Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Farms, Cities, and Memories

I either want to live in a big city or out on a farm. I don't really enjoy the in between, although there are pros and cons to everything. I usually tend to hear the farm calling my name, though. I've spent a lot of time on farms, in creeks, in fields, and all those memories I have pull at me daily. I love horses, being able to fly a kite in an open space, and having peace and quiet. I love that if you need something, you can't necessarily go get it right then. Entertainment most likely doesn't involve swing sets and trampolines, but rather, some dirt and an imagination.

My best friend lives not on a farm but in a rural area and I always had more fun there than I did anywhere else, especially as a child. We would dip our tiny toes into the cold, pure water of the creek and build dams to create waterfalls. We'd watch the water strider float on top of the water and wonder if the electric fence that crossed the creek would shock us. We'd run through the maze of grass her dad cut, create a fort in her closet, and play hide and seek inside her house. The list goes on. The adventurous mind a child has when away from electronics is astounding and as I see my generation grow less fond of the simple joys, I wish I could show them what fun really looks like. I haven't been on many vacations in my life and I haven't gotten everything I wanted but I have the most precious memories with my friends and I hope nothing ever takes them away.

Sometimes I go on a photoshoot to a new place or I travel to see a friend and almost always, the location involves lots of land and/or animals. My mom has a friend who lives not far from us and her house isn't manicured but it's so lovely and quaint. It sits on a small bit of land and yet she has four cats and a barn of chickens. I walked into her backyard one day for the first time and wished I could move into her miniature storage house turned into a living space. She had transformed the paneled walls by decorating them with artwork, tools, and curtains. She had built stairs to the tiny upstairs that held only a bed, and she even had a little couch. The space was smaller than a dorm room but cuter than anything.

What I love is that everything sparks an idea in someone, some differently than others. All my memories bring me joy and create a picture of what I want my future life to look like. I know that's crazy and probably bad if I end up being disappointed but it's my form of creativity. If my memory was taken away, I don't know what I'd do.

What did you do as a child? Would you rather live in the city or on a farm?


And speaking of farms and chickens, here are some organic eggs from my mom's precious friend and her lovely chickens. These little eggs are what inspired this post to begin with. Funny how that happens. And also, don't you like that little white one? :)




Monday, March 26, 2012

Marcel

I've had Marcel for almost a year now and I still haven't blogged about him! It's about time! And I do know Marcel is more of a girl's name but I want my car to be a boy. So there. 

But anyway, I traveled all the way to North Carolina in April last year to pick up this baby and I love him!! It's a Nissan Versa and although I didn't choose the type of car, it's pretty much perfect for me. Everyone admits that. I'm so blessed to have a working car with air conditioning and heat. That's all I asked for and I got that, but way better. I love you, Marcel. Let's spend eternity together. :D











Sunday, March 25, 2012

Good Reads: Halfway to the Sky + Pretty Little Liars

What's sad is when you don't have much time for pleasure reading. That's the worst. I've been reading Tracks by Louise Erdrich for a class and it's no fun at all. Thankfully, I'm almost done so I've been pushing it to the side to read the Pretty Little Liars books because I'm getting close to finishing the series. FINALLY. But anyway, I LOVE to read and I wanted to recommend some books!


















Halfway to the Sky by Kimberly Bradley - I read this in elementary or middle school so it's been a while. It may be a child's read but all I remember is it being amazing!! It's a true story of a girl who hikes the Appalachian Trail, I do believe.

Modelland by Tyra Banks - Okay, okay, I actually haven't even started this one. But as I watched the latest season of ANTM, I had to get it!!! I'll try to let you know what I think when I finish it. Has anyone read it yet?

Having a Mary Heart In a Martha World by Joanna Weaver - I read this book with my Small Group and it's so wonderful! I learned more from it than probably any other book, besides the Bible. It tells the story of Martha and Mary from the Bible, explains the difference between the two, and tells how we can live more like Mary.

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard - I have enjoyed this series so much! I'm almost done with book eight and even through that many books, my attention is still held the whole way. The books are a little different from the show and it gets really confusing reading them while the show is airing so I recommend not doing that, but I do recommend the books. So good!

What are you reading? I really do always need something to read that I've never heard of so please fill me in!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Drained

This week has been just plain HARD. That's the honest truth. I have a lot on my mind and a lot to get done that I don't have the energy to do. I won't go into it but basically, I'm drained and although I don't show it, it's true. Ever feel like Satan is tearing apart pieces of your life or your family's life and you don't know what to do? That's kind of how I feel. The only thing that makes me feel better is picturing the future and only hoping things will be better then. But to keep my mind off the things bothering me, I've been taking walks, listening to of music, drinking milkshakes, and taking pictures. Please forgive my lack of interesting posts but here are a couple recent pictures. :) Spring is beautiful, eh?




Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Sing a Song

Okay, I just wrote a whole paragraph about how I was annoyed with the new Hunger Games fans (people who read the books after they found out about the movie) who are having panic attacks about the movie (but really, just Peeta) but then I reread it and it was a little bit mean so I deleted it. Haha. And there's no point in blogging about my frustrations anyway. So I'm going to stick with sharing my favorite songs from the playlist that came out yesterday!! :) YAY!! The sound quality on these YouTube videos is awful so I made a Spotify playlist for you to enjoy as well!






Thursday, March 15, 2012

Letter

Dearest blog friends, 

I wanted to write you a little letter post about how much you all mean to me. I know I say this often, but it is so refreshing and encouraging to write a post and see comment moderations appear in my email inbox after the post is published. I've been blogging for about two years and still get excited about comments. Who doesn't, though? 

Anyway, I am finally at about 100 followers after putting hours of my time into blogging. I know that makes it sound like I was blogging just for the number of followers and that certainly isn't true, but I did consistently post for two whole years and I finally feel content with where this little bloggy is. And guess what? It's all thanks to you wonderful people who read it!! 

Also, please know that if someone comments on my blog, EVERY SINGLE TIME, I will go to that person's blog and read at least their most recent post. Always. It's something I love to do and I think it's a great way to form community and make friends. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for following and commenting and putting a smile on my face. I know that's ridiculously cheesy, but I mean it. 

Your friend, 
Meredith


And here are some photos that I took recently. :D 








Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Eighteen

Well, today is my eighteenth birthday and all I really have to say is that I am so beyond thankful for my friends. I'm not very good at planning surprises or anything on other people's birthdays so I always feel bad when I get a great surprise on mine. But we had Yearbook today and one of my wonderful friends got me a cake with candles, a singing birthday card, and Hershey's chocolate. The whole class hid in a closet and came out when I got there. Best thing ever? Yep! I mean, what more can a girl ask for? And I also got the sweetest happy birthday wishes and Facebook posts. Yes, I am thankful for Facebook and all the people who wished me a happy birthday who I don't know. That's the best.

But anyway, I plan on watching New Girl and eating some carrot cake after I finish with this. Hope everyone else is having a lovely day!


Madelyn, thanks so much for the next two pictures! :)




Sunday, March 11, 2012

Homemade Orange Juice

While doing my absolute best to procrastinate yesterday, I occupied myself at Wal Mart, I watched One Tree Hill, I blogged, I made homemade orange juice, and I photographed a plant in my house. None of those things involved my reading of an awful book for school so let's just say I successfully procrastinated, something I don't do often. 

The best part of my day of procrastinating was definitely making homemade orange juice, though. Mom and I bought a juicer a little over a year ago and the amount of lemonade I've made with it is outrageous. So good. But I didn't ever think to make O.J. until today. We have a ton of oranges hanging around our kitchen so I thought I'd make the best of them. I only made a few glasses worth but all I did was juice about six oranges, pour the juice into a container, add about a cup or so of water, and then add sugar to my liking. It's something that has a lot of variables since all oranges are different and some people like it more concentrated, but it's easy to figure out and it's absolutely delicious. :D







Saturday, March 10, 2012

Uniqueness

Cases are what make a phone more fun, but iPhone cases take it to another level. I got my iPhone 4S about six months ago and surprisingly have only bought one case -- until a month ago that is. I discovered a site called Casetagram not long after I bought my 4S and had wanted to custom a case from there since then. I finally ordered a case with my favorite Instagrams collaged into a pattern a month ago and guess what arrived in the mail today?! Yep, my own, unique, one-of-a-kind case!! So here's why I bought the case. First of all, not many people know about the site (well, they didn't before this post) so I will have something different than everyone. I like to be different. And second of all, the case tells a story about ME. People get to see a little part of my life every time I use my phone and I can't wait to share that. So here's my new favorite iPhone decoration. :)






Friday, March 9, 2012

Feel the Difference

We go months without color, without warmth, without sprouting flowers. That's what we call winter. And I don't like that very much. I always say I love the cold in November and I do sometimes but when spring comes around, I just love the feeling of inspiration that fills me and the simplicity of not having to wear layers. 

Today I noticed as I was driving that plants were making their appearances for the first time. There were little leaves on the trees, there was more color on the ground, and the sun was shining onto my lap, keeping me from needing heat or air conditioning. I smiled. I love this time of year for many reasons but the fact that I have more to photograph is the main one. After working out today, I came home and went outside with my 50mm lens. Just me and my camera. We had a good time and I'm excited to share some decent DIGITAL work. :) It's been a while. 











Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Edit This Photo 3

Alex Beadon does a fun little thing on her blog every now and then where she lets her followers edit one of her SOOC photos and then she puts everyone's edits up on her blog. I've done two before this and yesterday when I checked her blog, I saw the beautiful photo you'll see below and just had to edit it! It's so lovely! So I went into Photoshop and did what I felt would look good. My editing style isn't too dramatic. I like simple and bright so just so you know, it's not very different from the original. Alex's is on the left and mine is on the right. :)



Monday, March 5, 2012

Surprise Snow

You know when the weathermen predicts snow with rain and no one actually expects it to happen? No? That's just me? Well, I had seen snow in the forecast for about a week and yesterday I finally decided it wasn't going to happen. It had been sixty degrees the week before and I wasn't going to get my hopes up. I even planned to go to the gym before school this morning, just KNOWING it wasn't going to snow. Yeah, things changed. I woke up a little before my seven a.m. alarm went off, not wanting to get up, and looked out my window. Snow was everywhere and was coming down in sheets!! I was so excited but for some reason I still didn't make the connection that it would get us out of school. I checked Twitter for updates and everyone said there was a two-hour delay. Okay, I could deal with that. More sleep. But no, I just cannot sleep when it's snowing. I ended up getting out of bed, finding out school actually was cancelled, and then getting ready for a snow day. 

I spent the next couple hours reminiscing off all the fun snow days I had with my friend Chrissy and Becca and Kari. I did different things with all of these girls but in combination, we made igloos, cookies, tunnels, snow cream, slides... It was incredible fun and I miss those days like no other. So today, Kari, Becca, and I decided it would be a perfect day to have an old-fashioned snow day. With a movie, Chick-fil-A, a game, and lots of dessert, it was simply perfect. So thankful for these two girls!