Life Lately

Life lately has been busy. And wonderful. And stressful. And fun.

June 6- Patterns

I’ve been photographing patterns a lot lately. It’s a phase.

Some people go through food phases and eat a lot of sandwiches. Some people go through clothing phases and wear jeans and T-shirts almost every day. I go through photo phases and photograph all the patterns I see. It’s a quirk.

June 7 – And then I joined my generation

I downloaded the Instagram app on my iPad a few months ago. I played with it for about five minutes, decided it didn’t live up to the hype and didn’t touch it again.

But then on Thursday I gave it a second try. I’m pretty sure I love it now. If you want to follow me, then you should. I only have 4 followers right now, and that’s kind of lame. My username is mrsktbarton.

June 8 – Good Intentions

Friday consisted of non-stop work, until about 3:15 p.m. And then I decided my weekend was going to start early. I abandoned my responsibilities for a tuna sandwich and a conversation with my husband. It was a good trade.

Of course, around 11 p.m. I realized I still hadn’t taken a photo. So, I searched my house for something photogenic and found my flowers. I thought they looked nice, glowing in the window reflection and back lit by the street lights. But, now that I’m looking at it again, the photo really just seems creepy.

You can’t always be a winner, guys. And really, however creepy my flowers look they’re still 10 times more photogenic than a tuna sandwich. You should be thanking me right now.

June 9 – Do-nothing Saturday

Today was a wonderful do-nothing Saturday. Dustin brought me an iced coffee while I was still in bed, and he ventured out to buy breakfast ingredients. (We aren’t very diligent grocery buyers, so we’re out of normal things like eggs and milk a lot.) After we enjoyed our breakfast on the balcony, we abandoned our plans and goals and just let the day happen. Nothing is more wonderful on a Saturday.

Happy Afternoon!

I hope you are all having a wonderful afternoon.

I was going through some memory cards, and I found this photo I took a few weeks ago. I get really excited when businesses do simple, normal things in fun, creative ways. Caribou Coffee is an excellent example.

Their cups are fun. (They’ve doodled all the things you should stay awake for on their cups.) Their napkins are fun. They offer fun products. I liked this napkin so much I tacked it up with my collection of random things that made me smile.

I’ve also gone out of my way to go to Caribou Coffee more than normal, because this napkin made me smile.

Caribou Coffee, congratulations on your marketing success. You won me over.

What are some simple things you have seen done in fun, creative ways recently?

Art Walk, Monster Trucks, and a Former Muffin

May 4 – Art Walk

Dustin and I experienced our first Art Walk Friday night. The best way to describe our evening is to share my Art Walk-inspiredFacebook status:

“Lesson of the night: If one group of people near you starts looking around nervously, asking where the cops are and another group of people near you seems to be preparing someone for a fight, you should probably take your hot dog elsewhere.”

 

May 5 – Monster Truck Time

My favorite part of monster trucks is the fair food that comes with them. When you have corn dogs, root beer and a happy husband you can’t have a bad day.

May 6 – The Tale of a Former Muffin

Once upon a time, a time known as Sunday afternoon, there was an apple crisp muffin in this bag.

Apple crisp muffins were the favorite breakfast item of a young lady named Katie, and this particular apple crisp muffin was awaiting its time to loyally serve as a Monday morning breakfast.

Katie should have been as loyal to her muffin as her muffin was to her, for an evil villian named Dyson the Pooch also loved apple crisp muffins. Dyson the pooch was willing to stop at nothing to get his paws on a tasty apple crisp muffin.

And as you can see, the poor apple crisp muffin did not fair so well. He met his fate in the middle of Land Living Room at the hands of evil Dyson the Pooch.

By the time beautiful young Katie found him all that was left was one tiny apple slice and a few crumbs on evil Dyson the Pooch’s lips that were quickly licked away.

The end.

Vintage Pizza

May 3 – Vintage Pizza

While Dustin was out and about buying the Minolta, he found an old Kodak Canon that was in good condition. He bought it, and we’ve been debating whether we’ll be able to use it. Neither of us have bothered to research it yet.

But, I had read about using these old cameras with new cameras to take photos with a vintage look. I spent awhile last night carrying my two cameras around our apartment snapping vintage photos. The photo is the one that came out the best. It’s also where the Kodak was before I moved it to take the other photos. Candid is always best, even if it’s just pizza boxes.   

When I read about this photo technique, they suggested cropping the photo so you only have a vintage photo, and you can’t see any of the camera or its surroundings. I think I like it like this though.

 

Here’s an extra photo for yesterday, so you can see our new camera. It will probably spend the next little while on this shelf in our living room. I think it’s happy there.

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Soda

I love strawberries this time of year. I’ve been day dreaming about chocolate-covered strawberries, strawberry shortcake, and strawberry soda for weeks.

This weekend my friends and I got creative and combined a few classic strawberry creations. Our result: Chocolate-covered strawberry soda.

It sounds crazy. It was. It was also amazing and beautiful.

To create your own chocolate-covered strawberry soda:

Melt a bowl of chocolate chips, dip the top of an empty glass in the melted chocolate, then quickly dip the melted chocolate covered glass in sprinkles.

We* dipped our glasses straight down into the chocolate, but the chocolate on the inside was difficult to eat. We decided it might be better to rotate the top of your glass at an angle so the chocolate stays on the outside. But really, either way works just fine.

*When I say “we”, I really mean my friend Kelsey. We came up with the idea together, but she did the work while Sarah and I watched.

Pretending it’s Summer

April 18 and April 19 – Pretending it’s Summer

The weather has been beautiful all week. There have been blue, sunny skies and perfect temperatures. So, I’ve been pretending it’s summer.

I’ve been wearing sun dresses, sipping sweet tea, listening to lawn mowers and eating outside. It’s been wonderful.

I also took the Christmas cards off my office bulletin board this week and replaced them with dried flowers. (I know mid-April is a little late to be taking down Christmas cards, but this is Missouri.)

As you can see, I didn’t take the above photo. I thought it was necessary, because this dress was the first Summer outfit of the year. 

And, now it’s Friday and I’m wearing boots, jeans, long sleeves and a jacket, and I’m still cold. Missouri weather is fickle.

 

 

Full disclosure: It’s been a crazy week. My memory card and my computer weren’t cooperating with each other yesterday, and then I forgot my memory card in my computer. So, I don’t have a picture from yesterday; I’m really upset with myself. But, there’s no use dwelling on something I can’t fix now. So, I’m going to share two photos from Wednesday and promise myself this isn’t going to happen again.

Friend Date

April 18 – Friend Date

I met with my college roommate for dinner at Panera last night. After we ate we ventured down the strip mall for frozen yogurt.  

I had red velvet cupcake mixed with blueberry. She had vanilla custard mixed with mango sorbet.

A lot has changed since we lived together: I’m married. She’s married. She has a baby. We’ve both began careers.

It was nice to catch up on life.

Weekend Couple Time

I’m returning from the weekend a bit late. Dustin and I got away for a little bit of much-needed couple time.

April 14 – Art in Arkansas
I’ve been extremely excited about the Crystal Bridges art museum since I first read about it back in September. I love art museums. I love Northwest Arkansas. I wasn’t quite sure how combining the two was going to play out, but I was hopeful. It seems to be a success.

I plan on sharing a few more photos of our museum visit later in the week.

 

April 15 – Drive Waddle Through

Ducks get hungry too.

April 16 – Fashionable Faith
While at the Pinnacle Hills Promenade in  Rogers, Ark. Dustin and I wandered into Altar’d State.

I’d never heard of the store, but the cute sundresses in the window caught my attention.

Just like any other boutique, the store was filled with adorable sun dresses, cute shirts and beautiful accessories. But they also had Christian themed home decorations and items that reflected the conscious capitalism nature of the company like TOMS and hats knitted by a woman in Uganda.

One of the shop workers explained that every Monday the company donates a percentage of profits to a charity.

After quite a bit of browsing, I ended up buying a sundress and a clutch. I’m excited to return for more shopping.

Adventures in Vietnam

April 13 -Adventures in Vietnam

I have been hearing tons about Boba tea, or bubble tea, lately. I had never had it, so I wanted to try it for myself.

I found a local Vietnamese place that serves the beverage and tried it during my lunch break yesterday.

I was pleasantly surprised. What I had was very much like a strawberry smoothie with chewy balls.

Since I was there, I also tried Vietnamese food for the first time. It was good, but I want to try something a little more new-to-me than stir fry next time.

From my research, I know there is a lot of variation in Boba tea. I am excited to try more varieties.

Have you tried any new treats lately?

Grilled Cheese Day celebrations

April 12 – Grilled Cheese Day celebrations

Yesterday was National Grilled Cheese Day.

The LA Times celebrated with 12 spruced-up grilled cheese recipes.

I celebrated with a plain and simple bread-cheese-bread grilled cheese.  Spruced-up grilled cheese can be fun, (avacado is my favorite addition) but sometimes classic is best.