This month [like a bunch of bloggers], i’ve been doing the photo a day challenge from Fatmumslim.com. Although, I haven’t been doing one a day–instead a bunch at a time on the weekends when I can take photos in the daylight. Maybe at some point I’ll really do a photo per day challenge, but for this I wanted to use my SLR instead of my phone’s camera. This will definitely be easier in the summer when there’s more hours of natural light! Here’s some of my favorites, you can see the rest on my Flickr if you’d like!

↑ Close-up

↑ Something you’re reading

↑ Breakfast

↑ Something you wore

↑ Daily routine

↑ Childhood

Are you participating in a photo challenge this month? I’d love to see :) Part 2 coming soon.

Hope everyone had a rad holiday weekend! Sitting at the table after dinner on Christmas Eve, I was thinking about how the night felt like it was in fast forward motion..it didn’t feel like I got to really take it all in! Maybe it’s partially because I can’t get out of the habit of always wrapping all of my gifts on Xmas eve..haha. Yep, I am a major procrastinator.

A couple weeks ago I put some twinkle lights up in my room. I just draped them over my curtain rods, &– BAM! instant pretty. I love them so much I might end up leaving them up all winter..it brightens up the room so much & lots of lights make me really happy during the blue winter months.

My brother and I used to make sugar cookies every year around the holidays with my mom..we haven’t in the last couple years & I definitely miss it. The first and only time I made vegan sugar cookies the results were less than yummy. The boyfriend and I found a much better recipe and made some super good ones this time around!

Almost all of my mother’s side of the family was there. Here’s two of my cousins & my brother [who I don't get to see enough]

I came back to New York refreshed and super inspired. When there was some quiet time, I worked on a couple design things & a website i’ve been a bit stuck on! Felt so good. The ridiculously warm weather definitely helped, too. ♥

I got this camera a long while back [A lomography Actionsampler], well before I had an SLR. It has multiple lenses & takes four consecutive shots. I couldn’t get the camera to work, as in after the film was loaded and everything I would press the shutter and nothing happened. Bummer, I figured it was faulty or something so I forgot about the camera for awhile.

One day, I got a rush of motivation and I decided that I was going to show the hunk of plastic who was boss! I wanted awesome action-filled photos! Somehow, after I loaded the film that time and went to take a photo, a sound confirmed the shutter was working. I still have no idea what went wrong the first time, oh well.

These are some photos from the second roll i’ve shot with this camera, from this past weekend:

These tell a little story..

While walking around in front of my house hunting for some motion to capture, I accidently witnessed a car accident. [a strange one, too]

There were two kids on motorbikes on opposite sides of the road [you can't really see from the small photos], and I happened to take a photo of it. Right after I took my camera away from my face, the truck on the left was turning and one of the kids slammed into the side of his truck. The bizarre part–the kid was about ten years old, let out a groan, then got up & hopped on the back of the other kids dirtbike & rode away.

Dirtbike ditched in the road.

So, I guess you can never really know what you might be taking a picture of.

I’m a total newbie when it comes to toy cameras, the photos came out pretty grainy and blurry…and a bunch of them didn’t come out at all. Need to play around with it some more!

Long drives through pretty scenery

Hunting for pumpkins to carve

Scooby Doo has always been one of my favorite cartoons. My checks even feature Scooby and the gang which make me smile every time I have to pay a bill, heh. I was also very stoked that I got to wear my Velma outfit to work–we had a costume contest and pictures. It was a bit lonely walking around the office without my Shaggy, though!

Total cost of my costume: ~$10…Not too shabby, huh? Now to find a friend with a dog to give the box of scooby snacks to..sadly I don’t have a pup of my own..yet!

Things that made my smile lately:
listening to old voicemails . remembering to take my vitamins and feeling awesome . winning raffles . rolling the car windows down to take photos . passing my skills test for roller derby . long island kids . eating lots of sushi . new music that fits my mood . having the house to myself .

How was your Hallow’een? What did you dress up as? ♥

Something you probably don’t know about me: I’m in a long distance relationship. Well sort of.. the boyfriend lives a state away when he’s going to school, and we see each other almost every weekend. Anywho, it just so happens that our favorite pizza joint is the halfway point between us…an hour away from each of us. So I took a drive to the west end of Long Island, we grabbed a pizza & set up camp in a nearby park. And we had ourselves a little picnic date.

I got Matt a portable record player over the summer, and he brought it along for some tunage. I was totally feelin’ my polaroid camera that day [probably because the weather was perfect] so I brought that with me & some records. I love the fact that since the film is old it results in neat color effects. I adore polaroids but the major downside is the film being so expensive…hence my lusting for an Instax camera!

I forsee us using the record player outside a whole bunch…time to squeeze in some more picnics & road trips before it starts to get chilly out ♥

Saturday was spent doing many stereotypical fall things: Apple picking, making an apple pie, and drinking hard cider. Also, making pumpkin spice lattes..yumm. I pretty much never took off the same hoodie all weekend. I was in total autumn mode. Summer is my favorite season but i’m actually really excited for it to get chilly out!

The apple in this photo was a teeny tiny one we found. I loved how the orchard we went to had a ‘sin bin’ to put money in if you ate some of the apples! hah let’s just say I took advantage of that ;)

Diner food & up and driving early enough to see the sunrise. Watching the sun come up made me realize how great it feels to be up early and have extra time in the morning before work. Something I definitely need to work on!

Things that made me smile lately:
watching episode after episode of freaks & geeks . setting realistic goals . getting on the front page of bloggers.com . making progress with songwriting . getting rid of boxes of things for a yard sale . keeping track of finances . dyeing my hair . new tattoos . seeing one of my favorite bands ever ♥

I loved the colored lights separating the sections.

The knight on the far right is the Green night..which we got to root for. He’s the best looking one, am I right? ;) Afterwords we goofed around and took some pictures with him.

They were serving dinner throughout the show, this is the vegetarian option. Also there was super yummy tomato soup..I don’t even like tomato soup but it was excellent. We were laughing about the whole onion on the kebab!

The best part was when each knight was throwing flowers into the stands of their section..they would throw three flowers then one large one. He gave the big flower to me and I totally swooned :]

The trip to medieval times was pretty much the last of my summer adventures..and a great way to end it ♥ What did you do to say farewell to the season?

Hope everyone in the states had a lovely holiday! We did the usual of barbecuing & swimming, and then watched an extra long fireworks show. I had my DSLR camera with me and grabbed it while watching the fireworks. I used a long exposure setting so it wasn’t easy to get the right shot when it happened! I wanted to change it up so I took a bunch of blurred shots which resulted in neat circles and light effects:

These reminded me of those light textures you can download and overlay on your photos for different effects. Here’s one of them I used subtly on a photo of berries I took (original photo):

This past weekend I spent a bit of time in Asbury Park, New Jersey. I had never been in the Jersey Shore area before & I love going to places i’ve never been, even if it’s just a state or two away. My lovely boyfriend and I took a mini road trip and we spent a few hours exploring.

I must have said at least fifty times, “This is so cute!” I’m not exaggerating…so many things about the town was adorable wether it was the art, retro shops, or old buildings. There was a group of stores that were right up our alley & we wanted to go in so bad, but it was around five so they were closed. Big bummer, but we plan on going back. A lot of signage was really beautifully designed & I was totally geeking out. The area had this whole run-down vintage feel, which i’m kind of a sucker for.

It was a bit windy and cloudy out but thankfully gorgeous out. We found this cute and delicious pizza place/bakery before heading back to Long Island. ♥