Love, Love Comes First

Here I go again… I haven’t blogged in over a year and here I am wondering why again. Mostly though, I know why but that doesn’t matter right now. I’m ready to start again. I want to start with my most recent photo challenge – the only photo challenge I have ever actually completed in its entirety and I am so very happy that I did. It was the Radical Self Love Instagram challenge and my favorite that I have ever come across. It’s no surprise that something so amazingly simple was created by Gala Darling and you know I love everything that she does and what she represents as a person. She exudes more happy fuzzy feelings {and pinkness} than one person should be allowed but that’s silly to say and she does anyway, so I’m glad to have met her in this life. For the month of July she offered me {and all of her readers} the opportunity to challenge myself; not only through my creativity, but in remembering who I am and what kind of person I want to be every day.

I want to be happy and I want to inspire. I want to inspire people to get out there and do new things. Try new things that make you giggle and feel excitement. We only have one life after all, right? Right. Who has time for the animosity and grudges. I smile because I’m happy and I love seeing other people smile too. I just kind of forgot for a little while.

 

Taking on this challenge reminded me to find the good in every day. I should wake up with a smile and be grateful because I do get to wake up and live another day. 

 

 

 

 

Find out more about Gala Darling's Radical Self Love HERE.

 

"here's the thing - the horribly, eye-rollingly cheesy thing: no one can be a better version of yourself than you.

and becoming the best possible example of your you-ness does not include focusing on how much you dislike another person."

{tavi gevinson}

My View of (almost the rest of) the Challenge... P to the W

P is for Playing for the Perfect Pair

Q is for Quasi Quiet

R is for Random Reflection

S is for Sitting in the Sizzling Sun

T is for Terry Talking on the Telephone

U is for Under my Umbrella

V is for a {wanna-be} Vegan's Vice

W is for Wearing all White {party}

Back to the Challenge... L to the O

L is for Lovely Little Lights

(Bergdorf Windows)

M is for Muse-like Mannequin in Manhattan

(Bergdorf windows rarely let me down)

N is for Nania on NYE in NYC

(silly self port and my silly nickname that has stuck since I was about 11)

O is for Optimistic Oven

(family's famous mac 'n cheese bake from Christmas Lunch)

Back to the rest soon ~ hope you all had an amazing weekend ~ mine was close to perfect

I is for (un)Inspiring Island

I thought of so many things that I could do for this post then ran out of time & inspiration today so here are a few pics that I took with my palm pixi in Aruba. I had a great time in the sun; however, Aruba was not what I was expecting...more on that later...

H is for Humorous Hillary Hamilton

my crazy, silly, aspiring actor roommate on our rooftop one day last summer

Hillary Hamilton

G is for Go Green

This is a picture that I found of my High School sweetheart after he randomly decided to 'go green'. I was blusing pink for a short time too (I must find a pic of that somewhere)!

Hope you all had an amazing weekend - can't wait to share pictures of Aruba!!

What's new with all of you?

F is for Framing a Family

I used to take my Aunt's family portrait each year - these are from one year that I found in my photo stash recently - just silly and fun faces but not the ones they used for framing on their family wall.

Better feeling than sitting in Studio at least, huh? :-)

E is for Excellent Eggs

Shrimp & Grits with eggs on top... yum, yum... go get some at National in L.E.S., NYC

D is for Double Duty

Delightful Driving

Daring De la Vega

C is for Crazy Crowded or Crowd Control

I took this I think in maybe 1998 in Five Points, Columbia, SC during St. Patty's Day Festival... anyone who has been there is anyone who knows this crowd...

Tomorrow morning I am off to Aruba! Can't wait to soak up some much needed warm weather and I'll be ready to share some pics when I am back. As for this photo challenge I am going to try to do some scheduled posts - a first for me - so let's see how it goes...

B is for Becoming a Baca

Some of you may remember the wedding I was in last year and I have posted some pictures previously but now this post is representing the rehearsal dinner of my friend Michelle two days before "Becoming a 'Baca'" - her new last name! It was a great dinner and fun memories we will always remember - these are a few moments that I got to capture from the rehearsal dinner.

A is for Adorable Abby

Starting the February photo challenge today. From a recent trip home I brought back a small box of old photos - these I took about 10 years ago in Pawley's Island, SC. This is my cousin Abby (for A) - totally adorable - I always had the best time photographing my cousins; however, now we live in different cities so I don't get to see them as often and they are so grown up now! It's still nice to look back sometimes...

Over the next few weeks most of my photos will probably be blasts from the past - they are just scanned in so quality may not be the best but I hope you enjoy my sharing!

26things

This weekend I finally decided to take up the photo challenge that PinkAppleCore found and suggested… but I didn’t really do that well for my first photo challenge… 26 - at times somewhat obscure - things aren’t that easy to come by surprisingly and I did them over a weekend not just a day. Well I guess, not that easy when I don’t have my camera out and specifically looking for those items. I still wanted to post the few photos that I did get around to taking over the weekend and hopefully I will complete the next challenge entirely! Let me know if you have any questions…

1 - Couple

{2 - Slope}

{3 - Plate}

4 - Going Places

5 - Scrambled

6 - In the Distance

7 - Underneath

8 - Bright

{9 - 11pm}

10 - Today

11 - Everyday

{12 - Resemble}

{13 - Childhood Memory}

{14 - In the Water}

15 - Flower

16 - Button

{17 - Heritage}

18 - Glow

{19 - Clock}

{20 - Closed}

{21 - Smile}

22 - Back

23 - Plastic

{24 - Handle}

25 - In My Fridge

{26 - Looking Back at Me}