Running Home

Chalk the Walk

2011-04-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

The application is in! Megan Cannon and I are all signed up for this year's

Yay! So excited!

Come out and see us May 7-8th from 10am-6pm in Mount Vernon!

i ♥ faces - a slice of life

2011-03-27T00:12:00.000-05:00

Here it is - a slice of Haitian life. I'll keep this short and simple: the river on Saturday morning. Laundry day, wash day, work day --> just a piece of life in Pignon.

Fix it Friday #90

2011-03-11T12:10:00.000-06:00

Original (Michelle Johnson)

My edit in GIMP:

I had never tried an over-exposed black and white before and thought this would be a good opportunity.

I would very much appreciate hints/tips/criticism on how my first shot at it went.

Auto white balance

Duplicate

Top layer (Addition)

Color Balance: Red +10, Green -10, Blue -20

Output level: black -23

Background:

Saturation -30

Brightness -40

Flatten Image

Desaturate (average)

Value Curve (201,178)

Brightness -9

Levels: Input Center 1.14

Fix it Friday #89

2011-03-04T15:12:00.001-06:00

Fix it Friday strikes again:

Original (courtesy of Dana Suggs)

And mine:

Steps in GIMP

Auto white balance

Crop

Desaturate for luminosity

Brightness -20

Contrast +10

Unsharp mask

Dodge tool on eyes

Colorize (Hue 141, Saturation 10)

i ♥ {anything but} faces

2011-02-27T21:55:00.000-06:00

I heart faces this week is "Anything but Faces" - so here's my entry:

This is from one of the ISU games this fall. Fingers crossed for the POT! :)

For more heads, shoulders knees and toes click the camera

Fix it Friday #88

2011-02-25T12:51:00.000-06:00

I'm realizing just how much I love directed design - here's a picture, edit it; here's the details of our event, make a poster (gotta love having a fiancé on the CRU outreach team) etc. So with no further ado, here's fix it friday #88.

Original {Angie Arthur Photography}

And my edit in GIMP

Check out more edits

Fix it Friday

2011-02-18T11:55:00.000-06:00

Wow - haven't done this in a while!
Anyway, here is our lovely original photo by Andrea Riley (thanks!)

And here's my final edit

The Julie Project

2011-02-16T14:00:00.001-06:00

I never really know how to explain to non-visual people why I love photography so much. I'm a visual learner and along with that, a visual rememberer, a true believer that a picture is worth a thousand words. But what do you tell those people who see a picture and don't see the point? Well today, I found it. Kelly at Willette shared a link to another photog's site. Darcy Padilla is a documentary photographer whose feature work is called The Julie Project:

"For the last 18 years I [Darcy] have photographed
Julie Baird’s complex story of multiple homes,
AIDS, drug abuse, abusive relationships, poverty,
births, deaths, loss and reunion. Following Julie
from the back-streets of San Francisco
to the backwoods of Alaska."

Go. Read Julie's story. Listen to her words. Understand that photography is not about taking a pretty picture. It is telling the story. It is preservation of a person, a life. The camera cannot lie.

Julie's story is not pretty. It is gritty, dirty, painful and raw. But it is true. It is now. It is Julie.

DISCLAIMER:

This is a story of drugs, poverty, abuse and dying. The photos are brutally honest. There is nudity, there are images of birth, there is drug use, and there is death.
Read at your own discretion.

i ♥ red

2011-02-14T08:35:00.001-06:00

This week's theme at iheartfaces is RED in honor of Go Red for Women.

Meet Krista. She's gorgeous. Inside and out. I worked with her at camp multiple summers and love her. Lots. :)

To see more oh so lovely red pictures, click the camera

I ♥ Faces - Hearts

2011-02-06T20:49:00.000-06:00

This is from our Campus Crusade for Christ Valentine's party this weekend. We made cakes at Julie's (in the picture) and took them out to a local assisted living home and celebrated with them. It was great to see the hearts of the people there, especially our contact there who helped us get to know the people and set up. She was so excited to have us there, and all it took was 2 hours and some cake --> challenge, get out there and show some love!

Check out more hearts at iheartfaces.com

I Heart Innocent Wonder

2011-01-22T20:38:00.001-06:00

Only one of the reasons I love him:

This is Mike and one of the girls from his church at a wedding this summer. I just LOVE the look on her face. She is just the sweetest - I met her that night and she told me she was sad I had to leave at the end of the night because I danced the YMCA with her :D THEN we went to church the next day and they brought their new puppy to show the other kids after the service - major cute overload!!

For more examples of innocent wonder click the camera

I heart Smiles!

2011-01-09T21:03:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to iheartfaces!! And we get to celebrate with SMILES!!

This is Janelle and Theresa, my two favorite-est non-biological little sisters :D

Click the camera for more :D SMILES :D

Best Face of 2010

2011-01-03T23:20:00.001-06:00

This week at iheartfaces is a special contest of our absolute best face photo of 2010. I think this one is my favorite because of the emotion it captures. You can only imagine what those beautiful young eyes have seen. It is from my day at a refugee camp in Haiti this March.

Click here to see other's favorite 2010 portraits - Mine is #655 to vote :D

My new pet rock :D

2010-12-11T22:04:00.002-06:00

Ok, so this probably doesn't really count as an animal picture, but I can't have pets while I live in the dorms :( So here it is, my BRAND NEW PET ROCK(s) :D :D :D

!!!!!!!!!!!I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!

He does such good work! I was allowed no input on this one - all Mike's choosing :D

We went out to Cafe Milo for lunch (one of our favorites - the spicy italian is fabulous!) and a movie and then he made me promise to play along for something fun, blindfolded me and drove me out to a park and asked me. The best part is in the initial plan - I've gotten pretty used to him taking my purity ring off that finger and playing with it while we watch movies, TV, etc. so he was planning on being all sly and switching the rings during the movie and making me freak out quietly... but then the movie was AWFUL so he had to work on the fly. But he still had both rings and had jokingly faked a proposal earlier, so when I was "playing along" I was completely planning to open my eyes, see my old ring and beat him up a little bit for getting my hopes up. Apparently that was pretty obvious when I opened my eyes to ^^this guy^^ because he could tell by my reaction :)

Now on to planning (I'm not gonna lie, I'm super excited for that too)

To do list:

Attempt to focus on finals this week : P

Get ring resized (it's like half a size too big- he was so close!)

Figure out a date

Continue to freak out that I'm ENGAGED!!

Click the camera to see some actual pets :D

New role.... TEMPLATE MAKER!!!

2010-12-08T22:13:00.001-06:00

So proud of myself tonight! In between study sessions for my lab practical tomorrow I taught myself how to make templates in Gimp!!! No internet tutorials or anything!! For example
This

Can become this-

Yay!! Can't wait to have actual time to do more with it!

Digital papers from http://freedigitalscrapbooking.com/

i ♥ faces - Self Portrait

2010-12-06T00:29:00.000-06:00

This is easily my favorite recent self-portrait. My camera was acting up and being ornery about how fast it took pictures, so I got to accidentally catch this moment between my boyfriend Mike and I. I love him like crazy, and I feel like I really captured, well us in this picture. :D
I would love to hear any comments; positive or negative about the entry or the new blog design (I was bored last week and redesigned). Have a wonderful day!

For more self-portrait entries click the camera:

Under Construction

2010-12-02T11:17:00.001-06:00

Please excuse the construction! I'll soon have the new design up and running. Any comments on preferences (old, new, recommendations for changes, etc.) would be greatly appreciated. I have both saved, so the other is still easy to get to.

5:21 Update - all done! thoughts?!?

i ♥ scenic b&w

2010-11-29T08:07:00.001-06:00

I do! I do! Landscapes are my favorite! That could be because I'm still learning about capturing good shots of faces, but I think it's mostly that it sits still enough for my camera to keep up with. :(
BTW - I am always open for comments AND constructive criticism. Can't get better without knowing what I'm doing wrong :)

Another from Haiti - I've been missing it a lot lately. Please continue praying for the people there.

There is still lots of poverty, pain and illness there.

Click the Camera for more black and whites!

i ♥ Orange

2010-11-08T10:20:00.000-06:00

Ok, we're getting warmer with orange (than pink that is). I didn't have to fight nearly as hard to find a good orange picture. This is Debbie - my best friend in high school - decked out for powderpuff our senior year. I love her intensity - she's was a beast of a lineman for us :D

Click the camera to see more Orange entries at iheartfaces

i ♥ Pink

2010-10-25T08:11:00.001-05:00

Okay, to tell you the truth, I don't really heart the color pink. I don't really own anything pink, I don't wear it. I'm more of a blues and greens kinda girl. Or cardinal and gold (go Cyclones!)... or purple and gold (go Vikings!) but never really pink. Even as a kid. But I do love what pink stands for this month. Campus is covered in Breast Cancer Awareness stuff, which is fabulous. For this week's challenge I had to go with one of my sister, Melissa - I had some fun with this one, gimp-ing the two shots I got of her getting ready for a wedding this summer. I love the contrast of "fine I'll take a picture" with the oh-so-real "would you stop bothering me so I can get ready?!?"

Love her so much :D

For more pink pictures click the camera

Fall pictures 2010

2010-10-10T22:30:00.001-05:00

A couple weeks ago I had time to walk around and take some pictures of the gorgeous leaves around campus that are all frozen and gone now -
Here's my favorite:

And a few others:

I'm updating for iheartphotos.com's Fall entry. Soon I'll have the season of FOOTBALL up on here, but they just aren't ready yet. Darn Monday's with THREE exams. Gross right??

Click the camera to check out more fall photos

Constructive Feedback Friday

2010-10-08T08:49:00.001-05:00

So I'm super excited for Fix-it Friday this week. Here's the description:
"Anyone can write a blog post that has one photo in it that they’d like to gain feedback on... Other photographers in our community will then be able to visit each post to give feedback on they feel the problems could be fixed."
As an amateur photog that means YAY!! I thought for a while and decided on a picture that is my favorite I've ever taken. It's been up here before, so sorry from the repetition, but I'd love to see what others would do with it.

What would you do with it?

i ♥ faces- Smirk week

2010-09-20T08:58:00.000-05:00

Who better to give me a great smirk photo than my 14 year old sister. This summer I had her do a mock shoot with me both for practice and because my mom really wanted pictures of her :) Here's the post if you want to see some of my other favorites: http://mkgrunder.blogspot.com/2010/06/fourteens-threesixfive.html. This one may be my true favorite shot though, because it's SO Amanda. I said something along the lines of hey! I'm over here and this is what I got. :) I love her to death, she's such a joker but definitely has an attitude all her own sometimes!

To see more smirks click the camera:

i ♥ faces VROOM VROOM

2010-09-13T10:12:00.000-05:00

Once again, a photo from Haiti. Please excuse the focus... this was taken from the back of a truck also driving down this road (if you can call it that) This is one of the most common forms of transportation in Pignon. The most I've seen is 6 people on one bike at a time- 3 adults, 2 toddlers and an infant. Can you say carpooling?

For more Vroom Vroom Entries, Click the camera

Fix it Friday #70

2010-09-10T11:07:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've done a FIF, but needed a good distraction in class :) So here it is:
The Original (not my photo)

And here are my edits:

Number 1:

White balance, Color enhance, Color Balance (Yellow -50, Red -10), Saturation +30, Lightness -10, Contrast +10, Duplicate Image, Desaturate with layer mask bows and eyes, Overlay, Add fuzzy border (black, 50px), Layer mask to fix border, flatten and watermark

Number 2:

B&W duplicate layer of #1 at 80% opacity over edit #1

Click here for more edits of this little cutie!

i HEART photojournalism

2010-08-29T23:27:00.001-05:00

Oh how I LOVE the idea of being a photojournalist. I used to read national geographic and dream of how cool it would be to travel the world and open the eyes of fellow Americans to how the rest of the world actually lives.
I really debated whether or not to use my Haiti photos for this entry, and maybe I should have, but I finally decided on a collage of 4 photos from my summer as a summer camp counselor.

The set up for the story they tell? I was 17 that summer. Those are my FIVE campers, all of whom are going into the FIRST grade. Yeah. 5 six-year-olds for little old me to be mom for for the week. Yipes. If any of you are in search of a good birth control for your kids- this is it. I love these girls to death and I'm excited to have kids of my own, but there's no way I could handle taking care of them myself.

Click the camera for more visual stories :)

I ♥ faces: Gotta wear Shades

2010-08-17T13:22:00.000-05:00

What can I say? My friend Jeremy's a star. This one is also from camp 2007. I love digging out old photos :)

To see more entries featuring people in their favorite shades, click the camera:

I ♥ surprised faces!

2010-08-10T20:07:00.000-05:00

I had to dig for this one. So much potential in a theme called Surprise! But this one from working at camp summer 2007 is my favorite surprise in my files. There apparently was quite a splash from this event in the water olympics :)

To see even more surprised faces click the camera

KIMMI AND DAVE ARE MARRIED!!!

2010-08-09T13:42:00.000-05:00

I'm so excited to say that my beautiful cousin Kimmi got married to Dave Schlauchtenhaufen this weekend! The rooftop ceremony was beautiful and was blessed with no rain, cooling clouds and no bugs! Amazing, I know. These are just a few of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

These two are my parents with Kimmi. They both read at the wedding, and she was their flower girl 22 years ago. :)

i ♥ faces Wk 31: Random Acts of Kindness

2010-08-02T12:19:00.000-05:00

This week at iHeartfaces.com is a non-judged week where photographers can link in the ways they have used their photography to help those in need. They are featuring a charity called Inspiration Thru Art (the littlest heroes project), and organization taking portraits and family photos for families of sick children.

I am entering this week not because I have already used my photography, but because I am hoping for some help in using it in the future. I would like to sell some of my prints from my mission trips to Haiti as a fundraiser for the hospital, schools and orphanage that we work with there. However, I have no idea where to start. I have never sold any of my photos before and the only artwork I've sold was requested by a friend. Have any of you done anything like this before? How did you market them? Where do you order prints (I've only ever used my local hy-vee grocery's print lab)? How did you ship them, or did you have lots of prints ready? What did you charge? I was thinking a minimum with donations accepted, but I don't really know. Help!

I have the photos cropped square (my favorite and easy to get different sizes printed), edited to black and white and added a fuzzy border and my watermark. Here are some examples:

Thank you for all of your help!!

To see more ways the iheartfaces community are sharing their big hearts, click the camera:

i ♥ faces Wk 30: Purple

2010-07-26T07:49:00.001-05:00

Okay, so maroon is pretty far towards the red side of purple, but it's the closest I have. This is from my... freshman? maybe sophomore year in high school, back when our football team (the Mustangs) was worth watching. I love the range of emotion from these guys, especially Ben (A). This is a favorite of mine just because it embodies the atmosphere of small town life. I come from a high school of 400 students and the entire town seems to turn up for every game, which is why I black and whited the background- too busy!

I'm also a little disappointed that I don't have better purple pictures! I attended a beautiful purple wedding in June and only took like 3 pictures and none had any purple. I was a guest of a guest so I didn't feel too comfortable yet taking lots of pictures, which I now know I definitely should have! :P And my cousin is getting married in 2 weeks and she's having a purple wedding as well. Doesn't help with this weeks challenge, but at least I'll be SUPER comfortable taking lots of pictures there.

To see more purple pictures head over to iheartfaces.com by clicking on the camera

Fix it Friday #63

2010-07-23T09:02:00.001-05:00

Original photo by Angie Arthur

My Edit:

Steps in GIMP:
Crop
White Balance
Fix Overblown
Adjust Hue (10) and Saturation (-10)
Adjust Color Balance (Cyan 10, Yellow 10)
Increase Contrast
Duplicate layer, desaturate and overlay
Add "clothify" filter to grayscale layer
Add white "fuzzy border"
Decrease lightness
Add EDITED BY watermark
Flatten and Save

Click here to see other FIF edits

Week 29 is Over my Head

2010-07-19T16:00:00.000-05:00

This week at i heart faces the theme is "Over my Head". I thought this picture was absolutely perfect and probably a lot different from many of the entries this week. This is from my summer working at camp in 2007. I love all the different expressions as these two staff members surprise our program director. I think my favorite though, is the face of the camper in the bottom right who apparently thought I was taking her picture and had no idea what was going on behind her. : )

To see more of what flies over our heads at www.iheartfaces.com click the camera below

wk 28- i ♥ "my" country

2010-07-13T13:03:00.002-05:00

Okay, okay, so it's not officially my country. But it sure feels like home when I'm there.

My dad first went to Pignon, Haiti in May 2008 with my uncle's church. This is my favorite picture of him, at the orphanage we work with there, taken I think by my uncle Steve. I LOVE the complete coincidence that he wore his AWESOME DAD shirt from father's day. He sure is an awesome dad. :)

That coming November, my dad organized and led a team consisting of then-18-year-old me, nine men and two 60+ year old women. I knew from the start it was going to be at very least an... interesting trip. It all worked out very well though, with all of the "actual" adults (the youngest 13 years my elder, married with two kids) treating me very well, never once making me feel inferior because of my age.

As the youngest of our
group I was constantly
surrounded by these
beautiful faces

I fell in love with Haiti that first day, as we walked around town. Being white in town makes you quite a spectacle, and the little kids point and holler "Blanc, Blanc" (white, white) as you walk by, or run up to smile at you and hold your hand, one little girl even tried to wipe off my hand as if it were dirty :) These children are the main reason why I love Haiti. They are so full of joy! I went back again in March if 2010 and can't wait to be back again!

Most of my favorite pictures that I have ever taken are from my time in Pignon and the surrounding areas, here are a few:

To see more picture of countries people heart, click the camera and head to iheartfaces.com-

For more information about trips to Pignon, Haiti check out http://promiseforhaiti.blogspot.com/ (the entry "Larry Madole March 2010 Trip" is about my trip this year) or scan through the Haiti tab of my blog, there are just too many stories to tell. Thank goodness that a picture is worth 1000 words!

New Design

2010-07-09T13:58:00.001-05:00

New design for the blog using my own picture! Thoughts/recommendations?

Fix it Friday #61

2010-07-09T12:11:00.002-05:00

My first Fit-it Friday Entry, through iheartfaces.com. I edit with GIMP.

The Original

THIS IS NOT MY PHOTO

My finished product. The text is Ecclesiastes 3:1

i ♥ faces TEENS ONLY week!

2010-07-05T15:11:00.000-05:00

I am so excited for this week on iheartfaces. Teen entries only. I turn twenty the end of next month, so I was really excited to hear that celebrating teens weeks was happening this summer! I can't wait to see all the fabulous talent from the teen photographers at iheartfaces!

I have had this picture up on the blog before, but not entered in the challenge. The only requirements of this weeks' entries are that the were taken by a teen and feature a face. This is one of my favorites that I have ever taken. I took this one while in Haiti this March on a mission trip. This is at a refugee camp for victims of the earthquake in Port au Prince. I don't know this little girl's name, her story or where she is now, all I know is that she was so happy just to have someone play with her and take her picture. The joy that radiated from her shocked me. Despite all she had seen, tragedy in Port and now living in one of dozens of tents like the one behind her. Such a beautiful reminder to appreciate what we have.

Click on the camera to see more entries by teen photographers at iheartfaces.com

threesixfive = fail BUT weekend = epic win :D

2010-06-28T22:26:00.004-05:00

So I think I may have to officially give up on the threesixfive. If I can't keep up now, it's never gonna happen at school. I'll probably still update about as often, but it's just not going to be a 365. Instead I'll just put up pictures when I have them along with whatever random stuff is going on in my life. Such as:

MY AWESOME WEEKEND WITH MY BEST FRIEND!! (who just so happens to be my boyfriend :D could I have it any better??)

I got to go for a 4 day weekend starting Thursday and we packed it full of stuff to do! (Which if anyone has ideas of stuff to do semi-cheap/discounted in CR too they'd be greatly appreciated). I meant to take lots more pictures to use for 365 but wasn't thinking about taking out my camera and ended up with about a half dozen pictures of the whole weekend. Oh well... anyway, quick rundown of how great an extended-date planner Mike is:

Thursday (82°)- Mall, laundry (boo, working in a dirty uniform factory) Bowling and an I-Cubs game (complete with fireworks)
Friday (88°)- Adventureland, then 5 pounds of pork ribs on the grill. YUM.
Saturday (91°)- Farmer's Market and Des Moines Art Show, smoothies (it was stinkin' hot!) and a nap, then made fajitas for the family for dinner. yum.
Sunday (82°) - Church (complete with babies in the nursery, and the most adorable 4 year old ever WITH a new puppy- he knows me so well), homemade pizza, movies/golf and small group.

Now back to work and being two hours apart. Blech. Well... at least there's skype!

week 26- i heart pets

2010-06-28T20:50:00.000-05:00

Abby

This is one of about 3 pictures I have of Abby, our family sheltie. I got this one while she was keeping watch over my cousin out in the pool. Abby turns 10 tomorrow, so she's slowed down a little, but was next to impossible to capture when she was little she was so fast. She used to chase down tennis balls in the back yard and get going too fast to be able to stop, and roll head over... paws... when she got to her ball. :)

For more pet photos from iheartfaces.blogspot.com click the camera

fourteen(s) / threesixfive

2010-06-23T12:05:00.003-05:00

Here are some more of the pictures of my little sister, Amanda (14 years old for #14) I took yesterday-

thirteen/ threesixfive

2010-06-22T20:41:00.000-05:00

This is my sister Amanda. She let me use her as a model today, and this is the first of my finished shots. More to come, probably tomorrow.

Week 25 is Celebrating Teens!

2010-06-21T15:56:00.001-05:00

This week's theme at iheartfaces.com is Celebrating Teens. I was so excited to see that teens are being recognized in the upcoming weeks, because I turn 20 this August, and have really enjoyed my years as a teen. Because I'm currently a teen, I have lots of pictures of teens (yay for having photogenic friends!) so picking a shot was difficult until I remembered my photo with one very special teen.

In November of 2008, I went to Pignon, Haiti for the first time on a mission trip. While there, I met a girl four years younger than me, but who knew so much more how this world works. Meet Lissy, who was 14 at the time of this photo (I am18 here). I met her while visiting a local orphanage where she had been living for a little less than 2 years, since she was rescued from a life as a child slave. This girl was barely a teen and had gone through more in her life than most of the adults I know, but somehow she still never stopped smiling.

The composition of this photo was a complete accident. I went to take our picture in stereotypical teen style (camera held out, hoping to get everyone in the shot) and didn't realize that my camera was still zoomed in from the last picture. Yay for getting a lucky shot!

To see more pictures celebrating teens, click on the camera.

This is also number going to be number 13/365. Almost 2 weeks in!

nine - twelve / threesixfive

2010-06-20T22:25:00.002-05:00

Mike was here this weekend (!!) so I wasn't online to update. SO here's our weekend

THURS- We dropped off Theresa, the bestest German sister I have, at the airport to head home.

FRI- Mike got here Thursday night, so we hung out all morning on Friday and then he came to work with me. There was a huge wall cloud that came through while we were at work. Mike took this one. B-E-A-UTIFUL shot hon. :)

Then we went to see Toy Story 3. We had to wait outside in the rain beforehand, so we were soaked at the movie, but it was still pretty great.

SAT- I opened at work on Saturday, so I told Mike to sleep in and just come in when ever he was up (I worked til 1045) and then we went to lunch at Skillet. It was a fabulous time until....

DISCLAIMER-

My mom gets queasy looking at this. Fair warning for blood.

I slammed my finger in the car door. It looks real pretty now, and will definitely not have a nail in the near future. Luckily I had Dr. Mike to take care of me. :)

Today we went to church, watched golf, and went swimming with the family, but the camera was away, so that's all I have for you.

eight / threesixfive

2010-06-16T17:04:00.001-05:00

Today's picture is a collage of the pictures I took and edited for my dad for Father's day (Sunday). I'm getting 8x10s of each picture for him/ his office. He led my first trip to Haiti and has a huge heart for the people there.

seven/ threesixfive

2010-06-15T23:31:00.000-05:00

Today, I have decided to remind myself to be grateful. This is from Gimby, Haiti, in May. I've had a really long day of wanting today (two hours is MUCH more than I'd like), so this is my reminder to recognize how much I have. Because I have SO much. I have been so blessed, and I need to make sure I am thankful for it more often.

six/ threesixfive

2010-06-14T20:01:00.003-05:00

I got to go take pictures around the "block" (about a mile around, gotta love the country) and ended up with about ten shots I really like. My favorite of the day:

And here are the runners up (click to enlarge):

Week 24: All about Babies

2010-06-13T23:24:00.001-05:00

This is one of very few baby pictures I have. This is of my boss' daughter, Lilian Ivy,

a few years ago. She is one of the major reasons I miss working at camp.

Her smiling face always made my day.

Click on the camera to see more entries to this week's iheartfaces challenge.

four and five/ threesixfive

2010-06-13T17:22:00.005-05:00

I wasn't able to update yesterday because I was with Mike in Johnston at

Mary and Jon's wedding! Congratulations you too!

Here are pictures for today and yesterday, both from the reception last night.

Ditching me for another woman...

But it's ok. I'll always forgive him. Especially when it's just for dancing with someone as adorable as Isabel. :)

three/ threesixfive

2010-06-11T18:38:00.004-05:00

Once again, I didn't take this picture today, but it fits! I was introduced to the GIMP photo editing program recently and have spent much of today experimenting and trying to figure it out. Here's the first finished product:

the original picture

two / threesixfive

2010-06-10T23:22:00.001-05:00

This picture was unfortunately not taken today, but I love this one and hope that some day I can take pictures of Haitian kids daily. I would love to be there more often, no matter what I'm doing, but the day this was taken we visited both a missionary orphanage (planned occupation!) and here, at a refugee camp for people displaced from Port au Prince.

Ultimately I chose this picture today because I lost the one I really wanted to use. I was helping babysit and the 2 year old was "taking a nap" in my room. That is until she came out having used my eyeliner as lipstick and blush, not to mention hair dye and to draw on her legs. I quick snapped a picture, cleaned her up, and then couldn't get to the picture. fail.

Week 23: Play

2010-06-10T10:17:00.004-05:00

So I definitely missed the entry time for this week, but had I not, this is the photo I would have entered. It's from camp when we do "crud wars", by first throwing water, then flour, and then a chicken feed based goop at each other before some mud volleyball and tug'o'war. It's a great, and obviously very messy time :) Hopefully it will fit another theme at some point so I can actually use it!

Click the camera to see the i♥faces site

one/threesixfive

2010-06-09T20:57:00.003-05:00

I've always wanted to do a 365 photo album (a picture a day for a year, describing your year) but never really had a place for it. Hey look- now I do! So I think I'll start. I may not take one each day, but either take or pick one that represents that day somehow. So today we'll start with number 1-

This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my boyfriend, Mike.Not only is it the one that pops up when he calls me, but i think it describes us pretty well. He's my best friend and I love getting to be goofy with him. He's picture number one because today I've missed our time when we just got to sit and hang out whenever like this. This may be the first summer I've wished to be shorter...

Running Home

2010-06-08T17:27:00.000-05:00

   So I've been meaning to do this for quite a while, not because my life is really all that interesting, but because sometimes I just need an outlet for whatever's going on in my life. That and I think my mom will appreciate it when I'm back at school. But here I go, finally doing it.
   When it comes to the title I took lots of time trying to come up with something witty and cute, but nothing seemed to fit. I considered what I like to do, things and people I love, even thought through my favorite songs for catchy lyrics, but I just kept coming back to this sense of home. There are all sorts of quotes and beliefs about what constitutes "home" and I agree with many of them. Home means so many things.
   It starts in childhood, where home base means you're safe, no one can tag you. It's where you can catch your breath, be comfortable for a little bit. Where, in all the chaos, you can take a break and just sit. But you soon learn that sitting at home base all the time makes tag no fun, you have to stick your neck out and hope you're faster than what's chasing you.
   Life works the same way. You can't stay home in your safe little bubble forever, you have to branch out. Go to camp, go on trips, go to college, just go. Each time you go, the definition of home changes a little bit. It's not until you go that you realize that HOME FOLLOWS YOU. It moves. Home is where ever the people that you're closest to are. The old saying is mostly right... Home IS where the heart is, but home is really what you FILL your heart with. It's like when you were a kid and you got your heart cutout at school and your project was to fill it with all the things you love. You'd write or draw little pictures of your family, pets, a bubble bath, who knows, kids are awesomely random. Those things, whatever you'd draw now, that's home. For me it's holding orphans in Haiti, coloring and watching Disney, holding my boyfriend's hand and throwing my hands in the air, singing praise music at the top of my lungs with my friends at CRU.
   So what if your heart is split? What if all those things you've drawn don't fit in the same space, or like me, you just don't have that many hands? Now we've gone from home being a house to home being a collective of the things that make you feel all safe and comfy, all warm and fuzzy, and sometimes it seems like there's something missing. That's because there is. (insert oohs, aahs and WHHAAAATs here) Here's the deal. THIS ISN'T HOME! We keep defining and redefining what home is all throughout our lives because we're all searching for the same thing- Jesus Christ. He left to prepare for us the home we're all looking for. We're not supposed to be comfortable here because we're don't belong here. We belong with our Father. Run toward Him. Find your comfort in Him here, fill your heart with His love, mercy and grace, and make sure the other things you draw in are leading you closer to Him. While we're here our connection with God is the Holy Spirit. Listen to Him, He's speaking to you. ACKNOWLEDGE HIM! And RUN!
   So there you go. Running Home. Hope that makes a little more sense to you. I'd say future posts wont be quite so... lecturey, but I'm sure there'll be a few. I do promise though that I won't always be so serious! I plan to put up pictures of artwork and trips, and I'm sure LOTS of just plain random life.