13 Goals for 2013 {Monday Me}

27 {Monday Me}

Today is my birthday. The big 2-7. I guess now I can say I’m pushing the big 3-0.

This past year wasn’t particularly exciting. It ended on a pretty high note though:

A new car

Update to 12 Goals for 2012 {Monday Me}

You can view the original post here.

It’s July 1^st, that means we are half way through the year already!! Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?!

How are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions? Did you forget about them? I have to say when I revisited my goals in April I had forgotten about a couple that were on the list.

I thought that now would be a good time to provide an update of my progress and kick start me again for the second half of the year.

2012 Goals

1.           Scan all my photos.

This is not going so well. I sat down and worked on it for one night and haven’t done it since. It’s a very time consuming project. I would really like to complete some of my other projects listed below before coming back to try to tackle this one. This might turn into a 10 year plan.

2.           Along with this I need to reorganize all the pictures of our house.

I kind of forgot about this one, but it really needs to be done. Now that D is working on the rentals there is less work going on at our house. This is the perfect time to get ahead!

3.           Caroline’s second year photo book. Completed 5/17/2012

Whoo hoo! I actually got this done in May and it feels so good! This year I used Shuttefly instead of Snapfish, and I have to say I loved the usability of the Shutterfly application a lot more.

4.           Learn how to use my camera in manual mode.

I have certainly been working on this. I have photographed 2 weddings, lots of food for Foodie Friday and millions of pictures of Caroline too! I don’t feel like this is something that I can really cross off the list as I continue to learn and grow every time I shoot.

5.           Make photo movies of:

a.       Engagement trip to Gatlinburg (2005). Completed 1/11/2012

b.      Our Wedding (2006)—this will have to happen after I rescan all the photos of course.

c.       Mom and Dad’s 25^th Anniversary PowerPoint and party photos (from 2008)

d.      Trip to Europe (2005)

When I wrote this goal I was really excited about photo movies. I love the idea of putting the photos to music, but I don’t know that I need one for all these things. I still like the idea of making them for Caroline’s birthday every year, and will continue to make those. The others I will probably do as gifts or something as the need arises. Also I have heard that you can make these movies through Powerpoint and that might be a good idea for the Europe video. Adding text to the photos can take a long time without a real photo editing program. It might be easier to make that one in PowerPoint if I can figure out how to do it.

6.           Bake once a week.

Well this doesn’t happen every week, but I have been able to incorporate a lot more cooking and baking into my schedule than normal. I consider this to be success.

7.           Shop Target Clearance

I had intended to do posts on this based on my purchases, but I’m thinking that it really isn’t that exciting. Let’s just say I have gotten lots of deals and my earring collection has practically doubled this year. I’ve also been getting great deals at Macy’s and Plato’s Closet. Who knew?!

8.           Graduate with an MBA

Check. Check. It feels sooo good.

9.           Have a Baby

Well this just didn’t work out. Maybe next year? Or should we wait for 2014?

10.       Make this blog MORE

Can I get an A for effort? I really struggle with just finding the time to sit down upload photos and come up with something interesting to say. It’s also really difficult not having consistent, reliable access to internet. (Christmas gift idea, anyone?)

11.       Read a book a month.

So far so good. You can read my Book of the Month posts here.

12.       Finish Caroline’s First Year Scrapbook

At this rate I will be lucky to finish her scrapbook by the time she is 12. I really just need to buckle down for a couple of hours and it will be done. I don’t know why it is so hard to just sit down and do it!

I decided to add another:

After the Oscars I decided I wanted to watch all the movies that won or were nominated for Academy Awards (a.k.a. Oscars). Most of the movies have been available from our local library so I can get them for free and keep them for 2 weeks (love that). I will probably put this on my list every year going forward. It’s fun to watch the movies and to try to get them from the library when they are in high demand. A couple that I have seen so far include: Rio, The Help, Drive, Midnight in Paris, Hugo, The Muppets and ’If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.

It’s your turn now! If you managed to make it to the end of this post, leave a comment and tell me how you are doing with your New Year’s Resolutions.

Reminiscing {Monday Me}

Two weeks ago I told you about going to my cousin’s wedding. Going to a wedding when you are married is a lot different than going to a wedding when you are single. When you are single you are collecting ideas and taking notes so when you meet your prince charming you can use those details to make your wedding day perfect. When you are already married, you do two things: 1) compare your wedding to theirs (how yours was so much better, of course) and 2) reminisce about your own love story.

It’s nice to have things like this written down so I thought I would share how D and I met. I have a terrible memory now, so I can’t imagine trying to remember this stuff when I am 80. Maybe one day if I get really adventurous I will do a post about our wedding, but our pictures were so terrible I am embarrassed to show you.

Here goes:

When I decided to attend Anderson University, several people from my home church who had spent time in Anderson told me that I should attend Bethany Christian Church. So I did. There was a college age/young adult Bible study on Sunday nights that kicked off at the end of September and that is where D and I met. I don’t remember the first time that I saw him, so I can’t say that it was love at first sight, but after a few weeks I noticed that he wore the same sweatshirt to Bible Study every week. I made a comment to him about wearing the same sweatshirt and so he kept wearing it because he knew he was getting my attention. I was reminded of this again last Tuesday night. One of the presenters in my Master’s class read this article about how children view the meaning of love. My jaw dropped when she read this:

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
Noelle - age 7

OMG! I guess I am not the only one. And that was how it all began… We started bumping into each other on campus and emailing back and forth. Our first date was on Veteran’s Day 2004. We went to see The Polar Express. It was a Thursday night and I don’t think the movie even started until 10PM. Needless to say, we were the only ones in the theatre that night. I was in the habit of bringing carrots with me to the movies instead of eating popcorn. I really love carrots, but this gave D the impression that I was a health freak..Haha. Just one of my quirks I guess. When I went home for Thanksgiving two weeks later, I told my little brother and sister that I was going to marry him. It happened that fast.

And the rest they say…is history.

Early December 2004

How did you meet the love of your life? Was it love at first sight?

Help! {Monday Me}

I can’t make a decision to save my life. I have $275.00 to spend and I can’t decide if I want to buy one big ticket item or several small ones. So I need your help. Listed below are the two options I am looking at right now. Originally I wanted the Camera Bag. Then I got some more money and decided to go for the lens. Now that it’s time to buy, I can’t make up my mind!!

*Prices already include shipping and tax.

Option 1: Total $226.62

Rose Sugar Plum Camera Bag $104.95

trying...{Monday Me}

I’m trying to keep up...I really am. I know that all I have really posted lately is for Foodie Friday-- A girl still has to eat! The only time I usually have to post is at 10 PM and I am just not in the mood. I have lots of ideas…they usually just get stuck in my head.  I am sure you know the feeling.

The good news is that classes are almost done! I have 7- 4 hour class sessions left until I officially get my degree! I am hoping to spend much more time watching Oscar winning movies, baking cupcakes, planning parties and taking pictures!

I still have editing to do from the wedding I took pictures at earlier this month. Whoops!

What do you like to do in your free time!

Chandler's Birthday! {Monday Me}

See those cute letters that spell Chandler behind the cake? My friend Brianna and I made them out of paper mache letters from Hobby Lobby. I'm pretty sure the whole project cost less than $10. We bought the letters 40% off and painted them blue. Then we mod podged some Batman comics on them.

We also made the Chandler banner hanging on the front of the table. Here is a close up of that banner:

We also made a sign that said 'Happy Birthday'

Chandler had a great party. He also has a wonderful mama who thought up all the decorating ideas. I just helped with the implementaion.



Nobody's Perfect {Monday Me}

It’s no secret that nobody’s perfect, but for some reason we all think that we need to be. I’m guilty of it myself of course. I think I need to keep my house perfectly clean, be a good mom, be a good wife, be a good cook/baker, be skinny, be pretty, be creative. There are so many people around us (or at least me) that continually make me feel like I am not good enough, I'm not strong enough, etc.  It’s all too much. Frankly, I just don’t have the time to deal with it all. Here is how my days usually play out:

6:00 AM- get up and get ready for work

7:00 AM- leave for work

8:00-5:00 PM- work. Boo.

5:45- get home work, play with Caroline while DH gets dinner ready

6:15-6:45- eat dinner

6:45-7:15- do the dishes, clean the kitchen

7:15-7:45- give Caroline a bath and get her jammies on

7:45-8:30- read books, rock, put Caroline to bed

8:30 and on- take a shower, make my lunch, do whatever needs to be done to walk out the door the next day AND find a way to do homework, scrapbook, edit photos, craft. I usually end up in bed somewhere between 10:30 and 11:30.

And you wondered why I was a crazy person!! Remember when I said I usually end up taking a nap? Now you know why. It’s no wonder that the weekends are my favorite time (and pretty much everyone elses). It’s the only time I have to do anything that I WANT to do not just things that I HAVE to do. When I was in middle or high school we did this musical at my church called Livin' on the Edge. It's about a bunch of high school students, so fittingly, there is a song called  'Monday all over again.' I think of it every Sunday night or Monday. It goes like this: "It's Monday all over again, and it feels like the week is never gonna end. It hits me every seven days without warning. It keeps me praying for Saturday morning. It's Monday.."

My Christmas Gift {Monday Me}

I realize that Christmas is now a distant memory for most people, but this year I got an awesome gift (well more than one, but this one won the present of the year award). You may know that DH and I have purchased several rental properties. Since I bake so much now, DH thought that we could trade in our cheapo oven for the Cadillac version. The old oven will be put into one of the rentals. It seemed our oven cooked about 30 degrees under temperature and did a good job of also heating our house. It was to the point that we would avoided turning it on in the summer if at all possible. We started shopping around for Christmas sales and found a great deal on this double oven from Home Depot. We don’t shop at Home Depot and we don’t have any way to transport an oven, so we price matched it at our local home improvement store, Lowe’s, where we spent most of our income. It has two ovens, 5 burners, convection and a host of other features that I probably don’t even know about. The best part about it is that it heats up really quickly and doesn’t heat up the house. We have to store our pans in the bottom part of the oven, but when the upper oven is on, the pans in the bottom oven don’t even get warm! I really love it. I admit I haven’t used both the upper and bottom ovens at the same time yet, but I am planning on baking some chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes this weekend, so I see myself taking advantage of this opportunity.

Oh, Baby! {Monday Me}

I know you all just clicked over here because you think that I am going to announce that I am pregnant. Well sorry, I’m not. I wish I was, but as I stated in 12 Goals for 2012, DH is just not on board with it yet. I started to think that maybe I had won anyway when I was recently 10 days late. I got all my hopes up despite the fact that there have been no accidents in 4 years. I had 4 negative pregnancy tests and the days kept dragging on. I was still holding out hope. In the end, my body was just playing a cruel joke on me. Thank you mother nature. It was a very long 10 days. And it would have been fine, really, but during that time, two of my friends had their babies and not one, not two but THREE, count them THREE of my friends announced that they are also expecting. Ironically all but one of these people are expecting their second child and had their first very close to the time I had Caroline. That does not even count all the other people that are pregnant (just not newly). So now I am going through the ‘everyone is having a baby but me’ phase again. And well that's not always easy. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY EXCITED for all my preggo and new momma friends. I just feel a little left out, you know? In the meantime I guess I will keep studying for classes and baking yummy goodies.

Pinterest {Monday Me}

Well, It’s official. The last bit of life has been sucked out of me. I have joined pinterest. As if I didn’t have enough ideas already floating around in my head, there’s pinterest to give me more. I don’t have time to do most of the things I dream up in my head and if I do have a minute, I am more likely to just take a nap, I am sure you can understand. I really struggle with this, because every day at work I get great ideas for projects and I write them down on to this super long list that I will never be able to complete.  At least with pinterest I can keep them organized and around…forever. You can follow me @antryon

Monday Me

One of my goals for this year was to make this blog more personal—so people might actually want to read it. Ha. In order to do that, I am going to do my best to do a Monday Me feature. Ideally this will mean me actually writing something for this blog. It might be really long, it might be really short. It might be interesting, it might not. When I was in high school I really liked to write, and I think I was actually pretty decent at it. I had like 3 journals from high school and college that I have since closed. That’s unfortunate. I have since lost that part of myself and now when I get in writing moods I generally push them to the side. This is not what I should do, I should just get it out!! I am hoping that once a week will be reasonable. Hopefully I will plan ahead well enough that I will be able to include some pictures of what has been going on recently for you all to enjoy as well.