Day 226: Stress Case

What my stress looks like on paper.

Tonight at dinner I was telling my mom and sister that it would be interesting to see what my stress looked like if it were on the outside instead of bottled up in silent terror.

I've been a little stressed today, if you can't tell.

We all joked about it.  Christine said it would be like some kind of intense aura, Mom said it would be red to convey the stress, and I said that wasn't good enough, that it would have to be noisy as well as bright.

Fireworks were mentioned.

I thought about it after dinner and thought it would be fun - and perhaps therapeutic - to try and represent my internal struggles from today in a picture.

This is what I came up with.  The scribbled lines around my head equal the noise and confusion I've been feeling all day, and my expression is what I've been doing all day as well.  I'm pretty sure I wiped my makeup off by 10 this morning.

To get this shot, I set up my camera in my room after I drew the squiggly lines all over some paper on my wall, then I set my camera to take a picture every second (like in a photo booth), that way I would have a chance to think of a good way of expressing my anxiety.  The result was pretty funny, and did help to alleviate my stress a bit.

Below is a GIF file of the experience.  I tried to make it into a time lapse video tonight, but my computer wasn't cooperating.  My favorite part is when I make that horrible face and crack myself up.  See if you can find it.

Day 65: Wide Angles

The view from my boss's office.

I did a little time lapse experiment today.  My boss is out of town, so I took advantage of the dark office and set up my camera to take time lapse shots from his window.  The streaks down this shot are from the reflection of the blinds in the window.
I want to get a few days of time lapse before I post a video of them because today's time lapse shots only made a 17 second video.

Some days, there are no words in my head.  I sit and stare at the monitor, or I stare at the wall in front of me, and nothing comes to mind.  Today is one of those days.  I'm trying to think of something profound to say...about my recent family reunion, the amazing weather the last few days, my inability to concentrate, my recent fall off the wagon into the world of sugar, or anything else that is new in my life (well, the concentration thing isn't new, but it's consistent), but I've got nothing.

- To the family reunion, I say it was awesome, wonderful, exhausting, long, and completely worth it.
- To the amazing weather, I say that I wish big storms were a regular occurrence in my town, that the lightning makes for great pictures and the thunder (amazingly) makes me feel calm.
- To the inability to concentrate, I say, I hate you. You ruin my day almost every day and make me feel stupid and little.
- To my recent lapse in self discipline, I say it's never been a funner ride, I love to eat sweet things but I know it can't last, I know my concentration has gotten worse since I started eating sugar again, so I'll probably go back off it within the week, but I make NO promises.
- To my lack of inspiration, I say: The joke's on you!

I win.

Day 53: Family Time and Theme Parks

Rides at Lagoon.

I took so many pictures today!  And so many of them turned out so cute!  I'll post them on my other blog tomorrow.  We had a barbecue at Dave's house and hung out afterwards to try out a few fireworks for the holiday.  I got some great family shots with the baby, and caught a bunch of candid looks.  I also created a quick slideshow of some of the stop motion shots I took of Lauren playing with her mom on the swing and of the snake fireworks Christine and I were playing with.

I also went to Lagoon with Christine at the end of the day (just to get a few rides in before the hour-long drive back home), and I got a few shots of the rides at night.  And since I've got a lot of family shots on this blog, but I don't have any night shots of roller coasters, I decided to post one of those instead.

I really had a great time tonight!  I was worried that I wouldn't have fun because I didn't get enough sleep last night and was grumpy most of the day because of it.  But I grabbed a small nap before heading up to Dave's house, and it made all the difference in how my evening went.  Thank goodness for naps!

Here's the stop motion video:

Day 7: At Work with Valerie

So today, for fun, I set up my camera to do a time-lapse of my desk.  I wasn't planning on using any of the shots from it for this project because - well, frankly - I didn't think they would be any good.  But, a few of them turned out kind of cool, so I decided to pick this one.

This is a look of pure concentration.  THIS is someone truly in the Zone.  I was INTENT on my task.  I was FOCUSED.  I was...studious...
Earnest?
Rapt?
Occupied?
Immersed?

Oblivious.



ps. Here's the time-lapse video of my day: