Let’s Instagram!

“Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world.”

– Bruno Barbey

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I was one of those people who vowed to never use the popular app Instagram. Then I went on my road trip to Oregon, and the drive home was so boring that I decided to try something new. Of course, I instantly fell in love with it. I used it to document my drive home, making a photo map of where I was when each photo was taken. It was a lot of fun, and I still use it now. I’ve found tons of amazing people on Instagram, people who I probably wouldn’t have found without the sharing of silly little cell phone photos. In a way, it’s similar to my blogging in that I get to document my life on a daily basis, without having to sit inside and type out a weeks worth of information.

Selfies (even though I don’t like that word) take up a good chunk of my Instagram. Mostly they end up having a best friend in the background, which usually ends up being my friend/our roommate Jonathan, and Collette of course.

I especially love to document my time with friends. My friends are the social net that keeps me standing. I’m a huge fan of keepsakes, and that’s what photos are to me, keepsakes that hold great memories. And with them all in one little spot! My friends and I do a lot of random things, from goofy photos, to just driving around. Since my closest friends also have Instagram, there are a lot of silly photos of me floating around. Which is always fun.

Collette is also a huge part of my Instagram. Why? Because she’s my kid, and she’s incredibly cute. No one has a cuter kid than me. No one. She’s even got her own hash-tag which happens to be #cocollettie. I chose this because Marty’s side of the family calls her Coco and my half of the family calls her Lettie, so I mixed them up. Lots of her photos have our Jeep in them because she enjoys sitting on the hood when we’re outside.

 My city, Minneapolis, is my sanctuary. If I’m having a bad day, I just drive past the lights, the sounds, and smells, drastically improving my view on the world for long enough to feel better. Minneapolis is the most beautiful city I’ve ever been in, and I can’t imagine living far enough away that I can’t drive for 5 minutes and see its buildings reaching for the sky. So of course, it is often shown on my Instagram page.

When I’m not driving through the city, I often doodle (gosh, who knew?) and share it on Instagram. I also share a lot of doodles or finished drawings for my Pippington Post Blog. If you haven’t seen it, you should go check it out! If you’re interested in Kiwi birds, it’s centered around a little one named Pip. If you’re interested in being in The Friend Zone, just draw a picture of a Kiwi bird, take a picture of it, post it to Instagram, and share it with #pippingtonpost and your name!

Among all of the usual stuff that I post are the random things like food, my 6th gen hippo cookie jar (because who doesn’t love vintage cookie jars from 1947?), colorful things, animals, and a whole bunch of random interesting stuff. If you’re interested in seeing interesting things, you can check me out! My Instagram name is Moose_Blossom and I’m all for new friends.

Also, random journal entries from Marty’s childhood.

“Aug. 28, Mom got an Altoid up her nose. And about one hour later we ate lunch at subway. At 5:30 mom got pulled over.”

“Aug. 29, I shoved my foot in the spokes of my bike and my bike flipped. Then we bought a ship. Then we got Emily a monkey.”

Seriously, how fantastic is that?

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Thanks so much for reading!

All pictures by me,

The State Fair!

“I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.”

– E. B. White

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Fried foods, food on a stick, beer, wine, rides, laughter, animals, and butter statues. What else could you possibly need?

This year Collette and I (Marty had to work) spent our day at the Fair with four of my favorite people; Heather, Jeff, Jonathan and Renee. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to enjoy our day with. We started off by getting breakfast at the Blue Moon. Unfortunately, nothing was on a stick. Did we care? No, because it was amazing.

After breakfast we made our way to see the wildlife and outdoor gear at the Wildlife Science Center. They have a pond filled with a large variety of fish, most of which are native to Minnesota. Collette wanted nothing to do with leaving, but we eventually peeled her away and took her to see the falcon and snake that they had on display. It eventually started raining so we spent most of the day hiding inside buildings.

Next we made our way to the Miracle of Birth barn! This was something I was especially excited for. We watched chicks hatch from their eggs, tiny piglets being born, newborn lambs, calves, and many other babies playing. It was messy, and adorable, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Collette couldn’t have been more excited to see all of the babies either.

Once we saw all of the babies, we rushed to the next barn so we didn’t get too wet from the rain. We ended up in the Poultry and Goat barn where we spent a long while meeting all of the goats, each one happy to see us. Near the end of the barn I found three adorable goats that were clearly good friends. They were cuddling together, laying exactly the same. They couldn’t have been cuter! Then we saw bunnies and the poultry. The chickens and roosters sure seemed to really enjoy having their photos taken. I took more photos of the chickens than anything else, and I had a hard time dwindling it down to two!

The horse and cow barns were next! In the horse barn we saw show horses and a few draft horses. Some of which we saw pulling a wagon later in the day. We also ended up finding an Arabian mare who was bored out of her mind, and who loved people. She was standing with her neck stretched out into the aisle, reaching for every person who walked by, asked to a scratch on the nose. We spent a long while with her. She really liked Heather, licking her chest and arms. After leaving the mare we walked through the cow barns, which was sadly not very exciting due to the humidity and the time of day.

 Wine, and beer tasting was another thing we spent a bit of time doing. We stopped by MN Wine to get our first taste of alcohol for the day. Renee got three different types; a rhubarb, cranberry and a red wine. I’m allergic to grapes, so I was only able to try the rhubarb and cranberry. Each cup was put into a hole in a cardboard cutout of MN, which was certainly fun. They were good, but new and bitter. Later Jonathan got beer on a stick (duh). I’m not big into beer, so I didn’t try any of them, and I don’t remember what kind he had. I do remember that he really only enjoyed one, which was unfortunate. In any case, we had fun with it!

There was also a parade going through the streets of the Fair. We watched for a while, seeing lots of fun things go past, and enjoying the children laughing at the floats and performers. They also had a Tesla Model S go through. If you haven’t seen anything on them, you can go to Tesla’s website and read up! They are really awesome cars. We also saw our draft horses pulling the MN Zoo wagon, as well as a fire truck that sprayed water, and a Pedal Pub polar bear.

Over all it was a fantastic day and we got to see a lot of things, drink some good drinks, eat some fun and delicious food, and see some wonderful things!

Even if we ended up getting rained out at the end, it was worth it!

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Thanks for reading!

All photos are mine.