Good Ol' Blogger

Blogger is being tempermental with me and not letting me upload images tonight, so guess you're all stuck with my random ramblings. I haven't posted any random thoughts for awhile (or, perhaps, all of my thoughts could be considered random---interesting!) So here goes. You can blame Blogger. (M&A---your sneak peek will be up as soon as Blogger behaves :) )

Some friends and I formed a book club last January. It was my New Year's resolution to reconnect with my friends as I have let myself become so busy that I was neglecting myself. It worked! I have this great group of buddies that I now meet with monthly and drink wine and gossip have intelligent discussions about books. It was even our main topic of conversation tonight, making the time to do things for yourself. I remember when I first became a mom I thought my needs should all be placed not only on the back burner, but really off the stove completely. That made me completely miserable and in turn made my family miserable with me. Unhappy mommy? Unhappy kids. I feel really lucky to be so young and to have learned this valuable lesson. So once a month I make it a priority to meet with my bookclub, even if it's just a few of us, and it recharges me and makes it possible for me to come sit back here and love what I do again. Don't for a second think it's not really hard for me sometimes to go..."Oh I really shouldn't leave the kids since I worked all day" or "I have to answer those emails", etc. Sound familiar? Call up some old friends and commit to just once a month of adult only time--dinner club, book club, etc...you will be surprised at how much it does for you.

My next random thought---some ask me about my watermarks on my images. Most assume it's because I'm protecting my images from clients who would download and print them. Oh how I wish it were that--the images on my blog and website are low resolution and would look like junk printed. The reason I watermark every single image on my blog and my website is because in the past, I have actually found websites on the internet that have stolen my pictures and people I know and placed them on their own webpages and blogs and claimed them as their own work (shame, shame). So this is why I watermark right smack in the middle of each image, so it can't be cropped off or photoshopped easily.

And lastly--we visited the State Fair of Texas this weekend. This has been a family tradition for as long as I have been alive, and I can think of only one year that I didn't go in 31 years. And if you are not from TX, our State Fair kicks your State Fair's behind. The best part of the State Fair of course is the food, and it becomes a contest in our family to see who can eat the most junk. My husband, who has a bottomless pit for a stomach, wins by a landslide each year. This year's highlights--fried cookie dough (pretty darn good, I was surprised!) fried chicken livers, cotton candy of course, belgian waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar, root beer from a barrel, and the classic Fletcher's corny dogs. Lowlights---fried marshmallows, pizza ( I'm assuming next year it will be fried anyway, everything else is!) . And a really good thing to tell yourself when you're eating all this junk is that you're walking around all day anyways, so it cancels the bad eating out!! That's my logic at least.

Be back tomorrow, I hope, with an adorable sneak peek. :)