After the walk

I promised you a boring update, so there will be a boring update!

The day after our walk in the snow I already had to resist myself from putting up a picture of the horrible result up here. Updates on fridays is updates on fridays! A few days later, ofcourse, I forgot about it and tonight I suddenly remembered again. Too bad my camera's just a simple handycam (a Sony CyberShot) and the lighting here isn't all that good. Ah well, it's good enough.

So here comes a tragedy!

It's ok when she's just laying down.. Either the front or the back stands up in a somewhat unnatural way, but softcover books tend to have that more often. the pages look a little funny now, but it doesn't seem all bad, right? Well, it is.
... Okay maybe it isn't that bad.

The damage is showing better when set up right. It isn't as bad anymore as right after she came off the central heating, because I placed two huge cans with soup on top of it, in a desperate try to press her back in shape. xD
It worked partly.

The top. You can see pretty clear where I had her folded open to let her dry. Also, our kitten (Perry) decided to pose. Ah well, doesn't harm anyone.

... And the pages itself when fully dried! You can see the "damage" a lot better like this. Most of the pages are at least a little wrinkled and there's really a small bit of them still intact.

And thus, this life lesson can't be said enough. Don't, no, really, DON'T take your book out for a walk in the snow! Your book won't like you much afterwards.

Go for a walk.

Today is the first day of real snow here in the Netherlands. And since it's a friday and the only updates I had for this blog were boring, I-had-no-time-to-do-something-else ones, I decided to profit from the weather! I still had a package to post, so I had to go out anyway. There was already one page that I wanted to do pretty badly, but with this weather it could only be better! We're talking about the page you see here ->

Which exact words are "Tie a string to the journal. Go for a walk, drag it." Perfect, right? :D 
But for this page, we need, ofcourse, a string:

I look very content with this string. *nods*
Now that we have the string, we tie it to the journal.

I pressed it between the pages pretty tight, to make sure it wouldn't let go.
Done! Next, we dress for the weather. Starting with something to keep my neck warm:

Fun fact: This shawl is originally my mom's. She has (more; had) two of them for at least 20 years already, and used them when she went riding on her motorbike (my mom's cool like that). About two years ago, these things suddenly were "all it" with the alternative youth here. I decided to go oldschool and stole my  mom's. B)
This is the second one. The first one, I have already worn SO much, it started falling apart out of itself. I'm still wearing them because they're incredibly warm and comfy.
Now that my neck is secured, I can go secure the rest of my body, by wearing a coat.

Warm, awesome coat! This already warm winter outfit should ofcourse be topped off with an awesome hat.

READY! Now, we grab the stuff we should take along.

OFF WE GO! But not before my kitten decided books on strings are excellent toys. And then we're off! Outside, we place the book in the snow:

STRINNGGGG, Y U IN FRONT OF CAMERA LENS? D:
This is where she still looked like the journal I got for my birthday.
Walking with her was pretty fun! Ofcourse, it's already a weird experience to drag a book along (through the snow) on a string- but you're definately asking for weird looks and reactions as well.
Somehow, the journal didn't want to get dragged along on her front or back, but only on the pages-side. Which got her collecting a LOT of snow between those said pages. Halfway the walk, I decided to empty her off snow, just to be sure- I don't want to throw her away after only one adventure!
After doing so, she looked like this:

This is where I started doubting this was maybe a bad decision. But alas, I said I'd drag her along, so I did!
(I decided to avoid the muddy, wet parts of the sidewalk like you can see here in the background, either by walking around it or lifting her up for a bit. These parts would've otherwise been completely catastrophic to her..)
And we walk on! At my destination (the post office), she looked like this:

This is a sad story. When arriving back home, she looked even worse:

I weep! ;^; It looked even more worse (is that even correct english? I don't think it is) when I picked her up.

I collect snow! But I'm definately not bringing all this snow in, so I shake it out before entering the door:

And this is only a part of the snow. There was a lot stuck to the pages as well, that I couldn't get out by simply shaking. Ahw damn! D:
The left page of the page I decided to do today, looked like the following when I arrived home:

There's still snow stuck on the outer lines of the pages, and some of it even infiltrated the pages further! Damn you, snow! *shakes fist*
And now, we let her rest on the central heating and hope she'll dry up fast and with not all too bad results...

While walking, there really were a lot of people commenting behind my back that I was walking a really strange sort of dog, or little kids telling their moms, "Look, mom, look! She's dragging a book!"
There was one group of girls on my (short though entertaining) road that laughed so hard about it, that I decided to explain. They and another bystander were actually pretty interested why someone would drag a book along, on a rope, and were actually pretty supportive when I explained the whole story. They wished me good luck with completing the whole book, and we both went our own ways again.

Long story short: DO NOT DO THIS IN SNOW. Not when you'd like to keep your journal a little longer! If I continue like this, I can get myself a new one halfway...
But it's definately a lot of fun to do! That is, if you don't mind looking like a total nutcase, for dragging a book on a rope.

Next week: a boring update. Probably. C: