Happy Friday!

Whoa! It’s Friday! I’m pretty excited about this. This week was not the greatest, school wise. I found out that I made a 50, on one of my History quizzes. It’s a long story, but lets just say that my teacher was gone for two weeks and then we got a “surprise” quiz from a substitute. Then I was totally lost on this past weeks 5th chapter quiz so I’m pretty sure I probably got another 50. Eh. It’s been rough. I get today, and maybe tomorrow off from studying. I hit the books again on Sunday.

I ran 3.2 miles last Sunday because I needed it. I felt fat, lazy, and really gross. I was tired and just needed that release. So, I hit the treadmill and it was awesome. Yesterday, I was only able to do 2 miles because my husband had to get some stuff done. Also, with my schedule I’ve realized that running will only be doable on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. And that can change depending on plans. So I’m trying to find time. I felt so much better after running that I know I can’t stop. I may not be a marathon runner, but I get something out of 3 miles. That’s enough for me.

Emery had a stomach bug at the beginning of this week I think. She had a whole day of acting normal but not eating or drinking hardly anything. The sitter said she just refused to eat. A few sips of her yogurt, half a bottle (for the whole day), and 3 strawberries. That’s it. And, at the end of the day, around 7:30, she said “UP” and started trying to climb up on the bed. So I put her in bed and she grabbed her pacifier, kicked her shoes off, pulled the covers up to her neck, and fell asleep. Whoa! That never happens. Bed time isn’t usually till 8:00 for her, and we ALWAYS have to read a book before turning all of the lights off. She’ll fall asleep about 10-20 minutes after lights out. So that behavior earlier this week was a bit...weird. It was a little too grown up for me, too. Thankfully, she’s now back to her usual self and bed time rituals have gone back to normal.

We still haven’t gotten a vehicle. I’m a bit tired of looking for other cars so I just told my parents that the escape we had looked at locally would be fine. We were suppose to go sign papers on Monday, but my dad took it for a test drive and found a problem with it. So the guy said he’d get it fixed and pass it through an inspection. Then we can go back and try it out. Fingers crossed that it will be sometime next week and hopefully there won’t be any problems with it after that for awhile. 

Today, I feel sick. Bloated, food tastes bland, and I think I might throw up. Hopefully, I didn’t catch what Emery had. But if I did I hope it only lasts 24 hours. Tomorrow I fully plan on getting up early, going for a run, and then doing some DEEP cleaning. The house is a mess, we’re out of clean towels, and we’re down to the last set of sheets. Plus, the drastic changes in weather recently (one day hot, one day rain, one day with a high of 70) has me in full “spring cleaning” mode, only instead of spring it’ll be for winter. I need to get rid of clothes, and random crap that we just don’t need anymore. Plus that computer room is in some much needed rearranging. Our house needs tending so it’ll be a full day of cleaning. But I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy it. Hope your week has been wonderful! 

More Time

I’ve been talking about making some changes in my life lately. And I’ve been trying to really see what all I’m spending my time on, aside from work and school. I realized that a lot of it is spent doing homework, catching up on TV shows, creating a blog post, and sleep. For me, this is very very wrong.

I’m sure that it’s perfectly ok to let Emery watch 15-20 minutes of Sprout TV while I’m trying to do some extra chores or get ready for work. But lately, I haven’t really been spending quality time with her. Yes, I see her every day. We play and goof around. We go outside and play with her toys. And while I’m studying, she’ll set up “camp” next to me with her little notebook and map colors. But I feel like it’s just not as much time as I should be spending with her. Sometimes, when I get home I either start on homework, or my mom asks to take Em for a walk or give her a bath. I usually let her take Emery, and I spend about an hour catching up on any recorded shows or creating a post.  I feel like this needs to stop.

I need to start spending more time with my baby girl. I’ve been so caught up in “catching up” and watching TV before bed time that I probably should spend reading that extra bed time story. Or taking her outside and letting her walk around like we used to. With school, I just kind of got a little overwhelmed this first month, and now that I’m getting my routine more set, I feel like I should take that extra step to spend more time with my family. With my baby.

This will probably mean less posts. Twice a week maybe? Special occasions? I’m not really sure. I just feel like I’m taking a lot of quality time for granted. Not to mention I haven’t worked out in two weeks so I feel like I’m getting all sluggish and lazy. I need to get my energy back on track. I need to be more focused. This means the TV will be turned off more, and I’ll be spending less time on the internet. I really need this. It’s just part of being a good wife and mommy. For me anyway. This feels like another good step in the right direction though! 

p.s. It looks like we will be getting

another vehicle. Hopefully by Monday.

This weekend I'll be out looking again.

Wish me luck!

Privacy

Privacy, privacy, privacy. Such a hard thing to really be serious about, especially when you have a blog. Even more so when you have these social networking sites, that make it “oh so easy” to share with friends and family (and the rest of the world).

Last year I found that some old, creepy man, had tagged himself in pictures of my daughter on Facebook. That’s when I started really looking into the privacy setting for EVERYTHING. Blogging, Social Networking sites, and even applications. This is the reason I have right-click disable. Now, I know there are some sick people out there, and some that even just steal things for fun. So, I disabled the links that way no one could click through on any images of my daughter. I’m sure some genius out there can get around the disabled right-click but it makes it that much more of a task for them. Then, I started to watermark all of my pictures. But, I knew that if someone out there really wanted to, they could figure out a way to steal them and to remove the watermark. But I felt as if I had taken all the measure I could with the knowledge that I had to keep them from being taken.

Then after some “identity theft” happened with the Sartin’s my husband and I really started discussing about how much I should be posting and sharing in general. Down came a lot of pictures on Facebook. Then, I stopped posting as many pictures on this blog as well as my other blog (meant for family only). I still wanted to keep this blog up and just post a few pictures here and there. My daughter is my joy, and this blog is a way for me to share that with you, and as a way to document her life. I plan to print out this blog and have it made into a journal. But now blogger has this new “Lightbox” feature that lets you view pictures from someone’s posts. This wouldn't have been so bad if they had left the image URL hidden. But no, that’s not the case. So now anyone that views ANY image of mine can click on the link, and then right-click to save my picture. This is not something I signed up for. There is no way to disable this feature either so I’m in a bit of a pickle.

I really hate being so paranoid and I don’t care if some steals a picture of me because I’m nothing special. Hubba, hubba. But my daughter is my daughter. I don’t need some bored teenager trying to play off that she’s theirs. I don’t want some sick pervert to come across the images and save them. And lastly, I don’t want Emery to be forced into being thrown out into the internet. She doesn’t have her own choices yet and I as her mother really need to do my best to protect her. So I have decided that if I post pictures of her, they will not show her face. I don't know if I'll be taking down any of the previous pictures or just replacing them with others. But, I feel like this is a good thing to do in order to protect my little one. Plus, the risk that comes with doing nothing at all is just not worth it me. I'd rather try to be more private than throw everything out there when it comes to her.