April In Review

SPADE LIST ITEMS COMPLETED -

#8. Post something on givesmehope.com

(Completed 10/04/10)

#5. Start running again

(Completed 22/04/10)

PROJECT 365 PHOTOS TAKEN -

Day 120 - Reflections...

I thought this was quite an interesting photo! It's a reflection of some trees in a puddle on my driveway. I like it because the colours were naturally all sepia-tinged like that so I didn't need any editing, because i think the simple colours worked well!

So April is over =/ now the real work begins!

Day 119 - Adrian's Gold...

This morning I woke up to a green world. It seemed that spring had sprung overnight, the sun was shining, there were leaves on the trees and the flowers were spreading their joy everywhere. The sun shone the whole way through school, getting me through the classes. As I took the bus home, I enjoyed the thought of getting some spring snaps. I got in through my door, located my camera, got changed and quickly replied to an e-mail before walking outside, camera in hand...

It was raining. The green had turned to grey. No spring pictures for me today :(

But the good thing about rain is - rainbows!! So I got a picture of that while it was clearing up :)

For you Americans reading the blog... the leprechaun who owns the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is a good mate of mine! His name is Adrian.

Day 118 - Miles / Km FAIL!

Alright I have no excuse for the lousy photo today, except for the fact that it made me LOL! Such a fail, look at the miles / km differences!! :) Saw this on a map when I was out running today (probably not the best idea as I'm recovering from a stomach bug, but meh, I'm not dead.... that's a good sign!)I was back in school today! Being at home when you're too tired to do anything is boring.... glad I got out today!

Day 117 - 'Snap'

I'm feeling a lot better today! Took the day off school though...

So my brother was in a reasonably good mood and we started messing around on this cheap-ass PC version of Photobooth I downloaded a while ago. It's called 'Snap'. It fails. Photobooth FTW!

Anyway, I know these aren't good Project 365 photos, but I'm sick. I have an excuse!

Day 116 - UGH!

I came home early from school today and threw up. I'm sick. This is an irrelevant picture of a pot in my garden.

Day 115 - Here Comes The Storm...

It was BUCKETING today!! There was thunder and everything, it was rather exciting! I tried to capture the rain with a good shot, but this was quite difficult as I didn't want to get my camera wet! But I'm quite pleased with these ones anyway! They don't do the rain justice though... it would appear the summer storms are starting!

Day 114 - Spiderman Candy Canes!! Woo!

This is a picture of my piano... because my piano was getting tuned today so I though meh! Why not? It's not a great picture but I can deal with that.Tonight Bill, Vikki, Mich I was serving tea and coffee in Castlewellan to raise money for this guy in Africa. A lot of the time we weren't doing much so we ran to Spar and Vikki and I bought Candy Canes that came with tattoo's 'cause we're so darn BUTCH! (LOL - when I originally typed 'butch' as 'dutch' and laughed a lot)

This is Vikki demonstrating her butchness! If I didn't know her, I'd be scared!!

Day 113 - O Strawberry Avalanche...

This is a world of dreams and reverie

Where I felt the stars explode around me

A glass blade flashed with a gleam

As it slashed open the moonbeam

And I stared back breathlessly

As mountains of fruit tumbled out

I barely had the chance to shout

O strawberry avalanche, crash over me

Staying awake that night was rather hard

Deep in a sleeping bag in your backward

When we woke up buried alive

Beneath the fruity landslide

We both laughed hysterically

It could've been just another dream

But I swear I heard you scream

O strawberry avalanche, crash over me

Oh there's a citrus constellation

In the galaxy

Stretched on the back of both my eyelids

That I've been dying to see

If you were a beautiful sound

In the echoes all around

Then I'd be your harmony

And w'd sing along with the crowds

Beneath the candy coated clouds

O strawberry avalanche, please crash over me

This is a world of dreams and reverie

Where I felt the stars explode around me

Day 112 - We Are Ninjas In Kinky Boxers!

Today I went for a 3 mile run with a few good friends of mine... it was great being able to hang out in the countryside, which is something I love doing. It just fills me with a great happiness :) Anyways, because I've been running more regularly now, I feel I can tick

#5. Start running again.

off my list. And because we all had so much fun tonight, we're gonna try our upmost to make it a regular occurence... sweeeeeet!

These photos were taken with my camera phone, so I'm actually pretty pleased with the quality of them! Hope you like them!

PS. About the title of the post... if you don't understand, don't bother asking ;) long story!

Day 111 - That's Like Numerical Alliteration...

It was one of my friend's birthday yesterday, and a mutual friend bought her a toy gun... it provided so much amusement both yesterday and today! I didn't have my camera with me yesterday, but I did today, so I got some pictures!Above is a picture of Mich about to shoot at me... the picture to the right is a photo of her actually shooting at me. It's a good thing I love her... shooting plastic things at my camera is not something a lot of people would get away with!! ;)

Hope everyone has had a good day!

Day 110 - "I'M ON A BOAT!"

This is a picture of a model boat in my house... I put it in B&W, just for the craic! :)

Day 109 - JUMP!

I convinced my brother to jump of my garden shed roof to get some good pictures... the bottom one is blurred, but I really like the angle of it! It was kinda fun! I'm thinking I need to get out and take some good portraits, as I want to be able to take good ones by the time summer comes around... maybe over study leaves, during a break from revision, I'll head out with a few friends and get snap happy :)

Day 108 - That Buzzing-Noise...

"That buzzing-noise means something. If there's a buzzing noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee. ....
And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.....
And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it."
- Winnie the Pooh
It's bee season!! I have now decided I like bees better than birds, because bees don't give a crap if you stand a foot or two away from them and point a dangerous looking telephoto lens at them... they just carry on with their own business! Birds, however, like to fly to the nearest tree and hide until you've gone. Yes, I like bees. So I got my telephoto out and stood right by this pink flowery bush, and tried to catch a bee that would stay still. It was difficult trying to get the camera to focus on a bee as they never stayed in one place for more than a second... however once you got your camera to focus on one, you could follow it around and get some great shots! Because I has the telephoto lens also meant that these photos didn't need to be cropped :)
Hope you had a good weekend!

Day 107 - Everybody Loves Saturday!

It's Saturday! Horay! I am totally living for the weekend right now! Summer really can't come soon enough.... it's gonna be immense.

It was a really nice sunny day today so I sat with my sister outside and took a few photographs. The problem with 4 year olds is, I could see the sort of photo I wanted in my head, but she would just not do anything I asked her to! So I just kinda let her do her own thing, and I think the pictures I got are actually pretty cute!

So I haven't been writing much for the past few days... this is due to a mixture of laziness, busyness and lack of interesting stuff you write! Ah well... you probably like it better the less I write any way ;)

Day 106 - I'm Sleepy...

This photo was taken waaaayyyy too early this morning! Sometimes I wonder why I bother...

I went to see 'Dear John' tonight... the movie is actually a bit over rated, I liked 'Remember Me' better! The bant, however, was great craic! (haha that sentence is so Norn Irish!!) Hope you had a good day! :)

Day 105 - "Moo"

It's hard to make a picture of a cow interesting. The natural thing to do was Colour Extraction.
I apologize for the cow. It was my back up photo, as I had originally intended to get a pic of the sunset with the ash cloud that was meant to happen tonight... that plan failed. I missed it =/

Went to the gym today with a couple of friends, I'm determined to get more into exercising, as right now I am definitely not in the habit!

Not much else to say, so I'll leave it at that! :)

Peace out.

Day 104 - Hands :)

So I really kinda like this quote :) it's not a great photo, 'caused it was rushed... but meh.

Went for a 2 mile run today. I hurt... just a little bit =/

Day 103 - Photoshop or Photobooth? Hmmmm...

There were shouts of "good luck for your art exam!" all around us as we walked to the classroom. We thanked them, replying with "I'm so stressed, I don't know anything" / "I haven't picked up a book!" / "No one has revised!" We were then reassured by our friends, telling us that everything would be okay, and inwardly we laughed ("hahahaha" or "LOL" but not "hahahaha LOL") because we knew that an 'art exam' was just an art class that lasts all day. The stress of it all haha ;)

So I spent all day working on the computer on some of my Photoshop pieces. Sitting watching a screen all day is draaiinninnng..... so near the end of the day I few friends and I got distracted by Photobooth on my friend Corinne's Mac... so these are gonna be my pictures of the day!

I don't want to have to spend another whole day in the art room tomorrow... well I'm planning to bring a lot more food this time to keep me sustained!

Hope you had a nice day! :)

Day 102 - Pretty Sky! :)

Tonight was a cloudless night, and the sky was such a pretty colour -
So tonight was my GB display... I think it went well enough! I would write more right now, but I kinda just want to log off and go to sleep :) g'night y'all!

Day 101 - But Not A Dalmatian In Sight!

This photo was taken on my fish eye lens, and I kinda like it! I'm kinda bummed that this is the last day of the Easter holidays... ah well, I've not got much longer left of school anyway! I would have liked to spend today relaxing, but just to be annoying, the GB District Parade was today. Normally I would skive off such a boring event, but our GB / town was hosting it this year and I had to sing so I felt obligated to go. It was lovely and embarrassing. :)

Day 100 - GMH

So I had a good day today! I went for a good long walk in the Mournes for a practice Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition. It was a beautiful day, I thoroughly enjoyed the walk! I'd forgotten how amazing the countryside here is. When we got to the top of Chimney Rock mountain and everyone sat down to have lunch, I walked around and found a good place to look out at the view... it. was. fantastic. Someone pointed out to me the fact that you could see all the way to an island off the coast of Dublin. That's unreal.
So I have another one for the Spade List!! :) this one really makes me smile -

#8. Post something on givesmehope.com

I'd sent in a couple before, but this is the first one to get published. You can read my post here. If you've never heard of Gives Me Hope, I'd suggest you go on it. It's like My Life Is Average or FML, but a heck of a lot better.

I'm grateful that I get to see these little things that give me hope.

Jo out.

PS. Day 100!! Wooooooooo!!

Day 99 - Title Of Post.

This is my garden shed... it's blue.

Ahhh... I feel I should write something wonderful here, but I'm far too tired to do such a thing.

Why don't you just use that wonderful imagination of yours to imagine that I have written something eloquent, thought inspiring, yet humorous in an understated way. That'll do nicely...

Day 98 - Battery Low... Please Recharge...

So you agree that this is an odd photo. Yes, I thought so. This is a picture of my sisters friend on my trampoline. I put my camera to a reasonably slow shutter speed and put it on full zoom. I clicked the camera to take a picture and while the lens was closed quickly zoomed out. This was the resulting effect... it could have been done better so I may try this again some time! It's quite interesting though!

So last night I was at a Disney marathon and did not get a chance to sleep... I don't regret it though - we got through 8 movies (Hercules, Pocahontas, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Dumbo and Aladdin)! It was a fun night!

Being the eejit I am, instead of getting a nice early bed time I went out to the cinema tonight. Mich, Vikki and I went to see 'Remember Me' and it was amazing. I knew it was going to be amazing right from the start, because I started analyzing it as if I were looking at it for homework... that's a good sign! If you can put up with intense emotion, go see it. It's great. I'm not actually a big Rob Pattinson fan, but I thought he did very well.

Day 97 - Creative Procrastination.

My parents arrived home from their trip to England yesterday, and they brought me home some funny paper clips that are different shapes! As you can see I did some rather creative procrastinating today.

Day 96 - To The G-Mobile!

I slept over at Sarah's house last night... I *heart* her! She is to me like grapes are to grass.

We watched New Moon last night, as I never got a chance to see it in the cinema. I'm glad! Never before has a movie bored me so much. I kid you not. *shakes head in disgust* ah well....

So funny story - (this happened yesterday, but I forgot to talk about it yesterday then)

I'm in a shop, minding me own business. A reasonably attractive shop assistant is serving Sarah at the till, but he turns to talk to me -

Reasonably Attractive Shop Assistant - Hey, did you go to Canada?

Me - Uhhh... no.

Reasonably Attractive Shop Assistant - Oh. You sure?

Me - Yep! Pretty sure!

Reasonably Attractive Shop Assistant - Oh, that's okay. I just thought because of your T-shirt...

Me - (looks down at my relatively normal T-shirt and fails to see how it could mean that I went to Canada)

Oddest conversation with a complete stranger? Possibly.

Day 95 - *Slurrrrpp*

Guess What?! Guess What?! I have 10 followers!! This is a momentous occasion! I feel the need to celebrate. How shall I celebrate? I shall have a glass (or three) of Coke in Nando's! WIN!
I am rather pleased, not simply because I have 10 followers on my blog, but because this year was the first year I was able to give up something for Lent and not break it. I went off Coke, and any other Cola drink, i.e. Pepsi. So today, I got into Nando's and was sorta thirsty. I was excited by the fact that they had free refills, so I got a glass and chugged it. *burp* that was fun.

Well today I was in Belfast for a wee shopping trip with a few friends of mine! I got some nice stuff! As well as the Spade List, I now have a 'Sarah and Jo' list... a list of things we have to do together! =) it makes me smile!

Day 94 - Don't Worry, There's A Bunny.

"The greatest day in history
Death is beaten, You have rescued me
Sing it out, Jesus is alive
The empty cross, the empty grave
Life eternal, You have won the day
Shout it out, Jesus is alive
He's alive

And OOHHHH
Happy Day! Happy Day!
You washed my sins away!
OOHHHH
Happy Day! Happy Day!
I'll never be the same!
Forever I am changed!"

It's Easter Sunday! I saw someone's status on Facebook, and have decided to quote it here, 'cause I thought it was pretty good -

"Easter. The day Jesus rose from the dead. What should we do?" --- "How about eggs?" --- "Well what does that have to do with Jesus?" --- "All right, we'll hide them." --- "I don't follow your logic." --- "Don't worry, there's a bunny."

Think about it.

These are photos of me out for a walk with my little sister. She was tired, bless her! She made me a bracelet today in Sunday School, it was so cute! I told her I was gonna wear it forever and ever and ever. She seemed satisfied with that!

Another shout out today - this time to just two friends, Vikki and Mich, who appear to be in Ponderland! They too have started a blog... FOLLOW IT (peer pressure) as they are awesome - Vikki And Mich In Ponderland

Happy Easter everybody!

Day 93 - You Are Awesome!

Today I was home all day as my usual Saturday activities were cancelled, so I stayed at home all day. I therefore decided to experiment on the whole 'self-portrait' front. This one is the best one I took. It's probably not the greatest ever, but I kinda like the simplicity of it!This might seem a bit random, but I just want to give a big shout out to my best friends (you know who you are!) 'cause they truly are awesome and I love them mucho! Dunno where I'd be without them =) love yous. I guess I just wanted to say this, because sometimes you just need to remind people how awesome they are... and you are awesome.

Peace out!

Day 92 - We're All Here Together!

Today was my brother's birthday - he is now fifteen! He refused to let me take a picture of him (even on his birthday!) so I took a picture of my sister instead... =)

Tonight I went to see Taylor University Gospel Choir perform in one of my local village halls. My friends and I brought the average age of the audience down to about 65, but I had such an amazing night! We raved at the back, dancing and clapping our socks off. There were many hilarious moments, for example the crazy dances (YMCA, Walk Like An Egyptian and I don't even know!), chatting with some of the choir (italics = Americans, normal = us)

• "Do you know many leprechauns?" "Yeah, sure! I'm dating one right now actually! He's called Brian!"
• "Is 'ginger' an insult?" "That depends... if you're like 'ugh, you're ginger', then yes; if you're like 'oh! you're ginger!', then no."
• "Is it true that the rivers run with Guinness?" "Of course! What do your rivers run with?"

There were some really uplifting moments though, the choir were so accepting of everyone there, and the amount of joy that radiated from the hall that night was unbelievable. I haven't seen a group of people that happy in a long time, and the fact that most of them were old people, bouncing around and laughing was brilliant! Fantastic =)

"We are here together

You, and you, and me

We're all here together

One big family"

Day 91 - One Day I'll Fly Away...

Firstly, my apologies for the amount of photos in this post... I couldn't pick which one to post so I posted a lot! Today I went for another walk... this time for a long one across the beach. I love walking. I could walk for miles just enjoying everything that surrounds me. As I said yesterday, it clears my head (which is great because my head is buzzing right now). I brought my camera and lenses, and got some pretty good landscapes I think (see below). The picture above is of my reflection in the big ball on Newcastle main street.

Having the telephoto lens with me meant I could get some shots of birds, which I am pretty pleased with! =)
It's been a good start to my Easter holidays anyway...