Day 11-23 of 30 Days of Pictures

Brace yourselves, I'm doing 12 at once. Because I have been taking the pics, but after the Frozen Chicken Incident of 2013, I needed to emotionally regroup. These may or may not be better than the chicken, and they may or may not be in order.

From Yuki, my favorite shaved ice place, because the owner makes all his own syrups from scratch. If you don't know it's my favorite, you haven't been paying attention. But I thought these colors of beet and apricot were particularly lovely. (Yes, he makes beet shaved ice. And it's delicious.)

A pair of shoes I'm considering. My sister pointed out that they look like Sarah's shoes in Labyrinth, which they do. But I can't decide if that makes them better, worse, or has no effect. Thoughts are welcome. Also I can never remember how to spell labyrinth.

I'm commuting every day on the train right now, so you'll just have to deal with train shots. Mostly I read, but when I look up, sometimes I see interesting things. The green and unusual industrial shapes caught my eye here.

 This time it's from the train station: a capitol building and fantastically fluffy clouds.

This is half the apparatus I use to make Thai sticky rice. Dad: "I don't know where this goes." Me: "On your head, of course." He almost willingly let me take this picture.

More sky from one of my evening constitutionals. 

My brother Dave and my nevy Noah on our way to see Annie Get Your Gun at an outdoor theatre. I built some of the costumes, which I have no pictures of, of course.

Impromptu "fierce" photo shoot with friend Becca to take her mind off the fact that we were walking up a mountain after 10 p.m. 

More shoes I'm considering. (Can you tell I'm updating my wardrobe a bit?) Don't worry, I won't roll my pants in exactly this fashion. 

 A pastoral view from the train. There were lots of cows, but I just didn't get my camera on in time. The yellow tone of the grass stood out to me.

 My parent's house was built by a geologist, therefore we have what we call a "rock garden" in the front yard. It's quite sizable and even colorful. Sometimes I see a rock that I can't remember seeing before. This hollowed out rock is such a one.

And today on the train, an abandoned book. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. 

Day 10: The Madness Has Set In

Day 10 of 30 Days of Pictures

Wow. This 30 days of pictures thing is making me realize that I sure don't have a lot of friend-based human contact. All my pictures are of things sans people. Yay, introversion! 

Also this exercise has made me realize that the process of forcing yourself to do something, even though it's something you were excited about in the first place, can quickly lose its sheen and produce boring results because you're bored. (And if you're bored, you're boring, right?) Exhibit A: Yesterday's photo is of a piece of FROZEN CHICKEN. Chicken that I thought might be mildly interesting because it's Hulk huge. (Banana for scale.) Riveting stuff, this.

The alternative is to go out and do more stuff with actual humans in the hopes of taking more interesting pictures. No thank you.

Day 8 & 9: Reading and Living

Day 8 & 9 of 30 Days of Pictures

If a turn of phrase or an idea catches my fancy while I'm reading, I like to take notes. Physically writing them down is much more satisfying than typing them into my phone on the go. (More on the book I'm reading in a later post. Because it's amazing and I love it.)

The freight train that the commuter train passed today looked like it had lived a few lifetimes.

Day 7 of 30

Day 7 of 30 Days of Pictures (Taken but not posted yesterday.)
I take too many pictures of the sky. Ug, and I didn't realize how bad the quality was until I uploaded. I think my camera phone is jacked since I cracked the back of my phone. Draw metaphorical life lessons here as you will.

Brandi Carlile, Round Two

If you were creeping around this blog last year at about this time, you may have read my post about seeing Brandi Carlile in concert. And this year the same friend invited me to go again, so off I went to the merry old land of Red Butte Gardens to take in the show.

Brandi and her band are still amazing and delightful. I extol more of her virtues here. I was particularly delighted this time around by Brandi's acoustic cover of Radiohead's Creep. It was raw and rich, just how I like it. 

I also really enjoyed the opening act, The Lone Bellow. Their music is along the same veins as Brandi's--a healthy mix of rock, bluegrass, classic country, and wicked tight harmonies. They did an amped up version of this song during the show:

Day 6 of 30 Days of Pictures
Naturally my picture for the day is from the show.

Brandi and the twins, Tim and Phil, who wear bad hats. 

The sky and the venue. 

Yesterday & Today

Day 4 & 5 of 30 Days of Pictures

I took a picture yesterday, but I forgot to post it, so I'm posting two. I'm sure you will enjoy both more than anything else you've enjoyed in your whole life.

Cutting out a top.

Tonight's sky as seen from my constitutional.

Half-hearted

Day 3 of 30 Days of Pictures
A bit boring today. I forgot to take pics when I was out and about. Yay for a half-hearted shot of fabric for two projects I'm working on this weekend! The mustard is a voile and the black and white is a knit.

The Bike

Day 2 of 30 Days of Pictures
My sissy bought a bike today. I went with her because she was nervous to see a stranger about it alone. It turns out that the seller, Frank, was really nice, really good at restoring bikes, and a really good salesperson. He almost had me riding a bike out of his shed, and I certainly ain't in no market for no bike. We chatted a bit, and it turns out Frank used to own a bike and skate shop in Echo Park, California before he moved to Salt Lake City be closer to his kids. Now he restores bikes on the side and sells them through the KSL classifieds. So if you're in the market for a bike or need repairs, I have a feeling that this is your man.

"Ch-ch-ch-changes!" -David Bowie

Hello, hello! It's been a while. I didn't have ideas or motivation to write for a while, but a a change has come to my life, and it feels like it's spurring more changes. And boy am I ready.

As you may know, I was out of regular work since I finished my BA. I've had work here and there come my way, but nothing permanent, and I like a sense of permanence in my job. But yesterday I started a new job—a job filled with the sparkling glow of part-time permanence—for a local news organization. Basically I will be writing, rewriting, and managing a small amount of content (as part of a bigger team) for their website, in a very peon-like manner. But this is much closer to the type of experience I want than what I've been doing, so I'm jazzed.

Then today, as I was making my internet rounds, I saw that a couple of my FB friends had posted a short and sweet TED talk given by Matt Cutts about making changes.

I'm a look-before-you-leap type of gal, so changes for me, especially major ones, move as quickly as molasses on a cold day. But Cutts isn't necessarily talking about big scary changes, and if he is, then his prescribed shortened time commitment of 30 days somehow makes the idea of change more manageable. So while I think of other 30 day change challenges, I'll start with one he mentioned: a picture a day to be posted right here starting today. They probably won't be glorious, and they may not even be mildly interesting, but it's something. And something is something, ya dig?

A view from my first train commute, an old industrial part of town.

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