Emma's Fantabulous Blog

I believe that I’ve always been somewhat fashion forward. One time in high school I was wandering through an alleyway in Southie (South Boston for you non Bostonians) and I came across a crumpled up  paper bag on the ground. Upon picking up the bag and opening it (don’t judge me!!!) I found 3 cloth napkins in a really rad red plaid print. I had been wanting a plaid mini-skirt for a while and the napkins looked relatively clean enough, so I took those puppies home, stitched them together and sewed in a zipper. The skirt barely covered my derriere, but that thing looked so punk rock deluxely awesome and I rocked the shit out of it. (Until a few months later when I acted like a typical out of control asshole teenager, broke some house rules and my mom shredded and trashed it as my punishment.)

From a very young age I was super particular about the clothing that I wanted to wear, much to the chagrin of my mom-dukes. Mini-skirts, faux fur jackets and anything with sequins is my idea of a dream outfit. I’m wicked into the costume aspect of clothing. I’m not really a huge fan of Lady Gaga, but I’m all about the idea of wearing costumes for daily wear. In the past my friends have enjoyed shopping in my closet for Halloween costumes. For a hot minute I was a fashion major during my time at Mass College of Art.

I’ve never really had a huge classic designer fashion affinity, but, I always dig watching runways shows and whatnot. I’ve always thought that it would be totally awesome to be a runway model.  People cheering as you prance in the limelight? That sounds pretty cool, right? I mean, I’m not particularly proud of that, but whatever. And then one day stuff randomly started falling into place. Through Facebook, I came across an open casting for a fashion show called Catwalk for a Cure that would be taking place at the State Room.  I figured at the very least, it would be fun and get me out of my comfort zone. I arrive and there’s about 200 other ladies auditioning. I turn in my application and head shot, get my photo and measurements taken, meet the Catwalk for a Cure  organizers and do a little runway strut for them. They say they’ll call me if they’re interested. Ok….. After about a month, I figure that they’ve passed on me, and almost a month later, I get an email on  my 29th birthday saying that they’ve chosen me along with about 20 other women.. Holy crap! Out of 200! What an ego boost when I was bumming about entering my last year of my wild and crazy 20s. Some time goes by, and I do a fitting with my designer, which is cool to meet her and some other models. See what I’ll be wearing and what one of the collections look like.

On October 13th (I know, I’m still really behind in updating!!!) I show up for hair and makeup before the show and am assigned to a hair team from Dellaria Salons. My team was the alterna team or something because they had the most tattoos and piercings and were rocking the skinny jeans, and they were psyched to be doing hair for “the pink haired chick”. They were awesome and made me look like a million bucks! Thanks guys!! (The picture on the right was taken by fellow model Jill, who was super nice & friendly! Click on the pic to make it bigger.)

The  venue, The State Room in Boston was absolutely gorgeous. The venue is huge. 2 Stories of open space on the 33rd floor of a building in the middle of downtown. The windows are floor to ceiling and you have an amazing view of the city and the harbor. Big space. Lots of people….

Luckily all my immediate family had come out, as well as a bunch of my close friends, so I was feeling the madd love which made me less nervous. The models were able to practice a run-through, which also helped, but I was still a pretty jittery… The fashion show go-ers were seated after a delicious sounding cocktail hour. The models lined up, and then the music started and after a few moments I standing on the platform, making my way down the runway. It’s weird. I was super nervous before hand. But as soon as the spotlight hit, I had to do my thing. Fight or flight, baby. And then I heard my people cheering me on, and that was totally awesome and amazing and I love them so much for that. They always know how to make a scene. I had to do them proud, so I worked it as best as I knew how, lol. Here’s my “blue steel”.

I made it to the end of the runway, did my spiffy model turn, and then walked back to the start and stepped off… And then I had to do that 2 more times. So yeah. It was pretty awesome. A bunch of fun. A huge burst of adrenaline. And the event was a benefit for a great charity: The Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer education and research group. No wonder they didn’t ask me to change my hair color.

My friends and family had a great time, I was super happy to be part of such a great event! Although I am bummed to have missed out on the free samples from Pinkberry, one of the sponsors for the event.

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to work with Catwalk for a Cure again!

11 of 30 Completed!

I’m part homebody, part nomad. I get itchy, twitchy and bitchy and yearn to travel if I’m home for longer than 2 months. (And then I’m generally ready to be back home after 2 to 3 weeks.) A decent portion of my friends are pretty vocal about their hatred of modern air travel and they generally try to avoid it whenever possible, but honestly if I could get somewhere interesting by flying cargo with donkeys and chickens or whatever with 30 layovers, I’d totally do it, no ifs, ands or buts. Sometimes airplanes suck, but the amazing experiences that they make possible have always made up for a few hours of discomfort.

This year my parents totally spoiled us & decided to take us to South Africa for our family vacation as our Birthday and Christmas presents for the next 127 years.. . I guess the nomadic thing kinda runs in the family. My parents visited the country last year, had a totally amazing time and thought that we would love it as well. Luckily I’m related to these awesome generous people so I was in for the trip of a lifetime!

So in September (I know I’m WAY behind in updating this blog) after about 36 hours of air travel, layovers in multiple countries, and car travel, we ended up in a swanky guest house in Marloth Park on the Southern edge of Kruger National Park, and Northeast-ish region of the country.We stayed in an awesome house/lodge? called Kahya Umdami that was owned by some super friendly people from Cape Town. There was a ton of wildlife that roamed the area & could come around looking for handouts. Guinea fowl (who looked like they would make delicious hot wings!), kudu (only try to feed the young ones, fyi) ,warthogs (omg, so cute!!!), giraffes, bushbabies (the itty-bitty tweaked-out speed freaks of the animal kingdom), hoards of banded mongeese, and tons of crazy looking colorful birds were just some of our regular visitors.

Luckily we had brought a huge crate of fresh papaya or papaw, so the critters loved us, and we got to hand feed a ton of warthogs and kudu. I actually ended up with the nickname Angelina Jolie for threatening to smuggle/adopt half of the visiting warthogs.

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D & I went to Puerto Rico for our 4th anniversary & had a really relaxing & fantastic time.

We layed on the beach a TON. We also checked out El Murro in old San Juan, hiked through El Yunque to swim in La Mina waterfall, and I took a surf lesson in water warm enough so I didn’t have to wear a full wetsuit.

Click on the pic to check out the entire photo gallery.

Here she is pretending like she’s about to eat my leg. Hilarious, no?

Recently I’ve gotten into surfing. I go to a ladies’ surf night in NH and I’ve been having an amazing time. I’ve started looking at surfboards to see what my options are and have noticed that huge number of women’s surf boards come with hibiscus flower motif’s on them. I’ve also been looking at getting a new motorcycle helmet since my current one is pretty old & should be replaced. In my browsing for women’s motorcycle helmets, I’ve found that the hibiscus motif plague has invaded this area as well. It’s crazy! The manufacturers of inherently bad-ass things are decreasing their “bad-ass factor” by sticking hibiscus flowers on everything. What the heck is up with that?!? I like pink flowers as much as the next girl, but when I’m looking to buy something for one of my non-frou-frou hobbies, I don’t want a stupid hibiscus flower stuck on it….

Therefore, in honor of this phenomenon, I give you a list of 6 things that are made WAYYY less bad-ass (and/or butch) by having a hibiscus flower on them……

#6. A mens’ tie. Unless you’re from Hawaii (and even that is up for debate), you should not be wearing these.

#5. A Knife. A knife is inherently bad-ass. So, why would you go about and muck it up with a design on it? Imagine yourself on a dark night in a bad section of town. A thug jumps out of the darkness and challenges you to a knife fight. Then you whip out this “shank”. True, you might very well win the fight, but only because your opponent would be extremely vulnerable while they are rolling around on the ground in utter hysterics.

#4. A motorcycle. Good for you for customizing your ride, but really? Couldn’t you have gone with some skulls or flames? Or flaming skulls?

#3. A motorcycle helmet. Just imagine yourself:  Sitting pretty wearing your pink hibiscus helmet, riding your hibiscus motorcycle. Looking the the total opposite of bad-ass. Although this look definitely has potential to work if you are employed as a flower delivery person…….

#2. A surfboard. You could totally be one of the guys with this awesome surfboard with a floral motif. Except none of the guys would ever be caught dead riding your chicksauraus-maximus board.

#1. Cufflinks. One question: Why are these even necessary when you can buy cufflinks with ammo on them?

I know I’m a bit late on the mark, but last week I turned 27. Devon was super sweet and amazing and totally out did himself again. I think my favorite part of my birthday weekend extravaganza was that he arranged for me to be a trainer for the morning at the New England Aquarium! It was totally awesome. I got to help train their harbor seals, and fed their gigantic sea turtle, Myrtle.

Cute harbor seal

View all of the pictures  here.

I had worked with a number of orphaned harbor seals at my wildlife rehab job in Seattle, but we were always very hands off with them, as we always had the intention of releasing them back into the wild. They were often sick and vocalized the most heart-wrenching noises. The seals at the NE Aquarium were fat and happy, and seemed quite content. Since they are permanently housed there, they need to be trained to do certain things that would help vets perform their exams, such as lifting flippers and opening their mouths. It was really cool to see a completely different side of harbor seals… I even got a smooch from one! I’ll be posting that video on youtube!

So I just emptied out the old pictures in my camera, and BOY! Do I have a bunch of various photos in there.  We built our master bedroom closet, I looked GOOD, I investigated wild orchids in MA, we went to Brian & Jen’s wedding in New Orleans, I turned 27, I gardened, my iguana looked super cute, and I explored Russell’s Mill Pond and the Chelmsford town forest on my bike…

Check out all the pictures here.

Click on the photo to check out the entire photo album!

In honor of the holiday, I give you this margarita themed photo!

Lemur & Friends like margaritas!

Guess who’s parent’s got Fifi a stroller of her very own, which also doubles as a yard wagon/wheelbarrow.

We’re totally going to tow Fifi around on walks through the neighborhood this summer!