A Challenge

So, it's no secret that I'm a blog lurker. I read dozens of blogs and learn lots of great things from motherhood/pregnancy/parenting tips (which will come in handy...some day) to recipes and photography tricks.

I recently learned about a fun, free games Web site from reading a blog. Fun, but addicting. Want a challenge? Check out Magic Pen.

It's fun to read other people's insights and experience life through another's eyes. Next time you're feeling bored, click through a couple of my favorite sites...chances are you'll learn something useful. Even if it is just another addicting game!

Living Life Breathlessly
A young CF woman who recently received a life-saving double lung transplant...

North of Reality
A mom to 25 kids (some adopted, some biological) dishes on the challenges and joys of raising a brood of children.

Life in a Shoe
This mom writes about her nine children...and her plans for more.

Joel's Journey
This family lost their little boy, Joel to neuroblastoma (cancer)and write about the pain associated with losing a loved one to this horrible disease and how they find strenght through God.

SarahAnne Photography
Check out this talented photographer...she offers great photo tips!

What's in a name?

Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman named their newborn daughter, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban. Odd? Yes. The most unusual? No.

I was reading an online article the other day about the "new trend" in baby naming. Basically couples choose their favorite word(s) and create a name for their precious baby. If Mark and I did that, we'd be in serious trouble. We'd end up with a daughter named Pink Beer Breckheimer or a son called Convertible Chocolate Breckheimer.

Here are some "unique" baby names highlighted in the article I read - get ready, some of them will shock, amaze and appall you.

Girl Names: Camera, Democracy, Echo, Castle, Hermetta, Mimosa, Shawntika, Osment, Granite, Answer and Meteor.

Boy Names: Tamir, Archer, Hackett, Branch, Laird, Macduff, Rainier, Wainwright, Dagney, Brown, Fable, and Gillus.

These are all names suggested to expectant parents as strong/beautiful monikers. I for one, hope there is never a little Camera or Macduff Breckheimer toddling around at Christmastime!

*Pink*

My new pink crocs and pink phone!

(See last post.)

Time for another change?

Hmmm....I'm thinking it's time for another template change! I so love tinkering around with things like that, so expect a new look in the next few days!

The past few days, I've really enjoyed learning new things in photoshop. It's amazing to me that I've had the program on my computer for ages but I never took the time to learn more than simple photo editing.

Now I'm learning new things about layers and colors and it's oh so much fun. It's actually rather time consuming and addicting, but I'm so glad I learned how to do it at this stage in my life - it will come in so handy when I want to keep up with the goings-on in my little one's lives!

I've always loved scrap booking and in fact I did it pretty much throughout my entire high school career. I made a really neat scrapbook of our first year together and presented it to Mark on our one-year anniversary. He loved it! Since then, I haven't had the time/ambition to create even one scrap book page. Not even of our wedding!

So, with this new photoshop scrapping I can really see myself keeping up with it. Each page takes 15-20 minutes, (or less!) depending on what elements I use. I found this great high-quality print paper at Hobby Lobby that allows me to print out the pages without the photos looking very grainy or otherwise distorted. The color is pretty crisp as well. I plan to pick up a new scrapbook with plastic pages and voila! I'll be able to scrapbook without having to print out pictures, buy the decals and paper and spend hours of my time.

There's one thing that's been very challenging for me - printing out pictures. I'm so used to our wonderful digital cameras where I simply load the pictures into folders on the computer. At least once a month I'll log on to walmart.com and upload several dozen pics to have made into a photo cd. I rarely print the photos though!

The other day I actually went to the store with the intent of printing a few cute photos of our nieces and nephews. I found myself tapping my foot with impatience as I waited for the machine to load my camera card and recognize all the files. Whoa! What a digital/online world we live in! Remember when all cameras had rolls of film that had to be developed and picked up more than a week later? Sorry, no time for that these days!

In other news, things are going wonderfully between hubby and me. We haven't argued at all since our last big discussion and we've been paying extra attention to each other, making sure the other is happy. It's great! We're making real plans for our future as well and it's so nice to have things to look forward to!

I am also the proud new owner of pink crocs and a new pink phone. The Alltell people were running a buy-one-get-one sale on Samsung Hue phones so it worked out perfectly for us to each get a new phone when we renewed our plan. The phones came with red and blue faceplates, but hubby knew I really wanted a pink phone so he asked the phone guy if there were any pink faceplates. For an additional $10 we got a three pack with pink, green and white...I was such a happy camper!

Then we went to Rogan's to get Mark some new work shoes. They had a buy one, get one half off sale so he said I could pick out a pair of shoes. I got some pink crocs for only $12! Whoo hoo! It was a fabulously PiNk day!

Photoshop Fun

I've been spending some time working with photoshop and I am having so much fun! I thought I'd post a few of the scrapbooking pages I've been working on. Enjoy!

Fightin' and Makin' Up

I know, I know it seems like all we ever do and all I ever write about is our fighting. We had a bad one last night, but it turned out to be a really good thing because I think it cleared the air about a lot of stuff we've both been thinking and feeling.

It all started with us watching this show, The Baby Borrowers. It's a very strange show and overall it really annoyed me, but it also made me think about just how unprepared Mark will be when we have kids. Everyone always tells me it will be different when they're his own kids, that he'll just have to step up and do it, that he'll love a baby because its ours. Everyone telling me that doesn't make me believe it, though.

So we got into a small argument about our plans for starting a family that escalated into accusations from me regarding his unwillingness to help with cleaning and his pointing fingers at me because I "never cook."

Ugh, thinking back on it now it seems like such a stupid, pointless argument. Most are though. I think this one was just a result of a lot of pent up feelings and frustration we both had and needed to discuss. We were up until after midnight crying (that was mostly me), talking, yelling (sorry neighbors!) and getting it all off our chests.

In the end we made up (really, really, really made up! smile) and I feel so much better about everything. He mentioned starting to try (really try) for a family as soon as September! We're also going to start looking in earnest at fixer-upper houses. We decided that we'll stay on the look-out for a house in the country for the next few months but should I get pregnant, we'll likely put an offer in on a house we found and like in the city.

It's important to both of us to be have a house/home to bring a baby into. Nothing really against apartments, it's just what we've always discussed. I think this is a pretty good solution - we've still got time to look for a house in the country, but have a back up plan in case we'd get pregnant right away. We're both realistic and realize it could take months of trying before it actually happens, or it could happen the very first time. Either way we've got a plan.

We both said some pretty hurtful things to eachother last night, but in the end apologized and both decided to work on the things we can work on and learn to let the small stuff slide.

This weekend, we're going to book a vacation! We'll probably go to Wisconsin Dells sometime next month just to get away for a few days and be together. We really want to do something fun for just the two of us before the summer is over, because it just may be our last vacation together without the pitter patter of little feetsies accompanying us!

I'm feeling very excited about our future and in a way, so happy that we have these fights and arguments. We're both pretty passionate people and we just need to have little blow ups so we can appreciate all we do have. The making up isn't so bad either! Wink, wink!

Back to work!

Ramblings about houses and doors.

Donna, the lady who lives across the hall from us, and I have door decoration wars. It's an unspoken thing, but oh so funny. It started shortly after we moved in an I hung a cute sign "Live, Laugh, Love" that I'd picked up at Gordmans on our door. A week later she had a sign on her door "Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

Since then, we've been battling to see who could find the cutest door decoration. We've both got something for every holiday, and a bunch of cute in-between ones. I call the shots. When I get sick of our door dec and change it, she promptly rifles through her collection and changes hers. The lady who lives on the other side of the hall also recently joined in...although Mark says her door dec looks like the jungle - its one of those flowery/weedy things that takes up pretty much her whole door!

Anyway, the sign that's currently on our door reads: "No matter what, no matter where it's always home if love is there." (My blogger header.) It's such a cute saying, but it's really not all that true.

We've lived in this apartment for almost three years and in that time we've had big plans for our life. First, we planned to buy a fixer-upper house and live there for a few years before hopefully selling for a profit. Then, we got all excited about building our dream house on five acres of land we bought from my parents. So we've spent the last few months finalizing blue prints, meeting with builders, looking over price estimates...and we've realized we're just not financially ready to build this year. So we sit. In this apartment.

This apartment that is too small and too impractical for having children. This apartment that is upstairs and in a complex full of retired people. This apartment that has only one garage and no lawn and is unbearably hot in the summer. We sit.

I'm very restless. I want a home. I want a place with green grass and enough space to invite our family and friends for card parties and holidays. I want a house that has bedrooms that we can fill with babies, toys, diapers and memories!

Ahhhh! Money seems to hold us back in everything we do. I love my husband and the time we spend together, but I really feel like something is missing. I want so badly to be a mommy and I know that as long as we're living here, that won't happen. Mark even suggested we "prevent" pregnancy for the time being until we're more stable. Sigh.

Oh well, enough moping. There's laundry to do....