The New Toy

I finally got my new camera. :)  I pretty much took all my EA exams for this purpose, so this purchase has been about 6 months in the making.

I really wasn't sure how much my pictures would improve with a new camera since so much of photography is the photographer (still me, so...), but I have been pleasantly surprised at the instant improvements!

For example...over on my recipe blog I took this picture back in August...Doesn't this look appetizing?  Ha.

And then last Saturday we had taco soup for lunch so I decided I'd try some replacement photos.

I'm just not sure if this is that much better.  Hardy har har.  Clearly this camera is amazing and I am so happy to have it.  Now I just have to figure out how to use it...which feels like taking on a second job.  So maybe when I'm retired I'll have this figured out.

2014

It's time for the year in review!

January: We bought a freezer!  How on earth did I not mention that we got a freezer in our Christmas card?  Haha.  But seriously we are thrilled to have a freezer in the garage.  We have a lot more things in it now.

February: We added a tropical plant to the great room decor on Valentine's Day.  And we continued to not really use these couches...but aren't they classy? :)

March: Scott built our first planter box and we planned out our first garden.

April: We found out we have a pretty lovely tree out back.

May: We went backpacking!!!  Ok that was a joke in case you missed it.  Never will I "backpack" anywhere.  But for reals, we (and by we, I mean Scott) got more into emergency preparedness and now we are prepared to escape to the mountains.  Or whatever.

June: We celebrated our three-year anniversary.  Scott was so excited he was waving his arms around like a crazy person.

July: We traveled to Nauvoo!

August: We partied with the Foleys in Jackson Hole.

September: Not all of our garden items failed (although many did).

October: We explored a lot of new places around here.  Davis County is beautiful in the Fall.

November: This month was mainly spent studying tax law but we also ate delicious foods and blogged stuff.  I think I'm up to about 150 recipes over there!

December:  No one is spoiled in this household, why do you ask?  ...I probably shouldn't mention that not pictured here is also a new laptop and a DSLR camera, among many other things.  I don't know how things got so out of control.  I blame Grandma.

Ode to My Old Laptop

I don't know why I feel the need to write a blog post every time I get rid of some expensive item I own.

...the old house

...the speed queen (Ok I guess this only costed like twenty-five bucks)

...and now my laptop.

I got this little HP right before the Junior Core where he and I worked way too hard and probably lost years off our battery lives in those short months.  But the laptop lived on and I loved it.

Four years later things started to head downhill.  The internet would occasionally pretend it didn't work.  And the hinges on the screen forced me to keep my laptop open at all times (this is far more irritating than you can even imagine!).  And eventually the poor laptop couldn't even open Firefox or any other program for that matter.

So this is goodbye.  I don't think I'll find another computer with fingerprint identification (in the price range I have chosen), which is really the biggest tragedy of all.  Who types in a password these days!?  Another tragedy is I will have to adapt to Windows 8.  I have yet to get a smart phone, so this whole "app" concept is particularly distributing.  And for the first time I think I might sound like my dad.  Haha. (Love you Dad).

Anyway, Scott and I spent some time at Best Buy looking for a replacement and if you ever want to feel like you're out of touch with society, just talk to a Best Buy employee.  I was trying to explain that I need to watch my Insanity DVDs every day so I'd like a disc drive and they acted like I was looking for a laptop with an 8-track player.  In other embarrassing Best Buy moments, we wanted to test out the laptop speakers so we decided to pull up a Youtube video "or something" and the only video we could think of was "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift.  Am I too old to like Taylor Swift?  Too young?  Either way, that felt like a really embarrassing thing to do at a Best Buy.

The new laptop is great and sings T-Swift like a champ in case you are wondering.