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on the cutting room floor

by Kaylah Stroup March 28, 2016

On the cutting room floor is a series that was started with the sole purpose of sharing photos that didn’t necessarily warrant a whole post but didn’t deserved to just be buried in my photo archives.

At the beginning of the year I made a goal to send out 150 pieces of mail and in the beginning of March I hit that goal! Wahooo! I’m at a 184 pieces sent out right now! I was not expecting to do that so soon. I’m slowly but surely working my way through my pile of incoming mail. I’m really happy with how it’s going so far. I’m connecting with lots of new people! Sitting in bed, or in my living room with a stack of postcards is easily becoming one of my favorite pastimes. I’ve wanted to turn it into a blog series, sharing whats incoming and what I’m sending out, like this post, but I’m still trying to find the perfect way to photograph everything without sharing addresses or details.

first two are outgoing mail, directly above is incoming mail.

After one million years of talking about how cool those color drip candles looked I finally bought two of them. They were soooo pretty! I wish there was something similar but in regular candle form since tall candles make me nervous but that was totally worth it to watch it drip. Also, rose lemonade? Do yourself a favor and try some!

For a while now my taste buds have been changing. I like basically any food I try and I’m down to try just about anything. This is a big deal coming from a former picky eater. The one thing I wanted to like but didn’t? Coffee. I liked basically every other coffee drink except coffee itself. It wasn’t the flavor, it was the texture. It’s like it’s too watery. I prefer thicker, milkier drinks. I was explaining this to Jeff’s sister who was like “Oh, I totally get that. It’s the only reason I use creamer.” For some dumb reason I guess I never thought of creamer making that difference.

Sooo I am now a bonafide coffee addict. I’ve been trying as many different flavors as I can get my hands on. My favorite so far has been the donut shop’s vanilla cream puff.

Since I all of a sudden enjoy long walks, and want to geocache constantly Jeff and I have been getting out literally every chance we get. It’s been really really great. We recently hiked down to check out this tunnel which in the past I can guarantee I would have complained about and it was a ton of fun. I picked ferns and tiny flowers along the way to press in my notebook.

I got two new books of my photos from chatbooks! Back in July I ordered one of all my road trip photos. I liked it so much I decided to sign up for the instagram series. It’s 60 photos from your instagram account that you can edit to your heart’s content: exclude photos, edit
captions, and move things around or you can just get them printed as it. I love love love seeing my photos printed! PS. Don’t forget if you use
code “theda146” you can get your first book free when you subscribe to your Instagram Series.

A massive abandoned cement factory along the lake. Not necessarily worthy of too many photos but a fun adventure none the less and I’m happy to check it off the list. Can I also just say that I love love love hanging out with these three dudes? I have so much fun with Jeff, Jake, and Jason. I am very happy they’re in my life.

And of course, here’s a pretty sunset because there ain’t nothing better! Happy Monday!
xoxo

driftwood beach fort

by Kaylah Stroup March 23, 2016

Trying to get more steps on my Fitbit means a lot more of me getting out and wandering around. It’s definitely a win/win situation. I’m getting more exercise, and I’m also out doing more of my favorite activities without feeling guilty that I should be at home working. Last week I hit up the beach. I collected some beach glass, and then noticed some nice looking drift wood that was perfect for building a fort. Forty five minutes later I finished her up and put a bunch of the beach glass I had collected earlier inside. I took a handful of photos but wasn’t all that impressed with what I shot. I was still excited to share those photos here because I was proud of my little fort. As I was leaving the desolate beach a woman walked over to a bench to eat her lunch but before sitting snapped a few photos of my fort. I was so excited that I took a crappy photo of her taking a picture of my creation.

The next day it was SUPER foggy. I ran around town taking pictures, and eventually made my way back to the beach. You can see my photos here! I wasn’t too confident that my little fort from the previous day would still be standing, people love to knock stuff down and I wasn’t sure if the waves might have gotten too close, but to my delight it was still there and HOLY COW, it looked awesome in the fog! I took so many photos and couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. The bare trees, the fog, the colors! Everything just came together so wonderfully.

Most importantly though, there were little doggy footprints leading right up to it and the glass had all been taken. Someone else (and their pup!) enjoyed it, and that makes me happy!

glitter rain boots from Modcloth, no longer available. Found them here though!

shackman multishot 102

by Kaylah Stroup March 22, 2016

Last year around this time a very kind reader, Tasha, sent me an email asking if I wanted a camera that she had laying around. I had never heard of a shackman multishot 102 but a quick google search told me I was verrrrry interested. Time went on, the camera never showed up, and I eventually forgot about it. The announcement that Fuijifilm would be retiring my favorite film got me thinking about all the cameras I’ll probably never shoot and I remembered this one that never showed up in the mail. I hoped that Tasha had just changed her mind and that it hadn’t gotten lost in transit. Apparently my post made her think of the camera too because she sent me an email asking if I still wanted the camera. Heck yessss!

I stalked the tracking number she sent me and hung out at the post office for nearly an hour waiting for them to put it in my box. I rushed home, cleaned the rollers, loaded it up and ran outside to take a photo. First shot was completely black. Crap! I was so bummed out. I fiddled with some settings not really thinking it would help. I went back outside, took the same photo except this time it turned out! I was instantly obsessed. It’s just a simple photo of my neighbors house but ughhhh, I love it so much.

cleveland, ohio, wendy park, whiskey island

You can either take two nearly identical shots, as seen below, or you can cover one of the lenses and take two totally different shots that will appear on one photo, as seen above. Most of the photos I took are slightly overexposed since my hand didn’t make the best light blocking tool but since they were taken on a super foggy day I like them anyway. I think they turned out really great. I audibly made a noise of pure excitement after peeling the shot above open. It’s just so awesome!

After finishing off my first pack of film I made myself a little lens cap from an empty roll of washi tape that just so happened to be the exact size I needed. I haven’t had a chance to test it out yet but I’m confident it will make all the difference in proper exposure.

I’m SUPER excited to play around with this camera more. I have so many ideas I want to try out with it, it’s going to be super hard to hoard my film now that I have this baby to play around with. I’m positive you’ll be seeing a lot more instant photos taken with this camera on the blog in the future.
xoxo

Thanks again, Tasha! You rule! This camera is sure to be well taken care of for a very very long time!

ladies of lake view cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup March 21, 2016

I’ve spent a few days over these last few weeks hanging out at Lake View Cemetery. Lake View Cemetery is what I would consider Cleveland’s best known cemetery, occasionally referred to as “Cleveland’s outdoor museum.” It occupies 285 acres and more than 107,000 people have been laid to rest there, including President Garfield.

In 2013, before living in Cleveland was ever even a spark of an idea in my mind, I drove up to photograph the cemetery. I was enamored! I wished so badly it was closer to home. Now I’m a mere fifteen minutes away… and never really spend anytime there. Then I saw that there were more than a handful of geocaches located in the cemetery. That was just the motivation I needed to get out and do some more exploring!

After two days of wandering around the grounds I still haven’t gotten all of the caches and definitely haven’t seen all of the cemetery. I’ve been parking my car in a random section then just walking from cache to cache (gotta get them steps on my Fitbit!) which is fairly exhausting. Lake View is very hilly, and the caches aren’t exactly close to each other. All that walking has given me lots of time to check out headstones. There are tons of incredibly interesting things to see here but I just kept noticing the statues of women. Some angels, some represent deceased, and others are mourning lovers. The detail is just mind blowing. I can’t even imagine how much work it took to carve these or how much money it cost.

crying angel, headstone, lake view cemetery, angel of death victorious

Although the post is titled “Ladies of Lake View Cemetery” I had to add these two. Above is the Haserot angel, or sometimes also called “The Angel of Death Victorious.” He holds an upside-down torch to symbolize a life extinguished. Due to weathering he has tear stains running down his cheeks. It’s one of the cemeteries most notable monuments. Not far from the Haserot angel I found the dude below who, in my opinion, is just as creepy! He also looks like he’s crying and I swear those eyes followed me everywhere I moved. The Haserot angel seems like he’s slightly less than life size… or maybe he’s just smaller than me but the guy below was life sized and it felt like he could just walk over to me when I wasn’t expecting it. I’m not one to be frightened by cemeteries, headstones, or anything like that but I was definitely happy to get my shot and get outta view of him.

I’m sure I’ll be back at Lake View again sometime soon to find the rest of the caches and take more photos. It was fun to choose a theme to photograph since it’s easy to be overwhelmed with what to shoot in there because of the size. Until next time, Lake View…
xoxo

beach glass for me, beach glass for you

by Kaylah Stroup March 10, 2016

It’s been a while since I rambled about how much I loved the beach, huh? I guess I kind of took the winter off, which is fairly unusual for me. Over the weekend Jeff and I stopped at a random little beach and it got me thinking how much I missed “my” beach… plus the beach sounded like an excellent way to rack up steps and that’s basically all I think about since I got a Fitbit. First thing Monday morning I headed to my secluded little spot which was full of driftwood, trash, and beautifully tumbled beach glass. If there was any one spot in Cleveland that felt like home to me, it would be this beach. It was good to be back.

I’ve slowed down my beach glass picking habits in the last year. Not because I don’t like it anymore, quite the contrary, but because I really don’t need to bring it all home. When I lived in Geneva I barely found any glass so every single piece, no matter how tiny, was a huge deal. I brought it all home but it never really seemed to accumulate. Now I’m a five minute bike ride away from a beach that is almost always ripe for the picking! If I brought home everything I picked up my apartment would probably have a whole room just full of glass. I spent more time arranging this little collection than I did finding it.

Something I’ve always liked to do is leave things behind that will make people smile, like beach forts made of driftwood. I wish I could leave my “found on the beach” arrangements as is after I photograph them but I debate back and forth in my head whether or not that defeats the whole purpose. Leaving pretty little arrangements of beach glass seems just fine so that’s exactly what I did. It’s a win/win because I get to pick up beach glass which I find incredibly relaxing, create something and then leave it for someone else to find. I hope it was found before it washed away.

I did end up taking home a few pieces from the day though. Blue and red are two of the harder colors to find so I almost never leave either of those behind. But the find of the day or month?! possibly year?!! has to be the piece below which basically just looks like a gummy bear made of glass. I’ve never found a multicolored piece like that. I just thought it was a regular old brown piece until I held it up to the sky. I must find more!!!

backpack and lapel pin from Moorea Seal.

the cult of Fitbit

by Kaylah Stroup March 9, 2016

Fitbit Charge HR

I’ve joined a cult. The Cult of Fitbit. Let’s back up though. You know how Facebook is super creepy and tells you all the stuff your friends comment on, even when the post they were commenting on wasn’t even written by a mutual friend? Yeah, so, a friend commented on someones status that was an article about how addicting Fitbits were. I clicked on it and was basically sold right away. It was just one of those things that I could totally see myself getting into. I didn’t really expect to buy one any time soon, I just took a mental note to look in to more in the future.

Later that day Jeff and I were in the car, heading to the grocery store, when I remembered what I had read about earlier. I told him all about it and he was basically like “Yeah, I know! I was thinking about getting one too.” That’s how twenty minutes later we were in Target “just looking”. Ten more minutes and we were back sitting in the car getting our Fitbit Charge HRs all set up.

If you’re not familiar, basically Fitbits are pumped up pedometers. Depending on the model you get, it logs your steps, how many floors you’ve climbed, how many calories you’ve burned, your heart rate, how many miles you’ve walked and your sleep. In the app you can log what you’ve been eating and how much water you’ve drank. It displays all this information neatly in the app so it’s easy to read and understand. You can set goals, join challenges with friends for some healthy (literally) competition, and so much more.

The last pose is called “try to annoy your camera hog dog so he gets out of your shots” and it didn’t work.

I have an embarrassing secret, I hate walking. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just that I need the right motivation. I need to know that I have a destination, or a specific reason to walk. Basically, I need some sort of reward for walking. Yeah, I’m kind of lazy… Fitbit is somehow turning walking into something fun for me though. Since I’ve gotten this thing I have gotten SO much more exercise than normal simply because I love beating my own “high score”. I don’t expect it to perform any miracles or all of a sudden make me super ripped but I am, without a doubt, moving more than normal, and that rules!

It seems so funny for me to be writing this post because I’m totally not into “fitness”. Sure, I love riding my bike but I’m usually riding it to go get ice cream, or pizza. I don’t regularly work out, and I’m more than happy to eat a donut for breakfast. But, of course, I would love to feel healthier. I know I need more exercise, and this stupid little watch thing-a-majig was apparently exactly what I needed to get my butt in gear. Fitbit has made getting up and moving around fun. I love checking my stats and trying to get more steps than Jeff’s mom (who is an absolutely beast! Three cheers for her!!)

This is in no way a sponsored post but I am totally encouraging you to join a cult so… I apologize. It’s the kind of fun you can’t really understand until you try it. Even Jeff is hooked! Any other Fitbit users out there reading? Aren’t these things so much fun?! Why didn’t anyone tell me to get one earlier?!
xoxo

PS. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start talking about my Fitbit all the time. I might casually mention it from time to time if I totally crush my goals but other than that my lips are sealed… maybe.

It’s the little things…

by Kaylah Stroup March 7, 2016

like catching these two in bed together!!!

I adopted Klaus as a tiny, tiny puppy just around three years ago. I had hoped that a puppy would be the best bet in terms of everyone getting along. I thought that the cats would be able to just give this tiny dog a few little “I’m the boss here” hisses and everything would be golden. Buuuut I was wrong…

After a full year there was barely any progress at all. Klaus was more than interested in being friends but neither of the cats wanted anything to do with him. He was admittedly a little aggressive, not in a bad way but he’s three times their size and an absolute ball energy. Klaus and the cats were rarely ever in the same room together. If Squid was in the hallway, I was in the bedroom and Klaus was on the other side of the house he wouldn’t come to me because he was so afraid of this little black cat who was so clearly head of the house.

Eventually things started to progress. I remember one specific incident where Jeff and I were laying in bed with Klaus and Professor hopped up to get cozy with us. We lost our minds. It was so exciting for them to be that close together. (Everyone in this house is obsessed with cuddling with Jeff… Whatever, he smells nice.) This started happening fairly regularly and when Squid got involved too it was selfie worthy. I have so many grainy photos of the five of us together that I excitedly took.

More progress came when I moved to the apartment I’m living in now. It was like something clicked and all three of the animals were nicer to each other. Eventually the five of us laying in bed together became something completely normal. Klaus and the cats were co-existing successfully! He had backed off trying to give them all the love and they had started to realize this big goon was here to stay no matter how mean they were to him.

Last week I walked into my bedroom to grab something from my vanity. I spotted Klaus in bed and heard Professor in his little tiny collar jingling after me. He hopped up in bed and to my surprise curled up right beside Klaus. This is a first!!!! A super duper exciting first, clearly!

So technically, they aren’t cuddling since they’re not touching but the fact that they’re sharing the bed without me or Jeff in there to play mediator is AMAZING, especially since Professor was the last one in bed. Klaus will often try to hang out with the cats only for them to immediately get up and leave. He tries to bring them his toys sometimes. It’s so sweet. My heart breaks for this big goofy dog who can’t understand why these two cats don’t like him.

I honestly can’t believe it’s taken nearly three years for this to happen. I’ve got hope that maybe some day I’ll walk in and spot them curled up together. It might take another three years but I think it’s gonna happen!
xoxo

Edited to add this photo I snapped yesterday, a few days after the original post was written. ALL THREE IN BED TOGETHER! Yessss!

Mound View Cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup March 3, 2016

I love cemeteries, y’all know that. They’re peaceful and no matter where they’re located they’re almost always devoid of all people. Last week after visiting the Knox County Poorhouse I headed to Mound View Cemetery. It didn’t seem like it would be that big of a cemetery. My main reason for going was to search for a headstone I had seen a photo of online that read “Little Men”. I really really love headstones that say things that are a little bit out of the ordinary. Upon a little bit further research I found that these “little men” were actually the Wild Men of Borneo. I didn’t really know too much about them but I felt like I had heard that name before so I was definitely interested in finding the headstone.

Hiram and Barney were two mentally disabled brothers from Knox County. They were apparently sold to Doctor Warner in 1852 by their desperate mother after the passing of their father. Hiram and Barney were given new names, Waino and Plutanor, and a sensational back story about being from the island of Borneo, where they had been captured after an intense struggle. They were each around 40 inches tall and weighed about 45 pounds but could perform feats of great strength such as lifting heavy weights, and wrestling with audience members on stage. It is said that they could each lift around 300lbs on their own. They eventually became involved with P.T. Barnum and his traveling show. During their 25 years with him the pair made over $200,000 which in that time was an incredible sum of money.

I’m very interested in sideshow history and any headstone I can find information on is pretty cool my book, so this was definitely an awesome find. I’m actually surprised it took me this long to hear about it. I’m curious who chose to put “little men” on their headstone though. “Wild Men of Borneo” seems like a better fit if that’s what they went by…

The Wildmen of Borneo, Waino and Plutanor, Mound View Cemetery

Anyway, before even being able to find their headstone I was already more than impressed with this cemetery. It was easily in my top ten, mostly because it was absolutely teeming with symbolism! Lots and lots of older headstones have symbols on them. It’s nothing new for me. Over time I’ve become familiar with many of them. Some are so common I don’t think anything of them when I see them but everywhere I looked in Mound View there were symbols! It ended up being the majority of what I photographed.

I’m going to list a few of my favorites, see if you can find them in the photos…
anchor – hope or eternal life
arch – the passage to heaven
dove – peace, messenger of God
hand pointing up – hope for heaven
lamb – innocence, often found on the gravestones of children
upside down torch – the end of life, or a life extinguished
willow tree – perpetual sadness or mourning
wreath – victory in death

We have some really incredible cemeteries in Ohio, like this one. The one thing we don’t have going for us is that we aren’t very old, at least not compared to some other parts of the US that are a little further east. Symbols on graves aren’t all that popular anymore and haven’t been for a while so there are tons of them I’ve never actually seen in person. That’s not to say they aren’t in my state, I may have just not found them yet. I even have a list of symbols I’d love to find. Ranking high near the top is a skull and crossbones, just because it seems so stereotypical and like something that would a Halloween decoration instead of a real headstone, I guess. Thinking about finally finding one gets me all excited. Heading east this year is a must!
xoxo

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This, That, and The Dainty Squid

by Kaylah Stroup March 1, 2016

You guys, blogging is weird. Blogging “professionally” is even more weird. You’re sharing so much of yourself with a whoooooole bunch of strangers. It can definitely be scary.

Inspiration for this post came while editing some photos that I’m super excited about. I had an incredible day last week where I hit two really awesome spots that I took photos at. I was seriously on cloud nine. I couldn’t stop smiling or talking about my day. One stop was an abandoned building, and the second a cemetery. It was while I was editing the cemetery photos that I thought “crap, I can’t post these for a while.” Why? Because earlier that week I had already posted about a cemetery. Something told me posting another would be seen as too creepy, weird or …whatever. This has been a thought that occurs way more often than it should for me, and not just about cemetery photos. It’s been weighing on my shoulders for too long.

A few weeks back when I posted photos of the bridge along with a little personal chit chat the response was incredibly positive. It felt good to open up. I never really feel like I’m “hiding” anything from y’all but in the spirit of being completely transparent I guess this has been something I’ve wanted to talk about but have been too afraid to…

Incredible cemetery mentioned above that I’ll share more about later this week…

You may remember I had a reader survey sometime last year. I was really excited to hear more about the things you guys wanted to read, not in the sense like let me pretend I’m interested in this or that to get hits but was there something I’m already doing that you’re interested in learning more about – blogging tips, favorite make-up products, etc. I didn’t want to stop posting about anything, just start posting about other things more. I made sure to pose the questions so that it would be a positive thing. Somehow a number of people still took it as an opportunity to tell me how much they hated essentially everything I had been writing about since moving. One thing that stuck out to me, said by a small handful of people, was how much they hated my posts about abandoned buildings. (Someone also said not to post photos of Klaus because they didn’t like him… wut?!) I took that fairly personally. I totally get that seeing photos of abandoned buildings may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it was almost like the response wasn’t about the fact they didn’t like these photos. It was more that they were sour The Dainty Squid had changed. Why wasn’t I posting about crafty stuff anymore, why did it have to be abandoned buildings on here now?

While this blog is my bread and butter, and I have to take into consideration what people like to some extent. I also have to remember that it’s my blog, I can post about what I’d like because that’s what it’s about. The Dainty Squid is my photo album. It’s my place to write about all the things I’m passionate about, all the things I’m doing, learning, exploring, etc. Those things will always be changing. These past few years The Dainty Squid has definitely changed… because I’ve changed and that’s a real good thing. Right now I’m not crafting as much as I was when I first started this blog. It would be dishonest for me to pretend that I’m still sewing every day and continue to blog about that sort of thing simply because that’s what some people have come to expect. I’ve found many other passions that I now write about!

How could anyone not like this giant baby?!

I guess the whole point of this was to say that you should post about whatever you feel like posting, not what you feel pressured into posting about, that’s what will make your blog stand out from the crowd. I know whenever I mention blog stuff I always talk about how I’ve felt uneasy about not fitting into a specific blogging niche but I’m becoming more and more comfortable with it as time goes on. I like that on The Dainty Squid I can write about a dilapidated building one day and then my favorite bath products the next day because that’s totally me. I like getting dirty, exploring and then coming home to take a bubble bath and do fun nail art. I’m not for everyone, and that’s a-okay with me.

I should clarify that the point of this post isn’t to be a brat and exclaim “I’ll post what I want” but instead, like I mentioned at the beginning of the post, to just get this off of my chest. I don’t want to feel stressed about posting about what I like anymore. It’s been weighing me down for some time. I can’t tell you how good it feels to type this.

To everyone out there who “puts up” with my cemetery posts, abandoned building photos, and diverse and sometimes strange interests because you can respect the fact it’s something I’m passionate about – YOU DA BEST. Thank you so much. To everyone out there reading who just can’t handle those posts anymore – Adios, thank you for reading. No hard feelings, seriously! People grow, and a lot of the time it’s in different directions. Maybe someday our interests will cross paths again!
xoxo

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