Sunday, October 26, 2014

Outfit | Flashback Forties

Or, How I Finally Learned to be Smarter than the Camera.



That is, of course, me you see below. I've posted pictures of myself once before and will probably do so again. I dislike taking pictures of myself, nor do I particularly care for posting them online, but I'm learning to get over that by trying out unusual camera angles and trying to capture my own unique sense of style. Sometime, I'm going to need to share one of my super-snazzy scarf ensembles because I love my scarves. :)



The Outfit
I wore this outfit to church today and I enjoyed it immensely. I've actually had this skirt for a while but never worn it because I simply couldn't find a top that matched. I finally picked this white short-sleeve up at Goodwill a week or two ago. Pretty sure the skirt was a hand-me-down from a friend. Hat as well.


This is the "flashback forties" part. This style of outfit-skirt and looser shirt pulled in at the waist with a wide belt-is very forties. It's probably my favourite way to wear skirts; it's classy, stylish, and cute, but at the same time just unusual enough for people to notice. You'll see in all of my outfit posts (I'll try to put one up at least once a month just for fun) that my sense of style tends to be a little bit quirky.                                                                             You can almost see my necklace in this shot. It's a small gold cross-gift from a friend-worn to match small gold earrings. You can't see in these pictures, but I'm also wearing a brown corral anklet and simple black leather flip-flops.

I took all of these pictures on the deck outside of my house, so you can see the trees in the background. These two shots were actually taken in the same place, but I used different photo-editing techniques to improve the effects of the sunlight behind me (it was around 4:00 when I took them, and the sun was starting to set). I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I put them both in. I like to call this my "contemplative" pose. Or I'm talking to myself. Whichever you prefer to believe. :)


The Camera
In my last post, I made the comment that I am "photo-clueless", and that's pretty much true. I can't work a camera to save my life. But I discovered something the other day when I was glaring at my camera and wondering why it wouldn't do what I wanted: I have a flash-timer.
I don't actually know if that's what you call it, but it's the fancy little timer thing that you set for ten seconds or whatever so you can run around, get in front of the camera, and pose. Super-cool, right? Yeah, so I have one of those, and I used it, and now I look extremely self-absorbed because I have two dozen pictures of myself on my camera. I then pulled my favourites into my computer to edit. I had planned to use Adobe Photoshop to edit my pictures, but my Windows 8 computer doesn't have it, so I pulled the pictures into PowerPoint and edited them that way. Seriously, you would be surprised what you can do with basic Microsoft tools. I didn't do anything major; just to alleviate some of the problems I was having with the light.


Here I am again. You see the lighting problems. For future reference, I don't do any editing with relation to how I actually appear in the pictures; just to make sure you can see me. I'm wearing very minimal make-up in this shot-mascara and a little bit of gold eyeshadow to emphasise the simple gold of the jewellery I was wearing. The way you see me is the way I am, and I will be totally honest and open about that fact.
This is a long post, and since I'm writing it with the Fellowship of the Ring Original Movie Soundtrack playing in the background, I'll leave you with this:
"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a Golden Tree."
-from Galadriel's song of Eldamar, The Fellowship of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

~Sheridan

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Checking In

Hey, there!
So, I had really great plans to share one of my outfits with you this week because it was a great outfit and I was really excited about it, but two things happened.

1) I could NOT get a good picture of it! I tried everything I could think of, but it never came out looking right. If anyone who reads this knows anything about photography, leave me a tip because I am photo-clueless.

2) I discovered something very interesting. I was talking today with a friend who reads my blog, and she became very, very confused when I mentioned that I don't have Facebook. "But I see your posts on Facebook," she said. At which point, I became very, VERY confused because I don't have a Facebook and have never posted anything on there. Which means that someone is taking my posts and putting them up on Facebook.
If this is you, I would really appreciate it if you would tell me who you are and what you're doing with my posts. I didn't know this was happening and I would really like to know what is being done with my posts. Thank you.

For the rest of you: has anyone else been seeing my posts on Facebook? And again, that photography thing. Help!

Friday, October 10, 2014

Thanks, Siri; I Love You, Too

Me: Siri, do you love me?
Siri: you're looking for love in all the wrong places

No joke; this actually happened. It was possibly the most hysterical moment of my week, and I immediately decided to share it with you all. Aside from being funny, I think Siri actually has a very excellent point: we're looking for love in all the wrong places.
I don't like Siri. We are not now and never will be friends. But--for possibly the first and last time in my life--Siri said something that I agree with.
"Looking for love" is a phrase most of us have heard from one place or another, and it's very relevant and very true. We, as young women, often spend a lot of time looking for love.
The word "love" has always fascinated me. I speak a fair amount of French in addition to English, and I've always found this to be interesting: to say "I love this dress", I would say "j'aime cette robe", using the word "aimer" meaning "to like". To say "I love you", however, I would most likely use the word "adorer", meaning to love. Two different words in French, but the same English word covers it all.
In Greek, there are actually four different forms of the word "love": eros, storge, phileo, and agape. Each word means something different. I'm not going to go into all of that right now, but you can look it up if you want. But consider this: if they went through all the trouble to have four completely separate words, the concept of love must mean a lot to them. What does it then say about our culture that "I love you" and "I love pizza" both use the exact same word?
Looking for love is dangerous. I know, I've tried. All it does is turn your life into one gigantic mess, and I know that for a fact, but I continue to do it. Why?
Maybe because I'm human, or maybe because I'm just extraordinarily dumb; you can offer your opinion on that later. :) But I think the key may lie in this verse:
"Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field;
do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires."
-Song of Solomon 2:7
You know the theory that sometimes it's better if you don't know what you're missing? Maybe whoever made that up was on to something. I never really went "looking for love" until that first encounter. Was it love? No. But the point stands that until that time, I was content, and now I sometimes find myself trying to attract attention because I'm no longer satisfied with where I am.
Don't get me wrong; I'm currently single and I have every intention of staying that way. My goal is to make it through all of high school without once being actually asked on a date. I like being single. But people--and especially, I think, women--are created with a unique need to feel loved. But if we go looking for it, we're not going to find "love". We're just going to end up getting hurt.
If you're my age and you're not "single", please don't feel like I'm trying to tell you that you're all wrong and you should dump him here and now. But I encourage everyone--myself included--to analyse our relationships and our behaviour, and see if we really are trusting God to bring the right person to the right place at the right time. It's hard. We all struggle. I've been told it's worth it; anyone feel like testing that with me?

What do you think? Do you find yourself "looking for love" sometimes? Do you think waiting is worth it? Why?

Sheridan