two months later.

i heard that the makeshift boston marathon bombing memorial comes down on tuesday, but i hadn't seen it yet. i finally got out there yesterday and it was absolutely moving. boston is my city and to see everyone come together like that and to see a memorial the size of this just form, seemingly out of nothing, is amazing. as far as i could see, life had resumed on boylston street, aside from the dozens of people silently milling about the hats and jerseys and running shoes, hundreds of running shoes, that lined a small section of copley square. at the finish line, a few tourists, or maybe locals, snapped pictures. it was settling to see it back to "normal"and it made me so proud to be a bostonian. or a 45-minutes-south-of-the-city-bostonian (;

so then i bought a canon

i hope it wasn't a mid life crisis, but i sold everything i owned and bought a canon. there were multiple reasons for it but i don't regret my decision whatsoever. so now i've been taking what one of my photographer friends called "yard photos" (you know, those pictures that you feel like you need to take when you have a new camera but the only place you go is the backyard). the top photos are from a boston strong walk that my school hosted (amazing), and the rest are just life lately. i'm in love with this camera. it also takes video. yeah, i'm in love.

 

life lately.

wish lanterns, girls nights and takeout, amazing spring sunsets, prom. it's been a good two weeks and i'm happy that i've gotten most of it on camera. i also won three students emmys but i don't have that on camera. however, i did treat prom as my after party. when it rains, it pours, but luckily this is good and crazy rain.

on being alive.

on fernweh, carlotta posed this question:

and it really made me think.

-laying in a field of daisies that literally went as far as the eye could see-

-being in the open air five hundred feet above long beach island-

-running through the rain and ducking into a small coffee shop on portobello road-

-tie dying until our hands were purple and our feet were muddy-

-dancing to live reggae music in the tiniest little gallery space-

-plunging into an ice cold river with the sun streaming down-

-that 38 minute flight from new york to boston-

there's something spectacular

that comes out of being alive,

not being the past and not being the future.

there is no past or future.

it's just you and now and here.

my incredibly talented best friend wrote these words for a video project and i can't think of a better way to say it.

just summer things.

 

1. hot days at the lake with friends 2. saying goodbye to friends headed home to germany 3. hats for a british themed party 4. a $3 thrifting find 5. late night sprinkler frolicking 6. thrifting finds 7. on the lake 8. water ripples and friends and tubes

     we're officially two days into summer 2012 and so far, so good. the temperature skyrocketed (and by that i honestly mean that i was wearing jeans last week) into the high 90's and we've been taking refuge in pools, lakes, and air conditioning whenever possible. my friends are in full on party mode before people go their separate ways for the summer and today will mark the third birthday party in a row. nothing's better than cake and ice cream everyday.

     i'm departing for london a week from today (!!!) and i'm not actually sure when i'll really believe i'm going. there will most likely not be another post until afterwards, so bon voyage! enjoy your summers and be on the lookout for a lot of pictures from me in approximately three weeks. (until then, i can assure you i'll be on instagram, i'm wheniminthisdream)

sunday breakfast.

 edited these with vsco cam on the ipad. i'm blown away. side note: riley looks sad because the of the lack of bacon going into her dish. enjoy your sunday!

the burning house.

what would you grab if your house was on fire and you needed to get out, quick? that's the question being asked by the burning house project on tumblr. fernweh posted about it here and you can find the original burning house blog here. it's a genius idea, really. do you go the nostalgic route or the practical route? 

it's a little bit of both for me. i'd grab riley because she's my best friend, plain and simple. next, because i always picture darting out of my house during a fire, i'd grab my teddy bear because it would be somewhere amidst my tangled sheets anyway. then i'd go for my cell phone and laptop, the first because i'm a teenager, i love my phone, and the second because it contains my pictures, my music, everything, it's all on my laptop. on the way out of my bedroom door, i'd take my mom's nikon 35mm camera, because it holds undeveloped film. the last few things include my autographed one direction album and john green book because i adore them, and my toms because they're my favorite and i'd probably forget to put shoes on. i'd also take my dslr, but of course, it was needed to take the photos.

is it realistic? more than likely not. i know i'd be frazzled and i'd probably only be able to get riley out the door (mostly because she'll always be willing to go play outside), along with a few items grabbed in the mad dash. but it makes you think. what are the things in life that are most important to you? 

after i uploaded these photos, i thought that maybe i'd retry and add a few of my favorite photos and momentos. then it hit me. if this was all i could think of the first time around for just a photo, then this is what's really important. and if i can't remember it for a photo, i'd never remember it in a real fire.

the traveling nikon.

so here are a few things i just don't get. one-- why my header went missing. where does a header go? can you see it by chance? two-- how, when i make both of these photosets the same exact width in photoshop, the top one is wider. why? seriously though about the header, it just disappeared. weird. i'll give it some time to find it's way back. mainly because i'm too lazy to recode it right now.

basically, i have nothing much else to say, except that i survived ap us history (!!!) and it's such a beautiful day right now. as much as i like being curled up with the window open and my laptop and coldplay on, i've got to go find something to do. have a great weekend!

p.s. these are my favorite pictures in a while.

concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

from the top:

1. top of the rock 2. the statue of liberty 3. pigeon at the 9/11 memorial 4. liberty island 5. tourist in bryant park 6. taxis 7. one world trade center 8. 9/11 memorial 9. nyc architecture 10. times square at night 11. the view from central park 12. central park carousel 13. nbc studios

i only live 3 hours from new york city by train, but we hadn't been in about six years. the first time i went was super structured and scheduled so this time, we just kind of decided to see everything we could in two days. and so we did.

the pictures are in no particular order, just arranged in a pretty way. i think the only thing that requires me talking about is the 9/11 memorial. wow. i knew it would be amazing to see, but i never thought that it would have the impact that it did. walking around the pools and seeing the names engraved around them and seeing one world trade center being built made me so proud. i was so proud to be an american and say that my country was rebuilding after such a devastating occurrence. if you ever get a chance to go, please go.

in other news, i think the top of the rock has better views than the empire state building, bryant park is where i would bring my coffee every morning if i was a local, and if you're ever looking for dinner in times square, go to carmine's. best italian food ever. trust me.  so there's new york in a nutshell! also-- if you watched the today show on wednesday, you probably saw me. if you didn't, you're in luck! here's a link if you'd like to see me dance daring julie andrews! (in case you don't know- a dance dare is when you dance behind someone until they notice, or maybe they never notice. ellen started it and this one is probably a stretch, but i'm still going to say i dance dared julie andrews.) i was also behind the interviewers during interviews with some of the olympic hopefuls and emily blunt. so that was pretty cool.

have a great weekend!

so hold my hand, i'll walk with you my dear.

The stairs creak as I sleep,
it's keeping me awake.
It's the house telling you to close your eyes. -little talks, of monsters and men

 

 i'm loving the weather and all the blooms this week. also loving of monsters and men.

as of late.

sorry i've been MIA lately. i've been knee deep in a history project that's due in may, so my posting will most likely be sparse until then. since i last posted, i've been keeping up with my project 365 (yay!), been frustrated that my pictures are a lot like the ones i took last spring, won an emmy, been followed on twitter by niall horan from one direction (!!!), applied for my driver's license, taken 29 seconds off my mile time, and probably done lots of other uninteresting things.

yes, you heard me tight, i won an emmy. i'm involved in the tv production program at school, and in february, my teacher nominated one of my group's videos for the regional emmy's. i didn't think much of it, sophomores have never won at my school before. however, on wednesday, the winners were announced, and ours won for best commercial! we are the first sophomores at our school to win, and being recognized regionally is huge.

have a great easter weekend, and enjoy your spring. oh, and thank you so much for the nicest comments on the sunset picture! i love my readers.

spring smells so good.

 

just my four favorite things: spring, instagram, my new glasses, and ed sheeran. this has been a true miscellaneous post.

sugar high.

we went to a place where they make maple sugar. it's the cutest little place, and it's kind of a tradition to go each spring.

they have maple soft serve for a quarter. that's right folks, twenty-five cents. it's amazingly good.

they boil the sap in this huge machine in a room where the steam goes out the top, but it's still pretty toasty. the windows get all steamy and it smells like heaven.

 (you can see the big machine and all the steam in the back!)

they serve mainly waffles and pancakes in the adjoining restaurant. for whatever reason, they brought us pickles to start. i love little places like that. it's just their thing.

two hours was worth the drive.

blackout.

i often find myself completely out of words when attempting to write. it could be anything, a birthday card, a thank you note, an essay, a blog post. pictures tell the stories for me, i'm so much better at that. that's why i love blackout poems. austin kleon's first caught my attention about a year ago and they've intrigued me ever since. i attempted my own the other day, and i'm in love. the words are put there for you to twist and combine to make usually nonsense but always fun little poems. i want to fill pages with these. (which is exactly what the above mentioned austin kleon did, and published a book of them. a must read!)

my valentine to life.

february screams love. it shouts the word, the feeling, the emotion from the rooftops, and never lets anybody forget it. february is  a month reserved for love.

so what happens if you're not in love with someone?

what if you're in love with life? can i send life a valentine?

"oh hey, i really really like you, life. be mine?"

february really doesn't permit this. okay, maybe not february as much as society. valentine's day is for the happy couples and the sappy love songs and overpriced hallmark cards. however, contrary to popular belief, you can actually be in love with life.

and here's the thing: why shouldn't you be? life is full of sunrises and postcards and songs with piano in the background and smiles and kittens and belly-laughs and beaches and friends and blogs and sunsets. no matter what life gives you that is a reason not to love it, there are five reasons to counter that. i think sending life a valentine would be nice. simply because no matter what it throws at you and no matter what you might think, life loves you back, always.

in my valentine to life, i'm going to have to remember to mention that i'm oh so thankful for stuff like sunsets.

and beautiful french songs.



and happiness.

color me.

design-seeds.com inspired this post. i love color palettes and photos and so i figured i'd do my own! in other news, i'm in love with right now. it's a lazy saturday morning with snow quietly falling, adele pandora on (god, that station is heaven), and messy morning after curled hair.