A blog cultivated by Annabelle Barrow & she's kind of embarrassed about it, but not enough to stop posting and delete the thing.

Friday, December 20

craft time

Smells & I made this cute Alabama thing for  Smells earlier this evening. The heart's over Etowah county.

Thursday, December 19

christmas lights

This house had the best lights. This picture doesn't do it justice at all, but google did add the sparkles when it uploaded to google+ so that's kinda neat. My aunt, 2 cousins and I were driving around earlier when my aunt gasped and scared us all to death and asked if we could drive up to see these lights. This house was decked out. There was even a projection of santa in the window. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed seeing lit up houses like that. I don't care what my cousins say, the "classy" houses with only white lights are boring and lame. Griswold lights are the only way that's good and right.

Wednesday, December 18

one present down

Monogrammed stuff is super popular right now so I thought I'd get in on it. It seems like I'm always making rugs. I'm not though. Cute cute cute.
Only a week until christmas.

Monday, December 16

I am so so so close to finishing up my christmas shopping. Only 2 more things to get. Here's to homemade, cheap gifts!

Sunday, December 15

play more games


done goofed

I accidentally skipped a post yesterday. I was distracted because I was playing mystery date with Fal, Jenna & Smells!
We also made these little cakes. Aren't they cute?

Thursday, December 12

Wednesday, December 11

brr

It's finally cold again. I was able to use my thing this morning.

Sunday, December 8

lazy sunday

I haven't done shit today. I've just been watching this youtube series Bite Club and lazing around. I love watching British people cook because they use weird measurements and when they taste the food at the end they do it so properly with a knife and fork and little tiny bites. I'm thinking I have diabetes or something because all I want to do is eat special k red berries and macaroons and other sweets. That's a sign probably. Hopefully not. There's too much sickness going on in my family right now, I don't want to add to the pot.

Look at this card from etsy. Isn't it nice? I quite enjoy it.

Saturday, December 7

Xmas tree

Smells, Luke & I decorated for G&P this year & it's not too shabby.

Thursday, December 5

holiday spirit



I'll tell you something that always cheers me up. People speaking gibberish. I think I'm not alone in this. That's why those bad lip reading videos are so popular. I remember when Bruce Almighty came out, I didn't particularly think that movie was that great, but there's this one scene where Steve Carell is uncontrollably speaking nonsense and it just tickles me to no end. I mean I've seen it enough times to know what's going to happen and each time I don't think it'll get me and it still does. I also love when people are sleep talking. That ridiculous interaction you can have with someone. It's funny stuff.

Tuesday, December 3

let's get down to business

to defeat the huns! That song is stuck in my head.

The scariest thing happened today when I was in a drive thru. After I ordered and pulled around there was kind of a long line of cars so I pulled up catty cornered next to this tree. I noticed this moving thing out of the corner of my eye and there was this HUGE tan colored spider building it's web right up into my car. Thankfully I was quick to react and the spider hadn't crossed the window opening threshold so I was able to roll up the window and keep the thing away from me. Seriously this thing's head and body was the size of a nickel. After that I didn't want to roll down my window to pay and get my food because what if the dern thing was on the roof of my car. I mean, I did roll down my window and purchased my food, but later I found a long sticky spider web string stuck to my arm. Really gave me the creepy crawlies. Even just re-telling the story is making me want to shiver about.






"I love sleep. My life tends to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

Monday, December 2

celebrating intellectualism

This is relevant because recently one of my professors saw me open a can of diet dr. pepper and told me that it would kill me because aspartame will give me alzheimer's and cancer. I hadn't seen this video yet and I had no good comebacks so I just threw out my drink. 



Sunday, December 1

snooze

I'm going to blog everyday in December even if it's about nothing. Why not? I like December, I always have. Remember last year when I did this? Lately though I've been in a really bad funk where I've been really unhappy & I've gained a lot of weight & I haven't had any motivations. So I want to have a good & healthy goal that I know I can achieve & maybe that will help.
Earlier today I complained a lot about this sharp pain between my nose & my left eyebrow & my grandmother kept saying it's from lack of sleep because she woke me up "early" this morning. And I said yeah I'm going to go to sleep now & sleep for like 14 hours & Smells was like yeah right you'll stay up like you always do. AND YOU KNOW WHAT. Here I am, still awake. She put some bad juju on me. Just kidding, I'm just addicted to ruining my own life.

Happy December 1st

Wednesday, October 23

Nope

That alarm clock app worked for 2 days and then I got used to it and now I can pretty much do the puzzles while I'm sleeping. I can't seem to find a way to wake myself up pleasantly and keep myself awake.

I was typing a paper for graphic design earlier and under one of the words was a green squiggly line indicating grammar error, I guess. When I right clicked, it said to use a semi-colon and not a comma. My question is this: How the hell does Word know that I need a semi-colon? Does it know all of the subjects and verbs and knows when there are 2 full sentences side by side? I guess that's not the craziest thing a computer can do, but I don't know. I just am not smarter than the computer today.

So on Tuesday my alarm from my phone went off in class. Why it was set for 9:30a on a weekday, I'll never know. But as punishment for disrupting class, the art department has this policy that you have to bring cookies when your phone goes off. My prof was super excited that this happened because, I mean, cookies. Anyway, there's only 11 people in that class so I asked what flavor they wanted and this guy said how about those delicious cookies from Zaxby's, but this other guy was like nah, they have chips ahoy on sale at Winn Dixie, just get those. BY THE WAY, the guy that said that used to play in a band with Derek Birdsong! Crazy. Of all the people, my next door neighbor played in a band with a guy in my photo class. Back to the cookies, there were a couple people that said homemade and this girl who I kind of consider a friend said m&m. Being the Suzy Homemaker that I am, I made homemade m&m ones.

 Now this makes me super nervous because now I have to hear judgement on them. Also, what if my most mortifying fear comes true and a classmate finds a hair in a cookie. I hope that it's highly unlikely because I tied my hair back and I even took a lint roller to my shirt and I also tried not to lean over the mix while I was mixing. I take so many precautions against that because I have found one too many of my dear mom's hairs in my food growing up and almost nothing makes my stomach turn faster. Sorry, mom!
I just hope they're edible. My grandmother tried one, but she's not going to say that they're gross to my face. I tried one too, but I'll eat anything. At least they look pretty!

Thursday, October 17

Inarticulate

Lately, I've had the worst kind of word forgetfulness. This post may not even be legible when I'm through. I'm in 3 studio classes at the moment and there are so many critiques. I mean the actual thing critique not the verb. When I first changed my major to art, the thought of having everyone judge my artwork was mortifying. It's still pretty terrible, but I've grown used to it. It's now about trying to sound impressive when you're explaining the crap you had to stay up all night to finish. Words are the worst.

Today I answered the phone at work and the person was like, "Heyyyy whatch you been doing?" and I responded with pure silence. I absolutely could not think of the answer to what they were trying to ask me. I also had no idea who it was. I thought it was a wrong number and I was like I am not capable of dealing with a wrong number right now. It wasn't a wrong number, it was this guy that works in our department and the weird thing is I totally thought he sounded like an older black lady.

In other news, I'm going to try this alarm clock app I just downloaded to wake me up tomorrow. It has puzzles. Maybe it'll work! I'm kind of excited, but I know that will change when I open my eyes tomorrow. The first thing that I recall thinking in the morning times is 'I so don't want to be awake right now.' I go to bed set on the fact that I'm going to wake up and get out of bed right when my alarm clock goes off and then I turn into a grumples in the morning that completely will not get out of bed. Night time version of me is definitely not the same as morning version of me.

Wednesday, October 16

mmmwell

So it's the 16th. I am no longer spewing mucus. Super nice visual. I think I'm feeling okay.
School is being a real bummer though. I am not feeling very motivated and it's causing some problems. I'm hoping this is just a phase and I'll develop some clarity soon. There are a lot of things that I wish I could change immediately. So many things. Been having quite a few of those dreams where I'm falling and not in a peaceful way.

I'm watching this video and it's talking about how laughing is a social thing and you're more likely to laugh when you're in a group of people. Maybe I just need to laugh more.

Tuesday, October 8

Gone by the 16th

I need to remember that I started showing symptoms of a cold on Sunday, October 6th. They should be gone by the 16th. OR ELSE.

Also, I must note that I've used 4 boxes of 56-ct tissues in the past 48 hours which I think is impressively gross.

Thursday, October 3

Concert hangover

I've got it. Plus, in my haste this morning, I forgot to put on deodorant... so sorry persons I have to come in contact with today.


Walk The Moon concert last night was the best. The absolute best.
All day yesterday I was nervous about driving to Nashville. I've never driven there myself and it's such a long drive and Smells and I both had to be back at our respective homes by Thursday morning because we both had things that we could not skip. I mean, from an outside perspective, the whole thing was a terrible idea and it would blow up in our faces. Probably a responsible set of people would opt out of this concert. But we are just who we are and we had our minds set on going.

The drive there wasn't too bad. I'm a horrible driver so we had a few "OH GOD" moments around sharp curves and such. No big deal. Nashville is a really cool city. Lots of crunchy granola type stores & restaurants, which are my favorite kind of stores & restaurants. I'd love to go back and visit more of Nashville. So we drive up in there and find the venue. We got there about 2 hours before the doors opened and there weren't many people waiting outside the doors yet so we decided to go find a gas station for snacks & bathrooms. At the gas station, the ladies behind the cash register liked my hair & Smells gave a homeless guy 3 dollars & he told her he loved her.

When we got back to the venue there was a guy who set up a paid parking thing that totally was not there when we first arrived. By pure stroke of luck, I had $5 cash. It was a great parking spot anyway. Smells asked the parking lot guy if he knew about the separate line for early entry(Which we had!!!), & he said he thought it was only one line right now because there weren't many people in line yet. There were only like 15 or so people waiting in line at that point, maybe even less.

I'm horrible at remembering times, but sometime around 7p, all of the people who got wristbands moved to another line & we waited in a different until they let us in. There were only like 15 people with wristbands so that was awesome & there were only like 6 people in front of us. Eventually the security people let us in & Smells rushed ahead because I have a bum knee & I was slow. I did some thing to my knee that morning while walking up the stairs to class & now it pops & hurts when I walk. Anyway, Smells was rushing to the left side, which I though was weird because she wanted to stand in front of Kevin, who always plays on the right side of the stage. We settled in front of where Eli stands, which is totally fine by me because he's super fun to watch & he seems to make eye contact with everybody & he just looks so happy to be there.



Because we bought these badass early entry tickets we were able to be at the very, very front row on the guard rail almost a foot to the left of where Nicholas stands at his keyboard. If I reached my arms out, my fingertips could touch the stage, that's how close. I felt bad for the people behind me... I'm so tall & big that I took up a lot of space, but I got over that once the band took the stage. There's no time to be self-conscious when you're having a ball.

Magic man came on & they were great. Not many people in the crowd knew their songs though. The electric guitarist Sam was a total cutie. And the drummer. During their last song Eli and Nick came out and danced. Energy increased exponentially after that.

During shows Nicholas does this thing where he gets into the crowd somehow. In one of the songs he stepped onto the rail right in front of his keyboard & held some girls' hands and just stepped back. We were like a foot to the left of that so we didn't get any action then, BUT THEN on another part of the song or maybe a different song (my memory is bad!) Nicholas stepped on to the rail and grabbed some girls' hands then he stepped his other foot on to the rail and tightroped down toward Smells & I! When he stepped closer to us I stuck my hand up, obviously, but I really thought he would grab Smells' hand. He didn't though. He caught my hand! I HELD HANDS WITH NICHOLAS PETRICCA. As he was stepping and holding my hand, I was super focused on how sweaty his hand was & how he better not slip. As he passed me, I figured he would let go & take another girls' hand. I don't know if this was my imagination, but I think I tried to loosen & he tightened at the same time. Magical. I pretty much led him back to the stage. I have never been more thrilled to have orangutan arms. 
I think this is him to the right of us. I mean there's no way to tell who or where it is, but that's pretty much what happened in picture form.
I so wish there was video that I could find of that moment. Actually I wish I had a video of that whole concert. It was all so much good.



There's no mistaking those large white arms are mine. :)










Can you see that purple tinge on that person's hair?! That's me!








After the show, Smells wanted to get a shirt so we waded through the people to stand in line. I then decided that I didn't want to stand in line so I moved to the back by the wall.
Took this picture of Smells. Good one, right? Then she told me that Magic Man were selling their album for $5 and they were signing them as well. Excellent opportunity. So of course we did that. Smells wanted a picture so I took a picture.
Please note the bass guitarist's Taylor Swift shirt. Smells thought that was mega exciting. They were all very nice and very pretty.

We kind of people watched for a minute after that. A lot of them cleared out, but there were still a few people taking pictures in the photobooth that was set up. Then we see the guy from the Shiver Shiver video (@Blakeing_Bad) come out and he takes a picture in the photobooth and then he takes a picture with a group of girls and then I say something like Hey you were great in the shiver shiver video. He was super gracious and shook my hand and said he saw me from the stage and asked if I saw him wave, which I did. Smells asked him if he'd take a picture with us and I was just going to do a selfie, but Smells was like just get somebody to take it, so I asked the guy that was standing right there(@TomFloorwalker) who also happened to be the guy that checked all the guitars and drums before the show. He was super funny and took this picture...
Pretty handsome. Then he took this one...
And he was like, "You know I did all the choreography to Shiver Shiver" :) They were both super nice and really were just a cherry on top of an already delicious sundae of an evening

Some pictures that Smells took during the show:



Go see a Walk the Moon show. You will, without a doubt, have a great time.

Thursday, September 26

tres cosas

This week has been a general bummer, not for a particular reason really, just has been my overall mood, but today 3 things in particular went really well.

Number 1.
I made a really funny original joke to Rosh on the phone today that I am super proud of. It had to do with this video and me saying
"I guess starting from the middle is just not as catchy."   !

NUMBER TWO.
I totally guessed the ending to Broadchurch. Nailed it.

# THR33.
I made a super funny snapchat video just now.


Also, this other funny thing happened today... (that I forgot to mention on the phone, Rosh!!) When I was in class, I was asking about the difference between the blue box of plaster & the red box and my prof was like here I'll read the ingredients on this one, will you read the ingredients on this one? And I responded, 100% seriously, "They're in Spanish and I just... can't." Then everyone haha-ed because the English was on the other side.

Saturday, September 14

Changes

Yesterday I was telling my friend that youtube had changed on me and I totally hated it. She hates when things change so I knew she'd be sympathetic. I realized the change on Thursday when I was trying to find a particular RT Short (I totally didn't find it). I was so miffed because it seemed like youtube took away that little button that allows you to make the video go to the center of the screen. 
I mean, if you go to a youtube video, it's not on the bar anymore. And I was super sad about it because I love that little button. I watch a ton of videos and I was thinking, what am I going to do now that my button is gone?!

Fast forward to 5 minutes ago, I went to change the quality on this podcast and lo and behold, I found my button. So much relief.



Sunday, September 1

cock bite

For some reason I've let my annoying little brother talk me into watching Rooster Teeth & now I'm completely immersed. It's been a slow climb. Now I'm trying to watch all the video podcasts and listen to all the audio ones. I dusted off the old ipod and downloaded the first 25 ones to listen on my commute to work. It is the greatest idea I've EVER had. I wish I had come to this realization sooner because I feel so much happier in the mornings and afternoons. All the chuckles.

Tonight I've watched 2 full video podcasts and I'm on the 3rd. Between the end of the 2nd and the 3rd, I went to the kitchen to get some snackage and I was just thinking, "man, if I was on the podcast, I would eat all kinda snacks and Gus would get so pissed because of the munching. I guess that's why they never eat anything on the podcast." And keep in mind that I'm not watching them in order and I'm picking them at random by the thumbnails. I picked the 3rd one because it had balloons. AND THEN I come back to my room and Burnie's making pancakes. Weird goddamn coincidence.

Video Podcast #205
Burnie's my favorite.

Thursday, August 15

This fucking thing.

This fucking thing. I can't believe I did this fucking thing. I picked a font. I picked another font so that I could put a certain T and G on their name because I know the person who I'm making this for likes a certain kind of T and G. I traced the letters 3 different times until I figured out the best way to get it on the rug. Then I cut out the letters with an exacto knife. Then I mixed this blue paint with a white paint to get the right color. Then I peeled off the stencil.




Then I realized I misspelled their name.


And I can't believe I did that because I know exactly how to spell it. Now I have a new rug that has a name on it that's not mine. Actually I think I'm going to see if there are any Gililands in the phonebook and I'm going to mail it to them.

Wednesday, August 14

Tuesday, August 13

Oh wonderful

I just looked at my grades from last semester because I'm one of those people who puts it off. But now I kind of regret it because my art history teacher gave me a C. I really didn't think I did that bad in that class & I'm kind of wondering why I made such a crappy score. It's always the classes you're confident in that you do the worst in. The same teacher that taught that class, teaches the other half of art history that I need and it became full before I realized I needed it and I was hoping she would let me into that class, but now I have low hopes about it. I can always take it next semester, but it just would work out better if I took it this semester.
I hate college so much.



Shows to remember to watch:
Almost Human (Fox)
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)
Enlisted (Fox)
Resurrection (ABC)
Super Fun Night (ABC)

Thursday, August 8

Cam Rellim Chronicles

I just totally realized what Cam Rellim means & I've been saying "Camp Rellam Chronicles" for so long. It's Mac Miller. Backwards. Shit.

I'm still obsessed with Mac Miller, by the way.


LOOK AT MY NEW FAVORITE SHOW

Sunday, July 21

Hairs

Recently I decided that I should have different hair. I really wanted to try pink, but that didn't work out so I settled on purple.





My family has been busting my metaphorical balls about it, but I haven't really gotten any negative reaction from the public. Except for this sign holding guy under the parkway rolled his eyes at me, but I think that was just because I wouldn't give him any money to get him where he wanted to go.

The receptionist ladies at my ob/gyn said they liked my funky hair. That's really all anybody has said. Which is okay.

I really like what Louise had to say about fun hair on her post about her pink ombre. 
"It's hair. It's stuff that grows out of your head and can be cut on a whim. You can do anything you like with it and you aren't too anything to not allow it. Whether you are fat, thin, short, tall, fashionable, young, old, obsessed with stamp collecting, do what makes you happy. Don't judge people on their choices and don't stifle your own in fear of theirs, be glad of what you have been given and enjoy it. Appreciate it, not everyone has the luxury of hair to play with. Be thankful. "
She's intelligent and lovely.



I'm not sure what it will look like when all the purple's all faded... hopefully not too gross. Also, I haven't thought too far ahead about what I'll do with my hair once that's happened. It's a weird struggle because I don't want to let it all grow out because I have a huge gray patch at the front of my hairline that grows in very fast and I'm not ready to embrace it. (I'm only 21!) 

So I might try that pixie cut I've always wanted...

Tuesday, June 11

Wil Wheaton and Redditgifts

It is currently 1:25pm and this is the current state of things.
Goodness at the upvotes.

HEY GUESS WHAT. A REALLY COOL THING JUST HAPPENED.
I signed up for RedditGifts sometime last year after a friend told me that they were opening a yarn exchange and he knew that I was a knitter so I might enjoy that. I totally signed up right away and I was hooked. I've done 7 or 8 so far and they've all turned out amazingly well, except for getting shafted once, but that wasn't even that bad because it's all about giving anyway.
So one of the recent exchanges was a Star Trek exchange. I really debated about signing up for that one because I felt like I'm not that much of a fan to be participating in a Star Trek themed thing. Then, I thought, I do know someone who is a huge Star Trek fan!
So I signed up and put this in the info box for the exchange, "I'm signing up for this for my uncle. He's a huge fan. He really likes the original series of Star Trek, cheesy graphics and all. He's a man's man so maybe send something manly. You're the best. I already know you'll do a great job."

I got an anonymous message from my match on the 5th.
 Certainly I was excited because the person mentioned getting my uncle's gift from a convention, but I can tell you that my mind did not go to Wil Wheaton AT ALL when I read this message. I just thought, sweet, maybe this person is sacrificing their autograph that they got from an actor to give away. That would've been pretty amazing. To give some background on why I responded, "I'm so sorry! I bet you got a nasty email from Reddit!" I said that because just a few days before, I had selected that I did not receive the gift and usually when you do that Reddit will send an email to your match saying 'You better ship your thing OR ELSE.'

On Saturday, Jess, MJ, and I got together at my G&P's before we headed to Trussville to the bowling alley and I can't remember why we started talking about it, but I somehow convinced them to sign up for RedditGifts. Later on that night, after bowling and we were headed home, I noticed I had a missed call from Xander so I called him back. He was like, "Hey, you got a package from RedditGifts." I said, "Yeah, I know, I was expecting one. That's the one for Bryan." Then he was like, "You'll never believe what the return address says." Then he texted me a picture and I was all OMG SOMUCH ASDNFCAOWERGWHAT? Jess & MJ were in the car and I had to explain why I kept saying NUH UH. I told them about the gift for their dad and that the return address said Wil Wheaton. They were like, "Who?" Even after all this, they still probably don't know who he is.. haha. So them being who they are, they wanted me to call Xander back and have him open up the present. I told them I wanted to wait for Bryan to open it. They convinced me because I'm a pushover and because they're persistant. So I called my brother back and asked him to VERY CAREFULLY open the package and take a few pictures so we could see what was inside. He called me right back presumably because he was excited to announce what was inside. At this point, I was very skeptical about the realness of the whole thing. The letter though... the letter felt really real. So I decided that it must be.

I went back to G&P's that night and I couldn't sleep at all.  I was a weird kind of nervous that had a lot to do with celebrities who are also really nice people. The next day I was supposed to get up and go with my family to see Fried Green Tomatoes at the Alabama Theatre, but while lying awake, I devised a plan to meet up with my dad about halfway between my actual house and my grandparents house so I could pick up the package and let Bryan open it that same day. It was an excellent plan.

Everything went to according to plan and I gave Bryan the gift and Jess and MJ pretty much told him what was inside before he opened it because they're bad at secrets. G&P, Linda, & Cason were also there during the unveiling. There was some confusion from the people who weren't in the know, (G&P), but Bryan was really surprised and happy. That was the best part.

I posted the gift to Redditgifts at about 4:30p on Monday afternoon and I also posted it to facebook at the same time.
Mom commented almost immediately and Jess, too. Another one of my friends is a pretty big Star Trek fan so that was cool that she commented.

Then I noticed that RedditGifts promoted my thing!

And about that same time, Wil Wheaton commented on my post!
Which is hella rad. What is also rad is the amazingly sweet and nice comments that people keep leaving about Wil and my uncle Bryan.

I'm just so delighted. I tried not to fangirl too much on the RedditGifts post. I'm not totally clueless and I figured that it would get a little bit popular. Which, by my book, it definitely has.

I figured I could save that fangirling for this blog. Also, I fibbed a little on the RedditGifts post just because I was trying to be succinct. I've noticed that sometimes people go off on a tangent and that it sometimes is boring.


I keep wanting to send @wilw a tweet, but I just don't know what to say. Typing out a long post on reddit is one thing, because it's kind of impersonal. A tweet is like... direct. He could actually like, reply and stuff. And plus, I don't want to inflate his ego too much.

But seriously, he typed my name like 4 times. He maybe even said it out loud once! I mean, there's no way for me to know that, but STILL. COOL.



I've got to remember to give that friend of mine who referred me to RedditGifts a big old hug.




A new thing that happened today(6/12/13):
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *DEAD*

Thursday, June 6

Picture Heavy

The thing about reading good books at work is the crys. I've been answering the phones at the front desk this week, which is not what I usually do, and people don't come by that often, but it's awkward when someone walks through and says hello and my eyes are watery and when I respond my voice cracks.
In case you were wondering, I'm reading All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin. So much good.

Anyway, I'm going to pause the reading/crying to post some pictures. I went home for two weeks at the end of May and spent some time with my long lost friends and a little too much time, for my taste, with my little bro. All in all, had a fabulous time. And I've got pictures to prove it!

Rosh with our graduation present for Justin


My beautiful redheaded best friend. I wish I done a better job of getting together with her while I was home for so long. :/ 

This photo features a few of my favorite things.

Luke, my new gigantic friend!!!

A bunch of us went to the Nook and had a grand ole time. Claire & I each had a Raspberry Lambic. Super delicious. Jeff was there! :) He's my fav.

Hot air balloonz and fireworkz

George(cat from above) had kittens and this is Wash. We hope he won't meet an untimely demise like his namesake.

This happened!!! And I was undoubtedly excited about it.

This dude. :)

Lookin' fresh at Lowe Mill