Photo Op: End of the Tunnel

Here’s a fun pic I took during a family road trip.

Photo Op: Chaotic

Here’s a pic I took on the way to the beach for Christmas Vacation.

It was one of those “desperate shots” where I’m leaning as far backwards as possible from the passenger seat and holding my phone as still and uncomfortably as possible in hopes of getting a good shot. I got a few good shots, but this wasn’t one of them 🙂 I still wanted to post it up however as a reminder of the chaotic days before the holidays swoop in. If we let them, the “forests” of life can crowd our point of view and rob us of seeing the beautiful sunset. Fortunately, I got a bunch of great sunset photos, and was really able to enjoy my winter vacation. I hope you all had an awesome end to December! Oh, and Happy New Year once again!

So tell me, what did you do for the holidays?

 

 

 

Photo Op: Winter Berries

Hey all!

It has undoubtedly been a while since I’ve posted (about a week or so.) Sadly, I find myself joining the hundreds of bloggers who start their posts off the same way – noting how long it’s been since they’ve posted. But I have a very good excuse! I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my winter break. Okay so that’s not the best excuse, and it certainly does not let me off the hook, but at least it’s something. You may not be hearing from me in a while since I’m going out of town next week, but I’ll do my best to gather plenty of pics for the new year. All this to say, for the rest of the calendar year, my posts will be few and far between. Once 2013 rolls in, so will my plethora of posts!

In completely unrelated news, at this time next week, it’ll be Christmas! 🙂

Anyone have plans for the holidays?

Photo Op: Foliage Rain

It feels like late summer/early fall outside, and if my calendar’s correct, it’s December! I’m not complaining though. I love leaving the house without a jacket on. My only wish in terms of weather is that I have a white Christmas 🙂

Birthday Time!

It really doesn’t feel like it but…I’ve done it. I’ve kept up this blog for a year! On this day, a year ago, I decided to invest my energy into posting randomness on my very own internet abode.

Here’s where things get mushy. You can either groan and scroll down to the pic of the day or wade through a mini documentary of my twelve month excursion. Pic your poison. See what I did there? I spelled the word pick like… oh never mind. It really wasn’t that clever.

I originally created this blog with no intention of anything amazing. I had no goal, no angle to work with, and no blog title. I gawked at the empty “name your blog” box for a good twenty minutes till I made up Novice Journal off the top of my head. I figured if anyone ever accidentally clicks on my blog, they’ll know up front that I’m no professional. Fortunately for me, the name caught on well. But don’t be misled, dear reader. This wasn’t my first stab at a blog. I had started and neglected three other very unsuccessful blogs. They were starved of focus, will, and inspiration that many readers saw upfront and fled from. I’m ashamed to admit it but I fled too. Those blogs are now in a very dark place, never to be seen again. So you can guess at how confident I was in Novice Journal taking off.

With the encouragement of my awesome family, I tried my best to put up a daily post and do a few other things (link tips post here). My twin sister helped me by taking a whack at wading through a bunch of fascinating blogs in the wordpress universe. Without her, I would have certainly NOT made it this far. Who knew a pinch of will and an incredible support team could get a (scratch this part out) completely lost (un-scratch) novice blogger over 900 followers and close to 300 posts in one year?

So thanks to everyone who’s helped me along these first twelve months! Thanks for the incredible and slightly overwhelming number of bloggers leaving encouraging comments in my Get to Know Me Page. Thank you to every person who’s participated in my crazy games. Thanks to those of you who check in everyday; even on the days I fail to post. Thanks to all of you who have commented on my pics and “liked” them. There’s no way Novice Journal would be here without you.

See? I told you it’d get mushy. But not unbearably so, right?

If you just scrolled down to this part – I dare you to go back up and read what I wrote. It’ll do you good 😉

As promised, the pic of the day:     

 

Photo Op: Cracked

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you all have a great weekend 🙂

Likes N’ Dislikes

I have once again found myself unable to access any photos… 😦

No photos today 😦 (Photo credit: Leo Reynolds)

While browsing the web to get a few important things done, I came across a web page where people had posted their likes and dislikes. There didn’t seem to be a specific reason for it, but it was a fun idea. And so now, I’ll do it here too. Feel free to join in! It’ll only take a few seconds – I promise 🙂

Likes:

The word onomatopoeia and onomatopoetic                                            Macro shot photos

Overwhelming snow                                                                               Knee-high boots

Rottweilers                                                                                             Falling asleep outside under the sun

When people answer the question, “How are you?”                                    Rain

Batman                                                                                                  People who acknowledge that you just waved at them

Peanut Butter Cookies                                                                             Good lyrics put to an awesome backtrack

Apple sauce                                                                                            Games with 101 things to think about (yay complex!)

Dislikes:

Nails on a chalkboard ugghh!                                                                       Being late!

Watching people eat really strange “used-to-be-living” foods                        Superman

Polka music (it’s an acquired taste)                                                             Walking around the house with my shoes on

Thick socks                                                                                             Mushrooms

Soggy pancakes                                                                                       Soap Operas (another acquired taste)

Nail Biting                                                                                              Snowless Christmases

Again, I’d love to hear you guy’s likes and dislikes! I’m praying my pics will be back up tomorrow!

Photo Op: Giving In to the New

While on a walk around the neighborhood, I came across a tree that was split in half by color. The top half was lemon-yellow, and the bottom half was still green. It’s so cool to see how the leaves change color so gradually, and how each tree has it’s own pattern. I angled this shot by standing under the tree, to show how “change” was in the background, and so the title “Giving In to the New” seemed appropriate. Enjoy!

Cutting Up Magazines is Much More Entertaining than I Thought!

Have you ever made a vision board? They’re pretty fun to do. All you need is a piece of paper, some old magazines, tape, and scissors. Cut out things that you either want to attain one day or things that inspire you and then get creative as you tape them to your paper! I spent a huge chunk of yesterday working on mine, so that’s why no post went up. I ended up making three of them! One was of short term goals, another was of long term goals, and the last was a random one of things that make me happy and motivate me to keep doing my best. Here is a pic of the third one:

I encourage those of you who love to create to do one! They’re a lot of fun – especially when done in the company of others working on their own. 🙂 Sorry for the slight blur!

What’s a fun project that you’ve worked on?

Have a great day everyone!

 

When Time Works Against You…

Hey all!

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to post anything yesterday, time and circumstances paired up to work against me. My computer stopped working, and my hundreds of photos refused to load. So I was left without any pictures to post. And then before I had a chance to work at retrieving my photos once more, life got really busy…and well you get the point. I know, excuses, excuses. Since I have absolutely nothing planned outside of the picture I was supposed to have up, I’ll leave you with this quote I found inspiring 🙂

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

The Passage of Time (Photo credit: ToniVC)