{Virtual Coffee}

Here we are another weekend upon us, I think the older I get the faster days/weeks/months goes by quickly. I'm a little late to be on the *Tuesday* part of VC but I'm here, sort of. After I get to rambling you will understand a bit better on why I'm slow this week.

All I have to drink is a 7-up, I don't think I've had any caffeine since Tuesday of this week. So I go through this insomnia bit, there can be days i'm up until 1-2am then back up at 4:30am or so. I end up taking naps but still. So on this last Tuesday around 1am I totally thought I was going to head to bed and I totally thought I was going to lost anything I had eaten that night. So there I am in the bathroom and decided to take a pregnancy test just so I could move on and just know I had some stomach flu. I had been nauseous off and on for some time before this date. So I take the test and am like well at least it will be one less thing to be thinking about. Low and behold I was looking at the test and was totally in shock and seriously thought I was seeing things. 

 I turned my laptop back on and uploaded the photo to post on a message board I'm on to find out if I was seeing things, if it was an evaporation line or what it was. And why in the world was the test line so much darker then the control line of the test.  Sure enough they confirmed that I wasn't seeing things. So there i was after 1am not able to sleep and just a bit icky feeling. Just. overall. SHOCKED. You might wonder why, well we have a 13 year old son, I was pregnant one other time after the 13 year old that resulted in a miscarriage. So for the past 10 years there's been no surprises or anything like that, until now. 

I made sure to buy another box of tests when I went grocery shopping on Tuesday and bought Clear blue easy and here it is, the pregnant words big as you please.

So slowly its sinking in, on Tuesday I also made an appointment to go to the Dr to find out as well. So 3 tests later I'm pregnant after 10 years and get to have a 14 year gap between my kiddos. I'm due September 22,2011. When I was pregnant with out 13 year old his due date was September 21, 1997 but he was born on September 4th 97. So we'll see. I think the good Lord wanted to keep me on my toes or something. I'm still nervous about miscarriage, but I'm hoping and praying that with this being a total surprise that its a keeper at that.

So for our coffee on Friday evening that's my exciting news.

Meet Me on Monday - January 24, 2011

So I came across this meme and decided to jump on in. I'm trying to get back into reconnecting with other homeschoolers, I had taken a break when we decided to use Switched on Schoolhouse. But we are not going to keep going with it. So I'm back in the homeschooling world.

1. What is your favorite kind of fudge?

Butterscotch, yummmmmm

2. Is there snow outside your window?

yes - more than I'd like as well. LOL

3. What is your favorite meal of the day?

Supper

4. Do you text on your cell phone?

yes, I go through streaks of how often. Depending on who I'm texting with. One of my good friends and I often text all day long, then other times none at all.

5. Waffles or pancakes?

pancakes all the way!! I'm such an oddball as well, I grew up with my mom putting butter and sugar on my pancakes, and that's the only way I eat them. French toast is what I use syrup on.

Check out others on Meet Me On Monday

Decisions, decisions

Here I am, trying to figure out just what we will be using for curriculum this fall. Currently my son is using Switched on Schoolhouse and Saxon Math. Let's just say I think both need to be changed, I know one thing for sure and that's that I am not going to go with SOS this next fall. Its clear that he's not retaining what he should be. So I know it will be back to books/textbooks/workbooks that kind of thing. Because its obvious he needs something more on that level. Even though he *loves* doing stuff on the computer. 

I have no problems with that if he was passing everything like he should be, but he's not so for now we'll keep with it, and I'm going to go through the curriculum I had bought b4 SOS and probably get something together for the rest of this year.  So those two piles of school books I have on our kitchen table behind the kiddo's computer is going to be drug out and lesson plans figured out. 

This out to be fun to get that and my class work together, I will get to learn to balance things, which I think will be easy after I get moving. Yes SOS freed up some to where I didn't need to make lesson plans, but the reality of that is then I had no clue what he was doing. I didn't get to his computer often enough to check things out. So in the end its just a waste of money and often time. At least there's a new desktop computer for him to use, and we have typing that he needs to be going back to, and if we switch to teaching textbooks for math he'll have a computer to use as well.

I honestly can't believe that I would *miss* making lesson plans up. I thought I'd be relieved that I didn't have to do that. But in the end I did miss it, might be an odd thing but its all good :D I just need to find some English/Language Arts that will work for us. Its the one thing we are the most behind on, I mean grade wise behind, its been a struggle since we started. There's just never been something that would fully work and help the kiddo learn. Well that and his reading comprehension. He of course is your typical *I don't like to read* boy. Granted there are plenty out there that love to read, I've just never been able to get him to enjoy it. Which is a bummer because I always loved reading, more casual reading and less school book reading but reading non the less.

So if anyone out there has suggestions feel free to leave them in comments section. We've tried a few things that just didn't work and others we might just have missed that were out there and would be a great fit. 

Ever have one of those days?

I think I have a annoying, yet quirky but lovable kiddo. I'm sure that sounds like I'm some horrible mother. I only say this, because this morning has been interesting, yet like every other morning with the kiddo. His little quirks can be annoying, simple little things really. The main one being he's always picking up the dogs, mainly Ginger, then bringing her to me. She's off doing something or laying where she wants to and he disturbs her. Its the one thing that is majorly annoying. Minor yes, but still annoying. I am always telling him to leave the dogs alone. Just how many times does one need to remind a child, a 13 year old kiddo at that, to just leave the dogs alone. Let them do what they were doing. But as I said he's still lovable, just quirky...lol

So that was what has went on since I drug my sorry butt out of my nice warm bed. Vegging in bed with my laptop. I've been out of the bed long enough to start Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon rolls, just waiting until noon to get finished. I get all fired up about baking then I decide to make these cinnamon rolls and then realize its a long time b4 the final results...lol. But they are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO yummy! So well worth the time. Of course my husband isn't all that excited, or rather he's being impatient and wanting goodies now instead of later. But I just have no ambition to make anything else. Might change my mind who knows.

 We ended up with 51 cinnamon rolls and a batch of chocolate chip bars. So the hubs should be set for a couple days for snacks! Ate a yummy supper of steak and potatoes. I so LOVE putting my steaks in to the crock pot, they fall apart when done and are just so easy to eat. I'm sure some people think that's "cheating" that if you knew how to make a steak you wouldn't need to do it that way. But ya know what, I could care less about that opinion...lol. My family loves it this way so we go with what works for us.

I've went through 2 crock pots before this one, because it never fails the inserts end up cracked to where it will slowly leak out of the bottom. Frustrating, I always make sure to not add any liquids to it when its hot, because we all know hot and cold aren't going to mix well when it comes to ceramic. If there's any liquid to add I do it at the beginning. Course I haven't any idea what I'd do if some would need to be added later. Ah live and learn, and learning is what I'm still doing.



I haven't been part of a blog hop in awhile so since I moved my blog I figured I should jump back into some blog hops! So if you might have been following me before when my blog was at http://www.emilylindphotographymn.com/wordpress and still want to keep up with me please follow me again. I have no desire to change blogs again, I had this one to begin with and decided to just come back with it. So I went through the process of exporting all posts from my wordpress one. Walla here I am!

I'll leave you with a snapshot of summer, because I'm ready for it to be here, anything but winter. This Minnesota weather the past couple days has been rough!

Well I think I rambled enough, I hadn't intended to ramble on a blog hop but I was already writing the post so decided to add the 2 instead of making a seperate post.

Leave me a comment and I'll follow back! Thanks for stopping by.

Emma

Shadow Fun

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I have been waiting all week to post this, at first I was like there is no way anything interesting will come out of me photographing an egg. Only because I didn't have any fun props or anything. But I think I did pretty well with what I did have. Again it involves shadows, which I'm loving lately!

 I haven't joined in over here in awhile, well I hadn't blogged or anything in awhile. But with the other photo challenge I had so much fun playing with shadows and it seems to have become a slight addiction. Mainly because of the fact that its winter, cold and cloudy most of the time. So I love when the sun is out and just take it all in!
I didn't do anything fancy with the above photo. All are taken in B/W on camera, and very little editing. A little sharpening and contrast. Otherwise nothing else. I just set things Up on my island counter with the son streaming in my small kitchen window. It was a challenge with such a small area. But I loved what I came up with. They were all taken the same way, but I think the last one is my favorite one so that's the one I'm using.

{Life Made Lovely}

So I came across this lovely meme when I was reading

 

LOVE reading her stuff BTW. 

Now I don't have anything fancy or earth shattering to share. I don't even think I have any photos to share that haven't already been shared. *Gasp* the horror! 

Oh wait I can't remember if I shared these awhile back or not, if so forgive me :D I have been looking for some old camera's just to photograph, I was talking with my mom about it when we'd went to an Antique store she frequents. I started looking there when I find out mom had 2 old cameras and one was exactly what I was looking for. Go figure...lol.

Aren't they just great? I just smile every time I see them. I probably should give them back to mom but I just can't yet, I never know when I'm going to want to photograph them again!

Head on over to 

 and check out what others do to make their days more lovely!

{Virtual Coffee}

Good Morning! 

Here I am writing my virtual coffee a couple days late but I haven't participated in a few weeks so here I am.

I haven't had any coffee this morning because I woke up at about 3:30am with heartburn. Oh the joys of that! So here it is 6am and I'm still awake but at least the heartburn is gone!

Now you might wonder just why I haven't had coffee just because of heartburn, well for some *lovely* reason coffee either give me heartburn (at times that is) or just makes it worse when I already have it. So I'll be giving it a try in a bit.

If we were meeting for coffee I'd tell you that I really need to get back to blogging! I haven't really blogged since December sometime. I was doing so well with taking photos and participating in memes and challenges then nothing. So I've been slowly getting back into it. Boy have I missed it as well as my readers, as few as I might have :) 

If we were meeting for coffee I'd tell you when I woke up so early this morning, I was afraid to look at the temp, and I had a right to be -20 here this morning. The hubs just checked and its now -10 so its went up. The weather guys have pointed out that our lovely below zero weather is back here in Minnesota. Oh how I've missed that *eyeroll*

If we were meeting for coffee I'd tell you I've been having fun using my external flash that I haven't used much since getting it last year. So my pooches have been *tormented* as well as I've been enjoying photographing with shadows! Its been great, of course its extra nice when I'm just enjoying the sun since its hit or miss around here!

These are the ones I took recently of the babies. The first one is of Ginger and the other 2 are of her sister Molly

 I'm really loving Coffeeshop Rita's Velvet Truffle action! Gives that slight vintage feel!

I've had good intentions to get into exercising I have several Wii exercise games, if that's what you want to call them. But when I do get up early and everyone else is sleeping I'm usually enjoying the quiet and checking things out on the computer. I really should take some of that time and exercise. Of course when the hubs falls asleep on the sofa, well I'm not going to exercise then, I don't want anyone watching me exercise...lol.

Well I've talked your ear off and I better head on out, the hubs will be leaving for work soon {I hope} lol then maybe I'll get to that workout before the kiddo gets up. Hoping that if I workout I won't want to go take a nap!

Have a great day and thanks for the chat! 

See ya next week

Black and White Wednesday

With being stuck indoors or should I say, rather be indoors then out due to the snow and chilly weather, I've been having to figure out just what to photograph. So today I was working on a photo challenge that I'll post later this week, and ended up with a couple ideas in the process.

I've been really having fun with shadows, seems that not seeing the sun that often due to winter I keep taking advantage of shadows from it when its out...lol.

So since I've been doing more still lifes, oh wait that's generally all I do unless its nature and well there isn't anything out in nature that's really worth shooting these days. There's snow, snow and oh wait for it, more snow! Thankfully we haven't gotten as much as those south of us here in Minnesota but still. And of course they are calling for our below zero temps yet again. Brrr.

Seems as though I've been enjoying black and whites more than color as well. At least it fits in with the Black and White Wednesday photo challenge!

One word

One word project has pulled me in and made a separate blog for it. To check it out head on over to focus . Hope to see you stop on by, let me know if you join in or already have!

Saturday delight

I haven't taken any photos recently, this is the time of the year I don't like much, mainly because there's nothing to photograph. Snow, snow, and more snow.  I have yet to figure out how to take different photos snow wise. LOL But this is why I haven't blogged in who knows how long. I miss my readers!

I came across this challenge and am hoping its the one to *dig me outta* my rut and lack of motivation

Lines - Fork is the challenge

Boy let me tell you it took me forever to remember where the B/W setting was on my DSLR....LOL. But finally found it.  Wasn't too bad just had to tweak contrast and sharpen slightly.