Apple Picking (ish) Adventure!

The joys of apple picking as an essential fall event have been much lauded in my circle of friends and this year I was finally going to do it! We picked just the right day, with the perfect weather, and a great group of plaid-clad friends ready for adventure. The only hitch in our plan is that we were going on a Sunday after church, on the week when we had a guest speaker who was notorious for going over time. On this occasion the guest speaker not only went over our normal end time, but exceeded it by two hours! The meeting was great and no one wanted to leave, but by the time we got in the car it was quite late in the afternoon. We grabbed lunch and hit the highway. After an hour long drive through deliciously colored trees we arrived at the orchard…right when they stopped letting anyone in to pick apples. We were, needless to say, quite disappointed. However, our amazing community made the best of it by devouring an entire pie standing up (emotional eating much?), rallying together for a freezing cold game of miniature golf, and then having a fun dinner together. Overall it was a really fun day of getting to build community and making new friends, even though it wasn’t quite the day we were hoping to experience. Here’s to next year, may the apples be juicy, the weather be sunny, and the caravan leave early!

My friend Jordan decided to model the pumpkins for us…

Glorious foliage everywhere!



Here’s a couple shots from my Instagram:



Me and my sweet friend Jenny – aren’t her eyes amazing!?

Something Yummy For Your Day

We had another gorgeous day today!  After I got home I was immediately torn between being really hungry and wanting to get out and enjoy the weather with a walk. I decided to walk first since I knew the light would be gone by the time I was done eating. The sky was an amazing juxtaposition of perfect blue and puffy white clouds on one side and rolling gray storm clouds on the other.  I loved that this gray cloud looked like it was scuttling itself through the blue sky to the other side where it belonged.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow…

Upon returning from the walk I decided to make myself a burger since I had been craving one since smelling someone grilling out this afternoon on my lunch break. Isn’t it funny what an immediate impression a smell can make on us? It can conjur up a memory, start our mouths watering, or our stomachs turning, or our imaginations reeling with one whiff. I give you the Upside Down Cheeseburger Salad. It was tasty!

Story of My Life: Delicious Light

There are days when I could just eat the light it looks so delicious. Today was one of those days. I tried to capture a taste of it for you but I’m not sure how successful I was. I’m not necessarily looking forward to the heat and humidity coming but the light, ah the light, can hardly come soon enough. I’ve been soaking as much of it up as possible, eating lunches, and even dinner tonight, outside. I think that sometimes I’m a nerd about light. I was trying to challenge myself tonight to really get what I see onto my lens. I don’t think I quite accomplished it but it’s closer than ever before. 🙂 Enjoy!

This is probably my favorite.

Story of My Life: Shadow Play

Have you ever noticed the way a shadow can make something look much larger than it actually is, or add another dimension of depth? Or the texture that a shadow from one object can layer over another object? I’ve been a bit fascinated by shadows recently and trying to capture them in a way that shows how interesting they are. Today I was searching for something, anything, the least bit interesting to take a picture of, a way to portray a homebody laundry day as something that someone else would want to look at.  This is about as far as I got.

I was so excited when my roomie Raquelle popped in the side door to the laundry room and started chatting with me. The shadow from the blinds across her face was so extraordinary! If I allowed myself to live with regrets, the moments I would wish to change are not the ones where I stepped out but rather the ones where I allowed a lack of boldness or a fear of asking hold me back. This was not going to be one of those times. 🙂

Appreciating and noticing moments like this are what make my life amazing, even on homebody laundry days. Creativity is not just the ability to capture, but the ability to see.

Story of My Life: Brunch

This morning I got up having finally (after borrowing my neighbor’s rolling pin) gathered all of the materials to make a biscuit mix that Joe & Meg gave me when I was in Cinci a couple of weeks ago. It called for both heavy cream and half and half, both dairy products that I do not regularly keep on hand. I purchased little baby containers of them at the store over the last two weeks and at last, it’s biscuit time!

The box had a recipe for cinnamon rolls as well as biscuits so I split the dough and made half biscuits and half cinnamon rolls! I’m excited to see how they turn out! 🙂

Someone gave me some yummy venison sausage last week, far less gamey than most venison I’ve had before, and I fried those up too. Brunch is on!

Cinnamon rolls just came out of the oven right as I finished this! They sure look good! 🙂