The End of All Things

Let’s all just take a moment to realize that 2013 is alllllmost over.

*dies*

Okay. Now that we’ve done that…here’s the obligatory “end of year, what have I done with my life” post.

The first big milestone of my year (that you guys might actually be interested in) is that I reached my reading goal and have thus far read 53 books during 2013. Yay! Confetti cannons! I might move my goal up to 60 books in 2014, just to challenge myself, but I suppose we’ll see. Yes, these are the thoughts that crowd my brain during the waking hours of the day.

I can’t really decide if 2013 was a great year or a sort of crappy one. For the sake of optimism, we’ll say it was pretty a’ight. I decided, near the beginning of the year, to start a list of things I’ve learned in 2013, so that when the end of the year came around, I wouldn’t think myself to be a complete failure. (just a slight one) I sort of forgot about the list somewhere around September, but whatever. Here it is, the list of Everything I Learned in 2013. Well, not everything. I can’t remember everything I learned, and also that would be boring, and also I just don’t feel like bleeding my entire life out onto the World Wide Web, ya feel me?

So.

What I Learned in 2013

• Pop music…isn’t actually all terrible. Some of it is kind of cool.
• Never ever ever take for granted anything. I mean, it’s hard to always appreciate every single little thing in your life, but when you’ve got a good thing, appreciate it. Cuz it might not stay there forevah and evah.
• Hugh Jackman is an extraordinary human being. (Didn’t see that one coming, hmm?)
• Sometimes I can bake things. For realsies bake things.
• Mattresses must always be appreciated.
• Jeepers I own a lot of crap.
• Some, by which I mean most, children’s books are severely disturbing, if you stop to think about them for too long.
• Take advantage of good smells when you can and never let a mouse die in your bedroom vent.
• Take risks. Live life outrageously. Without being stupid, obviously. Because that would just be…stupid.
• In that same vein, don’t limit yourself. Try new stuff. Like new food. And new music. You might even like some of it.
• Never be afraid to BELT YOUR FACE OFF.
• Public school is stupid.
• And most of the people in public school are stupid, too.
• So are most of the people on Facebook, incidentally.
• But there are also really cool people in the world, like people who do theater and people who fangirl with you and people who give you food and people who cuddle with you and people who are tall. Those people make the other crappypants people easier to tolerate. So there.
• Backbending is all fun and games until you accidentally sort of pull a muscle in your back and it hurts a lot. Don’t do that.
• Candy Crush may be one of the most inane and addicting games I’ve ever experienced. But it’s so fun.
• Ice. Ice is also addicting.
• I wanna be in a band and travel the world when I grow up. (Along with the million other teenage girls who long for the exact same thing.)
• And finally…CUDDLE PUDDLES ARE ALWAYS A YES.

I’m sure I missed a few million other things, but yeah, no, I can’t remember everything.

All the same…I hope you (whoever is actually reading this) have had a splendid 2013 and that your 2014 is pretty fudging sweet. 2013 was my self-titled Year of Achievement. 2014 is going to be my YOLO: Year Of Living Outrageously. Should be lots of fun.

LET’S GOOOOOO.

New Beginnings and All That

2013. Twenty-thirteen. Two-zero-one-three. The phrase doesn’t roll off your tongue like 2012 does, but this type of thing is kind of set in stone. If I had it my way, the years would not be labeled in dull numeric order. How about we name them all something original? Instead of 2013, how about we have The Year of Cupcakes and Superheroes? I think that might be a bit more appreciated, and it would certainly be a lot more interesting. But of course, it’s a sort of unchangeable thing. Ah, well.

I realize that I haven’t blogged in a while, and I also realize that trying to do this weekly blogging thing isn’t working. I generally hate schedules. So from now on, I’m blogging whenever I feel like it. How about THAT?

Anyways. It’s the new year. This means that throughout the world, people are making resolutions for the year of 2013, most of which will be broken before January 2nd dawns. Unfortunate, yes, but that’s the way we humans are. Me, I don’t do the resolutions thing. My opinion of it is that if you want to do something, for example, go for a run every day, then just do it. Who cares if you’ve “made a resolution” to do it? The only thing that matters is that you actually do run every day. All of the official stuff is completely unnecessary.

Of course, you may not agree, in which case, that’s fine. If it motivates you, make a New Year’s resolution. If it doesn’t, don’t. It’s pretty simple, actually.

All right, now that we have addressed the new year, what else has happened that’s exciting? Oh, I suppose I should mention that the world didn’t end, although many people were convinced it would do so, allegedly according to the Mayan calendar. I really don’t feel a need to fill anybody in on this, because if you have internet access, it’s more than likely you know every thing there is to know about this thingamajigger. Now, after December 21st, a lot of people felt the urge to start making snide and witty comments such as “Oh, look! We’re still alive! In your face, suckers!” or the like. And to be completely honest, it’s beginning to get tiresome. Very tiresome. I mean, every snide-and-witty person is pretty much making the same comment with a little different wording. For sure, the belief that the world was going to end on December 21st was an utterly ridiculous one, but now that it’s January 1st, everybody knows that the world didn’t end, no slimy aliens came to decimate the populace, and there was no apocalypse of any kind. So I think we should all just chill and move on in life. Dwelling on the fact that the world didn’t end will not accomplish anything whatsoever.

Ahem.

Onto lighter topics. Let’s see…all I really have left is Christmas. Yay! Christmas! Er. Yes. Christmas.

…Well, it appears I have nothing significant to say on the topic of Christmas. It was merry. Yippee.

Hmm. As you may or may not know, it has been often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I have been meaning to post some photography/graphic design-y stuff on this blog, so now will suffice, I suppose. Anyways, it will save me the trouble of writing a few thousand words.

Anyhow, here is some random photography for your viewing enjoyment. All of the editing done on these pictures was done on PicMonkey, Pixlr Express, or Ribbet. (Or all three.)

Specimen #1:

This is a picture of a leaf with water droplets on it, as you might have surmised. I enhanced it and added a few overlays to give it an ethereal, rainbow-ish look.

Specimen #2:

I like to call this pic “Leviathan train.” I’m not quite sure why. It kind of reminds me of something from a steampunk novel, such as Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. So I believe that is the origin of the title, though I cannot be entirely sure of that fact.

Specimen #3:

I only enhanced this pic, to make the colors pop and bring the flower bud into focus. But it turned out nicely–typically when I’m editing photos, I like to bring out the shadows of the image, because I’m just dark like that. But in some cases, such as this one, I wanted to make it more vibrant. So I did.

Specimen #4:

This pic is of an amusement park ride that ended up being perfect for editing. In this edit I added a butterfly bokeh overlay and some colorful, fairy-like overlays as well. Overall, I think of this edit as my fairy-ish edit, even though I hardly think fairies would be likely to ride any attraction at an amusement park.

Specimen #5:

This is the same photo as above, only in this edit I went absolutely crazy. I didn’t really think, I just kept adding overlays and effects until I deemed it finished. And I ended up with a sort of techno, paint-splattery feel. I actually like it quite a bit.

And so you have reached the end of my first blog-gallery-thingy. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn’t, well, then, I guess you don’t need to stick around.

See you when I see you! [Virtually, of course; unless you’re one of my “real-life” friends, who I do see in person.]