size warning, and it was fine. I have only noticed one printing error, a tiny white spot in one photo (on Travis' face), but that is no big deal.
The templates were easy to make and use as well. I edited a few of the ones provided, then saved them and used them over and over in the book. Next time I need to name them better so they are easier to pull out, but that is my bad!

I did full bleed photos (up to the edge of the page) on every layout. Most of the examples I saw online had more white space and I worried about how it would look once it printed. I love it and I'm going to do something similar with the other years. The important thing for me is the photos, and I want to fill each page with them. The only text I added was a date and what was going on at the beginning of each section.  I also did a "best of" instagram at the end of each month. That app has become such a part of my life, I wanted to include it.

Another layout I love. Maybe I should have titled it Rae and Travis (and Crystal and Marc) 2015. They are in most of the book!

Some reviews I read complained that the sides of the book weren't white when you did full bleed images. Who cares?? Another thing I was worried about was if the book was really thick, would it be hard to flip through, or flimsy. That was something I couldn't find much about online for some reason. It worked out great at 308 pages and the binding feels very strong and sturdy.
Another thing I agonized over was picking too many photos from each event or place. This book is for ME! Why do I care? Haha! I did a full page of photos of us standing in front of that striped wall because I loved them all.

This month, July I think, there were too many good instagram photos to choose from, so I did a two page spread. Over the years of blogging I've learned that I love looking at photos of the little things, like what my house looked like, things I saw at the flea market, pictures of our street. In ten or twenty years I'm going to like seeing those things just as much as seeing photos of big events so I tried to include a lot of those kinds of photos in the book.

The biggest complaint I have is that one of my photos just didn't print at all. That left page was a full page image (one of my favorite from the year) and it just didn't show up. It is in my file that I sent to Blurb, so I don't know what happened. I'm going to email them about it, and if it comes too it I guess I'll glue it in? Not a HUGE deal but still annoying.
But all in all I'm really really thrilled with how my book came out. I finished it right when Blurb was having a 35% off flash sale so I got it for $79 including shipping. Not bad at all!
As far as shipping, I picked the standard shipping which was $5 I think. The book came almost a week before the projected delivery date, which made me really happy! I might have screamed when I saw the box waiting for me on the kitchen counter.
I think this book will last for the rest of my life, and now I have a way to see what I got up to last year without digging through my external hard drives. This book makes me feel so happy and I can't wait to complete a few more, and maybe even finally do something with our wedding photos!

And just in case anyone is wondering, this isn't a sponsored post or anything. (I wish!) I made this thing on my own time with my own money. Even with the little mistake I'm giving Blurb an A+!

Currently

Hey guys! Remember how one of my goals was to post more on my blog this year? I have not been doing very well with that! I'll admit one of the main reasons is my new version of Photoshop is stumping me. I am having a hard time resizing images for the web for some reason, so hopefully I'll figure it out soon! Until then, I'm going to do one of these currently post.
Excited About: This coming weekend we're going up to the Smokey Mountains with some good friends and I can't wait! There are several claw foot tubs and a sweet outdoor hot tub at our cabin, and I'm hoping I'll get to ride go karts and go through a mirror maze.
Reading: I've been trying to read a book called The Historian about a vampire, but it is SO SLOW it has been putting me to sleep within 10 minutes at night so I think I'll give up on it. I'm about 12% in and not much as happened. Tonight I'm going to start Tender Morsels.
Watching: Travis and I decided to catch up on the Walking Dead so we've been watching one episode a night. I love it, and I hate it. I just get so scared! I'm also watching The Bachelor and loving how BONKERS it is. I'm waiting on pins and needles for the new season of RuPaul's Drag Race to start. So soon! The queens this year look really promising!
Working On: I just finished a photo book chronicling 2015, and now I'm going to start 2014. I ordered the first one and can't wait to see how it turns out. It ended up at 308 pages. Remember how I thought I didn't take enough photos last year? Ha!
Listening To: Podcasts as usual. I have been really enjoying story telling ones lately like The Moth. I've also been listening to lots of Beyonce after she put out the Formation single. I'm really sad that I will be out of town when she is here on tour. Why????????
Anticipating: But I'm still REALLY excited about going out of town. While Queen Bey is here in Nashville I'll be out in LA getting ready for DragCon and hopefully meeting RuPaul. I really can't wait!
Loving: We didn't do much for Valentine's Day, but we did go out with out best friends Crystal and Marc to see Alaska perform at Play! She is one of my favorite queens and she was hilarious! It was "open stage night" so we saw lots of amatuer queens and I feel like we'll be talking about it for years.
Here we are with Alaska, look at how tall she is!

100 Books 2016: January Reads

This year I set a goal to read 100 books. I didn't quite make it last year, but I'm off to a good start in January! I finished 8 books last month, and I'm on my 3rd for February so far. I'm going to try and do a little round up every month of what I read and what I liked. If you use good reads, add me as a friend! I love seeing what other people are reading, and find lots of stuff for my "Want to Read" list that way!

1. Red Moon by Benjamin Percy //  It is well documented that I love supernatural fiction. This book is a wonderful werewolf book that treats the infection like a disease that turns into a civil rights issue. In the future people infected are required to take a drug that keeps them from changing with the full moon. There is a war brewing, and you see it from a few different sides. I really loved it, a werewolf tale told in a new way. Looking it back up on good reads, I think I added this to my list because Stephen King highly recommended it. I wish he was still using his good reads account!

2. The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan Beautifully written, this book deals with selkie folklore or women called forth from the sea, their seal skins hidden so they can't return to the ocean. I was familiar with this idea, because as a child I loved the movie "The Secret of the Roan Inish" and more recently, the gorgeous film "The Song of the Sea" but maybe it isn't lore that everyone is familiar with. The story is told from many different points of view, one voice per chapter, and I don't think any of the narrators repeat. It makes for a great read where you are constantly learning different facets of the story, and changing ideas you might have held before. I also felt betrayed by characters I loved more than once, like shockingly betrayed. The first few chapters are a little confusing, but just because it takes a little bit to put all the pieces together. It is worth it. I wish the cover didn't look like so much of a romance novel, because there is definitely no romance in this book.

 

3. Sleepwalk With Me by Mike Birbiglia Travis is a sleep talker, and at one point he was having night terrors and sleep walking pretty often. Thankfully we figured out what was going on (eating weird stuff too late usually) so it stopped. But during that time, I saw the movie Mike Birbiglia made about this book and it FREAKED me out. He is a sleepwalker who has done things like jumped out of a second story hotel room while asleep. Holy moly! This book is like a series of essays, and doesn't deal just with the sleepwalking. I found it engaging and funny, and I like Birbiglia's voice.

4. Wild by Cheryl Strayed I saw a list of Emma Watson Approved Reading and added most of them to my too read list. She loved Cheryl Strayed so I gave Wild a shot first. I had seen the movie and liked it, and the book was a great read. It alternates between hiking the Pacific Coast Trail being the best thing you could ever do, and the worst thing you could ever do. I loved her writing style, the way she worked in memories of her past with her experiences on the trail. A really wonderful book, and I think the film did a great job bringing it to life. I added the rest of her books to my to-read list after this.

5. Among Others by Jo Walton My friend Brittany recommended this to me, and we have very similar taste in books so I checked it out right away.  I read a review that said this story starts after the climax, and the protagonist has to live with the consequences, and I think that sums it up really well. Mori is a twin, who is now living with a disability and without her twin sister. She loves reading, especially science fiction, and she has been sent off to a boarding school by a father she hardly knows, after escaping her mother who is an unstable, power hungry witch. I love the way that the book is set in the 1970's, and in a pretty normal world situation. The magic in it fits into the world perfectly and not many people know about it. The narrator Mori feels really different to me from other characters I loved it because she isn't super into the magic she can do, seems to see it more as a fact of life she must deal with. The book is less to do with magic, and more to do with her learning how to cope with having her life change so suddenly and violently. I found her really likable and look forward to more from the author!

6. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Life and Love From Someone Who's Been There by Cheryl Strayed This is a collection of advice columns that Cheryl Strayed wrote under the pseudonym "Dear Sugar." This book has the same beautiful language as wild, and I loved her advice. It often started with an anecdote about her own life, included some tough love for her readers, and was all around a good read. If she was still doing the column, I would be a regular reader for sure.

7. Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira Another Emma Watson recommendation! This book reminded me of The Perks of Being a Wallflower (an all time favorite) probably because it is written in letters from one narrator, Laurel. She gets an assignment in school to write a letter to someone who is dead. She picks Kurt Cobain, because her sister loved him, and you quickly learn that her older sister died in the past year. You get little hints about what happened but don't get the full picture until late in the book. Laurel writes letters to many different dead people, for all kinds of reasons, using it as a way to work through the trauma of her sister's death, the aftermath, and her own issues growing up and starting high school. The voice felt authentically teenage to me, and I fell in love with Laurel as the book went on. 

8. Troublemaker by Leah Remini I'm super interested in extremist religions so I was excited to read Remini's tell all about Scientology. I read another Scientology memoir last year, Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill, which I highly recommend if you are interested in Scientology. Hill grows up in the church, in a Sea Org family so it gives you lots of information on the inner workings. Leah Remini's story is more from a family that joins when the kids are teenagers, and the experience she had as a celebrity in Scientology. I found it completely fascinating, and do think it is really brave of her to come out like this against a religion that is famous for destroying the lives and careers of people that leave the church, and forcing families to stop communicating with members that leave. Also, who doesn't love to read real celebrity behinds the scene stuff? 

Are you reading anything really good right now? 

Photo an Hour: Porter's Transport Day!

7am: Our foster pug Porter was adopted last week, and his new home is in Maryland. We volunteered to take the first four and a half hour leg of his transport to Kingsport, Tn. Honestly, I wish we could have driven him the whole way! We got up at 7 am on Sunday morning, and had a special cinnamon roll breakfast.

8 am: Kiss Phyllis and Priscilla goodbye and hit the road. It is weird being back to just two pugs after having Porter for about 7 weeks.

9 am: On the road. Podcast listening (The Read).

10 am: Porter started off in the back in his crate. I knew he had a big day ahead and thought maybe he would get some sleep in there. No way! He was up watching us the whole time. It wasn't long until he was in my lap in the front seat.

11 am: Pit stop somewhere in East Tennessee.

12 am: We were meeting the people taking him on to Wytheville, Va at about 12:30 so I was starting to feel very sentimental. I cuddled him close for the last little bit we had. I'm really going to miss Mr. Porter. He is a very special pug and his new family is so lucky to have him.
We're back on the foster list. We might not get another pug for a while, you never know!

1 pm: Heading back home. There were definitely a few minutes of tears, but I'm so happy that Porter got a great home. Fostering is hard for me because I always get attached, but I think it is so important. It makes it so rescue's can take in more animals in need, and it is fun to have a temporary new dog. I'm happy we are able to do it.

2pm: We decided to stop at The Tomato Head in Knoxville on the way back as a special treat.We split a vegan pizza and a Kepner melt, which is the best sandwich in Tennessee! And that pizza! Every time we get it we always question whether it is the vegan one, because the soy cheese is so good! Mmm, I wish they would open one in Nashville.

3 pm: Sadly, they were out of the amazing vegan lemon cookies. Actually, they had two but a guy in front of us in line bought them! No! So we went to Whole Foods and I got this cute cupcake! Sadly, it didn't taste that great.

4 pm: Back on the road. I was getting real bored of being in the car. 8 hours in one day!  I played the game I'm currently really into, Juice Jam! The graphics are so cute, and it doesn't tempt me to spend real money, haha! I also LOVE that Japanese stray cat game, Neko Atsume.

 

5 pm: Still on the road. Listening to the Moth by this time. Maybe I should have picked a different day to do this kind of post....

6pm: For the last hour of our drive we switched to my world famous musical playlist. Travis and I both love singing along with the big solos. For some reason this time it was mostly playing Dreamgirls and Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny on shuffle. Not that I'm complaining!

We got back in town just in time to watch Grease! Live with our friends Kimmie and Ryan. I got distracted by the show starting.
Did you watch it? I thought it was pretty good! Especially the way they were able to film the big scenes at the dance and the school carnival live, and the cute dude who played Doody. My main complaint is was that the guy playing Danny. He didn't seem like a bad boy at all! Too twerpy.

I love photo an hour posts and I'm going to try to do several this year. Here's to more blogging in 2016!