An Ode to Dresses

More specifically, Prom Dresses.

This month kicked off the season for one of my favorite organizations, The Ruby Room. A most awesome group that provides dresses, shoes, purses and jewelry to girls (and some boys!) that cannot afford the typical prom apparel. Last year, Anna and I worked as Personal Shoppers and helped pair local teens with the dress of their dreams, or as close to the dream dress as we had.

Originally, we found the Ruby Room when we were researching how to donate our prom dresses. Last year we missed the dress drive, but this year we provided about 12 homecoming/prom/bridesmaid dresses for our local lovely ladies. (Who doesn't love alliteration?)

Almost immediately after I made the decision to save up and buy my own gloriously ridiculous prom dress, I regretted the amount of money I spent on it. So much so, that I vowed to never spend that much on a piece of clothing EVER AGAIN (wedding dress included, my friends). I was always happy to lend my dresses when people wanted to borrow them and I even found ways to "re-wear" them. Read: Fake Homecoming and Faux Prom:

I was more than excited to discover that I could pass my dress on to someone who really needed it. But I was surprised the day Anna and I were preparing to drop them off, I felt a teeny tiny twinge of regret. Not enough to deter me, but enough to make me feel nostalgic. So I captured some of my dresses on film before passing them on.

I give you, a Photographic Ode to Dresses:

All together!

My freshman homecoming dress (as seen on Stephanie above).

My beautiful sparkly purple and blue two-piece worn to my Junior Year Homecoming.

And THEE prom dress, the orange beast (yes there was a reason I chose an orange dress): 

After dropping off the dresses, we spent the rest of the afternoon working on getting the boutique ready for our prom-goers as well as sifting through piles of dresses that needed to be sorted. 

Some of those dresses needed some work done to make them wearable. I snagged one to take home for what I thought was minor repair work, a snap needed to be re-sewn. Nothing too extreme right? After completing that task, I was going to throw the dress on to model what an impressively grotesque example of prom finery it was when I realized that the zipper was pulled out. As I said, this dress was a piece of work: beading, lace up, halter, purply-pink, mermaid cut... I knew some girl would loooooove it. So I did what any sane person was and figured out to sew a zipper into a piece of prom couture. It was totally worth it:

Wait... maybe I should get married in this?

You know this is someone's dream dress... can't wait to find that girl!

YAY! Ruby Room!!!!!

Disclaimer: Although as an "older" (and "wiser"?) lady I may not want to bring a frilly, fancy dress into my life, I do not underestimate the significance of prom and THE prom dress in a young women's life. Prom most definitely is rite of passage for many a lady and I am more than happy to pass on my dresses and to help these girls find their dress. 


**Update: if any of the ladies that read this are looking for ways to donate their dresses, check out this network to find dress drives near you! Also, many high school put on dress drives and if you are in the Puget Sound area, just let me know I will hook you up with the Ruby Room.

XXV xoxo

Today, I dedicate this post and this song to Mr. Duncan Hauenstein.

Why? Oh, you're silly. Obviously because it is Dunc's 25th Birthday!!!!

I'm super excited for our 26th year of life (and 6th year together!), it is gonna be a good one.

Back to the Duncanstein...

Welp, you see, Duncan is pretty much the best person in the world. I'm not even exaggerating. From the first day we met, though I tried to play it cool like I didn't care that much, I knew I had found someone awesome.

See how awesome? He totally gets my weird posing:

Here we are admiring each other our Freshman year in the dorms.

Turns out, we really like this pose...or something similar to it...

So, yes, freshman year, I knew pretty much right then that I had found my lobster, my other half, my Duncan Face! 

But less about me and more about Duncan:

He likes animals:

He likes growing things:

He likes his family:

He likes being a Hauenstein:

He likes coffee (and having two different colored eyes):

(He's also quite attractive.)

He likes being green:

And he likes his store, Whole Food Roosevelt Square

(learning about composting! fun!)

And he likes photography

(learning about landfills! also fun(ish)!)

He also likes a lot of other things, but for the sake of time and brevity, I will finish with this:

Happy Birthday Duncan! I'm excited to be your wife and celebrate birthdays married-style! Although I don't think our celebrations will change much, maybe just some "Happy Birthday Husband" cards... 

I know how much you love golf and all...

You are the love of my life AND the one that I love. Happy Birthday!!!

Not enough dog photography in your life?

I promise that Duncan and I, along with Logan, Jody, Chris and Lindy, will attempt to fill this void. But in the meantime, get your fill at The Pioneer Woman. Her most recent Photography Assignment was to post our favorite pet portraits. Go, enjoy, make squealy noises.

Snowpocalypse, meet El Nino

After reading Jody's blogs and talking to Log and Jod (mind the loooong o's) about the crazy crazy weather they are having, I was reminded of just how ginormous the US is and how incredibly different the Atlantic and Pacific coasts can be.

While Logie and Jody are stuck under two feet of crazy blizzard, lovingly named the "Snowpocalypse," Dunc and I are enjoying the warm temperatures that are part and parcel to a Pacific climate patten known as El Nino. If you aren't familiar with El Nino, this video should be quite helpful and informative. Or if you actually want to learn about it, check out these guys.

To demonstrate just how different the weather between the two coasts can be, this is what I did today:

Yes, it was 60 degrees today and I went running in shorts and a t-shirt. Although technically I am just sitting in the front yard with Oly Bear. But I promise you, I did run and 'twas warm. El Nino, you are awesome. And Oly, you are too.

If only you wouldn't play so hard to get... jerk...

We can video "tape" animals too!!!

For your viewing pleasure, some videos Dunc and I finally downloaded from the flip cam. Of course most are of animals.

BUTTERS!

IZZY!

The myth and mystique of the Pumpkin

The Fun Level

OLY! (This one is real long, but Oly was feeling left out of the video scene, and he looks real pretty in the sunlight.)

Sleep sitting up!

Beet Murder

Oh yes, you read that right. Beet Murder. We just so happen to receive an overabundance, or a perfect amount of abundance... or perfect amount of bundance? Anywho, we get a lot of beets in our farm box. Typically, I am a roasted beet type of girl, but we had about 10 small and medium beets on our hands begging to be eaten.

After a bit of googling, I found that it is not only nutritious but delicious to eat beets raw. Enter THE SPIRALIZER!!! (Another awesome Christmas addition to the kitchen--thanks again Dad and Thonky!) I have yet to nickname this kitchen gadget, but you can bet your boots it will get an X-Men themed name to join the team of Professor K/Xavier and Wolverine. Probably a villain, being murderous and all. Vote?

1) Mr. Sinister - he just so happens to be "a master manipulator" and pretty much an all around evil genius.
2) Astra - she can "reduce her density in order to become intangible"
3) Sabretooth - obviously, he has some very sharp teeth, among other awesome mutant capabilities. And I do like the idea of having rivals amongst my kitchen gadgetry.
4) Spiral - perhaps too obvious?

But back to the murder. I give you the scene of the crime:

Death by spiralization. Delicious and beautiful.

We have your standard red beet, the chioggia beet and some turnips! All spiralized to perfection.

But what to do with these spiralized beauties? 

SALAD!

We tossed all the veggies together with a Seestor Katy inspired dressing.

I believe it was for Christmas Dinner that Katy served us a salad with a "parsnip dressing". Wanting to replicate the delicious flavor, I gave big seestor a call and she gave me instructions on inventing my own veggie based dressings. So I threw a bit of parsnip, a few cloves of garlic, some carrot top greens, olive oil, salt and lemon juice into Wolverine, et voilà!

Well sort of, I may have scraped the sucker clean before remembering that I just invented (in a way...) a new tasty treat and should document it. But you get the idea. Right?

And it was delicious. Although quite pink... those beets are good at coloring EVERYTHING.

Alas, the spiralizer only took care of 5 beets. Enter the old stand-by, roasting!

There you have it. An evening of delicious beet destruction.

And to finish it off with a pun... Just BEET IT!

We may or may not enjoy photographing our animals... maybe...

It might be apparent that Duncan and I really like our animals. 

It isn't? Well we do. 

Oh you want proof do you? 

Okay, so 90% of the pictures on our camera look like the following:

I call this one "nose" 

I call these ones "toes"... 

(I'm very creative when it comes to naming pieces. I do love how Oly falls asleep in the best positions. 

Like this one, with all his feet neatly in a pile. Good dog)

"CO-HABITATION"

(Much better than Butter's preferred form of co-habitating 

which involves attacking Oly's face, legs or tail.)

"Smooshedcatfacepie" by Duncan (He is better at naming... I will try harder.)

"Kitten Nose?" "Hanger face?" (I really need to get better at this. But I do have some context for this one. This is Butters being very helpful as I cleaned and organized the closet. He attacked the hangers and clothes I had on the bed, then burrowed beneath the clothes and passed out. Good cat.)

Okay, this series I am calling "I can has focus" and are all of Butters looking out the window. But what is he staring so intently at? Any guesses?

(Seeerious focus here. I can't even distract him with my lens in his face.)

What is it, you ask? Kind of obvious actually....

A CROW!

I think the crow knew that Butter Butt was watching and couldn't get at him. What a jerk.

And there you have it. Animals are awesome and only one (or two) of the many reasons why having our new lens ROCKS!!! More photos of other things besides animals to come. Well more things AND more animals.