A Social Five

I spend a lot of time on social media - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.  The problem these days with social media is that with everything happening in the world, it's become a bit of a downer.  I get it, people need to vent.  However, what was once a place for silly cat videos and fun jokes, has become a place for hard core news.  Good for civilization, bad for a happy few minutes of wasted time.  However, there are a few accounts sill out there that never fail to make me smile.  And these are it.  So if you need a smile, I'd suggest checking these lovely, creative, fun people out.

1. Daniela Ruah (@danielaruah) on Instagram - By day she's kick-butt NCIS agent Kensi Bly on NCIS: Los Angeles, and by night she's a mom who does fun things like yoga with her kids or create dalmatian costumes for her little ones.  She seems fun, and seems like someone I'd love to have lunch with.

2. David Lebovitz (@davidlebovitz) on Instagram - David is an American pastry chef who moved to Paris to work in food journalism and writing.  He has a blog and his books on sweets and Paris are fabulous.  His Instagram account is pretty much chock full of pictures of mouth watering food, and funny things that could only happen in Paris.

3. Lin Manuel Miranda on every form of social media - Honestly, he has got to be the most positive and lovely person in the entire world.  He's creative, and funny.  He's also a humanitarian who is constantly helping.  The entire world loves Lin right now, and I pretty much agree with them.  He's definitely a light in dark times, and his musings never fail to make me smile.

4. Any Supernatural based account on Twitter - including everyone who's been on the show, specific bloggers that write about the show, and charities that the show supports.  - For such a dark and scary show, everyone in this show is positive and kind and lovely.  Lots has been written about the fandom, so it's very public that these people are amazing.  I'm just reiterating this fact.  All you need to do is search for videos on YouTube of any of the Supernatural Conventions to see exactly how much these people care about each other and their fans.  They take so much of their own time to give back, and that love is felt throughout the fandom.  They are just a group of truly amazing people - that's pretty much all there is to say.

5. Travel sites on Instagram on places that I've been (Cornwall, Edinburgh, London, Austin, New York, Savannah) or places I want to go (New Mexico, Canada, Italy) - These sites are like a virtual vacation.  They make me remember my fabulous vacations there, or add lovely sites and restaurants to the list of places I want to go.  What's a better way to get away than dreaming of warming climates and trips to far off lands? 

Social Caterpillar

I just spent a good portion of my evening setting up a portfolio for myself online.  In this portfolio I added a few of my favorite articles that I've written.  I also retyped a few things so that I could create PDFs to add to the site - however, I can't seem to find a font pairing that I like so they haven't been uploaded yet. (I spent entirely too much time looking at fonts on Pinterest...)  I've also linked it to my Twitter account so that anyone who visits it can see my Twitter.  I also took the time to change my photo on my Twitter and Instagram accounts so that they all match and look the same.  I also spent a good deal of time trying to decide on a Biography that I could use for my portfolio, Twitter and Instagram so that they would all look and feel cohesive.  This is how I spent my evening.  But in the words of my friend Kevin - I have questions.

Do I now have to be clever on all of these platforms every day?  Must I write long in depth articles on theater or books or travel then figure out a way to make them sound clever in 140 characters or less than add a photo to Instagram that instantly tells my followers exactly what the article is about?  Must I share all of my daily musings on these 3 platforms while also telling close family and friends on Facebook?  And most importantly, how am I supposed to find time to do anything at all exciting to write about if I'm spending my entire day updating various social media platforms?

These are the ideas that keep me up at night and that keep me from sounding the least bit clever on social media.  I try, I really do, but I've decided I'm much more interesting in more than 140 characters....

Psithurism

Thanks to the fabulous Instagram account of Budget Traveler, I learned a new beautiful word today: Psithurism.  Apparently, its definition is "the sound of the wind through the trees."  How gorgeous is that?!  Who knew there was a word for the rustling of the leaves after a wind?  Not only is the sound beautiful, but the word is too.  It sort of flows off the tongue.  I know it sounds ridiculous but just say the word out loud, it's sort of addictive.

This new one, is even better than my last new nature-ific word: Petrichor, which is the smell of dust after the rain. Gorgeous! (Thank you Doctor Who!)

The English language may have some ridiculous rules and regulations, but you can't fault it for all its amazing words!

I Survived...

Somehow I made it through the traumatic dental visit without giving myself a coronary or a stroke.  It was difficult and happened to include a great deal of shaking and heart-palpitations but I'm now back at home much calmer than before.  Of course I still can't feel my face so that's been fun...

Because of this fear of doing anything that would require me using my mouth or the parts of my face that were numb (i.e. all of them), I've spent a great deal of time online getting ideas on how to be all crafty and such.

~ Mother Daughter Photos: How easy is this?  I know most of the shots are a little weird but it's a fun idea to do even without the wonky outfits.

~Using apps to print Instagram photos: I attempted a few months ago to upload a regular old Instagram up to Costco Photo Center and failed miserably.  The little square photos were stretched into 4x6 size and looked rather like pixelated surveillance footage instead of priceless pieces of artwork.  If it this process goes like they say it does (and without uploading to Costco yet, it's going quite smoothly so far), I'm going to be one happy camper once I start doing fun things to Instagram, which might just lead to this little beauty.

~Christmas cards, and stamps and paper and scrap ideas...you get the picture.  I know it's a little early but if I'm going to knock out homemade cards, I really have to get a move on.  No stress this year, that's my mantra.  That ought to last until next week at least : )

~Can't wait to read this book! Food, Paris and Julia Child: what could be better?!

Friday Five

1.  This courtesy of the SITS girls this morning on Facebook.  Love it because a. It's word art and how can you not love word art?! and b. It's pretty much what I've been focused on doing this year before I turn the dreaded 3-0 (yuck!)

2.  I've already confessed my love for all things British, as well as "A Bit of Fry and Laurie." (or maybe I just love Fry and Laurie: it really is a toss up!)  So it may not come as a surprise when I say that work's been pretty sparse this week so I've been indulging in some YouTube perusing.  This, so far has been my most favorite sketch.  The pay off is ridiculous but it makes me laugh every time. (of course, I have a sick sense of humor so that may explain that...)

3. Picmonkey:  As someone whose a little too cheap to buy into all the Adobe products, no matter how cool they are, I've had to find other ways of making my not so artsy pics, artsy.  Picmonkey is the perfect site to use to do that AND it's free to boot!  You can use all the fun lighting tricks that come with Instagram, but it also has tools touch up photos, add text and about 20 other things, as well as create collages of pictures.  It's about the most fun I've had with editing photos, ever.  I'm already dreaming of uses for the photo collages.  I see quite a few posts on photos coming your way!

4. Pinterest but it comes with a caveat.  Ok, so I joined Pinterest under protest.  I've been hearing about it for the last year but it's never really sparked my interest (heehee).  Two things happened that made me give it a shot.  1.  The bestie who just joined Facebook last year (she's a little behind the tech times) joined a few months ago: How in the world did she jump in before I did? and 2.  My aunt and my mom asked about it in the same week so I figured I should jump in with them so we could all be confused and amazed together. 
The verdict you may ask?:  It still confounds me!  It's been a week and I still haven't figured out all the intricacies of the Pinterest world.  I've got re-pinning down and I think I might even have gotten the hang of pinning, but how in the heck do you use it on an iPad?  Can you only re-pin stuff by using the app?  I've been trying to figure that out for the last 3 days and I can't seem to solve the riddle! Also, what's wrong with "favoriting" things, doesn't that work just the same?  On the other hand, I seem to have created my very own Tastespotting from the favorites on my Google Reader so I guess that's pretty cool...

5. The Instagram #photoadayjuly Challenge: I am without a doubt absolutely in LOVE with this idea.  (Thanks Aunt Mil!)  I've tried other photo challenges before but I get lost in my head and can't decide what to snap.  This challenge supplies a subject without the pressure of having to take millions of shots.  And others are doing it too so I get the added bonus of inspiration.  Too fun!  Below is the collage (made with Picmonkey: told you I was obsessed!) of the first 6 days of shots.  You'll notice that there are only 5 photos.  Why?  Because Tuesday's is too ugly to share again.  If you're that curious you can check the July 1 post (that's cleverly linked above) but I hate that darn picture and am choosing to not ruin a perfectly good collage with it (that reason AND I couldn't find a template of 6 pics to create.)


Happy Weekend and  Stay cool!



#photoadayjuly

A few years ago, I attempted to take more pictures by challenging myself to take at least a photo a day.  This lasted about a week.  Here's the issue, I couldn't decide what to take pictures of: you could say I'm a bit indecisive.  Also, my life isn't that thrilling to begin with and seeing that we had a blizzard that year that had me locked in the house for about a week, I was not all for taking pictures of the winter wonderland every darn day. This was also before my iPhone days, so I didn't have Instagram to make my pics more visually interesting.  This brings me to this month's challenge.  I found this list over at A Beach Cottage (BTW, super cool blog and amazing photos!) and have decided to give it a shot.  Afterall, I LOVE instagram already. At the very least it gives me a chance to use it even more. 

I'm actually pretty excited about it too!  It gives me some fun in the middle of this already too hot to handle (103 today: what the heck?!) summer.  I hope to update this post every few days so keep checking in and hopefully I'll be able to keep this streak going a little longer than the last photo-centric one!

July 1: Self Portrait

July 2: Busy

July 3:Favorite Time of Day (Dinner: Could be a better picture but I was at a cookout and didn't want to seem creepy spending so much time taking pictures of my food)

July 4: Fun (First time with sparklers: Too too fun!)

July 5: On the Floor

July 6: Chair (The rocking chair my grandfather made for me when I was a baby)

July 7: Garden

July 8: Lunch

July 9: Big

July 10: Favorite Color

July 11: Letter

July 12: Texture

July 13: Open

July 14: Building

July 15: Finger

July 16: Sign

July 17: Addiction (The ELVIS from Kupcakes and Co.: It's like Heaven in cupcake form!)

July 18: Plate

July 19: Pet

July 20: Eyes

July 21: 9:00

July 22: Upside Down

July 23: Mirror

July 24: Strangers

July 25: Heart

July 26: Sunshine

July 27: On the Road

July 28: Cup

July 29: Last Thing I Bought

July 30: Calm

July 31: Toothbrush

Say Cheese!

So with the invention of the internet, comes all sorts of promising things for humanity.  We are able to research important topics like cures for diseases or poverty outreach with a few clicks of the mouse.  We can communicate with loved ones who are thousands of miles away using an app.  We can receive breaking news the second it hits.  However, my personal favorite of the millions of uses for the internet is photo stalking. Oh come on, like it's just me!  I'm sure we all do it, I'm just the nerd who's admitting to it.  We all like to check in on friends we haven't seen or talked to in years on Facebook and rate their lives based on their profile pics.  We all check out Instagram feeds multiple times a day. We all peruse those emails each day that have seemingly visited the entire Northern Hemisphere before it's reached us.  That, my friend, is photstalking and personally, I'm ok with it.

As somone who cannot seem to take a good picture to save my life, (I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I'm using a point and shoot instead of a DSLR but that's beside the point...) I love that others in the online universe can.  It gives me hope that one day I will actually produce an amazing shot like these amateur photographers.

Just for the record, there is a point behind this weird confession. 

This week I've stumbled upon 2 amazing examples why photostalking is so much fun.  The first is Dear Photograph.  Dear Photograph is a Tumblr account run by Taylor Jones that has a very simple premise at its heart, but has produced some of the most heart warming, beautiful pictures I've seen. He "was inspired to start his website Dear Photograph as he flipped through old family photos at his parents' kitchen table. When he came across an image of his brother sitting at that very same table, he lifted it up and snapped a picture of the picture. In a moment, the idea for DearPhotograph.com was born."  The entire site (and book as well) contains photos of photos in the same place they were originally taken.  Okay, maybe the "simple" premise isn't so simple to explain but just check the site to see how touching some of the scenarios are.  Add to the photos, letters from the photographers about each picture, and the site has turned me into a blubbering mess.  Dear Photograph has inspired me to add an adendum to my 29th year list, I am now determined to take one of these pics and upload it to the site.  Of course, I'm a little OCD so it might take me a while to find the perfect picture but at least I have until next April...

The second nifty set I happened upon originally in  Wired Magazine but I found out later the photographer also has a blog: Bent Objects. (Thanks Aunt M!)  After you've teared up from Dear Photograph, you'll need something to lighten the mood and these will do just that.  Not much to say other than they are super clever and super cute! 

Enjoy!

Instagram: Insta-fun!

As most people with iPhones can attest, there are millions of senseless apps that you can download in just a few finger taps which provide endless fun.  As an iPhone user myself, I'm not such a fan of buying tons of apps because, let's face it, I'm cheap!  If you were to take a look at my phone, you'd find Facebook (of course), Instagram, Yelp, Golf Channel and Foodspotting.  Are you seeing a trend here?  They're all free! What's not to love!?  I use them all pretty much daily but recently I've gotten slightly obsessed with Instagram.  I've yet to figure all the ins and outs of it but it's about the coolest app ever.  Being able to take pics with your phone is one thing but being able to change said pics with cool artsy filters, is entirely something else.  I haven't quite figured out large-scale photo editing tools like Photoshop, although it is on my list to learn this year.  So Instagram being small-scale and easy to use makes me slightly more trigger-happy.

After about a week of using it, I realized they were getting posted to the Instagram universe for everyone to see so that slowed me down...a bit.  But I fear that I'm becoming one of "those" people that take random pictures of leaves or my lunch and expect people to enjoy them.  For those that are following me, I apologize for the randomness but it's just so fun!  Feel free to peruse the shots below and draw your own conclusions of my new addiction. 

Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega: Smithsonian

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Dumbo at the Smithsonian

Jefferson Memorial and The Cherry Blossoms (Kinda proud of this one : )

My mini-orchid (I am currently watering what's left of this beautiful flower: the stick)

Thank you flowers from a friend's garden

Sunrise over the golf course behind my office

Early morning fire at La Madeleine

See what I mean?  This little beauty really turns out some fun shots....

My name is Kristen and I'm an Instagramaholic.