What I'm up to These Days

Hey y'all :) Whatcha been up to? Sorry I haven't written much of anything lately. Life's crazy and blogging has fallen to the back burner but still a priority pastime (but yes, I admit, Pinterest and Tumblr are the instant attraction when I have a free moment or two. It takes more time and patience to actually write  a post from scratch!).

Anyways!

I hope you're enjoying this week's weather as much as I am! Down south here rain and chilly weather is a rare occurrence that I absolutely love. Perfect time to pull out those cute over-sized sweaters and leggings and fuzzy blankets and head over to the store for Nutella and Hot Chocolate! It was rainy and chills for a few days, now its sunny and chilly and absolutely gorgeous. Rather bi-polar weather we're having.

Well I don't know about y'all, but I'd assume that y'alls lives are passing by at the speed of light like mine is! School is in full swing. Sports are getting serious. Obama-care just got started and the government is shut down (I wrote this part of the post earlier this week. Government has since re-opened), but life for the American people still goes on! I've been so occupied lately! Not with any thing out-of-the-ordinary, just normal stuff. Like school, debate, physical therapy, and just everything else I do (not really sure what but I know I've been busy!)

It's my sophomore year. So far (this semester), I'm taking: 

• American History
• American Literature
• Economics
• Spanish 1
• Algebra 1 (i didn't start it til 2nd semester last year because I'm behind with math), 
• Chemistry and Physics (yes, concurrently. Crazy I know but I really want them out of my way so that in my Jr. year I can take Human A&P and then my senior year either Microbiology or Marine Biology. I LOVE biology)
•  Life Science based composition
• Health/Nutrition
• Team Policy Debate                                                                                                          

Yeah! A lot of stuff! But it's not too bad. Just makes it hard to blog regularly. 

Since I'm not able to do ballet anymore (if your new here, I have a hip injury that keeps me from my beloved sport), debate is my new extra-curricular/sport. That's right. I said sport. Its a sport for the mind. Call me a nerd, I don't care, but just so you know, we prefer the term "Intellectual Beast". Debate is a ton of fun. Hard at first but worth it. You gain a ton of skills from it, get to socialize with really nice like minded people, have the option to compete at a ton of different tournaments (I'm only planning on doing one this year), you can wear awesome clothes. I love it! Though I have to admit being a novice presents a very steep learning curve. Currently I'm only doing Team Policy, but next year depending on the resolution, I would like to switch to Lincoln Douglas and do a speech event or two.

Since I'm  injured, I'm in physical therapy (airrosti). Its going really well and it looks like I won't be needing surgery anytime soon! I have FAI Hip Impingement, which is basically a jammed hip socket that isn't shaped right and it causes pain and severe loss in r.o.m. Late this past summer I had cortisone shots into both hips. That helped somewhat but I was still having a ton of bursitis type pain in the sides of my hips and my SI joint was constantly locking up and I couldn't lift my foot behind me past knee level. Now, with the help of Airrosti therapy (physical therapy + myofacial release massage + chiropractic all combined into one therapy) I rarely have to take any kind of pain killer, I'm getting alot stronger and more flexible, and more than likely won't be having to have surgery! But I still shouldn't ever dance ballet again because that would make it very possible to easily tear the labrum and that would mean I'd have to have surgery. I don't want to have surgery, because even though it's arthroscopic, the recovery period is super long and difficult and ain't nobody got time for that!

Oh yeah, I recently got around to getting my drivers permit. It took us awhile but now I have it. Picture turned out not so pretty. And we had to go to the DMV 3 times because of documentation issues (make sure you have the original copy of EVERYTHING you're supposed to take and that both of your parents names are on them) But hey, I can drive now...well with adult supervision.

Also, I'm on Dr. Fuhrman's Nutrarian Diet. Not for the purpose of loosing weight, as I don't need to do that. Just for the sake of improving my over-all health and attempting to clear up issues such as acne, depression, nausea, and hormone imbalances. So far I have to admit I do feel alot better when I follow the diet. If I eat sugar however, I notice that 2 days afterwards I spiral into depression. No fun. So as long as I stay away from sugar I generally should be on the happy side.  I'm also noticing that my skin may not be as oily as it usually can be, but it's hard to tell because it's been super humid lately. Also I'm noticing that I seem to be more energetic, which is a really big thing because several years ago I had mono and ever since then I'm usually pretty lethargic. Click here to find out more about this awesome diet.

Currently I'm trying to recover from my hard-drive crash I wrote about in my last post. I lost basically all of my photos, minus what I had on my photography blog, and what I had on my family's electronic photo-frame. I have old stuff (meaning pre-summer 2013) on my parents computer and even older stuff (2011-early winter 2013) backed up on an external drive. So basically I don't have anything of importance left. As for documents, I lost my high school transcripts and resume and volunteer hour log, as well as lots of important essays and lab reports and other school related documents. Thankfully I didn't have very much music stored on that drive.  So yeah. I'm just trying to cope with the loss of a ton of hard work and captured memories. Will have to call Adobe tomorrow to see if I can get my Lightroom software restored onto the new hard-drive.

And in my spare time, I enjoy sifting through Pinterest, posting to my Tumblr blog(s), making outfits on Polyvore, sleeping, eating, hanging out with my awesome friends, watching Foyle's War, babysitting,  playing with my kitten, skeet-shooting, and shopping.

That's my fall semester in a nut shell!
Happy fall y'all! 

Trust God, Even When You're Living Your Worst Nightmare

So this week has been pretty good overall. Except for one thing:

Tuesday night, my laptop crashed. 

It had ran a Windows 8 update earlier that day, and after hours of using it for school I turned it off and continued on with my day for a few hours, then,  I came to turn it back on, and it wouldn't start and kept saying that my operating system could not start and I needed to get the recovery disks out.
Well, Dell didn't send any recovery disks with the computer when I bought it. And it was late and I didn't have time to get on the phone with them then. All I wanted to do was to get on and download my camera which currently contained some awesome macros. Well that obviously wasn't God's for that evening.
So Wednesday morning my dad and I called Dell and talked with a rep for several hours, and we finally figured it out: My hard drive crashed.

THIS IS MY WORST NIGHTMARE COME TRUE.
 Let me explain why.

You see, I live a super busy life, and hate dealing with technical difficulties or learning how to, and regularly performing technical tasks - like regularly backing up files from my hard-drive to an external drive, and figuring out how to back up my Photoshop Lightroom catalog.
So that means its been several months since I've backed up my hundreds-of-thousands of pictures and documents and music directly on the hard drive, plus all of the organized, edited, and sorted photos I store in the Lightroom software. BOOM. To put it lightly, I'm really upset and feel like and idiot for being busy and lazy and putting such an important task off until a catastrophe such as this occurs.

Yes I'm aware of how important it is to back up my files regularly, and actually was planning on spending this next weekend figuring out how to backup my Lightroom and go through all of my files and remove what I didn't need, because I'm actually in the mood and have free time. Well so much for that, for now at least. I foolishly thought that there wasn't a need to rush on it because after all, I just bought the computer brand-new in February and only 80GB of 1TB of the hard-drive space was filled (and the laptop I owned before this was Dell and before it was mine it was my dads so when I finally decided to replace it with this one the thing was almost 10yrs old, and not dead but I needed something more bigger and more powerful). Everything was running normally it seemed, it's been super fast and programs were operating normally. But obviously something was going on...I wish it would've happened after this weekend when I was going to have had everything backed up and safe.

Today a tech came by and replaced the hard drive. So I'm using my laptop now as I write this. Its like brand new, nothing on it, and I wasn't even singed into Chrome at the time of the crash, so all those bookmarks I had saved with evidence to use to compile briefs for debate? Also gone. Oh well, I guess I'll stick with the pre-fab briefs for now. As a novice I'm probably better off doing that for now anyways.
But now comes the hard part: getting all of my files off of my old hard-drive. I'll have to take it somewhere because I obviously don't know how to go about that. I don't even know how bad the crash was. But I really hope that there's a way for them to get all of my files out of Lightroom especially. I have so many pictures in there, a lot of them rather important - several folders about to be submitted to contests, family and extended-family-family portraits that need to be printed, yearbook stuff, portrait and event shoots for friends, and a ton of other stuff that I really do not want to loose.

Oh well. I know that everything happens for a reason and though not all things are good, they will work together for good (Romans 8:28). Although I have to admit that at this time I am still frustrated by the current situation and don't see how me loosing all of my school work and photography and music is a good thing. Maybe it's God saying I need to get a life...But then again He's given me talent with a camera and lots of opportunities to use that gift to capture His creation. Hmm.. I really don't know why this is happening. But it'll work out eventually I hope :)

So getting to the point (I'm really not trying to pitch a fit and whine to y'all), I believe I've made my impact by telling y'all whats happened to me and my beloved laptop this week. So what was the point of all that?

PEOPLE, FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, CONSTANTLY BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER FILES TO AN EXTERNAL DRIVE,

YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL CRASH AND ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK BURNED UP IN A DRIVE CRASH. 

Faith, Family, Ducks - a guest post by Emery

        Hey! Emery here! I am a guest writer on Christina's wonderful blog! :)
*This post is the kick off to a series that Christina's starting on role models.*

Okay so I am here to talk about a well known show called DUCK DYNASTY! If you haven't heard of it just go ahead and crawl back under your rock. :)

So basically I am just a big fan of the Robertson clan, I always have been. But recently my love for this show escalated to the point where I was constantly on the family's fan pages, twitters, instagrams, etc. And you can learn a lot about a person just by looking at their twitter page, and throughout the last few weeks I learned that this family isn't just a few faces with a reality show. I looked through interviews, stories, I know so much about them now that I didn't before. My main interest lately has been Sadie Robertson. If you don't know her by name she is the daughter of the CEO of Duck Commander (Willie Robertson). Sadie is 16 and a Sophomore in high school, which makes her the perfect image for young girls. Sadie is no ordinary 16yr. old, she has crazy responsibility now that millions of people see her face every week. And let me tell you she took that responsibility and she ran with it. Her goal in life is to be an inspiration to people, young and old. Her mom finally let her have a public twitter and when that happened Sadie decided to start her mission by simply, writing bible verses here and there and just talking about God subtly for a while. She's been doing that for a while now so she decided to take the next step. She just recently started a YouTube she called TheNewDifferent (links at the bottom of the page). In this YouTube show she basically tells kids, well high school girls especially, how easy and almost effortless it can be to live the life the Lord wants us to live while we're young. She talks about Temptation a lot, she also talks about Modesty and Friends, etc. Okay so I don't want to give her all the credit because she does have a co-host. Kolby Koloff, she is on the reality show PRECHERS DAUGHTERS. I don't watch the show and I've rarely heard about it. But Sadie and Kolby met at summer camp and seemed to have ALOT in common and now they're changing the world one person at a time. And they need support so please watch the show, and spread the word! Sadie inspires me because she has millions of people starring at her all the time, and she still knows how take life one step at a time, in the right direction. I mean just look at other celebrities right now. Okay so I've rambled on enough about Sadie, so I'm just gonna end by saying, the whole Robertson family inspires me a lot! Missy (Jase's wife) is always tweeting Christian songs. Jase talks about the Lord during the show. So does Phil. Even Willie tweets bible verses and everything else pointing towards the Lord. They even hosted the K-Love music awards. Now that doesn't happen, with a family that's on the number #1 show in America. So honestly, how are they doing it?

- TheNewDifferent -

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCszANi6atEoLabh5_mmU78g?feature=watch

  Sadie: https://twitter.com/sadierob/

      Missy: https://twitter.com/MissyDuckWife

  Korie: https://twitter.com/bosshogswife

Jessica: https://twitter.com/JessicaDuckWife

Jase: https://twitter.com/JaseDuckman

Willie: https://twitter.com/williebosshog

Jep: https://twitter.com/JepDuckman

Oh and I forgot to mention, Sadie Roberson was recently asked to be spokes model for a new line of modest "Daddy Approved" prom dresses, called "Sadie Robertson Live Original" by Sherri Hill. So if you are attending Prom this next year I suggest you look there first, the line will be released this spring! :)

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/duck-dynasty-sadie-robertsons-absolutely-insane-fashion-week-001952656.html

Meet Bubbles: My Tiny Turtle

This introduction is long overdue, I've had/her/it (how exactly do  you sex a turtle barely the size of a half-dollar?) him since the beginning of August! I didn't want to post until I made sure it will survive. 

So, to anybody reading this, here's Bubbles!  He's really tiny - not any larger than a half-dollar coin! Isn't he adorable!?!?

(yes mom and dad, I'm loving my macro lens!!!)

Bubbles is a baby Slider Turtle that I rescued while snorkeling in the river late this past summer. 

By rescued I mean I found him all by his lonesome in really deep, ice cold water struggling to swim and he ended up in my lap, or actually under it. I was sitting on the edge of a ledge and I had seen him earlier when I was swimming and needed a chance to catch my breath and we both ended up on basically the only thing available to grab onto and I guess he thought that I made a great rock to crawl under. Well anyways I felt kinda bad for seemingly sitting on this cute little guy and luckily had a container on shore so I took him out of the water and put him in it. Five hours later after me being in the water all that time I didn't see any more turtles and this particular part of the river isn't exactly turtle friendly so I figured he probably got caught in the current and got separated from his family or something. So I brought him home with me and for the past month he's been quite content living with me :) 

I haven't been able to get very many pictures of him because he lives to squirm a lot and is so small that a macro lens is better to use so that makes it complicated.

But hopefully Bubbles will be my pet for years to come! Maybe once it warms up again and he's bigger I'll take him back to the river where I got him. We shall see! 

As you can probably tell  by now, I really love animals! 

Music Review: Kieth Urban's New Album, Fuse

Well, I believe its official that Keith Urban can no longer be considered country. Not that he ever truly was. I mean you could never hold him to comparison with George Strait, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Alan Jackson. He's always had more of a pop influence in his music. With his latest album, Fuse, released September 10th 2013 (4 days ago), there's basically nothing country about this album. Maybe some of the lyrics relate more to country life than they do suburbian, but the music style definitely isn't very country. None of the songs on Fuse are very catchy. I like the old Keith, with his fun, catchy, make you dance around and bounce up  and down in the car songs like "Put You In a Song", "Sweet Thing", "I'm In", "Days go By", and  "Somebody Like You". I also love his more emotional, meaningful song "For You" from the soundtrack of Act of Valor (LOVE that movie, except that nothing from it's soundtrack was even played in the movie, but each are awesome). 

So basically, I do not like this album very much and wouldn't bother looking into concert tickets and driving a long way to see it. The only song on this album that I think I might like is his duet with Miranda Lambert (which y'all have already expressed your dislike for her, but that' won't change my opinion.) titled "We Were Us". It's kind of cute. 

Listen to the album for yourself and see what you think! Keith Urban – Fuse

Apparently All Americans are Supposed to have Pet Eagles?

Yesterday I found this (written out in the right format below) and my brother said to post it here so he could have a written copy and I figured y'all may want to read it too.  This is one of the funniest things I've come across on tumblr in a long time, I hope y'all laugh at least as hard as we did! 

The sarcastic stories written as reblog-responses to this foreigners question are the best! 

Here ya go!

American patriotism in a light-hearted manner.

 By random tumblr kids.

Anon. Question to Random Blog: Do all Americans have pet eagles?

Blog: Yes, of course we do. It’s our national bird, we must preserve the species and uphold our value of national pride.

Anon. Guest Post Responses with reblogs:

• ·         "I remember my first eagle ceremony when I turned nine. The first eagle you get is always declawed, which I always thought was pretty inhumane, but it was a good way to ease into caring for the birds. My eagle (named Baldy, because I wasn’t a terribly clever child) was already quite old when I received him (he was a rescue eagle, luckily) but I did have him until I was 16. I don’t know if I was more excited about getting my drivers license that year, or my new eagle! You should have seen the party we had when I got him, too! Grilled hot dogs and fire works and lemonade…. obviously I named my beautiful new eagle Freedom. He’s too big to keep inside anymore, unfortunately, but we’ve got a pretty comfortable roost for him on our apartment’s balcony."

• ·         "Ah, yes, the eagle ceremony! My Justice and I remember his quite well. (They had just come out with telepathic link transplants when I got him, which is how I know he remembers it.) Our celebration was quite modest, compared to Freedom’s—apple pie under a cloudless summer sky as we signed our Declaration of Interdependence. I still have the inked and talon-pierced document hanging on my wall."

• ·         "I was so scared during my pet eagle ceremony I almost threw up. But Stonewall Jackson and I have been best friends ever since. My dad and grandfather built a really massive roost behind the house for my eagle and my sisters’ eagles. Stonewall always waits for me when I get home from class since schools are getting so over protective and strict these days and won't allow eagles indoors. Which just goes to show how much we’re bubble wrapping kids today. Back in the day, if you couldn't handle a few stitches because you annoyed the wrong kid’s eagle, you had to just man up and learn your lesson!"

• ·         "Ooo, I never miss a chance to tell this story! I had a rather unusual first eagle ceremony. The traditional giant American flag that you wave around to summon your eagle had been severely damaged the week prior (a ceremony that had not gone according to plan, but the child only suffered minor talon wounds. The flag took the brunt of the attack).  Anyway, I couldn't use the normal flag so we had to search ALL OVER for one suitable for eagle summoning. Unfortunately the stripes weren't the correct shade of patriotic red so everyone was worried an eagle would not show up at all.  I had to stand in the middle of that wheat field, the wind creating amber waves out of it, shaking that flag in the air for over three hours.  Everyone was just about to give up when suddenly Patriot appeared out of nowhere!  He came to me so quickly it was like he was apologizing for being late.  And we've been together ever since."

• ·         "Some people think it’s excessive to have two eagles.  But what can I say, I’m a two eagles kind of guy.  Well, I can say, “You must be rude to call me out over my excesses,” but I disagree.  We don't have many open fields around here, so I got Liberty by waving my flag atop a decommissioned WWII aircraft carrier.  I was kicking a couple of boxes of tea into the harbor for good measure, and there she was.  I loved her so much I repeated the process a year later and got young Colbert here.  It’s hard work, raising two eagles, but I have two shoulders, after all.  Besides, I know that the secret to happy and healthy eagles is plenty to drink."

I hope y'all found that funny as well! I sure did, but as you probably know I laugh a little too hard at everything...no matter how low the funny factor...I have giggle issues at times :)

Recordemur Semper: Remembering 9/11

Who remembers seeing nothing but this on the news all day,  & being told that your own town could have been next? Who remembers being scared? Even now, 12 years later, who gets nervous every time they see/hear a jet flying low? I do.

 Do you remember where were you when the world stopped turning? I do.

 Watch this and listen to the song!

Semper Fidelis - always remain faithful; never forget - Recordemur semper. (There's your Latin lesson of the day!) I will never forget the day we fell; It was scary to say the least.  I remember going places afterwards (especially historic battlegrounds and such, cause my parents love history) and being so young I didn't realize that there wasn't anything to be afraid of (like I thought that there was still a battle going on there...), I'd walk around in fear of seeing the t e r r o r i s t I had seen on the news jump out from behind something. But hey, I was barely 5 years old and back then I actually had an imagination and had a lot of nightmares.
 But the point of that is, 9/11 kinda scared me for life, as it has done to most Americans, though some of us have forgotten or simply just don't care because it didn't affect them directly, and that's  wrong. It most certainly does affect every.single.american.citizen. Think of how different everything (especially military politics and security and cultural discrimination) would be if that tragic event wouldn't have taken place? I believe things would be dramatically different. But sadly, it did happen. What's been done has been done and the devastating consequences will always affect us. Nearly 3,000 people died, more than 6,000 injured, and New York City and the American identity is forever changed. 

 It didn't fall, it crumbled all at once into a fiery pile of rubble, with thousands of people inside and everyone on the plane. How could something like this not stir up your patriotism?

I'm proud of my country where I'm from  and I stand firm in the value of Freedom. Please, nobody, forget what that event has done to change us.