JTL

You all will be happy to learn that I drove today and had zero awkward moments at a stop sign. However, I did avoid that 4-way stop and took another way home instead. Just to be safe. =) (And I will probably avoid that 4-way stop until all the snow melts off the road. Could (and probably will) be months until then.)

Annnd it is Tuesday!

Here's today's "Too Close" shot:

This is actually my second choice for this subject. I figure the first one I chose would have been WAY too difficult. If you'd like to see that one, as well, just let me know and I'll post it cuz I think it's pretty cool.

Also, today's Photo of the Day:

109/365: JTL - Story below

A few summers ago, my friends JD and Matt and I took a quick one-day trip down to Omaha to see two of our favorite musicians play a show together. After the show we stuck around outside the venue for what seemed like FOREVER, but it was really only an hour or two. Finally, once the majority of people gave up waiting and it was just the three of us and another group of about six standing around, the artists came out and we enjoyed one very long intimate conversation with Mr. Kevin Devine himself. One of the most incredible experiences ever - meeting and conversing with someone whose voice is constantly heard through my headphones. WOW....Anyway, to be honest, I was mostly looking forward to meeting Jesse Lacey, someone who I'd idolized since I was a young high schooler. After chatting with Kevin for a good 2 hours, we finally merged over to the other group, where Jesse was sitting with them. We all talked as one big group for a while, then started to disperse.

Before we all went our separate ways, we had all the artists sign our shirts (mine, I had purchased after the show.) I also made sure to ask Jesse if it was OK if I got a hug from him. I remember he came around to all of us and asked our names and shook our hands and after I told him mine, I said "I just want a hug!" ....Yes, I was THAT person. He must not have thought it was too creepy because I definitely got my hug! (I often tell people it was the best hug of my life, but that's not entirely true. Brian's hugs are way better. "Awwwwww!" Shut up.)

ANYWAY...That was one very long story just to tell you that the signature above is from Jesse Lacey and it was one of the most memorable nights of my life. =)

(To my friends doing their own 365 Project: This is a great photo for those days when you are feeling uninspired and are looking for something quick!)

GUESS THE TOO CLOSE TUESDAY SHOT!! I'll reveal the answer later this week, along with the winner!

Stuck

I had quite an embarrassing moment today. After a quick shopping trip at Sunshine (milk, ground beef, chicken, and pop) I headed back to my apartment. There's a 4-way stop along the way, and once I stopped there, I COULDN'T MOVE!! My tires just couldn't get any traction in the snow/ice, and the stop is also at an incline so I was almost rolling BACKWARDS. There were two cars behind me, waiting. I had to wave the others at the 4-way to go ahead of me, while the cars behind me were honking. It was sort of a disaster. At one point I had to open my door and wave the cars behind me to go around (oh yeah, my driver side window doesn't work)....Finally one of them did, just as I remembered that I have 4-wheel-drive. I clicked that on, and *problem solved!* It was quite ridiculous, though. So, if anyone reading this happened to see that...I'm sorry for the odd inconvenience...Wasn't my fault! Anywho...I did make it home. But now I'm going to have to remind myself of that beautiful 4WD option that I have. Duhhhh.

If you couldn't guess from the above paragraph, I am now back in Madison. Don't really start classes until Wednesday, but I've already got some homework so I've been working on that today. I have a feeling this semester is going to be tough. Lots of designing and reading and testing to do. I suppose going out with a BANG is the best way...? Hope so. I already know I will be so happy and relieved when May arrives.

Brian will be here on Friday, and I'm very excited about it. A lot of the reason is because I'm excited to eat some "good-for-me" meals again. I've never cooked good meals for JUST myself, so I'm not sure exactly how to do it. Ha! Tonight I made myself a frozen pizza. Maybe some mac & cheese is in the near future, as well. Thursday I'm going to whip up a batch of chili so Brian and I can enjoy that when he gets here on Friday. =)

Anywho...Some photos?

108/365: I mentioned my ginormous change collection on facebook today and decided it would be perfect for today's photo. I'm very interested in finding out how much money is actually there, but I want to keep this pile as long as possible and continue to add to it. Maybe we'll never know!

107/365: Ever wanted to see the inside of a snow-drift? This was pressing into our balcony doors when I got here yesterday. Today Traci scraped some of it down, but we decided that it might actually be keeping this place warmer, so most of it is still there.

106/365: A shot from Saturday's basketball game. We lost, pretty horribly, but put up a good fight. Aside from Dustin, these are two of my favorite players, Sam and Greg. (Actually, that's not true. MOST of the team is my "favorite" players. Aside from a few.......)

 

 

 

105/365: PLAY-DOH! (I actually had to Google it to find the correct spelling. Ha!) This is green, pink, white, and black play-doh mixed together. Can't resist that color combination! Not the best photo - the focus is off, pretty terribly. But I like it for some reason. I think it's just the colors. Halle helped me with this shot. She held the little flashlight so I could get in closer. Did a great job! =D

Time for some more homework.

But first, I want to mention that I think the movie Twilight would actually be ALRIGHT, if the acting was better and/or Kristen Stewart didn't do that twitchy head-shake thing while blinking super fast. Drives me CRAZY! Sort of saddens me that she takes a ton of quality out of this movie. Blah....

Anywho, homework time!

104

Is anyone ready to find out what this week's Too Close photos were?

#1 is the edge of a newspaper
#2 is a $1 bill
#3 is a cupcake
#4 is salt

Melissa Jean had two of the four correct. She was close with the other two, but not quite. She wins nothing, sadly. Wish I could actually give prizes out for these things! Perhaps someday....(but don't hold your breath)

We've got my three nieces here tonight. They're all running around in princess dresses that Hal brought. They are adorable! (but also very loud and tend to start fighting as the night goes on...Ha!)

104/365: BBALL

Last night we went to another one of Dustin's basketball games. It started out pretty scary. By the beginning of the 2nd quarter, the Eagles were down 3-20! They fought their way back throughout the entire game and ended up winning by a whole TWO points! Dustin scored the game-tying 3-pointer with about 30 seconds left in the game. Then his teammate got fouled and rocked both his free throw shots, which brought them up to win the game. It was a nail-biter!! I couldn't imagine being a basketball coach...I'd get WAY too worked up and probably get into big trouble. I don't know how they do it!

Dad fixed the brakes on the Explorer, so hopefully I can drive a little less scared now. That's some exciting news, tell ya what. I'm heading back to Madison on Sunday...Super excited to sleep in a BED again! I've been on my parents' living room couch since December 17 (minus the week I spent in Cali)...I'm tired of feeling like I'm in the way, and I'm ready to roll around in my sleep and not worry about falling. =P Once the basement at home gets finished, we'll have some more places to sleep. I'm pretty excited for that day.

Brian comes back to SD next Friday. ONE WEEK! I can't wait. I am very ready to get back into my school life routine. This semester should be busy and full of creativity and hard work - My favorite!

Self

My Christmas break is going to last about a week longer than everyone else's. Since I only have classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this semester, and because Monday is a holiday, I am taking Friday off so that I can stick around at home and catch a few extra basketball games. Otherwise I'd be going up to Madison for ONE day of classes all week. I emailed my professors and they both seem cool with it (first day of class is usually just "read through the syllabus" day, so I don't think I'm missing much.)

Today I prettied myself up a bit and had a little self-photoshoot. I wanted to do more, but the lack of a tripod makes things difficult. I have to pile boxes and other objects to get my camera at the right height for the photo, which gets frustrating after a bit. Also, a remote would be INCREDIBLY helpful. Someday I'll have those things and everything will be just a tad easier. I know one of the worst excuses in photography is "I don't have the right equipment"...so I tried to make it work with what I do have. Making things happen because of hard work and not because of the "right" equipment is a pretty great feeling.

Anywho, here are some photos from the past couple days:

Oh! Also take note of the little logo on my photos. I felt super inspired after seeing someone's logo, so I grabbed my pen and created my own. Took me about 5 minutes. Ha! Sometimes good things happen quickly. What do you think?!

103/365: My little photoshoot. Sunlight is such a great friend.

102/365: One of my "Too Close Tuesday" photos. Shot it yesterday. (Take a guess as to what it is in the previous post!)

101/365: WELCOME HOME! Shot this out Kim's Exploder window while she ran in to the bank after picking me up at the airport. Gotta love that SD snowfall, after being in sunny Cali for a week.

The rest of my day/night will consist of making/eating supper with my family, and working on the logo for Something Clicked Photography. Creative days are my favorite.

Also, I am super proud of my boyfriend. =) Just wanted to throw that in here.

Too Close Tuesday!

Since I've been horribly neglecting my Tuesday posts, which actually seem to be the most popular, I've decided to throw in a few extras for today.

So here are FOUR new(ish) shots...Can you guess what these are photos of??

#1)

#2)

#3)

#4)

Think you know what they are? Leave a comment with your guesses, along with the photo's number. I will reveal the answers in a few days, so keep checking back. =) Good luck!!

(PS - Derrick, you are not allowed to guess numbers 3 and 4, since you saw me take the photos. Ha!)

BIG ONE!!

So here we are. I made it back to South Dakota safely. Hearing the weather report made me a little nervous for the flight, but I knew that if we were unable to fly out today, I would be able to stay in Cali until Friday (I'd miss a day of classes, but oh well)...So the idea of a cancellation wasn't so bad. =P

We had one incredibly busy week, it seemed. I feel like it lasted longer than a week, just because we did a lot of stuff and were constantly going somewhere.

Ready for some photos?

On Monday I actually didn't get a shot ALL DAY. I know, I know....But I was traveling all day and was just SUPER worn out by the end of the day. HOWEVER...As I was lying in bed that night knowing I failed the project for the day, I knew what my photo WOULD HAVE been. So I made sure to get it and just throw it in where it should go. Here it is:

94/365: NEW LENS!! Brian got this 50-200mm for me as a Christmas gift. He is definitely the best and knows the way to my heart. Haha! I was (and still am) super excited about it.

Monday evening when I arrived on California soil, we went out to dinner with Brian's godparents. It was a very fun feast and meeting them was pretty special for me. We came home and I showered and slept VERY soundly due to being worn out and having a very comfortable bed to sleep in. Ha!

On Tuesday afternoon we drove around the area and Brian and I had some good conversations. I love how we always can go weeks or months without seeing each other and then meet up again and can't shut up. Haha...We drove up to Signal Hill because the skies were very clear and we could see the mountains.

Love this one. Thanks, new lens. =)

Los Angeles is way back there.

95/365: I enjoyed this view a lot. Can you believe that green grass in January?!

Our reason for the trip. Worth it. =)

Grabbed this one from the car window.

We had lunch at a Hawaiian BBQ restaurant. Brian ordered this for me...I put my trust in him to choose something I would like...And he most definitely succeeded! I couldn't finish it, though...of course.

On Wednesday we headed to the beach late afternoon and caught the sunset. First we stopped at the yummiest little bake shop and got some sweet goodies. Brian got a police car cookie:

And I got this chocolate chip fudge cup. Mmmm!

96/365: SO PERFECT! If you use your imagination and open your mind, it looks like she's putting ripples into the sky.

So nice. Brian was continuously telling me to shoot the sailboat. So I did. =)

Lots of surfers at sunset. This one was my favorite.

Thursday we visited Universal Studios Hollywood. They had a pretty fun tour and some great rides and attractions. Too bad we didn't see any movies or TV shows being filmed. A lot of 3- and 4-D stuff going on. Aside from getting squirted in the face with water during the Shrek show, they were all pretty fun. Ha!

Here we are in front of the globe. This took quite a while to get our positioning right. Instead of just being smart and asking someone to take the photo FOR us, we made 10 attempts and finally settled on this one. (The one before it is better, but Brian's eyes were closed. Grrr)

97/365: Cutest family ever? I believe so! Look at that coordination!!

Giant gummy bear sucker. (I did not buy this, sadly)

 Funny story here: To get to the "Lower Lot" portion of Universal, they have this series of 5 escalators which are all pretty steep and high. For some reason, we thought it would be fun to take the stairs on one section instead of the escalator. Here's the view from the bottom:

112 steps up.

 

 

 

And the view from the top. Yeah our legs were DEAD after that ascent, especially after walking all day first.

Friday we had a sort of "date night"...We did a little shopping (key word: little) and had dinner and went to a movie.

We parked next to a Ferrari in a parking garage. WHO PUTS A FERRARI IN A PARKING GARAGE?!

Crazies. Can you imagine what their other cars look like?

98/365: Sunset reflection on the car.

 Saturday evening we headed to the Huntington Beach Playhouse and saw the musical "Oliver!" performed by area kids and adults. I fully enjoyed it, not sure if Brian did though. Ha!

99/365: The set.

Sunday we drove down to the San Diego area and looked at some houses with Brian's parents. Then we checked out LegoLand, which was very impressive.

SWEET POOL!! (and view!)

I have a TON of photos from LegoLand, but I'll wait for another post with those. It can be an entire post in itself!



When we landed in Sioux Falls today, I realized that I sort of missed the snow all week. I do have a soft spot for our winters here in SD (something about bundling up during the day and cuddling at night is just very comforting) so spending a week away, although refreshing and amazing, was a big change.

I'm staying at D&E's house tonight, since the roads/weather are so icky. Hopefully I'll get home tomorrow and then head back up to MY home in Madison later this week. Praying that the weather cooperates for me. I can stand the cold, but I can't handle the ice!

Quick post just to let everyone know that I'm still alive. I've been visiting Brian and his family in California since Monday. It's been a busy and fun week and I can't BELIEVE I can step outside into 60+ degree weather in January! Something I've never experienced before. Heading home on Monday and then going back to school. Brian will be joining me back in Madison on the 21st, which I'm already excited for. Ha! Check back soon for photos. (Or just look at my facebook album, they're all on there.) =]