Thanks to our Soldiers with Angel Wings

Happy Memorial Day!!!

I like Memorial Day. It seems like a strange holiday to actually enjoy, but I do. It is one of the few holidays that really brings people together that isn’t religious (i.e. Christmas, Easter, Hanukah, etc.) or that people hate on (i.e. Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc.). Memorial Day, like July 4^th (my birthday!!! :0P), Veteran’s Day, and September 11^th, brings people together to remember and celebrate those who have fallen to protect America and our way of life. I feel like a lot of people confuse Memorial Day with Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day remembers those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country, while Veteran’s Day honors anyone who has fought for America.

And now, for a quick history lesson on Memorial Day!!! Whoot! So, Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day and was first celebrated during the Civil War in the 1860s, and was a day set aside especially for decorating the graves of fallen soldiers. Decorating the graves of fallen warriors is a centuries old tradition, so this was nothing new per say, just a specific day on which to do it. There’s a lot of disagreement over when and where Decoration/Memorial Day first took place, but it is decided that it was during the early years of the Civil War. The official name change in the eyes of federal law from Decoration Day to Memorial Day went into effect in 1967. Memorial Day originally fell on May 30^th every year, but in 1968 (the law technically went into effect in 1971) the Uniform Monday Holiday Act was set in place which took 4 Monday’s out of the year and made them official holidays, Memorial Day takes place on the last Monday of May, this made 4 convenient 3 day weekends. This date change is considered by many, including the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), to undermine with true meaning of the day. By creating the three day weekend, many people just see Memorial Day as a day to grill out, open pools, and as the unofficial start to summer, instead of the serious, meaningful day that it is. YAY! Learning!!!!

Now in my home town (we are just a couple decades removed from being a middle-of-nowhere-hick-town where your closest neighbor was a cow, so the area is relatively conservative) has a nice sized parade right down the “olde” main street downtown area. We have veterans, old cars, horse-drawn stuff, candy throwing girl scouts, flag toting boy scouts, two marching bands, bagpipers, fire trucks, ambulances, police cars….you get the drift, but we have a nice parade and people come out to see it waving their flags. The whole thing ends down at a cemetery where there are speeches, prayers, flag raising, the bands play the Star Spangled Banner, Taps is played up on a hill, wreaths are hung, it’s a really awesome heart-warming thing, and it really brings the community together (many a tear has been shed over this little ceremony). Here’s some pictures my mom took (I was marching in one of the bands) :0)

Here we have the very beginning of the parade with the veterans and what not carrying the flags and then the bagpipers and the first band (the one that isn’t mine…boooo :0P)

And then there’s the beautiful muscle car that also holds a woman who lost her son to war, a horse drawn cart with pictures of fallen soldiers, and those candy throwing, flag holding young’ins

And there’s my band! and me! and my boyfriend! (all in summer uniforms, which may look kinda sharp, but are also look kind of janky and ill-fitting, and cut off circulation to your legs if you don’t stand perfectly straight, but hey, better than getting roasted in full uniform) and then there’s the emergency vehicles bringing up the rear :0)

A pretty nice little parade, isn’t it? Lots of American pride and remembrance :0) (I don’t have any pictures of the ceremony at the cemetery because my mom went grocery shopping and there is no room for any picture taking devices in those pants :0P) But yeah, I like Memorial Day. It’s a time to sit back, take a break with family, think about and be thankful for all the men and women who love this country enough to go and risk/lose their lives to protect this little thing we got going here called freedom. I feel like freedom is something that, especially younger generations, take for granted. It’s something that has always been there for young people and they forget how many people died securing and protecting that freedom, and honestly, that freedom is a privilege, not a right. It is something worth fighting for, and I’m an incredibly thankful for all those others who came before me and thought so too :0)

Sudden subject change!!!!!

On a lighter note, since I’m now out of that ill-fitting summer uniform, hows-about looking at something vintage inspired, and patriotic that I’m wearing right now while I celebrate and spend time with my family!

Thanks again to all our soldiers out there with angel wings who gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect the country and people you loved, may your sacrifice not be in vain

She’s ALIIIIIIIIVVVVVEE!!!!!!!!

Well that was one hell of an unplanned leave of absence!!!  My life got super, annoyingly busy for like 3 ½ months there and I fell off the face of the blog world, but now I’m back with a plan and tons of time on my side! Prepare yourselves!

During aforementioned absence I finished out a bowling season, went on a lady’s weekend trip to Nashville, survived Snow-pocalypse 2013/2014, was accepted to beauty school, went to prom, went to driving school, got a 1 at state contest for band, finished high school, became obsessed with Mod Cloth, won an art award, became re-introduced to my love of all things vintage, and went to a 1940’s style swing dance (not exactly in that order, but close!)  So, I’ve been busy (and I know I’m forgetting some important things somewhere in there, and just leaving out some others) But, as I said, I’m back and with high school under my belt, and not starting beauty school until October, I have some free time now that I plan on filling with blogging (lucky for anyone interested in reading this thing).

Now, somewhere between remembering how much I love vintage things and discovering Mod Cloth, I got back to wearing more…..”interesting” I think is a good word, outfits, so part of my plan for the future of this blog is to show some of the outfits I wear to maybe inspire people to wear more of what makes them comfortable :0) I also plan to post more about just random stuff that I do and include more pictures so that my posts will be fun for me to look back on and remember the things I was doing and such (I think this will be fun since I said in my first post that this blog is for me and I don’t particularly care if anyone reads it or not {teehee, I’m getting a little sassy and defensive})

So for starters, I kid-napped the full-length mirror out of my parent’s changing room, cleaned it, took it outside, and leaned it against a tree to take some pictures of my outfit today :0)

Here’s the whole shebang to start out with :0)

Shirt: Gift from a friend (literally years ago!)

Shorts: ModCloth.com (high-waisted bottoms were God’s gift to women and I honestly don’t understand why so few women wear them!!!)

Shoes (that you can almost see in this picture): knock-off Vans from Target

And now for the back……

My face seems to say “Why are you so interested in my booty? Hmmmmmm…….”

If you notice, I appear to have been photo-bombed by back ¾ of my puppy, luckily I thought he was being cute rolling around, so I took some pictures of all of him that you can enjoy now :0)

And now, after that adorable, puppy interlude time for some face and jewels :0)

This picture makes me feel like a blonde Wonder Woman for some reason and, I must say, that is an incredibly empowering feeling……

You can’t love vintage without also loving pearls! These are a super long strand of faux pearls I doubled up that I’ve recently been “borrowing” from my mom :0P

And my other necklace is a handmade bead bird (the extra ball on top of it’s head is a dot on my shirt) with a nest filled with bead eggs hanging on a sheer ribbon that I got at an arts and crafts show I went to last weekend in Wyoming, Ohio. I believe the artist’s name is Mary Kay Moore, but I forgot to take a business card, so I don’t know for sure :0\

I just got this pin day before yesterday at a vintage store in Reading, Ohio called Talk of the Town as homage to my playing French Horn in high school, and I absolutely love it! :0)

And now I don’t really know what happened, but I also took all of these pictures and they’re kind of humorous, so hopefully this’ll brighten your day :0P

^^^ That one is my favorite

*kisses cheek*

*kisses other cheek*

Goodbye! Au Revoir! Until Next Time! :0)

It always seems impossible…

“It always seems impossible until it’s done”

Updating Life

I put things off.

Not because I don’t have time, not even because I don’t want to do them.  I just put things off.

Usually, they’re things like homework, practicing musical instruments, working out, doing laundry, cleaning things; the kinds of things you can get away with putting off for a while and either no one notices or you can do them as a last minute kind of thing and it doesn’t affect much except your workload, stress level, or the cuteness of the clothes you wear.  But lately, I’ve been putting off two things that I actually needed to do: 1. Register my puppy’s microchip online in case he is ever lost, and 2. Contacting the beauty school I plan to attend for my second admissions interview.  I actually stopped putting off both of these things today, and I feel pretty accomplished, I’m not gona lie.

Registering the microchip was no problem and took literally 3 minutes, and, since I keep both my pet’s paperwork together, I registered my cat’s microchip on the same website (damn thing cost $45, but it’s a lifetime membership, and hey if he runs away I’ll give myself a big pat on the back and buy myself a new dress!)  Attempting to contact the admissions lady at beauty school was a whole other story though, and a good example of why I’m obviously an old lady in a 17 year old’s body.

The whole ordeal took me a grand total of about an hour and forty minutes from start to finish, and, let me just say, it is 100% because I’m not always that great with technology, especially the internet.  I started off by getting my nice big folder of all the printed, hardcopy documentation I have from my first interview (yay, not digital stuff!), and got out the lady’s business card.  It had a number I could call or an email address I could contact.  Now, I am terrible at talking on the phone, like even worse than I am at talking to people in real life.  I am, by nature, a very awkward person when I speak unscripted. I’m just naturally a good writer, and not so much when I talk to people.  My friends are pretty used to it, when I get stuck trying to say a word, forget a word, say something painfully awkward, or just stop in the middle of a sentence because I realize I’ve stopped making sense, they just shake their heads and move on.  But when I talk to a stranger, especially on the phone, and these kinds of things happen, it’s a lot harder to play off.  That said, I decided I’d email her, but also because I prefer to have my communications with people documented anyways (who wishes people still used handwritten letters as a form of communication?  This girl!)

But as I’m trying to email this poor, oblivious to my struggles woman, I decide that I should probably make a new email account so I don’t have to use “locoLyd” when I email important people about important things (ya know, like my future….)  Well, Google may be my favorite search engine, but Yahoo is where my emails live.  So I click over to Yahoo, create a classy new email address that was obviously not created in elementary school, and compose my email (this is where it gets frustrating).  I go to send my finalized email, and low-and-behold my account has experienced “suspicious behavior” in the 10 minutes it has existed.  This is one of those moments where you heave a heavy sigh, and curse technology for not doing what you expect it to do.  Here I am, finally trying to take control of the future I’m terrified of, and, gosh darn-it, the internet is broken! I fiddle with it for 30-40 minutes, give up and do the microchip registering, then decide to come back and see if I can send my email this time!

I can’t.  About an hour and a half later, after I’ve logged out, linked accounts, tried to make a third account, rebooted my laptop, and tried sending multiple versions probably 30 times, I finally give up and send it on my old “locoLyd” address just to get the darn thing sent.  And guess what?!  Sent on the first try.

I guess someone out there wanted me to start my future, with a little bit of my past (that’s a heart-warming thought, isn’t it?), teach me to put something off to February that I was supposed to do just after Thanksgiving (cosmic karma, anyone?).  Well, in any case, my terrifying future has been officially set into motion and there’s no going back now but, as all my best friends keep telling me, just because I’m graduating and they aren’t (literally all my friends are a year younger than me) doesn’t mean they won’t stop loving me and supporting me and hanging out with me every chance we all get.  Gosh, gotta  love those losers, even though they’re so wonderful they make me want to cry sometimes……..

Be happy

Lydia Rose

Find joy in the…

Find joy in the ordinary

Hello Internet!

Hello Internet!

Long have I surfed your sites, gotten lost in your depths, and used you for both useful information and to procrastinate and hide from reality, but I thought it was time to finally add my two cents into the mix.  Whether anyone will ever actually read any of this, or enjoy it is inconsequential to me (sorry, but that’s just the truth).  I’m currently 17 and in the second half of my senior year of high school, and not only is this a complex and confusing time in my life, it’s also the time of a lot of changes and I would like to document them mostly for myself, and if others can find humor, joy, hope…anything really in what I have to say about life, then that’s pretty cool, and what I believe the internet was truly meant for.

Now I’ll tell you a bit more about myself.  As I said, I’m 17 years old and I’m finishing up my senior year of high school.  I have a Maine Coon cat named Tigger, and a Shih-Poo puppy named Junge (German for boy, I’m very creative when it comes to names).  Tigger, I adopted from Petsmart and he previously belonged to an elderly woman who named him, hence the way-more-creative-than-I-could-have-come-up-with name.  Junge, I adopted from Petland a few weeks ago (yes, I know that Petland is a bad place to get puppies, but gosh darn-it I got him anyway!)  The third green eyed man in my life is my wonderful boyfriend, Jay (yes, both animals and the boyfriend all have green eyes; yes, I acknowledge I may have a problem.)  I’m not going to elaborate on anything mentioned much here, there will be time for that later…..  My best friend is Monica, and since she’s basically my sister, she’ll probably show up a lot too.  My blood family consists of my mom, my dad, my brother, and granny (there are others, but I never see them, and have virtually no relationships with any of them, so as harsh as it may seem, I don’t really count them…..)

I love old things, art, thinking, reading, writing, and music.  I’m really a very simple person.  I plan on going to beauty school and get a degree in cosmetology, since if I were to go to actual college I’d major in English or Philosophy or Art or Music or some other thing I would love, but would just put me thousands of dollars in debt, so I could work at Starbucks or a bookstore (which just doesn’t seem like an overly intelligent plan….).  As far as the life that has led me to this point, it hasn’t been a cake walk by any stretch of the imagination; I grappled with friend problems, depression, and just simply not fitting in for a long time.  I’ve filled my life with absolutely wonderful people now though, so everything is “coming up roses” (well practically at least….), and things could have always been worse.  I’m sure that eventually I will share all these stories with you, but I’ll save that for another time because otherwise we’d be here all night (and who wants that?!)

In regards to my age being a bit young, I understand that many adults don’t think that I’ve lived long enough to truly understand things like life, love, sadness, loss, politics, money, “reality”.  A lot of adults forget that not only young adults, but also children are a lot more intuitive than they think, so if you think that I will only write about petty things like pretty dresses, prom, or a “soul mate” whom has only been a part of my life for a few days, you’re wrong.  Sure I’m sure I will end up writing about some of those things, because, let’s face it, dresses and prom are fun!  But, I’m also a rather deep, complex, contemplative person, and I will delve into the complex and deep.  I love thinking about, talking about, and writing about tough subjects like religion, spirituality, life, death, race, sexism, depression, happiness, and even the meaning of life; it’s fun, and kind of makes my brain hurt in the best way possible.  The way that I know I’m challenging myself and could probably insult some people’s beliefs (and who doesn’t love that with their brandy and cigars?!)

But anyway, it’s late and I do have school tomorrow, and the old farm wife inside of me is complaining about “sun up to sun down”………………..

Be Happy,

Lydia Rose