Bye Bye Fuji..

My camera sold on ebay last night!!! So that helps, at least a little, with the cost of my new camera!! I'm so excited!!! Also kinda nervous, is that weird? This means I should be able to get it sooner than I was originally planning - assuming I don't have to overnight anymore $150 text books. Ahem. YAY! :)

So now.. if anybody who knows anything about photography & has a DSLR has any suggestions for a good camera, please comment or e-mail me and let me know!! I have an idea of what I want, but I'm open to suggestions because this will be my first DSLR. I'm definitely a beginner. I've had one photography class and it was in high school. So I have a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of experience, but not much. I'm a quick learner though but I don't want something that I'm not going to be able to learn to use relatively quickly because then I'll just get frustrated and mad that I spent so much money on a camera. It's probably going to kill me as it is, but that's why I'm not buying it until I actually have the money - not putting it on credit! Anyway... so let me know what you have, how you like it, what you'd recommend for a beginner, etc.

Ready, GO!

Really I'm just procrastinating but I wanted to let y'all know that...

You should be so proud of me.
I hate making decisions.
Anyone who knows me, knows that.
But I did.

I've decided that I'm just going to start going to the gym. I'm just going to do it! Even if I don't have a workout buddy! At Union I usually just went by myself anyway. I like having a workout buddy, but I typically just run with my ipod anyway, so... oh well. I'm planning to go check it out and join as long as it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. That being said, if anyone ever wants to accompany me, PLEASE DO! Just let me know. I'm just not going to let myself give into the excuse of not having anyone to go with me anymore..

I would go check out the gym today but I have this monkey on my back called the take-home test that I need to get rid of before I will let myself go. This may sound like an excuse not to go to the gym, but trust me, I would MUCH rather work out than do this test. I love working out. I hate taking tests. I also hate spending money, especially on books. If you follow me on twitter you probably know that I had to order this dang text book in order to do this dang test and it cost me almost $150. I had to have it shipped overnight. I'm not bitter. Nope.

Whatever. I just better get an A+.

So yeah. I am hoping to get most of that done tonight and tomorrow while I babysit, and then tomorrow afternoon I can go to the gym! If not, then maybe this weekend, or for sure on Monday after school since I have all afternoon free and the test will be finished & turned in! I really miss going to the gym. I can't wait to get back into it! Running with Tobey is good... but the gym will be even better!

I'm also still working on getting a little "photography blog" set up, that way I can post all the pictures I take for other people in one spot, especially once I get my new camera! It's coming along pretty well... at least for the temporary version. I'm just trying to get all the pictures I've taken so far up. Hopefully it'll be ready soon!

Ok, I'm done procrastinating... off to start my test!

Or take a nap.

Loved or Spoiled?

Have I mentioned that I have a dog named Tobey?

He doesn't think he's a dog. He think he's the boss.

When I moved to Tennessee for 2 years, my mom completely spoiled him. Completely.

Have I mentioned that he eats his meals fed by hand, one piece at a time?

I'm not even joking. He eats the majority of his meals this way.

I finally decided to take some pictures & video of it, because no one believes me.

Occasionally he will eat his food off the floor {because I won't sit there and feed it to him}, but if my mom's around and she sits his food on the floor, he just stares at it like, What are you doing, woman? Feed me my dinner!

He's a little demanding at times, but he's cute, so we keep him.

Brain Food

Since I have a big exam tomorrow {1st one for this particular class} and I want to procrastinate studying longer have some awesome "brain food" to help me study better, I decided to make some banana pudding! What's better brain food than bananas?!

It's super easy to make and totally delicious! There are several different ways to make it but here's what I did...

You need:

• 1 large package of cook & serve vanilla pudding {not instant}
• 3 C of milk
• vanilla wafers {I am using "mini's" in an effort to get more in each bite!}
• bananas {I used 2 and a half}
• fat free cool whip {for fewer calories! ;-)}
• I usually have one more ingredient, but I'm out of it. It's Beth's "secret ingredient"... not sure if she wants me to post it! haha

Prepare pudding as directed. Put a layer of bananas and vanilla wafers in the bottom of the container. Pour in about half of the pudding and add some cool whip if you want. Then add another layer of bananas and vanilla wafers, and add the rest of the pudding. I put a few more bananas on top for good measure. Cover with cool whip. Chill, serve, and enjoy!

Quick & delicious.. my favorite kind of food! :) Enjoy! Mmm!

Edited to add: Nearly just as good without the "secret ingredient!" Also, I made this barely 4 hours ago and it's almost half gone. Granted, it is a fairly small container, but we sure do like some banana puddin' around here. :)

A case of the Mondays?

I think I really need this shirt.

Today hasn't been the best of days. Not the worst by any means, just not overall great. One of those "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong" days. After going for a good run* around the neighborhood with Tobey, a salad, and some sweet tea I am feeling better than I was earlier. A chocolate cupcake with my name on it and a date with Jack Bauer should finish off the night perfectly.

Here's hoping tomorrow is better! :)

*by run, I really mean we stopped at every other mailbox, stop sign, & fire hydrant so Tobey could let the rest of the neighborhood's dog population know he owns the block. He's not always the most consistent runner, but he's cute so I keep taking him.

Pink Dress

Yesterday I went up to Indianapolis to go bridesmaid dress shopping with the girls in my brother's wedding. I was originally planning to go up on Saturday night and spend the night but I was moving rather slowly all day because I didn't feel too great. By the time I finally got showered, dressed, and all packed up, it was snowing pretty hard and was already kinda late so I decided to just wait til morning. Luckily, by then I felt a little better and the roads were clear, so my Sunday morning drive was a breeze.

Dress shopping was completely successful! We all tried on several different styles to find one that everyone felt comfortable in. This is the dress we decided on:

The short sleeveless Jersey Dress with center front ruching and charmeuse bands.

This is the color I'll be wearing. The Maid of Honor will be in a lighter pink. When it was just hanging on the hanger, none of us really liked it. But once we put it on, it was like a whole different dress! It's super comfy, too! Several of the dresses we tried on, you could hardly breathe/move in. The 2nd runner up was the sleeveless dress I posted before {option 2}, but the material of it was basically cotton {they call it sateen but it's just cotton} and wrinkled super easy! This dress won't wrinkle at all! Plus with the neckline, we don't have to worry about getting necklaces either.

And all of that only took an hour and a half.

Tried them on, picked the colors, and paid for them.

In an hour and a half.

That is GOOD for us!

Jamie also tried on her wedding dress for us all to see.

Eric might fall over when he sees her. She's going to be a beautiful bride!

Then we went next door to JoAnne's and cleaned out all of their pink flowers.

Good day as far as wedding planning/shopping goes.

Happy Monday! :)

"It's after midnight...the calories are asleep!"

Last night {@ around midnight!} Kim, Moses, and I made delicious chocolate cupcakes! Sadly, they weren't from scratch but I must say they are some of the most delicious cupcakes I've ever had! Seriously. They are SO.GOOD. And I don't even usually like that much chocolate together.

All that's needed for a midnight cupcake party is:

• good friends
• chocolate cake mix {or whatever flavor}
• milk chocolate frosting
• eggs, water, vegetable oil
• whipped creme icing {for colorful icing for decorating}
• prepare as directed
• ENJOY!

Also.. you should jam to this video while baking the cupcakes! :)

Hope everyone is having a great Saturday!

Cold & Sunny {lazy day #2}

The sun was shining today, but it was still too cold to do much outside {I don't like running outside unless it is at least 40 degrees... the cold air hurts my lungs and I still haven't talked myself into purchasing a gym membership}. I can't wait for spring to get here so I can go outside and do fun things. Like plant flowers and play at the park. I feel like I get so much more accomplished when the weather is nice. The sun makes me happy :)

I've also missed babysitting this week because I feel like I get more accomplished when I'm already out doing stuff. Since I've had two days to just stay at home I haven't been motivated to get much done except eat cookies. I guess part of that's because I don't have a lot that needs to be done right now anyway, so it's not like I've really been slacking. I just feel like I have.

Anyway... cupcake party tonight at midnight! :)

Fun stuff. More later!

TGIF!

Lazy Day :)

Since I've been off this week {just from babysitting, not from school}, combined with the 30-ish degree weather today after the 60 degree weather yesterday, the Tobster and I spent the day at home.

Today I've organized lots of pictures... in real life and on the computer. I saved all 7,604 pictures from my picture website onto an external hard drive {thanks Beth... this thing is huge! It has more space than my computer! I was worried that saving ALL of those pictures onto my external HD would take up the majority of the space... but it only took up a little over 1GB.... 1 GB out of almost 300! Shows how much I know! haha}

So now that chore is done! I've also been trying to organize the craft room for the impending renovation! We are hoping to start on that this weekend. Yay!

And other than that, this is what a perfectly lazy & chilly day around here consists of...

Hot chocolate & 24 season 1.

I probably shouldn't mention that all the Mouse Cookies I made 2 days ago are GONE! And Mom only helped a little....

A good day :)

Happy Thursday, friends!

Mouse Cookies!!

I had the day off with Tobey today, so we've been busy running errands and just running in general! He loves going to the bank with me because they always give him a milkbone. Anyway, after we went for our morning run, I did the next logical thing...

I made my favorite cookies from "scratch" today.. and by "scratch" I mean with the help of my good friend, Betty Crocker. She sure does make some good recipes, doesn't she?!

If you like chocolate and peanut butter, I suggest trying out these cookies!

In my circle of friends, they are nicknamed "Mouse Cookies" because a couple years ago we made them, and the next morning discovered that a mouse had helped himself to a bite out of one of the cookies! So they've been known as "Mouse Cookies" ever since! However, calling them Mouse Cookies does not make them any more delicious.... but you should try them for yourself!

They are super delicious and QUICK to make! You'll have delicious cookies in 30 minutes - start to finish! All you need is:

• Chocolate Peanut Butter cookie mix
• 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp of water

{the ingredients needed are on the back of the bag}

then mix & bake for 10 minutes!

Pour a glass of milk & Enjoy!!

Christmas on Valentine's Day

♥ Hope everyone had a fantastic love-filled Valentine's Day! ♥

Our's was spent en route to and in Bloomington for just a one night visit! Cousin is moving a bazillion {or 4-ish} hours away at the beginning of March, so we went to see her before she moves. Not to mention, we hadn't even celebrated Christmas with them yet! {February is better than the usual July or August, though!}

Of course, no car trip is complete without Valentine's Day candy to go straight to the hips!

And a little back seat rider!

The candy was gone before we even left town.

The dog was asleep approximately 8 minutes after we left.

Mom and I spent the two hour drive jamming to everything from Taylor Swift to Robert Plant & Alison Krause's Please Read the Letter and everything in between.

A good trip it was.

As I mentioned, we exchanged Christmas gifts. Cousin gave me this awesome bucket:

It's a paint can and she decorated it herself and it was filled with gifts! I thought it was a pretty neat idea! The contents included a beautiful scarf and matching beanie, as well as stamps and an ink pad! How did Cousin know I am beginning to expand my stamp collection?! Ever since I took on card making {you know... a whole week ago!} I have been eyeing all of Kim and Melody's awesome stamps. So thanks, Cousin, for starting my collection!

Then we made the necessary a trip to Target where I found all of these:

IN THE DOLLAR SECTION!

I love Target's dollar section, and I had no idea they had so much scrapbooking stuff for just $1. There was so much more I wanted to get but I quickly racked my bill up to almost $20 and I decided that was too much. Most of it was ribbon, which I haven't even ever really tried to use in my scrapbooks. So I settled for 3 different packs of ribbons {2 of them have 6 different kinds, and the other had 3, so I ended up with 15 different kinds of ribbons} to try it out.

In other news, Cousin has asked me to take her wedding pictures which makes the 2nd wedding I'll photograph in 2009 {unless she gets married in 2010 since they haven't set a date}. SO I am really considering purchasing a DSLR soon. Hope is getting married in June, and I'd like to get the camera a little while before her wedding so I can have some time to really learn it and get comfortable with it before I take her wedding pictures. So I'll probably be selling my "advanced digital camera" soon to help with the cost at least a little bit. I think it will definitely be worth it though because it's something I've been wanting to do for awhile now anyway, and if people are going to pay me to take pictures for them, I want to be able to give them the best pictures possible.

I'm pretty excited about it!!

Old stompin' grounds...

I hope this link still works!

{please let me know if you are reading this!}

I have temporarily moved back to blogger. I'm in the midst of starting up a photography portfolio website/blog {more on that later} as well as a new & improved general blog. Both will probably be a work in progress for a little while because I'm still learning :) but hopefully they'll be up soon!

I put up a simple flowery header here though, because I love the colors and I am SO ready for spring!!! :)

Anyway... you should still be able to get to the blog from http://www.thatlynngirl.com/.. so I'm hoping everyone can still read it... if I haven't heard from anyone in a few days, I guess that'll answer my question!

Love, Candy, and Christmas

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know it's actually tomorrow, but I woke up this morning to find this:

How thoughtful of my pets to buy me some Valentine's candy!

Candy hearts; 2 boxes, one from Obie and one from Zeke {the turtles} and a dog-shaped piece of chocolate from Tobey, and just what I needed from Mom....

Lots of calories!!! Lots of delicious calories!

Mia was wearing a cute little Valentine shirt that said "LOVE" on it, but I forgot to get a picture of it. She's still super cute though!

Tomorrow we are taking the little brown noser up to Bloomington to finally have Christmas with my favoritest COUSIN!!!! Can't wait!

I'll leave you with this.... I took this video this morning and I think it's hilarious!

Not again...

Look what's coming today!! It's called damaging winds/bad thunderstorms. Now, I'm all for a good thunderstorm. I love 'em. But damaging winds?

Been there and done that.

And now I'm not such a fan of it. I like the safe thunderstorms where I can fall asleep listening to the rain, the lights don't so much as flicker, and it gives me the perfect excuse to stay inside and watch movies....

...not the potentially damaging kind.