I remember my camera from when I was young… well sort of. I remember it was long and flat and had Mickey Mouse on it. This isn’t the exact camera, but the closest I could find.

I found this one on Etsy, and found a blue one as well. I kind of want to get this. It’s cute right?

So I had my Mickey camera and upgraded through the years.

My trip to Europe in 2004 was brought back home with a camera, and if I remember correctly, a bag full of film. I think I was still on film by then.

I feel like I should remember this better, but cameras are like cell phones. I have had so many, I don’t remember all of them over the years.

I believe my first non-film camera was when I went to college. I loved it. I got a Canon PowerShot in 2004.

It’s funny because I actually found this picture under a “Breaking News” blog post about it’s release. I was absolutely in love with this camera. It captured TONS of college memories until it’s sad and dramatic death. My little Canon baby was in my purse when someone decided to pour an alcoholic beverage inside. My camera didn’t make it. I was devastated.

Since then, my camera life has not been the same. I have had three point and shoot cameras since the death of my Canon, but none of them have filled its shoes. The pictures haven’t turned out and I just gave up on them.

Now I haven’t given up on cameras in general. I still have my point and shoot, although it is currently sitting on the end table in my living room. That was what actually sparked me to write this post. It’s just sitting there, all alone, not getting any use. It’s a perfectly fine camera. Nothing special, but gets the job done if need be.

I have a new baby now….

Awww.. isn’t she precious? I got this baby for Christmas this past year. I absolutely love it and want to take pictures of everything I see. But, who wants to tote along a big camera bag with lenses? Not this girl. My purse, with a notebook for writing ideas, my Nook, my iPhone. I just don’t have extra hands. So, she stays at home except for special occasions.

So what do I use on a daily basis? My iPhone camera. Technology has changed so much, it always amazes me. I don’t even carry my point and shoot anymore, because if I need a picture in a flash, I just take it on my phone. And if I am taking one in a flash, I am normally taking it for work and need to email it quickly. There aren’t many card readers here, so it’s just easier to take it on my phone, and send a quick email, rather than upload it from the card.

But it’s not only for work. The other night my cousin had her bachelorette party. There was one girl that had a real camera. She took a hundred pictures and they’re all on her Facebook. I didn’t want to lug anything around so I just took my phone. My old, decrepit iPhone doesn’t have a flash, so what I did to get the pics was take them on my cousin’s iPhone with a flash and text them to myself. And the ones that the girl uploaded on Facebook, I checked them out on my iPhone Facebook app and took a screen shot of them, so I have those pictures now too.

It’s definitely a different way of making and keeping memories, but it definitely is working, for me at least.

I should probably put my point and shoot back in my purse, after I updated my old, dead batteries. But I will probably continue to use my iPhone on short notice, unless I absolutely need a flash/

What kind of camera do you guys lug around? Do you use your phones? Or point and shoots? Or do you bite the bullet and take your

So, here is my pretty list:

So, this is my to-do list! Sorry for the brightness on the right side. The sun’s out bright today so I have my blinds open to shed a little light on my nook. Let’s take a look at some of my goals.

1. Read what you WANT to read! This is something I’ve been thinking about since I started reading heavily. I like to take up offers from authors and expand my horizons, but I have found myself a lot of times unable to say no, knowing there’s a good chance I won’t like the book. This year, I’m not going to do that. Also, I’m a bit of a tightwad when it comes to buying books. I love new books, but I’m never one to go out and buy new releases, especially in hardback because I hate spending money. This year, I also want to change that. No, I’m not rolling in the dough this year, but I did get $125 in Borders cards (I got another one since my Christmas post) and $50 in Barnes and Noble, bringing my Nook cash account to about $80. So I have it and need to use it. At one point in time, I would use this money and just scan the sale shelves to buy in quantity, not quality. Not me! Not this year! If a book comes out that I want to read, I am going to buy it, at least until my book bucks are all spent!

2. Finish writing your books! It’s no secret that last year (it’s weird to say that already) I started writing. I got through a first draft of one book and am almost through a first draft of the sequel. I want to finish both of them this year. That’s one reason I got this:

Just a little laptop desk to go in the corner of my room. Now, it took quite a bit of work to be able to do this. Where my desk is now, used to be the home of a three drawer plastic dresser’ish thing. When I first moved in with my husband, he had clothes in both closets. My clothes are tiny so I didn’t need much space and just bought that extra dresser thingy. Well, after 4 years and my husband spoiling me like crazy buying me tons of clothes for Christmas, I ran out of room. Being the prince that he is, he cleaned the clothes out of the closet in my room so I went from half a rack, to a full rack and a full shelf! Talk about extra space. I feel like I have a walk-in closet now. So I did some major reorganizing, and bagged up three trash bags of clothes to get rid of. That meant I could get rid of my plastic dresser and make room for this baby! So, to make a long story only semi-long, this is where I plan on being perched every night to get my books done a little at time! Isn’t it cute??

3. Bake once (at least) a month! I have fallen pretty hard for baking. I think the main reason is that my husband is a terrific cook and I know I can’t touch those skills, so I took up baking instead. I love making cupcakes and want to get into cookies (other than just chocolate chip cutouts) and cakes. For Christmas I got a couple of awesome baking books. I am going to start next week and bake something for a baby shower. Now I just need to decide what!

4. Keep your room clean and organized! So I already told you about my room renovation. I do a huge cleanup at the beginning of every season when I have to pack up the shorts for the sweaters and vice versa. Instead of doing that though, I want to keep it up all year. It’s sad that at 24 I have to put that on the wall to do it, but I normally just get lazy and pile things up. With my plastic dresser gone though, I have no where to pile clothes throughout the week, so it will force me to put them (neatly) away.

5. Put money back into savings! I am actually a savings junkie and a non-spending lover. I have a $20 cap on things I will buy myself. Especially for clothes. I freak out when my bank account gets within a few hundred dollars, and when my savings isn’t plushly padded. This past year, the hubs and I both had to buy tires, which is a pretty big purchase. I am pretty good at putting money into savings every pay period, but haven’t done so since Halloween when I started holiday shopping. I want to get the money back to where it was because this year I’m on a mission to find us a house and I want to have the money for a down payment. I would also like to get a new laptop, but want to replenish before I take more out. I doubt I’ll be able to wait that long, but it’s the thought that counts. I got my little Dell Net Book just a year ago and it’s decent, good enough for writing my books, but when it comes to webbing and blogging, it’s not amazing. I have done most of my blog posts at work during my lunch break in the past year because it’s quicker and easier.

6. Read your NetGalley books on time! Let me go ahead and preface this with I’m already behind on this. On the 2nd, I finished a book that’s pub date was the 1st, but I have another one that was published the 1st and I’m not finished with it. I promise as soon as I am done writing this post I will download it and start. I want to get better at making sure I get these books reviewed before their pub date. If authors are gracious enough to give me a galley, I need to be gracious enough to get it done in a timely manner. Slapping myself on the wrist for getting behind already.

7. Take pictures once a week in a new place! This might be a stretch, but it’s a goal. My husband got me an awesome Canon Rebel XS for Christmas. Over the holiday, I took hundreds of pictures, which everyone got annoyed with by the way. But now, I am lacking inspiration. There are no pretty leaves to take pics of, or flowers for that matter. It’s just blah here right now. I know that I can go to the riverfront and have a few nearby cities to shoot, but nothing is popping out at me at the moment. I think I’m too excited about my desk to think about anything else. Plus, uploading the pics to Flickr from my Net Book is a little time consuming. Maybe if I got a new computer I would be more excited about uploading pictures by the hundred… maybe I shouldn’t wait too much longer.

Well, those are my goals for the year. I do want to eat better, work out more and keep kicking butt at my job, but those are things I feel like everyone wants and don’t warrant a little extra urging (well maybe the diet and exercise, but I’ll think about that after I put the bag of chips away).

What are your 2011 goals????

Ahhh, the delicious strawberry preserve cupcakes I made this week. Very simple, very tasty. Click the picture to see all of my pictures on my cupcake adventure. And leave me a comment with your email address if you’d like the recipe.