Boys Will Be Boys

Posts Tagged ‘geek’

Before I tell you what I won, I need to fill in the back story! 

I follow a LOT of blogs online and I have a long list of must-see sites bookmarked from over the years.  Some would think this is time consuming and talk about me behind my back of how they can’t believe I spend “all that time online.”  Let me first say, it’s not time consuming if you know how to do it efficiently and use the right tools (hello, Google Reader I love you!).  It’s by far the easiest (imo) blog reader out there.  You can organize things into categories based on the blog.  So I have them in these categories: 

• Design
• Parenting
• Deals/Coupons
• Kids Gear & Reviews
• Gardening
• Family & Friends

Secondly, I do most of “all that time online” at night after the kids are in bed, during a nap time or first thing in the morning.  Periodically I’ll look at things during the day but usually very briefly.  I spend lots of that “quality” time with the boys, don’t you fret! 

Last but not least, it pays off in big ways sometimes!!!!! 

I read on a blog about another blogger doing a contest thing for the month of May featuring various photographers from all over.  She would post a state and a photographer that wants to offer up a photography session as a prize.  You post why you want to win the photography package or nominate someone to win.  Then the winner(s) would be selected by the photographer.    I’ve been watching it for a while now and saw Oregon come up so I entered. 

Of course if you know us, you know the troubles we’ve had getting family photography done.  Sure, we could portrait studio it and hope for the best but what I really wanted was something natural, outdoorsy,  just us interacting together as a family.  I have more pictures than probably anyone realizes of the boys.  (Patrick bought me an external hard drive just for my pictures when Braysen was a little guy if that tells you anything. haha)  I cherish those way more than the posed studio pictures because they look like themselves.  I’d rather have a million pictures of them in their environment then tote them off every month to get posed pictures.  I realize some really like to take their kids off to get pictures every month and put them in every possible outfit and get those posed shots.  It’s just not my favorite type of photography is all.  Just my personal opinion there of course!

So when I saw this contest and entered, I was excited to see a photographer that had natural looking shots.  Photography where we could be a family and just get our pictures taken!  I honestly forgot about entering it but I was checking my google reader thing today saw my name on the list of this last group of winners!!! I had to go back and double check that it was my comment that won!!  I contacted the photographer as noted in the contest and we are working on a date.  

See, sometimes taking “all that time online” pays off!!! 

Patrick “cracking out” on his game and Braysen playing a game on my computer…kids and their games! (both the big kid and the little one!)

So my Wordpress is a mess with paragraph breaks and it’s driving me crazy! I thought I had gotten past it by using Livewriter but that is only a slight fix.  If you copy/past into Livewriter from say Word, it just says screw you and formats it how it wants, not how it is on your Livewriter screen. 

*sigh*

So that folks is why my blog has nasty formatting issues!

Words of the month:
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caustic:  severely critical or sarcastic:
abrasive:  tending to annoy or cause ill will; overly aggressive:
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Adjectives used to describe me.  How lovely!
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Now, without going into that.  Let me just go onto some happy news!
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97% A – my nutrition grade for the semester!   Not bad for my first class back while working, juggling 2 kiddos and having my husband leave for numerous business trips during the course!
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I survived but it is definitely an interesting challenge sometimes to find time for my homework, reading and the projects.  There is  something humorous about trying to read your Nutrition book while your toddler is sitting on your lap putting out at the pictures saying “momma that’s an apple!, that’s an orange!, what’s that? are those words? what story are you reading?”  You get the idea!
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I know it’s a long road but so worth it.  At times when I think about this whole non-traditional approach to schooling I’m now in, I get sad.  Then I think of what I do have in my life and I feel very blessed. There are so many things I’d like to write about relating my struggles with the whole college thing, mostly in the lack of support and encouragement through the years.  I guess in the current picture, it seems unnecessary because I am doing this my way now and will fight through regardless of my past.
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We have some exciting news on the homefront..actually, a lot of great news!
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Braysen is finally potty trained! (as of a few weeks ago!) It is definitely one of those moments as a parent where you start to wonder if it will ever happen and then it just clicks for them and I couldn’t be any more proud of him!!!
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Merrick is finally sleeping through the night.  We’ve had 4 nights and it’s about time!  I know the sleeping through the night discussion is always a hot mom topic.  I have definitely got my share of comments like “what? he doesn’t sleep through the night yet?” “he’s not weaned yet?” Going back to my hippy mom sort of ways, I really do let the boys kind of lead me when it comes to the whole nursing / sleeping thing.  Braysen didn’t stop that 1:30am nursing session until he was nearly 13 months.  He only nursed that 1 time a night and I was ok with that.  Merrick is a little more stubborn, again I’m ok with that!  We do encourage them (letting them cry it out (CIO) a bit and giving sippy of milk instead of me) to start sleeping better and start weaning though.  I’d love more sleep and to be honest, after a year of nursing ..I’m ready to be done!  But, in the end they both have showed that they do things on their own time pretty well !
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We have got our refinance ..well it’s technically a rate adjustment, papers signed and closed this week.  Yay, for a lower interest rate = lower house payment!!
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We have a new deck built and it’s beauuuuutiful!  We now have a pile or stones on our driveway waiting to be built up into garden beds!  We started edging our yard with cool stones.    The backyard project is in full swing and we finally feel like can go enjoy that space.  It really is an additional “living space” having that deck done!  Now, if only patio furniture wasn’t so darn expensive!!!  That probably is going to wait until next summer but who knows.  It’s amazing how the project has sort of taken a life of its own and you can just see the $$ adding up!  We know it’s all worth it though!
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Lastly, we finally have a cell phone plan!  After 2 years of going cell phone less….how does one do that?  We splurged on the new 3gs and despite the fact that I got the dud phone out of 3-3gs phones purchased, it will be nice to have a cell phone again.  Plus, what better cell phone than the ultimate in geek gadgetry!!
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Long update and I still don’t know why my paragraph breaks aren’t working forcing me to use squiggly ~~~~ marks!

Testing wordpress app for ipod