On A Personal Note

Hi there! I figured I would just tell you some about my week. It's been a busy one for me even though I haven't really felt like I've had anything to post. 

Anyways, this past week was Spring Break for me (even though I'm not actually enrolled this semester) and I decided that I would see if anyone from my hometown would like for me to take some portraits of them so that I could get some practice at photography. I had some people respond, but I only ended up meeting with two girls. Luckily, I got some really good photos in my opinion! So, if you actually are interested, I have posted some new photos from the sessions on my Tumblr, which is also the photography tab on my home page. 

So, it's been really exciting because I think I had that turn out really well! And now, my cousin is getting married in the next few weeks, and she wants me to take pictures for her wedding! I'm a bit nervous because I don't really feel worthy of this job, but she is having a small wedding and I think wants to give me the opportunity and not actually have to hire a photographer. So, I'm hoping I can do a good job! If I can, I think it would be really good for my experience!

I think all of this has also been helpful with my shyness problems I talked about in my first post. I think it was a pretty big step to put myself out there and meet people for a bit of an awkward situation. Having pictures taken of yourself isn't the most comfortable thing you can do, I've been there before, too. So, it was a time that I had to work with trying not to be awkward and trying to make people feel less nervous. It's definitely something I still need to work at and figure out, but I think it was good just to get out there and try doing it at least. 

So, I'm trying my best to take some steps towards that. I think it has gone well so far and I really enjoyed taking portraits for people. Just wish me luck on the wedding photos! I know this has been a short post, but I've just really been wanting to post SOMETHING, so I figured I would talk more about that kind of stuff. I hope to have some interesting events coming up though! Thank you for reading and stop by tumblr if you get the chance! :)

Dumpster Diving - Better Than It Sounds!

Alright, it's time for the dumpster diving post. I'm not too sure how most people will take this one. I know there is a large community of people who dumpster dive, but I also know there are probably a lot of people who find this weird. Well, just to explain a bit more, I was a bit weirded out by it at first, but once I gave it a chance, it's really very understandable! My boyfriend first introduced this idea to me and explained that companies just waste food and anything else all the time just because of things like the box coming in dented or messed up even though what it contains is perfectly fine, or just because food becomes close to the expiration date but hasn't expired yet. Perfectly good food gets wasted all the time, so why not see if you can snag some? Anyways, we went last night and got plenty of good stuff, so I thought I would share it all with you!

We went to our local CVS after they closed and found every bit of this there.

Here's a full detailed list of everything:

6 bags of Stacy's Pita Crisps

9 boxes of Froot Loops and 1 Value Size box

3 boxes of Raisin Bran and 3 boxes of Apple Jacks

4 boxes of Corn Flakes

21 tester bottles of Covergirl liquid foundation, 3 full tester bottles of perfume (Estee Lauder, Clinique, and Cashmere Mist) and 1 tester bottle of Ed Hardy cologne, 3 tester Covergirl truMAGIC (shimmer, bronzer, and skin perfector), 1 Neutrogena moisture smooth color stick, and 1 Wet and Wild lipstick

1 pack of elastic hair bands and 1 bag of Lifesavers Mints (Wint O Green)

Spongebob Squarepants 28 card and lollipop valentine kit

"Deep Soothing Hot Cold" Natural Moist Heat Pack (CVS brand)

2 fingernail clippers, 1 bag "Peanut Butter Filled Pretzel Nuggets", and 7 Two Piece King Size Butterfingers

1 Revlon nail file, 1 Olay, Gillette, and Venus women's razor (1 head, came in a box), and 1 pack of Goody brunette bobby pins

8 Skor bars, 14 "2 To Go" Milky Way bars, and 12 boxes of Milk Duds

1 stack of Mickey and Minnie Mouse gift bags

So, this was a good bit to find at one place. All of it was in perfectly good condition. The cereal was originally in boxes and those were pretty dinged up which might be why they were thrown out, but we just took the bags out like in the pictures and they were just fine! We plan on giving most of this stuff to friends. But if we have way too much afterwards, then we will probably try to go over to Savannah and pass some of it out to homeless people. That's what we did the last time we found this much stuff or more. We just have to find the time for it! But hopefully we will be able to do that soon. Anyways, feel free to ask any kind of questions about this and I'd be glad to try to answer. I recommend researching this kind of stuff for anyone who may be weirded out by it at first because it's really not as bad as people make it sound and you can save a lot of stuff from being wasted. 

The Spaghetti Squash Experience

So, I'll go ahead and tell you that I am a vegetarian. I haven't been for very long, maybe like 4 or 5 months, but my boyfriend and our good friend have been for over 2 years. It makes it very easy when you have other people who can help you out with it because it is something you have to get used to. The three of us and anyone else if they'd like (but it's usually just us three) have a "family dinner" at home and usually try to cook together. We also have a friend who is actually vegan, so we actually have been trying to eat vegan as much as we can, and she told us about a blog called The Vegan Stoner just because they have really good and easy recipes to make. So, last night, we made one!

It's called Spaghetti Squash and it was so delicious, so I documented it a bit to show you what we did!

So if you look at the recipe, the first thing you do is take your spaghetti squash (which cost us around 5 dollars each at Walmart and two of them fed three people very well) and cut it in half and remove the seeds!

This is what it will look like!

The next thing to do is to put it in a microwaveable bowl with a little bit of water, cover it, and then microwave it for 8 minutes. Now, the spaghetti squash is pretty big, so we could only do this one half at a time. This step alone took us 32 minutes not counting the time in between each half. So, this is a recipe you might need to have plenty of time for. 

Then once your spaghetti squash is done in the microwave, take it out, and begin to scrape all of the insides out with a fork. This also takes some time when you aren't used to it. We were able to do this with one half while another half was in the microwave. Just scrape everything out of it, we did it very thin and close to the skin. 

We placed all of that into a large bowl and it should look like this when you're done!

The next step says to add chopped mushrooms, tomato sauce, and vegan cheese. I would definitely feel free to add any other kind of vegetables you think would be good with this, but we just followed the instructions and only added the mushrooms.

Now, this is what made it especially good. Instead of just a regular tomato sauce, I recommend just getting any sort of spaghetti sauce you know you like. We looked around and ended up finding this stuff and it was delicious!

Fire Roasted Tomato & Garlic

(It also says all profits to charity which we are all for)

Then you just add your cheese! Now, the recipe says vegan cheese because it is a vegan recipe. We looked for vegan cheese and came to find out that where we live, there isn't anywhere we can buy vegan cheese, and we didn't have the time to get any right away. So, really, you can use any kind of cheese you prefer if you can't get vegan cheese right away. 

This is what we used, and it was good! But we will definitely have to get some vegan cheese the next time we can. 

And this was our final product! I know, it definitely doesn't look as pretty as it does on the original recipe, but I was just so excited to eat this that I didn't grab my camera to take the picture until after I had it all mixed together and had taken a few bites. But this was so delicious and easy, I recommend it to anyone! Be sure to check out the rest of The Vegan Stoner's recipes! They have come out with a cookbook recently that they have a link for on their blog, very inexpensive!

First Post - Shy & Quiet

Well, hello anyone who might actually read this! If you have been able to stop by my about page, then you should already know that I am an introvert basically. If not, then I just told you. I wanted to get deeper into that because that is something that has been bothering me lately. So, if you care about how I feel at all or if you've had the same problem in life and you're interested in hearing someone else's perspective, please continue to read!

Pretty much all of my life, I have been the shy and quiet girl. I've never really been the first person to make conversation with someone unless I've already been close to them. Even when I am with my friends and everyone is talking, I could probably go the entire time without saying one word. I'm a listener, an observer, I guess. Mostly, I just don't feel like anything I have to say is very important. Or I just don't completely understand what is being talked about. 

Yes, even though this is the way I am, I find it to be just as ridiculous as you might. If you don't find it to be ridiculous, I thank you for not being so judgmental. I guess we are all our own harshest critics. But if I could get over thinking no one is going to care about what I say, I could just talk to people. Or if I could just simply ask questions if I don't understand, I'd be fine probably. I don't know what has happened to me in my life that has made me feel this way about something so simple, talking.

So, I consider this to be a bit of a struggle I have going on. I did used to be a lot worse maybe. I think having a job has really helped me talk to people more and helped me to not be as awkward as I once was. I'm still awkward, though.  So, I just need to start speaking up. It's just a bit hard because I really am very soft-spoken and I'm not sure how to change my voice. I just have so many excuses.

If you are like me, though, you probably make these excuses for yourself, too. But I'm basically writing this so that I can actually have it written down that I am going to try to get through this struggle and begin to speak up more. So, if you're having this struggle, join me! I really just want to be able to encourage myself and people like me to try better at this if it is something that bothers you. 

It could be something as simple as just waving at someone when you see them or actually saying hi. Even if it's just an acquaintance, just do it. Because I know we all walk by those people that we're not sure if we should talk to, so we just pretend to not see them. Just smile and say hey. They're not going to think you're weird. It could actually probably make their day. Just think about a time that someone has said hey to you when you weren't sure if you should pretend to not see them or make eye contact. Then, they smiled and said hey to you. It made you feel good! It made you feel noticed and you just thought that person was nice. So, we could be those people. 

Seriously, though, I want to start doing little things like this to boost my confidence in having conversations with people. I know I didn't make much of a point in this post, but I will continue to talk about this. I just want anyone like me to read this and feel encouraged to take part in this with me. Thanks for reading!