What Will She Do Next?

Hello Sunshine!

I decided to share with you what adventures I have in the works. My head is spinning of new ways to explore the world around me and even more ways to share it with you.

Before I share where I'm going, I'm going to lay down some ground rules for myself.

1. I will be taking my camera with me everywhere I go. Words are fun, but they hardly can describe the natural beauty and excitment of life.
2. I will do my best to experience EVERY part of the adventure. For instance, if I go to a concert and a mosh pit breaks out, I will jump in (closer to the outside with a possibility of escape while my friend holds the camera, but it will happen). 
3. And finally, I post about it within two days of the adventure (this does not apply to #TBT posts where I tell about an adventure I went on prior to starting the blog.)

Now for the good part!

My next adventure will be to the Haunted Circus right here in Edmond.

Now, if you've met me you will know that I love abandoned places. If it's old, dirty, and a little bit creepy then I'm all over it.

The Haunted Circus used to be called Ghandini's Circus in the early 1900s. It burned down, but there is very little evidence about how or why it did. Some articles I've read point to arson and some point to witchcraft. Either way the circus was destroyed and it's remains still sit in a field here in town. You can read more about the circus here.

I also have plans to attend Life in Color in October.

I actually attended this event when the came to OKC last year and I had a blast! It isn't often socially acceptable to be drenched in paint from head to toe but I found the experience to be fun and liberating!

For those of you who don't know Life in Color is an EDM concert where spectators are blasted with paint and shown a spectacular show of music and acrobatics. Granted, there is a good amount of drugs and debauchery happening in the crowd but it is possible to have fun there without all that.

I will say that last year I went home with a concussion and a ruptured ear drum so I will be taking precautions, but I'm 100% ready to GO HARD IN THE PAINT!

Finally, to wind my self down from all this excitement, I want to plan a trip to Natural Falls State Park.

Granted this trip is the one I've done the least planing for. I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to go, but I can't miss the chance to go camping in the Ozark highlands of Oklahoma where the state's only 77-foot waterfall happens to reside. This trip obviously has a long way to go in the planning stages before I can make it a reality, but it will happen. You can learn more about this beautiful location here.

So that's where I'm going.

Yeah, yeah, I know I still have some planning and work to do (especially on that last one) but I'm excited nevertheless. My Haunted Circus adventure will be out next week. See you soon and keep on adventuring!

-Allie

Hawkstock Adventure

So last week I found myself in a slump and my wonderful roommate looks at me and says "Do you want to go to this little music festival this weekend?" That's really all she told me about it. Just some local artists and food trucks. I figured, "why not" and I was all set to attend Hawkstock.
Hawkstock is an annual music festival put on by the Harding Fine Arts Academy in Oklahoma City to raise money for their school.

It was small. It was at an outdoor theater behind a mammary shaped church but, it was really nice. The people were friendly (granted that may have been because they all love my roommate.) and there was no shortage of food truck food. In case you didn't know, I love food trucks more than life.

Of course because of my dietary restrictions I had limited options, but Addison and I split three different kinds of gourmet pretzels. We had a Truffle Parmesan pretzel, a regular pretzel, and for dessert we had a cinnamon cheesecake pretzel dipped in nutella. I know that isn't the healthiest option but that doesn't matter when the food comes from a truck.

After we got Henna from this lovely woman. I got to discuss the best ways to make Henna paste and Addison got to talk to her about people I didn't know.

All in all we had a great time and I'm glad she dragged me out of my slump for an afternoon. I think I'll go next year too because Harding seems like a great school where everyone becomes family and loves and supports each other.

We don't wear makeup on weekends. No Judgement.

I Did A Photo Project!

In my spare time I've been known to dabble in photography a bit. I take my Nikon D60 and try and capture the beauty of the world around me. Sometimes that leads to my friends asking if I'll take their graduation pictures for them, but I don't mind.
Last semester I got really involved with a women's empowerment group on campus and I started thinking about how society is very backwards in the way it views women. Now I'm not saying all women need to be held up on a 50 foot pedestal of glory and gold, but I do think women deserve equality and to be treated like people.
Too often women are viewed as objects. They are taught to believe that their worth is based off of their attractiveness. If a woman isn't attractive enough, then she better learn how to use a curling wand and a makeup brush so she can make herself more attractive. It leads to young women feeling trapped in  a box of what they "should be" versus what they want to be.

Girls are taught this from a young age and therefor many of the grow up with this mentality that they have to always look perfect so they can be worth something in society. It leads to a mountain of young women with self esteem and body issues; in more extreme cases it can lead to young women with mental illness and eating disorders. For this reason I decided I would use my baby sister to mirror this cultural phenomenon.

I dressed Ariana up in some of her normal clothing because I didn't want her to lose the appearance of being a little girl, but I also caked her face with makeup. The girl is already blessed with long hair which I thought about curling, but I was afraid it would come off as too "Toddlers and Tiaras" for this shoot.

While I wanted to get some more grungy shots inside abandoned buildings (possibly appearing as if she were applying her own makeup in front of some dirty and broken mirror) I didn't have access to those places so I did my best to portray her trying to look perfect surrounded by an imperfect world.

I definitely think this shoot could have gone better, and maybe next time I get to visit home I'll revisit the idea. Ariana is only just now turning 8 years old so I am thankful to still have her youth to play around with in my photo work.
I hope I can keep going out an capturing the world around me, and I hope you enjoy seeing the photos. Hopefully my camera and I will be back to show you our next adventure.
-Allie

Alternations...

I'm no stranger to car troubles. My first two cars were totaled in accidents (not my fault, I wasn't even in them at the time), and my third car overheated and caught fire a couple of times. I'm now on my fourth car that I have lovingly named Ripley. Ripley is a 2000 Infiniti I-30. It was my dad's and he gave it to me over the summer because I needed a car to go back to college and he's going blind.
Everything with Ripley was going perfectly fine until..... BAM! Well really it was a slow and gradual fizzling out, but because of my lack of extensive knowledge about cars I didn't expect it to die on me.
Here's the story...

Earlier in the day I went to get new glasses with my good friend Bo. As we were driving around I thought I heard a strange whirring sound as I accelerated. I usually have music blasting so I decided to ask him if he thought that sounded normal and I just hadn't noticed it before. He didn't think it sounded out of the ordinary so we went about our day, got glasses and I prepared to leave for Bartlesville (where I'm from) with my friend Greg. We had just gotten on the road and had been on the turnpike for maybe 10 minutes or so when my air bag and seatbelt lights started blinking non-stop.
We started to pull over when the entire dash panel started flickering and we barely made it to the shoulder when the entire car just died. We couldn't get it to start back up after that, and I figured it wasn't the battery because driving the car alone would charge the battery. That left on option; the alternator.
So Bo, the car wasn't fine, but then I already knew you had minimal knowledge of cars. Sorry, for expecting you to know stuff like that.
Anyway. I called my dad (Bartlesville) and my mom (Midwest City) and they both told us to call AAA and see about getting it off the turnpike so we could be rescued.
We walked down the road until we could tell what the nearest mile marker was to tell AAA and called them to tow us off the side of the road.
Luckily we were very close to the Wellston exit and towing us to the nearest rest stop was within my 5 mile free tow limit. Even more luckily the time estimate was about an hour and the tow truck arrived in less than 15 minutes. He hooked up the car and dropped us off at Beu's Route 66 Travel Center where we could grab some food, drinks, let the dog potty, and because they were so nice they even allowed all 3 of us to wait for our parents inside.
At this point Greg's father was headed towards us to finish taking us home for the weekend while my mom and step dad had picked up my step Granddad's truck and trailer to haul my car back to the city.
They arrived a little more than an hour later and then we were back on the road. After a few hours we were safe and sound at Greg's parents farm and very thankful for all the help and kindness we received.


Now my mom and step dad have poor Ripley and they are working to fix him back up for me. Hopefully I'll be mobile again soon. Until then I'll just break out my long board and keep adventuring that way.

-Allie

Pescatarian For a While

I do strange things from time to time. For instance, once I ate Nutella on a Triscuit because they were sitting next to each other on my roommate's desk (It's not bad really. Just don't try to mix the rosemary and garlic ones with Nutella).
Anyway, about three weeks ago I decided to change a very large portion of my life, my diet. I decided to become a pescatarian. What's a pescatarian, you ask? Well I've included the dictionary definition for your convenience.

Now I love meat. My favorite food is hot dogs; don't ask me why and DON'T tell me what's in them. So why did I decide to cut most meat from my diet? The answer is actually pretty simple. I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time, i guess. I'm not one of those people to read something about something online and buy into every word it says, so I can honestly say I'm not doing it because someone ranted online about how much healthier it is.
I don't even know if I'm doing it for moral reasons. I love animals, but I don't feel disgusted by meat or feel the need to reprimand my friends for eating things that used to be alive. I still eat fish, and while they have creepy, soulless eyes, they were once alive as well.
I guess I'm just doing it to say I did. When I grow up and I'm talking to my bratty children, I can say "oh yeah I did this one thing and this is how it went for me." But that's what this whole blog is about isn't it. Trying new things and discovering the world around me. Maybe next I'll give up fish and try the be a vegetarian. Maybe I'll try to live of the Daniel Fast for a few months.  It's all new and interesting, and I like to see how my body reacts to the new lifestyle.
I'll see you next time with my next adventure.

A Political Aside

Three years ago someone could ask me who I thought should run the country and I would stare at them blankly and shrug. I had no interest in the matter and therefore I had no opinion. I will say I was adamant that I shouldn't vote unless I was well informed and, to an extent, I still believe that to be true. However, last year a few things happened that got me interested in politics and I started caring about who was in charge around here.

First of all, I will say that I'm not going to get into whether or not I think Obama has done a good job or not. I like to look to the future and so I will not focus on the past. 

Second of all, this post is purely my opinions. I respect the ability to form and hold opinions in this country, and I haven't formed mine around an agenda to personally upset you. Feel free to share yours in the comments, but don't berate me for sharing mine. That's bullying and I won't tolerate it.

Now, what spurred this sudden want to talk about politics? Well if you've been paying attention to the news (or been outside for that matter) you'll know that many candidates have announced their intent to run for the 2016 presidential elections. As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed I came across this post and it's many comments (I've covered the names to protect the identities of those involved).

Now I'll be honest, I originally thought this post was sarcastic. I go to college and I am frequently surrounded by liberals who are under the impression that Donald Trumps ability to run the country is similar to his ability to style his hair. As a liberal myself, I agree.

I read through, and participated in, the debate this post started and from what I gathered this person''s reasons for voting for Trump are as follows.

• "he needs to be president cause everyone in the white house is a pussy and we need a man who is positive to take charge" 
• "THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ARE TOO FOCUSED ON HAVING A GOOD TIME AND NOT FOCUSING ON OUR COUNTRIES PROBLEMS" 
• "he's a multi billionaire obviously he's doing something right." 

Personally I don't think these are reasons to vote someone into the White House. They aren't in depth enough and I struggle to find any mention of actual political agenda here.

This argument began to run all over the place after a while and hit on many issues. I did my best to try and reign it back in but I'm still unconvinced that Trump should be our President. I'm a Bernie Sanders' girl myself (and not just for the free college thing, although that is appealing), but I've come to this conclusion from researching the issues and deciding what was most important to me. I think that's what everyone should do. And yes, there will be those who disagree, but if we all thought the same American wouldn't be the wonderful diverse melting pot we've come to love and enjoy.


If you are interested in seeing which candidate you side with visit https://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz

What the Font?

This is kind of a weird post. It has nothing to do with discovering the world, but it has everything to do with my blog. I've been learning and working in the field of journalism for years now and one thing has always come up as a topic of conversation. Font.
As menial as it may seem, you'd be surprised to see how much it actually matters. For instance, when I worked on my high school newspaper I had to learn the difference between serif and sans-serif type. For some reason the little feet hanging off each letter makes it that much easier to read. For that reason I've littered this blog with fonts like Georgia and Merriweather.
I've also learned you can mix font types as long as they compliment one another. Here I've combined the serif fonts with each other because they are just different enough to bring them their own individual attention, but not overshadow one another. You shouldn't pair Jokerman with the Homemade Apple font. It would be weird.
Finally, I see this too often, script fonts are pretty, but the second I see an entire post in a swirling script font I will click away. they are just too hard to read for a long period of time. You can use them in invites or even for a title (Here I've used Pacifico), but it's important to remember that those pretty fonts have their place.
Ok I'm off my technical soap box. Blog on babes.