Family Pics

It's been too long since I've posted, but I still don't have time this morning for a *real* post, so I'll try to placate my many many visitors with one of my fav family snapshots. That's me, my brother and twin sister from probably 1980 or so. Enjoy!



Categories: my_family

Work in Progress (WIP)

Of all the many projects I have going on right now, I thought I'd share the prettiest.



It's a purse I just started working one. However, it's going to sit on the ironing board for a while until I can finish the more urgent and important projects looming: dissertation group meeting tomorrow with chapter one due; need to organize lessons for three classes I'm teaching tomorrow; need to organize what I'm presenting at an important meeting with all the Deans tomorow. So, no more fun sewing projects for the next few days at least.

Categories: crafts_sewing

Labor Day Weekend

We didn't do that much over this very relaxing weekend, but I did manage it capture most of it on my camera. So, enjoy this short slideshow of Dad realizing his lifelong dream. View slideshow

Categories: my_family

Movie night

Olive: Grandpa, am I pretty?
Grandpa: You are the most beautiful girl in the world.
Olive: You're just saying that.
Grandpa: No! I'm madly in love with you and it's not because of your brains or your personality.

Just saw Little Miss Sunshine last night and for someone who always likes quirky independent films, this one was fantabulous! Of course, the language could have been cleaned up, but all the characters were unique, dysfunctional and yet funny. Special message to my sis... If you haven't seen this, you'll love it!

Also, sis, remind me to tell you about the rest of the night. Off-blog conversation piece.

Categories: my_family

Pillow and the Orient Express

I needed a little pillow for my office chair and had so much cute fabric upstairs, so as a part of my resolve to Use-What-You-Have, I made this little pillow after getting home late last night.

Speaking of last night, every year the president of my university hosts a Faculty Dinner. The past couple of years have had themes and we all are encouraged to dress according to the theme. Well, this year's theme was the 1930's and 1940's Orient Express. Everyone was so gorgeous! Some people dressed like gangsters (even with fake tommy guns), others wore vintage stoles and pill box hats. But, my favorites were the two Kinesiology profs who both dressed up as boxers. They had white dress shirts, suspenders, newsboy caps, and vintage boxing gloves. They were sooo cute! And, on top of the cuteness of the outfits, the dining room was decked out with old luggage and other decorations straight out of the Orient Express. I even sat on pillows at a short table with a few others that mimicked a table from Turkey. I tell ya, we had a blast!

Categories: crafts_sewing

I did it!!!

I finally committed. I bit the bullet. I took the plunge. [enter your saying here].

I have a real - live and kicking - website!

http://www.bookwormadventures.com

Thanks to my Dad for giving me space on the official McLaughlin website, but I wanted to experiment with databases and other potentially website-crippling technologies that I really needed my own space. So, (for those non-family members reading this. Are there any? Hello, anyone?), if you want the family details, go to http://www.mclaughlin.web.st/mclaughlins/Welcome.html.

Otherwise, check out my new site for online photo albums and the occassional video. The blog is staying put for the time being.

You notice how late it is?!? I'm going to bed!

Categories: new_house

Corners of my home - Bathroom

It's a few hours early, but I doubt I'll be awake enough in the morning tomorrow to post this. For this week's "Corners of my home" I thought I'd highlight an area of the house people rarely highlight: the bathroom. Specifically, how the sweet yellow walls contrast with the bathrobe and old needlework that my sis gave me.




BTW, I'm pretty sure a cricket or two have gotten in through that cute old fashioned window. Just to add a bit of reality to the shots.

Categories: new_house

Monday Memories

I've been threatening my new sisters-in-law that their husbands once wore a dress. Well, here's the proof. I think my favorite aspect are the thumbs-up by Marshall. Hope ya'll enjoy. Now, go tease the boys.

Categories: my_family

Look, girls! Is it not a fine prospect?

Since I now live at Netherfield Hall, I thought I'd start a regular series showing corners of my new house. For now, be prepared to see lots of boxes but his first shot is for my mom. This room is called the Great Room and is the first room you enter from the front entrance. There's a fireplace on the right and two (of the four) bedrooms are through that door on the left. My master bedroom is down the hall on the right. Sometime later, I'll post pictures of the upstairs and kitchen.

Categories: new_house

Wedding Gift

I decided recently that I like to sew quick projects that I can finish in a couple or few days. But, since I have no need for so many purses and bags, that I ought to give them away. And, since many of my friends are gettin' hitched this summer, what better way to have fun sewing and give a unique gift. So, the following for a friend's wedding. She was in my group of 7 who went to Paris this past January so, I figured that her purse should be somewhat chic and dressy, just in case she and her new hubby jet across the pond to the City of Lights. Enjoy Melinda!

New Home!

For those who haven't visited or seen pictures yet, here's my new home! Most of my stuff are still in boxes and my furniture (expect the bed) is still in the entryroom waiting for strong houseguests to help me move it. The house is a 1920 English Tudor on a quiet residential street close to my campus. It has two fireplaces, 4 bedrooms, hardwood floors, pool, new landscaping, and even a big screen HD TV!

My favorite things so far about the house is being able to walk barefoot on wooden floors and not hearing noisy neighbors stomping or blaring loud music.

 

School life

I keep thinking whenever I sit down to write a posting, that I'll share how my dissertation is going. But, then I get to the computer and my dissertation sounds so absolutely boring compared to all my sewing projects. So, before I get sidetracked, here's how the dissertation is progressing.

My study is going to look at the steps that a library director takes to transform their small liberal arts college library into a doctoral research library. I plan on interviewing and surveying a dozen (hopefully I'll find that many) library directors that took their small library and transformed it into a large library that would be able to support doctoral research. I'll then ask them what steps they followed and what were the major obstacles or challenges they faced during that time. When I finish, I hope to be able to present a list of best practices for other library directors to follow.

So, that's what I intend to do. My process to writting this thing is this: My dissertation will have 5 chapters and they are not written sequentially. Chapters 1 and 3 I expect to have finished by the middle to end of August. Chapter 1 is the introduction to the entire study. It basically expands the paragraph above into 10-20 pages. Chapter 3 is my methodology: exactly how I intend to conduct my research - interviews, size of the population, etc. After I have those two chapters nearly complete, I meet with my dissertation chair and two other dissertation committee members that he picks. We all then discuss my study. During this time I get to start writting chapter 2, the Literature Review. Due to the nature of the Lit Review, it will not be finished until right up til I turn in the dissertation. I'm supposed to continuously gather and analyze all of the literature that discusses my topic to make sure that I am THE expert on that subject. Chapters 4 and 5 are written after I gather and analyze my data (those surveys and interviews). Chapter 4 is the Data Analysis chapter. It contains no fancy words, only repeating what the data revealed. The final chapter is the Conclusion. In that, I talk about "what it all means." I get to make suppositions, list the best practices, and use fancy conclusion-sounding language. And then, of course, is the bibliography. Knowing me, it'll be pretty long.

For anyone still reading, that's the entire dissertation process. I'll save the description of the Oral Defense for a later day, when you've forgotten the pain of reading the previous paragraph. Now, back to posting about fun sewing or photography projects.

New Banner

So I finally finished the final banner for this little blog (see above). When I started this wee adventure, I had envisioned a banner showing a girl reading with her imagination just going in the background. Through the manipulation of a bunch of clip art drawings and some of my own doodles, I finally got it. I promise not to change this for a looong while.

Sewing project

I was in Ikea the other day and found this cute red fabric that I figured would make a great bag. Good thing that the friend I plan to give this to doesn't read this site.

The Best Man

When I first shot this, I almost deleted it 'cause I meant to capture his face, but now I really like it. What's he looking at?
Uploaded on 9th July, 2006 by bookwormadventures

The Money Shot

My youngest brother just got married on July 2nd and I don't think I've ever seen him as happy as in this photo (right after their first kiss). I'm so excited to have Em has my newest sister-in-law and I know these two will make each other so very happy.

Diversion

Pen doodles scaned and the then colored in photoshop using an airbrush.
Uploaded on 6th July, 2006 by bookwormadventures

Updated website mockup

Original Mockup

New Mockup

Changed the background color slightly to a more grey-blue color. Also, added as a "stamp" the group's motto and heightened the focus of the brown menu text.

Cross Processing

I've been wanting to experiment with cross processing my photos for some time now. Back when I was shooting film, my camera used APS film and I couldn't find a lab that would process it as slide film. So, I'm finally using digital and I get to "cross-process" and here's my first attempt.

Another photographic technique

I've been trying to learn new photograph or photoshop techniques to improve my own shots. So, this is a shot of a country road near home that I then used photoshop to make look like it was shot with a Russian Lomo LC-A camera. Kinda neat, huh? The original is over on my Flickr site.