Crumbling

"So rake your thumbnail across the stretch of the patina revealing a Proserpina in a low recline in a steep decline." - The Decemberists

It's been a pretty unproductive day. The kids had to go to school to make up a snow day, so I stayed in bed until noon, got up and cleaned a little, and then went out for a photo shoot. I'm feeling a little down, so I wanted to go somewhere different for the photo shoot in hopes that would cheer me up. I remembered that my dad has some land with an old house on it in a little place called Wyse Fork, so we drove there to check it out. We discovered someone living in the old house, so that didn't work out. We noticed a big old house across the road, so we decided to take pictures there. There wasn't a "No Trespassing" sign, but after last week's run in with the locals, I was paranoid the whole time that we were going to get caught.

There were several "issues" with today's photo shoot. First, it was freezing cold. I couldn't feel my hands when I got back in the truck after taking these. Secondly, my crappy camera died half-way through the shoot, so we had to switch to the phone camera. Then, I asked my husband several times to take some close-up shots, but when I went through the pictures afterwards, there were none. Lastly, this poor, old house had tons of graffiti on it and most of it was pretty obscene. LOL! So, I did alot of editing on these photos. I usually never do any editing, because I don't know what I'm doing. I played with the exposure and contrast to block out the graffiti. This made the colors exaggerated in alot of the pictures, but I kinda like it. Also, I cropped one of the photos to make a close-up, so it looks grainy, but it was the best I could do.

I'm wearing two new purchases today, the Deuxhill Cowlneck and the Flowing Cables Skirt. When I purchased the Flowing Cables skirt on sale, I knew exactly which top I wanted to wear with it - the Deuxhill Cowlneck in the black floral print. Problem was, I didn't own this top, and it had been sold out online for awhile. Imagine my delight when it popped back online a couple of weeks ago. I had to break the budget to get it, but I wasn't going to let it slip away again. I know I'm not getting off to a great start with this budget thing, but I'm going to try to do better in the future. Forgive me?

The song of the day is "Record Year For Rainfall" by The Decemberists. According to Colin Meloy, the lead singer and song writer: "The song was sort of written in the fall, there was alot of rain, and a record year for rainfall being kind of a metaphor for one's disposition over the course of a year. And the song is basically about the crumbling of a relationship, um, you know, by way of, the, sort of comparing to the fall of the Roman Empire." The crumbling of this old house reminded me of this song. I bet it was beautiful in it's day.

Interesting tidbit about The Decemberists: I saw The Decemberists in concert 4 years ago when I was pregnant with my daughter. They told everyone to join them on stage. I was in the second row, so I was one of the first one's up there. Colin Meloy pointed at me and another girl and told us to come up to the microphone. I sang "After the Bombs" on stage with Colin Meloy! He was frantically playing some weird looking guitar, and I was afraid he was going to hit my belly with it! I'll post a picture at the end of this post. Sorry it's so small, but it was the only one I could find on the Internet. That's me in the black shirt. See how his guitar is pointed at my baby bump? LOL! Have a great night!

Blouse: Anthropologie Deuxhill Cowlneck

Skirt: Anthropologie Flowing Cables Sweater Skirt

Cardigan: J Crew Jackie Cardigan

Tights: Anthropologie Cockle Shell Tights

Shoes: Anthropologie Raines Heels

Bracelet: Anthropologie Sliced Tagua Bracelet