Picking My Battle: Profile Pictures

Tags

black and white photos, facebook, honey boo boo, makeup, momma june, photo booth, picking my battle, profile photos, twitter, wordpress

One thing I really wanted to do this month was to get my blog in better shape. A major part of that was for me to take a damn profile picture that I could use for the blog, social network sites, and other fun stuff.

I know why I put it off – I hate taking pictures of myself. It takes forever for me to get a good shot that I can use.

Of course, there are dozens of photos like this on my computer already, but D. took them. I avoided using them partly because I didn’t want to ask, and mostly because no matter how attractive he says I am…he takes horrible photos of me. Most pictures he’s taken of me were the result of an ambush, usually when I have on no makeup, my hair hasn’t been washed in days, and he insists that a rattly old tshirt is just fine to wear because he’s just “testing out the camera, so it doesn’t matter.”

Oh, and not sure how he manages it, but he ALWAYS gets pictures that make me look like I have a double chin. I don’t – but if you only saw me from his perspective, I look a lot like this:

Yeah…not cool.

So, yesterday afternoon I set up the Photo Booth feature on my laptop and goofed around. The pictures aren’t the greatest, but they’re only being used for tiny profile pictures, so they don’t have to be. They’ll be so small that I doubt anyone will care. That, and anything is better than an iPhone selfie. I still suck at taking those.

Here are a few pictures that turned out alright, and you may be seeing more of in the near future!

Then, to make sure you guys know how REAL I like to keep things around here, a few goofy outtakes for good measure:

I decided to keep the pictures in black and white because I thought it would be easier than trying to figure out what to wear while doing them in color. Also, my hair hasn’t quite gotten over the whole “lighter on top, darker on bottom” problem – and I’m not a photoshop pro, so I can’t really fix that.

For fun, though, I did take one color picture, just to show you just how much brighter/darker you have to make your makeup for black and white photos to look right:

 

I know that I haven’t been too great with my challenge this month, but I figured that with finals week, vacation, getting ready for summer classes, and trying to exercise more, I’d go with something manageable.

One long afternoon and a pile of makeup later…I’m well on my way.

Nothing Much

Tags

exercise, health, hiking, spring, warm weather, working out

Sorry for the lack of awesomeness today, but after working until 10pm last night, and looking toward another 8+ hour day of getting my summer class ready to go, I don’t have much else to talk about. Unless you want to hear all about benchmarks lesson plans, and MLA format…but I’m guessing you don’t. I know I’m about tired of it.

I did, however, manage to get out yesterday afternoon for a springtime hike before the thunderstorms hit. I haven’t been on a hike in a while, and it was great to see everything so green and full.

(I wish I could say that I photoshopped the shit out of these pictures, but I didn’t do a thing to them. It was THAT green outside!)

It was a nice distraction for an hour or so to just get outside, clear my head, and get my sweat on (it was super humid out, so that last part was pretty easy).

I don’t think I’ll be able to get out tomorrow, unless you count going to school to make copies. I don’t. So it was important for me to escape for a bit, even if only for a little while.

How do you escape from life for a bit?

Post-Vacation, Post-Indulgence

Tags

biking, exercise, food, fruit salad, healthy cooking, spring, warm weather, working out

 

After a week away from exercising and eating healthy, I got back into my usual routine this week. The weather has been warm and sunny, so a long bike ride was just the thing to get me back into gear.

Since we weren’t able to cook our own meals while on vacation, we were left to eating at restaurants the entire time we were away. While this meant that I indulged in foods I don’t normally eat a lot of (french fries, bacon cheeseburgers, and pasta), I mostly stuck to eating things similar to what I eat at home. When we came home, I was terrified that I had undid any good work I had done over the past few months. However, I hadn’t gained any weight, so I think the combination of trying to eat more salads, drink plenty of water, and all the walking around kept my weight from creeping up at all. It wasn’t always easy to say no to the amazing desserts most nights, but I knew that indulging a little bit was better than going overboard. Thankfully, it didn’t do too much damage.

 

Another thing I was looking forward to when I got home from vacation was getting back into eating more fruit. Being on an island, sometimes it’s hard to get certain foods because you’re dependent on what they have shipped to their restaurants and stores. One place we went to for breakfast a few times had a strawberry, orange, and grape fruit salad on their menu, but didn’t have the strawberries or grapes! So I spent a lot of last week eating oranges, which isn’t something I usually go for – but when served cold, they’re great!

After I got home from my bike ride yesterday, I decided to whip up a fruit salad of strawberries (they’re finally in season here!), orange slices, and frozen peaches. Why frozen? Because here, peaches kind of suck – so I usually end up with frozen ones.

All I did was chop up the fruit, squeeze out any remaining juice from the orange, and sprinkle it all with a pinch of sugar. Simple, healthy, and perfect after a long, hot bike ride.

 

It’s definitely not the same as eating at a restaurant for lunch, but to be honest, I’m glad to be back on track. Eating out kind of got old after a few days, and I like eating smaller, healthier lunches anyway. Oh, and I’m totally hooked on the Vitamin Water Zero lemonade. I love drinking lemonade when it gets hot outside, but I don’t like all the sugar and calories it comes with. While this isn’t exactly the same…it’s a good enough substitute, especially if served very, very cold!

I hope you’re all having a great week so far, and I’m off to go do some work for classes which start next week. I’m nowhere near ready, but I think after a good work session today, I’ll be pretty much all set!

Island Getaway

Tags

ahoy b&b, beach, doller estate, heinemans winery, hooligans irish pub, island getaway, perry monument, perry's cave, put in bay, put in bay winery, vacation, wine, wine tours

Here are a few pictures of our vacation to Put-in-Bay, Ohio.

I pretty much lived in that sweater and scarf the first few days we were there. It was a bit colder than I was banking on, but that’s why you pack layers! It did warm up later in the week, which was great.

The picture above is the Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial, which unfortunately wasn’t open – otherwise, I would have totally risked freezing my ass off to go to the top of it to look around. D. wasn’t too excited about the idea, so he was fine with it being closed.

We ended up staying at the AHOY Bed & Breakfast, which was amazing. The family that owns it are really nice, the room was perfect, and the deck was a great place to get a little bit of sun (once it warmed up). It was also within walking distance to the downtown area, but quiet enough that we weren’t dealing with too much noise while trying to sleep. If you ever find yourself out there, check this place out!

We also managed to find plenty of fun stuff to do, even though it’s still their “off season” on the island. A lot of things don’t open there until Memorial Day weekend, so while we didn’t get to do everything we would have wanted to do, the two wineries on the island were definitely open and running!

The Put-in-Bay Winery & Doller Estate was by far the best tour we went on – I mean, you can’t beat a tour that involves wine tasting, right? It was fun to hear all about the history of the Doller family, the island itself, and learn more about the winery.

Oh, and we totally ended up buying 8 bottles while we were there. Don’t worry – we came home with 6 of them (one we drank, the other we gave to D.’s mom)!

We also toured the Heineman’s Winery earlier that week, but unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures. The only one I managed to get was of the wine glasses we bought from their gift shop (because we kinda didn’t think that through when packing…haha). Their winery is a lot older, and while the tour didn’t involve tastings, it was still cool to see how much things haven’t changed there in many, many years.

 

We also found plenty of other places to hang out, including a cave tour and mini-golf at Perry’s Cave (which I only lost by one stroke!), lots of beer (and hard cider for me) at Hooligans Irish Pub, and TONS of great food around the island. I might share more about that later this week, if I can get my hands on some more pictures!

Overall, it was a nice way to relax and unwind for a week. Going in the off-season meant we couldn’t do everything we wanted to, but it was nice to be there before it got too crowded. We could pretty much walk to everything, but we did end up renting a golf cart for a few days to just drive around and see what was open. It was quiet, peaceful, and a great way to escape the stress of school for a week.

If you want to see more, head on over to my Facebook page later this week, where I’ll be sharing some more photos from the trip!

Back to Reality

Hello Everyone!

After a wonderful and relaxing week off, I’m finally back! I’ve been checking in here and there, but for the most part I’ve been off the blog for the better part of a week, so I have a lot of catching up to do!

Since we ended up out of town a little longer than I expected, I’ll be back here later today or tomorrow with more posts. I still have a lot of unpacking and laundry to do, and lots of pictures to share!

I hope you all had a great weekend, and are ready to hit the ground running today!