Stuff Portrait Friday: Photos, Periodicals, and Pet Peeves

See Kristine at Random and Odd for more on Stuff Portrait Day! This week's subject is favorite framed photo, magazine subscriptions, and household pet peeves.

This is probably my favorite all-time photo, framed or unframed, for so many different reasons, not the least of which it is the best picture of me ever taken (and why shouldn't my wedding picture be such?). In China, wedding portraits are done weeks before the wedding (so they can be viewed by wedding guests) as an all-day event, a la Glamour Shots. They supply clothes, makeup, and hair styling. It took an hour and a half to get me to look like that (go figure; I spend about five minutes tops on hair and makeup these days). It was fun, but I don't know if I would do it again. After a day of having my body bent and twisted into positions that felt abnormal but looked fantastic in the photos, my back ached and I think I have an idea of what it's like to be a model. I would never do that for a living!


I am a magazine whore. I only subscrbe to three or four (at least one I can think of is not pictured, though it's Audrey's Your Big Backyard), but I BUY many more on a regular basis. I really should subscribe to most of these, especially Real Simple and Mothering. Mothering...LOVE it. Not your average parenting magazine. But that's WHY I love it. The only reason I can think of why I don't subscribe is that buying them is part of my weekly Borders ritual. If I subscribed, I don't think I could restrain myself from reading them before my next night off! Magazine whore, oh yes.

My household pet peeve: must I choose one? There are so many. Like the "sunporch" that faces due west, and only one of the windows with a screen opens. Or my tiny kitchen with microscopically small counterspace. Could it be the eternal carpet that came with the house in every freaking room, kitchen and bathroom included? Or what about the dining room located two rooms away from the kitchen (and the kitchen is not large enough to eat in)? I've already mentioned the basement door located on the exterior of the house. Then there's the back door that sticks so tight that Audrey cannot open it by herself (FIRE HAZARD!!)



No, the winner has to be: the FUBAR wiring/lighting in this old house. Of all seven rooms in this house, only two of them do not have electrical "issues". Our bedroom has no ceiling light; our only source of light is from a desklamp sitting in a bookcase and the lights on my vanity. The lovely light fixture in the dining room (the picture I chose) does not work recently (and it's not the light bulb). We light that room with a halogen lamp. Likewise, while the ceiling fan in the living room works, the ceiling LIGHT does not; that room is lit with a single table lamp (or the TV!). The light switch for the bathroom is located OUTSIDE the bathroom door, and two of the lightbulb sockets (ceiling and one of the vanity lights) seem to make their respective bulbs burn out faster than normal. And the kitchen...oh, the kitchen. We had to install a light under the cabinets so I could see to cook when it starts to get dark. And the ceiling light? Oh, it works, but you have to jiggle the switch for about five minutes to get it to come on all the way (love that fluorescent light...gah!). And I'm not even mentioning the fact that there are not enough electrical outlets in the house at all for a 21st century family. I can't run more than one appliance in the kitchen at once, or else I trip a fuse. In the winter, if I forget the space heater in the bedroom is on and run the microwave, ditto, it's a trip to the basement (out into the cold, of course, to the OUTSIDE DOOR) to reset the fuse box.

I loved this house when we bought it; I still think old houses have more charm than newer ones. But they also are a PITA!