Smells good............

Isn't it amazing the power of scent. How a smell can take you back to a moment in time, something you can't forget ever good or bad. I have an incredibly sensitive nose, I can smell things that most others can't. In fact when I was pregnant with Maddison, my mom had to move all the plants out of her house because I could smell the dirt. So while I think most people have this phenomenon, I think I am more prone to smells sparking memories. For example the towels in my mom's kitchen instantly takes me back to my grandma's house. I think because they always smell like homemade bread and while I don't actually remember my grandma making bread, her house always smelled that way. I'm sure someday when my mom is gone, I'll think of her as well when I smell that wonderful smell of homemade bread. Even bad smells, like today Andrew was starting a fire in the fireplace and it wouldn't go, so it had that bad burning smell and I thought of my brother's house burning down. But there are so many other things, the smell of Baby Magic lotion will always remind me of my babies, and there is nothing better than the smell of a newborn baby. There is a certain perfume that will always remind me of my sister, she used to wear Polo Ralph Lauren, and every time I smell it I think of her. There are other perfumes/colognes that spark memories, too. Cool Water will always remind me of my 7th grade boyfriend, Abercrombie & Fitch will always remind me of when Andrew and I started dating, although they don't make the exact kind anymore, which stinks. Anyway, we cleaned house today and Andrew mopped the floor, so the house smells so clean and it just got me to thinking of how strongly scent is linked to memories. I wonder what scent will remind my kids of me when I'm old. What's your favorite smells that bring back memories.

Stuck

Do you ever just feel stuck? I get that way often, stuck in the same emotion, cooking, reading, writing, whatever it might be, just stuck. I can't stop thinking of the same thing and it drives me crazy. This song that's playing reminds me of it even more, so I thought it fitting to put it up for a couple days. Like being stuck on a verse, I'm stuck in a kind of limbo in life. I've had a lot of changes going on in my life, both mentally and physically and it has just put me into this kind of rut. This limbo of indecision. I feel like I've lost all ability to make decisions, because they might actually be the wrong ones, which by the way, I've made a few of those. I have a big decision coming up soon and the threat of making the right choice is weighing me down. I won't go into it here, but when I decide, you'll be the first to know.

A fun little quiz to cure boredom

So I took this quiz today called "Who's your inner rock chic", it was fun and easy here's what mine said:

***You Are Ani Difranco!***
Honest, real, and well liked.You're not limited by any boundaries."And you can call me crazyBut I think you're as lazy as white paint on the wall"

So you can get to the site here. Let me know who your most like, it takes like a minute to complete and it's kind of fun.

A couple more with the new lens...

Here are a couple more with the new lens, just snapshots really, but this thing is amazing. I will really put it to use next week after I get the boys hair cut, they are looking a little ragedy right now. Add that with their cooperation level, and I just don't get quality shots of my kids. So here are a couple more, but certainly nothing special. If you look close enough in Ben's eye, not only can you see the window, but the trees outside. This lens is amazing and I'm excited to see all it can do.

A New Lens, Means Lots of Beautiful Pictures

So I finally broke down and bought the Canon 85mm 1.8 lens for my camera. I had read so many good things about it and just decided to go for it. Man am I glad I did, I haven't even really tried it out to its full potential, but the snapshots I got of my friends kid are amazing. This lens is sharp and I can't wait to go outside with it. I barely did anything to these, just a little sharpening action and my watermark. Very cool!

A Little Emily Dickenson

I love Emily Dickenson and was flipping through one of my collections and found this poem. So I share it with you:

The Mystery of Pain
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.


It's one of my favorites, and kind of goes along with my previous post.:)

Sicky, Sicky........

So I don't want to be a whiner, but I fear that's what you'll take from this post. Let me preference this with great stories from my past. Once when Jack was about 1 the whole family got the stomach flu at Christmas time, Andrew laid in bed all day, only getting up to puke. I on the other hand had to put the baby gate up, to keep Jack contained in his room whilst I ran to the bathroom to puke, only to go back and nurse and or change poopy diapers. So I'm just saying I'm no pansy when it comes to sickness. I have handled most things that come my way and just push through, continuing on my daily routine, cause that's what mom's do. Well last week Andrew got this cold, no big deal, he mentioned his throat hurt once. I think he complained about being cold a couple times, but overall, continued on with the daily grind. He didn't miss work or lay around all day, so I figure, it must not be that bad. WELL, this week, I have it. I started getting a sore throat around Tues., and I thought, huh, I must be getting what Andrew had. It sucks, and if there were any way for me to possibly lay around in bed all day, I would. I have chills and aches and the WORST sore throat I've had in my life. It almost brings tears to my eyes. I can't swallow, it hurts to talk, cold and hot things hurt, it just sucks, BIG TIME!!! Andrew's laughing at me tonight, because he says "your just mad, cause I handled it better than you", and while that might be partly true, there's no way his throat hurt this bad. Sooo that was my big whiney story, but I felt I just had to get it off my chest.

Today has been a good day....

Some days just seem to flow better than others. Today has been one of those days. We started the day after taking the kids to school, having coffee at our local coffee shop, enjoying the regulars, which I guess that includes us. It's great just hanging out with my husband, and quite frankly I could get used to this night schedule. Although, there are some definite drawbacks, which we won't get into here, but I'm sure I'll be glad to have him back in the evenings. It is nice to be able to run errands together, though. So we looked at new cell phones today, and that always makes me happy, the prospect of something new, went to the gun store to get stuff for Andrew's new gun, and then stopped off for some groceries. This is huge, these are things we rarely ever did together because of a traditional work schedule.
My day has also been good for many other reasons. Mostly just because of sheer busyness, I've had things to do to take my mind off the hard stuff. I write this knowing that some of you are reading this thinking, "huh, what hard stuff", well until recently quite frankly I've felt like I keep this blog for myself. I would rarely get comments and really just thought nobody read it. Well in the past couple weeks, not only have I been writing more, people have been commenting more. Not just on the blog either, I had someone come up to me and church on Sunday and make a comment, I won't name any names, but it begins with a B, you know who you are. Anyway, having this knowledge that people are actually reading what I write, is both scary and good at the same time. For one, it just makes me think a little more about what I put down, but it also makes me a little guarded in what I write. Is what I write going to directly effect anyone in particular, should I have said that, it's all these fears of what other people think that made me turn to a blog in the first place. I figured, "hey, no ones going to read this thing, and it's a little more fun than writing in a journal". The thing is, I can't let fear guide my writings, or my life for that matter. A wise friend once told me that I need to write, where ever, whatever, without judgement. If that is on a blog or in a journal, I need to be able to write not only without judging myself, but without the fear of others judging me. So from here on out I am going to write, whatever I feel like. If it offends someone, then by all means let me know and I'm sorry in advance. If what I write worries you, well know that this is a place of solace for me, it's where I can vent and not worry about hurting any one's feelings. I am writing for myself, because I have to, because it's like air to me and without it I would drown.

Friends

It's so nice having friends with beautiful kids. I get to practice on them even when were just hanging out. This little girl is so beautiful, but I have yet to get her picture when she smiles. Don't get me wrong, she smiles a lot, I just never catch them. So here's another serious shot of Miss E., which do you prefer, color or black and white?

Change

So we are in the fourth week of Andrew's recent career change. He is loving life as a police officer, has already in his short time with the force dealt with a dead body and several arrests and car wrecks. Ah the joy of serving and protecting. Seriously, though, he loves it and is doing great. The real challenge has been adjusting to his new schedule. He started on days which was a nice change having him home every night for dinner, as apposed to the school schedule of him coming home at different times every night. This week, though, he started nights, going in after the kids go to bed and coming home when they wake up. It has been an adjustment to say the least. I thought the hardest part would be being at home alone during the night, which don't get me wrong, I hate, but actually I think it's harder to get used to him being home all day. He comes home, eats and we take the kids to school. He takes a different route, which my youngest quickly points out. We are the first ones to get to school, because he is notoriously early. Then we hang out and try to find stuff to do before he goes to bed for a while. As I said, this is his first week, and we are still figuring it all out. I'm sure his sleep schedule will change, as will our life schedule, but right now we are just trying to enjoy our time together and find some sort of normalcy in our routine. Change is a crazy thing, some people thrive on it, move from house to house, job to job, and have no problems adjusting. I however am not one of those, and every little change in our schedule, routine, well really life, has a major effect on me. I am learning to adjust and trying to become a better person for it, because as we all know life is change, and nothing ever stays the same. I'm including a pic of Andrew's graduation, however it's by far the worst pic on my blog. Someone else took the picture and clearly didn't know how to use the camera, so forgive me.

Breath

Sometimes in life things get broken and we don't know how to fix them. People say, "God knows what is best and we will know through him". However, like Bruce, in Bruce Almighty, we look past the signs when they are right in front of us. We don't listen to God and we don't see the signs. It's hard to know what to do when we are struggling so we breath, and we take each day at a time. Sometimes in life that is all we can do. Live each day and hope we make it through it. Everyone has drama in their life, everyone has pain. Some are bigger than others, people lose family members at the worst time, and I think how can my struggles even compare to theirs. Each person's reality is their own, though, and when your in it sometimes your reality just sucks and you feel there is no way out. So I will breath, and I will live each day, and I will survive.

Everyone should watch this......

I found this link on one of the blogs that I read daily. It's very interesting to say the least, I think it would be great if they showed this video to kids in school. It should be a requirement, just like splitting the boys and girls up in 5th grade to talk about sex. While it might not be for everyone, at least it makes you think about what we our doing to our planet.

More icey pictures....

A nature photographer I am not, but the weather is so inspiring right now, that I have tried to get some pictures. Here are couple more from the recent ice storm.

Ice Storm 2007

So we got a "little" ice over the weekend. Unfortunately we are losing trees left and right, and one of the branches landed on my friends car. Our neighboors tree across the street literally looked liked it exploded from the inside out. It's sucked mostly because we've been out of power for more than 24 hours now. Pretty soon I'm gonna have to start throwing out food if it doesn't come back on. Luckily for me I have in-laws with power so I have been able to shower and do the important things like check email and update this thing.:) Hopefully we get power soon, however, the prospects don't look good as we are suppose to get a couple more inches of ice this evening.

Sunday Morning Donuts!!

We've sort started this terrible habbit of getting donuts on Sunday mornings. Healthy breakfast I know, but the kids love it. We get to read the paper and hang out and the kids get a wonderful sugar high and all is right with the world. Anyway I couldn't help but take a picture today, because Ben loves the powdered sugar covered donuts that are filled with cream. Needless to say they create massive messes and he is just in heaven eating every last bite.

Growing up........

So the other night my daughter is getting ready for bed after her shower. She's standing there in front of me getting dressed and talking away about something that happened that day, and all I can think about is that I have birthed a woman. While I know she's only 12, and that really isn't quite a woman, she is definetely a teen. She has woman parts and soon enough she'll be thinking like a woman. It's amazing really, to think that from my womb came this beautiful woman who is going to grow up someday and be something amazing. I still feel like kid myself, how can I be the mom of a teenager, and then an adult. How does one do that. I really mentally don't feel much different than I did at 16, okay maybe 18, but still you know I just don't feel as old as I really am. And yet I am supposed to be a parent, give the advice, set the good example. Time is a crazy thing, if blink you might just miss out on an entire childhood. Sometimes I feel that way about my daughter, I was so busy growing up when I had her that I feel like I woke up one day and here I have a teenage daughter, next thing you know she'll be walking down the wedding isle. For now though, at least it's just dances and constant phone calls.

Christmas tree hunting!!

We went with my parents and my brother's family to a Christmas tree farm today. It's always so fun to search out the perfect one. You know it when you see it, the clouds part and the angels sing and you just take a moment to look at it in awe. We got a great tree, 7 ft. tall, bushy and perfectly shaped. Only problem, when we got it home in the tree stand, it's totally crooked. Isn't that just like life, you think it's going to be perfect and forget all the bumps that come along the way. Anyway we still love our not-so-perfect little tree, and our not-so-perfect life for that matter. So here are a couple of pics, I tell ya, Ben sure does love and adore his big brother. It's so cute to watch them interact.

Hello, my name is Leigh and I'm an addict......

Okay, so I have a few addictions. Pepsi, coffee, and music to name a few, but none are as bad as the internet. I check emails, work on photography sites, it's how I get my news, shop, really lots of stuff that I do requires the use of the internet. I know this about myself, but I didn't really know it was a problem until two days ago, when we lost our internet due to changing of phones. We are going to cell phones only and just keeping my husbands fax line at home, and in the process of that change I didn't have access to the internet. I think I was starting to have physical symptoms of withdrawal. When she told me today that it might be tomorrow, I actually almost cried. It's sad really, I wouldn't survive for 30 seconds on one of those reality shows where you live in the dark ages, I need my technology. Anyway enough rambling I'm just glad to be back on line.

My weekend away!!

So I went to a couple of concerts with some girlfriends of mine. We had an absolute blast and everyone should get to have a little fun every once in a while. We went to Kansas on Sat. to see my friend play with some of her friends. This girl was amazing, she's only 17 and already has more talent than most anything your gonna hear on the radio. Then on Sunday, we drove to Kansas City to see Regina Specktor in concert, which all I can really say is WOW. She is amazing, my only complaint would be that we didn't get to see enough of her. Sadly I don't have very many pics, as my little point and shoot, got either stolen or lost, we can't decide which. Here are a couple from Sat. though. And you should definetely check out her music. http://www.bayleykate.com/

Trying to get Christmas card worthy pic

The kids didn't have school today, so I went out trying to get a picture for our Christmas card. I even bribed them with pizza for lunch and ice cream for dessert. Maybe the problem really doesn't fall on my children and their cooperation, but on my ability. I have not been feeling confident in my group pics lately and now I am wondering if the problem that I always blame on the children might actually be me. Anyway enough with the rambling, on to the pictures.