What I'm Into

[That photo is actually from April. :D I guess I'm into posting old photos.]
My friend Brenda does this (I guess a lot of bloggers do), and I always think, hey I should do that! But I don't, aside from some interests/updates posts that might mention things I'm into. So here goes my first official "What I'm Into" post.

General Highlights
June was a pretty good month, beginning with my niece's visit, which included trips to Silver Falls, Tillamook and the coast. My department went on a one-day work retreat to Lake Suttle. I spent the next couple of weekends chilling to make up for all that excitement (I'm weak!). I reconnected with an old friend, celebrated my friend Deborah's birthday at a BBQ, and did a lot of other little things that'll be covered in the following topics.

Read and Reading
I've had some bad luck with books lately, and have started a few only to quit on them. But I did enjoy the few books I finished in June...


Where We Belong by Emily Giffin: I've enjoyed several Giffin books even though I don't always like her character's choices. I loved this story!

A Place to Belong by Lauraine Snelling: The final book in a series I had read and enjoyed. And I didn't mean to have a "belong" theme in my reading this month. And yes, that book cover embarrasses me.

Hypothetical Future Baby: An Unsentimental Adoption Memoir by Claudia Chapman: I loved this! It's by a blogger I follow who adopted from Ethiopia. Definitely check out her blog and/or the book.

I'm currently working on several books, as usual, and who knows which ones I'll actually finish. I need to get to the library where I have more audiobooks waiting to rescue me from the ones I'm not enjoying.

TV/Movies
When my niece visited, we went to see The Fault in Our Stars, per her request. I'm not really into super sad movies--and it was--but this was well done and I'm glad we got to go. If you go see it, bring more Kleenex than you think you'll need.


Meanwhile, on Netflix I've been watching Once Upon a Time. I couldn't get into it the first time I tried, but I gave it another chance and have been enjoying it in the evenings. It's not the greatest ever, but it's interesting enough to keep me company while I play phone games or have dinner. Plus it's a family kind of show--fairly clean and includes all sorts of fairytale characters.

And since I don't think I've mentioned it here before, Parks and Recreation has become my new comfort show that I watch on repeat when I'm lonely, need a little cheering up or just want some guaranteed entertainment. IT'S SO FUNNY.

Music
I took a little trip down memory lane recently and dug up some old songs that I loved in my teens. I was always big into R&B and especially loved ballads back then, like Force MD's Tender Love and The Deele's Two Occasions. But in newer (to me) music, my aforementioned friend I reconnected with introduced me to Marc Cohn, and I particularly like Strangers in a Car.

Cooking/Eating
I think the best thing I ate this month was some carrot cake at Deborah's birthday BBQ. Wow, that was good! As for cooking this month:

• I made my own version of these Chicken Cordon Bleu Bites - They were good and froze well.
• I made a version of this Green Chile Mock Enchilada Casserole using ground turkey and it was fantastic.
• My niece and I made these No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter bars that are always awesome and addictive.

Purchases
I did a lot of shopping/spending this month (too much!) and a couple of my favorite purchases were:

Bath & Body Works Beautiful Day lotion - It smells so good! I want to get some more products in this scent.

LED Twinkle Star Tap Light - A silly impulse buy from Walmart that I've ended up loving, because apparently I'm 8 years old. It was like $3.something and I find it cute and comforting to turn it on when I go to bed. It shuts off automatically after 30 minutes.

Games

Candy Crush - Big news--I finished Candy Crush! Well, all of the levels they have created so far (590). I will probably go back and replay some levels or even start it again, because it's so fun.

Sumoku - My friend Dan sent me this game since I loved it so much when he first showed me how to play. It's really fun and good for all ages. I think it would be especially great for helping with basic math skills for kids.

Catch Phrase - Since Jimmy Fallon plays Catch Phrase on his show, Dan was craving to play and ended up purchasing the game, which we've played over the phone several times. I also downloaded a few apps for Taboo and Catch Phrase on my phone.

Work
Summer brings on a different atmosphere at work, as well as lots of building changes while the weather's nice. At my department retreat, I found out my office is moving to another building, so in August things are going to change a lot. I will go from sharing an office with one coworker to sharing with my entire department (we'll have cubicle walls). It should be interesting.

Other than that, my design projects are mainly for fall events, but I actually have a few projects for Christmas and Thanksgiving cards already! So I've been perusing lots of Christmas stock vectors and it feels a little wrong.

I also took on a freelance design project for a church invite card. It's good to get a little side work.

Miscellaneous

• The temps have been great for sleeping and not needing fans or a heater. My electric bill should be good!
• Timehop - This is an app you can download and it'll report to you what you tweeted, instagrammed and photographed on this date in years past. I find I look forward to reviewing my Timehop each day now, and I've been way more into Twitter knowing I'll get to revisit my tweets in a year.
• The other day I got to see a mom deer and her three tiny babies! The pictures I got were horrendous and not worth sharing here, but you should've seen these adorable fawns. After nursing on their mom for a bit, they hopped around like little grasshoppers. They were the tiniest deer I've ever seen.

And now I think I'm supposed to post this:

Feel free to share anything you were into in June!

GeoGuessr

Have you ever played GeoGuessr? About a year ago a friend mentioned it, and I got hooked on it that weekend. I was recently reminded of it and thought I'd talk about it here.

You can play it by clicking here: GeoGuessr

Each game has five turns/rounds. You are shown the street view of somewhere in the world, and you can wander around like you would on Google Streetview--with the arrows and zoom tools provided on the screen. In doing so you can look for clues as to where you've "landed." When you're ready to make a guess, use the Google map on the right. Drag it around and zoom in (use your mouse wheel) so you can make your guess as specific as you like. Click the spot that you choose as your guess, and then click the "Make Guess" button.

Sometimes you are able to get extremely close to the actual location because there are signs giving away specifics like the city name. But I count myself successful if I'm able to guess the correct country or state! It's harder than it sounds.

Here's how I did on the location I was given at the top of this post. I moved around until I found some signs with city names that were somewhat familiar, so when I zoomed in on England I was able to find what I was looking for and get a very close guess. I was kind of lucky that I vaguely recognized the style of the city names.

Playing is fascinating because you get to see a lot of random places in the world. The scenes are sometimes mundane, which makes it all the more interesting to get a glimpse of what people far away see in their day-to-day lives. Playing the games makes me want to travel, and I have learned a lot by exploring.

Then they put you somewhere you had no idea Google "street"view went. Like in the ocean! What the heck?

It's funny what you start noticing in order to determine the location. Usually the first thing I check is whether the cars are driving on the right or left side (usually both :P). I try to read the signs, but not all of them are very informative, especially when they're in a language I don't recognize. Sometimes I end up making a random guess because I'm in a really dull location and don't feel like inspecting it further.

TIP: You'll find you're often placed in the western side of Australia. If you're ever in a dry, boonie-ish area outside of the US, that's usually a good guess. Brazil also comes up a lot. Some countries don't have very extensive streetview coverage yet, so they don't show up as often in the game. Since Australia and Brazil are both large countries and have a lot of coverage, they are good guesses if you're feeling stumped.

You get a score based on how close your guess is with the actual location, and after five turns they give your total and a summary of your guesses versus the correct ones. The scoring is just for fun and comparisons. Sometimes I do terribly and will guess a location that is basically on the other side of the world from the actual place. Mostly I play for the virtual exploring.

Let me know how you like it if you play! (No, I'm not making any money from them, I just like to share the fun!)

10-9

This is day three of being stuck on level 140 on Candy Crush. I will never beat it.

PS I beat it!

It's almost my Special Minute.

And my special minute is 10:18, because my birthday is 10/18. Most of you know that, but now the rest of you are informed and you can cherish that moment twice per day. :)

I'm tired of obsessing over whether my posts are Photography enough. This is my blog. I will post stuff here, and it won't always relate to photography. It's too hard to stick to certain themes, don't you think? Toooooo restrictive. Especially when I take way fewer photos in the winter months.

Guess what! My mom is coming to visit me. :D The last part of February is going to be packed, but it'll be good.


Someone's screencap of their Paradise Island game.
Lately I'm hooked on city building games, although I've reduced it to two at the moment (one stopped working correctly, so I uninstalled it). I'm playing Paradise Island and My Country. Both try to get me to pay them money, which I resent, but I just do everything the long way and play the free version. The thing is, I'd be willing to pay a little for a game up front. What I don't like is that they claim they are free, but then want to charge here and there for little tasks. Microtransactions, I guess they call them. There are lots of names. Anyway, if you know of any good city building games (with nice graphics) that don't try to take all my money, please do tell.


Did you notice they had Jennifer Garner writing on a chalk board in her class?
Who still uses chalk boards?
I rented the movie Valentine's Day tonight, because I was suddenly in the mood to watch something. I thought it was pretty good. Definitely a few little surprises and happy moments.

I used to have stronger feelings about Valentine's Day (in both directions, depending on what was going on in my life), but the older I get, the less interesting it becomes. I think that's true about me, too. :P

Do you have any Valentine's plans? Feelings about the holiday that you want to share? Memories?