Dancing and Meteors

#3. Watch a meteor shower, and #6. Go clubbing, have both happened this summer. And at the same time. Well… on one occasion.

Anyways, over the summer, me and my gal pals actually drove up to good old GR on a few occasions to go clubbing at the Wednesday night 18+ place. It was lots of fun, and quite enjoyable. Though at first it took some convincing of my mother, but that was settled. I love clubbing now. Dressing up cute and just letting loose and dancing for a while with a bunch of girlfriends until you’re exhausted, and then piling back in a car to drive back home.

However, on one of these particular rides home, I grabbed shotgun. And as we get away from the city lights and out on the dark highway, I begin seeing little flashes of light out of the corner of my eye in the sky. I begin watching the sky and realize that there’s a meteor shower! About every 1-3 minutes we would see a shooting star streak straight down towards the southern horizon in the sky. It was beautiful, and I loved having a, literal and figurative, front seat. Haha.

So this post is very late, but it still counts right? Of course it does. Onwards to check off more on my list of 101 Things to Do in 1001 Days!

Summer Garden

I do not garden. The last time I  “gardened” I picked weeds out of the bricks for my mom when I was 9. That’s the extent of my green thumb outdoors; killing weeds.

My mother however, loves to keep a garden. A few years ago she decided she was “too old” to go crawling around in the garden, so she’s hired a gardener to keep tending it and planting new flowers. And now, it’s made a nice place for me to take pictures! I use it as a background for senior portraits, and now I make it my subject as there are quite an abundance of lovely flowers in bloom. So check out this new lovely set of a Summer Garden.

Apartment Living

So I’m moving back to school in less than a month (woot!) and I’ll be in my first apartment along with my roommate @Amralove. I’m really excited about this because for one, it’s not an 11×14′ cinder block box like my dorm room last year. I’ll have a tiny kitchen (with a dishwasher!!), our own bathroom, the bedroom, and a nice sized living room. All of it furnished. Though I’m getting some of my own furniture as well, which is where I’m coming into some shopping trouble.

So I’ve been going to WalMart lately and have been passing this “Off to College” section they’ve rolled out that has bedding, bathroom stuff, mirrors, lamps, kitchen equipment, and some furniture. And I’ve been walking past these storage ottoman things… and yeah. Now I have two of them. In purple. With micro-suede. Mmmm. So nice. But I love them! A fifteen inch cube you can put stuff in! It’s brilliant! And they’re comfy! So yeah… that’s what I got.

Then after I brought these home, my mom remembered she had some gift cards that Bed Bath & Beyond gave her when she was buying wedding presents for a relative’s wedding. She said I can have them! So I’ve been stuck in the Bed Bath & Beyond website for two days, browsing through all the stuff they have. It’s awesome! Problem is, I don’t know how much is on the gift cards yet. Probably not very much, so we’ll see what I can actually get. (Instead of that nice $130 bookshelf, settle with $20 in throw pillows or something.)

Well, I’m still thrilled to be moving back to school! As predicted, I’m getting tired of being stuck in the ‘rent’s house. College, here I come!!! Again… !!!

EDIT: I just found out, you can totally play tic-tac-toe on the top by “drawing” in the suede! Woohoo!

Driving Mix

So my first week home from college and I drive over 350 miles around the state. I knew I was going to be in the car for a long time, and I knew I didn’t want to listen to my brother’s music the whole time which is made up of a lot of Weezer and Phish. (We share the car.) So, thinking in advance, I cooked up a mix CD to put in the car. The mix is as follows:

I have to say, it’s been a very good driving mix and I’ve gone through it about ten times by now. Not sick of it yet. I’m thinking of making a second one as well… my brother can spare some more space in that 6-CD changer for another CD of mine. Hehe.

Home

My definition of home has changed now. I now have two literal homes. One, at my parent’s house, where I’ve spent my entire childhood growing up. The other, was my dorm room at college. I found it funny how quickly we all started saying, “I’m going home,” in reference to our dorm rooms at college. But to me it really was home. I felt safe, it belonged to me, I could be alone, I could call it my own.  (Hah! That kind of rhymed….)

My home at college was so exciting. I lived in the same building as many of my friends, I didn’t have to ask my parents if I could go out or have my friends come up for a movie. We just did it. And I loved the freedom. Now that I’m back in my parent’s house, it’s a little restricting again. Even though I do have more freedoms than I did while going to grade school here (read: car), I still have all those memories of being trapped here because I wasn’t allowed to go out. It makes it pretty suffocating here still. So my goal, as I leave my little dorm room an come home here, is to try to make it more exciting again. Basically, stay active and creative so I don’t feel so suffocated at home.

So guess what I did?! First thing I did when I came home Thursday, was jump in my car (I missed it) and drive down to the beach and take pictures of the sunset. I had about three minutes before it was gone when I got there, so I snapped until my battery died. Then I just sat in the car for a while and watched the sky get dark. It was nice. As much as I hate the clichéd pictures of my town’s lighthouse (there are only so many angles one can cover), I don’t think I can ever get sick of the sunsets over Lake Michigan.

I went out again last night. This time in an attempt to chase some lightning. I didn’t get any good lightning pictures, but I got some cool rainy night shots  of the bridge and the river downtown. I also have found some good locations for shooting lighting on the lake for when the weather is better. It’s still a bit chilly out here. Some summer rains will be more comfortable I think. See the results from both nights of shooting on my Flickr.