Sunshine?

09Feb10

February 9, 2010- Today is my dad’s birthday- I REALLY wish I could be with you today, Dad!! I got some new sunglasses in the mail the other day and the sun has YET to shine so I can sport them around town. Thus, my inspiration for my photo of the day. C’monnnnn, sun!!

I'll take an order of sunshine with a cup of sugar to sweeten my day, thanks!

 

What else, what else. I’ve got nothing. Maybe some of my music I’ve been listening to while working on my business cards? Pray for Spring!!


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Photo Journal

09Feb10

 

I’ve said over & over again that I’m trying to keep up on my blogging & I haven’t. I’ve finally found the solution. I’m going to keep a photo journal & everyday I will take one picture representative of something about me or what I’m doing. In no way can I take credit for this idea- that goes to my friend Kenzie Joy. I’ve been watching her do this on facebook & it’s inspired me to do the same. It’ll force me to keep up on my blogging AND my photography, since my class & this dull winter weather are definitely not doing it for me.

Of course, when I have something to post other than my daily photo, I will do so. But at least this way, anyone who’s curious can stay entertained in between those times.

Since i just decided this & I’m lazy, though, tonight I’ll share a photo I took a couple weeks ago for a project in my 318 graphics class. Gosh I’m lame.

peppermintini, anyone?


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Helloooooo Twenty-ten

20Jan10

I’m about halfway through my second week of the new semester & I can say this much: I was right. I have a lot of work on my hands with these classes. However, I know I really let my blog fall by the wayside while I was home for break so I’m going to make a conscious effort to stay up-to-date with it now, even if it kills me (or just cuts off an hour of sleep). It shouldn’t be that bad though, considering I’m trying to adopt the “old lady” habit & only going out one night a week instead of two…. Three… Wait, isn’t that called acting “grown up”? My apologies to any elderly I may have offended.

Well I can definitely say that I FEEL older. I definitely don’t have the crazy energy I used to have. I have little-to-no tolerance for listening about petty fights & stupid gossip/rumors. I’ve decided to take up sewing as a new hobby. OH, and the number one reason why I feel older: the most exciting thing coming to me in my life right now is the cat I plan on adopting. Other than that, I’m the same old Ashley. Promise : )

I took very few pictures while I was home. That’s always more of a time for me to lounge, nap with my dog & hang out with my mom. Don’t worry though, now that the semester’s started again, you won’t be seeing a lack of photos for much longer!

My little bruva, Ty Dwight

 

We played in the snow one day & I got these close-ups : )

 

post-new years, packing up the decorations until next year!

 

And of course, I can’t resist showing off my mom’s Christmas tree. She works so hard on it every year : )

O Christmas Tree


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2009

30Dec09

I know. I’ve been horrible and negligent to my blog. My excuses: finals & winter break. Between studying & family, I haven’t had much available time to update. But here I am now! Since tomorrow is New Years Eve, I’ve found myself reflecting on the past year, as I’m sure many others are as well. It’s been tough- more challenging, heartbreaking and difficult than probably any other year of my life & I’ll be glad to see it pass. However, keeping that in mind, I think I’ve learned more about myself & what I do/don’t want in my life in this year than any other previous one. For that, I’m thankful.

I’ve composed a list of things, observations & ideas that I’ve learned and want to remember from this year. I can’t wait to see how 2010 adds to it and transforms the things already present on my list.

  • Just because the chips might be whole grain and the cheese is a source of calcium, nachos are still not a healthy snack.
  • Secondhand books are just as good as brand-new ones. Maybe better.
  • Your intuition is with you for a reason. Trust it & it will serve you well.
  • If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then take 1,000 pictures & more. Leave yourself & others with as many thoughts and memories as you can.
  • Yes, for you and most other people, your waist size is bigger than it was in high school. It’s supposed to be like that so stop obsessing. (but please, stay healthy.)
  • When you watch your younger siblings have an attitude & act like little punks, you may say “GOSH, I would never have talked/acted like that.”…. Oooohhhh, yes you did.
  • People make enough of their own excuses. There’s no need for you to make more for them.
  • Getting a tattoo, lip piercing & drastic new haircut all within a couple months of each other causes people to think you’re trying to make some kind of statement or undergoing some kind of transformation. Cool it. (& no, I wasn’t trying to do either of those things!)
  • People will only change for themselves & if they want to. Nothing you say or do is going to change someone’s ways. LET ME REPEAT & CLARIFY: YOU CAN’T MAKE YOUR BF/GF CHANGE. PEOPLE ONLY CHANGE FOR THEMSELVES!!
  • Does it come with age? Because I’ll never understand how an older person can pour a glass of scotch or sip on straight vodka and not gag.
  • New Moon is just as good the 2nd time around… & the 3rd…
  • Forgiveness may be divine, but sometimes forgetting is just too damn hard.
  • The closer I am to graduating college, the more I am considering joining the Peace Corps & it excites me.
  • There is no elegant-looking purse for going to a social gathering that’s big enough to carry around my big ol’ Nikon.
  • Facebook chat is and always will be the worst instant messaging program ever.
  • Go to New York City. Once you’re there, walk everywhere & find places you love that DON’T have the publicity & big names. Once you’ve done that, then of course go to Rockafellar Center, Ellis Island, etc. (& by the way, hailing my first cab was even more thrilling for me than I thought it would be!)
  • Online window shopping is almost as good as actually buying the stuff you’re looking at. Just remember to X out of that window before you give them your credit card number.
  • Your ex is your ex for a reason. (This goes back to people only changing for themselves) That doesn’t mean, though, that after time, patience & a lot of self-pampering & loving, that you can’t become friends.
  • You can only say ‘yes‘ to favors for so many people before you have to stop and say ‘yes’ to yourself. I’m still trying to learn this one.
  • Bolthouse Farms drinks have some sort of addictive drug in them.
  • Don’t think that cars are watching out for you & your bicycle. Even in Marquette.
  • According to Stuff White People Like, I’m probably one of the whitest people ever.
  • My heritage is German. That doesn’t make me a Nazi, people.
  • No matter how much it sucks, any music sounds a little bit better after a couple gin & tonics.
  • I still want a lemur.
  • No matter what, 2010 HAS to be a great year because of all that I can apply to my life that I’ve learned in this long year.
  • For gosh sakes, guys, BE NICE TO PEOPLE & TREAT OTHERS THE SAME WAY YOU WISH TO BE TREATED!

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SNOW DAY!!

10Dec09

 Only 3 more semesters of hearing those 2 wonderful words before I have to be a ‘big girl‘ & face our awesome economy head-on & try to find a job. Anyone need a bubbly, scatterbrained, smart-mouthed female with a graphics degree? I MEAN punctual, responsible, reliable & accountable female with a degree in graphic design…. ; )

Anyway, this snow day has given me extra spare time I didn’t originally have. So while I haven’t been watching out my window as cars struggle just to make it up the street & the poor girls at Cruise ‘N’ Coffee (popular coffee establishment up here) freeze their little faces off each time they open the window to serve a drink, I’ve gotten to spend some real quality time with one of my favorite websites: StumbleUpon.

I’m a big Harry Potter fan so imagine how much this piqued my interest when I stumbled upon this Wikipedia page (I’m a self-proclaimed nerd so don’t bother with teasing me about it): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Potter_and_the_Hall_of_Elders’_Crossing

Know what that is? No, I didn’t either until I read further into it. Author George Norman Lippert (who I’ve never heard of before this) has written a spinoff of the Harry Potter series based on Harry’s son, James. The book is called James Potter & the Hall of Elders’ Crossing. I was skeptical, of course. Nothing can compare to J.K. Rowling’s writing style with her book series & when I first realized what I’d stumbled upon, my initial thought was “Ridiculous!”.

Being the H.P. fanatic I am, however, I couldn’t just click the ‘Stumble’ icon again & go to another webpage. I had to investigate further. After the infamous Google search that everything gets nowadays, I came upon 2 links of interest. The first I’ll share with you is a review of Lippert’s book by blogger, Oonae. It contains some spoilers, yes, but depending on how much of a Potter fan you are, it may convince you to read or not to read the spinoff series. Yes, I said series. Apparently there are 3 books thus far & I haven’t learned enough about it yet to know if Lippert will continue with more. SO, without further delay, I link you to James Potter & the Hall of Elders’ Crossing site, that will provide you with a downloadable PDF file of the book. Yeah, the music & sound on the page is annoying so I’d recommend bookmarking it & closing the heck out of the window. I was on page 6 when I realized that it would just be rude of me not to share this with anyone who doesn’t know. Hopefully it’ll be a good read for some over their approaching winter break!

: )

Gotta say, I like the Harry Potter series illustrator better… but I guess that’s to be expected.

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Free smiles

06Dec09

I know I’m not alone when I sometimes feel like nothing seems to be going my way. There isn’t a soul on this earth that hasn’t felt that way before. Maybe it’s because I’ve been feeling that way lately (& maybe it’s because I’m running a fever & can only hope I have enough coffee grounds in this apartment to keep me awake all night to complete the work & studying I need done for tomorrow) but I thought I’d throw together a hodge-podge collection of things I’ve found online that make me laugh, smile & sometimes provide a very necessary distraction from the troubling things in life. I hope they help you too when you’re having just “one of those days”. : )

This one has been my absolute favorite lately. Michelle & I can’t stop watching/quoting it:

If you love McD’s, check this out. Some things look good, others are just scary…

http://foodnetworkhumor.com/2009/07/mcdonalds-menu-items-from-around-the-world-40-pics/

I’ll never get enough of Apple’s movie trailer website.

BWW recipes? Ummm… COOL?! http://www.epicportions.com/2009/02/25/buffalo-wild-wings-recipes/

How many words per minute can you get with Type Racer?

Cubescape is like legos on your computer but cooler. 

James Jean’s artwork is absolutely stunning.

Have you ever heard of the Blood Type Diet? This is crazy.

Create your own Jackson Pollock masterpiece.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy all of these as much as I do. I have no new photography to share with you but in light of the holiday spirit (notice the snow on my page), I’ll leave you with this:

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel” -Maya Angelou

Remember that quote whenever someone’s made you upset, feel taken advantage of, or hurt. Be respectful and kind to others. It will get you farther in life that you could ever imagine.


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Last Minute Final

03Dec09

I couldn’t be happier that this semester is coming to and end- it’s put me through enough already. Here I am & it’s not even 8 am yet & this is the only time available that I have to blog today. Okay, I’ll be honest, a lot of that is because tonight is my job’s employee Christmas party & I’ll be spending a good portion of the evening getting ready for that & the majority of my day studying for my menu test for said job- which I have to take tomorrow & I haven’t the slightest clue how I’m going to pass it with only one day of studying :-/

My photography final series is due this morning at 9. I did a portrait series & I asked my subjects “How do you feel about the approaching Marquette winter?” For those of you who don’t know, Marquette winters are INTENSE (as is winter all throughout Michigan’s U.P.). It gets insanely cold & before I moved up here, I’d never seen such high snow banks in my life. Once my subjects decided how they felt about it, I asked them to make a facial expression according to how they felt about it- it was hilarious to watch them make it as exaggerated as they could!

I printed a series of 5 photos, which are the first 5 I’ll show. Matt’s and Gene’s are a little out of focus, which I couldn’t tell by looking at my camera’s screen. Only once I loaded the images onto my computer did I realize that but by then I had no time to go back and reshoot. Like my title describes, it was pretty last minute.

Cecily: excited, thrilled

 

Matt: annoyed, frustrated (he's lived up here for too long!)

 

Cara: scared

 

Gene: ecstatic, euphoric

 

Jesse: angry, pissed off

 

Then I edited just a couple extras because they were fun : )

Cec- she loooooves the snow!

 

Cartoonish Gene. He doesn't like color selection in a photo but I say he can just get over it.


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Meet Me Halfway

01Dec09

Okay, it was my Thanksgiving break and that’s why I haven’t posted in a week- my apologies. It’ll probably be another week after this one for me to post again thanks to the massive amount of work I have to do for school and for my job. I rode downstate for the holiday with my friend, Chris and while we weren’t dodging satellite dishes or picking fights with slow cars we had to follow, we got to listen to some sweet tunes : )
Did I get some good photos while I was home? You betcha. A lot of them? Nope. Just a few randoms. Mother nature decided to lay a blanket of fog everywhere the day I had to ride back up to the Great North. I wish I could have stuck around and snapped a lot of pictures but I got ONE sweet shot of an old, deteriorating barn on my grandma & grandpa’s old farm!! Leave it to the day we I return to the U.P., though, for the snow to start flying. Winter’s coming on in full force up here now, snowing every day this week except Friday.

"911, what is your emergency?" chris: "um yeah, around mile marker 164 in the middle of the road, there's a satellite............. dish." <-- actual phone convo on the way down haha

 

The last of the fall colors before everything turns to winter white

 

Alexa Rae, Mary, me, Dad, Ty : )

 

The old run-down barn on my grandma & grandpa's farm on a foggy morning : )

 

And while it’s REALLY hard to choose just one song for him to sing, if you see Chris, ask him to belt this one out for you ; )


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GR bound!

23Nov09

Holy wow, when I said I had a busy weekend ahead of me, I had meant it. I’ve neglected this for 3 days & now I’m squeezing this post in between packing & cleaning before leaving for Grand Rapids for my Thanksgiving break! I’m so excited to see my family that I haven’t been able to sit still for days. My friend Chris & I will be making the trip downstate & I’m playing DJ so I hope he’s prepared for my awesome music selection!

So… My weekend. I had the chance to take some fun photos of my friends Kim & Shannon for a Christmas gift for the their parents. I haven’t had a chance to get really far into the editing process but I started on a couple of them last night so I’ll let you take a look : )

Also, this was the weekend of New Moon, in case you didn’t figure that out before with me running my mouth about it. I saw it Friday night with my best friend, Michelle. AMAZING. I loved it so much that I went to see it again last night! (SPOILERS- skip the rest of this paragraph if you haven’t seen it yet & don’t want details) Kristen Stewart finally convinced me that she was Bella & I’m really pleased with how well they followed the book. Favorite scene? The wolves chasing Victoria through the woods/Bella’s cliff jump/Harry Clearwater’s heart attack all-in-one. Cheesiest scene? When Alice ’sees’ Bella becoming a vampire & her vision shows her & Edward frolicking in the woods together, for lack of a better word. Pfffffftttt give me a break! I said it last night though, screw all of this ‘team’ business. If I had my way, I’d take Edward AND Jacob & Emmett, Jasper & the werewolves too. I’m sure I’d find a way to split my time between all of them!

Okay, enough of that. There’s some more work to be done on them & a lot of others to edit but here are some photos from this weekend…

Kim & Shannon : )

these ones were sweet. i can't wait to edit more

Leapfrog!


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Happy weekend!

19Nov09

It’s officially… MY WEEKEND!! That means I get to relax, right? WRONG. I work Friday, Saturday & Sunday. I’m volunteering at my job on Saturday for a pizza-eating contest they’re hosting (it’s okay, I get free beer!)… That’s the work stuff. Here’s all the FUN I get to have!!- NEW MOON comes out at midnight tonight but I have to wait until tomorrow to see it. I’m doing holiday family portraits for the Carlson sisters, portraits for the Caldwell sisters and portraits for my friends Kara & Lacy. LOTS of pictures to be taken!

Actually, aside from the friends that I’ve asked to model for me for projects of mine, I’ve had quite a few requests for portraits. Ohhh if you could see my smile & feel my excitement right now : ) Here is the portrait work I have lined up for myself with all this photography business (either by request, promises to friends, etc):

  • Carlson sisters (holiday)
  • Caldwell sisters (gift for mom & dad)
  • Sarah Boogren (pregnancy progression portraits for the next 7 months)
  • Kara Nordlof
  • Lacy Lafave
  • Jennifer Engstrom (portraits of her children)
  • Colton Newton & Brianna Ebenstein (couple portraits… maybe some engagement photos soon?!)
  • Valerie Sue Peterson
  • Sarah O’Neill
  • Christine Smessaert
  • Mandy Cowell
  • Scott Wanhala (bike stuff)
  • Chris Thomas
  • Jessica Katie Ohlsen (my final series for a class)
  • Cara Gould (my final series for a class)
  • Gene Ross (my final series for a class)
  • Jesse Carlson (my final series for a class)
  • Matt Mckindles (my final series for a class)
  • Cecily Browne (my final series for a class)

I have a lot of editing on my hands coming up : ) If you want to be a part of the portrait craze too and are in my area, please contact me about it!

Besides that, if you’re in the Marquette area this weekend, I’d highly advise you to come to Aubree’s on Washington St. on Saturday at 1 pm for the pizza-eating contest we’re hosting! Bring 3 cans of non-perishable food to enter the competition. Even if you’re not a part of the competition, we have a SWEET DEAL for those of you 21 & up- $4 pitchers of Labatt Blue & $5 pitchers of KBC Red Jacket ALL DAY!! It’s an insane deal and I hope a lot of people take advantage of it.

Okay FINE I guess I’ll let you see the final products for my mock 303 project. Also, since this blog is a smorgasbord of a million thoughts & ideas anyway, I’ll provide you with another one of my mom’s awesome recipes to try for Thanksgiving and a little something to get you even more in the mood for New Moon. Have fun!

Michelle: Caffeine (paint is still drying!)

Jessica: Laughter

Okay, this recipe is a family favorite for us. Mom makes it for every holiday, family get-together, whatever. She gets yelled at if she doesn’t so you’d better try it and see what I’m talking about…

Mom’s Cream Puff Dessert

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup flour
  • 4 eggs
  • 8 oz. cream cheese (softened)
  • 4 cups milk
  • 3 pkgs. instant vanilla pudding (3 oz. each)
  • 1 large tub of Cool Whip
  • Chocolate Syrup

Melt butter in water. Add flour & cook, stirring constantly until it forms a ball (this will happen quickly). Turn into a bowl and beat in the eggs one at a time. Spread in a grease 9×13 pan. Bake at 400°F for 35-40 minutes. Cool. Mix together cream cheese and milk, beat until smooth. Add pudding, one at a time and beat. Spread over the shell once it’s cooled. Top with Cool Whip & drizzle with chocolate syrup. Chill for at least one hour.

Mom’s Tip: Add the chocolate syrup just before serving. The lines will stay more delicate-looking rather than running into the whipped cream. Use the chocolate drizzle sparingly. Dig in!!

And since midnight just can’t come soon enough for many of you:


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