Food for thought ....

Yesterday morning as I was waiting for our sand to show up, I was poking through the paper .... and read THIS article. It hinges on the conflicting message of "wait for sex, but also get married later" and how it can be a struggle, possibly even make the "wait for marriage" part even more difficult. Interesting.

And I've been chewing over this with my mind ......

Well, the thing of it is it made the point that some religions are pushing people to get married earlier rather than wait. Interesting.

But I never felt pressure to WAIT to get married. I also never felt pressure TO get married. Ok, maybe I did, but it was self-imposed. It had nothing to do with my family or peers.

But at the same time, I have friends who in their professional environments have had clients ask "oh, you're HOW OLD and not married yet?" but it seems those are older people who say that.

SO people are waiting until they're older to get married. So what? The median age is 26 for ladies and 28 for men. So? I was older than that by a year; Erik my more than a decade. SO WHAT? Why this pressure and scrutiny? Is this just some ploy to undermine the abstinence message?

I guess I wonder if this pressure to NOT marry comes from work. Gradaute, get a job, establish a career, work 60+ hours a week, get ahead. Heck, when someone is doing that, who has the TIME to find a quality future spouse? Seriously!

What's wrong with waiting, gaining some life perspective and making an informed and educated decision about a spouse? Why get wrapped up in the numbers of "I'm 4 years older than the median woman so I should be married by now"? Seriously! St. Gianna was in her 30s when she wed. So why are we in such a hurry???? And if someone waits, why heckle them??????

Sorry, random tangent is over. Back to the patio!

EDIT: be sure to read the first comment from my sister's mother-in-law ... she really hit the nail on the head!!!!

Esse the cat + Frankie the dog

Well, our cat is NOT amused by the dog of our friend, Coop. Esse does NOT stand down to the dog.

Formal introductions were made, as you can see here:



In fact, she pretty much stands her ground, as you can see here:


Of course, Erik and Coop egg on Frankie .... but Frankie seems to know not to get too close .... "or else."

Patio Process III

VERY BUSY getting this done .... progress going well!

Monday: post-hurricane:


Final digging this morning:


With weed guard in:


With AB3 in:


NOTE: we have about a ton of AB3 left. If you want to come and get it, it's YOURS!!!!

UPDATE: The AB3 has been spoken for, thank you very much. I'm happy it will have a new home that isn't in our driveway, so the sand that's coming tomorrow can be MUCH closer to where we're putting it! :)

Crossover — Emily's Sr. Portraits

Hi guys! Sorry for so few blog posts, but I TOLD YOU I'M WORKING MY BUTT OFF ON HOME PROJECTS!!!!!!!!!! This morning, Coop was over and he showed me how to set a post for our privacy screen for the AC unit. Our deal was he'd come over and show me how to do it and I'd do the rest .... well, I didn't intentionally pull a Tom Sawyer on him, but he was sort of lollygaging around, so I suggested I play lead post setter and he could tell me if I did it right. So hence, we have 2 of our 4 posts set. Smart, smart, smart! ;)


In the meantime, please cruise on over to the Heartland Blog to see what I've been up to on the photography front. There's one post as of this morning, and I'm hoping I'll add another tomorrow ....

Middle bedroom!!!!!!!!

Before, I cleaned the middle bedroom from THIS:


into THIS: (you can check out the blog post HERE)


WELL .... now, IT'S CLEAN AND READY FOR OCCUPATION!!!!!!!


I don't think we'll paint it in the near future. I don't really have a vision in paint for this room .....







Yeah, there's a bit of stuff in the corner, but I can live with it.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why the heck there's a love seat in there .... well .... there isn't room in the living room. And there was enough room for it .... so I figured "why not?" :)


Of course, Esse had to inspect my work. Erik fondly calls her our "sidewalk supervisor." ;)

Patio Process II

Here's the beginning of our patio project/progress:


Which brings us to NOW. It's been a TON of work, but we're getting closer to putting the stone in!!!!!


As part of this, we decided to put in a new window well.


I don't have a "before" picture ... but the window is the access to under the addition to the house. Unfortunately, with the older one, we couldn't open the window, hence couldn't get under that part of the house. Not good news. Anyhow, WE DID IT!!!!!! I dug most of the area, and Erik ripped out the old one.

Oh, now that I think of it, I have a photo of Erik pulling it out on the other camera. So you'll have to wait until it gets downloaded. Sorry.

Oh MY!

Goodness. I might be in over my head here.

My schedule is getting more and more crazy ..... I'm trying to get quit a bit done for our upcoming party ... but have quite a bit going on.

Today: we replaced the window well in the patio. I also dug 3 post holes, 1 more to go.

Still left to be done: oh, the ENTIRE PATIO.

We're planning to power through it on Aug. 14-16 .... so anyone who wants to help, we'd love it! Got kids? No worries, we have a street in front of our house, they can play out there. ;) I have an engagement session out of town that Sunday evening, but I'm *hoping* we'll be done by then. At least with the stone work.

I also have a senior session coming up this Sunday, which I'm really looking forward to.

Busy, busy, busy, but all in good ways. Just sort of makes my head spin, ya know?

Also, some REALLY exciting news. My buddy who is helping us to finish the kitchen opening tells me he is pretty sure we have oak hardwood floors under our kitchen, and probably dining room!!!! Erik has for a long time wanted to put another type of floor down. But looks like we'll just have to have it finished. Yes, I say "have it finished" not "we will finish it." Can't even think of tackling another project right now. But in all honesty, it will probably happen next summer. When we're not here to see the massive mess I'm sure it will make. ;)

I'm so busy, I don't even have time to post a photo w/ this post .... see how crazy life is???!??!

Preparing for our house blessing ....

Who'd have thought .... that replacing this:


with this ....


would result in our ceiling fan becoming EXTREMELY noisy? Seriously! But it did. So yesterday, I removed the dimmer from our bedroom. Bye-bye ambiance. But now we can use the ceiling fan when we sleep! (I'm one of those people who is annoyed by sounds such as squeaky fans or ticking clocks when I sleep).

Ok, for those of you who don't know, our friend, Fr. Nick, will be doing a house blessing here in a few weeks. If you want to come, but don't know the details, leave a comment, shoot me an e-mail, send a smoke signal, something, and I'll get you the details.


But what this means is that I'm working my butt off to get some projects finished. Among them: the patio you saw a few days ago. There is now a big hole in our backyard and I gotta get that rolling. We've reserved a compactor and just need to get the digging done before this will really rock.


Also, remember the big hole in our kitchen wall?

Well, our buddy, Coop, was over yesterday and we have now framed it up, put a header in and sheetrocked over it. Just need to put the corners over it and do some mudding, then it will be ready to paint. :) Also, we moved that light switch! Originally, I thought we'd nestle it right next to the refrigerator, but Erik suggested we put it on the wall to the right ... and he was spot-on with that comment. It's fabulous! It even works. ;)

BUT I have become extremely realistic about things in the last few weeks. I really wanted to have the dining room painted before everyone came over, but I just have to be realistic and that will likely not happen. Also, at the very least, I wanted to get the master bathroom painted. I don't think that will happen either. And I DEFINITELY don't think the master bedroom will see a coat of paint.

Oh well, que sera, sera.

So, that's the long way of me telling you the blog might be neglected for a week or so while I get things in order around the house.

Patio Process I

Bear with me, folks, because this will likely be a LOOOONG blog post.


Well, everything started here .... with a pile of rocks on the side of our garage.


After we got them from Amy in Wichita, we piled them there .... and they just hung out for basically a year. Doing a lot of good, right? ;)


I knew we had a good amount of rock, but wasn't sure if we had enough to fill the entire area I wanted to fill, so I lugged them over and placed them in the area, to be sure. Yup, we did!


Well, Esse, our "sidewalk supervisor" wanted to be sure I was doing the job correctly. So she planted herself there to oversee the process.






Well, we have about 3 rabbits that like to hang out in our yard. Unfortunately, it looks like Esse has lost her killer instinct. One night, Erik and I chased the rabbit right under her nose — TWICE — and there was no blood. :( Erik feeds her too much. ;)


So .... there it is! Enough for the patio!


Next one will be about the digging .... but we gotta finish digging that hole. We're more than half way finished .... and then we have a bigger window well to put in .... oh this is going to be a busy few weeks!

Crossover — Beautiful Audrey

Isn't she the cutest thing EVER?!?!?!?!?

Erik tagged along to help. And to chat with Sean about life, golfing and everything sports. ;)

We've seen Sean and Ericka a few times over the last year, but it wasn't until she was a year that I was able to do some more portraits. Well .... all was going smoothly until Audrey hit the parking lot. LITERALLY. She's been walking about 3 months and Erik was encouraging her along with her Elmo .... she got distracted, didn't pick her feet up enough ... and BOOM. A nice raspberry on her forehead about 15 minutes into our portrait session. Nice. But you can't tell in black and white! ;)

Cruise on over to the Heartland Blog to check out more photos, plus to see how Sean and Ericka hung photos from her first portrait session.

I want to add there were a few times during our session I thought Erik was going to stuff Audrey under his shirt and try to smuggle her into our car and take her home with us. She is AWFULLY adorable!