The moment is here! After the last Warby Parker post, many of you wanted to see these glasses on my face, so I went online and took advantage of Warby Parker’s free home try-ons. I received my home try-on glasses on Monday, and I have been trying to take great pictures to show you. Unfortunately, after I finally got some decent pictures, I misplaced my camera cord so I can’t download them to my computer. These iphone pictures will have to do. I think you get a good enough idea for an informed vote. Click on the links to get a better shot of each pair on other models and see the other colors. Comment with your vote on which pair you like best. Feel free to comment on the color choices too! Glasses are a big commitment and I want some frames I’m going to be happy with for a while, so I want all your thoughts.

Click the link to see the five pairs I tried on — the Nedwin in Summer Green, the Morrison in Summer Green, Sibley in Dark Tortoise, Roark in Sandalwood Matte and Langston in Whiskey Tortoise Matte.

there’s more to this article. keep reading…

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Vote for Char’s new glasses!

finally four eyes can look cool

After financial flabbiness and a tight summer, it’s time for John and I to get a grip on our spending and be wiser with our money. During the school year, I work as a TA and get a stipend. It helps supplement our income since I’m not working full time. Unfortunately, I don’t TA during the summer so no stipend. We knew the summer would be tight, but really it didn’t hit us until August, which I’m thankful for but it’s hard to remember to be thankful when you’re trying to figure out how to make your money do magic tricks so the bills can be paid.

Back in July, we had the opportunity to buy tickets to a St. Louis Cardinals/Chicago Cubs game for September 13 in St. Louis. I have yet to go to a Cardinals game this summer, and I always try to get to at least one, especially while I live so close. I have never ever been to a Cardinals/Cubs game. The tickets were great seats at only $35 so we bought them with our awesome neighbors who only have one flaw: the husband is a Cubs fan and his wife a Royals fan. We’re really really excited even though both teams aren’t so hot right now.

All that was to say that last week, in order to save some money, John and I have challenged ourselves that for three weeks, we will not eat out. Until we go to the Cardinals/Cubs game we will not purchase any food or beverage outside of the grocery store. That’s our deadline/reward.

We’ve made it through a week. It wasn’t too bad. Sunday after church was hard because I’ve been conditioned since I was a little girl that after church you go out to lunch. The hardest thing for me, however, has been simple things that would be easy to justify like morning coffee or afternoon pick-me-ups. I want to get an iced latte or soda from a drive-thru so badly, and it would so easy to just swipe that debit card, but I can’t. I have to stay strong.

I’m excited though. I’m excited to see what this will do to our bank account and even our health and relationship as we eat at home more and fix our own meals. I’m excited to be more intentional about our food. Last week’s menu included: potato soup, grilled pork chops, garlic mashed potatoes, grilled corn, grilled asparagus (we like to grill), Asian shrimp pasta (gross but we made grilled cheese instead of going to Culver’s), spaghetti with homemade sauce, cheddar chicken (yummeh).

This week’s menu includes:

• Meatloaf and roasted potatoes
• Tacos
• Chili
• Pot roast
• Roasted chicken

(Yeah. We’re jumping. cowabunga dudes!!!)

I’m never really sure what to say after a blog hiatus. Do I apologize for being a crappy blogger? That seems kind of lame. Do I go on and on about how busy I’ve been and how crazy life is? That feels like a cop-out since everyone’s life is crazy it seems. Let me just tell you about where I’m at in my life right now.

I’m in a transition time. It seems my entire life is one big transition — stuck in awkward limbo as a grad student, jumping between classes and part time jobs, still complaining about homework while the rest of my friends talk about the monotony of office life. Well, no more! As of last Friday, I am finished with formal classes. I never have to take a class again unless I want to.  I have zero desire to be Dr. Charlotte Atchley. That’s not to say I’m done with my masters degree. I still have to finish my professional project, which consists of an internship and a massive original research paper. I started that this Monday, developing and implementing an online presence for a local magazine through blogs, Twitter, Facebook and e-newsletters. Even though we’re only in the planning stages still, I’m really excited about the next 13 weeks. I can’t believe that this point that I’ve been working toward for the last year and half has finally come! it’s dizzying to think about.

I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank the things that helped me get through the last half of Vox, which was a whirlwind of hellish fury, more so than the first half. You can read some of my favorite articles that I edited here and here and here and here.

• Iced lattes: I didn’t know I like iced lattes until I had one. Since I have on occasion been called Char-latte, my latte of choice has been dubbed the Char-latte at work: toffee nut and caramel.
• Starbucks gift cards: I got a ton for my birthday, and they were the perfect gift. I could buy all the iced lattes I wanted during high stress Vox moments without going broke.
• Late night phone calls: It’s become a ritual for me to call my mom on my way home from Columbia on late nights. Because of the time difference between Missouri and California, it’s not a big deal if I call her at midnight after a late production night. It was the only time I had free to give her an update on my life, and it kept me sane.

Things that are on the horizon for me personally:

• Part 2 of the Warby Parker glasses search.
• A new ring tone to go with my new iPhone 4. I’m playing with “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here” by She & Him. Thoughts?
• More blogging and writing than ever before
• Cardinals/Cubs game
• Job search
• Possible musicals and tacos night with Ash
• More sleeping in and more free time

I’m excited about life again, people!

I have uneasiness on the mind.

It has been for a while. After this long, I feel like I should be more sure. I should know which path to take.

Minutes, hours, years spent peering into my mind, attempting to decipher truth. Asking others to peer: what do you see? And they answer, wisely, blankly. Nothing.

Pages and pages of writing, pouring over the murky waters and ebbing tides. The answer must be here, musn’t it? Am I not finding it because it does not exist? Or because I am afraid of its truth?

Two roads diverge beneath my feet. One ends in a cliff, and the only option is to leap, with no looking back: to embrace the adrenaline, the fall, and whatever the darkness hides beneath: be it fatal rocks or yielding mattresses or a forever plummet. The other path turns back into woods: a similar direction but through unknown landscape: safer, for the time being, but with its own hidden pitfalls and wonders waiting. Is it nobler to be brave, to let all fly free and to jump with no looking back, to whatever depths might lie below? Or wiser to heed the small voice within that urges to stay one’s hand — the voice that is caution, conscience. Flying leaps are more romantic, but not necessarily a better choice.

There is no easy answer, I feel. And so, at the point of divergence, I stand here, paralyzed by the weight and magnitude of the decision, and the indecision. With each minute waiting, I analyze further, cry a few more tears of frustration, pray a little more for divine intervention and guidance, measure and weigh each path thoroughly. And then continue to stand, ever-rooted to the spot, with the need to move ever-increasing.

I cannot spend my life on this spot. Life is time is movement is stepping out of my mind is picking up my feet is taking a step (or a leap).

Sometimes I feel that the decision, for better or worse, must simply be made and embarked upon without looking back.

Anyone have a coin?

(Also: great news. The roomie and I have talked and talked and talked and she is, though she claims not, a fabulous therapist. We also had a full bottle of wine, and it has been a wonderful Friday eve. Also, everything will be fine eventually. That is not just flippant talk, but comes from a hope rooted in a God who does not abandon. Be blessed, whatever your trial.)

Lately, the inspiring images I’ve been pulling from have been loaded with muted, vintage color and peppered with pops of reds. They were just too lovely to even crop down…

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 available here – 5 – 6

Life keeps rollin. It’s been a wonderful weekend so far, with a healthy dose of laughter, great food and drinks (see me with the rolling stones bottle of wine above), and some of my favorite people. I hope you’re having a great one too…

These would be an absolute necessity. So sweet!

via here

It’s difficult to articulate right now exactly what my art is, what it’s trying to do, and where it’s going.

Suffice it to say that I am very interested in modern-day sainthood,
in love and community,
estrangement and the individual,
in the human experience and all its suffering, hardships, and joys.

I am interested in creating portraits of people and ideas, and thereby bringing our existences, our symbiosis, our understanding closer to one another.

(click to zoom)

I am interested in namaste – the divine in me recognizing the divine in you – and in humanity as one large,
ever-growing,
expanding,
pulsing,
gasping,
developing,
autobiographical masterpiece.

The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father…

Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity.

Humbly, cautiously, reverently: my attention is engaged.

Can I confess something to you? I am studying magazine journalism at the University of Missouri, and until very recently, I was not really into magazines as art/literature. The most intelligent magazine I subscribed to was TIME, but my staple was Seventeen and then Glamour. All my life I have loved magazines for the prettily packaged beauty tips, the identity they provided and the escape. I still believe all of these things definitely have their place. We all need a little escape, a little help choosing the right shade a red lipstick or how to pull off a skinny tie, but over the past two years I’ve been learning how much more magazines can be.

Going to J school has exposed me to the literature of magazines. One of my professors sent this link out. It’s a list of the best magazine articles ever. I can say that in the last two years, I have become familiar with a few of these writers, at least recognizing their names. There are way more on the list, however, that I’ve never heard of or haven’t read at all. I’m glad, however, to see that my favorite writer, Susan Orlean, made the cut. And I have read one of the top five, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” by Gay Talese.

I’m looking forward to catching up on some of these recommended reading.

I’ve owned my current glasses for the past five years, and they are getting pretty banged up. Although I’ve enjoyed them, it’s time for a little bit of change!

My current frames. Photo by Liz Hood

I’ve got an eye appointment today to make sure my prescription is up-to-date, and then I’ll be ordering my Warby Parker glasses. I blogged about them a while back here, but I think I’m fancying some different options. I want to know which frames should be my new glasses!

A. Roark: A thicker square frame.

B. Langston: Awesome name, more delicate frame. I would pretty much always refer to these glasses as Langston instead of “My glasses.”

C. Morrison: These are super similar to Roark, but I think they have a more 1950s vintage-feel going on. Plus they come in two colors: sandalwood matte or summer green. My go-to dark tortoise isn’t an option. How many people think I can pull of green frames? My feelings won’t be hurt if you say no.

D. Sibley: The most similar to what I have now, just more square lines than round. I know I can’t go wrong with these.

E. Write in: I’m not super adventurous in this area, so if you think there’s a more adventurous choice that I’m not seeing feel free to write in a new choice!

Leave me some comments and let me know what you think!

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Warby Parker Home Try-Ons

finally four eyes can look cool