Starting College {Personal}

I am absolutely in love with college... which is amazing, because I was really hesitant to even go to college. I did not want to be stuck with anymore homework. But I think my brain is already kicking in and ready for a challenge after being on break for so long.
When I was in my accounting class Monday evening, I started to freak out a little when the instructor was already talking about assets, liabilities, credit, debit. But then I was like, "Wait, I know what he's talking about...." So I think that will be my most challenging class, but I'm kind of excited to learn, what my instructor calls, "the language of business".

I love my schedule so much because it allows me to have all the morning to myself, and that's what I always hated about going to high school, I had to leave my cozy room so early in the morning.
And I love having my window open to hear the birds and let the beautiful soft sunlight reflect off my floor. I think it's so pretty, I even took a picture for you. ;P

During those 3-4 hours before I go to school, I include a run with our dog who is terribly annoying to run with. Here's a story to illustrate:
Yesterday, I was running along and all of a sudden he just stepped right in front of me and stopped with his body turned, so I t-boned him and stepped on him, and stumbled all around. On top of that I was running down a hill... it's a wonder I didn't flip right over the dog onto my face! :P That would have been interesting to see a video of. lol.

This morning before my run, I remembered something on pinterest, and I was inspired to try to replicate it of myself running.... Ummm... It didn't quite turn out like I expected, but I got another idea from it. So I guess that's okay.

I made it from three pictures I cloned together in Lightroom. I had to take a few loop holes to get that done... like combining the pictures first into one picture, clone, and then crop back to just one picture.
And it is by no means a perfect clone because I didn't even zoom in when I cloned it... it was just a quickie... just for fun :)

and... that's how I did it in a few minutes during my break between classes.

One more class today and that concludes my classes for this week. [Did I mention I love my schedule, lol, I've told about everyone that asks me about college that I'm so excited about my schedule :) At least I'm not griping ;)]

-MarLeahJoy

Grand Gulf State Park

      So this was the last day I was at camp...

most of the people had already left to go home,

so the left-over young people went back to the 

state park again.                                 

It was an amazing little walk along the water bed.

Jumping from stone to stone... :)

And there's my sister at the look-out. Wayyyy up there!

Ahh... nature is wonderful!

By this time my lens was fogging up so bad, 

but I still think it looks kinda cool.

And this was the cave that some walked through

just the day before. Hopefully, I'll get to go through

it in coming years when it's not filled to it's brim.

-MarLeahJoy

Myrtle Camp

I didn't really take too many pictures during the camp.

Actually, I am quite sure that others took more pictures on my camera than I did ;)

I would include some of those that others took,

but since they mostly consist of pictures of me with my

eyes crossed or my tongue sticking out... we'll just leave

those pictures alone. Maybe, my kids will find them

when they want to browse through my "old" pictures --

that should give them a good laugh! Haha

It rained off and on the whole time.

I guess that has happened most of this 

summer anyway, so nothing different there.

These little guys were quite serious about their horseshoe game.

I think I could be just as amazing at horseshoes if I pitched

two feet away from the stake, too... ;)

I had my extra lens sitting around and my cousin picked it up to look at it and 

wha-la! there's a mini version of him hanging upside-down. 

This is from Grand Gulf State Park.

It's a pretty cool place, and you can hike 

around down there as long as it's dry... 

and you can even go down through the natural 

bridge or cave and come out in another gulf.

Sad to say, I got stuck up in another area taking pictures of these little 'shrooms and missed my chance to actually go through the natural bridge. I only brought my 50mm lens so I used this little method to turn it into a macro lens. It was pretty damp out that day, so I actually risked quite a bit by detaching my lens to make it macro... and it kind of gave me a scare later because the auto focus wouldn't work on the lens later o.O But now it's all okay! :)

And then, of course the picture I just posted about recovering. 

She's so pretty.

And her nickname is Amazing-Amy!

So that pretty much sums her all up :)

The next day a few of us went back to the state park and 

followed the water bed to where we could view the entrance to the cave

or natural bridge, but it was filled up with at least 15 ft of water. It was crazy that 

one day you could walk through it and the next (after the accumulation of 

the rainfall) you couldn't have even floated through it. Anyone want to go 

scuba-diving in some muddy water??

 Anyway, it was a beautiful little walk and I have some more 

pictures to share of that day later. :)

-MarLeahJoy

Before/After Lightroom

quick, quick post here before I head out to meet up with some friends....

I've been editing some pictures from camp at Myrtle (I should post them soon, I've just got to leave now... :) )  and I ran across a picture I just snapped without adjusting any settings.

I had been told so many times by so many people that when you shoot in raw and edit in Lightroom you can restore so much to a picture.

Well, now I've seen it and believed it.

And I love it.

Thank you, Lightroom!

That's all.

MarLeahJoy

Cookie Dough Fudge {Food Photography}

This recipe was a pinterest find from here.

Most of the time I'm more excited about taking pictures of the

food than eating it... and sad to say, I don't really like the way this fudge tastes.

It definitely tastes like it's supposed to, it's just not what I like. 

Give me peanut butter melt-in-your-mouth fudge any day over this stuff, haha.

So that's why I'm not going to share the recipe, just pictures ;)

Multi-tasking: Combining the cooking step with the

"take pictures" step, resulting in a head-less selfie ;)

And then.... comes the trouble!

Completely dumped all the sugar

out on the floor {don't ask how it happened}.

And this was just the start of

many, many tragedies.

{maybe that's why I don't like the 

way it tastes, hmmm...?

I had to modify the recipe

several times}

I was doing this in my room, by the way, because it was late at night and it was easier

to get better lighting.

I'm always playing eye spy to get some props for photography.

Then I find something awesome: like this scale from the basement {just how cool is it?}

Then I have to rack my brain to make it work: like I had to think of some sort of 

tray to substitute as a weighing boat and something to connect the two.

And, wheeee! This post was supposed to be published long ago, but I've been trying to do
some experimenting on Lightroom, so I have to watch tutorials... and read :( and that just hurts
my poor brain way too much. ;P

-MarLeahJoy

Marty and Alyssa {Engagement}

I'm super excited for their wedding coming up in November. 

Yes, it's my sister getting married. :D

I'll basically be the only child at home...

with my oldest sister always traveling when she's not at work ;)

and Alyssa moving to the East.

I guess it's a good thing I'll be busy with college

and hopefully a job.

But I think I'm definitely going to get pretty lonely.

We took some pictures at another place, but I can't figure out how to get

the edit I want on them in Lr, and my sister's not home to help me 

figure it out. ;) Actually, she made an edit to one of the pictures that looks

really great. Nothing like having a "client" show you up on an edit, haha ;)

With all that said, I will be posting a few more of them later. :)

-MarLeahJoy

Hailey

This girl is full of life.

She's a senior this year and she will be working herself

hard with her tough schedule: AP Calculus, Anatomy and Physiology,

Physics, AP Physiology, etc. 

I couldn't do it but, you go girl!

She came and visited me at Monark one day, and it happened

to be the day that I was taking portraits of a family, so she tagged along

and I got a few of her after their session.

We went to a lot of band competitions together. And naturally

we were always together since we were both in the low brass

section. She plays the tuba, believe it or not, and is really good, too!

And she only slightly embarrassed me with all the guys

she would meet and become friends with, haha. ;)

This was always her outlook on life...

Laugh loud and dance often! :)

This was my first time to use Lightroom. At first I was like, "Nooo! I want Photoshop back."

But I began to find that Lightroom is quite a bit better for what I'm 

doing (for instance: resizing photos, so much easier).

There are a few more things that I feel like I'm missing, but I'm sure I'll soon

learn Lightroom's way of doing what I did in Photoshop.

-MarLeahJoy

Cramming It All In

I would blog everyday. For some reason I really like to. Somehow for two whole months I blogged everyday, and that was when I was still in school. I don't know what has happened to me. Maybe, it's that the newness of my camera and the blog has worn off. Or maybe I just don't know how to respond to this new stage in life. I've always been very schedule oriented, so maybe losing the structure of going to school and having a certain amount of hours at home every night has been messing with me.

Anyway. I actually seem to stress and worry about not getting to post on here due to trying to fit everything-under-the-sun into my summer. And... so the past week, when my mind would wander back to that mental check-list that is always going on, I kept re-visitng the one that said something like "you need to blog!!! ekkk!" 

So this isn't anything that has been on my list of things to blog about or anything... but it's just a little bit of what I've been up to lately. 

I don't have my photoshop trial anymore. So pooh! But here are some good ole SOOC images for you! Hopefully a few more scholarships coming soon will solve that Photoshop/Lightroom issue. ;)

{SOOC explained: just because you were wondering ;)}

National church camp... Monark! This year was better than the best! But then again, that happens every year I go :)

Lunch Line. 

God answered our prayer for rain, and we had such nice, cool weather during the meeting.

Davion

Plenty of bugs for the boys ;)

Baptismal

"Upon the confession of your faith..." :)

:D

Such a familiar sight... I love it :)

Well, tomorrow I'm off to another camp meeting. :)

-MarLeahJoy