randomness

Self imposed radio silence for awhile here.

Peace and love to you all.

This is Josh’s working weekend. So while everyone else is excited it’s Friday, we’re bummin’ because it feels like a Monday. As usual, I just keep telling myself “only three nights”. Then tomorrow I’ll be saying “only two more nights”. It’s the only way I get through it.

New favorite word: quagmire. Fun word, right? Also curmudgeon.

I came up with an awesome playlist on Spotify and turned it up loud on Wednesday to motivate some cleaning. It worked! I spent an hour cleaning my kitchen which of course led to other rooms in the house. Maybe it’s just me but when I do a really deep cleaning or organizing, I always come back to the room and stare at it. Like numerous times a day… And then I will have Josh come look at it. Thankfully he humors me.

Here are my hott shoes that I wore on Sunday. Yes, that’s right, hot with two t’s. They are so not shoes I would normally buy but I pretty much love them. So worth the giant blister on my left foot!

I had Josh drag out all of the Christmas boxes from the crawl space the other night. My intention was to sort through things and see what I need to get rid of or replace. (What I always want to do after Christmas but never do.) Unfortunately it just made me want to put the decorations up.

Speaking of Christmas decorations, I realized that I didn’t have a tree for upstairs anymore. After the crawl space flood fiasco earlier this year, we got rid of our little tree for the upstairs window. Thankfully I’ve had a lot of sessions and was able to buy a replacement yesterday. I put it together to make sure it was the one I wanted. That led to putting the lights on it. As of now it’s sitting in the middle of my living room. Guess I better go forward with the Christmas decorations.

You may have already seen this video floating around this week…a murmuration of starlings. Just incredible. I think I need to add seeing one to my life list.

Jasper’s common phrases right now are: “You talkin’ to me?” and “What you say?”.

My parents watched Jasper for us on Sunday while we went on our date. When we dropped him off, the first thing my mom said to me was “Whoa, Kimberly!”. I hadn’t safety pinned my dress yet so it was a little low. I love that at 31 years old my mom can still make sure I’m dressed appropriately.

During my session yesterday I got hailed on. That was a first. Definitely one session I won’t forget!

Saw this on Pinterest and had to laugh. This is so me. I would say that at least 95% of all rude things I’ve ever said to Josh have been out of hunger.

Which reminds me, I’m having a mad craving for my husband’s lasagna. He’s a darn good cook and I’m happy to share some of the cooking responsibilities with him.

I’m making a Santa countdown (something like this) for Jasper to start on December 1st. I distinctly remember this one that 7up put out in the early 90′s. So I’m designing my own. Each day we’ll put a cotton ball on the circle until his beard is full. We already had planned on doing The Elf on the Shelf which we got awhile back. Our elf, Franklin, will be here on December 1st to keep an eye on Jasper. I had never heard of this book until I saw it on Pinterest a hundred times. I think Jasper will get a kick out of it.

I always get in crafty mode this time of year. Being indoors more makes me want to bake and craft. If I get really ambitious I might make some little winter village houses (via Martha Stewart). Much cheaper than the ones you can buy in the store…I would just need to raid my recycle bin.

Now if I could just get caught up on my work so I can do some of this stuff. This is the one time of year I need to hire someone to help me process/edit sessions or someone to babysit my kid. I think it’s going to be some late nights and a lot of coffee for me in the next two weeks.

Hope you all have a great weekend! And remember, “Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good”. -Dr. Minor Myers, Jr.

- This is a pretty big weekend for my business. I’m shooting a local school’s homecoming. I kind of love high schoolers. Should be a good time.

- Jasper picks up and interprets the best phrases. Today he seriously looked at Josh and said, “Knock it off, Daddy”. He almost always says, “Thank you very much” or at least “Thank you much”. He regularly comments that something is “pretty cute” or even beautiful.

- Some quick thoughts on Pinterest which I’m still loving. If you pin something, try to pin using the permalink. When you pin a picture from a webpage that changes regularly (like a blog), the original post probably won’t be on that same page. Go to the blog post to pin an image. I also try to avoid pinning from tumblrs or places that it didn’t originally come from.

Source: becauseitsawesome.blogspot.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

- I was reading this article about how others affect your happiness. People, even strangers, that you come in contact with are affected by your attitude. You can literally make someone happier just by being a happy person. So put a smile on your face today and treat people how you want to be treated. It really can make a difference.

We’ve been having a heat wave here in Illinois. Average heat index last week was around 113. So it’s hot. We haven’t really played outside in days. It’s just too hot to be outside right now. Hoping for some relief this week so we can get out of the house!

I met with a young photographer last week. She asked if I would be willing to meet up, give her advice/constructive criticism. I’m all for helping out and supporting other photographers. It was fun to talk photography for a couple hours especially with someone just starting out and so excited. I remember that excitement…the I-want-to-take-pictures-of-everything feeling. It has made me want to shoot for fun.

I received my fifteen pounds of blueberries last Monday. I’ve made Josh’s pie (which was high on the priority list), four batches of jam, blueberry breakfast cake, and muffins. I had planned to make lemon blueberry cheesecake bars but got a little burnt out. Those I’ll make in a few weeks. I have 15 cups of blueberries measured, washed and in the freezer for the next few months.

We’ve been feeling a little trapped the past month. Between Josh’s work schedule and our lack of money, we don’t have the opportunity to do much. I seriously would give anything if we could go somewhere for just a weekend. Just for fun, I did some figuring on different vacation spots that we would like to go to. Since we don’t have a hundred extra dollars, we definitely do not have hundreds of extra dollars to fly or drive somewhere. I told Josh that there has to be somewhere the three of us could go that is just a couple hours away. Why don’t we have a relative with a cabin tucked away somewhere that we could stay for free?

Last week Jasper was playing with a long skinny chip clip. It kind of looks like a sword so I was curious to see how he’d play with it. He seemed to be using it like a gun but I couldn’t tell for sure. I resisted the urge to take it right away since I’m not crazy about gun play or violence. I finally asked what he had and he said, “Magic wand! I help people with magic wand.” He is such a cool kid.

Source: flickr.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Saw this on Pinterest and loved the colors and sentiment. Just a good reminder as I start a new week.

Just some music to get your weekend started. Have a good one!

We first started watching Phineas & Ferb back when Jasper was just a baby. Somehow Josh turned it on and just kept watching “for Jasper”. I never really cared about it one way or the other but thought it was funny how much Josh liked it. Slowly though when you watch enough of something you start to either really like it or really hate it. Lucky for me I started to really like it. Jasper LOVES it. He asks to watch Phineas & Ferb at least once a day.

You may be thinking “Why in the world would I want to watch this cartoon?”, so here are some reasons to check it out.
1. The music. Every episode has some ridiculous song written for it. The video above is one of our newest favorites. We’ve listened to it no less than 25 times in the past week.
2. No guns/violence. Good clean mischievous fun.
3. The imagination of the show is great. You never know what bizarre goings on will happen.
4. The humor. The timing is spot on, there is a dry wit (especially with Ferb), and it’s just plain clever.
5. There is a definite flow of the show. You know generally how it will begin, peak, and end, and yet it seems fresh every time. There are certain things you know will happen, you just aren’t sure when, which keeps you guessing.
6. The quotes. Jasper has been saying, “Whatcha doin’?” to me just like Isabella says. Plus it’s nice to have some lines that are definitely geared towards the adult audience.

It is definitely one of our favorites and I don’t mind turning it on for Jasper. So yeah, good stuff that Phineas & Ferb.

This is one of my favorite little clips from Sesame Street. It makes me happy.

It’s almost that time again. I’ll be getting a 10 pound box of blueberries soon (actually this year I’m getting 15 pounds). I’m busy planning what I’ll make with them. Here are a few of the recipes I’m considering: Blueberry Streusel Topped Muffins via The Creative Place, Blueberry Cobbler via Taste of Home, Blueberry Coffee Cake via My Recipes, Perfect Blueberry Muffins via Smitten Kitchen.

I’m a little obsessed with this quilt. I could never even think about doing a quilt. I’m way too much of a perfectionist and terrible at sewing. Some day maybe I’ll have the money to commission someone to make this for me.

I saw this on Pinterest and knew I needed to make one for Jasper. I wish I could post pictures of Josh running around with a cape and mask that he made too. Unfortunately he strictly forbid that. And yes, recently that is typical Jasper attire (undies and a tee).

I found this pillow in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby. I fell in love with it so I decided to splurge and spend the sixteen dollars. I was shocked when I saw the original tag that said it was $79.99. An eighty dollar pillow??? Who pays that? I left the tag on it for a couple days just so I could be proud of my awesome deal. And speaking of awesome…

Be awesome today.

rainbows over our swingset.

perfecting our deep dish pizza recipe.

little boys trying to be just like their daddy.

ice cream cones outside.

cookie monster jammies.

flying a kite.

new plants.

blue eyed boys.

playing outside.

robin’s eggs.

Happiness is in the little things.