This Is What I've Been Working On This Summer...

This summer, I've been working on my college campus as a gardener.  It has been a wonderful experience and I really hope that I will be able to do this again next year.  My schedule is flexible, my boss is very understanding, and I've finally been able to take this section of sidewalk over as my area, so I am alone a lot of the time.  I am very fortunate to have such a job and to be surrounded by this much beauty.  

The area has really grown up since the first week of June, when I started (although everyone else started a week before me, but I decided to hang out with my fifth graders via chaperoning a field trip instead.  Totally worth it).  I decided that it was finally nice enough to share some pictures with you.

Enjoy!

Sweethearts

Hello!  So, this rather jumbled post is where I am putting my pictures of the last South High Sweethearts dance I will ever attend.  It was an awesome night!  I loved seeing my friends get dressed up and look ever more beautiful than they normally do.

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

 

I've heard a lot of mixed reviews about school dances lately.  Were school dances very horrible for you or were they a lot of fun when you were in high school?  If you're in high school right now, do you think they're kind of fun?

Where I've Been All This Time

Hello there!  So, I haven't been very present for the past ten days or so.  But I have an excuse!  Over the past ten or so days, I've been...

... making snow angels in the middle of frozen lakes!  Okay, not exactly in the middle, but still on a frozen lake.  Where I live, it's been uncommonly warm.  It's been forty degrees Fahrenheit for the past week, so my cousins, sister, and I decided to take a walk around a lake close to my grandma's house.  It's insane, because last year at this time, we had like, five feet of snow.  Now there's nothing, and it's really actually nice :)

My cousin McKenna and sister Shannon

Cousins Thomas, Kenna, and Sister Shannon

Seesters!

So yeah!  I've been hanging out with family this weekend!  Also, during my absence, I turned eighteen, but there will be more on that later in video form.

I haven't had a lot of time to read what I want to read-- it's all reading for school.  So I haven't been very motivated to read (though I do need to finish one by tomorrow... oops...) so I can't really give you a specific date on when the next review will be.  So there might be a bundle of lists and picture posts headed your way soon.  I'll space them out though.

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

Gallery Walk-- October 20, 2011

I did a college visit yesterday.  If I get pictures like this, I wouldn't mind going to school there.  Too bad that don't have a very big photography program...

Gallery Walk-- October 8, 2011

So, since I might not be posting reviews for quite some time, I thought that I would start posting more pictures.  It's a trade-off!  Any way, last weekend when I was getting my senior pictures taken, I brought my camera (it was in a couple of the pictures as well), so I took a couple pictures of and around Minnehaha Falls.  If you're not from or have never visited Minneapolis, or even if you live here and you've never visited the Falls, definitely look it up.  It's a great hike just going up and down the stairs, but even if you don't want to see a waterfall, there's so much to do in that area.  I haven't even tried everything there.

I will point out, however, that some of these pictures weren't from last weekend, but yesterday morning when the sun was just rising and it was a perfectly beautiful autumn morning.  I love this season!

Until next time... thanks for reading!

--Jude

Art Day Collage!

I made this over the summer.  I went with my boyfriend to his grandmother's house (she's super nice) where she holds an art day.  We made collages and t-shirts (I put a herd of kangaroos on mine, so it was Australia themed).  It was great fun!  This is what I came up with (I tried to tell a love story without words.  Did it work?).  You can click on the picture to make it bigger.

I kind of want to try and do this again because it was so much fun to do.  I can't promise anything, but maybe you'll see another one of these in the future.

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

A Peek Inside My Head: 'Murder by Rulers'

I'm sure that I've mentioned this before, but when I was in seventh grade, I began a story called 'Murder by Rulers.'  Since then, I have finished a draft, added to it, scrapped that entire draft, and started writing the same story (yet a completely different story) from the very beginning again.  In order to focus my thoughts some more, I decided to have a coloring day (when it was still summer) and work out what I thought some of the main places looked like.  I just wanted to show you what I've been working on since posting has been so scarce (save for the scheduled posts).  Enjoy!

 In 'Murder by Rulers' my character Kieran (originally named Edward, until I realized that half of my cast of characters had names from 'Twilight') works in his family's coffee shop called A Cup for Joe.  I described it in the story, but this is my visual representation of it.  I might have to redo that description, but that'll just have to wait until I get into editing mode.  Right now, I just want to finish.

 I tried to think of how I would design my own coffee shop and then couple that with places that I've already been to before.

 I had an upper area where Ella and Kieran played numerous games of Sorry!  They're later joined by Angela, who later becomes Kieran's love interest, though I still have to write those scenes.

 I love it when coffee shops have fire places!  They're so classy!

 This is the high school where Emmett (who later becomes Ella's love interest), Angela, Ella, and Kieran all go to school.  This isn't how I originally imagined it, but pretty close.  I guess this pictures is set inside the retaining wall of the school.  Yes.  Let's go with that.  I might have to go through and give this picture another try.  Maybe even make it lighter and easier to see.

 I want to make the front door much bigger and also higher off the ground.

I could even add in a more defined garden as opposed to this one that's just kind of thrown in wherever it fits.

So, that's all I have for you today!  I hope you liked it, and if you didn't, well, that's okay.

Thanks for reading!

--Jude