I really hate March. That whole thing – “March comes in like a lion” – garbage. If March were king of the forest, it would show its leadership and nobility by being consistent, trustworthy, and reliable, and the weather would reflect the lion. To umbrella, or not to umbrella? Rain today, sun yesterday, what tomorrow? I’d be ok if it were just a precipitation issue, but it’s a temperature thing as well – up, down, up, down. How is girl supposed to pick her clothes in the morning – I can’t even get the coat right.
March isn’t a lion — March is a ground hog. It’s a schizophrenic month, constantly asking, “did I see my shadow? I think I saw my shadow? Do I want to see my shadow.” March needs a therapist.
In the meantime, to deal with March, I tend to buy myself treats – but since March is a long month (and it seems longer every year), I generally didn’t splurge on large goodies. In the past, a pretty lipstick would do. But, it’s kind of like buying my father a present – I’m going to be forty – so I’ve bought him 2 presents a year for at least 30 years – that’s 60 presents – 60! What else can I get him – another CD, another book? I’ve been buying myself lipstick in March for a good 20 years – 20 lipsticks – and that’s just the lipsticks I buy in March. Not another lipstick! The thrill is gone. What’s a girl to do?
Buy a handbag!
And so I did – and to give you a little March thrill – I will share it with you!
I was walking to knitting circle last night, and passed one of my favorite stores, Hello World – a beacon of light in this world known as March. Hello World is on 20th Street, just passed Spruce, and on Pine Street, 11th maybe? The window is always enticing, the store is filled with hard to pass up items – fantastic handbags, jewelry by local artists, the cutest stationary ever. Stuff, just fun, frivolous stuff. And, I happened to have been walking around with a $25 gift certificate in my bag that I’ve been saving for two years for just the right occasion.
And, here it is – the right occasion – are you ready for the bag?
How fantastic is that? I’m not really a yellow person (although you would never know from my recent fascination with all things Lemon), but this bag spoke to me – it says, “April” – it says, who is March, I am the true lion!
So, this bag now joins my tote bag that I got at the Gap last month, in preparation for the long haul through March – and no, I don’t have any yellow walls in my house, I’ve been playing with Photoshop.
And, speaking of my efforts with Photoshop, I don’t know if you can tell or not (hopefully you can), but I’ve been making an effort to post better photos on this blog – I’m not saying the photos on Knit and the City were all crap, but I’ve always admired blogs like Brooklyn Tweed, and Lolly Knitting Around for their fabu photography. I took a 6 hour class recently, on the in’s and out’s of Photoshop, and while the first three hours were pretty good, the second night became a frenzy to show us skill per minute, and it’s just not that kind of program.
So, while my Photoshop skills are mediocre, but improving, my actual photography skills aren’t what they used to be. I started taking pictures with a completely manual Ricoh when I was in high school. Once I “got” it, I moved on to an SLR Canon, a Rebel. I loved my Rebel, I loved my aperture priority, and frankly, I loved film. After college, I took several semesters of a noncredit Temple photography class just to have unlimited access to the darkroom. But, at some point, that SLR just wasn’t practical. It didn’t fit in my handbag, it was cumbersome, and in the end, it was film, hardly the medium for my bloggedy world. But, this digital stuff, I don’t know – I just don’t see things the same way – maybe it’s because I’m not looking through a lens, but at the back of my camera. When I looked through my Rebel, I saw depth of field, I saw how I wanted the picture to look, and I knew what settings I needed to get the right exposure. I thought this would all translate but for whatever reason, it hasn’t. But, I’m working on it – because Photoshop can work a lot of miracles, but a crappy picture generally will always be a crappy picture.
And, Photoshop isn’t the only think I’ve been playing with – this blog is going places baby (well, at least around the virtual corner)! I’ve become obsessed with tweaking the layout, thinking of new features (video knitting school anyone?) . . . but again, it’s like the photography – I don’t feel like I have the skills in my tool box anymore. On Blogger, I had become pretty adept with HTML, but here – CSS? PHP? If you click on the Gallery tab up top (another work in progress), you can see, I can’t even figure out how to move the margin over. So, like March – I’ve been a bit schizo – do I use WordPress as a CMS, and buy a completely customizable theme like Thesis, that is a bit of an investment, but will relieve me of my frustrations with newfangled code. Or, do I struggle on, use WordPress as just my blogging platform, and create HTML static pages with Dreamweaver and the rest of the Adobe arsenal for the rest of my ideas. And, if I’m going to move to a more dynamic theme, how much more work do I put into this one?
And then I think, stop thinking about what it looks like so much, just worry about the writing – but then I think, I worry about the writing a bit too much, and I’ve become a bit to stuffy.
Well, I’m working on it. I’m still trying to find my voice here — strange that a new look, a new cover, a new concept would change my writing style so much – it’s still the same old me, right?
Or, maybe I’m not the same old me – I’m me in March.