Photo Adventuring!

It's September.

The time of PSLs, sweatshirts, turning leaves, and crisp air.

So please explain to me why I'm sitting in a tank and cotton pants with my air conditioner going sweating balls...

Now I know that summer doesn't "officially" end until the 21st or whatever, but this sudden heat wave with added humidity is disgusting.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Not too hot. Not too cold. Nice breeze. Perfection! I don't think I could have asked for a better day for my photo adventure.

Oh let me tell you about my adventure! 

Early last week I decided I wanted to go out and take pictures, but I wanted a partner. I called up my good friend Amanda and we made plans to take an adventure on Sunday. We started off with one place I wanted to go, a church in a field. That's pretty much all I knew about it, I had been there earlier this year for a service and I just thought it looked so amazing inside and through the windows into the farm and fields next door.

On the way to said church we ended up lost more than once because even though I thought I knew where I was going, I was clearly wrong. (Worst navigator ever.) But we finally made it and the church was closed... worst news ever. But we were still able to take a few really great pictures of the farms and fields and even a few through the giant windows on the side of the church... why yes, yes we were being creepers.

Our next stop ended up being GUERRILLA PHOTOGRAPHY! What is "guerrilla photography" you ask? Well I don't actually know if it's a real thing or something I made up in my head... to me "guerrilla photography" is driving along, seeing something amazing, pulling over, and then BAM! Photos! We ended up in a weird parking lot with some pretty sweet typography on a building. There were also some trees so I took some creeper photos of Amanda. (Yes I'm a weirdo.) It was a good time.

We tried a couple other places, got lost again (Worst navigator ever.) and finally ended up at Palmer Park on one of their nature trails. If you've ever been there you know there are many, many, many nature trails in Palmer, we ended up on the boardwalk through the woods and by the creek. There were so many amazing photo opportunities throughout nature walk we ended up on. I also found my love of dead trees. Is that weird?

Let me try to explain. I'm not sure WHY I think this dynamic is amazing, but I love when everything around is green and alive and wonderful and in the midst is the forgotten tree, the dead tree, the broken tree. The amount of photos I took of random dead, broken, fallen trees was insane. It's just beautiful to me.

Me and my favorite dead tree by the path (Taken with iPhone):

We decided to head out to another park to get some sunset pictures and on the way I made Amanda pull over to watch this and we ended up in another church parking lot and there were SO MANY DEAD TREES!

My dead tree forest (Taken with iPhone):

After I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of this wooded area we ended up at Millennium Park for the sunset. It was gorgeous and amazing and I think I got some great photos for sure!

Sunset (taken with iPhone):

I can't explain how excited I am about photography. It's such a creative outlet and with digital photography "film" is unlimited. How can you go wrong?

The ride home was another adventure because I got us lost another 2 or 3 times (Worst navigator ever.) but Amanda was a great sport about it.

This is why I like hanging out with Amanda. She's so easy going and she just goes with the flow. It's good stuff and with so many people in my life having schedules and making plans it's refreshing to have a day where you just go where you end up.

Thank you 100 times over for adventuring with me Amanda!

I can't wait for Thursday night dinner and photo review with friends. (I love getting feedback on my photos and Kendra's husband Chris is kind enough to give it!)

Much love

E

Damn You, Candy Crush!

Hello.

My name is Ericka.

And I'm addicted to Candy Crush.

PHEW!

That is a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I mean like... I feel like I've been carrying that one around for awhile.

I'm sure no one noticed that I spend every spare moment (when I've replenished my lives by waiting precisely 2.5 hours from the first death...) trying to beat level after unending level. Like seriously it never ends... And every time you get closer to the end they just add more sadistic levels to taunt you with.

Alright, alright. I see you judging me through your Words with Friends loving eyes, but I bet you're a closet Crusher, aren't you?

I wasn't always this way. Once upon a time a person whom I thought was my friend that shall remain nameless to protect his - or her - innocence *cough* mattpete *cough* talked about this weird game called Candy Crush that was "totes all the rage" (that's totally how Matt talks too... I mean I'm not exaggerating or making any of this up) and he talked about it non-stop, like incessantly, until one day he downloaded it on my phone. (Now clearly I had to put in my game center password... but it's really his fault... don't take that away from me.) At any rate I went home without opening the game and told my roommate about it.

"Do NOT play it. Seriously, don't do it."

I did not heed her words of wisdom as one who had already been sucked in.

Alas,here I sit before you, 178 levels in, hating chocolate, especially self replicating chocolate... which should never be how someone feels about chocolate, especially self replicating chocolate. IT'S FREAKING CHOCOLATE! SELF REPLICATING CHOCOLATE! I cross my fingers for a move that results in a continuous barrage of points. I scream and growl at my phone when I just need ONE MORE MOVE! I cry out in rage and swear like a sailor (although swearing like a sailor is something I do even when I'm not playing CC so that might not be a good example).

I am completely sucked in.

It's also the reason why, yet again, I am writing a blog post at 11 PM when I should be sleeping.

This is my life.

Much love

E

Pretty sure some lives have replenished at this point... I might be able to beat it this time!

Wishful Thinking?

So... I'm a semi-Apple geek. 

(Knowing this will have little to do with the rest of this post, I just wanted to put that out into the world.)

What I mean by that is I love all things Apple, but I do not own all things Apple.

Sure I have my iPhone, and my iPad, and even my iPod Touch (which is not exactly like an iPhone contrary to popular belief among my *clearly* uneducated friends).

When I purchased my iPad one of the things I was excited about was the portability. I was going to take that thing everywhere and I was going to write! I was going to be able to document my life as it was happening and document for the world to see. That was two years ago. Clearly things did not go as planned!

Recently (as in two days ago) I found this fantastic little blue tooth keyboard that's solar (yes solar for the quasi eco-geek in me!) and it was on sale and it's an integrated case + keyboard so I thought "well hey... why the heck not!" and I bought it.

NOW! NOW IS MY TIME!

Now I'll be able to tote this bad boy around with the greatest of ease. I'll be able to take a minute and write and feel good after, because it's a proven fact that *I* feel better after writing. (Although even knowing this I fail to write as often as I should.)

So here's hoping I actually follow through on something I want to do. August is coming up and I am planning on participating in BEDA (Blogging Every Day in August) so I need to knock the ring rust off now, eh?

Wish me luck!