Instagram All The Things!!!

I swear, this is my last post about Instagram.  Not really.  But, probably for a while!

So, I did two Photo A Day challenges simultaneously in February, and I just want to wrap it up with a post with all the pics, and subjects.  These are the two challenges I did:

And, these are my photos!!!  In descending order, because that's how I uploaded them, and I'm not redoing it.

#yourgeekyside & #onyourbedsidetable More like my bedside bookshelf! 

A word. 

#anythingsweet

#whatimreading #makesmesmile

#bestpartofmyday is dinner, and I am #full 

#somethingibought (figuratively) and #whereistood (literally) 

#iam watching #nature. Perfect pool weather - for a duck lol!

#nature is not #somethingidontlike Double negatives for the win! 

#somethingsweet #inmyhand 

#whatsinmybag and #perfect from my grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. 

Coffee... #somethingiseeeachmorning and ironically #insidemyfridge

#youronetruelove and #loveis 

My new jeans - featuring #thecolorred - made for #walking or strutting! 

#whereyouatelunch and #abadhabit lol 

#yoursky #entrance (that rainbow was entering my house y'all) 

#whatyouwore at #3oclock 

#afurryfriend and #guiltypleasure Harassing the heck out of my bunnies! 

Smiles & Something orange

Something I look forward to & My name

Guilty pleasure and Soft - my fleece quilt 

Thanksgiving dinner - Something I smelled & Family

An inside joke & Hope

One photo. Two challenges. Made me laugh and Begins with E. Emerald green alligator on my Mardi Gras beads. Love! 

Pattern 

The color pink 

Fork(ed branches) 

Self-portrait 

Yourself 

Thank goodness February is a short month!  I was able to make a lot of pics fit both day's subjects, which was awesome.  And, I use hash tags like I'm gettin' paid, which cracks me up, and may or may not annoy people!  But, it was a great way to get used to how Instagram works, and the different, fun ways to share pics, and modify them.

That is all.

P.S.  The title of this post is an ode to this blog, aka the best blog ever, which I'm still cautiously optimistic might be updated again, ever.

P.P.S.  When I say things like "that is all" and "last...ever" you know I don't mean it.  I think I use those phrases like punctuation.  You probably don't mind, or you wouldn't still be reading.

Internet Celebrity part deux

This isn't even really today's post, except that it's today, and I'm posting it.  I'll maybe get to posting today's real post tomorrow?  But I repinned an item on Pinterest two days ago, and it kind of blew up, so I was doing a little forensic pinteresting to figure that out, and I'd like to share my results.  1.  I have no idea why any particular pin blows up on any particular day.  I bet there's a lot of factors, such as:  who repinned it, what time of day it was pinned, what buzzword is being googled that day, how easy the pin is to understand without following a link, etc.  2.  Oh, I actually don't even have a second result.  Just screen shots!

Okay, this was my original pin that made me feel like an Internet Celebrity -- Ikea hackers bath organizer to succulent garden.  12 likes and 50 repins, which was amazing to me.

This is a pretty random repin from 45 weeks ago -- Use a rubber band to remove a stripped screw.  1 repin.

Apparently, this nugget of wisdom made a HUGE impression on me, because when I saw it again this week, I had NO memory of it whatsoever, and I repinned it.  Only this time, in two days, I'm up to 59 likes and 356 repins.  WTH.  ROFLMFAO.  I mean, it's a great idea!  But when I was looking for how this got so popular, is when I discovered that I'd pinned it before.  You could have knocked me over with a feather!  In conclusion, Internet Celebrity, like any celebrity I'm sure, is a fickle, fickle thing.  What difference 45 days made remains a mystery to me, like so many things.  I'm tempted to think the words "stripped" and "screw" have something to do with it, but I am still, and may always be 15 years old somewhere in my brain, and I'm sure the rest of Pinterest's users are much more mature than I.  And when I say mature, I pronounce the "t" like the "t" in "tool" rather than the "t" in "fixture".  For what that's worth.

I'm a falconer!

No, not really, but I think I took a pic of a falcon, along with a lot of other nature.  Btw, this is nature that is happening right now.  Spring is happening!

Broken glass pushed up by moles that I found while backfilling all the mole hills.
How do they not hurt themselves?

My falcon!  Maybe.  Maybe an immature male Peregrine Falcon.
I know an immature male when I see one.  I'll keep you posted.

I love the SNL skits about The Falconer, and for my next post I may learn how to post links to video in a blog, that will play the video in the blog.  I expected someone would have already done this for The Falconer, but my "research" only yields a million different sites to visit, or broken links.  Maybe people have tried, and their links have been disabled?  We'll find out.

I *think* this has something to do with it...

I've been meeting a lot of new people lately, and new people like to ask why I'm single.  My friends almost never ask, and it's not something I ponder all the time naturally, but since it's come up repeatedly recently, I have pondered it a little.  The short answer is:  I don't know.  I guess if I knew I would remedy it!  I don't mind being single, and I'm happy, but I don't love it either, and I'm not consciously trying to be single.  But since I've been pondering it, I thought I would share this little exchange, which illustrates one of the probable multitude of factors required to answer that question.  Anonymous online dating guy's dialogue is in white, my dialogue is in grey. 

Now, I suspected at this point that it wasn't going well.  But I wasn't sure really.  I have a hard time reading people, and I try to be really open-minded.  His next post cleared it right up.

And here, I knew I'd crossed a line.  But, like I said, I most def was not going to date him, and I really had some valuable dating insight for him if he was interested, so I wasn't just trying to be mean.  He on the other hand, was probably trying to be mean.

Most of my dating interactions don't go this badly.  Let's say only a third.  Another third go better for a few dates, and then they implode.  The last third are people I had great relationships with, and 90% of them are now married to someone else.  I don't know why.

However!  I don't worry about it.  And here's one factor of why.  Even though I'm single, and I had a Valentine's date that bailed, I had a wonderful Valentine's Day.  I got Valentine's treats from my family and coworkers.  I got Happy Valentine's Day texts from friends.  I wrote a funny status on Facebook, and 20 of my friends "liked" it.  A friend suggested I buy a particular book at Half Price Books, so I took my random bag of books to sell and headed to the Everett Mall after work.  And I got lost.  Who does that?  Again, my friends don't even ask.  I have a handheld GPS and GPS on my phone, and somehow I got from Bellevue to the Bothell/Mill Creek exit on 405, and the next thing I knew I was in Kenmore!  But the lady in my GPS kept directing me back to the freeway, and I just got off the freeway so I didn't listen.  So I got back to the freeway up at Ballinger Way, but by then I was really thirsty so I stopped at a convenience store for coffee.  A guy sprinted across the parking lot to open the door for me, which is super nice.  I finally got to Half Price Books, and they had one copy of the book I wanted for $5.  Guess how much I got for the books I sold?  $5!  Plus a 10% off coupon, so I got cash back!  And, they had computer problems, so the book buyer had to ask for my number several times.  And in my head, I thought I've never been asked for my number so many times in one night!  Lol.  Then my date texted to bail, so I decided to go to Trader Joe's and buy fancy groceries.  I shopped like a person who doesn't know how to shop, and went up and down every aisle several times, and not in order so I was actually there for quite a while.  I got carded for my beer, which is always awesome.  And when I got out to my car, someone had written Happy V-Day on my windshield with a heart around it.  I looked around and didn't see anyone, and I drove slowly away, but no one else had their windshields written on.  Doesn't that all seem like destiny?  To get so randomly lost, and be at one store in time for that guy to open the door, and at the next store to find the book I wanted, and have just enough to buy it, and then be at the next store at a moment when someone would have the opportunity to write an anonymous Valentine on my windshield?  So, my life is pretty magical, and I'm not spending too much time worrying about why I'm single.  I'm too busy training my pet unicorn.   

(For safety's sake, I tried to wash my Valentine off with my windshield washer, after I took half a dozen pictures, to no avail.  But I didn't really mind.  Yesterday I put some elbow grease into it, and my windshield was spotless, but when I got into my car last night and it was fogged up, you could see it clear as day again.  Lol.)  

Phun With Photos

For Christmas, my present to myself was installing Instagram on my phone, now that I have a phone that is capable of both having and using apps!  I'm late to most technological parties, which I swear saves me a lot of money.  

Once I had Instagram, I had to get a grid app to make those cute collages.  Then I had to join a photo challenge, so I would post more than pics of food.  Then I had to figure out how to turn on the flash in the Instagram camera, so my food pics aren't so unbearably dark!  Sorry about that!  Then I had to join a second photo challenge, so I could do the same photos as my friends.  Then I had to figure out how to share my Instagram photos on this blog, because clearly there isn't enough Instagram in my life already.  Oh em gee.  But I did think you might like to know what apps and tools I'm using if you're still reading!

First, here's a screenshot of Instagram on my phone.  This is the screen I get when I click the camera button. I don't know why it took me so long to figure out the flash -- it's obviously the button with the lightning bolt.  

But also!  If you want to Instagram a pic that's already on your phone, you just click the gallery button next to the camera button, and choose the photo.  I like the photoaday challenges, but sometimes I'm too lazy to take a new photo, so I just find a photo that fits the theme.  You can also take pics with your regular phone camera, or find a pic on FB, and choose Instagram from your sharing options.  I have a lot of pics on FB that I haven't synced to my phone, but I can still 'gram 'em up.

And, if I want to make a collage of several photos, I use an app called PhotoGrid.  There are a lot of options for shapes, borders and backgrounds, but I think I like when I keep it kind of simple.  These are pics I took with my phone camera, pulled into PhotoGrid, then Instagrammed the heck out of 'em.

And, today I wanted to add my Instagram photos to this blog, so I got SnapWidget.  They have a video tutorial on how to add it as a gadget on your blog, or share it on a website.  Fun!  And all these apps and tools are free, because the only thing I am more of than lazy, is cheap!