Weekly iPhone Roundup {11.26 - 12.1}

 There's not too much to say about this week. We planned on going Christmas shopping, but that didn't pan out due to Amazon completely screwing up the bank account! I was SO annoyed and frustrated about it that I wanted to scream. I've made two semi-large order over the past week and a half, so I've had random payments coming out at all different times. That's the one thing I hate about Amazon, they don't take the money out of your account right away and it sucks.

Anyways, not going to go into all that. Here are the pics from the week!

Drive to Perryville Saturday.

My mom and step-dad's house - it looks so beautiful with all the Christmas lights!

Subway for dinner Saturday (and the rest Monday).

Christmas Tree decorating in progress.

The mini Christmas Village from Dollar Tree.

Couldn't find any white ornaments at out local Dollar General, so I got some silver and blue ones and spray painted them. Lots of messy fun!

I totally got spray paint on our planter though.

Some homemade brown butter chocolate chip cookies for tree decorating!

The finished Christmas tree. I know I posted about this already.

It's so pretty! I wish we would've wrapped John Redcorn on the wall like we did last year.

Mini Christmas Village at night.

Late night cabinet decorating this week.

And lastly, me trying to correct the bank issues last night. Writing things out on paper is the best way to go, at least to me. Got it all figured out, too. :)

Happy Thanksgiving {2022}

 I want to apologize for my very winey and depressing post a couple days ago. I was just really down and getting into my feels, but I shouldn't have ranted like I did or complained about stupid stuff that has no relevance. I tend to overlook how blessed I am and really take some things for granted. Thank God I have what I have and am able to do what I do. 

I'm an anxious person and have a lot of issues with things like that. Unfortunately I'm predisposed to anxiety and depression - it runs deep in my family - plus I experienced a lot of psychological abuse when I was a child, so yay. I really didn't want to use my blog for complaining or wining, but I guess I just needed to vent. 

Anyways, Thanksgiving dinner prep was in full swing all day yesterday. I'm not going to go into great detail, but we were cooking from like 3pm until 9pm. Somewhere around in there, anyways. Today when I got up I made the dressing, cranberry sauce and green bean casserole. Then, of course, engorged way too much, but I'm thankful that I was able to. 

Earlier today I went out and took some pics around the yard. It was super hot in the house and the temperature was pretty mild outside. It was cloudy, so I didn't have to worry about harsh, early afternoon lighting. I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this camera, because I really like a few of the pictures that I got today. 

Tomorrow we're headed to a new Tree Farm to hopefully get our Christmas Tree from. It's a place in Bonne Terre called Bollinger Farms. They're new this year, so I'm sure their prices are ridiculous. Hopefully not, but it would be nice. I really miss Beck's Tree Farm, but they've been closed down since like 2018 or something.

Anyways, I guess that all for now... Happy Thanksgiving!

Hung the Dollar Tree inflatable ornaments today... they're not even and it kills me.

I know it's probably hard to tell, but there is so much detail in this picture. I was amazed with how it looked once I saw it on the computer. There's no posting editing either, this is straight from the camera.

I'm still trying to work out my shutter and ISO on this camera, it's basically the same, but since this is an FX camera, it's a smidge different.

There's great detain in this photo of tree bark too.

The lighting on the bathroom wall.

Out Christmas Village at night.

The little Christmas Village always looks so nice all lit up.

I took these Christmas Village pics with my Tokina lens.

A nice macro shot of the bread cubes I made last night for homemade stuffing today.

I took a couple more, but they were super dark.

Dried and decayed basil leaves.

There's something so beautiful about fall leaves.

Some dried and dead flowers.

There's a lot of awesome detail in this picture too.

Raindrops on some parsley.

I love this waterdrop on the end of a tree branch. It turned out really good I think.

I'm clearly obsessed with raindrops, but check out the awesome bokeh of the 105mm lens.

This is a raindrop in one of the little pom pom weeds.

Beautiful pine branches.

Moss and a leaf on the roof of an old dog house.

The focal point is off a bit here, but I still like it. Mainly because I love leaves.

One more picture of the dead mammoth basil leaf for good measure.

Let's Chat... {The Walking Dead, Thanksgiving & Christmas}

 Warning, potential long post ahead!

I don't have an insane amount to talk about or anything and it's nothing like super serious. I just want to ramble for a little while to whomever may or may not be reading this. It sometimes helps to let my emotions bleed into my blog every once in a while.

This is kind of random and something I haven't talked about on my blog in literally years, but I'd like to talk about The Walking Dead for a minute. As I'm sure almost everyone knows, TWD series finale was Sunday and it's just like really sad and depressing to me for some reason. I've been a HUGE Walking Dead fan for year. I remember seeing the preview for it back in 2010 and couldn't wait to watch it. I wrote the name and date down on a piece of paper and taped it to the back of the door. LaVaughn and I fell in love from day one and watched it religiously every single Sunday.

Until they killed Carl...

If you read the comics and love them as much or more than the TV show, then you had to have been pissed at the decision to kill him off - I know I was. Then Rick being written off the show half way through season 9 with the final nail in the coffin. After Carl died it didn't feel like the same show. When Rick left it wasn't the same show. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good zombie show, but it wasn't The Walking Dead anymore. LaVaughn and I stopped watched for over a year or maybe longer, then we finally decided to give it a go.

We watched all of season 9 and up to episode fifteen on season 10 and that was it.

I read so much stuff Sunday about the finale and saw peoples posts about how they've watched it since day one, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people did, but I feel like they're probably the Daryl stans that are only in it for him. Someone who wasn't even in the comics to start, I might add. Idk, I think a lot of it has to do with making me feel nostalgic or something. It makes me think of old times and just depresses me. I miss the fall of 2010 so much, it was just an amazing time and the fact that it was 12 years ago sucks. It was just really depressing to me, which I know is probably so silly, but that how it makes me feel. I'll never forgot the first few seasons of TWD and how amazing they were and how much LaVaughn and I enjoyed watching them.

Now on to Thanksgiving... like how is it already almost the end of November?? I had to do a ridiculous amount of grocery shopping yesterday for all the stuff that LaVaughn and I are making. We're mainly making deserts this year, but I'm also making homemade stuffing and cranberry sauce, LaVaughn is doing the potatoes. Plus we're making this one type of dip that my aunt and uncle like, plus cheese ball dip. We also go some of the fancy frozen yeast rolls instead of making them homemade. My aunt and uncle are doing the turkey, ham and chicken and dumplings. She's also doing the stuffing that they like with all the nasty stuff in it.

 All of the prep and desert making is happening tomorrow... should be interesting.

Now on to Christmas. I'm always super festive around the holidays and I absolutely love Christmas shopping. Idk what's going on this year, but there's just something off. I feel like I'm the only person in my immediate family that is excited about it. LaVaughn and I always Christmas shop together for my aunt and uncle, my mom, Jeff and Jake. We've only gone one time and that was two weeks ago and we just got like 4 things. I know people Christmas shop by themselves all the time, but it's not something I'm used to, so it's kind of depressing to me. I feel like no one cares and it's getting to the point where I don't even care. 

I hate it.

I don't know why, but it's super easy for me to get sad and depressed anymore. I'm a genuinely happy person, but damn... this is just getting to me. Even writing all this out is making me a little sad and depressed at the thought. I think I'm just going to stop mentioning anything to LaVaughn and let her approach me when she wants to go someplace. I'm just gonna start shopping online I guess, cause I'm too bummed out anymore.

First world problems, I know.

Anyways, I'm done crying and complaining about stupid stuff that I shouldn't be complaining about. Here are some pics that I've taken with my new camera over the last week or so. It's nothing special and they kinda suck because I'm still getting used to this camera.

Here are some pictures from my D750 with my 105mm 2.8 lens:

Here are some pictures from my D750 with my Tokina 11-20mm 2.8 lens:

Giant Christmas Village

Weekly iPhone Roundup {11.12 - 11.18}

 Here we are again with another Friday iPhone recap. I used to didn't take that many pictures on my phone, but for some reason I've been taking a lot more the past month or two. Maybe it's because I subconsciously knew that I would do a weekly photo recap, who knows. Not really, of course, but it's just something that I'm into right now. This is what I used to do before 2018 when I posted on Instagram religiously. I still don't post there, Idk why, but something inside me won't allow it.

This has been a fairly exciting week. LaVaughn got a tattoo on her feet Tuesday, then my camera arrived Wednesday. I cleaned the little fish tank which was WAY overdue, then we set up 90% of the Christmas Village Friday. There are lots of random pictures in-between as well, hope you enjoy!

This was Walmart Saturday - SO packed! It was worse than the picture.

My moms flocked Christmas tree she just ordered.

Found these cute little inflatable ornaments at Dollar Tree - ended up getting two of the colored ones for the side of the house.

Found a decent selection of movies at Dollar Tree too. Half of these are for my aunt and uncle.

Guess there was another lettuce recall this past Monday.

Yes, I made this mess at Walmart. And yes, I did notify someone and apologize.

More snow this past Monday night!

Outside of Artisan Ink in Farmington.

Sketchy ass building, for real.

This is the hallway to the ladies bathroom.

This is the mens bathroom.

The transfer of LaVaughn's tattoo.

This is the tattoo artist, Colin.

It was literally just us three in there. The tattoo place was very clean.

It had an industrial feel to it.

Last one for good measure. I guess I forgot to add the picture of the finished product to this post. If I don't forget, I'll add it to next weeks.

Got some buy three get one free fish at Petco. These are Platys and one ended up dying.

My star light.

I didn't know which picture I liked more, so I added both.

The freshly cleaned fish tank. It was still a smidge cloudy here.

Projector lights from Dollar Tree that my mom got us.

The Christmas Village with just the houses.

The tank today, much clearer.

Some fancy Volpi snacks that our neighbors gave us. This box and then another whole case.

And some of these Boar's Head mozzarella and prosciutto things as well.

More of the Christmas village after we added trees and people.

It still needs the street lights, though.

And lastly, the Christmas village with the lights on.