JULY WHACKY HOLIDAYS

My only excuse for not posting July's wacky holidays earlier is that for the first two weeks of July I hadn't even realized it was July. And now it's almost August and I'm not ready for August. But alas - a few opportunities to take your mind off the fact that summer is passing all too quickly...

July 15th (I know, that day already happened, but this celebration is worth a rain check): Cow Appreciation Day.

July 20th Moon Day.

July 21st Junk Food Day. (I just spent 4 hours on the phone with internet tech support and thus have celebrated this day one day early)...

July 22nd Hammock Day. Yes, please.

July 26th All or Nothing Day.

July 28th National Milk Chocolate Day.

July 29th National Lasagna Day (RedBrownBlonde tried a new veggie lasagna recipe last week and it was absolutely delish -- we'll post that recipe soon!).

July 30th - in honor of Brown's big move: National Cheesecake Day.

July 31st Mutt's Day -- I am partial to this breed, myself.

So Happy Together.

Brown and Blonde left Columbus, Ohio early this morning and headed back south to their gracious husbands (who let them leave home for a week and then stay an extra day!). The three of us haven't been together for that long since our freshman year of college! So you can imagine the pure bliss that we enjoyed for 6 days. Red's husband is busy being a poet at a conference in TN, so we had the apartment all to ourselves. We tried new recipes, new drinks, new bakeries, stocked up on chick-flicks, played card games, had a jewelry party and of course, went shopping.

Brown + Husband leave for Hawaii in a couple of weeks (not to be seen by Blonde and Red for a least a year -- I know, I don't want to talk about it), so it was perfect timing all around. One last hurrah with an apartment all to ourselves -- Red's downstairs neighbor was even out of town all week so we didn't have to "keep it down." So hard to say goodbye, but rest assured that Red and Blonde are already planning their trip to Hawaii!

Photos and detailed accounts of the aforementioned events will be posted soon. 

and the winner is....

....NICHOLE!

REDBROWNBLONDE will be cooking Huevos Rancheros later in the week. The recipe sounds delicious, healthy and a little bit challenging, so we're excited to try it! Thanks for all the great submissions everyone! 

RED: Fix up old camera: FIVE

I've always loved the physical product that film produces. The convenience of digital photography is brilliant, but there is something special about holding a captured moment in your hand as the photo itself has been effected by time and touch. I stumbled upon this beautiful little kodak duaflex camera at a yard sale at the beginning of the summer. I had fiddled with my grandpa's old camera enough to know what I was looking for and immediately purchased the $5 camera. I found film on B&H and immediately began cleaning up the camera. A few adjustments were made, a few photos ruined, but I eventually got the hang of things. I spent the afternoon out on the farm at home in Tennessee with Rascal and then took the camera to New York with us. I wrapped up the roll of film when we visited the Columbus Zoo a couple weeks ago.

The Duaflex is a medium format camera which uses film larger than a good ol' 35mm camera, but smaller than large format film. Due to the larger size of the film, the format allows for better control of depth of field and produces a sharper all around image making better quality enlargements. The box Brownie popularized medium format film making it more accessible to the average person (initial market price was $1), and was adored for its compact, portable nature. Today, medium format film can be tricky to find and is priced similar to instant film (about $1.00/image), but if handled properly, the final result is always gratifying. The images themselves produce a dream-like, nostalgic nature unique not only in their high quality resolution but their square shape.

Above: the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC. 

Below: Asian Elephants and Ben, Columbus Zoo. 

While the model that I have comes with a "double-exposure prevention button" (you have to hold a lever while you press the shutter and it locks so you don't press it again before manually advancing the film), the camera itself cannot guarantee that you forget to advance the film and press the lever and the exposure button again... However, sometimes it can result in happy accidents like the photo below. I wish I could say that I planned this, but I did not. That's my favorite Ohio tree with Times Square in the background.