It’s 4:30 am. I’m awake because half an hour ago the pets woke me up by getting into the plastic “treats” bag and distributing pieces of it around the dining room. Apparently they were out of food. They are no longer out of food and are now sleeping soundly.

I’m not.

Ok, I can now add “Button kicking the wall” to the list of “Things That Go Bump in the Night.” I will also mention that the only part of her bed next to the wall is the headboard.

/end random sidetrack

Haven’t been around here much lately. I’ve been otherwise involved, I guess. Have I told you that I maintain 2 blogs? I do. One is for “real life” and the other one is here. Supposedly, this one is all anonymous-like, and my family and church friends don’t know about it, so I can do things like gripe about people and say things that would be considered offensive if I put them on my “real life” blog. Uncensored and all that jazz.

Anyway, as of late I’ve been more involved in “real life” so this place has sort of gotten the shaft. Which is probably a good thing really, as it means I obviously don’t have a lot to gripe about and feel much less like someone with 2 personas.

I’ve taken up photography recently. I’ve always been interested in it, and own a pretty good camera. But lately I’ve been more interested in improving my techniques, and actually trying to learn all the gizmos on my camera and even learn the theory behind ISO and Aperture and Shutter speed, etc instead of just playing it by ear. The problem with digital photography is the ability to take good photos without actually knowing what you’re doing. But it’s like any skill - if you want to take photos that look good to a trained eye, you have to actually learn the craft.

That’s somewhat hard for me, because I’ve found that to truly learn something, I essentially have to learn it twice.  That would have been good to know in school.

A few years ago, I studied photography, did a lot of reading up on settings, f-stops, yada-yada.  But it doesn’t sink in to my recall memory until I go back and learn it a second time.  Which is what I’m doing now.

The problem I’m discovering is that photography as a hobby is expensive. I could probably justify it if I had plans to do it professionally some day. But the thing is, I don’t want to do it professionally. I just want to be good enough to do it professionally.

I consider that a shining moment of self-awareness. For much of my life, I’ve been trying to mold my hobbies into careers to justify them. Which only ends up biting me in the butt because the expense of a budding career is far greater than the expense of the hobby.

For instance, scrapbooking = expensive. Buying wholesale lots of scrapbooking supplies to save money per item under the delusion of making money by reselling them in an online store = stupidly expensive.

The problem with not doing it professionally is that I’m running out of subjects to experiment on. Basically, all I have right now is Button. And although she’s a great subject, I think she tires occasionally of the camera. I don’t blame her. I’m also getting too used to taking pictures of her. Which typically means the pictures are better, because I can predict what she’s going to do and how she’s going to look from certain angles. But still - I need some variety.

Perhaps some day I can coerce J into doing a father/daughter session when he’s not working or otherwise occupied.

5 Things Found in Your Bag:

1. Diapers & Wipes
2. Snacks
3. Empty snack wrappers
4. A crumpled and dirty wipe that was used to mop up… something?
5. A ring of keys that I can’t identify

5 Favorite Things in Your Room:

1. Bed, oh how I love thee at the end of the day…
2. A wall of windows
3. A dresser that serves very well as an extra changing table so I don’t have to traipse upstairs all the time
4. Tons of big pillows that my kid loves to stack on top of herself and call for me to come find her… hours of entertainment, that game.
5. My cat.  If he’s laying on the bed, then he’s NOT pooping on the floor next to the litter box.

5 Things You Have Always Wanted to Do:

1. Be really great at something.  Anything.  I’m good at a ton of stuff, but I’ve never been the best at anything.
2. See the world - specifically, Ireland, Greece, Israel, New Zealand…
3. Be my own boss and still have a steady paycheck.
4. Be independently wealthy at a young enough age to really enjoy it.
5. Be spontaneously witty

5 Things You Are Currently Into:

1. Planning all the ways I’m GOING to exercise so I can lose the baby weight
2. Sitting around on my butt.
3. Web design … just … not on this site.
4. Blowing bubbles… ok, this is something that my 2-year-old is currently obsessed with, which necessitates me being “into” it as well.  In action, at least.
5. Photography.  I’m trying to get better.

In other [Daniel] Radcliffe news, the actor will soon make his body-baring Broadway debut in “Equus,” and producers are apparently determined to make sure no one pounces on the opportunity to photograph his magic wand.

You are the double-crossing crack whore of browsers.

While mildly more tolerable, your latest incarnation, 7.0, is still just a poser.

I have tried placating you in every way I know how and yet you STILL insist on mangling my design in 6.0.  Even Lord Google cannot seem to help me overcome your influence, which has suddenly mutated into a new strain for which there is seemingly no cure available.

You suck.  Please die.  kthxbai.

-Amy

We spent about 8 days in Hawaii and it was wonderful.  For all my bitching and moaning and dreading the trip, Button did wonderfully.  Like seriously, she COULD NOT have been better.

She was happy and pleasant during the uber-long flight there, and really enjoyed a few hours of Diego on our New! Magnavox! Portable! DVD Player!  which is the BEST. INVESTMENT. EVER.  4 hours of battery life, people.  I even got to READ.  As in, a book for ME.  And THEN, on the flight back, she slept for 6 of the 7 hours.

God bless that child.

We were supposed to be there for only 4 days, but there was that big old fiasco with ATA and American Airlines spontaneously canceling all their flights, and even though our flight wasn’t canceled, it was really overbooked as a result of all the other canceled flights.

So we thought, “Let’s see… we could pack our bags, check out of the hotel, drive to the airport, wait forever to see if we still get to get on the plane,  possibly get kicked off anyway and put up in some Motel 6 to await the ‘next available flight’ … Or we could just call the airline and reschedule our departure and stay in Paradise for a few more days.”

Tough decision.

But I have to admit, our bank account (er… credit card) is feeling the pain right about now.

The trip was wonderful though.  We haven’t taken a relaxing vacation since our honeymoon, almost 7 years ago.  I have this thing about being “productive” on vacations.  For some reason, I feel that if we’re taking time off and spending a bunch of money, we need to accomplish something, like seeing the Great Wall of China or Vatican City or something.  Which is all fine and good, but I learned this last week to value a trip in which the point is to do nothing.

I hope to put some pictures up soon.

Let me repeat that:  TROPHIES.  FIREWORKS.  And TOMBSTONES.

So I guess if you win something and want to celebrate, they’ve got you covered all the way through the part where you die from the fireworks explosion?  I would like to have seen that business plan.

Also, we saw the weirdest bug yesterday.  It was huge (as bugs go), measuring approximately 2.5” long with a thick body and a 4” multicolored wingspan.  And it totally looked like a hummingbird.  It was about the size of a hummingbird.  It flew like a hummingbird.  It was buzzing around the bushes sucking nectar out of the flowers like a humming bird.  But it had at least 4 legs and antennae, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a hummingbird.  Whatever it was, it was really cool to watch and we stood outside Olive Garden like a trio of idiots staring at it for a long time.

I have a terrific family. I have a brilliant, beautiful and vivacious daughter and another healthy baby on the way. My husband is my love and would never do me wrong. We have all our needs met and are financially stable. J and I are both able to work from home at jobs we enjoy. And we are all in good health.

I am incredibly fortunate in every way. But some are not. And it breaks my heart to see life so … imbalanced at times.

Please go read this. Seriously, go read it. Don’t just glean what it’s about from my post.

I have done a couple of templates for Lisa in the past and know her to be a kind, fun, spunky and strong individual. And now she will have to be stronger than ever.

Lisa needs to take her kids to Disney World. This is not a request that she has made - it is something we’re doing for her. I have done what I can to help but it’s not enough. If you can help too - even just a tiny amount - you could bring a much needed blessing to her family.

As a side note, there are raffle prizes available for donations - for details go here.

Thank you.

It suddenly got really dark around here, the weather station is showing a huge storm of some sort coming directly toward us in the next half hour. It’s “red” which is apparently the most intense color on the radar. The sirens are going off over and over and over again all over the place.

AND I AM PISSED BECAUSE I’M AFRAID THEY’RE GOING TO WAKE BUTTON UP FROM HER NAP.

UPDATE: So… we never got that storm. While the weather channel was saying we were getting blasted by fierce rain and tornadoes… the sun was shining down on our house.  Figures.

But my choices right now are that, or putz around and not get paid for today because I have nothing constructive to do.

As you can see by the fact that I’m even blogging about this, I’m currently leaning toward the latter.