So, I never got around to doing that zoo blog post.  But I have pictures up on FB if anyone is interested!

But, anyway.  Today, is a slow day.  

This is the first week of summer hours, where we work from 8am to 5pm Monday through Thursday.  The reward in the end, is on Friday we only have to work from 9am to 1pm, which is kind of nice.  However, I’ve decided to switch back to normal hours, because, my god, this week has been the LONGEST WEEK EVER.  

As a consequence of having that extra hour to get things done, I’ve run clean out of projects to work on, and asked Ben what I should do.
He responded with the idea to design a film-noir inspired poster for any Disney movie.  

That said, here was my response:

Enjoy!

M

So… I’ve been hearing through the grapevine that Xanga isn’t doing so hot.  (Which I’m sure you guys have heard about it, since you and I are literally the ONLY people I know who actually still have one of these and post on a fairly regular basis.)  

All I can really say when I hear about this new is “HOLY CRAP, I WISH I COULD GET ALL OF MY BLOG POSTS CONVERTED INTO BOOK FORM.”

After all, these Xanga posts are a solid chunk of my life: From May of 2004, to today.  

That is 9 years of bi-monthly updates about my life…

In 2004. I was 16.

I was ending middle school, and realized that Xanga was a safe place to post my thoughts because I was too lazy to keep a physical journal (ironically, I didn’t realize that I was filling sketchbooks faster than I could buy them, and so, they are my visual diaries).

But the sad thing about posting to a blog is that it literally doesn’t physically exist.
A diary (or in my case, a sketchbook) is something that you can hide away on a shelf, and pull out years later.  
I thought that was something I’d be able to do with this blog, and the inevitable demise of Xanga is something that does make me profoundly sad.  

I’ve thought about donating to keeping Xanga alive and well, but when I heard about the site no longer being free anymore, I had to take a step back.
I really hope I misheard about that, but that thought alone changes my idea of this blog all together.  Because I freaked out a bit, I paid to go premium and will be archiving my posts so I can save a version to my ext. hard drive if the site does go belly-up.  $25 is a small fee for nearly 10 years of memories.  

Anyway, how are you guys handling the news?  I’d love it if Xanga posts were compatible to create into a Blurb book… Which, as it turns out, isn’t seeming possible from what research I’ve done.  Oh well.  We’ll see. 

I’ll be posting an update about Ben and my trip to the MN Zoo from this past weekend.  When I get home it shall be done!

Much love,

Mary