26; May 18; wife, cat mom; foodie, designer, blogger, knitter, yarn junkie, Wordpress guru, geek extreme; Mac connoisseur and Instagram addict.


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Category Archives: #scintilla

#scintilla bonus #1 – leaving home

Posted on March 18, 2012 by phillynikongal • 0 Comments

I totally meant to finish/post this yesterday, but for one reason or another, I completely forgot! So please forgive me!!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Today’s #scintilla prompt comes from their Twitter account.

scintilla project day four leaving home growing

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The first time I left home was in 2006.

I was young and stupid. I was going through a divorce and I was in a whirlwind relationship with The Dark One (there’s no real reason to talk about him in any other manner other than this). We had been together for about a month when we decided to be young and stupid and move in together. My divorce wasn’t even final yet.

I remember the first time I went shopping for groceries for our new apartment, which was near 19th st and Camelback Rd in Phoenix. I was 19 and had never shopped for myself before, let alone a boyfriend. Of course, I’d been shopping with my mom before. But I had no real idea of what to buy. $200 or more later, and I left the store with a bunch of crap.

I don’t think I was ever in the right frame of mind during the entirety of that relationship. Because of my illness, I was making horrible decisions, which included getting remarried shortly after my divorce was final. I can’t blame it entirely on being sick, because I was pretty young and stupid back in those days.

Leaving home that year, even if it was only for about 10 months (we moved back in with my parents while I was in and out of the hospital) was certainly a learning experience. I never knew anything else the first 20 years of my life, which were spent living with my parents. I was afraid, but I did it anyway.

Even though it was not the best time of my life, it shaped who I am today. And I am thankful for that, even if it brought me a lot of pain.

scintilla project day four leaving home growing

Filed Under: #scintilla, Just Me

#scintilla day three – sing me a song

Posted on March 16, 2012 by phillynikongal • 0 Comments

Gah! I’ve been out all day today, and I haven’t even done my post for #scintilla yet! Better to do it tonight than to try and catch up tomorrow.

Prompt A: Talk about a memory triggered by a particular song.

—–

When I lived in Indiana the first time, I went to a high school that was heavily centered around it’s music and theater programs. We had the top spots in many competitions, and we were all around known (and equally hated). I had the misfortune of being a part of the orchestra in my freshman year, which ended the summer after. However, in my junior year, I was in choir.

Most of my life has been spent in the school choir. I love to sing. Well, I loved to sing, now I just prefer to sing in the car when no one can hear me. So, I guess you could call the choir I was a part of, one of the show choirs. A lot of our songs had choreographed dances to go along with them.

One song in particular, I will never ever forget. For our spring concert, I believe, we sang “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”, and had a goofy dance number to go along with it. It was cheesy and cute, for an all girls show choir. I couldn’t begin to remember any of the dance routine.

Mr. Fox and I listen to the local oldies station all the time, so when I hear the original song on the radio, my mind is taken back to those awful and annoying rehearsals and performances. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being in choir. I loved the over the top sequined dresses we got to wear. But the dancing I could do without.

So I suppose you could say I am a mixed bag of emotions when I hear that song. We had some other amusing diddies that year.

But I won’t go into those, because it hurts my brain just thinking about them. Especially the one where we were all dressed as clowns. Oh dear.

scintilla day three sing song choir high school

Filed Under: #scintilla, Just Me

#scintilla day two – all grown up

Posted on March 15, 2012 by phillynikongal • 4 Comments

Now that I’m on track with #scintilla (I was only a day behind this time, which is better than my #reverb10/11 track record), it’s time for day two!

Prompt A: When did you realise you were a grown up? What did this mean for you? Shock to the system? Mourning of halcyon younger days? Or the embracing of the knowledge that you can do all the cool stuff adults do: drink wine, go on parent-free vacations, eat chocolate without reprimand?

—–

I used to think that growing up was about embracing the things in life that I was previously unable to do while under my parents rule. Stay out until 3-4am? Go bar-hopping? Stay up all night without getting in trouble (or at least lectured)? Sure, being able to do those things made me feel like a grown up. Then again, so did going to college and moving out on my own. And getting married (not once, not twice, but three times).

I moved out of my parents house in 2006 when I was with The Dark One. It was a very rushed decision and one that I was not in my right minds to make at the time. That’s also the year I got divorced and remarried, decided I wanted a $90,000 education from the Art Institute of Phoenix, and went into the hospital for 2 months (the reason for which attributed to the aforementioned indecisions). I wouldn’t necessarily call 2006 the year of growing up, but more like the year of running away from my life.

In 2008, I moved out of my parents house again, this time for something more thought out and planned, and also 600 miles away. Going back to Indiana was a big decision, and while I am glad I did it (for obvious reasons like Mr. Fox), parts of me would like to erase the last 3+ years for one reason or another. Am I grown up yet?

This past January, Mr. Fox and I moved to The Land Of Cheesesteaks and Hoagies. We bought our first new car (though technically that was back in October). We bought our first house. We picked up our lives, severed most of our ties with the home we’ve known for 3-8 years (respectively), and started over in a more familiar place. We bought living room furniture. We bought an oven (!). We decorated (and are still decorating). We made life-altering decisions as a healthy and happy married couple.

For me, growing up is a million different things, not just one specific happenstance or rite of passage. Yeah, I may have felt pretty grown up when I got trashed on the Las Vegas strip for my 21st birthday. Stupid and grown up. And true, you could say that my second divorce and sub-sequential third marriage makes me pretty grown up (and stereotypical drama magnet), but that doesn’t make me any better as an adult.

But to be perfectly honest, I’m only 25 (well, almost 26). I am far from the atypical “grown up”. I feel older and wiser thanks to experience, but my life is far from over. I’ve got lots of growing up to do, and all the time in the world to do it.

scintilla project day two grown life relationships parents passage

Filed Under: #scintilla, Just Me

#scintilla day one – firsts

Posted on March 15, 2012 by phillynikongal • 5 Comments

I am such an idiot! I missed yesterday’s #scintilla prompt because I totally forgot to hit confirm on the subscription sign up and therefore did not wake up to a prompt for yesterday or today. Thankfully however, they’ve been kind enough to make a prompt archive, so am able to catch up!

—–

For day one, I’ve chosen to do Prompt B, as we are given two choices.

Prompt B: Life is a series of firsts. Talk about one of your most important firsts. What did you learn? Was it something you incorporated into your life as a result?

I stood there in this small, completely dark room. I clumsily pried the film canister open with my tools and set to work winding the film onto the reel. Being claustrophobic, the idea of being in this tiny room with no light was somewhat of a nightmare, but even while sweating and breathing heavily, I was able to persevere and get my first roll of film onto its reel and into the developer tank.

I carefully measured out the correct ratios of chemicals, and double checked to make sure I had everything correct. I didn’t want to ruin anything.

Shake shake, whoosh, swirl, agitate.

Wait.

The clock is ticking, and I am getting impatient. “Why must this process take so long,” I thought to myself.

The timer is going off, and it’s time to rinse. Shake shake, whoosh, swirl, agitate.

Wait.

I’m starting to get nervous. Did I use the correct amount of rinse? Did I develop for the right amount of time? Only time will tell.

Ding. Film is done.

I carefully dumped the contents of the developer tank into the sink, and out popped the reel of developed film. I could see stories and memories on 35mm negatives right before my eyes. My heart skipped a beat. I was fascinated and excited. Onto the drying rack they went.

Snip snip snip, 7 negative strips. Ready and willing to go into the negative sheets and made into a contact sheet.

I chose my enlarger carefully, in the corner of the darkroom. I didn’t want to be bothered by my classmates. Click goes the enlarger. The timer dings, and I take my Ilford paper to the developer trays.

Dip. Wait. Dip. Wait. Rinse. Dry.

My first contact sheet is done. I chose a photo I took of my glass chess set. It has the right amount of noise and proper exposure to get the results that I want. Click goes the enlarger. The timer dings, and I take my Ilford paper to the developer trays.

Dip. Wait.

I see my photo come to life on the paper.

Dip. Wait.

It’s starting to come in clearer now.

Rinse. Dry.

It’s beautiful. The smell of developer on my hands, and watching a photo that I took come to life. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was life changing.

It was just the beginning.

—–

In case you were wondering, the above was about the very first time I developed and printed my own film in the darkroom. Unfortunately, I do not have my first photo scanned into the computer. One of these days, I will get around to it. 

scintilla day one firsts darkroom photography development

Filed Under: #scintilla, Just Me

#scintilla project and #marchphotoaday

Posted on March 2, 2012 by phillynikongal • 2 Comments

So I bet you’re wondering what the hell the focus of this little blog of mine is.

Truthfully, I have no idea. It’s really just another outlet on the internets where I can rant and post my recipes and blah blah blah. If you don’t remember, I was a part of the #reverb11 project, in which I posted a blog post from a daily prompt. It was a lot of fun, it made me think, and I “met” some pretty cool bloggers in the process.

Well, there’s another project of sorts coming up for the last part of March. It’s called the #scintilla project.

scintilla project blogging storytelling marchphotoaday

From #scintilla’s website:

The Scintilla Project gives you a reason to unlock your storytelling voice. We provide a selection of daily prompts and encouragement, and you provide a post that goes beyond the surface into Why. In some you’ll be the hero, in some the villain, and in some an innocent bystander. Every day is a new chance to go deeper.

I am not really a storyteller by any stretch of the imagination. But I do have my rare moments of humor and insight. I am hoping that #scintilla will be as rewarding as #reverb11 was, and that maybe I’ll meet some cool new people this way as well. And if not, I’ll at least have two weeks worth of interesting posts that don’t follow the norm of my usual ramblings about food, yarn, and the occasional photo or two.

Speaking of photos!

You might remember my awful attempt at participating in #febphotoaday, where we took a photo according to a prompt for each day of the month of February. Well, am I a glutton for punishment if I tell you I’m also participating in #marchphotoaday? Probably, but oh well. I’m doing it any way! If you’re on instagram, you can follow my posts at my username, “phillynikongal.” Instead of posting them daily here on the blog, I will be posting them on a weekly basis on Sundays. So this coming Sunday, I will post days 1-4 in one post. The next Sunday, days 5-11; the next Sunday after that, days 12-18, and so on and so on.

scintilla project blogging storytelling marchphotoaday

Finally, I haven’t forgotten about the posts I said I would make, including the stove-top mac and cheese. No worries!

Happy blogging :)

scintilla project blogging storytelling marchphotoaday

Filed Under: #marchphotoaday, #scintilla, Just Me, Photography