Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your turkey day is FANTASTIC, bloggy friends! My seester and her fiance will arrive in the morning, and I am SERIOUSLY excited about hanging out with them over this Thanksgiving weekend. My intent was to post an intricate list of things that I am thankful for, but I am already burning the midnight oil and I'm not done cleaning yet. I shake my fist at procrastination, a deceivingly attractive friend that is always, without fail, revealed to be a sneaky little wolf in sheep's clothing. But I digress. 


I will just say that I am very blessed to live the life I live, and I am thankful for where I live, with whom I live, and that I exist for the greater purpose of glorifying Jesus Christ. My Savior died for me and made it possible for me to have eternal life in heaven with Him, something I will always be more thankful for than anything else. There is a lot more to say about that but I will keep going for now. My husband and my daughter are gifts that I don't deserve, and despite life tending to get messy, I will always treasure them. I can't help but think of all the people in the world who are in need, so much more than I am. I'm thankful for those who inspire me, encourage me, believe in me, and pray for me, for those who are dear to me and bless me every day just by being who they are. I'm thankful for those who have blazed the trails and done the hard work to make this country and our lives the way they are now. I could go on forever. Really. So I will end this in a grateful, humble, reflective mood. 


If only I didn't have to go and reflect on scrubbing the toilets. -.- Happy Thanksgiving everyone - be thankful!

PS ~ Does anyone else think that turkey looks a little worried? Or even.. sad? Gah. 

Coffee or Roast Goat?

I simply had to share this quote I found. And put it in a cool looking frame for added drama. I simply refuse to be boring right now. HOWEVER, that is not the point of this particular blog. I'll keep this one short and sweet. 

Mr. Bach and I would have gotten along swimmingly, what with our mutual love for coffee and fugues. It really is time for me to get my Bach books out... I have been practicing classical music again lately and my fingers are itching to play the addictive, recurrent voices of Bach's fugues. I never thought I would say such things. But the day has come that I am ready to practice regularly again. No more 3 hour practice days for me, but my neighborhood will soon be blessed with hearing the sweet, haunting, relatively-out-of-tune, squeaky, wild-west-cantina-piano-sounding tones a lot more often. And in order to not feel (or look, please God) like a dried up piece of roast goat, I will be sure to down an ample share of my morning coffee beforehand. 

Thursday's Thrill

Oooooh do I have something to post about! This is probably not going to be as exciting for you as it is for me, but hey. This is my blog, so you get to read all about it. :p 

My love of photography goes hand in hand with my love for photo editing. If I could, I would spend endless hours sitting here, testing out different colors, brightness and contrast, blur and bloom (adding a glow effect). The fact that I currently take pictures with a point-and-shoot (one with the ability to tweak manual settings, however limited) has created the possibly bad habit of thinking ahead, processing how I might be able to edit the photo to make it look different, what sort of filters I can use with it to give it a high contrast or wistful look, etc. Similarly, I find myself lazily thinking, "I can just edit this photo later instead of trying to find the perfect camera settings at this very second." While this kind of thinking is sometimes okay, it doesn't help in furthering my skills in learning the art of fine tuning my settings or discovering what settings bring out my "signature look", so to speak. In my mind I have a "signature look", a color scheme and way I want my pictures to look. As time goes on, I really hope to be able to capture that look more from the raw picture itself than from editing. But I know that editing will always be part of the process. 

Less talking, more pic posting, right?! So, a friend from church recently told me about a photo editing program called PhotoScape. It's completely free, so I definitely recommend checking it out. I am IN LOVE with it. Like a kid at Christmas. Like a fat kid loves cake. A gigantic, delectable, melt-in-your-mouth piece of chocolate cake smothered in the best free filters and color settings I have seen yet. Last week, my wonderful photographer friend Katie did a shoot for us at Inniswoods and got some AWESOME photos. Because she knows me so well and knew what joy I would find in editing them, she gave me the raw jpgs straight out of the camera! THANK YOU KATIE! I don't want to share all of the photos quite yet because they are mostly for Christmas stuff (you will see them all eventually!), but I do want to share one of my faves of Audrey. A before and after editing. I LOVE this stuff! HEART FLUTTERS! Click for big versions! 

The original

My favorite edited version so far - I've done a few. My beautiful girl!

That's all for now. Peace! 

Hrm.

I have this urge to blog something, but I'm not sure what to write exactly. I used to have zero desire to blog, but now that I love my new bloggity bloggy blog and I have made it more my own, I would like to fill it up with all sorts of awesomely, interestingly, introspectively amazing (and possibly boring and mundane) things. I have a relatively busy life so you'd think I would have a plethora of things to write about. In reality, I do, I just don't know where to start. The possibilities are (in a delightfully cliche manner) truly endless. In writing about my life, opinions, et al, I want this blog to be a glimpse into who I really am, not only as a wife, a mom, a sister, a friend, a believer in Jesus Christ, but also as a human being, chock-full of quirks, flaws, and a sometimes explosive personality (if I do say so myself!).

So. Stand by (for a day or two) while I cook up something to write about. And have some sort of caffeine, because I can tell you need it. I know I do! I highly recommend coffee, because:

Word. 

Oh Sales People, How Do I Love Thee?

Whether I like it or not, I'll be turning 30 next July. However, I'm not terribly concerned. I am almost certain there has been a mix up of some sort along the way, mainly because I don't feel 30 years old. A mistake at an important milestone, perhaps one of the many hospitals or dmv's I have been in, or possibly a mishap with my birth certificate. There really are any number of things that could have happened, so meanwhile, I will go along with this fake age until the mistake is revealed.

I have had 2 confirmations of my more believable, younger age this week alone. Both happened to be from sales people coming to my door.

1. The first one occurred mid morning, when a window salesman knocked on my door. He looked about my age, young and healthy and entirely too chipper to be selling windows at such an early hour. He had clearly consumed his morning caffeine, of which I was still in the process and could only hope to be as chipper when said caffeine was completely consumed. I answered the door, looking like I had just rolled out of bed. An awesome case of greasy bed head, a disheveled sweat pants/pajama combo, and no make up (save for the smudges of leftover mascara and eyes shadow from the day before) completed my undoubtedly appealing look. I stepped onto the porch, shoving the curious yet protectively barking dogs back into the house. After politely introducing himself and stating his purpose, he spoke those fated words that every almost-30-year-old wants to hear.... "Is your mom home?"

...

I must have looked a little stunned, and it is possible that I stuttered for the remainder of the conversation. I wasn't stunned in a bad way, just an amused way, and definitely a caught-off-guard way. After a few seconds of said stunned amusement I managed, "I AM the mom." Now it was his turn to stutter. He said something to the effect of, "Oh. OH. Oh. I didn't mean anything by that at all, by the way. Those are beautiful dogs. Labs are great. Are those Labs?" Nice try buddy. He was even more shocked when he learned that not only am I the MOM, I am also the homeowner. AND I have a 3 year old daughter (who is now trying to come outside and say hi). The best part is that he tried to save his sales pitch after all that. It took about 5 minutes to get rid of him. "No thank you, I do not want to sign up for a free window estimate. No thank you, I do not want new windows. Yes I know how old and shabby my windows are. Yes I know how much money I am wasting in heating costs every winter as the cold air pours mercilessly in through my old and shabby windows. No, there is not a better time for you to come back next week to once again try to guilt trip me about my old and shabby windows because of which I waste lots of money every winter." I didn't have the sensibility to say these things at the time, considering my stunned state, but I would be ready next time!!

2. The second confirmation of my more believable, younger age came today with another knock at my door.  This time it was a young man and woman selling vacuum cleaners. I thought the age of door-to-door-vacuum-cleaner-sales was over, so I was already amused before they spoke a single word. You know the type. You've seen the demonstrations.

I momentarily pause the recounting of this story to say that until today, I simply was not aware of how mischievous I could be in messing with sales people. Carry on.

It was the girl's first day going door to door. After saying a few quiet words and staring at me with wide, uncertain eyes, she stopped talking altogether and stepped aside, motioning for the clearly more experienced sales guy to continue. I felt a little bad for her because I certainly know how difficult first days-at-the-new-job can be, no matter what the job. They proceeded to persuade me to let them clean a room of carpet in my house for free, and if I agreed, I would get to keep a handy dandy little hand vac just because. Then came the fated question, the words every almost-30-year-old wants to hear... "Are you over 18?"

...

Yep. This time I was ready. There would be no stunned silence, no stuttered words, no long awkward moments. Watch out sales people, you have no idea what you're in for. "Actually, I'm turning 30 next year! And yes, I am the homeowner," I said proudly. Score for me. Their eyes widened but these sales people were good, and they recovered quickly.

I will spare you the details of this one because we would both be here all day, but let me just say two things. 1) I was very clear in telling them that I would NOT be buying anything. I gave no illusions that I would buy a vacuum costing $2289, despite the fact that I could also win an all expense paid vacation and have the cleanest house on the planet for the rest of my breathing days here on earth. It was their choice whether or not to believe me, so 2) I did not feel bad for sending them away with no more money than they came with after TWO full hours of turning down the best sales lines and tactics this side of the Mississippi. "Yes I am aware that my current vacuum might as well be completely broken compared to using your amazing machine from heaven. Yes I am aware that my floors are still somehow chock full of dirt, grime, dust, dog hair, dead skin cells, dust mites, and even worse, oils, excretions, and dead body parts from said dust mites, because my vacuum is not your amazing machine from heaven (insert angelic voices and a blazing beam of light focused on said machine.) Yes I am aware that my darling little girl uses this grime filled carpet as her play ground. No, my husband really would not ask me to buy this amazing machine regardless of how many disgusting, dog-hair-filled filters you leave strewn about my house. No, my husband really wouldn't be thrilled about buying this amazing machine for me for Christmas, whether or not it is from heaven. No, I am not a person that tends toward mediocrity. (His actual words). Yes, I value my time. Yes, I want my time spent cleaning to be used actually making things clean." I gave it right back to him the whole time. I cheerfully agreed with every fact and salesman-like accusation he could throw at me. Clearly I would love to own this amazing machine from heaven, if only 100 dollar bills grew on the trees out back. I let them go on for two hours because I was already having a good day and was made even happier knowing that I look younger than 18. Possibly I also wanted to keep the handy dandy hand vac and get my carpet at least  somewhat cleaned. Perhaps also to prove that I truly did not have $2289 to spare.

Either way. If I'm gonna turn 30 next year, I can at least be happy that I apparently don't look a day over 18. (Regardless of whether or not this is because my uncaffeinated-morning-self may look hung over or because I often don't dress my age.)

There were no sales people harmed in the making of this post.