My Life On The Line: photos

Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts

Thursday, June 16, 2011

I'm a klutzy camera snob.

So I went to my park today for a much needed walk... I took along my old trusty-rusty Nikon point-and-shoot camera, which was a giant mistake. After using a DSLR for the last year or so, it's nearly impossible for me to enjoy using such inferior technology. *nose in the air* Judge if you must, but I just don't like it.

Nevertheless, me and my old jalopy hit the trail this morning, and took some er, interesting shots. Most of them are blurry, and there is like zero deplth to them, and the colors are all effed up... But... Here is my morning at the park, in pictures:

This is ridiculously blurry, but why do bobby pins do this? I hate sticky-uppy bobby pin ends!

Trees! Hey, Florida, this is what a park looks like!

I love this part of the trail, because of that big ol' tree straight age

You'll have to turn your head for this one... This is the Big Tree. Blogger won't let me rotate it, and I'm too lazy to go fix it elsewhere. Deal with it.

The "home stretch" of the first lap... This is probably my second favorite part of the trail.

Fuel. I hadn't had a Gatorade in AGES, and man, did this hit the spot. I might have to make this a regular thing...

"Wiiiiiiide oooopeeeennnn spaaaaacessssss..."

Get creative with me again, people. This is my least fave part of the trail. It goes on FOR-EV-ER, and is just enough of an incline to be a pain in the ass. No likey.

Mah foot.

This bench is smack in the middle of my Least Favorite Part of This Trail. I think they put it here for a reason.

You know the drill. The big ol' tree, again. <3

There's probably some horrible pest to blame for eating these trees, but the holes they create are kind of pretty... Kind of lace-ey. I like it. Sorry, trees.

HOME STRETCH! Again. I like this curve in the path.

Squirrell Action Shot!

Lookin' good! Thumbs up!

Distance check... My pace is embarassing. But, I feel good, so I think I'll keep going...

Adjust your face again. This part of the trail cuts through the middle of the park... I only take this when I don't want to walk the full half mile. And with rain clouds in the sky, I thought this was a safe route.

Rain clouds over the volleyball court...

YEAH! 2.26 miles completed! Right after I took this picture, I texted Skip to let him know my mileage... And I wasn't paying attention... And almost tripped and killed myself... And I dropped my phone... And it landed right on its cute little face... And...

THIS HAPPENED. Ugh ugh ugh. I sat in the Jeep in shock... I seriously just MURDERED my beloved iPhone. Seriously. Murdered. THIS IS NOT OKAY. I NEED THIS PHONE TO LIVE. *panic*

Fun, right?

The good news is, the phone can be saved. I have an appointment to get the screen replaced tonight at 5pm. Gonna cost me $70 smack-er-oos, but it's a helluva lot cheaper than going to the Apple store. And, since we should be up for upgrades in September, this should get me through the next 2-3 months. I've dropped this phone a million billion times before, and never had an issue. I guess you could say I had it coming.

I <3 my iPhone. I think I'd rather cut off my right arm than have to get rid of it.

And 2.26 is the most I've done in... A long time. Seriously, I've been in a real funk with this whole weight loss journey stuff. I get tired of obsessing over everysinglething I shove in my face. I get tired of wanting to eat something, and then feeling guilty about it. And I've been uber tired lately, so dragging my ass out of bed to do anything (much less exercise) has been a challenge. I'm trying my hardest to get my motivation back, but it's a lot easier said than done.

Baby steps. One good decision at a time. I can't be perfect always.

But damnit, I like to try to be!

--Malaya

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Finding Purpose

Since I first started this blog, I have struggled to find its purpose. Is it a diary, a food blog, a photography blog? Maybe a wedding blog? A travel blog? A blog I neglect because I'm too lazy to remember to update it?

Sadly, the latter is most true.

Anyhoo... I've really been wanting to get back into the swing of blogging, so I've been trying to figure out what it is I want to do with this blog. My life is going through so many changes right now, that it's hard to find just one single purpose. I can't just blog about food or photos or my wedding. I can't just blog about my weight loss journey, or all the places we've traveled to. I can't just blog about nothing.

So, dear readers (yes, plural, as I'm hoping there are at least two of you), I ask you to bear with me, as I try to find my blogging niche. I can't promise that my entries will always be interesting, but I'm hoping that there will be more of them. It's quantity over quality, right? Right?!

This post needs a picture. Of food.

Wow, this picture is blurrier than I thought it would be... But, through the fuzz, you'll see that these are mushrooms. Happy, delicious little mushrooms, sauteing in marsala wine. Because this photo is from a series of photos I took the other night while cooking Skip his favorite meal, Chicken Marsala.

I really hate making him this dish. Really. This is is favorite dish that I make, and it's hard to make it the same way every single time. I always feel like it's never as good as the first time I made it for him. It's a lot of pressure, for a simple meal. My palms get sweaty, the veins in my forehead start to pop out... It's just stressful.

For whatever reason, I thought this most-stressful-meal-ever would be a good candidate for an attempt at food blogging. Which was a really stupid idea, because I don't use a recipe for this. I just kind of wing it. But I thought, for some stupid reason, that I would be able to blog about it. And then, I kind of forgot to take some vital pictures. So I don't even have all the steps. I'm a food blogging failure.

BUT. I'm not a funny failure, so here are the steps, as recorded by my camera.

Step One: Arrange the ingredients, so that no one can actually tell what most of them are. Take this photo with a "cool" and "artistic" angle, to highlight the green onions... That you didn't actually use, because you forgot them.

Step Two: Take a picture of the ziploc containing the chicken breasts... Because you're funny, and labeled them "chicken boobs." Heh heh. Boobs.

Step Three: Take a cool overhead shot of the chopped green onions. Yes, yes, the same ones you forgot to use in this recipe. People will think it's artsy.

Step Four: Start seasoning the chicken. Then, halfway through, remember that you should be taking pictures. Wash one hand, and pick up the camera. Then, snap this photo of your other hand fondling the chicken boobs.

Step Five: Illustrate that you should not leave chicken unattended on the counter. Put it in the fridge, and then take a picture of it in the fridge to show the world that you're thinking about food safety, and you have a lot of crap in your fridge.

Step Six: See the container of sliced strawberries on top of the giant tub of butter, and decide it's time for a healthy snack. Cover the sliced strawberries with Hershey's syrup. Consume them in no more than three bites, using only your hands. Spoons are for losers.

Step Seven: Take a blurry/artistic picture of the canned green beans simmering on the stove. Put that candle in the background, because it looks cool.

Step Eight: Take a photo of the boiling potatoes from an interesting angle... And then realize that boiling potatoes are not, in fact, interesting... From any angle.

Step Nine: Take an overhead shot of the mushrooms cooking... Screw the chicken you just cooked in this same pan. Nobody needs to know that you actually cook the chicken in this recipe. The mushrooms are the star. And nobody needs to know that you put the wine in the pan too... You can't give away ALL your cooking secrets!

Step Ten: Show a semi-blurred picture of the chicken on a plate. Because this looks incredibly appetizing. Oh, and sneak in that little blue bowl of onions to the left... Because YOU FORGOT THEM, YOU MORON.

Step Eleven: Use this picture of the meal your significant other cooked the next night... Because it looks far more appetizing than the chicken marsala you made. Oh, and he used cool little sauce swooshes, and you can't do that with marsala.