Monthly Archives: May 2010

Park

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There are several parks around my neighborhood. They are all technically in walking distance, but since we are out of town there are no sidewalks and I am not about to off-road with the stroller. I really like the one that is right down the road. It has playgrounds, shelters, and a small beach, but I have heard that it has a shady reputation. At least it did – I’m not sure how it is now. It looks beautiful. I drive through and take pictures once in a while. I wonder if it really is all that bad. When I drive through, I don’t see any strange people or drug deals going on. I’m inclined to think the questionable activity happens at night. But doesn’t that go on in all parks when it gets dark? I’ve thought about calling up the non-emergency line and asking them what the deal is. Is it a good place to take your kids? Can I go by myself or should I bring a friend?

Showers!

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Life gets busy… and blogging falls by the wayside. I have good reasons for my lack of updates. For one, I attended two different showers this past weekend: one was for an upcoming wedding and the other for a mommy-to-be. I have been busy working on some photos from both events (I’ll give you a sneak peak.) I have been spending some quality time with friends. I’ve been hanging out with my hubby. And… I have been busy making money as a brand new mystery shopper! I am also blogging like crazy for Families.com. I have a little mini vacation coming up and I want to get ahead on that blog so I don’t have to worry about it while I’m gone. Needless to say, when given the chance to update this blog or do something else on my list, I’ve been choosing the something else. No regrets – that’s the way it should be!

The wedding shower was so much fun. I love being around Amber because her genuine love for her friends (and her future fiance, of course) is so infectious. You end up reminiscing about your own engagement or wedding and then you want to go home and give your husband a really big kiss. She is going to be a beautiful bride. I am extra blessed because I will have the privilege of photographing her wedding in June.

Just two days later, I got to go to my friend Charlene’s baby shower. I really like bridal showers, but let me tell you, I LOVE baby showers. Maybe’s it’s because I anticipate how much motherhood is going to rock their world (for the better). Pregnant woman are also so beautiful. They glow with excitement. Bellies are always oh so cute.

We took a few quick shots outside after the shower just for fun. She looked so pretty in this dress, how could we pass up this photo op?

These are just a few. I have another dozen photos to edit, and then I’m going to burn them all (just under 100) onto a CD for her. We’re also going to do a full session with her husband sometime soon. I have so much fun taking pictures, especially when it is for my friends and family. Both Amber and Char are part of my church family and all of the lovely ladies at Hope mean so much to me. When I arrived on the scene five years ago as Eric’s new girlfriend, they all took me in as their friend and welcomed me with open hearts. Now we are all getting married and starting families together – it gets me all choked up!

Family [Plans?]

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I’ve been asked a few times in person and online about when we are planning to have a second child. I decided I would like to address that here since it is not a simple answer and everyone seems curious enough. Why not make it public knowledge? (Nervous laughter.)

First of all, let’s get the facts squared away:

  1. Micah is barely a year old. He is 13 months and 3 weeks to be exact.
  2. I am still nursing him. As a result, and I know this is not the case for every nursing mom, I have not experienced the return of you know what.
  3. Per fact #3, I am not fertile at the moment. Yes, I know I could ovulate ANY SECOND NOW. But it’s more likely I’ll get a red flag first. Ahem.

(Taken at Micah’s Birthday party in April.)

Friend: “When are you planning on having another baby?”
Me: “Uhhh…. it’s complicated?”

The short answer is, I have no plans. “Plans” have no merit here. This is the part where I usually get a raised eyebrow, but let me explain.

“Family Planning” is such a misnomer because anyone who has tried to plan their families will tell you it’s just not in your control. People want you to think it is in your control, but aside from abstinence, there is no 100% guarantee either way.  People get pregnant when they are not trying and many more don’t get pregnant when they want nothing more… I know it’s a cliche to say “all in God’s timing,” but it’s never more true than when you’re talking about making babies. Doing the baby dance: it’s like playing the slot machines. You may hit the jackpot, you may not. Babies are definitely cooler than winning the jackpot. Babies are miracles. Every one of them.

So this non-answer is really the only answer to a question like, “so, when are you two going to have another baby?” because I don’t know. It’s not in my control. As far as I know, I’m not even able to get pregnant right now and I have no idea when my fertility will return. I’m not comfortable giving any kind of time line. It’s just such an awkward question with no obvious answer.  If you ask me this question, I’ll probably give you the polite response rather than the explanation. “Whenever God chooses to bless us!”

Now, if you were to ask me when I WANT to have another baby…

I want more babies. I want many more babies. I would love to get pregnant again, even right now I would. I’ll share a little piece of my heart with you… sometimes when I hear a pregnancy announcement from a friend, many of whom were pregnant with me the first time, I feel a little bit sad. If I am truly honest with myself and you, I am a little bit afraid that my body will take a lot longer to gear up for #2 than I would like. I would love to have all my babies right in a row. What if that didn’t happen? That is what I’m apprehensive about.  What if there was a four year gap between Micah and the next? It’s my dream for him to have a little play buddy. I don’t want there to be a huge gap – I want them to relate to each other the way I relate to my sister. I want. I want. I want. *Sigh*… listen to myself. I’m not asking for advice. I know this is silly logic. I know… I just don’t feel what I know.

This is the part where I preach to myself and hope what is in my head will sink into my heart:

What I really want to want is what God wants. So I’m trying really hard to want that. To be content. I’m trying really hard to tell my maternal clock to SHUT UP ALREADY and let me enjoy #1 without worrying about #2. I want to congratulate my friends and leave it at that – I don’t want the thought, “I want to be pregnant, too” to cross my mind. I mean, why? Look at fact #1 up there – Micah’s barely one year old. It’s still early to be pregnant again, technically. If I was pregnant right now, people would be saying, “wow, so how far apart will they be?” Seriously.

Holy cannoli,  I just realized what the real issue is here.

More than anything, my pride wants the freedom of choice – of planning. I want to be ABLE to sell my house. I want to be ABLE to get pregnant. Even if I don’t want those things to happen right now, I just want to know that they could happen. I’m acting like my toddler. He just learned the word “no.” He walked around the house today saying, “no no no no” just because he could. He wasn’t even objecting to anything, but I think he liked the sound of the word rolling off his tongue. Saying “no” or even “yes” means you have power. It means you have a choice. Autonomy. Independence. Freedom. Toddlers relish  in the ability to reject what they don’t want (and sometimes what they do want, just because they can). Here I am, whining because I want the same thing: Choice. In this case, I don’t have any more power than those meaningless “no’s” he’s throwing around. God is seriously humbling me right now.

Lord, show me how to be content. Remove this ugly jealousy and pride from my heart. In the meantime, tell people to refrain from asking me when I’m going to have another child. Or, tell them to read my blog first. They don’t realize how complicated the answer is for me, but I know you understand me perfectly, and you love me SO MUCH anyway. I love you, too.  Amen.

Should We Stay Or Should We Go Now…

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Not that we have a choice at the moment.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember that we listed our house for sale back in October. We had a whole list of reasons for wanted to sell:

#1 Our Life Plan had changed. We had a child sooner than we originally planned and switched to a single income. I originally planned to go back to work part time, but I just couldn’t when the time came. A very affordable house became a nearly unaffordable house as quick as you can say “baby!”

#2 Our city raised its taxes to over ten percent, which is really extreme in our area. Most surrounding cities have rates between 6 and 8 percent. (Property taxes are based on 33.3% of the property value.) The increase in taxes made our house even more unaffordable. 46% of our income, to be exact.

#3 Having a baby made living an hour away from my parents so much harder. I got the itch to move farther north so visits with Grandma and Grandpa could be more frequent and not cost $12-15 in gas every time.

We signed a six month contract with the Realtor but we ended up allowing the listing to expire last month due to the fact that the fair market value for our house had dropped to around $98,000 according to Zillow.

What is most painful about this is the fact that we paid $147,900 for it in 2007. OUCH! We had quite a few showings and not one offer. We had to list it for more than we bought it for to cover Realtor, closing and moving costs, so it’s not like I can blame people for not wanting to spend so much on it when there were homes listed for the low 120s across the street. I guess I was just hoping for a miracle. I was hoping some person with plenty of money to burn would come along and realize that our house was the only one they could possibly buy, whatever the cost. Yeah right…

Plan B

Our new plan is to sit on the house a little longer and hope for the best in terms of the housing market around here. We are working really hard to make things work financially in the mean time. It’s hard spending half of your income on your house, though. We’ve been drastically cutting expenses, but the main thing that needs to change is our income.  Eric has been looking around, but you know how the market is right now.  He has started to look in different cities. If Eric does end up getting a new job farther north, he’ll just have to commute until things turn around.

Our Realtor is not so optimistic. He thinks we should attempt a short sale because he does not expect housing prices to rise much in our neighborhood any time soon, if ever. He blames the location. Okay, even if we were to sell it for less than we bought it, I’d rather wait and hammer down the principle. Short sales are terrible for your credit! Furthermore, I really have a hard time believing the housing prices won’t get back up to the 150s in the next five years. I’m no genius when it comes to real estate, but I do know how much things have fluctuated in the last decade. We didn’t buy our house at its peak value, which was in the 190s. Is there really no chance of making a teenie profit or at least breaking even?

Which brings me to…

Plan C

What if we didn’t move? Ever? I mean, what if we just decided to stay indefinitely? I know our income will increase over the years as Eric gains experience and moves up in his career. Our taxes will go down for the simple fact that our home value has decreased. For those reasons, I know the money part will get better. I can adjust to life a little farther from my family than I’d like. Lots of people live much farther from their grandparents.

I have a love/hate relationship with my house. I love the way it looks and feels – it’s home. I do wish it was a little bit bigger. I wish it had more bedrooms for future children, but then again we could always finish the basement in the future and add a bedroom. I could really use more cabinets and I would love to remodel the dining room to make it feel more separate from the kitchen. I would love to upgrade materials someday: carpet, countertops, etc. I would die for crown molding and a real railing on the stair case instead of the drywall banister. There are tons of little projects I would love to do over the next few decades, but I’ll only entertain those dreams if I can envision us staying put. Why put all that work into a house you’re going to leave anyway?

I wish I knew where we were going to be in ten years. Can I let myself get comfortable in this house and enjoy making little improvements, or should I live as though we may put it back on the market in a few years (no redecorating)? *Sigh* Everything feels so up in the air right now. Not knowing makes this house feel less homey. I don’t know if I can relax or not. I don’t know if we’ll stay so I feel a little unsettled. I really don’t want to go with Plan C because I really want to live closer to my parents, but I also love the idea of never having to move again and just making this house everything I always wanted.

Plan D

D is for “dream.” My dream is that someone would buy our house from us right now – an investment risk of sorts (they’d be banking that the value would increase to the point where they could sell it for profit when the market it ripe) – allowing us to move into a more economical, temporary place, most likely a rental, while we work on Our Total Money Makeover. We would pay off all our debt, build our emergency fund, and then save up enough cash to buy our next house with no mortgage! We’d build – make it fit our family like a glove.  We would be closer to our families and life would center on our family and our faith, not the stress of stretching $1 to cover $5 in expenses. Ick!  Do you think that could ever happen? Probably not. Maybe Barack Obama will buy my house. Hehe.

Cheap Dinner: Burrito Night

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Burrito night is super cheap when the ingredients come from Aldi, and it’s pretty tasty too.

  • 1 lb. Ground Beef – $2.29
  • Refried Beans – $0.69
  • Mexican Style Corn – $0.69
  • Mexican Fiesta Style Diced Tomatoes – $0.55
  • Flour Tortillas – $0.99
  • Taco Seasoning Mix – $0.35
  • New Orleans Style Red Beans & Rice – $0.99
  • Lettuce (already had) – “FREE”
  • Mexican Style Shredded Cheese – $2.29

Total Cost = $8.84

We only ate half of it, so it will make two meals, making it just $4.42 per meal, or $2.21 per serving (big servings, too). That’s a great deal, especially for “loaded” burritos, which are our favorite. Sometimes we make them with black beans, shredded chicken and fajita seasoning for “Chipotle” style burritos. Those are awesome, too.

I’m linking this post to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, hosted by Blessed With Grace. Head over there for more great recipes!

Blessed with Grace

Mr. Mischief

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M-I-C-A-H spells MISCHIEF.

This morning, as I lay half awake in Micah’s bed while he ran around his room and played, it suddenly occurred to me that I was hearing a strange sound in the next room. I lifted my head and listened closer. It was water splashing. What in the world? Suddenly the sound registered. The Toilet! I swore the bathroom door was closed, but as I ran to the bathroom (just next door to his room) I quickly realized I was wrong. There he was, holding a toothbrush and using it to violently stir and splash the water in the bowl.  Ewwwwwwww….. I washed his ARM really well and then plopped him back in his room. This is why I am always asking guests as they leave the bathroom in our house, “did you close the bathroom door?” Bathrooms and toddlers don’t mix. If he’s not swimming in the toilet, he’s unraveling the roll of toilet paper. Then he starts pulling stuff out of the trash. I can’t wait until he learns the word “gross” so I can explain to him how nasty these tendencies are.

(Pic: Someone really enjoyed his mini chocolate cupcake yesterday…)

How Fun

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I remember when I was blogging on Xanga, one blogger would make up these funny awards to give to people, similar to senior superlatives. That’s what I thought of when I received the Sunshine Award from two blogging buddies this week, Aholic and Strawberry Fields. It’s so cute, I half expected fuzzy white bunnies to start hopping around on my screen. Well I am glad to be equated with sunshine and flowers.  Thank you for the award, ladies! I am so curious about who started the Sunshine Award…

In any case, I received conflicting instructions on how to pass on this award – one said to pass it on to 12 recipients and one said 5 recipients. I am going to make this award a little more elite by passing it on to only one. And the winner is…

Ashley from Baking with Ashley

Because there is nothing more full of sunshine and happiness than adorable and delicious cupcakes and other goodies.

Just in Time

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Yesterday was one of those days that provide you with tons of opportunities to either exercise your patience or start chucking random objects out your car window. Fortunately, I chose the former, but I’m still giving myself an “F” for failure to:

  1. Closely examine the corresponding map before jotting down directions to the wedding onto the back of the wedding invitation.
  2. Find the correct road to turn onto to get to the wedding.
  3. Realize I was not going the right way before there was enough time to correct my course.

As you can probably guess, I did not make it to the wedding on time. I had left in time and I would have been there 15 minutes before it started if I hadn’t gotten lost.  Instead, I was 15 minutes late, just in time to see them pour the sand, kiss, and be pronounced husband and wife. I caught the last 4 minutes. Fortunately 4 minutes was all I needed to capture my favorite picture from any wedding….

I was able to run to Walmart between the ceremony and the reception to quickly print out this pic and frame it for their wedding gift. When Eric and I got married, a friend of my mom’s did this for us and it was one of my favorite gifts. Ever since then it has been one of my signature gifts to give as well, if I have the opportunity anyway. Sometimes I get a terrible seat for taking pictures and I have to go with Plan B. Plan B is a gift card. Hehe.

The wedding took place at one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, the Rotary Gardens. I can’t believe I have never been there before. I would love to go back and take more photos because it’s just incredible how scenic this park is. What a perfect place for a wedding…

After the ceremony, Andy, Arisa and the rest of the bridal party stayed for a while to take plenty of photos. I took the opportunity to stand to the side (out of the photographer’s way, of course) and snap away. I also got the chance to talk with some friends that I haven’t seen in a long time. Eric has such a wonderful group of friends. They are so funny and loyal to one another, as well.  We love them and wish we could see them more often!

I didn’t stay at the reception for terribly long because I started to miss my little man too much, but I did stay long enough to enjoy some of the scrumptious cheesecake and brownies that they had laid out for dessert. I would have taken a picture, but I was too busy eating it. Mmm….

I’m so glad I did not miss the wedding altogether, even though it was a close call. Next time I am going to really study the map, so even if I do miss my turn, I’ll have an idea of how to get there anyway.

TGIF

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It’s Friday night and I’m feelin’ alright…

I’m going to participate in my first Friday Follow tonight. A little late, but that’s okay. (Scroll down for more info.)

Friday Follow

So, how did I spend my Friday?

My mom, my sister and her husband all came over tonight and we made two skillets of delicious veggie stir fry. Oh it was so good. Kelly brought this yummy raspberry dessert as well. I can’t think of a better way to kick off the weekend!

Tomorrow I will be going to a friend’s wedding with Eric. We are leaving the mini-man at Grandma and Grandpa’s, so it’s date night! Can’t remember the last time we had one of those… I am bringing my good camera and will hopefully get some sweet shots. I can’t wait to slow dance with Eric!

FRIDAY FOLLOW:

Welcome to the May 14 Friday Follow celebration hosted by One 2 Try, and Midday Escapades! We invite you to join us every Friday to get more blog followers and to follow other interesting blogs. It is all about sharing and having fun.
Here’s how YOU can join the Friday Follow celebration:

–Link up your blog name and URL using the MckLinky below. Only need to add on one blog to be seen on all the blog hops.

–Grab the Friday Follow button and include on your Friday Follow blog post.

–Follow the Friday Follow hostesses.

–Follow as many other blogs on the linky as you’d like.

–Take a moment to comment on the blogs telling them you’re from Friday Follow.

–Follow back when you get a new follower through Friday Follow.

This list is new each week. The links do not carry over. Please link up each week for new participants to find your blogs. The list is only open to add your blog links on Fridays. It will be visible all week to visit the blogs listed.

Be Nice To Me Or I’ll Cancel Your Favorite Show

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Just kidding. But I do feel like I have a certain degree of power over TV lately. You see, a few weeks ago we received a packet in the mail for Nielsen Ratings; I signed up and we were picked to fill out their survey this week. They even sent us $30 cash for doing it. How awesome is that…

Getting picked to fill out the Nielsen survey is like winning the survey lottery. You don’t sign up – they pick you. They use the results from these surveys to rate the TV shows, and that determines whether shows continue or get the boot. So I am feeling very lucky this week. I am putting the $30 towards my cloth diaper purchase next month when I make the switch.

I find myself paying more attention to how much the TV is on. I still watch all my normal shows, but I turn the TV off when I’m not really watching it (like during meals or housework) because I don’t want to write all those hours of TV down. I will have to tally up all the hours of TV over the next week and see how much we really watch it. I’m really curious. I don’t think we watch a lot of TV, but maybe we will discover otherwise once it’s all on paper!