{171} moonprints

it is the 43rd anniversary of man walking on the moon. since i'm such a crazy huge Apollo-buff (I make that distincition because I'm not a NASA-buff, just the Apollo program), i did some digging around. wouldn't you know it, that NASA released a never-before-seen picture from July 20, 1969 of the footprints on the moon. check it. i think it's a sign. ;)

here's to you, neil and buzz! thank you for taking those small steps for man and giant leaps for mankind!

i think i'll go watch the "from the earth to the moon" mini-series now...

{170} chinese

this one is for my dear friends who are in their third and final week of travels in china. i used the google translator for this one so if i'm actually writing the word "warthog", please don't hold it against me. this is what google said my name looked like in chinese.

{169} trophy

last year my brother organized a football pool of which there were about 7 or 8 of us. i did quite well. i felt like i had drafted a good selection of players (having Anthony Calvillo on my team helped!) and so i ended up in 3rd place overall. my brother even got trophys from the thrift store and then put our names on them for the first three finishers. neat.

this year i am not doing so hot. i drafted buck pierce (big mistake) and adrian macpherson as my quarterbacks. macpherson won't even see the light of day because calvillo is a robot and never gets injured. then for my running backs i picked up chad simpson, carl volny and chris garrett. oh, that's great. simpson gets injured in week one. garrett gets injured in the pre-season and is out for the entire 2012 season and volny is so far down the roster that he'll rarely get to touch the ball. so, yeah, i'm in a solid last place.

{168} dog toys

i've done dog treats and other names involving george but i've never used his toys to create a name. *ack! or have i? too many names to keep track of. but i checked back and didn't see anything. oh, well.

of course, since g was involved, it turned into a total photo session because he is just so gosh darn cute. i just realized that his two favourite toys didn't make the cut. they are "flea" (a stuffed flea) and "renaud" (a red football that is his beyond absolute favourite toy in the whole entire history of the universe).

trying to get a picture of my name quickly before he ran through the toys and started taking them away!

so many toys he hasn't seen or played with in months!

he found his new gingerbread man toy that i picked out of the stuffed animals my mom was selling at the garage sale.

pretty pleased with himself!

family portrait.

after the name, we started playing with all the toys and chucking them around the house. it was quite fun and quite the mess.

{167} who is lauren?

i turned to digital sources for today's name. and, in all actuality, my name doesn't even appear on today's name! pfft. i may regret that one come day 365 but for now, i think it's pretty awesome. i went online and found a jeopardy answer template and made the attached answer. say it with me...who is lauren?

{166} bear

well, it was time to pull out the ol' "worst-case-scenario" folder today and use a pre-made "lauren". i couldn't help it. life has been a zoo lately and i just haven't had the opportunity to be as fruitful and creative with my names. all shall change soon. i go through these periods every so often.

today's name comes courtesy of the lauren-bear that sits next to my computer. it was gifted to me by my dear friend and co-worker karen.

{165} punched out

the other day i found this fantastic new font called "punched out" and i knew it would be perfect for my project! so, i typed out my name, printed it out on some white cardstock and then proceeded to cut out the nitty-gritty little corners out of all the letters for an hour. then i glue them together and...voila!

a side view so you can see that they really are neat 4D letters that stand on their own!

 how my name looked when i typed in the new font into photoshop...neat!

{164} autograph

it's game day! so, that means today's name must be related to the winnipeg blue bombers again! today, i'm choosing to highlight a pre-made name. several years ago, one of my ex-co-workers went to an event where troy westwood was and they asked him to autograph a football card for me! i can't believe the thoughtfulness (that same ex-co-worker also ended up getting pinball clemons' autograph for me too!).

{163} hand sanitizers

if you know me, you know that i love to sanitize my hands. a lot. like, an awful lot. so, it only makes sense that i would keep 31 bottles of hand sanitizer on hand (pardon the pun) in my house. just for those sanitizing emergencies. i also keep bottles in my car, purse, at work, in my backpack...everywhere! kill those germs!

{162} 7-11

it's 7-11! go out to get your slurpees now! it's such a scorcher today--36 degrees celsius! it's the perfect day to just sit outside (in the shade) drinking a refreshing slurpee. i can't wait to do that tonight!

so, in honour of 7-11, here's my name!

{161} big black letters

SO uncreative today. i feel the juices may be running dry over the next few days and i sense a lot of struggle in my future. so, for today i pulled out a name from the racks at michaels. i am not going to pay $3 per letter just for this project, so i did the cheap version and just photographed them on the floor in the store!

{160} what time is it?

there are lots of things that i love but two of them are teal and clocks. so when i saw this clock on amazon, i thought it was great inspiration for today's name.

{159} eyes shut

there are a few 365 blogs that i check every single day and this is one of them. i love her project because she is also doing words so it's easier to get inspiration from what she does (she creates the phrase "love one another" every day).

for friday's post, she did a blind contour drawing and i thought that was a great idea--create my name with my eyes shut. so, i took a similar lead and kept my eyes shut and used my left hand to guide my other hand around the paper...or so i thought.

i was sure that when i'd open my eyes that i had coloured everything in quite perfectly (i first drew the outlines and then attempted to colour them in) but it was way off! the outlines were okay because you keep your pen down the whole time but when it came time to use the pencil crayon, i completely lost focus on where i was colouring! great idea!

and whilst i coloured and drew, george slept on the table next to me. :)

{158} paint-by-number

this was such a fun one to make! i'm going to give it to the youngest E to colour--she'll have a blast!

i got the idea from this post on rebecca's blog. i had saved the image for awhile knowing that some day i, too, would attempt to do this with my name. it's such a great idea. when the youngest E has completed the colouring, i will post the results. :)

{157} canad inns stadium

tonight the bombers play the alouettes in montreal. it's the second road game out of four to start the season. that's all because the new stadium was supposed to be ready for the july 26 home opener but it won't be ready until NEXT july. oh, well. i'm over it. it was a good decision to not try and get it half-assed done for the fall. i want a real fan experience where i get a private tour as a season-ticket holder and get to check out my seats before the first game of the season. for now, however, we shall remain at the canad inns stadium.

this is the only stadium that i have ever known. my dad remembers osborne stadium that is where great west life is located but i only have attended games here. it's quite exciting to think that i get to experience a brand new stadium. what's also totally weird is that i'll be going to the brand new stadium but i'm also young enough that i will likely see it torn down and a new one built within my lifetime. maybe i won't tell the builders that because that could be totally depressing.

i have just GOBS of memories from this place. enough to write a book about them. like my season working for the bombers in 2006. or being the PR assistant to the CFL during the grey cup festival in 2006. hangin' out with all the great players (Milt Stegall, Khari Jones, Whit Tucker, Darren Flutie, Danny McManus). spending a fair amount of time in the locker room! all the time tom canada and i spent talking and walking around the stadium (and when tom canada called me for the first time, we were going to meet at the stadium and i drove 100 km/h down portage avenue to get there within 5 minutes--what would've normally been a 10 minute drive).

so many memories! i'm going to miss it! at least we have another whole season to bid farewell again. :)

{156} street sign

i'm officially getting to the point where i can't remember if i already did this idea or not. lol but, i checked and i haven't. i had googled for streets around the world called "lauren street" or "lauren lane" (my fave) but i hadn't actually done a street sign. phew! :)

for whatever reason, i have struggled to keep up this week so i feel like today is a little bit of a cop-out (tomorrow will definitely make up for today's lack of creativity!). i just merely found this picture on google. blah.

but it did inspire me to go and get a picture off of google maps of the original "twin oaks place" street sign and the house that inspired it all!

it's quite blurry (but that's google maps zoomed in!) but this is the street that i grew up on and the namesake for my blog. i think "twin oaks place" is the best street name in all the world. i have always loved it. it sounds so made-up and something you'd hear in a movie. i just think it's a lovely street name. i wish i could still have my address at 27 twin oaks place.

the above picture is the house i grew up in (at the end of the cul-de-sac on twin oaks place). it looks quite different than how i remember it--we had a lot more shrubbery and planters beautifying the house than these people from google maps do. it's quite a shame. my parents love to garden and our house and yard always looked immaculate.

the giant trees in the front of the yard (though barren in the picture) are what inspired the head graphic on my blog as well. i know that they are chinese elm trees but i always liked to think that they were the reason that the street was named "twin oaks" because there are two sets of twins that grew out of that one base of a tree. and then the person thought they were oak trees instead of elm trees. i don't know. my mom says that's boohockey.

{155} clouds

while sitting in the park a few nights ago with george i snapped this picture with my phone of the clouds. the only part of the cloud that looked like my name was the "l" so then i photoshopped the rest of the letters in. :)

{154} butterfly gold

oh, gosh. how much do i love my butterfly gold pyrex collection? so super much. i find myself gazing at it occasionally whilst i'm cooking. it's just so beautiful. by far my favourite pattern. (although if i were to get my hands on some teal or pink pyrex, those would become my faves...)

so, to make this name i took three individual pictures of each of the three patterns and then uploaded them on my computer. then i deleted the background imagery so i only had the pattern, then i changed them into white (because i like the white on gold better than the gold on white look). i had one first attempt and that failed miserably so i shrunk the patterns so they became easier to work with. love!

of course, i couldn't just use pyrex as my inspiration and not take updated pictures of my collection so...some eye candy. :)

my open shelves in the kitchen were such a great idea to display my pyrex. although, they are definitely becoming overfull. especially since i even had to move some of the pyrex down on to the mini-book shelf. oh, well. i just it all. love love love!

because my kitchen is overflowing, i do have this smaller table in my dining room that display a few pieces. i actually use the teal mixing bowl ALL the time so i'm constantly removing it from its display, using it and washing it and then replacing it! the pieces on the left are being saved for my new local pyrex connection! can't wait to do an exchange in a few weeks. we met through the pyrex collective!



a {day} off

yesterday was canada day so today was a day off! yay! this was how my day went:

a) slept in till 9:00 a.m.! woot! i took george out and immediately was struck by just how bloody hot it was outside already so i decided to take him for his walk straight away.

b) took george for his walk. only lasted 30 minutes because i was sweating bullets by then.

c) went to tim hortons for an x-large decaf coffee...and three raspberry timbits. oh em gee. these things are amazing. why did i let myself give in to temptation?!

d) watched two episodes of "top chef: texas"

e) decided to dress up as a 50s housewife and make muffins. i proceeded to only listen to frank sinatra and ray charles and dance around the kitchen in kitten heels.

f) ran out to shoppers to pick up a snack (ketchup mini-crispies). i shouldn't have them but since after 5, i cannot eat anymore till tomorrow evening, i said "screw it!"

g) watched another episode of "top chef: texas" whilst eating said mini-crisipies. delish.

h) felt super guilty about eating so much crap that i decided to go on over to A&E's and weed there for a while. i was thinking about a half hour.

i) show up at A&E's exactly as steve is pulling onto the driveway. lol i had even gone to so much effort as to drive the long way around so i could scope out whether anyone was at their house because i didn't want to weed while someone was there. just my luck. no, it was good. steve suntanned, drank beer and entertained me while i weeded.

j) euch. drank 90ml of senokot in order to clean my bowels. i'm in the hospital tomorrow having a small bowel series done (TMI?). not fun. can't eat after 5:00 p.m. and can't eat or drink at all tomorrow. have to be in the hospital before the sun rises. fantastic fun in store for tomorrow.

k) showered all the spiders off of me and all the poison ivy that i crawled in.

kl started this blog post.

m) wrote the next blog post.

n) watched "community". oh, gosh. love love this show.

o) got my stuff all ready for tomorrow's big hospital visit.

p) watched some more tv (a little "gilmore girls"!)

q) went to sleep. time to get rested up for tomorrow.

(the only part i left out was the definite-TMI stuff about the after effects of senokot. lol)

it was a good/interesting day!

{153} draw something

ever since i got my iPhone a few weeks ago i have been obsessively playing with certain apps. one is "my fitness pal" (so far i've lost 9 pounds! woot!), the other is "100 floors" (addicted), and the last is "draw something." i'm a creative being so i totally love that one. i hate when i log on and no one has played the turn yet so i can't draw anything.

well, i wanted to do my name for awhile so i told esther that i would waste a turn and draw my name instead of the actual word i was instructed to draw. then i just texted esther and told her what the answer was. that was the only this was going to work!

if anyone out there in cyberland wants to play with me, my username is "unlauren".

{152} stars

so, last week my blog was the inspiration for the 365-facebook group that i'm a part of. today it was Genevive Daigle at www.dailycreativebygstar.blogspot.com 's turn to inspire. since she mentioned on facebook that she loves stars, i decided to draw six stars and then figure out how to form the letters of my name within the stars.

thanks for the inspiration! wouldn't have come up with this one on my own. :)

{151} sticks

the other day we had some wicked wind in the evening and when i arrived home my backyard was covered in huge branches. so, i stored these suckers and then hauled them out today to spell out my name. of course, my name was too big to fit in the camera lens (and i am not tall enough) so this was as best i could do to capture it.

my mother said to me "but you've already done sticks." and i said, "actually, i've carved my name into a stick and i've taken pictures of branches that looked like the letters of my name but i had yet to lay out the branches on the ground to spell it out." i do think that now i have exhausted the sticks-thing, though.

{150} jersey

one-hundred and fifty names complete! woohoo! what an accomplishment!

today is also the first blue bombers game of the regular season (in BC at 9pm on TSN in case anyone was wondering). so, of course my name shall honour the team again today.

i decided to put on my bob cameron jersey (humungously major crush on him all throughout his playing career!*wink). then i used my handy self-timer and took a picture of the back of the jersey. then i photoshopped the back to say "lauren" instead of "cameron". i think it turned out pretty well, yes?

{149} dominos

i was at the local thrift store today to look for pyrex. but i also wanted to check out their games section for the off-chance that i could find an old lite-brite there. no luck. so, then i like to look through all the games and see what kind of names i could make out of some of them. then i spotted a bag of dominos and i thought that'd be a great idea! except, even better, i found a tin of Cars dominos. this was perfect because karen's nephew is hugely into Cars and i knew i could re-gift the dominos as soon as i'd used them. sold!

yes, i went through the painstaking process of actually making sure that i did not just simply lay out the dominos, but that i actually went through the effort of making sure they connected properly--as a domino should. success!

what {next}?

even though i'm not even half way through this project, i'm already thinking about what's next.

like, i think once this project is done, i'm going to compile all the pictures into one of those awesome coffee table books that my friends, andrew and erin, have done for all their trips. that'd be a great keepsake.

but, i'm also thinking of a project for next year. i think i'll even begin on january 1, though my names project won't be complete until february 1. a little overlap is okay. some of the ideas i'm toying with are:
- drawing a day (of someone i know? of an inaminate object? of a scene from my day?)
- song a day (write a post about one song in my iTunes playlist each day)
- perform a song (lip-synched performance?)

i have really enjoyed drawing but i also love performing so i'm wondering what to do that could possibly combine them both. oh, well. i have 218 days to decide.

{148} dental floss

i don't often have people volunteering to make my name for me, so when they do i jump at the opportunity to take a day off. :) karen has kept this container of floss on her desk for a week now because we have been getting a lot of food stuck in our teeth! lol random, i know. so, she asked if she could make my name from a string of floss. it turned out awesome. then she took the floss and used it. gr-oss. :)

{147} bruised banana

i know this idea came from Rebecca's blog (although i can't remember which exact post--I had just saved a copy of the picture as inspiration). i don't eat bananas so i never had one around but today, at work, bananas were part of our treats so i decided to take a banana and write my name in it! i even at the banana afterwards (big mistake. huge.). i was also wise enough to not take a picture of me actually eating a banana. ;)