It’s Gonna be May

30/04/2015

Photo by Matt Lien

I tend to think of May as my year marker. I was born in May, so that makes sense. And of course some other stuff happened in May. So now I can measure the years of my life, and the years of my marriage by the same convention. Handy! In the last 12 months, I had more personal growth than ever before. The me from a year ago would probably admire this me now. And there were so many significant things that I didn’t even talk about on here. Well let’s fix that now shall we?

I got married to my favorite person in the world, and we went and saw some really cool shit.
In September I had an eye-opening experience with the outdoors and my photography hobby in the Upper Peninsula for my sister-in-law’s wedding.
In December, I bought a car. One for an adult!
I got a second job in February. An extremely exciting one. A year ago I was on a performance plan at work (i.e. on the chopping block) and super strapped for cash. These 12 months have seen me grow into a person who’s not only capable, but excels at her jobs (and makes sick ca$h money).
I got a TATTOO (which I will absolutely be talking about on here soon).
My parents and I and all of our coworkers left the historic Star Tribune building for a bright and shiny new offie, and it was sad.
I got my new camera which feels like a thousand opportunities every time I hold it.

On the not as sunny side, my depression was really bad a lot of the time. As of now, I haven’t really had a meltdown in a good long time, and now that I’m exercising regularly and eating healthily, hopefully it will go a long way. Depression has always been something that I liked about myself, because I thought it made me special. But it’s such a shitty way to go through life, and I want to get better.

What will my 28th year bring? Well, I’ve got a thousand adventures I want to embark on, including one really huge one. And you’ll always know, because I love this blog and I want it to grow. Happy May!

Walk 2

29/04/2015

I took a walk on Monday night before Alan got home, though it was really more of a photo hike. Minnehaha creek is lined by a paved parkway (on some sides) for both bikes and pedestrians. I’ve lived by it my whole life and every time I walk along it, it’s a calm, satisfying feeling. Especially in the evening. Especially. Plus, it’s like a little fairy forest! I used the handy MapMyWalk app which let me know it took 90 minutes to walk 3 miles. I took the same walk last night and it was half that time. Probably because of no camera. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

See? Fairy forest. It was a perfect spring evening, and I was nostalgic for this time alone in nature as soon as it was over.

See Walk 1.

Walk 1

28/04/2015

In the newest edition of “Caroline Tries to be Healthy for a Little While” (see previous editions here, here, and here), I’ve been taking lots of walks, in addition to going to the gym like every day (except for Saturday and Sunday, when I took extra long walks). I have expressed many desires many times to simply be healthy and to eat well, and part is going fine, but I’m also feeling very impatient and want to lose weight, like, now. I don’t only want to lose weight, but I want to be strong too. I want to lift shit. Anyway, I feel good about this momentum, and I will write more about that on a later blog.

In the meantime, I’ll share some photos from Sunday night’s walk, which we took in favor of forgoing Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley (I know! Why?) .

I’m enjoying the VSCO presets on these. These look like a perfect spring evening to me. A little hazy, balmy, and peaceful.

Saturday at Grumpys

25/04/2015

Today was insanely packed. We got up, made breakfast, and took an 8 mile walk from our house up around Lake Harriet and back, then rewarded ourselves with burgers and beers at Blue Door Pub and then went to see some of our friends play at Grumpy’s NE. Needless to say, we are beat.

It was a fun day out with the new camera, which is just so great. It’s the greatest camera. I love it so much. It is my baby. And I was excited to use some VSCO presets in Lightroom as well, which made the processing process easy breezy.

And can I just mention how much I love the multiple exposure feature.

It was fun to do some band photography outdoors. The white tent was challenging. Without processing software I’d be worthless. By the way, if your band wants some photos, let me know. Because I’m a professional now.

Dreaming and Scheming

24/04/2015

Happy Friday! I’m having one, at least. VSCO, which I’ve been coveting for a long time, offered some free presets this week and I’m in the middle of a trial run of Adobe Lightroom CC so I was like “Hell yeah.” I use a few of the filters on photos I took at Lake Harriet last week when I first got my camera. And I am so, so pleased.

I love the soft analog feel some of these have. You might be thinking “But wait, why did you just spend $2000 on camera equipment only to have your photos look like they were taken with grainy film?” And to that I say “Shut your goddamn mouth.”

The new camera can take multiple exposures too, so it really is like film in many regards. It makes me a little regretful though, as I’ve laid out a bunch of cash over the last couple years on actual analog photography. The cost and unreliability of it sort of soured me though. Not that I will get rid of my cameras, but it’s likely they’ll be used less often.

If YOU have Lightroom, and want to have some fun, I definitely recommend downloading the free starter pack.

Another reason I’m so excited about this new development (hahahahahaha) is because Alan and I are going to Atlanta in a couple weeks (my birthday weekend ;-*) for the Shaky Knees Festival. This will be the first time for either of us to be going to multiple days in a music festival. There have definitely been many where we just hit up one day, like Riot Fest a couple years back, or our own Rock the Garden, I went to Lollapalooza once for one day, etc… Anyway, the lineup is pretty exciting.

Except for Sunday, which I’m not so much about. Alan suggested we try to find some museums or state parks around the area instead, because let’s be honest, we might never go to Georgia again. After a little research, and to my great joy, I discovered the Appalachian Trail begins in Georgia, a couple hours outside of Atlanta. I’ve expressed a desire many times in the last year that I want to get into the outdoors more, and see more parks and forests, and I can’t imagine a better opportunity on this trip than to do some hiking in the Appalachians. Of course, the trail we’d actually be on is the AT Approach Trail. But, we’ll reach the Southern Terminus of the trail, and it’s like 8 miles to get there, so like… That would just be a ton of walking. It sounds super hard, and this opens this whole can of worms where I know I’ll want my camera there (and, this actually necessitated the purchase of the Klettersack), and we need to train some.

Still, this was, for the longest time, a trip to a city we had little interest in to do a 3 day music fest, and now has turned into a music festival, plus an exciting hike on a legendary trail. Shit!