50 Movies I've Never Seen

1. Cinderella (2015) 4/5 2. Mockingjay : Part 1 (2014) 4/5 3. Queen Bee (1955) 3/5 4. Bite Size (2014) 2/5 5. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) 2/5 6. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) 4.5/5 7. The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) 3.5/5 8. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) 3/5 9. The Grass is Greener (1960) 2/5 10. That Uncertain Feeling (1941) 3.5/5 11. Suspicion (1988 Remake) 3/5 12. Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) 4/5 13. Miss Representation (2011) 3.5/5 14. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) 3/5 15. The Man in the Attic (1954) 3.5/5 16. Mommie Dearest (1981) 2/5 17. The Diary of Anne Frank (2009) 3.5/5 18. Prove the Poets Wrong (2013) 5/5 19. Food Inc. (2008) 5/5 20. Batman (1989) 3/5 21. Crime of Passion (1957) 4/5 22. Black Orchid (1953) 3/5 23. Witness to Murder (1954) 4.5/5 24. The Long Walk Home (1990) 3.5/5 25. Fed Up (2014) 5/5 26. The Fly (1958) 2.5/5 (liked it more until the end...so questionable) 27. Tarzan (1999) 5/5 28. And the Oscar Goes to...(2014) 4/5 29. Vitality (2012) 3.5/5 30. The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) 3.5/5 31. American Experience : The Amish Shunned (2014) 5/5 32. A Trip to the Moon (1902) Silent 2.5/5 33. The Great Train Robbery (1903) Silent 2.5/5 34. Coraline (2009) 1.5/5 35. Hungry Hill (1947) 3/5 36. The Secret (2006) 2.5/5 37. Living on One Dollar (2013) 4/5 38. A Christmas Carol (1938) 4.5/5 39. Pal Joey (1957) 4/5 40. Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret (2013) 2.5/5 41. Mockingjay: Part 2 (2015) 3/5 42. Madeleine (1950) 4/5 43. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) 4/5 44. Meet the Patels (2014) 5/5 45. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) 3.5/5 46. The Watsons Go to Birmingham (2013) 4/5 47. The Lost Honor of Christopher Jeffries (2014) 4/5 48. Minions (2015) 2.5/5 49. Sugar Coated (2015) 4/5 50. The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956) 3/5

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Gratitude List #6

• Safety when traveling.
• Personal growth over the past year. I'm not the same person I was just in January!
• Good music.
• The quiet stillness of the morning.
• The colors of summer.

What are you thankful for this week?

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Chicken & Veggie Stir Fry

Stir Fry Is one of my favorite things to cook. It's easy and straightforward to prepare, it smells incredible while cooking, and it's a great way to sneak in some vegetables. Back in the day when I would make stir fry, I'd simply throw in some soy sauce and that'd be basically it, as far as seasonings go. I've since discovered that it's 100x better if you mix up your own sauce and it's ridiculously easy.

Ingredients
for sauce
2 tbsp of soy sauce
2 tbsp of natural brown sugar
1 tbsp of rice vinegar
1/2 tbsp of ginger

for stir fry
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 tbsp of water
1 cup of broccoli florets
1/2 cup of chopped carrots
1/2 onion, sliced
Salt, pepper, garlic to taste
1 package of stir fry noodles, found in the Asian section at the supermarket
optional: mushrooms, peppers, or any other veggies you want! That's the fun part of making stir fry. It's so versatile, you can add anything! You could also make this meatless or with shrimp, pork, or beef.

Directions
1. Dice the chicken breasts into bite size pieces. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet.
2. When oil is hot, transfer chicken to the oil. Cook until no longer pink, roughly 6 minutes at a medium heat.
3. Add in the veggies and season with garlic, salt, and pepper.
4. While the vegetables and chicken are cooking all together, mix up the sauce ingredients. When well mixed, pour into the skillet. Be careful not to burn yourself. It likes to splatter! Cook until the veggies are tender, about 4-6 minutes.
5. Stir in the noodles. Let it all cook together for about 3-4 minutes.
6. Serve!

 

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Things I've Learned // About Photography

I'm not a professional photographer nor do I claim to be. But I've learned many useful tips since I started working with my camera and I want to share them with you. Many of these are so simple but can make such a dramatic change in your photos!

...practice, practice, practice. Seriously, you have to practice. You can't wake up one day and think: "Ya know, I'm in the mood to become a professional photographer. Let's do this!" and then expect your first photoshoot to be full of fabulous, professional grade photographs. I know this is common sense to many, but it was one of my biggest struggles early on. I just wasn't producing the photos I wanted and almost gave up so.many.times. But I didn't and you shouldn't either! Just keep practicing!

...shoot manual. Okay. This is a biggie. If you have a dSLR and the capability to do so-please shoot your photos manual. You can look at the first lesson again because you'll need to (practice). It took me a long time to get comfortable with creating my own settings, but I'm soo thankful I stuck with it. It makes such a difference in your photography and you are in complete control. In Auto, where I was for many years, you are allowing the camera to make the decisions for you. Sometimes, it's helpful. Most of the time, it's not. I've used many resources, but the absolute most helpful was ShootFlyShoot. Their class is not free but it's the most helpful I've used and they break things down in a way you can understand. I highly recommend them! (And no, this post is not sponsored by them. Their video classes were just very helpful.)

...always take a practice shot and review it to ensure your settings are optimal. Again, seems like common sense, but I have ended up taking a whole series of poor quality shots because I thought my settings were good. I like to really take a look at my first photo before continuing to shoot so I can see what I need to change and what is good. 

The picture on the left is way too bright, but this was right after I started and I had NO idea what I was doing. The picture on the right is from last month and it is much better.

...take shots from different angles and perspectives. Yeah, you'll probably also need a big memory card. I tend to take waay too many, but it's always better to have more than enough than not enough. Get creative too: just because something isn't from the usual angle doesn't mean it can't produce a stunning picture.

Never take just one photo. Of anything. That's my motto, anyway.

...invest in a 50 mm prime lens. I currently only have (3) lenses, one of which is my 18-55mm kit lens. The best lens I own by far is my 50mm prime lens. I love it! I even got the most inexpensive one here. That one is Canon but I'm sure Nikon has an equally impressive lens at a reasonable price as well. You can achieve an amazingly shallow depth of field (when you get that fancy shot where one thing is sharply in focus and the rest is blurred, haha) Most of my favorite photographs I've shot were with this lens. 

...use natural light when available. Natural light is literally the best light. The very best photographs I have shot all have at least one thing in common. Natural Light. So why does this make such a difference? I'm not going to get very detailed here, because this isn't a photography class, but first of all: think of the title. Natural light. Obviously, it's going to look better because it's natural. Secondly, it allows you to use a lower ISO than artificial light. Like I said, not getting crazy detailed here, but the lower ISO you use, the less grainy your image is, so the better your final result. These were shot with natural light and the use of a reflector.

...shoot RAW, if you have a program that allows you to edit RAW. I've heard different opinions on this, but if you have Lightroom or something similar, I'd suggest you shoot RAW. I've had many pictures that I greatly enhanced by changing the white balance in Lightroom and you can't do that with a JPG image.

And I'm going to stop here. Although I can think of many, many other things to share...perhaps one day I will do a part two. Haha. 

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