Weekend Recap and Goodies from The Hundred Event

I planned on having a mini date with my camera this weekend, and it was only supposed to be a few hours, 2 hours max. One of the many notes I took away from speaker, Curt Steinhorst, at The Hundred Event was the need to "assign tasks by time," and just DO IT! I also wanted to challenge myself to use manual mode, and move away from AV and/or TV mode. Why only 2 hours? Because I had a laundry list of other things I needed to get done this weekend such as, hit up the nail salon, work out at least twice, get to Target for some replenishing of items around the house, prepare my meals for the week, maybe catch a showing of The Hundred Foot Journey, work on organizing that bathroom closest, spend most of Sunday with my parents, and have dinner with the girl's. So what really happened?

For starters, my Saturday started with taking out my camera and styling my goodies. Then, I started to shoot, and shoot, and shoot, and while shooting hundreds of photos of the same thing is pretty standard for me, see last post, I wasn't really getting what I imagined these photos would look like. Then I started to stress. Oh no, what am I going to blog about? Why isn't this working?! I should have bought a rebel. I hate this camera. Where's that iPhone. Why did I decide to do this blog thing again? I have other ideas for topics I could have potentially ran with, but saving this post for later would just be weird and not flow, so this is a must.... now! After 4 hours of messing with my camera settings and God only know's what other settings I screwed up along the way, my hubby decided it was time for me to step away and get out for a bit, in 102 degree weather. I hate the heat. Anyway, off to Best Buy we go to get me an external hard drive and then we headed to a, what I could call, the nerdiest store I've ever been too. Hubby needed some items for some game he's into a the moment, and it was a chance for me to see this "awesome store" he loves so much. It's how I would rave about Target, he raves about this one. After all that running around in the heat, I came home to take a very long needed nap. I love me some nap time. When I woke up, I decided I would look into the online tutorial Jenni said we should download. By then, hubby wanted to go out for dinner and Pie Five Pizza it was. We ended the day with a brisk walk around the neighborhood, which is what I needed. 

And an ode to my Paris mug with my beloved Youthberry Wild Orange Blossom Tea to get me through this weekend. No, this was not a gift from the event. I bought this mug at Targer awhile back. It was the closest thing near me to practice some focusing. heehee

Sunday, I woke up ready to tackle that tutorial and figure out how to use that darn camera again. I've had this camera for about 3 years now, and have taken several classes, but then I put it down for awhile, maybe a year, and forget all over again.  After about 4 hours of messing with auto-focus, ISO, aperture, shutter speeds, and finally getting in some decent shots, I decided to let it go and visit my parent's. I gave them updates on what's new with me and the hubby, gabbed about the new people I met at The Hundred, and helped them clean up their iPhone storage. It reminded me to slow down and remember to just be me. I don't know why I allowed this to stress me out, the whole point of starting up my blog again was to create a space for me to be creative, expressive, and meet some fun new people. Sure, I would love to have the best pictures ever right out the gate, I mean, how can I ever top my first post when it was filled with pictures mostly taken by professionals?!?! The point is, I'll get there, in my own time. For now, I'll still share the decent shots I have and move on to more practicing. 

I didn't get to do many of the other things on my list, but that's ok. It's just another weekend where a list didn't get 100% done, but the most important things on the list were visiting my parent's and having dinner with the girl's. And for that, well, you just can't beat spending time with the people you love. :)

I know I already posted this one, but it's so lovely and adorably soft. I think I need to get some for my favorite girl's. Maybe for Christmas. 

Joules was a large sponsor of the event and gave us this lovely bag. It's so pretty and so sturdy! I love it.

What was inside that Joules shopping bag: Inspirational card from Cottage Hill Magazine. Isn't that little Minnetonka Moccasin key chain just the cutest! Hello note cards from Kateogroup. The Hundred Notebook. Matches and kiss me lip coasters from Bungalow Magazine, and a journal from Joules. I absolutely love note cards, journal's and pretty paper designs, so this bag was definitely on point for me. yay!