Quotography

I entered this photo into the paper mama's photo contest! I made it into the top 30! Which makes me super excited! But I would love to win!!  So vote for me, please!?

Thanks!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

1. Leaf vein - I took this one in the beginning of spring.  

2. Paint... okay I totally had to reach for this one! But the only things I could think of were super boring.. so I made a judgement call. I would rather reach for something than do something boring. I probably could have spent more time coming up with creative ideas. But my mind is tired... I have been working a lot of overtime. that is my story and  I am sticking to it! :)  (her toes are painted!) 

3. Eyelashes.

4. faceless portrait.

This weekend has flown by!  On Saturday I went into work for a little bit and I was on call this weekend (remember  this) and I got paged so I went into the hospital, then went back to work for a bit, and then headed to my cousins wedding! Sunday I had church and headed back into work! Now I am home and ready to relax for a few hours before bed time!

I haven't been very good at working out this week! I blame it on the overtime. Not that I am doing CRAZY amounts or anything, but enough hours that I am tired and have lots to do after work so I tend to put my running on hold. I am going to hit the meal plan and exercising hard again this week! I haven't weighed myself in the last couple days, and I am hoping no damage was done..

independent woman

First off I would like to start out by saying that I went up and down 11 flights of stairs today and walked 5.5 miles! Yesterday I ran the longest I have ran and did my fastest 5k! :) {insert happy dance}

I am in independent woman. I always have been. My mom always tells stories how when I was little I would just play for hours by myself and you would never hear a peep out of me. I do what I like to do...what can I say.. I never really thought anything of it until the other day. I was watching The Duggars  (you know the ones that have 20 children and counting) TLC had a special on the oldest son and the birth of their second child. I watched the wedding, and the birth of their first one and then their birth of their second child. Call me weird but I love that show. They are such nice people, yes they are a bit extreme in some circumstances, but I really like a lot of the things they do/say. I love how kind they are to each other, how loving they are to each other, I like that they read the bible every single day, they do volunteer stuff as a family,  modesty is great to have (ok so maybe I don't want to go as modest as they are) and I love love love the rule of never raising their voice. That is something I struggle with big time.. If I am upset I am either yelling or crying or few lucky fella's named husband, puppy get to see them both in action.

Anyways so as I was watching The duggars I was watching Anna and Josh (newly husband and wife) and the mom and dad (of 20) and just how interact with their spouses. It mesmorized me. Anna and Michelle are both always there for their husbands, encouraging them, giving them support. That is awesome. I am not like that, and I wish I was a little bit more. I need to work on being more of an encouraging and supportive wife.

 When you live day to day it is hard to find where you are supposed to be encouraging and supportive (at least for me) I am not going to be "Yay husband, you eat that grapefruit!" "Way to shower!" But I would love to build my husbands confidence and trust with my words. Instead often times I feel like it is a unconscious competition between us for who is right in the argument.

The women also don't ever show that they are annoyed with their husbands or children. HOW DO THEY DO THAT?!! i have such a sharp tongue that even when I mean to be subtle the whole world knows THAT  annoyed me. (don't worry you can read every emotion my husband has very easily too).

I really want to focus on creating an unbreakable bond with my husband. I want to not just "stay married" I want to be the happiest married couple EVER. I know fights, disagreements and not seeing eye to eye will happen, especially when we have children, he is such a softy I am pretty sure he will never discipline our future children, where I think we need to raise kids to become good adults and therefore discipline when the actions aren't appropriate. Ok that totally made me sound like a bitch, but I promise I am not, I have the softest heart for kids, but when they become old enough and naughty I will use some sort of discipline, whether it be a finger pointing at them, counting to three, time outs or whatever. I am aiming to use the timeout method since that is always what i see on super nanny. :) Okay anyways back to what I was talking about... I know we will have disagreements but  I want our marriage to be so strong that those little tiffs don't affect more than 5-10 minutes of our day. I want us to always go to bed happy with each other and our life together. I want us to always talk to each other first, and discuss things and come up with a plan together. Not individually come up with a plan, stumble across the subject and battle it out to see who's plan is best.

I have created a plan of action for my husband and I! Lucky him, right!

pray together every night
read laughing your way to a better marriage together
bible study once a week together ( I have a couples bible/bible study book I bought when we got engaged)
date night once a week
never go to bed angry with one another


so that is our action plan! I am excited about it! I know for me personally there is a lot of improving I have to do as a wife. I need to remember to love my husband the way he appreciates (the 5 love languages) which I have a hard time remembering. But his are receiving gifts  and quality time. My language of love is acts of service and physical touch. The definitions are below.. because I find all this stuff so interesting! I love learning about marriage and people.

receiving gifts(husband)- Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous—so would the absence of everyday gestures.


Quality time(husband)-In the vernacular of Quality Time, nothing says, “I love you,” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes your significant other feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed dates, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.


acts of service(me)- Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes. The words he or she most want to hear: “Let me do that for you.” Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter.


physical touch (me) - This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.

got these definitions from here

selfie/ example of parenthood

So... As I said here. I want to start taking more self portraits and try and gain some self confidence back. I really want to set up a scene and work with the self timer, but well I have been too lazy with that. I did however work with some natural light out of my patio door at 4 pm as we were heading out to a wedding. I figured it was a start! :) 

Speaking of the wedding, we went to celebrate some good friends of ours wedding! It was great! They actually got married in Hawaii just the two of them in December and now had the reception. It was beautiful! We ran into one of my husbands friends and her boyfriend in high school, we both really enjoyed chatting with them, unfortunately my hubby works overnights and so we had to leave a couple hours in so he could go to work.  So here I sit, 9 pm on a saturday night, me and my Porkchop in our PJ's lounging around. :) I did get to drink a couple glasses of wine while I was there, that was really nice! 

I am also linking up with the paper mama's photo challenge "examples of parenthood" well some of you know from a couple blog posts such as this one that I want to be a parent to a baby/child/human, not just my english bulldog. So this is my example of parenthood... me waiting, wanting praying, hoping, trying, to become an example of parenthood. 

and okay here is my example of dog parenthood, which don't get me wrong, I totally love! And PS- someone once thought I was licking him... I have my lips pursed like a kiss and talking at the same time... no tongue licking my dog.. I am crazy.. but not that crazy! :) 

Re-determination

I was doing so good on exercising and eating right.. I haven't ran since Saturday. Sunday I walked 3 miles. So I guess that is good, but on Monday I should have ran again, and I didn't. Tuesday I should have ran because I didn't run on Monday, well I didn't. I went out to Benihanna's (an amazing hibachi grill restaurant if anyone doesn't know) for a co workers birthday and ate entirely too much, plus on Monday I ate Chipotle. I planned on walking for 6 miles that day just to counteract, but it was thunderstorming. So I plopped my butt on the couch. I should have plopped in a workout DVD. On  Wednesday, I worked overtime at work and I got home, let my dog outside to go potty and slept until 8:30, I woke up, ate dinner(left over PF Changs) and read until 11 pm. No exercise! Monday, Tuesday and wednesday were TERRIBLE eating days!! I didn't even get on the scale this morning because I was just finally starting to lose weight. Today I am uber determined to get myself back on track. I made out a meal plan a couple weeks ago, but I have been too tired to pack my lunches in the morning. I had a three day slide but today I decided it is going to end. I am not sliding back into the hole of no exercise and eating bad. I feel so good and proud of myself when I exercise and eat right. When I see the number go down on the scale I do a little happy dance and have a little more pep in my step. Why should I deprive myself of that feel good feeling about myself? 
I already feel better writing this post. I feel re-motivated. Which is exactly what I need! I need to remember when its raining and I don't want to run in the rain that I have SEVERAL workout DVD's that I can do, or if it is early enough I can go to the community center and go walk/run there. I just need to keep at it.


PS- I was going to add a cute little picture at the bottom of this, but at 5:30 this morning (yes, I schedule posts :)  I just can't get it to work, my screen when I click add images pops up empty)

vibrant

I am super tired and lazy today.  I had such a great weekend! Friday night the husband and I went to cirque du soleil show that is in town. It was amazing!! Saturday I fed my starving children for 2 hours with some people from church, for those of you who don't know, it is an organization that sends food to different countries to feed starving children. The food we made is going to Nicaragua. In the 2 hours we were there we fed 31 children for 365 days. That is a good feeling! After that I went for a nice run where I improved my 5k time by over 2 minutes! Then headed off to hang out with my sister where we ended at her in laws house for a bonfire. This morning I headed to church, which was a GREAT message and then a barbeque at my pastors house where my dog played with their dog and 3 hours later Porky is still resting. I am sad to see this amazing weekend come to an end.

I took this after going out to dinner with my best friend and her adorable family for her birthday on Thursday.

linking up with: 

  

Green

Isn't this just the sweetest? 

you capture- flowers

This is a picture of my cherry tree, shortly before the rains and heat killed the blooms off!

Check out more flower captures at ishouldbefoldinglaundry

A best friend's birthday!

June 9th is a special day! It is my best friend Tara's birthday! Her birthday is 6.9 and mine is 9.6! And yep.. we have the same name! When we got married(to different people) we even dropped the "Lund" out of our last names. And yes, we share that at every and any opportunity we get! I was lucky enough to meet her when we were 17 working at walgreens in the summer. We really grew together and became adults together!  I want to wish her a happy happy birthday! And to let her know how thankful I am she is in my life! She is always there for me to laugh with, share my thoughts and feelings with, sort through things with, investigate things with, vent too, help me with ideas... pretty much I tell her anything and everything!!  And I love that I have such an amazing friend that I can do all that with!

Here are just a couple snapshots of some random times together! 

Happy happy birthday Tara!! 

Your best shot

I am participating in the paper mama's best shot challenge!

here is Porkstar

He just makes me day so much better! :)

Don't laugh...

well okay you can a little! So I really want to start taking self pictures and partake in that more! I feel like with not having kids I run out of things to photograph.. I mean Porky only has so many expressions. Although I love them.. sometimes I feel they can get repetitive. So without further a do... here is my second self portrait... now I was ready for bed and no makeup on, hair not done, really just a spur of the moment type deal.. so it isn't anything too spectacular..

This was actually really fun! I laughed at myself a lot and looking at the really bad ones I took. LOL. I only did take 5 and 2 were usable so that is good! The rest I was not happy with the focus.

Hopefully you will see more... and better ones and more elaborate! I think this will help with my confidence too! I really have felt my confidence dwindle and I want it back! :)

I am also linking up with sweet shot Tuesday head on over there to check out more sweet shots!

MMM cookies

The other day I decided to try this recipe I got from Mary's blog. I would create a link, but she has it private so you guys couldn't look at it anyway! :) But here are the pictures! They are no bake cookies and they are delicious! 

Infertility sucks.

It has been about 7 months since I quite the birth control. That isn't that long, but I think of those lucky people who get pregnant on the first try.. I would be 7 months along!  That is just crazy to me! Honestly the 7 months have gone by pretty fast, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we were waiting. I never got my period and so I waited in January, I waited in February in March I knew I had to go to the doctor because something wasn't right. The husband wasn't all that convinced that it was something I needed to go to the doctor for, well because he is a man and if it isn't a dire emergency he isn't going to go to a doctor. Also because he is a man and doesn't understand women. HEHE. He was supportive of me going when he knew how important I felt it was... low and behold I find out I have PCOS and I am not ovulating. I can't say it was a complete and utter shock, but at the same time it was. My sister has PCOS and it never really ever crossed my mind that I would have it too.. I mentioned it to my doctor when she was requesting all this blood work I said " I don't know if this matters or not, and I hope it doesn't matter, but my sister has PCOS" my doctor scribbled something on her notes and said "let's test you just in case" and said "if the test results lead to that I will refer you to an OB" (she is a nurse practitioner) and then I get the phone call.. go to the OB. Anyways so doctor appointment after doctor appointment I got things i needed, I got a prescription to get my.. how can  I put this pleasant... "cycle" and well that never worked. I haven't called my doctor because he knew after day 10 it didn't work, and i don't like him and i really don't feel like spending $200 to tell them it didn't work, to spend another $200 to try again. I am hoping that with the pill I am on now that my body will balance out. It isn't a fertility drug at all, it should actually help the underlying cause of my fertility.

So fertility sucks. I don't want that. I don't want to struggle like others struggle when they deal with infertility.

I want to experience morning sickness, I want to experience the ever growing belly with a baby inside, I want to experience peeing every 15 minutes because the baby is laying on my bladder, or playing soccer with it. I want to experience  a baby having hiccups inside of me,  I want to experience the kicking of the ribs, I want to know what it is like to go into labor, I want to know what it feels like to have them put the baby on your chest immediately after pushing it out. I want to look at my husband and say "we created that!" I want play dates with other moms. I want to experience the crazy costs of sports in school, the checking for monsters under the bed, I want to watch my own child grow and become an adult.

Do I know that I will be okay if God decides that his plan doesn't include us having children, yes. I know we will make it, and our life will be what God wants therefore, it being a wonderful and fulfilling life.

just...

infertility sucks.


so if you read all this... here is a pretty picture I took at my sisters house. :)

Wordless Wednesday

I actually could keep this wordless today! :)