Who really watches it anyways......

Today has been filled with "happy new years", and "this year i'm gonna_______". Pffftttt...... Who cares. Really. Who cares? We all make resolutions, we all fail at them. We all claim this will be the year we stick to said resolution, we all lie. But yet, we feel the need to make it public and known to everyone. I resolve to quit smoking. Will i succeed? Probably not. Every year i make that one, the fact that i make it every year proves the failed logic behind new years resolutions. Somehow we, and i do mean all of us, think that just because a new year is starting, that we automatically get a new start, a clean slate. Nope. You will wake up tomorrow, the exact same as you did when went to sleep. Everything that happened 365 days ago, does not magically go away. It's still there. If you over drew your bank account, it won't some how be at 0.00 tomorrow, and making a resolution to be more money conscience isn't going to change the fact that your bank is now gonna charge your negative $30 bank account another $30.

Not today, dear......

A couple years ago, i was diognosed with having endometriosis. It's a very, VERY painful condition where the inside of a womans uterus, for some reason or another, decides to grow on places outside of the uterus. It makes having a period extreamly painful, i like refer to it as going through labor every month with out having a child in the end to make the pain worth it. It also makes getting pregnant very hard or impossible for some women due to the scar tissue it creates. There are was to control it and even "dry it up", one way is being pregnant, this helped me for about a year. Being on birthcontrol helps some women too, but it never did help me. The past couple months have been hell for me though, i think it's coming back 10 fold, making up for lost time when i was pregnant. Which really stinks when you think you still want to have kids and know that you're running out of time, if you haven't run out already. I kinda feel, in the back of my mind, that i have already run out of time to have another baby. Yet, the thought of having a hystorectomy scares me because, what if i DO still have time left. Although, at this very moment, i don't care. I want my lady parts gone and i do not care. After all, it feels as though they're being twisted and riped out of me anyways. It makes me unbelievabley miserable. I don't even want to so much as get out of bed, other than maybe to sit on the toilet.
http://www.bing.com/health/article/mayo-125699/Endometriosis?q=endometriosis&qpvt=endometriosis

Leap of Faith

Today i took a leap of faith, thanks to some Facebook friends, and entered a photograph in a charity auction. And by leap of faith, i really mean litterally run and jump off a cliff leap of faith. You see, i am by nature, cripiley self-consious. I know that my photography is good, only because enough people have told me so. But good enough for someone to bid money on, just so THEY can have it, i doubt it. I can almost envision my entry being the only one to not get a single bid. Which got me thinkin'. If it wasn't for this........self-consuming, self destructing, lack of self confidance and self worth, could I, just maybe, make something of myself? Perhaps carve out a little nitche for myself? After all, it is behind the lense of a camera the I truely feel beautiful, that I feel most comfortable and it is behind that lense that, i feel, i can find the beauty in anything. But......there's a giant, brick wall that's always getting the way. It's not a very tall wall, only about 5 foot, but none the less, it's strong and stubborn. It's been standing there for 29 years, i highly doubt it's quite ready to fall yet. Lord knows i've tried to knock it down on occasion, but that usually ends in failure. However, could this be the crack that brings it down??? Sure, there's that chance that litterally NO ONE will bid on my photo. But, the greater chance is that someone will. Even if it goes for less than what it cost me to enter it, it still means someone wanted a peice of something i envisioned. Maybe.....the crack it puts in the wall, will help me to finally knock it down. Even if it's just temporary, atleast i'll have done it.  After all, the only things that truely stands in the way of us and the dreams we have invisioned for ourselve's, is the walls that we chose to put up. After all, no one fears success. What we fear is falure. And the only way we can truely fail, is to just not try. I'm not gonna lie, if my peice doesn't get a single bid, or goes for so little, it will devistate me. Perhaps even make me believe what i've been telling myself all along, that i'm not the photographer people seem to think i am. But, atleast i can walk away knowing that i didn't fail, since failing would've been backing out and not entering the photo. I simply opened a door, and some doors are meant to close.

Shoulda been a Keebler Elf.......

I love Christmas time. Mainly because it's the only time of the year that gives me an excuse to make cookies until i have cookies stacked everywhere. I could do it year round, but really, who wants cookies in July? Husband says it really puts me in the Christmas spirit. I say, Christmas puts me in the cookie spirit. I've always enjoyed baking, it's almost as soothing as photography for me. But i really seem to go cookie crazy this time of year. The baking genes run deep in me though, i have a great Aunt who, in her prime, was an AMAZING baker, i grew up in a house where cookies were abundant at Christmas time, and everyone was homemade with love. I remember, growning up, always being excited for this time of year, not because of Christmas, but because i got to HELP, help make cookies. And so i continue that tradition. Bitty, thankfully, loves helping, so far. But really, what 3 year old doesn't like playing in flour and making a mess? And i love it! I always had this vision of my child sitting on a kitchen counter, helping me make cookies of all kinds. However, unlike me, Bitty inherited her daddy's love of eating cookies. I'd sooner make them versus eat them. Although, for as long as i've been making yummy cookies and what knots, i mostly stuck to the recipe at hand, sometimes meshing two seperate recipes together, but not very often. This year's been different. This year i've sorta been making the recipes i already have, my own. Adding stuff, changing quantities, taking things away. You get the idea. I must say, i shoulda done it sooner. This year's been more of an experiment, perhaps that's why there are so many boxes of cookies stacked everywhere.  I've also been trying new recipes. Which is oddly exciting for me. After years of making the same tried and true recipes, i've grow tired of tasting the same things. Granted, my perfected molasses cookie recipe has earned the right to stay the same. As has my snickerdoodle recipe. My family's chocolate chip cookie recipe got a makeover to resemble one of the softest sugar cookie/Lepp cookie i've ever really tasted.  Although, as much as i love my molasses cookies, i swear if i open my over door again, and get wafted in the face with the smell of molasses, ginger and cloves, i may just throwup a little.

Pass the buck.....(This whole rant was the spawn of a facebook post.)

I'm kinda curious why anytime something that goes around f.b that has to do with children, all of a sudden it was born from the mind of a pediphile, but yet when the whole bra color/purse thing was going around, no one was screaming rapist or pervert.

Believe me, when it comes to hating pediphiles i'm probably near the top of the list. However, it really burns me up when people want to pass the blame onto them. It really does seem like, atleast in facebook land, that anything, and i mean ANYTHING that has to do with children - whether it's using a cartoon as your profile pic. to spread awareness about child abuse, or a group about "having a son/daughter was the best choice i ever made" - is claimed to have been started by a pediphile. Anything else can go on, such as the examples i posted above, and people participate or join in with out a second thought. And nothing is ever said. Well, i'm sorry, actually NO i'm NOT, if you're that damn worried about pediphiles getting your child on facebook, they're too damn young to be on it! Not to mention, it is YOUR job as a PARENT to police what your child/children are doing and who they are or are not friends with. If you cannot do that, then your child sould not be on the internet.People are also more than willing to put up gobs of pictures of their children. Don't ya think a pediphile can gain access to those?!

So many of us wonder what is wrong with people today, myself included because we are all guilty. Guilty of passing what, by all rights is our responsability, onto someone else. We don't want to be forced to admit that WE may have been at fault. When the reality is, dispite what some may think, we are in charge. In charge of ourselves, our children and what they can and cannot do, our homes, dare i say it - our lives. Sure, if you're sitting at home watching t.v and your child begins to play with a lighter and burns themself, it easier to blame it on the manufacturer of the lighter. Maybe, it was lacking proper child safety, maybe it was faulty. When the reality is, it was YOUR fault. It's always easier to say it was someone else. No one wants to admit they did something stupid.

Plead the 5th.....

I can't not write through tears because, the reality is, 3 years later i still blame myself for Bittys early entrance. We went back to the eye doctor today for a recheck and to order her full strength lenses. Turns out, we're also going to have to start patching her left eye so that her right eye will begin to strengthen. Yeah, i know, not that big of a deal. Explain that to a 3 year old and an already self blaming mommy. I call it self blaming since no one, well almost no one, has ever told me her early arrival was my fault. Who knows, maybe it was that doctor who delivered her stating that my smoking was probably what did it, even though my placenta look like a non-smokers, maybe it was in that moment i decided it was my fault. Maybe. Probably not though. All i ever wanted was for her to never have any signs or symptoms of prematurity, and i thought she wasn't gonna. Well, atleast up until last July i thought that. I wish there was some magic potion or words that could finally make me just let go. I'm the type of person who needs answers to every question i may have and if no one can give me one, well i blame it on myself. It's just the way i am. I wish i could just go back 3 years and squeeze my knees together and keep her in there. Don't get me wrong, i count my blessings everyday. I know whole heartedly that it could be worse. But after you've gotten through the "she could die" stuff and you think that nothing else will go wrong, it kinda hits you blind sightedly when or if something does go wrong that's all. I'd compare it to cancer patients being in remorse except they know there's always that chance it could return. Preemie parents, well we're basically taught that if your baby makes it through the first 12-18 months without incidence, that they will be fine. We're taught not to expect something to just "pop up" or return two and a half years later. While she will always be a preemie, i guess i just figured she grew out of it and all that comes with it.