A few weeks ago I directed a photographer friend of mine to my website so she could check out my Flickr photostream. I talked to her afterwards and asked her what she thought. “It looks great!” she said, and then added, “you sure have a lot of pictures of yourself!”

“Yes, I do,” I had to admit sheepishly. And then when she asked where I got all those pictures of me I had to admit that I in fact took most of them myself.

I really can’t count the number of times I’ve had a conversation similar to that one since I’ve started directing friends and family to my website. And every time I wonder… should I be ashamed of my self portraits?

And I’ve decided that the answer really lies in what my motivation is. Is it merely vanity and self-gratification that drives me to put these pictures of myself on the internet? No, I don’t think it is—but I can’t ignore the vanity that lies behind this whole endeavour: the blog, flickr, everything.

It would be so easy to gloss over my vanity—to give it a nice label like “healthy self esteem*” and move on, satisified with my ability to explain myself. But if I am perfectly honest with myself, I can’t ignore the jealous, prideful vanity that sits like a warty toad at the bottom of my heart. Because that’s exactly what it is: black, festering, scabby, sinful, ugly VANITY that, but for God’s grace, would probably crawl out of my chest and swallow my life whole.

And it’s this vortex of vanity that makes me yearn for recognition from other people… that motivates me to put pictures and stories on the internet that will gain me that recognition. It’s what leads to putting other people down to raise myself up, and to putting my desires above God’s because I know better. Even self-deprecation is another form of vanity (what a paradox).

And, if you are honest with yourself, you will find this vanity in yourself too.

So, in the light of this regrettable truth about human nature, is it possible to justify self-portraits? Blogs in general? I honestly don’t know. Maybe not.

But I said that I don’t think it’s merely vanity that motivates my self portraits. And I meant it—whatever vanity may be motivating my photography, there are equal parts desire for creativity also motivating it. I can tell you that when I did the photoshoot of myself that yielded my about page pictures, I really was not thinking like a typically vain teenage girl (although I admit to thinking that way for many of my pictures). I was thinking like a photographer—trying to portray my subject in the most flattering light and catch the best expressions.

Is that vanity? Maybe. It could be. But if it is, it is vain in the same way that taking a portrait of any other person would be vain. Of course, perhaps the desire for creativity is ultimately rooted in vanity anyway. But that is a much stickier, more complicated question than I intended to get into tonight.

So I guess I don’t have much of a conclusion—this is not a closed book in my mind. I am interested in others’ thoughts on this subject. Feel free to say “you should get rid of all those pictures of you” if that is really what you think. But be prepared to back up your argument.

* I think there really is such a thing as “healthy self esteem,” but it’s so thinly seperated from vanity that I would not trust myself as a sinner to draw that line.

Update: Thank you all for your thoughts. I highly recommend you read through the comments on this entry if you have not already. I just wanted to add that my friend Deanna wrote a post on this subject today, and I think she managed to communicate a lot of what I was trying to say but didn’t.

So, when I said in my last post (on Thursday) that I would be posting more details about the conference that night, what I really meant is that I would be posting more details in three or four days when my brain finally finished decompressing.

Seriously, though, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this post (and my pictures!) up. Yesterday Mom said to me, “Erin, you better post something on your blog soon! People are going to think you died or something.” If even Mom is worried about my readers, you know it’s serious.

The trip to Portland and the Webvisions conference were both great fun. We did end up driving my beloved car up to P-town, although Philip drove it both ways and within Portland we mostly used the MAX (more on that later) for transportation, so I never actually did any big-city driving. Oh well. I’m sure I will someday. (Also: I don’t know if they will ever read this, but I just want to give a big “THANKS!” to Laura and her grandparents for providing us with a place to stay. Your generosity was greatly appreciated.)

Rather than trying to spew every detail of the experience, which would be boring to write and to read, I have grouped the anecdotes and tidbits that I am especially anxious to share with you into a few sensible categories. Also, check out my Flickr set of photos from the trip.

Things in general of note:

• Riding the MAX light-rail train. Excepting Disneyland rides, before Thursday I had never been on any sort of train or subway or metro of any stripe. So I was very excited when Philip and I left my car at the Park and Ride station Thursday morning and descended into the subterranean (but open-air) loading area for the MAX. Very few other people there seemed to share my excitement—while I stood there clutching my camera case and brimming with anticipation, with “I can’t believe I’m waiting for a train!” written all over my face, everyone else’s faces seemed to be saying things more like, “I can’t believe that instead of sleeping I am waiting for the train.” Their loss. (And the train ride did not disappoint—it was quite fun to stand there hanging on to the bright yellow bars and watch Portland fly by the window.)
• Photography opportunities. Although initially I thought this would be a great opportunity to get photos of various Webstars during their talks, I quickly became disenchanted with that idea—not only because the lighting in those rooms SUCKED for pictures, but also because I felt self conscious and annoying every time the “Ker-chink!” of my shutter would interrupt the relative stillness of the room. Don’t get me wrong, I love my dSLR, but its noisy shutter does not allow it to be quite as unobtrusive as my parents’ Powershot. Nevertheless, I got several good photos of speakers—but mostly I ended up taking pictures of the convention center itself. In particular, there was a beautiful shaft of sunlight from the glass ceiling spilling over the walls of the circular lobby where we met. And after every session, this light would be casting different, awesome-looking shadows on the wall. So during each break I would scurry out to the lobby, pull out my camera, and… take pictures of the wall.
• Walking around Portland/Dinner at the Macaroni Grill. Thursday night Laura, the girl we were staying with, and Hannah, another friend of Philip and Laura’s, met Philip and I at the convention center. As the four of us walked/rode the MAX to dinner, I had the opportunity for some quick street photography… which was fun. We ate at the Macaroni Grill, which had really good food and was also where I did two of the dorkiest things I have ever done in my entire life. Dorky thing number one: I ducked into the restroom when we got there so I could wash my hands before we ate, and I happened to notice that not only was the bathroom GORGEOUS, but it had a GORGEOUS full length wood-framed mirror. And then, of course, it occurred to me that I wanted a picture of my outfit that day, so… I did what any sensible person would do. I walked back out into the restaurant, retrieved my camera from our table, walked BACK through the restaurant, and BACK into the bathroom, where I proceeded to take a picture. Of myself. In the gorgeous wood-framed full-length mirror. And there were even poor, unsuspecting people still washing their hands at the sink, probably wondering what kind of narcissisistic freak show they were watching. Nothing to see here, people, move along! It’s not a narcissist, it’s just a blogger. Dorky thing number two: One fun feature of the Macaroni Grill was the paper covering they spread over the table—a ready canvas for the crayons they gave us. So I drew what I always draw when I am randomly presented with a writing implement and paper: an eye. And then a face. And them some hair, until the floating female head that graces so many of my school notes and sketchbook pages sat there on the table. But I couldn’t leave it at that… so, just before we left, I added a speech bubble above her head with the words “LYLIUM.ORG ROCKS!” boldly written within. And you know what’s even dorkier than the fact that I did that in the first place? The fact that I truly hope someone came here because of that.

Favorite Talks:

There were a lot of great speakers at this event, so keep in mind that this list is not by any means comprehensive. These are just the talks that I personally found particularly interesting/informative/entertaining. It’s probably no mistake that they all featured the two people I was most looking forward to seeing.

• Practical Business Blogging Panel: DL Byron, Matt Haughey, Andy Baio, and Derek Powazek talked about the ins and outs of blogging, both personal and professional, and all four of them had interesting and informative things to say about the pros and cons of business blogs and the ways to make all kinds of blogs more effective. One solid piece of advice that I came away with: To have a successful blog, even if you are a business, you can’t fake your content. Blogging for blogging’s sake won’t get you anywhere if you aren’t genuine in the ideas and stories you put forth.
• The New Community: How Decentralized Conversation Empowers Individuals while Creating Community: Derek Powazek was not kidding when he said his talk on Thursday night had the longest title of any talk at the conference. Even with all those words, however, I went into this talk not exactly sure what it was all about or whether I would be all that interested it. Turns out, not only is Derek a great photographer and writer, but he’s a great speaker, too. His enthusiasm for his subject and clear articulation of his ideas really made this an interesting session. I thought his analogy of sites like Flickr being “company towns” was particularly apt.
• Bulletproof Web Design: Dan Cederholm is not only one of my favorite web designers, but his book, Bulletproof Web Design, was very helpful to me. I really feel like it gave me a coherent picture of the issues involved in creating solid, accessible, degradable web design that I did not have before. And while his presentation contained only a small slice of the useful information found in his book, he was a good speaker and had obviously put a lot of work into making his presentation informative and entertaining. It did not seem like the book and the presentation were just copies of each other—each one had something useful to add to the other.
• Design Panel: Dan Cederholm, Keith Robinson, Mike Davidson, and Bryan Veloso led probably my favorite session of the whole conference. Not only did they all have great stuff to say about web design today (the good, the bad, and the ugly), but the four of them had a great rapport and were genuinely funny at times. I really enjoyed their panel and feel like I learned a lot from it, too.

Also, I met these people:

• As I mentioned before, Derek Powazek was one of the people I was most looking forward to seeing at Webvisions. (Also, just for the record, I am never going to try to pronounce his last name out loud again. When he announced his name at the conference, it was so different from the way I had pictured pronouncing it that I had to do a double take to realize what he even said.) After seeing him talk at the Practical Business Blogging Panel, as Philip and I were about to leave the room, I decided that I could not pass up the opportunity to be able to say that I met Derek Powazek. So I walked up and introduced myself, and I’m very glad that I did! I only talked to him for a moment but he was very nice and personable, and seemed to genuinely appreciate my compliments on his photoblog. Not only that, but he asked where my website was, so I gave him a business card! He gave me one of his (very nicely designed) business cards and a JPG Magazine sticker. Nice to meet you, Derek.
• Dan Cederholm was the other person I was really looking forward to seeing. Philip and I talked to Dan for few minutes while I got my copy of Bulletproof Web Design signed; he was very nice, and seemed like a very down-to-earth guy. He said it still felt strange to him that he was signing books. I didn’t try to give Dan a business card, though… I wasn’t sure that I wanted the bulletproof guru looking at my website, lol. But he may be here anyway, since I am linking to him. I guess that’s okay, as long as he doesn’t look too hard into the cobbled-together corners! It was nice to meet you, Dan. Thanks again for your great book.
• The way I met Dan Rubin was kind of a funny coincidence—I actually did not even know who he was before this conference. During one of the sessions after the Design Panel on Friday I was checking my email on Philip’s laptop. I got a notification from Flickr that someone named Dan Rubin had just added me as a contact—and, sure enough when I visited flickr I saw that he had left this comment on the photo of my business card mentioning that he had seen me at the Design Panel. I thought that was kind of odd, but after looking at his photostream to see what he looked like, I went searching for him at the next break. I did find him, and we exchanged business cards (his was way cooler than mine ) and chatted about the merits of homeschooling. It turns out that he found my flickr photostream through a comment I left on one of Dan Cederholm’s photos, and realized that he had seen me earlier! I guess you’re bound to have things like that happen when you put that many people using the internet into that small of a space. Anyway, it was a pleasure to meet you, Dan!
• In case you don’t remember, Nick Finck, one of the directors of Webvisions, left a comment on my original post about coming to the conference. I actually saw him in almost every session, although I didn’t realize it till later, because he came sneaking in to take photos of all the speakers. I remember noticing him because I was jealous that he could get away with taking photos better than I could. I didn’t realize till almost the end of the second day that he was the person who had commented on my blog—and I didn’t get a chance to talk to him until the very end of the conference! But I finally did catch him, and I’m glad, because he was very nice. We talked about blogging and Technorati and swapped business cards as well; he had a nice Blue Flavor one. It was great to meet you, Nick! Thanks again for the comment.
• I also got to meet Elliot Swan, a fellow teenage blogger and web designer whose website I discovered a few months ago. I think I may have frightened him off, however, because after I enthusiastically recognized and greeted him on the first day, it seemed a little bit like he was avoiding me the rest of the time. Perhaps I am just imagining that though… lol. Anyhow, it was fun meeting you, Elliot! I hope we see each other again sometime.
• And then I met Kyle. This is actually one of my favorite “met someone” stories in this list, because of how random and unexpected it was. As Philip, Laura, Hannah and I were riding the MAX home Thursday night, I pulled out my camera to grab a few pictures of the train interior and the scenery going by. But right as I started taking pictures, I noticed a teenage-looking boy move a little bit closer to me, staring at my camera. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “That’s kind of strange…” but before I could even finish thinking that thought, this boy had already explained, “Sorry! I just really like cameras.” I could not argue with the sincerity of that statement. Also, he had a cool T-shirt on… it had a string of code on it that I did not recognize but which Philip did, making it clear that Kyle, like us, was a computer person. So we got to talking with him about the conference we were in town for, and eventually he said, “So, I have to ask: do you have a website?” … and the clouds parted and a light shown down from heaven as I smiled and pulled a golden ticket from my camera bag. Well, maybe not… but I did feel HIGHLY justified as I forked over one of my new business cards, since that is EXACTLY the kind of occasion for which I had them printed. I’m glad we ran into you, Kyle! I hope you stick around to read more.

*PHEW! * If anyone actually read all the way through all of that, I am now officially in love with you. Not really, but I do realize that this has been an excruciatingly long post, and I appreciate anyone who stuck with me through the whole thing. (I appreciate you if you didn’t, too. )

So, that’s all for Webvisions. It was great fun. I don’t know if I will go next year or not, but that is a bridge to cross when I come to it.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite photos from the trip; this is a look up at the giant pendulum swinging in the lobby of the convention center:

This shall be brief, because I want to pay attention, but… because I said I would, I have to say: I am sitting here this very moment watching Derek Powazek talk!

More details tonight.

Phase two of my brilliant plan to take over the world via the triple threat of web design, photography, and blogging: a brand new face for Lylium.org!

So, here it is. Lylium.org has been redesigned, or realigned, or whatever you want to call it. I actually think of it as “finishing” the site more than anything else. You may have thought Lylium.org was a finished product (besides the previously-missing content pages, of course), but the truth is I threw the original design together in a couple of days on a whim. I feel like the site has been wearing borrowed skin from the day it opened (which was almost six months ago!).

I have had this “finished” design more or less in mind from the beginning. But, like most projects I take on, I recquired a little extra motivation to actually get in and DO it. That motivation came, as you know, in the form of Webvisions, the web conference I am attending this week in Portland. Somehow, the thought of sending any web professionals I meet to the Kubrick-mashup that was my previous design turned my stomach. Because I knew I could do SO. MUCH. BETTER.

Be sure to check out the About page, the Photography page, and the Web Design page, because they all actually have content. Ironically, I ran out of time once again to incorporate the portfolio of my websites into the web design page, but at least it explains what I do now.

Keep in mind as you peruse the site that I finished the coding of this design in a daze of last-minute rushing, so if you find any bugs crawling around in the corners, please let me know.

So I hope you like the new look and feel. I have to go finish running around like a chicken with its head cut off now. Philip and I are driving up to Portland tonight, and I feel like there are still so many details to take care of! But anyhow. Welcome to Lylium.org… again.

Phase one of my grand scheme to take over the world (my friends thought I was joking) via the triple threat of web design, photography, and blogging: MAKE BUSINESS CARDS.

If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me where my website was and I either went scrambling for a scrap of paper and a pen or just tried to explain how to spell Lylium (”It’s like ‘lily’, but, uh… spelled wrong.”), then I might have had enough to pay for these business cards. Lol.

I have been thinking about doing this for quite awhile, but I finally up and had them printed because I do not want to be empty-handed if I talk to anyone about Lylium at WebVisions this week. And, hey! Nothing makes a good first impression like a card with a HUGE PICTURE OF YOUR FACE on it.

You may also notice that I made the judicious decision to leave any actually USEFUL information off of the card… so that potential web or photography clients can’t call me or email me… but they can sure come read my blog! D’oh. No, that really was on purpose. I would like to be able to hand this out to anyone, without worrying about the unseemly widespread knowledge of my phone number. There’s plenty of space on the back to add my number if I need to—so I guess I’ll still be diving for that pen after all.

Logistics, for those interested: Based on the recommendation of Flickr photographer Bradley Spitzer (whose business card, which clearly inspired mine, can be viewed here), I ordered my business cards from OvernightPrints.com. Their prices seemed pretty affordable, although honestly I did not do a lot of comparison shopping (shame on me). But I am thrilled with the cards. They are nice and substantial feeling, the glossy UV coating (a free option I chose) looks really slick, and the cards were trimmed right where they said they would be (meaning that my text precariously centered between the edge of the photo and the edge of the card really is centered there).

My only beef about the whole process is the fact that the cards arrived one business day later than originally expected—today, rather than Friday. That turned out to be okay, but it’s a good thing I didn’t order them a day or two later. So if you decide to order your own cards, I would recommend not waiting until the last minute like I did. But it worked out okay.

I got 250 of these puppies printed. I will be disappointed if half of them aren’t gone by the end of this conference.

… Just kidding.

(Psst? What’s that? You want one of my cards? Well, drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do.)

(Psst? What’s that? You want me to design you a business card? That sounds good too. Write to me and we can talk about it.)

Yesterday morning Savanna (the ten-year-old I have been “babysitting” this week) and I performed our usual morning routine, which is: to lie on the big couch at her house with stupified expressions on our faces that clearly say “we have not yet fully engaged with the world of the living.”

Yesterday in particular, Savanna used this semi-awake time to read Manga, while I (attempted to) read CSS Mastery.

At one point, after we had both been sprawled there staring blankly at our books for a good half-hour, Savanna said: “I’m soooooo tired.”

“You know,” I pointed out, “You don’t have to be up yet. You could go back to sleep for a while if you wanted.”

“No,” she pronounced solemnly, as she prepared to dispense her invaluable Savanna wisdom, “Sleep is not in the dictionary of my tired today.”

Leave it to Savanna to solve all of our problems with a single phrase. I’m sure you can immediately see the possibilities for this gem.

“I’m sorry, waiter, but croutons are not in the dictionary of my salad today.”

Suddenly, the world is a better place.

Despite the few nagging physics chapters that need to be finished up from the school year, I am in full project mode here at Lylium HQ. In addition to beginning a rather large web job at the moment, I am, as I mentioned previously, attempting to rework Lylium.org’s design before next week’s Webvisions conference. On top of it all, this week is another Savanna week, meaning that I am unable to work until the evenings most days this week.

So last night I worked quite a bit on the new Lylium.org design. And as I finished my Photoshop session and got ready to go to bed, I looked back on the evening’s work with a firm sense of satisfaction, convinced that I had progressed the design to the point where I could begin coding it this afternoon.

But when I reopened Photoshop today, and after showing the design to my parents, my toughest critics, we all decided that it was missing that ‘je ne sais quois’—that indescribable spark of whimsy that sneaks into my writing and gives Lylium.org the bizarre little flavor that it has.

So I did what any sensible person would do to help the design along. I went into the backyard and shot 124 photographs of my shoes.

What?

You know, the shoes—the inscrutable reddish-orangeish-brownish blobs gracing my current header image. I did not include the shoes in my new design, and I honestly feel like it was part of its downfall. Sure, the image I chose for the new header is nice, but it lacked that special “you can’t quite tell if it’s leather shoes or someone’s arm with big hairy moles arranged in patterns” quality that my current header displays so nicely.

So as I said before, in a moment of perverse determination I grabbed my camera, put on my red leather shoes, and tromped outside to get as many pictures as I could before the light went. And that number turned out to be one hundred and twenty-four.

One hundred and twenty-four pictures of my feet in my shoes without socks standing on the deck, without socks standing in the grass, with socks standing on the deck, with socks standing in the grass, with socks hanging backwards off of a lawn chair and shooting my feet in the air… I was a girl on a mission, and I did not care HOW ridiculous I looked in the process. I mean, honestly—you know that I care about your blog experience if I will hang backwards off of a lawn chair just to ensure a satisfying new design.

… Or I am just a neurotic perfectionist.

But EITHER WAY, you should know that you are loved. Remember that if the blogging is sparse this week while I finish this design.

I’m not sure how I neglected to mention this, since I have been ridiculously excited about it for months, but I’m telling you now: On July 20th and 21st (less than two weeks away!) I will be attending the Webvisions conference in Portland.

This means a couple of things:

1. I get to soak up boatloads of useful information about designing for the web (among other things). (Then again, that means I will also have the un-enviable task of choosing which of these great talks to listen to during any given hour.)
2. I will get to see some internet celebrities in person. (I am especially excited about Dan Cederholm and Derek Powazek. To be perfectly honest, I have not heard of many of the other speakers, although I feel like I should have. Dear internet celebrities: I’m sorry. Now I will know who you are. )
3. I may get to experience driving in downtown Portland for the first time. (In other words, if I never show up to the conference, you’ll know why.)
4. If you are going to Webvisions, you should leave a comment saying so and you should certainly say hello if you see me there! I will be the shortish redhead with the camera glued to her face, but I don’t really need to tell you that because my regrettable “lack of laptop” syndrome will probably cause me to stand out from the crowd. In any case, I would be delighted if anyone recognized me, thereby proving that real people do, in fact, read this blog. I’m not expecting it, mind you… I just think it would be really cool.
5. I’m driving up with Philip, who told me about the event in the first place and is the only one of my friends who is as serious about this whole web thing as I am (perhaps more so, in fact). He has also kindly agreed to beat up anybody who gives me any trouble (you know, like trying to mug me or making jokes about my unfortunate habits)—and furthermore to chew them up and spit them out and stomp upon their remains. Ooookay, so maybe I made that last part up, but the point is I feel perfectly comfortable travelling with Philip because I know he is excellent at being the “big brother” who will look out for me. Thanks in advance, Phil.

“But, Erin!” you’re thinking, “Isn’t this a conference for, like, real, bona fide web designers? You know, who actually have websites for their web design businesses? Websites that actually have ‘about’ pages and whose portfolios do not have ‘under construction’ signs on them?”

Ah. What an interesting point. You are probably right—which is the exact reason that I have been working on a bit of a pet project. I will be making some changes to Lylium.org in the coming weeks—not drastic ones, mind you, but things such as actually finishing my about page and tweaking the design a bit and adding a few other things that may or may not be cool. But I will spare you any explanation—you’ll see these changes for yourself soon enough.

To sum up: Webvisions will be many kinds of cool. I hope to see you there.

(Also, Philip said if I’m really nice he might let me use his laptop a little during the conference, so perhaps I will make some kind of exciting “Woohoo! I’m here this very moment watching Derek Powazek talk!” kind of post. Who knows.)

(Also, you can of course expect photos on Flickr after the fact. )

The store that I work at is right next door to a grocery store. Tonight as I left the store to grab some dinner at said grocery store during my break, I was thinking about what I should get from behind the deli counter. Well, they have pizza… and burritos… and jo-jos… but I really like their macaroni & cheese! (In case you cannot tell, I am a health food junkie.)

But the thing about the mac & cheese at this particular grocery store is that when it’s good, it’s really good… but when it’s gross, it’s really gross. This “really gross” state usually occurs when only a few scraps of macaroni are left at the bottom of the bowl. That’s when it’s not quite stale enough to throw away, so they serve it up in their little plastic deli containers and sell it to you in an effort to convince you that it has NOT been sitting out all afternoon and they are NOT just trying to get rid of it so they can wash the bowl—which it has been, and they are. Trust me. I KNOW.

So anyway, I was thinking about all this as I walked next door to the grocery store. And I came to a critical decision—I would order the macaroni, even though it was more expensive, but only if it looked REALLY good tonight. And I thought about it in those exact words: only if it looks REALLY good. With that exact emphasis, in fact: REALLY good. I know, because right as I was thinking those exact words with that exact emphasis, I also happened to be half speaking them to myself—a fact that did not escape the attention of the bewildered-looking man who passed me walking in the other direction. He locked eyes with me mid-”REALLY,” just as I was scrunching up my face and rolling my eyes a bit to emphasize to myself JUST HOW GOOD that macaroni had to be before I would shell out my hard-earned cash to pay for it.

I tried to disguise the fact that I had obviously been passionately talking to myself about macaroni by quickly looking straight at the door of said grocery store, but it was no use. He could not have mistaken that eye-rolling, face-scrunching action for anything else. Of course, it had little lasting effect on either of our lives, but we both walked away from the scene realizing that I was one of those people—those people who talk to themselves in public and then try to pretend that they don’t.

I suppose one has to come to terms with these things at some point in one’s life.

Oh, and the macaroni was gross.

In other news, I hope all of you fellow Americans had a great 4th of July yesterday! (Well, I suppose I hope all you non-Americans had a great 4th of July also, but you know what I mean. )

One family that we know has been putting on a 4th of July bash at their house for the past ten million years, which is fine by me, because their parties are always great fun. (With the notable exceptions of the year that Savanna split her forehead open on a swingset and the year that a less-than-legal firework tipped over and started shooting flaming rocks into the crowd—although in retrospect those both make great stories.)

Anyway, this year with my camera I felt like I was seeing the shindig through brand new eyes; I didn’t end up getting a ton of pictures that I liked, but I did have fun. You can see my favorite pictures from the day in a set on Flickr here.

I will not miss you.

(Even if I have to admit, for the sake of my math-teacher father, that you were interesting while you lasted.)

Hello, summer!

Hello, more time to blog!

Hello, web clients!

Hello, photography!

Hello, newfound feeling of freedom and joy and peace and satisfaction for the rest of my life!

One goodbye, so many hellos.

w00t.

(P.S. In case you could not tell, this means I met my 4th of July deadline for finishing my… leftover math. Actually, my original goal was to finish my leftover schoolwork in all subjects, but as we came down to the home stretch it became clear that that would be impossible. *sigh * Luckily, math lessons made up the VAST majority of my leftover work. So before anyone goes “Oh, well too bad you didn’t just finish it all…” I would just like to emphasize what a huge weight off my shoulders finishing this math is. Now I just need to make sure to actually do the bits that are left. )

(P.P.S. In case you would like proof that I am capable of being a productive individual, go read my friend Deanna’s account of our one-on-one HTML lesson the other day. In fact, you should just read her blog in general! She’s a fantastic writer, and is quickly learning the ropes of blogging. And, on a side note, I really enjoyed our little web lesson—I felt like I was genuinely able to help. Makes me think I might be an OK teacher; although, Deanna was a very good student, so maybe it’s too soon to tell. )