Tuesday, June 28, 2016

week twenty-five // baseball

One of my favorite summer traditions is baseball. like, everything about baseball.

listening to games on the radio. cheering the home team. the tickets. the wave. the food. the smell.

and just sometimes meeting players (cue picture of joe kelly. with my sister. so yes, I did.)
(and also I apologize to my sister because this is a very unflattering look for you. I know you're not fat.)
For my birthday this past year my sister got me a set of twelve tickets to six games to our minor league team ("our ball club may be minor league, but at least it's triple A!") and then we headed up north for a major league game last thursday (and I forgot my camera... second year in a row. good going, girl friend.) but hey, gotta be in the moment, right? (and fyi, I did end up on the jumbo tron - it was my awesome dancing - and I even got to rap it out to Fresh Prince... What's not to love?)

But in all honestly, I would be pathetically sad without baseball games. It just wouldn't be summer without a trip to the home-team ballpark.

But I also morn the fact the Louisville does not have a professional baseball team. (also the fact that they win like every game we're NOT at, but have only lost very, very badly when we've showed. ugh.)


What's your favorite summer tradition?

Friday, June 24, 2016

fabulous friday // link it up

It's been a last minute dash to get some photos this week, because I cannot believe how few times I've actually picked up my camera. I actually completely left it at home for the Reds game last night (where we rapped Fresh Prince and danced on the jumbo tron. what can I say? Zumba's really payed off for a wanna-be-can't-be dancer! ha.) I missed all of VBS, too.

So I'm going for something here, from Rosi at Everyday Joy: Thirty-One Days of Summer

Ready? Go!

and some interesting articles I've found.

Habits of Highly Emotionally Intelligent People

Somewhere to start with cleaning up your life: 30-day minimalism

Setting goals you can make in Photography (and why you should!)

self-portraits from clickin' moms

oh joy oh delight oh glory... 5 steps to producing a powerful photography series! Yes, PLEASE!

Leave me an interesting read in the comments!

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

week twenty-four . celebration!

It was birthday chaos at our house! Cue the celebrations!! we had three ice cream sundae bars, two hershey bar pies, a flourless chocolate cake (gahh so good,) and tiramisu. my littlest sister turned three so she didn't get desert, but still, five birthdays in two and half weeks is nothing to scoff at!



We're having quite an active summer (some things are fun: like swimming and ice cream and cold coffee and baseball games and birthdays and classes at the library and VBS and the Y and some things are not so fun: like life guard duty in the hot sun and running out of cold coffee and the home team losing and headaches from the sweets and cars in the shop and if I keep thinking about the warriors losing I might cry and I didn't pick up my camera at all this past week... oh, well, once, I did. just once.) Summer always feels too short, it doesn't really matter how long or short it is... I'm trying to think about how far I've come and tell myself it's going to be over so so soon, so enjoy it! but I don't really think it's working. Tips, anyone?
Well, this post by beth-a-dilly is got me all super inspired: summer photography: 10 photos you must take.

So now I'm off to bed to read Count of Monte Cristo and all those books I checked out from the library. Stacey London Fashion? Here I come!

Friday, June 17, 2016

fabulous friday . only summer sandwich you'll need (or want!)

This is it... The be-all-end-all to sandwiches. The Sandwich to End All Sandwiches. the sandwich to rule them all. the killer bread with stuff inside.

Call it what you like.

I think it's official name is something like California Veggie Sandwich, but that name is underwhelming for such a great food.

Because your taste buds will seriously never forgive you if you don't feast on one of these babies just once in your lifetime.

On the flip side you can save it until you're right at the end, for one last (easy!) kicker, to really enjoy the life and good food.

But in all seriousness, this would definitely be one of my top ten meals from my 100 last (I may or may not be working on a list.)

I guess there's a huge part of me that misses Californian food -- and I don't just mean the mexican food -- the fresh produce was killer and I miss that little strawberry place in Elk Groove where we used to always stop and get strawberries. It was my favorite. and those strawberries! dang

and gilroy garlic. If you didn't know, your garlic comes from gilroy. like, 99.9999999 % of it does, by my conservative estimation.

and the farmers markets! I just need a few moments for the nostalgia to die down... okay, a lot of moments.


California Veggie Sandwich
adapted from Martha Stewart

Stuff you need:

  • Bread
  • mayo, if you're a mayo person
  • red onion, sliced
  • fresh goat cheese (need need)
  • cucumber, sliced thinly
  • alfalfa sprouts
  • avocado, cubed
  • carrot, grated
  • radish, grated
  • red wine vinegar to dribble over the radish (trust me)
  • salt
and the fun begins!

Bread... Slice it...

Grate stuff... (add to a bowl with a drizzle of red wine vinegar for the most flavorful goodness.)

Those colors, am I right?

and get all your ingredients in the right bowls with all the right stuff and I hope it looks something like this. If it doesn't move it to a wood table with a lot of great light.

It works like magic.

So then the bread. This is like one of my favorite parts of sandwich making... getting to stare at the bread and see all the wonderful possibilities. (note an alternate version of this sandwich to the right. Bread, Mayo, sprouts, cream cheese, and cucumbers. but I don't suggest that.)
So now you start layering. This can go in kinda any order and the trick is to get everything to stick on the sandwich. So I start with the mayo (I'm a mayo person) and add goat cheese.
Avocado goes on next and do not forget the salt!

and cucumbers and radishes and carrots in whatever order pleases your soul.
and sprouts! load 'em up! More, more, more!! You cannot get enough of these.
Okay. You might actually have a tiiiiny bit of trouble with this step if you added to many sprouts. But, hey, you are about to feast, so don't let it get you down! 

Put the bread together and you are all done making and it is ready to eat!
I do not kid: this sandwich will never let you eat another ol' ham & cheese or peanut butter & jelly without at least a sign of sadness that it isn't a veggie sandwich.

You cannot go wrong with all this goodness so go out to store and buy all these ingredients right away.

Oh, and tell me about your favorite sandwich in the comments (before you tried this one, that is!)

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

week twenty-three : hashtag no regrets (our traditional summer camp out)

I stayed up late last night watching the Warriors lose game. So I didn't write a blog post.

I'm seriously refraining from hashtagging "no regrets!" (partly because if I stayed up late to watch a game, I feel like the least decent thing they can do is win, you feel?)

But, alas...

Sometimes I feel like I'm turning into one of those people who likes sports. I'm not sure where that line is, but when I find myself only watching ESPN at the Y and filling out a bracket and rooting for the home team and shooting some b-ball outside the school (jk, just in the gym) with seven baseball games lined up this summer, I wonder if maybe I'm a sports fan? Granted, I know next to nothing about the rules of most sports let alone the actual players, but there are so many sports that are really enjoyable to watch. and it's really something our family gets into. Which is totally weird, because I never ever envisioned us a sports-watching family.

But blah, blah, blah... we did camp out the other night. I was admire the wonderful light outside (cue picture of beautiful light - please forgive my sunburn!) while toying with the idea of sleeping outside. and the more I thought about it the more I realized it had to be a do or die idea so I made it a do idea and to be honest, I've had better ideas in my life.

I always regret agreeing to put up the tent (or two.) It's only got four polls and all the pieces are there and it's easy... for a tent. But take it from a pro: tents are never easy to set up. Trust me, I know. The best thing you can do is to get out of the way and let someone else set it up... Unless, of course, you happen to be that someone else and then I'd like to tell you something magical I did... While I was down there trying to find jobs for everyone, but mostly just yelling, I came up with the most genius idea (cue drum roll)

I handed the camera to my little sister (like, she's six.)

Now, before you get excited: this did not produce the most beautiful pictures (quite the contrary!) but I did get a shot or two (some with me in there, jump back!) and it kept her so occupied, I'd do it again in a second. (okay, also I wouldn't be terribly upset if she broke it because then I could get a new one, so...)


Now for round two...

As evidenced by my clothing choices I was obviously in denial about how easy the task would be.



And then there are a lot of out-of-focus pictures of me looking pretty weird... which is just the perfect way to end the post, don't you think?

What are you doing unashamedly? (because if you have nothing better to do, this thursday the warriors are winning their championship... just for the heads up!)

Friday, June 10, 2016

fabulous friday // another week

this week was one of those weeks. I'm not going to give a long rundown list of all the things that went wrong this week, but do a little mental experiment here and imagine every single thing in your house that needs like electricity or a battery or something and probably that broke down this week...

okay, no, I'm totally kidding.

but something awesome... after being all debbie-downer about not getting a summer job and then ha ha ha jokes on me I got a call and had an interview, and, well, things went a lot weller then I expected them to.

But, it was a crazy busy week (every year has one!) so here are some highlights to check out:

+ Photographing Siblings: get all the kids in the picture (great article from clickin' moms)

+ I deleted over 500 pins this week, because my pinterest was getting bogged down... I feel so freeee

+ I am so stoked about Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (say that three times fast!)

+ Pumped about Un-Fancy's summer series. bring it, summer!

+ oh, yeah, and check out my newest board because it is fantastic: for Summer 

Stay tuned for some camping photos (sleeping in the hammock is first rate, guys. beats a tent any day! Talk about the great outdoors!)

and one last thing: tell me about a crazy summer adventure you had. (or actually any-time-of-year-adventure you had!)

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

week twenty-two . hammock

I know I wrote some poetry weeks ago about the hammock, but, but... the hammock is so cool how could I stay away??

...well, I guess the big "but" was that I wasn't in them. I think one place or another we've all read that we need to step in front of the camera more. Sure, it's awkward, but asking everyone to pose was awkward one time, too (let's be honest, it's still awkward for me. That's why I'm not going into business.) Ordering pictures a few months ago for my scrapbook made me realize how few pictures there were of me. I had done so much in 2015 - more than any other year in all of my (now) sixteen years of life - and I had pictures of everything but my face

So, guys I'm pretty excited that I stepped up my game and got in front of the camera. Sure, it was a little bit awkward, but I did it and I'm really excited I did... (okay, also the pictures were not the dream I had in mind, but again... I did it, so it's cool.) 

It was really the perfect prop that I needed.

and a big shout out to Jen, who has an awesome blog and is always stepping in front of the camera. Seriously, go check her out, because she totally inspires me. (maybe when I grow up to be her age I can morph into her.)


Then a little someone joined me to snuggle and then promptly fall asleep. Oh, well. She is a doll.

I'm working on finishing up my summer playlists -- one for the days and one for nights. and I really don't think I need to say I love new music so, please, do not hesitate to to tell me every single song that reminds you of summer. 

Friday, June 3, 2016

fabulous friday . just like the tide, let it roll on by

I was going to be done with posting vacation pictures because I realized I had done a huge overload and that no one was really that interested in my (lousy, let's just say it.) vacation shots... but, well, then... well, then I actually finished editing these pictures from the last night on the beach and there's something so magical about them, I found it hard to resist. 

and these? these are actually shots of the ocean, and who doesn't love a beautiful shot of the waves lapping the shore?




and now I have finished editing this SIX-year-old's pictures of the year and can order them for her scrapbook. Happy birthday, darling!!