There is so much to see and do in life sometimes it blows my mind.

In Boston alone, which I consider to be a pretty small city, there are still things I am discovering all the time.

Do you ever think, how on earth will I ever see it all?

I do. But Lord knows I’m willing to try.

This weekend, for instance, this very minute actually, I am waking up in New York City getting ready to stroll the streets of Brooklyn. I’m checking things off on my must-do-in-life-list as we speak! (This list? I haven’t actually written anything down yet, per say, just merely making it up as I go.) This weekend I’m letting the good times roll with my high school girlfriends at The Great Googa Mooga Festival in Prospect Park. I don’t know much about it yet except that it’s going to be AWESOME.

Speaking of awesome, let’s talk Blogger meet-ups.

I love ‘em, guys. Seriously, I do.

But I think you already know that about me at this point.

Last weekend Natalie, Melissa, Smita, Elizabeth and I planned to meet up Sunday for a little blogger get-together. This time around we did breakfast and then spent the morning browsing the goods at the SOWA Open Market in the South End.

And interestingly enough this all came together after I posted about my love affair with the South End last Friday. Love it when things work out perfectly like that.

We started off at The Buttery (a personal favorite) and then worked our way over to SOWA, the cutest little market you ever did see. If you’re ever in Boston on a Sunday you should seriously consider checking this place out. It’s vintage market, craft fair, farmer’s market and food truck heaven all rolled into one.

Yes, PLEASE!

{You can view Smita’s recap of our morning HERE}

I will definitely be going back soon.

Maybe it’s something you can add to your must-do-in-life-list, too.

That, and The Great Googa Mooga Festival.

I’ll fill you in with all the details next week, of course.

Because remember? It’s gonna be AWESOME.

So we went back to Newport last Saturday! I have a feeling that this is one of those places we’ll return to again and again. It’s just so close to Boston and so perfect for a day trip (and we’re even making plans for a possible overnight). Although Zan did make a comment about how it’s bound to get SUPER crazy once Memorial Day hits and I don’t doubt that for a second.

This time around we went to celebrate Mother’s Day with Zan’s mom and the rest of his family, too. We had everyone over to our place for breakfast super early and then we were on the road down before 9:30 even rolled around.

Have you ever had a breakfast party? This was our second time hosting one and I have to say, I LOVE IT. It’s such a great way to start your day and it’s fun to do something besides dinner once in awhile, you know? We made southwestern eggs and had fruit and OJ. Life was good last Saturday, that is for sure.

I brought my camera with me again (I hardly go anywhere without it these days) and found it crazy how different the place looks and feels since the last time we went. It’s only been about a month, but the change in the weather is really apparent. Last time I was wearing my winter coat, this time— shorts! There were more people about and the boats were being used and the sun was bright. Everything is so much greener, too, and there’s definitely that feeling that summer is just around the corner.

Yep. Juuust the way I like it.

Here are my photos…

And yes! We took little Rue along for the trip!

And YES it was a glorious, glorious day:

We strolled the town and visited the harbor deck. We picniced by the water (caprese salad, lemonade, and rice krispie treats!). We even toured around the Breakers Mansion and walked the Clliff Walk again, because why not? That part of Newport is just amAZing.

Basically everything about this day makes me SO excited for summer.

Just a few short weeks and I’ll officially be living the dream, my friends.

Living the summer vacation DREAM!

Today I’m guest posting for Eliza over at her blog Case Study.

The feature is called “A Day in the Life”, where I give you all a little peak into what my week day actually looks like. It was fun to write, so go check it out!

And have a happy Wednesday!

Remember my first one? Those totally amazing tissue paper pom-poms?

Yeah, well one fell off the ceiling a few weeks ago and Zan rolled over onto the tack in the middle of the night. I hope you’re laughing right now because I am.

Although, to be quite honest, he definitely wasn’t.

Aaaaaanyways.

Welcome to Tutorial numero duo: How I Edit My Pictures.

(I realize this post might not be relevant to a ton of people, but I’ve gotten a handful of questions about it over the past month, so I thought I’d give it a go.)

Let me start off by admitting that I don’t know if this is the best way to edit photos, but it’s free, and fairly easy, and above all, it works for me. So for those of you that are interested in how I get things done around here, or are even maybe just a little bit curious, read on…

First off, I use a MacBook.

I totally and completely swear by all things Apple and you should too.

FOR SERIOUS.

I use iPhoto and Pages to edit my pictures for my blog:

Pages is basically the Mac version of Microsoft Word, but WAY better in my humble opinion. My MacBook came with Pages installed, when I purchased iWork with my computer.

Now, if you don’t have Pages, I guess you’re straight up out of luck to try it my way. I think you can do more or less the same thing on PicMonkey, although I don’t believe they have a collage feature yet, and iPiccy is another online photo editor I just heard about, which apparently does have the collage feature. There are probably more out there, but they haven’t crossed my radar yet.

Okay, okay, I’m about to start this crazy tutorial, so I hope you’re ready.

Basically, I just go into iPhoto first, into my events, and choose a photo:

Let’s get one from Fenway Park, okay?

Then I do a little editing right in iPhoto:

Now I’ve been trying to shoot my photos in manual mode for a few months now. I’m really loving how they look, but I often find they are just a liiiitle bit too dark. I just play around with the exposure a bit until I get the photo looking nice.

You can also play around with cropping here too. And touch-ups, and red-eye, and the like. Go to town on your photos! You really have the chance to make them look like gold in here.

Now quite often I filter my photos and that gets a little more complicated. Basically, I email myself my photos to my phone and filter them through Instagram (in airplane mode), then email them BACK to myself and open them up again, filtered this time, on my computer. It takes some time, but not that long, and I often like the filtered look for certain posts.

(You can also filter online at PicMonkey, which is fairly easy as well.)

After you have your photo the way you like it, you’re ready to move into the graphic design part, which I do in Pages. Pages is technically a document program, but I’ve figured out how to do a LOT more with it, and it’s easy too.

Okay, let’s do this:

Now you’ll be working strictly in Pages. This is the fun part:

Fonts are my favorite thing EVER and you can download so many for free!

I’ve gotten a bunch of mine from Going Home to Roost and In My Own Style.

Also, Pinterest is perfect for this sort of thing. Just type in free fonts and loads of links will pop up. So awesome.

From here, you basically just take a screen shot of your final image:

To take a screen shot on a Mac you just need to press SHIFT, COMMAND and the number 4 all at the same time. Then you just drag the curser over the image and in saves the images automatically on your desktop.

EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY.

And… TAADAAAA:

Done and DONE.

Oh, wait, you wanted to know how I do collages too, right?

So remember when we dragged that photo from iPhoto into Pages? All I do is drag as many photos as I want into Pages and then resize them and rearrange them as I please.

You can do anything from instagram pictures, to regular camera photos too.

Here’s a little collage I just whipped up:

Oh, 2004 World Series, I will never forget you.

And so really, that’s that.

I don’t know if it’s the best way, but I have a lot of freedom with it, which is something I don’t find on many of the online editing sites. Also, at this point I’ve gotten so familiar with the whole thing, that it takes me probably around 25-30 minutes to edit a bunch of pictures for a post. Not too shabby.

So there you have it. THAT is how I edit my photos. I hope it entertained you a little, and if I’m lucky I might have even helped a few people out.

Feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email if you have any more questions! I’ll try to get back to you if I know the answer, but really, like with anything, the ease of it comes with just a bunch of trial and error. I do think I’ve found something that works well for me, which I’m happy about. And maybe, hopefully!, it can work for you too.

Do you have a different way of editing for free that you like? Care to share?

And now, I will gladly announce that this is THE END of this incredible long and likely confusing tutorial.

Adios for now, friends.

I’m out!

It was just one of those weekends that makes you feel good all over.

Warm sunshine on your skin and good company to last the whole way through.

There are more details to share, and more pictures too…

So getchoself ready.

And above all else, here’s to wishing the weekend would last forever.

Sigh.

This rainy week is just about distroying me, so I’m posting pictures today of sunshine.

Oh, sweet glorious sunshine. Come back to me…

The South End in Boston is one of those places that you don’t really hear too much about if you’re not from the city. Frequently confused with Southie (think: The Departed), the South End is located between Back Bay and South Boston. No train lines run there (except the Prudential stop off the E line) so it’s not a place that’s often visited by tourists.

Newbury Street in Back Bay? Everyone knows that.

Beautiful Beacon Hill? Historic and very often visited, and rightfully so.

The North End? I’ll take an Italian pastry please. With chocolate ricotta cream.

Charlestown has the Bunker Hill Monument and Kenmore is home to Fenway Park.

But the South End? It’s a hidden beauty and one of my favorite places to be.

They have beautiful brownstones and lots of parks, and they have a good amount of little independent shops that are always fun to pop into, too. There’s the SOWA Open Market to hit up on Sundays— an amazing indoor/outdoor flea market that’s one of the largest and best in the city of Boston. Oh, also, if a friend is visiting, I usually take them to either breakfast or lunch or dinner in the South End (or all of the above) because, in my humble opinion, there is no better food anywhere than the food you can find there.

Daaah! I am craving a Buttery Biscuit even as I type this.

SO. AMAZING.

Want to take a walk? Let’s go…

So beautiful, right?

Yeah, all that sunshine and pretty made me feel better, too.

And seriously I think the real live sun is supposed to come out this weekend, so I’m thinking of hitting up the SOWA Open Market this coming Sunday. Who wants to come with?!

Little (or should we say big?) Isabel made her 1st Communion this past weekend.

I’m serious, every time I get to spend time with those kids I wonder why I don’t do it more often.

They are the SWEEEETest.

The church service was at St. Leonards in the North End and I was happy to get to spend a little time over there because I seriously LOVE the North End. I need to get back to that area again soon with my fancy cam. The sights and sounds were just speaking to me the whole time.

Are any of you guys Catholic? I was raised Catholic so this whole day just brought back so many memories of pretty white dresses, spring flowers, and the excitement of tasting that little piece of cardboard-y foam.

I kid, I kid.

(But really, though, I think that’s what it’s made out of.)

We sang hymns and took pictures and all around just celebrated that little cutie in the white gown. I’m so glad they invited me to join, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. After the service we all went back to Charlestown for some hor dourves and dinner. There is something about that small part of Boston that just gets my nostalgia rolling. Since I spent the better part of my 1st years in the Bean working over there I just get this happiness every time I visit.

Yet another place on my list of Boston neighborhoods to photograph– the streets around the monument are gorgeous!

Here’s a few pics from the day courtesy of my iPhone…

And that kid with the bow tie??

I CAN’T EVEN.

Because I do.

All. The. Time.

And it’s funny, but ever since I’ve started this blog a good many people have told me they think I’ve got it all together.

Ha! I always think that’s a hoot.

With blogging it’s all about what you choose to share.

I like to call it keeping up appearances.

We all do it in some form or another (or most of us at least). I see it on Facebook and in blogland nearly everyday. And I do it too. We almost always show the good, because we want people to know the good.

Some people choose the lovely.

Others choose the funny.

And some very brave souls even choose the everything: The good, the bad, and the in-between. And do I ever salute you if you are one of those people.

It’s no secret I choose to write about the happy on this space, because that’s what blogging is about for me: A place to reflect on the good stuff. This blog is a scrapbook, a place for the memories, the fun times, the celebrations. Because I want to always remember that awesome trip to NYC, and the time my best friend got married, and that glorious lobster risotto sittin’ pretty atop that adorable plate from anthropologie.

But really, I’m nothing fancy. I get sad, and mad, and stressed, too. So if I ever appear to have it all together, be assured that I don’t.

Last week was one of those crazy busy weeks that you just want to end. You know those? Well, I woke up Friday morning, so completely thankful for the almost weekend, I barely even noticed the state of the place as I walked out the door. But notice it, I did, and it’s too good (or bad?) not to share.

Because life happens, and it’s not perfect, and gosh darnit, we all get a little messy sometimes.

Or maybe, maybe! It’s just me.

There you have it, people.

Just keepin’ it real.

Being a teacher I get to read all sorts of stories to my class. Some are heartwarming, some are filled with interesting facts, and a lot are just plain silly. David Shannon’s, A Bad Case of Stripes, is a super fun children’s book and one I can completely relate do nowadays. While the main character Camilla is struggling with eating veggies and caring too much about what other people think, I’m struggling more in the literal sense.

Case in point:

A bad case of stripes is right.

They say stripes are like crack. I don’t doubt that for a second.

I’ll go so far as to say this: If stripes are wrong, then I don’t wanna do right.

Babies! I love ‘em!

Can’t get enough of those tiny fingers and tiny toes.

So when my friend Bailey a had little Luke a month ago, I bought my plane ticket to visit straightaway. How could I not see him in infancy?

My love for newborns has been in me since I was a wee one, but I really fell in love with the tiny people back when I was a nanny in Charlestown my first year out of college. Remember Alistair? I watched that little buddy from birth to 2 years and loved every single second of it.

So of course, I was suuuuper excited to meet Luke.

Bailey is one of my very best friends from high school. We used to do all the classic things high schoolers do. You know, like watch Dawson’s Creek, jam out to Backstreet Boys, and eat chocolate milk and cookies after school. The good stuff.

It’s kind of crazy to watch your friend become a mom. One minute she’s just like you and then the next BAM! she’s got a kid to take care of forever. A cute one, no doubt, but a little living breathing body all the same.

I myself am totally and completely excited to be a mom someday but as for right now, it’s enough just taking care of me, myself, and I. I mean, honestly, sometimes I still forget to brush my teeth in the morning.

Aaaaanyways. This little nugget is just too precious. And I’m just so proud of my friend. She’s going to be a terrific mom, I just KNOW it.

He is a peanut!!

Wanna see some pictures of him? Check ‘em.

HE IS ADORABLE.

Oh, I could just squeeeeeze him. Squeeze him so tight.

- – – – – – – – – – -

So Bailey, who’s got a knack for design, entered Luke’s bedroom to be featured on Apartment Therapy… and she got selected! It really is so simple and adorable.

You can check out the Apartment Therapy feature here. I think it’s just the coolest.

- – – – – – – – – – -

While I was visiting I tried to give Luke a little photo shoot, seeing as I’m a budding photographer and all.

I think they’re halfway decent for a first-timer. But really though, when you have a tiny being like this it’s hard not to love on him big time.

“Hey, girl, that’s enough with the photographs.”

“Whatever, it’s time for my beauty sleep. Catch ya, later!”

Too precious, I tell ya. Too flippin’ precious.