Currently...

Enjoying — Homemade strawberry-banana smoothies. These things are so good, and so easy. The final-ish recipe is 13 strawberries, 1 banana & 10 cubes of ice, blended in a good food processor for a couple of minutes (or a blender, I guess). Then it's good to go! They are the comfort food of this juice fast.

Learning — about studio lighting. I have a confession to make: I know very, very little about artificial light as it pertains to photography. Or anything, really, but photography is the most important part. I have a shoot coming up on Saturday and studio lighting is involved, so this time I have been taking advantage of YouTube video tutorials/seminars as well as the knowledge of my super talented friends in order to not feel like a total idiot and flub the shoot. This is the typical situation with me: I've worked with studio lighting/backdrops before, but I've never bothered to learn the rules, so really I'm just making it up as I go along. This method may be exciting, but its also kinda stupid, so I'm cramming on stuff like "how do I use my external flash off-camera?" and "what kind of softboxes do I need?" "Do I need an umbrella?" My studio setup is meager, on top of it all, but I do have the external flash, so hopefully I'm overestimating the issues. Cross your fingers for me please -- I want to shoot fantastic photos.

Inspired by — SO MANY THINGS! First of all, this image from what I believe to be Marilyn Monroe's best photo shoot, which is some of my main passion for the shoot on Saturday (Marilyn-inspired):

Second, there is Hot Chip, who are playing beautiful music into my ear holes right now. Stream their latest album here; and yes, I do agree that this is their best album yet! Which is saying a lot, since their last album was phenomenal, too.

Third. My hair is pretty inspiring right now. That's OK to say, right? It's OK for hair to be larger than life? Because mine is insane in the membrane these days!

Becoming — Really scared about August! My calendar is absolutely packed, a bit more than I feel comfortable with, and I need to be able to get through the month without wilting from the pressure. The good news: I am taking August 10th-17th OFF from work, so I'm hoping having an actual vacation in the middle of the madness will help diffuse the stress.

Indulging in — On Tuesday, I found myself starving in the afternoon and in desperate need of juice. I went to my favorite smoothie store, Juice Appeal in downtown Berkeley, and ordered my favorite strawberry-banana concoction. The only thing is that I had to get it with soy yogurt, because they didn't have the option to make it with just fruit. I had already spoken with Scott about soy in smoothies and whether that broke the rules, and he said I should decide for myself -- so in that moment, I decided. And OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS. It was like I had just found Jesus. This smoothie was the best-tasting smoothie ever created in the history of the universe and I am not even kidding. The soy yogurt must have been loaded with sugar. It tasted like CAKE to my juice-fasting taste buds. Ahhhh. I can't stop thinking about it. MARRY ME, SOY YOGURT SMOOTHIE!

In related news, we're now starting Day 5 of the juice fast. That means we're halfway done! I am thrilled! I've kind of settled into a routine. I've also accepted that I am just going to be hungry all the time and I need to get over it and stop whining. I am proud of us for sticking it out this long, as there have been many times when I felt I wasn't strong enough to deal with the mental fuckery going on. Now, if my coworker would just stop fretting that I'm going to "lose too much weight" .... unlikely.

I'm linking up today with Harvesting Kale and This Amazing Day. You should too! ★