Happy Birthday to my Mother!

March 7th = my mother's birthday :)

Normally, I take much more vivid pictures of my cupcake delights, but these cupcakes did not come out at all like I imagined they would. There was all sorts of problems with the icing and I was running out of ingredients left and right. It was a mess! But somehow I pulled together a little something so I was able to go through with my little cupcake surprise nonetheless! It's sad, though. I had much bigger plans for my mom's birthday last summer. Yes, last summer I was thinking of what I wanted to do for my mom's birthday. That might sound weird, but I worked as a cake decorator so I was often thinking of what kind of cakes I could design for my friends and family. I had big dreams of making my mother a lovely beach scene with a palm tree and all that jazz. Not only was that one of my specialties, but my mother loves palm trees. Unfortunately, that didn't exactly happen and I didn't have the tools or the money to do it on my own. But there's always next year! Although, next year she'll be living in California! Boo hoo!

Something about late nights and thunderstorms

A photo of the sky that's not from my bedroom window! I'd be amazed if anyone could guess where I took this, actually.

All roads lead to Rome

After running something to Bridgeton, GPS took me on an adventure through the farmlands of South Jersey to Philadelphia. But the adventure did not end there. I was then cast into the construction ridden lands of University City. In these lands, my GPS was useless! It was like a labyrinth! A labyrinth into Egypt! And Rome! It was AWESOME! I recommend it. If you can find your way through the labyrinth, that is. It's not for the faint of heart!

For better, for worse

Had a craving for a fresh burger so I went over to the most dangerous place in Liberty One... FLAMERS! I simply ordered a turkey burger and without charging me extra or asking me if I wanted two turkey patties, the cook gave me two. I think he just gave me that because when I said I didn't want anything else, including fries, he was very surprised. He probably was concerned I was starving myself. haha Really not the case. I eat so much junk. But anyway, that burger was excellent! Thanks, dude, where ever you are!

Make each one count

I have nothing to say along with this photo, but it's too cute not to post. So there you have it. In completely unrelated news, the Stride gum commercial with the guys riding ostriches is kind of scary. They sound like Spitters from Jurassic Park. I'm never chewing Stride gum. Good work advertisement. You just scared me from your product for good this time!

Lookie, it's March!

Started out a brand new day

When did this start? These monkeys are so cute!

Oh, the places you'll go

This was a delicious decision. Jamie and I are geniuses.

You want some bangers and mash?

Behold, the second cutest miniature schnauzer in the household.

Nobody's buying anybody

Today was sort of George Harrison's Birthday. Sort of. In an interview he said that he was born right before midnight on the 24th, but they put the 25th on his birth certificate. So, legally, today was his birthday. But not. Hm. I suppose he celebrated on the 24th then maybe? Weird. I don't know. Either way, thought of George today anyway!

Also went to the movies and saw a movie. It was a pretty good movie. In the movie, two federal marshals went to an island to find a missing patient of insane asylum. And then.... I told you so, I told you so, I told you. Go check it out if you can!

Happy Fiddlesticks Birthday!

In case you didn't know, today is the day that Jamie was born. Despite that fact, life had to go on. I still had to attend my classes. Unjust? Quite! After all that learning nonsense, I met up with the birthday girl and the Matty Coco himself for s'more s'mores. Not only was it a splendid way to ring in her 26th year, it was also a nice end to a pretty craptastic day for me. We were further blessed to have a holy visit. Yes, Sweet Jesus stopped by to bless Jamie's coming year and to greet Philadelphia! It was.. well.. sweet! I can say no more.

Hope your birthday was just as sweet, Jamie! xo

This isn't what the indians and the pilgrims did

My windshield wipers decided not to function and thus caused me to miss my first class. Due to this, I had to drive up to the train in rush hour traffic. But it wasn't so bad because it made it a lot easier to find a parking spot and I got a lovely picture of the sun setting. A sight I rarely see from the train platform. Then I got to draw a naked man's feet for three hours.


ps. And at midnight, someone turned 26....

I love my puppy!

Five years ago today my mother and I got up bright and early and drove to the Philadelphia International Airport to meet with a woman that was bringing a special delivery to us in a little black bag from North Carolina. Drugs? No. Exotic fruits? No. A tiny little black monster? You bet your sweet ass! I became the very proud owner of a very special little monster that I named Gizmo Wilkerstintious in honor of my dear, beloved friend, Chilly Willy. Since then Gizmo and I have been like white on rice. Recently my mother described Gizmo as the safety blanket to my Linus from Peanuts. I think that's pretty cute, though I'm surely not as articulate.

Happy Valentine's Day to all you lovers out there!

A Day of Epic Proportions

by Nathan Terry Age 25

No, you don't know me.

I probably have about 35 versions of this same picture. I love all the different shades and variations of the clouds and the sky. It's never the same, but it's so beautiful. This is the view from my window. But in the next few months, maybe it'll be a different view! More on that later! Hopefully not too much later though. Hm. I shouldn't be counting my chickens before they've hatched...

I can't believe it's not summer

I don't know why my school canceled classes for today and tomorrow. Seems a little wussy to me. It didn't even barely snow. Look at that. It's nothing. You can barely see any snow at all. So ridiculous. I missed a midterm test because of all this "snow". Give me a break, Ai.

Bullocks.

I am one lucky son of a gun. On any usual day, I could drive around and around the parking lots of the Collingswood Train station and never find a spot. But on a day when a lot of the spots were filled with mounds of snow rather than cars and the street parking was equally as snow filled, I was able to find a spot in the main lot. I can see the draw, though. When I returned to my car later, I found a quaint little package on my windshield. Within was a pouch of candy and a very lovely card congratulating me on my survival to my car. I really think I should have received the latter part when I arrived at my house, though. It had begun to snow again when I left the train station and grew worse and worse the further south I got. About 10 exits from mine, the roads were essentially completely unplowed and were covered in snow. Normally I would be driving about 75mph all the way home, but I was barely able to go over 40 without feeling the slippy slip under my tires. It was even worse off the highway. I didn't get over 20mph. Every red light I hit was a pain in the ass. My tires did not want to grip when I had to get moving again. It was ridiculous. All fresh and slippery. I'm pretty good at driving in the snow and I wound up getting a headache just from focusing on the road for so long. The conditions were ridiculous. This winter is bullocks.

It's a work in progress

Since I got a majority of my work done yesterday, I decided to do something that I'd been putting off for -whew- a long, long time. I can't even tell you. It's probably coming up on a year. I started it. Just drew the image in pencil and put it away. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about painting it. I wasn't keen on painting it with oils as I would completely lose my penciling. In my color theory class, we've been working exclusively with acrylic paints. I've never been a fan of acrylic paints, but I'm really starting to enjoy it. I still prefer the final look of oil, but I like that the acrylic paint dries quickly on the canvas so I can work for longer stretches of time. I didn't really take full advantage of that today, but I thought I'd show something in mid-progress for once. It's no where near finished, but at least it looks different than it has for nearly a year.

Forgive my ignorance, I am from abroad

All I did all day was school work. Manipulated things on photoshop for a long time, worked on my English paper for what felt like an eternity, and finished up some other things. Oh, and I also helped my mom decorate some cookies. Other than that, I just did school work. I don't know where the time goes. It just slips by. Sucked away in toil.

Another snow post

All these snow posts must be getting pretty tired. Well, get used to them. It seems they're not going anywhere fast!

This is called foreshadowing....

That looks like my parent's car

Due to the threat of more snow, I got up and got some things done and picked Jamie up so we could enjoy a few hours like normal sane people that haven't been in cooped up in their home for days on end. We didn't go far, though. We just went down to the farm and had a late breakfast. Some call that dinner, I think. Anyway, while dining, the snow began to fall and then shortly so did a small girl who ran full speed at a parking marker and proceeded to slide across the salted cement face first. I shouldn't have laughed inside, but I did. She wasn't really hurt. She didn't even cry; she just whined a spine grating whine. It was really her precious child ego that was bruised. Be that as it may, she had to have seen that shit. It was painted BRIGHT YELLOW.

Winter's long lament

I can't wait til I freeze all day because of air conditioning. At least then I can go outside and warm up. All I've done for a month is freeze inside and outside all over Philadelphia.

Fists of Flurry

You have no idea how hard this shot was to get. It's crap, but it's the best I could do under the circumstances. You can't get that dog to stay still at all in the snow! Stupid little fool. I hate snow. Why was a cursed with a dog who loves it? Was it to make me appreciate it? His reaction to it is the only thing I like about it. The absolute only thing, really. Congrats, Gizmo. You gave me something to like about snow.

Do you understand the words

I really haven't enjoyed any of the papers I've had to write for my English class. I suppose it goes without saying that papers aren't fun to write, but I'm just coming to find more and more that I don't enjoy the task of writing, in the formal sense. I know I'm not alone in it, but sometimes I think that perhaps I shouldn't hate it cause I'm relatively good at it. I've always excelled in all of my English courses. I don't know. Just some thoughts that have been kicking around. I won't worry about having a purpose or conclusion to this, though. In other words, my dog is distractingly cute.

I love Chilly Willy

Evermore I am
sure of the things that I can
not endure since you

I have a million things I could say, but I just can't seem to get anything else out. I suppose five years just isn't enough time for me.

It comes and it snows

This snow storm blew everyone's mind. Apparently, the weather man said there would be snow flurries. They were wrong and it had everyone in my house flurious. It's my blog, I can pun if I want to. Even if they're horrible. The more horrible the better in my opinion. Any thee way, I wasn't as surprised. I knew it was going to snow because the picture of the weather of the day on my igoogle page showed snowed. A picture speaks a thousand words, friends! Stop listening to weather men and start looking out the window! Also, don't take my advice on anything.

My crazy feet

Due to an abnormal amount of horrendous feet and toe cramps the night before, my feet were tight and sore and I wasn't too stoked about going to class. My mother talked to a doctor friend of hers about my feet woes and told me later on that this kind of thing was not normal for someone my age. I've been frequently plagued by various toe cramps here and there, but normally after I eat a few bananas, I'm back to normal. This week, I've eaten a banana everyday and had the worst cramps in my feet of my life. And I also heard it was due to dehydration, but I was definitely not dehydrated. The latest theory is that they're possibly caused by exhaustion. That could be true. It's hard to say since they're essentially a medical mystery to a certain degree. There just seems to be a slew of theories. I guess you run through the list and find out what works. Well, we're taking the advice of a doctor and trying out the tonic water cure. Tonic water has quinine in it which is used for a multitude of things, but most importantly for leg cramping. The problem with this cute? Tonic water tastes disgusting! Ugh. In my opinion it's horrible. My mother thought I was crazy, but it was such a struggle for me to drink a glass of it. I tried to do a Michael Scott cure and add sugar to it, but it didn't dissolve and didn't help much. Splenda next time. ;) Anyway, fingers crossed that this works! Mind over crampage!

ps. I blame the swine flu vaccine. maybe it didn't directly cause my cramps, but I've definitely felt exhausted since getting it... so... you tell me if there's any correlation!

I want you to acknowledge it

At the Ferry Ave stop, I always admire this building. In a lot of ways, the general nature of graffiti is frowned upon. And, in many circumstances, I agree with that. Some graffiti is like the equivalent to pissing on a wall permanently. But clearly other graffiti is truly art. That's the kind I like. Feels wrong calling it graffiti when it's so interesting and well composed. So, really, thanks to the people that were involved in this lovely piece of art. I enjoy it on my journey. Keep up the good graffiti! You bring it to a higher level!

There are angels in the clouds...

I guess I can see why some people say the heavens are in the clouds. Yeah, I can see that.

Don't tell anybody but..

My dog does my homework. So glad to get that off my chest.

I got a pocketful of dreams

Took my first trip to Brooklyn and boy was it exciting. Unfortunately, most of the activities were highly illegal so I can't repeat them. As for the legal activities, we went on a picturesque train ride through the city right past the statue of Liberty's face. Then we saw Nathan's apartment which says his name on it real big and bold. You can't miss it. Stopped and saw some of the Monty Python guys before we went into Nate's place and rocked some jams. Afterward, we went back into the city and partied hard like Ke$ha til we worked up such a big appetite that we went and ate lavish dinners at the really fancy diner that Ke$ha owns. Appropriately named the Tick Tock Diner. So lush. I can't believe how much money we laid down for dinner! And if you're wondering why the Empire State Building is lit up in green... well... if I told you... I'd have to kill you.

I don't believe it

Saturdays are for homework. If you haven't heard of the NPR book "This I Believe", I would recommend it. It's basically a compilation of essays written by men and women all over the nation, sometimes famous though mostly not. They're written about a range of subjects, but on an uplifting theme based upon personal beliefs. Some of them are really sad, but they do make you think. I'm enjoying it. If you want some examples, there's a website that is essentially a database. It's at thisibelieve.org. Check it out if you're bored or in need of some inspiration

That's my pleasure

Fridays off are beautiful.

Lap tip top

For my birthday, my parents got me a laptop. I'm not a huge fan of laptops. They have never really been my best friend, but due to the fact that my desktop is slowly dying and I'm doing a lot of commuting, I thought this might be a wise investment. Then I was assigned the chore of picking out one that I wanted under a certain price cap. That was a not a fun task! Anyway, the photo above is a little snap I took while testing out my web cam. The official first shot snapped. Cross your fingers that this lap top wants to be my friend!!

Makes you worry about gravity

Last quarter in my Fundamentals of Drawing class, we didn't draw a nude model until about the last two weeks of class. That was not the case at all for my Life Drawing class. We started drawing nude models the very first day. Makes sense considering it's "life" drawing. I suppose by the end of this quarter I'm going to be pretty awesome at drawing the human form. At least I hope I will be. Everyone in my class seems to generally dislike the instructor. I don't know how I feel about him. He's an odd fellow. Despite his quiet manner, he has a slight speech impediment and wears the same very ornate jeans, cuffed at the bottom with pristine white, high-top sneakers every week. He also plays XPN during classes, which is good until it turns to smooth jazz mid way through the night. But none of that is the problem that people have. The thing that my classmates seem to dislike about him is his lack of opinion on their work. Sometimes the most he'll say to you is, "you've got the right idea" and walk on. I don't require a whole lot of encouragement or critiques. I'm happy to just draw the figure and see what I can do without someone telling me what I'm doing wrong. I'm fine being told that too, but I can go either way. He does comment and give advice, though. But some people seem to just dislike the things that he says period. I don't know. These kids! Can't please them! I'll say that I really did like my instructor, Rob, from my last drawing class, but he was younger and a lot more personable so that's almost expected.... But I digress... I'm rambling... Kind of looking forward to seeing my stuff by the end of quarter. Okay. Done. No more Ai blabber.

Good life here we come!

Got this sweet baby for Christmas. I realized the Cash Money Crew (aka the CMC) has been around for something like 8 years. And throughout those 8 years, we have never actually had any decent amount of cash or money. In case you didn't know, the CMC is my friend, Jamie, and my terribly intimidating crew. In the past, I had to keep my identity hidden, but things have calm down. Other crews have grown up and gotten families, but the CMC has stayed true to their roots. We haven't gone all soft and had babies, made money, or gotten anymore cash. Yeah, we are REAL THUGS, YO! But, turns out, one of us got pretty good at some pottery design. That's pretty thug, though. Right?

All you need is box

Did I get Beatles Rockband? Nope. Got the box cover, though. One of the best parts in my opinion. Not to diss the game itself. Clearly the music in the game is the best part by far. Fortunately, I don't need the game to enjoy that. Anyway, I like driving around and seeing my favorite guys in the backseat when checking my blind spots. My car is officially a two-seater.

ps. thanks, Jamie!

Spread a little love

Despite feeling a bit under the weather after three chilly days in Philly, I went over to see my little nephew, Samuel. I nearly didn't go, but I'm glad that I did. Not only had we not given him his Christmas presents yet, but I don't get to see him very often in general. So, I try not to be lazy about it when the opportunity arises. I still can't quite decipher his (what I like to call) accent, but he was a lot less shy than he normally is. And when he put on his Batman he really took on new life. He beat the shit out of his dad. Not to mention the drawer in the kitchen. He wasn't fooled. That was clearly the Joker and he gave him what for. In other news, he has no clue who WALL-E is and that is just a damn shame!

School days, school days...

An impromptu haiku:

Teach the dog to stay
wait while you are away and
love always remains

by me

I'm getting too old for this shit

I super spoiled myself last year! Never go to Disney on your birthday because the next will pale, pale, PALE in comparison! Booo!

Keep your friends close...

Despite how low on funds I am, I gathered my resources together and went to England! You really find out who your friends are when you fly to England for the night. Despite the distance, Ched, Matty Coco, and Jamie all came out to celebrate my birth on the day that I wish was my actual birth date. And, just my luck, after the big rugby match ended, they started up some karaoke! Though it was short lived, it was good times. Can't wait to go back to England again soon!

I think there's some truth to finding out who your friends are when it's your birthday. In my opinion, a true friend knows when it is and make sure to send you some kind of greeting. And I've been very blessed in that arena. The little texts, tweets, and well wishes from friends was really sweet and definitely did make my birthday nicer. Apparently, a few people are glad I was born! Hurray! In the same vein, some friendships that at one time were very important to me seem to be very different this time around, to say the least. That was a downer on my day of days! But that's life and life goes on and I'm just glad to have the friends that I do have :)

Cheese-cake Fac-tor-y, I got all my sisters with me!

I don't want to say that my birthday was a total bust, but this Friday was. I just hung around the house all day pretty much all by myself. I wound up taking a long nap in the middle of the day, which is a tell-tale-sign of a pooptastic day. Things were just not panning out and I was struck with some difficult memories and tears flowed. But the day wasn't a complete disaster. Jamie and I went up to the Cheesecake Factory in Cherry Hill and discovered not only a DSW, but that the Cheesecake Factory is one of the most hoppin' places around on a Friday night. Don't try to go there if you want to go to Philly to catch a band. You will miss that band and wind up drinking overpriced drinks and overly delicious cheesecake to heal the pain! I really should not have spent as much money as I did that night, but you only live once!

It is my birthday.

(first photo of my 26th year)

I am officially 26. But I feel more like 25 going on 19. I must have Peter Pan syndrome. Or Benjamin Button disease. I don't know. Maybe I just don't have a life. Yeah, that's probably it. Being broke and living with your parents definitely stunts your growth. But I see good things on the horizon for this year of my epic life so maybe by this time next year I won't be leading such a pathetic existence! Though, I wouldn't put any money on that if I were you!

And, ahem, I was in Florida this time last year. I spent the day in the Magic Kingdom on this day in 2009 after spending a few days lounging at a sweet pool in the sun! This birthday can't possibly be an upgrade! Boo hoo!

Ohhhh the night before!

This is the last photo I took as a spry, young 25 year old. Did I overcome a quarter life crisis? I think so. But I think I probably owe a lot to this little fool! So, it's an appropriate "last" photo!

Not much to report

I have to admit that I haven't gotten nearly as much accomplished as I had wanted when my Winter Break began, but I can't say that I'm terribly surprised. When it's as cold as it is, I'm hard pressed to get anything done. I just want to be wrapped up in blankets and not move. It does not inspire art or music. It's the winter time when I feel like I've lost my creativity. It's always when my longest lulls are. In other news, after seeing I think no movies during Fall Quarter, I saw three whole movies in the past couple of weeks! I saw The Princess and the Frog, Nine, and Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed them all very much! That's something I can handle in the winter. Theaters are warm. I get to just sit in a chair and be entertained and warm! I just wish it was cheaper! But yeah, my break is nearly over. I'm bummed. I'm going to freeze in Philly this quarter! Ah well. A girl has got to do what a girl has got to do!

ps. that's why this picture is crooked. I opened the window to take it and rushed cause it was freezing cold!! hahaha

Gotta love Mondays!

This is Steve's hand. It is a medical mystery. Discuss among yourselves.