Day 306/365

     After what turned into a bit of a hectic week, this weekend was pretty quiet. It was a nice reprieve, albeit a pretty sudden change that was a bit hard to adjust to. I had to work for an hour or two on Saturday/day 306 for a Friday assignment that got pushed back with Jessica Schwerin's homecoming taking up most of my time Friday afternoon.

     

     The assignment I rescheduled was on a family that luckily averted what could've been a major tragedy. The Bittner family had their neighbors, the Childs family, over to play pool in their basement and one of the neighbors noticed the smell of gas. This lead to the realization that there was a gas leak in the home, and the Bittner family was advised to evacuate and stayed the night at the Childs residence.

Day 275/365

     Today I got to shoot and write a pretty bittersweet assignment. (If you'd like to see my other photos, I read the short writeup I did, you can find it on MLive here). It was a last minute one, and all I was told was that a group of ladies from the Red Hat Society were visiting a friend of theirs in the hospital. When I drove to the hospital and actually met the woman, Linda, who was getting the visit, I found out that she was in the hospital from being in a serious car accident a few weeks ago that killed her husband. 

     When her friends walked in and each one of them walked up to her, hugged her, and told her how much they loved her and were there for her, it was truly touching. It was easy to see how much she'd missed them, (she was in I.C.U. until last week so her only visitor has been her daughter), and how much them being there helped her. It made me think of when I came back home after finding out my dad had passed away, and how much having my family and friends there as soon as I walked in the door really and truly helped me get through everything. 

It's really amazing how much human beings can do for each other just by simply being there.

Day 222/365

     My apologies for the delay in updates; I spent the weekend home in Ohio and tried to see everyone and do everything, (except sleep), and then had a few crazy days at work. Any spare time was pretty much spent catching up on sleep. 

     This past Saturday I got to catch up with a bunch of friends from home, and we carved pumpkins like we've done for the last couple of years. Today's photo is my mustachioed jack-o-lantern. It was a lot of fun, and while I was pretty aware of how much I missed all of them before visiting, it was made even more obvious after getting to actually see them. They're literally some of the best people on Earth!

Day 194/365

     Saturday night was fun... at least what I remember of it was fun. Some friends from work came over and we had a taco/drinking/game night. Apart from the fact the maple rye whiskey and I will never ever be friends again, I'd say it was a definite success. 

Day 55/365

     Tonight marked my first campfire of the season with my friends. These nights are by far my favorite part of spring and summer. We've been getting together for them since we were all in high school. Years later, all of us have gone off to different colleges and we've still managed to keep the tradition going as often as possible. Now that a few of us have either graduated or are about to graduate, some have had to move around for job opportunities, and some of us have no idea what we'll be doing one month from now. I myself will be moving to Michigan at the end of June for an internship. I honestly have no doubt though that I'll still maintain great friendships with this group of people; I'll be visiting whenever I can and I wouldn't put it past some of them to drive up and visit me. They've always been there, and have helped me through some of the most difficult times in my life, and have made the good times even better.