I'm not back just yet

So as I'm sure you've probably noticed…
I haven't posted in about two weeks.
Usually there is a reason for a person to stop blogging they go through a really big life change or something. But nothing happened with me.
I feel like I'm in a rut with blogging.
I didn't want write and I also had no interest in reading any blogs either.

I considered just ending this blog.
I've decided to rework this blog a bit.
I'm keeping the name, but I want to rework everything else.

My blog is kinda all over the place and I think it's time to decide what kind of blog I want this to be.
When I first started I wanted to go a beauty blog.
I am obsessed with doing my hair and makeup and I love to try new looks.
I am considering going this route with my blog but I really am not sure.

I feel like I need a direction.
Something to stick with.
I liked posting my designs too.
So now you see why this is very confusing to me.

I don't know when I'll be back.
But It'll be soon.

Sometimes I Ramble

I really need to start doing more interesting things with my life. 

While other bloggers are talking about the trips they took or the funny things their kids did, I'm over here like…yesterday I got Jamba Juice and went to night class. 

Clearly I need to have a baby. 

It's the only way to solve this issue. 

That was a joke people. 

I guess I could always write about my weekends. 

But those vary from going out to the bar or watching an entire season of How I Met You Mother with my roommates. 

Oh the crazy life I live. 

Like right now I'm talking to one of my best guy friends about how his ex was a butch. 

She plays softball. 

Think of a butch softball player. 

That's her. 

This most is getting really random. 

I'm not sure what else to talk about. 

P.S. I don't have anything against softball players, or butches. Just her. 

Sweet Home Chicago

Coming up with things to blog about is usually pretty difficult for me. There is nothing really cool about my life. But then I finally realized I live in the best city in the world. Not New York, not Paris (although that would be awesome) but Chicago. This gave me the best blogging idea ever. I’m gonna teach you how to go to Chicago and not stick out as a tourist.

First thing is first. It’s pronounced Chicaaaaago not Chi-coh-go. Sorry, I just had to get that pet peeve out of the way.

We’re also not too picky on grammar. When you’re in Chicago you should always end your sentence with an unnecessary prepositional phrase. For example, “Where is my coat at” or “You wanna come with?” This may sound wrong to you, but in Chicago, this is perfect grammar.

You may wonder what teams you should cheer for while you’re here because we have to many. This is an easy one, if the team has a DA in front of it, it means they’re DA best. For example: DA Bears, Da Bulls, Da Blackhawks, Da Sox, but never ever DA Cubs.  You may come across a dilemma called bi-week. You will be confused, what football team should you cheer for? Again the answer is simple. Look at the game schedules. Who are the Packers playing against? Cheer for them. 

Now on to my favorite topic, food. The first thing you need to order when you get here is a Chicago Dog.  These hot dogs include: mustard, onion, relish, tomatoes, cucumbers (sometimes), celery salt, sports peppers, and a dill pickle spear. Some ingredients are not offered at all places but there is one thing you will never see offered on a Chicago Dog: Ketchup. Many say it’s a crime again everything Chicago to put ketchup on a Chicago style Dog. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. I eat my dog with ketchup. I know, it’s shameful. Let’s keep that secret to ourselves.

After you’ve eaten that little bit of heaven you need to get onto the L (the train) and go to either Lou Malnati’s, Giordano’s, or Gino’s East. Here they will introduce you to deep-dish pizza. It will make New York style pizza look like cardboard with some cheese on it. Once you go Chicago Style Pizza, you never go back.

Congratulations! You now know all you need to know about being a Chicagoan! Now all that’s left is to come and visit. Look me up, we can eat pizza and heckle the Packers until sun comes up!

Basic Photo Editing Part II

Yesterday we learned how to make your pictures look better.
Today I'm going to show you how to make you look better in your pictures.

Open up the photo we edited yesterday

Today we're going to use my favorite tools to edit the photo. The burn and the dodge tools. We're gonna use the dodge tool the same way you would use a highlighter (the makeup not marker) plus a little more.

Make a new layer by pressing the ALT/OPTION and clicking on the new layer button on the layers panel. Call this layer Dodge and change the settings to match mine in the picture below

Select your Dodge tool and set the exposure to 15%. We don't want to make it too dark otherwise it will look cray. Make sure your range is set to highlight

Then you need to pick the right brush. Try to pick a soft brush. The size doesn't matter because you will adjust it when you go to highlight, but you can adjust the hardness to about 50%

Now that you've have your brush selected you're going to highlight the parts in green.

I had to use green to show contrast. I promise your picture will not look like this

Now that we've added some highlights, its time to show some contrast. As before, make a new layer by holding down the ALT/OPTION key while clicking the new layer icon on the layers panel. Name this layer Burn and change the lettings like the picture below

Select your burn tool and change make sure the exposure is at 15% and your range is set to shadows.

Now burn all of the areas in blue. Notice that I darkened more areas on myself than Ken. You have to have a light hand when editing men to make sure they don't look like they're wearing make up.

Personally, I think this is a good look for me. 

Now you have your final picture.

You can thank me next time someone tells you that you look like a super model in your new picture.

p.s. I'm sorry if there is some spelling mistakes or anything. I am writing this in a hurry since I should be getting ready to go get some dinner with friends. :)

Basic Photo Editing Part I

As a blogger many people try and edit their photos.
I say try because plenty do a horrible job.
Luckily, you have me to show you the right way.

First things first, open your photo in photoshop.

Now that your photo is open the first thing you need to do is to tone your photo. There is many ways to do this but the absolute easiest way it to use Image> Auto Tone

The before and after the autotone

As you can see, my picture looks a lot better now but Ken's face looks a bit red. So our next step it to adjust the color balance. Like toning, there is many different ways to go about this process. Again, the easiest way is to auto color your picture. For this go to Image> Autocolor

This helped a lot but our faces still look red so we're going to adjust the color a little more. To do this go to Image>Adjustments> Color Balance

This is the screen that pops up

The best way to adjust the color is to add its opposite. Since my photo has too much red in is I'm going to add Cyan. There isn't an exact number to change it to, it's more of a feeling. 

As you can see my photo looks a lot better already. To some, this is good enough. If you want to know how to further edit your photo make sure you come back tomorrow!

Worst. Girlfriend. Ever.

So today I realized that Valentine's Day is a week from Thursday

AND Ken's birthday is two weeks from Wednesday. 

I don't have a present for either one.

I think this makes me the worst girlfriend ever. 

I actually had a plan for his birthday and I think it was pretty cool.

Some how I was going to sneakily apply for both of our FOID cards 

and then take Ken to the shooting range for his birthday. 

But I takes 3-4 weeks to get you FOID card and it's backed up because everyone and their mother wants a fun not that you can carry a concealed weapon in Chicago. 

So that plan is off the table. 

Then I had the awesome idea to get him a Kirk Heinrich jersey (one of his favorite players on the bulls)

but I guess they don't make them?

I could buy a Rose, Boozer, Noah, Deng, Korver, Rodman, or Jordan jersey but no one else on the team. This makes a lot of sense since Korver is on the Hawks now. And Rodman and Jordan haven't played for like 10 years. I wasn't the only one with the great idea for buy a jersey though.

He was trying to get me a Noah All-Star jersey for Valentine's Day. Which they don't make either. I'm still not really sure about this gift. Ken explained to me that they don't mass produce his jersey because there isn't a high demand for them. Which I think is really dumb. He was the captain of the Bulls before we traded him. Anyway, I can still get the jersey specially made, but now that Ken knows about it, I'm not sure if I want to get him that.

My last and final plan was to get us 1st level seats for a Bulls game. For those of you that don't know our star (Derrick Rose) tore his ACL last spring and is expected to come back this month after not playing all season. This is great for the Bulls but not so great for me. When we go and sit in the top level (there is 3 of them) we usually pay about $30 each. Since Rose is coming back any day now, those tickets are $70 each! You can only imagine how expensive level 1 seats are. 

So now I'm a week (or 2 depending on which one) away with no gift. I'm screwed. 

Movie Star

For once, I actually had a post all planned out in my mind to write today. But as usual, life got in the way and I'm not entirely in the mood to write about something like that now. Instead I'm going to put my headphones in and listen to the Fun. pandora station while working on the new design that I hope to launch soon. But I don't want to leave you hanging so here is a guest post I wrote about a month ago. 

Enjoy

 Instead of doing a boring normal guest post I am going to talk to you guys about an important question that has been on my mind recently, one without an easy answer.

Who would play me if my life were a movie? At first, this seems really easy, but then you really start to think…would she really be able to act that crazy?

Before I get started, I should probably tell you why my life deserves a movie. Sadly, my movie would be a comedy. Not a romantic comedy, but a comedy. Probably one similar to Super Bad and possibly the Hang Over. See, there was the time my window broke, the time I turned 21, and that time I met Joakim Noah. If those things don’t scream broke down hilarious, I don’t know what does.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, lets get down to business. I’m sure lots of people would be calling me and begging me for the part but only one lucky lady will get the part. And that lady would be:

Leighton Meester

I loved her in Gossip Girl (and pretty much everything else she has been in) and like me, she loves fashion.  There is something very edgy about her wardrobe and I am obsessed with it. I’m sure she would be totally down with some of the outfits I put together.

It also helps that Leighton knows how to act like a bitch. Which could come in handy playing me. I tell it like it is. If I have an opinion about something (and I always do), you’ll know about it.

The only thing that won’t work is her ability to sing. I can’t carry a tune to save my life, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I guess she can pretend that she can’t sing right? She is an actor. Lol

So now that you know all about me, be sure to stop by and tell me who you think would play you in a movie about your life. Or tell me I’m crazy for putting this much thought into something as silly as this, whichever.

p.s. Leighton, call me!