My past two weeks have been stuffed to the gills with spring term finals, moving back home, and unpacking everything only to have to pack again for my big trip, plus visiting friends, and tons of craft projects! So I wrote about my sudden Etsy addiction earlier. Well, it hasn’t gone away. In fact, if anything it’s grown and given me so much inspiration to tackle some projects on my own.

So perhaps my proudest achievement is tackling my mom’s sewing machine. The last couple times I tried to use this thing, I felt like I had to fight it and I just ended up frustrated and swearing at an inanimate object. It’s been a few years, so I thought I’d try a relationship with the sewing machine again. And whaddya know?! We get along!! Mostly…. There are still a few rough patches, but with a little practice, the help of the instruction manual, and occasionally calling in my mother for an emergency rescue, I’ve completed several projects! What do you think?

Camera Case

SD Card Case

So I haven’t been posting a lot, one reason being, I’ve been busy taking photos! I founded and currently run the GVSU Photography Club, so I’m always planning and participating in Photo Shoots for that, most recently being a night time photo shoot, and a walk though downtown Grand Rapids viewing Art Prize pieces on display throughout the city. The other event being a wedding I shot, as representative for the Photo Club. It was so much fun! I hope to do more weddings.

Click through the images below to see more on flickr!

Night

Art Prize

Wedding

(not available on flickr)

These are not all the photos lately. These are just the ones from the beginning of October. I’ve been so swamped with school and NaNoWriMo and other projects that I’ve been slow to get around to edit my photos. So expect fall photos round about when it starts snowing! Just kidding… I hope.

“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.” ~What Is NaNoWriMo?

So, I love NaNoWriMo. This is my 5th year participating in the madness. I began my sophomore year of high school when a friend told me about it over the summer. I idly blew it off. But then when she started getting excited for October to start when the NaNo forums open, I decided to check it out and I was hooked. I stayed up late that night, refreshing the NaNoWriMo home page on October 1st, 2005, the first available day for new sign-ups to start that year. And every October and November since have been filled with novel writing goodness.

The first two years I completed NaNo with two sci-fi novels in a series. The third year, I tried to continue the series, but I think they ran out of steam, and I was also swamped by my senior year of high school and college applications, etc. Similar story with my freshman year of college. I was simply too busy with the new load of homework and social life I was unused to. But this year I have more free time, a lighter class load, and my own apartment to escape and write in. I’m determined to finish this year with a new slightly sci-fi/adventure novel. Catch my synopsis under Novel Info on my NaNo Profile.

This year I started my free trial of Scrivener for Macs (which is recommended for large research papers and writing projects, even if you’re not doing NaNoWriMo). And there’s a special offer in the forums that gives you 50% off the purchase price if you win and would like to buy it after NaNo! Definitely a great motivator for me this year, because I love this program already and I’ve had it a week. Also, there is an offer from CreateSpace to give you one free printed proof of your book if you reach 50k. That’s right, you can hold a copy of your book, for FREE! I’m definitely doing that as well. (Keep in mind, these offers are only for registered NaNo users who reach 50k and validate it on the website.)

This year I donated $25 to The Office of Letters and Light that runs NaNoWriMo! $5 for every year I have participated. And if you’re a NaNo Participant on Twitter, be sure to add this Twibbon to your avatar! Made by me!!

Life is a hectic thing, and it only gets worse as the college student moves closer to final exams. That’d be where I’m at. Fortunately, since I’m in art, we don’t really have “exams.” But we do have lots of big final projects due. So I’m usually very busy the week before finals.

Right now, it’s two weeks before finals and I’ve already pulled an all-nighter in order to complete some homework on time since it’s been put off by my amazing procrastination skills, known well among all my peers. Not that I am bragging (although I am the best).

Anywho, that’s the lack of posting. This is to keep up with my one a week goal and as heads up. Haha. I have lots of photos to comb through from events the past few weeks, but I’m not letting myself get to them until my essential homework is done. Self control, ftw!