a little game...if you dare.....

one of these photos was not taken on lake michigan. the first person {neighbors excluded} to guess which one it is and can tell me where in madison it was taken, will win a print of your choice from this post or my previous post. if your walls and picture frames are full or if you're not really into photos {not sure what in the heck you're doing here if that's the case....snort} i have another little something something i'll send you instead.

happy weekend everyone. by the way, i have a dear friend whose family needs a whole lot of prayers right now, so please, send your extras my way and i'll forward them on.

rocks and sand make me play like a four year old.....

last week, just because we could, we took off for a few days. the idea of flying anywhere was a bit overwhelming with our short notice of "oh my gosh, we can actually leave town," so with just a handful of days to play with, we winged it with a road trip.

we headed north to kohler, south to milwaukee, east on the car ferry to muskegon, michigan, south to holland, michigan down and around to chicago and finally north to head back home. guess what? we do road trips really well. the food {oh my gosh did we eat} was the most memorable part of the trip. well, that and the outdoor hot tub. the weather pretty much sucked, as it was much cooler than what was originally forecasted, but even with my semi constant whining about being cold, i survived. in the middle of lake michigan, on top of the ferry, there was a nano second where i almost froze to death. seriously, i did.

 

we actually came back a day earlier than planned, which worked out fantastically as we were blessed with a day warm enough to take a glorious walk. i actually like to say we went hiking since i wore my hiking boots and we walked three to four miles, but if anyone was watching us they'd say, "nah, that's a walk."

nothing special about my seagull here, but oh my bokeh is simply divine. snort.

this is probably a special lighthouse or something on the milwaukee side of lake michigan, but honestly i don't really know for sure. history and i don't really know each other very well. that rocky relationship started way back in middle school and has just never really taken off.

probably another history making lighthouse...or something.

i hope the long weekend treated all of you wonderfully and that the start of summer in your neck of the woods {hello al roker} has you all smiling and dancing in the sunshine.

on my back.....

like all of you, i've said prayers for the people in oklahoma. i can't even begin to imagine what they're all going through and if there's ever a time to be reminded that stuff is just stuff, it's after a devastation like this. 

we can live without stuff, but family photographs and important papers are always the things i think about when i see a foundation missing its house. just recently our daughter needed her certified birth certificate and of course i knew exactly where it was and which file it was in. can you imagine having to replace ALL of the important papers you have filed away for your family? to me, that seems like an overwhelming and daunting task.

for mother's day, the same daughter went through a bag of old photos looking for a funny one to use on FB. well, not necessarily a funny one, but a photo of me with our kids from 22 years ago is funny. i can't imagine that group of photos not being in the basement, in the familiar bag they're in, on the floor in our cedar closet. losing those would be heartbreaking. if your photos are in an album, i bow to you.

i wish i had so much going on that i could fill pages for you to read, but i don't. i do know that fuchsia plants are exquisite, even in black and white, and in order to shoot their gorgeous blossoms i had to lay on my back on our screened in porch and i liked it. i also know that you can never have enough friends and making new ones, or getting to know old ones better, is such a gift. i think we have a ghost, but it's friendly, so i'm okay with that. i like the sound of new construction. our neighbors are getting a screened in porch and i find the rhythmic sound of the hammers comforting. i have never driven my hubby's car and today i am for the first time. is that odd?

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stupid little sticks.....

our weekend has been filled with windows wide open and pollen everywhere. am i complaining? absolutely not. pollen and i get along. snow is my enemy. we still seem to be in a very unbalanced weather pattern, which honestly is pissing me off. a few days of warmth and then wham, the cold air  comes sneaking back in, forcing me to pull things out of my closet to wear that i should have burned as soon as all of our snow was gone. i.want.to.wear.my.summer.dresses.damnit.

we had to run downtown yesterday for a quick errand, only to find out {too late} that we were trapped in what i'm calling the graduation abyss. uw madison's graduation ceremonies were held yesterday, which means kids, families and cap and gowns where everywhere. how we managed to find a place to park is beyond me and getting back out of the parking garage abyss tested our patience, but we kept a smile on our faces and ended up treating ourselves to sushi once we got back to our side of our town.

now sushi...let's talk about that for a second. i think you either love it or hate it, right? or are you like me and are somewhat in the middle? we only had rolls yesterday, which let me just say right now, "i can not fit a whole one of those puppies in my mouth and chew without choking," which hugely irritates me. i asked for the "chopsticks for dummies," but even with those, i was making a mess and ended up needing a fork as i had to cut them in half. but, you know what? i.didn't.care. besides, who really enjoys eating with chopsticks? balancing food and keeping an eye on it while trying to get it to your mouth is hard enough sometimes using a fork or a spoon, but two little sticks? give me a break.

anyone else love watching, "so you think you can dance."

decisions decisions.....

after my last post, written while i was feeling a bit lost, things have changed a little. i received so many comments and personal emails that were filled with suggestions, privacy concerns, scary personal blog stories, etc. that i hit the brakes and put the "girl tribe" idea back into the "think tank." my apologies to anyone who might feel offended that i did this, but it's the right thing to do.

kidney stone update-as of a week ago today, i passed the little bugger [i only had one, even though i was told two, oops] and i feel great. other than the 20-30 minute, i'm delivering a baby right now feeling, i was pretty much unscathed from the whole thing. i guess i'm one of the lucky ones.

i think this is a beautiful bag. i would love to sit down to breakfast every morning to plates that look like this. maybe i could actually journal if i tried it this way. i mean, i can doodle so this should be easy, right? most of you with iPhones already know all of the shortcuts or just good things to know about your phone, but in case you don't and if maybe sometimes you feel like an iPhone dummy, this will help. speaking of iPhones, do you have a screen protector on yours? i did for over a year, but i just recently took mine off and i have to admit that my phone feels so sleek and sexy in my hand now that the protector is in the garbage. little things like that make me happy.

needed::a girl tribe...want to join me ?

what is a tribe? when i googled this word, you can only imagine how many definitions showed up and after reading all of them, i liked this one best... "a group of people with similar values or interests." obviously i like plain and simple.

it's also obvious, that i already i have a tribe. my blogging community is my tribe and without all of you, i'd be lost. actually without all of you i'd be doing something other than playing on my computer, maybe making a difference out in the world somehow, but you'd all be missed horribly.

so where am i going with this? well, in my last post, i just barely touched on the idea of a private blog and due to the randomness of that last post, you might have stopped reading after hearing about my kidney stones and missed that section completely.

so to get you up to date, this is where my mind has been wandering lately. we all have our public blogs and that's fantastic, but i often find myself reading how you can't share everything you'd like to share due to the fact that your family and friends read your blog, or there is something going on in your family, but it's not your place to share "their" story, so it doesn't get told or talked about. what if there was a private space where we could be open and honest with each other, talking about the things we can't share on our blogs? when i say things, i mean big things. intimate things.  sad things. very personal things. maybe even things you've never shared before with anyone. things like low self esteem, sibling rivalry, sex, being introverted, empty nesting, financial problems, lack of fitting in within your community, being overly sensitive, menopause, fears, jealousies, not feeling like you're enough...and the list could {and will hopefully} go on and on as i ask for your suggestions.

to those of you who told me you'd be interested in this from my previous post, thank you so much, but we don't have enough people yet. i really want this to be a tribe...a girl tribe...where someday we'll all join hands in a circle at the beach and realize just how far we've come.

what do you say, are you in? you can leave a comment or send me a personal email letting me know your thoughts or concerns. all i know for now is that i have a new, private blog with a new banner and it's just sitting and waiting for all of us to come together and have real, down to earth, honest girl time. 

oh, and just so i don't confuse you, this blog isn't going anywhere. i'll still be here, offering randomness and goofiness as often as i can. 

happy weekend everyone and to all of you mothers out there, bless your heart for everything you have done, are doing and will continue to do to make sure your children are healthy, happy and bringing light into the world you have created for them.

they say you forget about the pain.....

maybe that's the case with childbirth, but not kidney stones. yep, i've got two of them. stop laughing. i could go into juicy and personal details about my stones, but kidney stones are kidney stones and everyone has their own story and honestly, they're just stones. okay fine, i did pass out the other day and am beyond grateful that my hubby was there to save my life....snort....but seriously, he did. if he hadn't been there, i would have face planted into the granite counter top. see, i told you. he.saved.my.life. oh, and i guess in regards to kidney stones, my butter knife above feels more like a steak knife.

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i'm loving this space and this place and this face {it's not really a face but i needed a rhyming word} for my current "inspiration boards." seriously people, i could look at photographs all day long and never tire of it.

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remember a few posts ago when i talked about what i eat for breakfast? here's where i do most of my grocery shopping. want to have breakfast with me sometime? i'll bring the tea and the laughs if you want to bring the nutella. oh and bagels. really good bagels.

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lately i feel like i know too many people who have given up on their relationships, are going through a divorce, are asking for help, are wondering "why us" or what do we do now or are occasionally hitting the same speed bumps i've traveled over in my own marriage and i thought maybe this post would offer some help. to those of you who have shared some personal emails with me lately, i'm thinking of you and hoping that things get back on track. in fact, i'm actually thinking of starting a private blog, by invitation only, where "those who enter" can share very personal stories that are not in a public forum, but instead are within the private and protected walls of a new home. where gentle arms, soft shoulders to cry on and listening ears of fellow bloggers will become the "girl tribe" you've been looking for. what do you think? send me a note if you're interested in becoming part of this tribe.

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okay, that's enough for now. time for more water so the peeing can begin again.

and they laid helpless.....

this was taken four years ago in may and is still a favorite of mine. i love shooting from my ankle. well, that's what i call it. i'm not sure if anyone else calls it this or if there's a more technical name for it, but when i can't get close to the ground for whatever reason {hillside, mud, wet grass} i hold my camera at ankle height and shoot away. i love the bug hanging out in the background of this photo, which of course i didn't even see until after i got home and pulled the photo up on my computer. ankle shots can be full of surprises.

i ate some garlic shrimp a few months ago from a company i won't beat up here because i like some of their other things, and ended up with a migraine. after looking at the ingredients, sodium bisulfate and sodium tripolyphosphate were probably the culprits. did you click on my links? did you read about these preservatives? um, yeah...don't eat food with ingredients like this. just saying.

winter killed the big bushes in front of our house. yes, killed them as in weighting them down with so much snow and ice that it cracked their little hearts {branches} and they laid helpless all winter until our landscaper showed up this morning and took them away.

now for a medical update. i'm doing great not being on an antidepressant for my migraines. i've put back on the five pounds i lost, i sleep at night without taking any medication and i've only had one migraine since i weaned myself off of the antidepressant.

i'm glad so many of you loved my last post filled with quotes. 

here's a couple more for today.

"don't mix bad words with your bad mood. you'll have many opportunities to change a mood, but you'll never get the opportunity to replace the words you spoke."

anonymous

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"if you think the grass is greener on the other side, it's fertilized with bullshit."

anonymous

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