National Ice Cream Day | Halo Top

I sampled some of the best guilt-free ice cream on National Ice Cream Day!
Considering how much I drink coffee (be it even decaf) thought I'd stir in a bit and ... just watch the movie. 

I ended up buying the mint chip, sea salt caramel, chocolate mocha and lemon cake! The chocolate mocha tasted identical to brownie batter and not being much of a chocolate ice cream fan it took every ounce of strength to not eat the whole damn pint in one sitting! 
Mint and sea salt caramel were as equally amazing! If I could say "least of all" I'd say lemon, but it was still amazing. 

Thank you so much Halo Top. It was a pleasant surprise to discover ice cream that I can accidentally eat the whole pint...
 

Waking up with the Women Who Run with the Wolves | Day 29

Waking up with the "Women Who Run with the Wolves" | Day 29 of 33 Sunrises 
"Emet. Emet. Emet..." I hear whispered on the wind. The Hebrew word for truth. 

A random parking garage. A book that has been calling me for a few months now. A rising sun. The promise of truth ~emet~ in unanswered questions. A beating heart, in solitude, feeling the wind on skin, warm humid air and long strands of hair tickling a nose and bare shoulders and blush dusted cheeks. 

Are we woman enough to step away from everything? What lies on the other side? What calls to us from the deepest darkest woods, from where we've come? 

Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. whispered on the wind.
Freedom to be. Freedom to think. To create. To live. To love. To give. To accept. 
To be. Who we are, in all of our soul-filled glory.
Not who the world is making us. 
Not what social media demands of us. 
Not what anyone or anything believes we should or shouldn't be.

Who we are. 

The sacred name of the Creator of the Universe is translated into English "I am that I am."
But if we take away the Hebrew vowel points (there are no vowels in the Hebrew language) and read only the Hebrew letters it says in essence "It is what it is." 

We demand explanations for things we feel and think as if they need explanation. 
Strip everything away. The music. The storyline we're playing in our heads. 
When there's no agenda. When there's no history. When it's only this moment right here. 

"If only our hearts could hold signs like doors
Yours would say healing"

Waking up driving for Lyft | Day 27

Waking up Driving for Lyft | Day 27 of 33 Sunrises
I love meeting new people. As deeply as I crave my alone time, I need to meet new faces and hear new stories and new ideas. I learned this about myself the last year. It only seemed fitting that since Lyft just came back into town I would dive in. Life's too short to not try a new (money-making?) hobby, right? Right?

SIGNING UP
SO EASY! Before I forget if you want to sign up, use my promo code: Carli229756 and we both can get $50. There's a small catch, of course, but just log in and see if you're the least bit interested. Also, coupon for a $10 ride towards the bottom if you hang around long enough. :)

Considering I already own a car, have insurance and am current on all of the records, it took me less than 10 minutes to sign up to drive with Lyft. Believe it or not the most difficult part was finding a selfie. I don't have a single photo of me looking at the camera without my sun glasses on, smiling, just me from the last year. That was astonishing. (Emilia seems to be in every one haha and I don't mind.) 

PREP
LYFT has a few tutorials that are straight forward and pretty fool proof that made me feel somewhat confident in my first ride. 
Car detailed - check! 
Decals on - check! (You can easily remove them, FYI so you don't have to be advertising for them all of the time.)
Cold water and temporary tattoo business cards and quiet music - check! It was a little nerve-wracking as anything is the first time, but not difficult! LYFT is very clear to let people that you're driving know it's your first ride/first day, whatever and honestly that made them so patient and encouraging and I got a solid 5 stars and a "Good job on your first day!" haha
I don't think you can be prepared for how much driving around you're doing between rides. It's a lot of car time. I just turned on a few TEDTalks. :)
I have a feeling that will change once the word spreads that LYFT is back in town!

FIRST LYFT
So your phone obnoxiously makes this loud ringing sound, and a circle with the person's face who needs a ride pops up and you have so many seconds to tap it to "accept" it. They make you 3-step verify that you're actually picking someone up, which I guess is a good thing. You hit "I'm arriving" and then you confirm that you're actually at the address, another click, and then "Pick Judy up!" for the third click. 
Then it's "tap to navigate to the route!" 
The first LYFT was two ladies who only checked in as 1 passenger and I should have had them cancel and re-count but I found that out later.... It was uneventful except for my illegal u-turn when I didn't know that I had to hit "navigate to route" and an "Um... I got this." after I dropped them off and hit "client delivered." haha

LOCATION
Last night... since I live by the airport I thought "Oh this is going to be genius!" Just go where people NEED a lift! After two trips around the loop in the airport and driving 5 mph the entire time and me stressing if I would ever get someone to ding my phone, I left and headed towards South Congress. My stomping grounds. That was last night. 
This morning I stayed in the residential area assuming people would need a work INTO town and sure enough!

OVERALL THOUGHTS/ COST
It's a lot more downtime driving then I thought. Is it worth it? It depends on how much money you hope to make and if you really love people. The truth is that you are indeed making money and with a little extra smile you can get a tip. Although I still haven't figured out just how to see how much each customer is tipping me. You can't tip in cash with LYFT but everyone has been so kind and the conversations have been great and I'm depositing $71 and some change into my account from the last approx 5 hours of driving. So...

COUPON CODE FOR $10 OFF YOUR FIRST LYFT: INKEDFINGERS  (SO difficult to remember, I know.)

PS: I need to rave about my $6 phone holder. If you need one, no need to spend a penny more and you don't have to attach any weird stickers to your phone or case! The magnet is thin enough you can just slide it in and still close your case. :)

Waking up to a Fujifilm X-T2 | Day 24

Waking up to a FujiFilm X-T2 (AKA Sony a7ii vs Fuji Film X-T2) | Day 24 of 33 Sunrises
Last night Emiliana and I played in the pool until the sun almost set then raced down to stay at her Daddy's house in Buda. John is out of town with his sick father and we were holding the fort down. We woke up this morning in Buda. It was extremely cloudy which put me in some what of a bad mood that I didn't have any gloriously lit images...
Anyway, I had grand plans of staying up long after Emiliana went to bed (9pm-ish) and configuring the new Fuji Film X-T2 I traded my gear in for, and thought the excitement alone would keep me awake but alas, I didn't wake up until my alarm this morning. 

This is how my brain feels about trying to learn new technology... 
just give me an ink-filled pen and a crumpled piece of paper and no body will get hurt.
Translation: I've shot with the same camera since 2012 so I don't really care about having the latest greatest.

That is until I took the xt2 out of the box. :)

I have been photographing on the Nikon d700 since those bodies came out in 2012 and they were the BOMB back then! I've replaced the shutter twice, shot with it in the rain, replaced all the rubber pieces, shot my first commercial gig with it, etc etc etc. To say I was sentimentally attached to that thing would be an understatement. 
But all good things must come to an end. (And I didn't even cry when that basket of thousands of dollars of my old Nikon gear disappeared with the sales clerk.) 

So there's a reason why there's only 1 camera store called Precision in Austin, Texas. If you're new here and you think "They need some serious competition" I beg of you to go in and ask for Robert. Let me say that again... go pull a ticket and then wait for Robert. To make a long story extremely short, I traded both my d700 and all flashes/lenses in and my x-t1 for the Sony a7ii but didn't feel too excited about it. I shot it a few days and then I talked to Robert on the very day I was trading in the last of my gear and he said "WTF are you doing?! Here... hold this xt2" and I hauled ALL of the gear I had just purchased two days ago back into the store, returned in and walked OUT with the xt2 and a 35 f/2 equivalent of the 50mm.

Bottom line: If you have shot with a Nikon DSLR and you're trying to switch seamlessly to a mirrorless dslr because that's the future folks, and bonus points, if you have any hopes at all of shooting video, the XT2 is your answer.

Here's a quick list how the XT2 blows the a7ii out of the water (in the less than 15 mins that I have shot with it.)

+ MENU
The #1 reason. All of the controls are hidden INSIDE of the Sony a7ii. In Robert's words, the Sony is a PC that happens to take pictures. He couldn't be more right. You have to literally "dig" into the menu to change everything from iso to manual focus, etc. It's annoying as hell. haha Especially coming from the ease of the use of Nikon with all of it's dials on the outside body, 
The Fuji Film XT2 is quite comparable, with manual shooting ease. I know I have so much to learn about what can be accessed on the outside and I'm really excited about that.

+ SHUTTER LAG
(The time difference between when you're pushing the shutter button and the camera actually takes the photograph.)
Non existent in the XT2. It's as clean and fast and crisp as the Nikon DSLR. Unheard of!!!
I noticed a millisecond in the Sony a7ii. If you haven't ever shot with a dslr, you will still be wowed by the Sony, but it's not as fast as the XT2 in my opinion.

+ IN CAMERA EDITS
I didn't play with this feature on the Sony much but I'm including photographs I shot on the XT2 that I shot as JPGS (which I don't ever shoot jpg! I always shoot in RAW and edit!) But there are some really fabulous in camera edits that make shooting in jpg possible, even freaking fabulous black and white reminiscent of film days filters, and knowing I don't have to spend HOURS editing makes me the happiest girl this side of TEXAS ya'll!!!!!!!

+WEIGHT AND ERGONOMICS
Coming from a d700, the Sony felt so much like a cheap toy camera to me, so I immediately bought the battery grip with it so I didn't feel like it was going to just fall out of my hands. Even with that it still felt clunky. The material doesn't feel substantial enough for me, but then again that's all personal preference.
Even though the Fujifilm isn't a full frame, it instantly felt familiar to me, like holding the metal body of a film camera. If you spend any time with your camera as a profession it becomes your baby and guys, the weight and fabric of your baby is SO important! Fujilfilm just has it down.

+MOVIE
Wish I could give a better assessment of this but just spouting facts: the X-T2 shoots 4k, the a7ii only 1080. Wish I knew what that meant, haha. In short, X-T2 wins again.

+WIFI capabilities
I didn't use this feature yet on either but they both have the ability to send images directly to your phone! Awesome.

+ OVERALL COST
Extremely comparable. 

Winner winner chicken dinner: FUJI FILM!!!! 
Bonus: Not to mention it just looks so much prettier than the Sony AND Amazon now has the Instax printer which you can configure directly with the xt2 in the menu! Ah!! 

Here are the photographs I shot this morning with the fujifilm xt2 as jpgs, unedited. If you know me, you know I don't shoot in jpg and I definitely don't post un-edited files anywhere. While I don't know I would give these exact files to clients, they are sure pretty as is without any adjustments at all! 

I know I'm so freakin biased to the FujiFilm, so I really encourage you if you have shot with both and disagree with me, tell me why you like the Sony so much better! Would love to hear!