Happy New Year 2013

While browsing photography blogs today, I came across a post that talked about instead of making a New Year resolution, choose a word to live by for the year. There was a list of ideas in the photographer's post and I decided that instead of making a personal goal, I am going to choose the word GROWTH. I want to grow as a person, a photographer, and a graphic designer. I want to expand my knowledge of my crafts which will ultimately reflect in my business. Soon, I will be moving back to Ypsilanti so I will have to grow my client base in a new area. In six days I will start school again to obtain my Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in Graphic Design, growing my knowledge to hopefully help me get a position in that field.

To continue growing as a person, I will keep pursuing my weight loss goal. Currently, I'm down 31 lbs and still have a ways to go, but it is completely doable if I keep plugging away at it. I will admit that I've slacked off in the physical activity department during December (I haven't been to the gym in three weeks), but I still managed to lose over the holidays so I'm not too angry with myself. But since it's the first day of a whole new year I will be attending group cycling class at 5:30p in preparation for the mini-triathlon I hope to compete in this June. Since it's a mini-tri, it will consist of a .25 mi swim, 10.7 mi bike, and a 1.5 mi run...shouldn't be too terribly bad.


In the next few weeks I should have new pictures as well showing my progress of weight loss, so stay tuned for that.



Here’s a list of words for you to browse. This is just a starting point; you can choose a word that’s not on this list. Once you choose a word, write it down somewhere. You don’t even need to be conscious of it the whole year. When a situation arises where you can put your word into action, it will come back to you.

• speak
• determination
• blissful
• honor
• renew
• respect
• faith
• faithfulness
• clarity
• pioneer
• peace
• laziness
• no
• yes
• deliberateness
• kindness
• mastery
• freedom
• growth
• change
• willingness
• creativity
• abundance
• gratitude
• wealth
• effortlessness
• generosity
• self-control
• delight
• compassion

Workout Update

I've been actually staying on track for the most part and I joined the YMCA. They have unlimited classes to their members so I go to the workout bootcamp on Tuesday's and Thursday's which at first was incredibly hard, but has been getting a little easier each time. We run 3.5mi on Tu and do a combo of cardio and strength training on Th. Between eating right and the exercise, something's definitely working because I'm down a total of 18.5lbs so far :) I don't have any progress photos yet, but maybe in a month or two I'll post some.

 

Created by MyFitnessPal - Nutrition Facts For Foods

Before Me

I cheated a little with these pictures, I've been working out for about five days already and have lost one pound. I know that's not a ton or anything, but it's not truly a "before" picture. I don't know what happened to my measuring tape in my move a year ago, so I don't have any measurements either. Today's my "relax" day from running, but I'm still going to take the dogs for a walk just to stretch the muscles and get some exercise. Oh and excuse the crappy photos, these were done with my webcam.

Couch to 5k + Other Updates

A girl that I work with told the store about the Color Run, which is a 5k run where you wear white and each mile you go a powdered color gets thrown at you and by the time you're done you're a giant rainbow of awesome. Check out the video below for a more accurate visual of the Color Run:



Okay, so now for the embarrassing part. I haven't ran in who knows how long, the last timed mile I ran was in elementary school and I clocked in at 14+ minutes. Also, in my last living arrangement, being healthy wasn't high on the priority list, so I've gained quite a bit and, as horrible as this is to admit, I weigh 225lbs at 5'1"...pathetic, I know. But today is starting a new chapter. I am going to start the Couch to 5k so in 9 weeks I can run (yes run) the Color Run. I'm starting at week 2 in the program because I have been exercising and there's only 9 weeks before the run. I'm going to take some before pictures of my self and do some measurements so I have something to compare to, but I'm feeling optimistic about it!

Now comes the even crazier part, the Color Run takes place in Grand Rapids on August 5th. Relay for Life (a 24 hour walk to raise money/awareness for cancer research is the day before the run. THEN the day after the run I have a photo session at 11am and then I'm leaving for a vacation to North Carolina. I am going to be EXHAUSTED while I'm driving down, but it's going to be completely worth every sore muscle and gallon of sweat. I can not wait to see results, it's going to be amazing! I know it's not going to happen in the 9 weeks, but I want to at least get back to 150lbs where I was in 2007.

UPDATE ON JOB HUNTING: So far it hasn't been going so well. I had one interview for an internship, but I didn't get that position. I've kind of put it on the back burner and am content with working at Makeup Geek for now. It pays well and I get as many hours as I need so really that's all that matters.

A New Adventure

I graduate in May with my degree in Graphic Design and I'll be looking for a job at a design firm. I'm really excited about this because I have nothing holding me back and tying me down to Michigan anymore. I'm going to look everywhere for a great position, but I'm really leaning towards Portland, Oregon. Ideally, I want to find a 9-5 job that still allows me to have my photography business on the weekends and/or evenings. I've never been to Portland before, but from all the research I've been doing, it seems to be perfect. The entire city is really pet friendly (there's roughly 35 dog parks), trails all over and even restaurants that have a portion of the menu dedicated to your pet. I've already found a few places that will allow me to rent with Piglet :)

There's been a few jobs that look rather promising as well. I've been working hard on getting my resume, cover letter, and portfolio ready to present to potential employers. There's one job in particular, that I'm really interested in. The company sells sustainable household items like lighting and sinks, all made from up-cycled materials. Their products are more like functional art pieces, simply gorgeous!

Hopefully, I'll be able to take a road trip out there after I graduate in May to make sure that I want to move there. I'll be sure to check back if and when I do go out there. And if I don't end up going to Portland, I will be posting about wherever I end up and the adventure of getting there!

Slip n' Slide

The derby wife, derby kid and I went to Kalahari Water Park in Sandusky, OH a couple weeks ago and had a blast!! I wish my camera was waterproof so I could have taken it to the actual water park, but this is what you get instead, us being silly in the hotel room. This was after we spent the day going down slides, getting "flushed" in a tube, and nearly taken out to sea at the wave pool. It was absolutely amazing and so relaxing at the same time. There's just something about being able to go swimming in the middle of November that's exhilarating!

Missy and I have gone to Ohio three times this summer and each time we've passed a sign for "Bono Baptist Church," Missy is completely in love with Bono (*puke*) so she mentions it every time and we had talked about stopping on the way back, but the GPS always takes us a different route home...who knows?! Well, this time we managed to take the same route back and she seen the sign coming up, I'm in the passenger seat crocheting like a grandma, and I almost pee my pants when she suddenly stops next to the sign. Then I'm trying to get out of the car to take the pic and I'm all wrapped up in my blanket and my foot's caught in my purse strap...I almost died...well not really, but close!! So here it is, the church that worships Bono. lol 

The Journey Home

It was an awesome vacation! I had an absolute blast, but unfortunately all vacations come to an end so here's the journey back to Michigan. Below is the outside of the Denver Airport, kind of looks like a bunch of tee pees chillin' in the middle of Colorado.

 I didn't fly Southwest, but that was the plane that was hanging out next to ours.

 I want a circle farm!

Sunset on the plane.

She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

I found out that tours of the Mint were free and the last time I was in Washington D.C. they weren't doing them due to heightened security so I took advantage and signed us up for a tour. It was rather short, probably about half an hour, but it was still pretty cool to see the money being made and know the process of how it works. Our tour guide was a little cheesy, which cracked me up. At the beginning of the tour he said, "The Mint. The only place where the government actually makes "cents"." HAHAHAHA I thought it was great :) The only downfall to the Mint tour was the amount of security rules you had to follow. You weren't allowed to bring a purse or any sort of bag and no camera's so that's why the only pictures I have are of the outside of the building. Still pretty cool either way.

We didn't get to the Red Rock Amphitheater the day before because they had a concert going on and it would have been impossible to get up there, so we went back up again the next day. I'm SO glad we did because it was absolutely gorgeous as you can see from the pictures. You could see all of downtown Denver from way up there. I think the coolest part was that you could see the different layers of earth in each of the protruding rock sheets. Pretty much like going back in time.

 Left: This is one of the HUGE rocks at the entrance to the amphitheater.

Right: I know the left one doesn't look that big, but here's a picture of Jen in front of the rock and you can see that you obviously can't see the top and it's HUGE!!

Taken with my 75-300mm lens, zoomed all the way to 300mm from atop the Red Rocks. 

It was quite a trek just to get down to the amphitheater, but when we did there were TONS of people exercising by running UP the seats or the stairs. There was one guy, probably in his early 50's who did it twice while we were there!! It was crazy. 

There were tons of deer all around, but they're called Mule Deer, obviously because they look like mules. But they have the biggest, cutest deer ears I've ever seen. There's a great picture a few down of a close up of one of them.

Yay for long exposures!! That's Denver in the background. I didn't quite realize how big Denver was until we sat up in the mountains at night starring at it. 

This was a new restaurant that opened up recently in Denver and I HAD to stop and take a picture because it cracked me up so much. I really, REALLY want a shirt from there. It makes me wonder what kind of food that they serve there...

Diggin' with the Dinos

Day two was Dino Day, we headed up to Dinosaur Ridge in the mountains and took a tour of the ridge, which was by far the best $4 tour I've ever taken! The tour guide was rather cute (and an archaeology major) and there was a biker couple on the tour that knew quite a bit about geology and archaeology so TJ (the tour guide) went further into detail than he probably normally would. Our half an hour tour turned into 45 minutes because of the in depth discussions, but it was pretty cool to listen to. We got to see all kinds of dinosaur fossils, dino tracks and a RATTLESNAKE!! It was pretty sweet. The snake was a baby, it was SO cute!

Dinosaur track. The one on the left is the baby Iguanodon and it's about the size of an adult human hand. The one on the right is the adult Iguanodon, a hand can fit in one of its toes!!

Our cute tour guide, TJ. See his "I <3 Dino" shirt?!

Left: A Stegosaurus rib bone

Right: A jawbone, the circle in the middle is a cross-section of a tooth.

The indentation in the layers is where a Brontosaurus stepped lots of years ago. TJ said that, that part of Colorado used to be a flat river way back in the day, so this dinosaur was most likely walking through soft mud near the river bank. But as you can tell, it was super heavy because of all the layers beneath it that it disturbed. Also, where that flat spot is on the bottom of the foot print is practically a cast of a Brontosaurus foot. How sweet is that?! More dino tracks below.

Left: Random cute cactus I found.

Right: There's a fault line that runs right next to the mountains. You can see where it zigzags in the background. Obviously by the photo it's called the Golden Fault.

The baby rattlesnake I found.

Panoramic of the Red Rocks. Another photo of the Red Rocks below.

A view of downtown Denver from the expressway.

After we got some dinner, we headed out to go putt putting at this place called Putter's Pride. This place was giant! It was only $7 and there were three different courses that you could pick from or you could pay $10 and do all three. But we wanted to go play Geeks that Drink later so we only did one of the courses. I still sucked at it, but had a ton of fun! Jen's roommate Annie, came with us and kicked our butt in the beginning, but in the end Jen beat us all!! We chilled with Nessie, as you can see below and even made a little bunny friend.

Jen was awesome and got a hole in 1!!

After putt putt was all done we went to this place called Jonesy's because it's my last name, and played trivia. I was terrible...even the round about candy, I barely knew any answers, but it was still fun. The place was kind of expensive and the food wasn't the greatest. I wouldn't recommend going there, but the Geeks that Drink was fun and are held at other places so I'd check those out.