Update on 3 Months of Life

What's this? A new post? I know my many readers probably thought I've dropped off the face of the earth with this blog, but I'm back after a 3 month hiatus. I've been meaning to write, but good intentions don't count for much without any action behind them. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Not that I think I'm on my way to hell by any means, but I do believe that good intentions don't always amount to much. Actions speak louder than words and all that. And that's enough cliches for this post.

Even after 3 months I don't have much to update or write about. I think it's because I wait so long that I forget all the things I want to write about before I get around to doing it. Of course, if I wait 3 months before I get around to it I'm forgetting 3 months of stuff. It's not even like I've been that busy--my summer was actually really relaxing and enjoyable. I had a full 2 weeks off from my job at the end of June/beginning of July, and for most of the summer I was home 2-3 days a week with Charlotte, so I can't even use the excuse of being busy. Just lazy. Seriously though, it was great to have a semi-lazy summer after my first year at my job. Charlotte and I went to the pool and the beach a lot during the days, and with Eric some evenings and weekends. It was the perfect summer to have a pool pass.

We have been a little busy getting used to be home owners and everything that that entails. We took out a few of our hideous bushes (if you don't know, I am not a shrubbery person overall, I prefer either flowers/vegetable gardens or trees, most bushes/shrubs I think are pretty ugly, and the previous homeowners let a lot of them get out of control which made them worse). It's amazing how much more open our yard looks with some of them gone. There are a few more we want to take out but they are more similar to trees in that their roots are more like trunks and impossible to just pull out so we need to look into that more. This past weekend we painted 3 rooms in one day, which was a ton of work and a very long day, but now we finally have color on the walls! That was one of the things I was looking forward to most about having our own house, after living in apartments for 5 years with white/beige walls. Yuck. Our living room and dining room have accent walls painted so we just left those. We painted the kitchen, which previously was a weird bold yellow/almost gold color that just didn't fit and we really didn't like it. The new color is "crisp celery" and it's a lighter green color. It feels very natural and comfortable and light in there now which I love. I'm really happy with it, especially since it was very difficult to pick a color for that room. Eric and I struggled with that room and the bedroom, but we easily picked a bathroom color which is a very pretty blue and goes well with our "under the sea" theme. Really, I just put my many killer whale figurines in there and it all looks great. My favorite room is actually the one that I felt like I was really compromising on, our bedroom. Eric loved the color purple we picked, and I liked a different color, and there was a different blue we both felt like we could compromise on, but I figured if I was going to compromise either way we might as well go with the one that he at least liked, so we went with purple and I love it! I can't believe how happy I am with it, every time I go in there I just feel happy. It looks amazing.

Of course, this painting coincided with Charlotte's 2 year birthday party (do I really have a 2 year old?) so we were even busier on Saturday than just with the painting. It was our own fault since we are poor planners and planned to buy our paint over Labor Day weekend when they had a good sale, so we put paint samples all over the walls to pick what we wanted and then realized we were having people over. So we just committed to the kitchen and then had enough help to do the rest. Thanks again to my family for being so awesome and helping out! For the party on Sunday, we had about 40 people over so it was a little crazy but super fun. She was just adorable as usual and was so excited about her gifts and her cake and ice cream. We just made the cake but just the fact that she got cake and ice cream was a dream come true to her. Eric and I got her a cozy coupe. It was a joy to watch her as she saw it and realized it was for her. She saw it and immediately jumped out of her chair to go play with it. Made my day, which was amazing to start with. Even after 2 years I'm continually amazed by her and the things she does. She can sing the abc's, count to 7, talks like a child much older than she is, repeats everything we say, is very affectionate, and a little mischievous. We have a lot of fun with her.

Other than that, work has been going well, it's really starting to pick up now that school has started again. I spent a ton of time this summer preparing for the year so I hope I'm ready! I feel like I still have a lot of work to do but I have a good chunk of time at work the next couple of weeks so I'm hoping I can finish up with any of my "summer" projects that I have left. Some of them are really ongoing throughout the year but I want to be as prepared as I can. I'm really excited about the year and I hope my passion and excitement are contagious to the youth and my leaders.

 It's a little bit funny that the past few weeks have been so busy and I'm finally writing a new post. I guess I really just was lazy this summer. It was a great summer, but now it's time to get back into the swing of things!

We Bought a House

For anybody who isn't friends with me on Facebook or isn't related to me and yet somehow still reads my blog,  Eric and I bought a house. We closed almost 2 weeks ago now (wow) and moved in just over one week ago (wow again). It is a huge adjustment moving into a house. We've lived in 3 different apartments during our marriage, with 2 years being the longest apartment stay, and yet I feel like I transitioned into those changes a lot more easily than I have with a house. Maybe it's because we have more that we are responsible for and so much that we have to buy and get done and combine that with everything else in our life including a child which we didn't have before we last moved, it's a lot different. We've barely had time to unpack, and actually there are still boxes in our extra bedroom that need to get taken care of. Fortunately, the only thing that is really left is getting pictures on the walls and home decor unpacked and set up so that our house looks more homey. I can't wait until our house looks and feels more like a home.

Like I said, it's a huge adjustment, but we're getting there. What's going to make it rough is the fact that I have my youth group mission trip next week so I've been really busy with that, and since I won't be here for a week there is a lot that I won't be able to help with. Since Eric will be responsible for Charlotte by himself for the week, he probably won't get too much done while she's awake either! I hope to get some things done during the days I am at home, especially weeding our 2 small garden areas. And I mean small. Somehow they each have more weeds than plants in them though, and unfortunately we have absolutely no gardening tools to speak of.

Eventually we want to have a house-warming party, hopefully we can do that before Charlotte's 2nd birthday! It will be really nice to be able to celebrate her birthday in our own home. It was great that we had family willing to let us use their house for her baptism and birthday, but it will be great to start having our own family celebrations in our family home!

Writer's Block

I have had the worst writer's block recently. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, because I do. There has been so much going on in my life and in the world that would make for some great blogging material. It's more that I haven't had the desire, energy, or motivation to write. The thoughts are there, but they just refuse to come out and onto the computer screen. The longer I go without writing something, though, the harder it seems to write. So here I am, sitting in front of my computer, trying to think of something to write which is worth reading. I don't think I'm succeeding.

Holier Than Thou

I recently finished a book called Holier Than Thou, by Mark Hart and Greg Iwinski. It's from LifeTeen and geared mostly towards teens, but it's still a decent book giving the amazing stories of some of the canonized saints, quite a few of which I've never even heard of before. But then again, when it comes to the saints, I'm not very well versed at all.

I do have a favorite saint, however: St. Anthony of Padua. If you're Catholic and have ever lost something, chances are someone has told you to pray to St. Anthony. Despite my intense organization, I somehow still manage to lose stuff with alarming regularity. Thank God (quite literally) for St. Anthony. He even gets his own little prayer. It goes something like this: Tony, Tony, please look around, (insert lost item here) is lost and can't be found. Quite simple, yet very effective. I usually add my own little desperate prayer too. And St. Anthony has always come through for me. He even helped me find my car key when I lost it a little while back. And while I consider him my own personal saint (wish I would have picked him for my confirmation name!), he's just one of many, many holy people up in heaven who are watching out for their brothers and sisters still on earth trying to live a life in Christ.

As a Catholic, I greatly appreciate having numerous saints who have gone before me and who are praying for me and looking out for me up in heaven. Of course, everything good comes from God, but saints are our family in the faith who have been there, done that, and can give us guidance and help and encouragement in addition to already being in heaven and closer to God than we are and therefore helping our prayers get answered. If you're not Catholic, you probably don't really "do" the saint thing, and that's a little bit too bad, because there are definitely saints up there, praying for you and for me and asking them for help can be quite effective.

Cutting Back

If you are a regular reader (do I even have any of those) you may have noticed I've cut out my Theological Thoughts and Book Remarks pages. I just don't write on them enough, and when I do I was often taking away from things that I could write about as a regular post. So I cut them. Now hopefully I will have more ideas to write about on a regular basis...yeah sure, we'll see how that works out. Although I do have a "book remarks" like thing to write about. I'm putting together a 2012 book list to hopefully help me keep on track with my resolution. So far I have The Brothers Karamazov, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Wild at Heart, and some general ideas of types of books I'd like to read. Clearly, I'm off to a good start.

New Year's Again

Does a New Year's resolution count if it's a repeat from the previous year? Or if it's one that wasn't successful, does that not matter? Most of my resolutions are copycats from 2011, but since I wasn't fully successful with one of them (and completely unsuccessful with another) I don't really care.

My resolutions aren't as numerous or challenging (in some ways) as last year, but I don't care. I made them based on what I need to improve on in 2012. So, I'm going to exercise at least 3 times I week. I completely failed with exercising last year. In fact, I think I exercised the least amount I've ever exercised in my whole entire life. Unless you count chasing after my daughter as exercise. In which case, I didn't do so bad. My second resolution is an exact replica from last year: read one new fiction and one non-fiction book each month. I was almost successful with this but failed around November. Ah well, another year, another chance. And this year I'm going to get through The Brothers Karamazov. And maybe City of God, if only I can find a good copy.

Finally, I have another spiritual resolution too but that is simply to pray for a certain amount of time each day. I did really well with reading the Bible and Catechism but I think I need to set aside a certain, more specific amount of time each day to pray. I'm not disclosing how much because I don't want anyone to judge me by the amount of time I'm praying.

Well, there they are. My 3 resolutions to being a better me in 2012.

My Pages

I'm thinking about deleting a couple of my pages. Mostly Book Remarks and Theological Thoughts. Eric says to keep the Theological Thoughts one, but says maybe get rid of the other one. The book remarks one actually has some comments which mean people have read it and liked it (or hated it) enough to comment at one point. I feel like I hardly ever update them and therefore they might not be worth it to keep. Anybody have an opinion? Does anybody actually read those parts of my blog, and if so, do you like them? Should I keep up with them? I'm definitely keeping up with Parenting Shenanigans because I always have stuff to say about that. Usually I just forget to write and by the time I find time to update it I've already forgotten a million things that I wanted to write. The other two pages though, I'm unsure about. Post a comment with your opinion, if you have one.

Dream Trends

Do you ever dream the same dream? Or, have the same theme recurring through your dreams, if not every night, at least weekly or monthly, or frequently enough that it could be called a recurring theme? Apparently I frequently dream about being chased, in variations. Sometimes scary, sometimes not, but I guess it happens often enough that Eric, who hears about my dreams almost daily, finally said something about how often I get chased in my dreams. I knew it happened occasionally, and in many of my nightmares I am usually running away from someone or something, but I didn't think it happened all that often. I decided to keep track of my dreams for awhile to see if he was right. Turns out, so far he is. The past 3 nights there has been some variation of being chased/running away from something in my dreams. I'm still in the middle of the experiment (I'm going to track it for at least a week) but it's starting to look like a trend. Huh. I'm no dream expert, nor do I completely buy into the theory that dreams mean a whole lot, but I'm still curious what it may mean, and if other people have trends in their dreams and if they think that represents something. Who knows, maybe I've just dreamed about running a lot lately because I know I need to get back in shape and get running again. It's as good a theory as any, right?

It's (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I feel like I'm in White Christmas, in that they get to Vermont expecting snow and there isn't anything. In fact, the weather is ridiculously nice. That's pretty much how things are right now. I know by April I'll be sick of snow and the cold, but this time of year it's cold anyway ( I don't care what other people think, 40 is not warm) and snow makes everything pretty. Plus it makes the Christmas season actually feel like Christmas, which currently it doesn't. I just feel like everything and everyone around me is so focused on the consumerism this year and not about the true holiday spirit and the fact that it's Advent and Christmas is about the birth of Christ. Ok, at work it's not so bad, and my family isn't that bad, but I just feel like the general feeling of society and the atmosphere around me is consumer-driven. Eric and I are having a more low-key Christmas this year and we already have nearly everybody's gifts, so we don't even have that much more shopping to do.

We put up our decorations yesterday and it was crazy because Charlotte just kept getting into everything. She's only taken a couple ornaments off the tree so far and we didn't put anything dangerous or breakable at the bottom of the tree. Actually, we didn't really put anything breakable on the tree this year, just in case. The worst part is the Nativity manger. Baby Jesus has been all over our apartment, thrown on the floor, put in her mouth, and who knows what else she's done with it before we've been able to put it back. I actually caught myself saying "Charlotte, we don't eat Jesus" but then I had to correct myself and say, "Well, we do, but not quite like that". Not like she gets it, but Eric thought it was pretty funny.

Even though I'm not quite in the Christmas spirit, I'm happy to have out Christmas decorations and lights up around our apartment and a beautiful tree. Hopefully it will snow a little bit soon so I finally start feeling like it's really Christmastime.

Gaslight

I just finished watching Gaslight today for what has probably been the third or fourth time. The first time I saw it was in a philosophy of film class (one of the best classes I've ever had). Eric and I Netflixed it a couple of times so he could watch it too and so I could watch it again. I love it. It's such a great movie (note: I'm talking about the 1944 version with Ingrid Bergman), so creepy and dramatic. Not creepy in a scary movie kind of way, but creepy in a "my husband is systematically convincing me I'm crazy" kind of way. That's the basic plot--her husband is a bad guy trying to convince her that she is out of her mind and in doing so basically drives her out of her mind. It's really good. The actors are good (Ingrid Bergman won her first Oscar for her role), the plot is good, everything about it is good. Especially if you like old movies, which I do.

The only black and white movie I think I'd ever seen before this film class was "It's a Wonderful Life". That class really opened me up to some classic movies and widened my love of movies to include old movies. The more movies I see coming out these days, the more I am starting to cling to these older ones. Sad, I know, but like I wrote in a previous post, most movies coming out these days are seriously lacking in many ways. Eric and I keep postponing our movie date because there just isn't anything good out, and by the time we find a day that will work the one movie that we actually want to see is pretty much out of the theaters. Go figure.

Youth Group

I can't really post a lot about my job, for various reasons, including the fact that I work with minors and can't post any identifying information. Also the fact that I don't know who all reads this and anyone has access to it and if they want to could find this blog easy enough, so I don't want to post anything remotely incriminating or risky. However, I do want to say that I feel like our youth group is finally starting to go well. I don't get very many youth showing up (today was a large-ish group with a total of 7 youth; my biggest event to date had 11) but I'm slowly starting to see both a regular group of youth and some fresh faces almost every week, which I think is a good sign. I adverstise everything pretty much everywhere, so a lot of the responsibility is now in the hands of the youth, to actually come and then to reach out to others and invite them to come too. Hopefully soon they will start to realize that they need to take some responsibility too and work on getting their friends to come. It's starting to happen, but I've come to realize that buildng a youth group takes a long time.

Today we talked about the occult (a very seasonally appropriate topic given Halloween tomorrow) and the youth seemed really interested in it. They actually asked questions and wanted to know more after the leader gave his talk, so I was very pleased. I did have one youth who wanted to veer off into other stuff so that was an interesting test of my abilities, but overall I'm really happy with the way things are going. Being a youth minister is definitely a challenge but I'm happy that I'm finally starting to use theological knowledge and I hope I'm leading the teens closer to Christ. It's really hard only being part-time, but I'm working really hard to make it the best youth group I can given my time constraints.

Too Tired

Today I am just too tired to write; however, I haven't written in so long I feel like I have to get a token post out just so people have something to read. Or at least so people know I still care about my blog. I don't know, I just feel like I should post something today. Today was a crazy day. I'm not even watching Castle tonight, even though it's the best tv show in the entire world, because I'm going to bed as soon as I publish this. That's how tired I am. At least someone somewhere invented the internet so I can watch Castle online tomorrow. Whew.

Old Friends

Who is your oldest friend? How long have you been friends with this person? I actually have 2 people who tie for my oldest friend, and the friendships with them go back to middle school. 6th grade actually. I don't think I have any friends from elementary school that I am still in contact with. And even these friends I don't always see very often or even talk to a lot, but I definitely still consider them my friends. Sometimes I'm surprised that my oldest friendships don't go back farther, and othertimes I'm amazed and very happy that I am still friends with people that I met when I started middle school. I've been thinking about this because I just saw one of them this weekend for my sister-in-law's baby shower. (It's weird, because I have 2 friends who are also friends with some of my siblings because they all went to college together. It's a funny connection, and I actually think it's helped me keep in contact with them in some ways. It's not the same 2 friends, one is a middle school friend and one is a high school friend.) We've actually been able to hang out more in the past 6 months than we have in the past 6 years due to weddings and showers and her moving back to the cities for med school stuff. It's been really great seeing her more often. I often find that having a history as friends means that when you get together, the conversation is still easy and you know enough about the other person that it just feels normal and comfortable.

Movie Thoughts

I love movies. Always have, probably always will. Old movies, new movies, comedies, dramas, romances, action, almost everything except horror movies. I can't stand horror movies. I don't care how fakey they are, I almost always get nightmares from them. I think it's because I have such a good imagination that even if they are super unrealistic I automtically imagine them more realistically. But that's not what this post is about. Actually, I'm not sure what this post is about. Mayve just my general love for movies. Eric and I used to see movies in theaters fairly regularly, but since having Charlotte our movie going has dramatically decreased. We use Netflix but have only been getting one movie at a time plus Instant, and Instant hardly has anything so we don't get movies fast enough (we're switching our plan now that the prices are changing so we'll get more dvds). Plus, now that we don't see movies in theaters as much, we also don't see very many previews, and we don't know what is coming out next. Which makes it hard to know what is in theaters that actually looks good on those occasions where we have a free weekend during which we might want to see a movie. We've even had free movie passes for a couple of months now but haven't managed to get to the theater. We're just waiting for a good movie...

Those seem hard to come by these days too. I don't know if I'm pickier or if the general population is so un-picky that they will watch any old junk people make and then advertise enough, but I think the quality of most movies has gone down significantly. Supposedly with competition and everything it should really be going up, but I don't think it has. Maybe it really is culture and people demanding the same crap in new forms along with the increase in acceptance of crudeness, but I don't need or want to hear a million curse words in a movie nor do I need to see a bunch of naked people or sexed-up relationships or a ton of blood. And I'm not a prude, I promise. I don't mind blood or a little violence when appropriate, and even I occasionally find swear words funny when used cleverly. I just don't think those things make a movie good--in fact, I more often than not find that they are overused and take away from the actual plot of a movie. Or they just serve to cover-up the fact that there is no coherent plot. Which leads me back to my point that the quality of movies have gone downhill.

That being said, there are a couple of movies out right now I'd like to see. 50/50 is one of them. I've also heard good things about Moneyball but since I haven't seen any kind of preview for that I'm not so sure yet. Courageous also sounds promising for those who are into the feel-good, Christian movies. I'm disappointed I missed Captain America and I'm looking forward to the Avengers movie next summer. I think Eric and I are going to use our free movie passes (comes with free pop and popcorn too--how have we not used these yet?) to see 50/50. Until then, Eric and I are working our way through the Indiana Jones movies. Just the first 3. The newest one, well, I think that's only worth watching once. If that.

Texting

After however many years that texting has been around, I finally have it on my phone. I've been avoiding it for, well, let's see, I'd have to say just about forever. I didn't want it, for multiple reasons. One of which, it's a huge distraction, and I don't want to know what is going on with everyone all the time nor do I want to feel like I have to or should share what's going on with me all the time. And I am one of those people who if I have access to something like that, who knows what's going to happen? I love having computer, and simple, quick, easy ways of communicating with people. Like email, and facebook. But not texting. It's too immediate. Also, it's annoying. I hate the texting "language", or rather, shorthand, and the only way I would ever consider texting is with a built in alphabet keypad. Which my new phone has. I also would never want to pay for it because to me that is ridiculous. However, the plan I have now automatically has it, and since my phone has the keypad, I have unfortunately and naturally started using texting more. My biggest problem is I am a talker, and I always want to say a lot, which is why I like things like a blog, and emailing, and hey, face-to-face conversation. So most of my texts end up being sent in 2 or 3 parts. It's a little ridiculous.

Fortunately not many people outside my family know I have texting, and I'm not super popular phone-wise so I don't think too many people have my number, so the number of people who actually text me is minimal, which helps me limit my texting interactions. The best part of it so far though is I've finally made an appearance on my sister's blog under the "Texts From My Sisters" section. Yay! I've posted a link here so you can check it out and try to guess which ones are from me. So far there are only 2, and they aren't any of the gross ones.
http://mariatrueblood.wordpress.com/

My Kid Was a Chunker

Congratulations to my brother and sister-in-law on the birth of their new baby. She is really cute and so tiny! I can't believe how small she is. Charlotte was never that small. I'm not just saying that because Charlotte is over a year old now--she actually was never that small (unless you count at some point while she was still inside of me). When Charlotte was born she was a fairly large baby, all things considered. 8 pounds, 7 ounces, the second largest child to be born amongst my siblings, and only 4 ounces smaller than the largest one. That's right, my child was the second biggest baby born out of 8. It seems weird, until you consider that she was 2 weeks late, and babies can add up to a pound a week in the last couple weeks of life. If only she had been on time, I would have had my tiny baby. I really always figured she was going to be super small and tiny, and I was really looking forward to it. I know 8 pounds 7 ounces isn't that big (although it's starting to be consider big since so many women are induced right around their due date and end up having smaller babies because of that a lot of the time) but it was much bigger than I was expecting. She was still small, after all, she was a baby, but sometimes I wish she had been a little smaller. Oh well. She's tiny now. She's only in the 5th percentile for weight. It just goes to show you, it doesn't always matter how big or small they are at birth, a year later they will be completely different.

Minnesota Nice

Maybe I'm biased because I'm a born and raised Minnesotan, but I really do believe in Minnesota nice. I don't know what it is about Minnesota, but people here really are nice and generally friendly. I don't know if they are more so than other states, but I think it's true for the most part. I say for the most part because I think Minnesota nice goes out the window when people get into their cars. If there is Minnesota nice, I also think there is Minnesota driver stupidity or driving-related Minnesota rudeness. Overall though, I think Minnesota nice really does exist. Maybe it's they way people here are raised, with that extra emphasis on being polite and saying please and thank-you and even just saying "hello, how are you" when you pass someone. I'm not saying everybody is always polite and friendly, just that it's more the rule than the exception. It might sometimes be superficial, but I think it is also sometimes true friendliness or comraderie between people. It's the nice-ness that leads to true friendships or even just support in a difficult situation or help when you see a stranger or neighbor in need.

Who knows, maybe it's the Minnesota weather that does it--let's face it, in Minnesota, the weather is more than small talk, it's real, honest-to-goodness important conversation that all Minnesotans can take part in and have something to say about it honestly and passionately and it can turn awkwardness into a real conversation. Maybe that really is part of Minnesota nice. All I know is, I've definitely experienced this phenomenon multiple times in my life. It's not always or even frequently a major event, just the day-to-day friendliness and encouragement from people I've come across. Like yesterday, when I went to the bank and ended up chatting with 2 of the tellers about the weather and what I was doing with my day. It may have been a little superficial at first but it ended up being a short but friendly conversation that then made me feel a little happier. I hope that I come across as friendly, inviting, and "nice" to people, strangers or not. Not because I live in Minnesota, but because I want to be the kind of person who I would want to be around and meet in my day to day life. And I think those are the kind of people I typically meet in my life here in Minnesota.

I believe in Minnesota nice. Do you?

I Have No Meaningful Title for This Post

Life has been crazy lately. Between my job and the family daycare co-op, and Charlotte's birthday party last week, and random other stuff that has been going on, I feel like I haven't had time to catch up on anything. And that feeling will probably last me the rest of my life. There are just so many things I want and need to get done and haven't had time to do. I got a new phone a full week ago and am just now finding the time to work on figuring it out and making it work the way I want it to. Or as close as I can get it with this phone. Technology never really works the way I want it to. I don't think I think like other people so what they like doesn't always work for me. Plus, I hate when technology changes. Don't get me wrong, I like technology updates and upgrades and whatnot, but dramatic changes in the way things look or feel irk me. But that's now what this post is about. My crazy busy life is. I shouldn't say crazy busy, I only work part time and I only have to watch 6 kids 2 other days a week, and I only have 1 child myself, but considering for nearly a year before I got my job and started the daycare co-op I was home alone with Charlotte all day every day, my life has sped up considerably in the past few weeks and months.

At least yesterday I had the afternoon off and I was able to clean the entire house. Eric was very happy about it. So was I (at least when it was finished). Of course, I still need to organize all of Charlotte's drawers and we really need to re-organize our cupboards and clean out our closets, but our house is at least sanitary and clean. And that's always nice.

I Love My Dentist, But...

Tomorrow I have to have a cavity filled. That is pretty much the only bad part of going to the dentist, when that kind of stuff happens. I've only had about 4 in my whole life, which compared to most of my family is pretty dang good, but it still sucks. I hate the initial novacaine shot, and even though you're not really supposed to feel pain or anything, it's still uncomfortable and weird and usually cold and generally un-fun. The best part of having to get it filled though is that my awesome sister Gina is also my dentist, so that is a definite bright side. In fact, I actually don't mind going to the dentist at all normally. I don't think the regular cleanings are really painful, I leave with my teeth feeling really clean, and I get a free toothbrush and floss. And that is all before you factor in that it's my sister which is an added bonus. Plus, let's face it, after not seeing my dentist sister in the dental chair for almost 2 years, getting away with only one cavity is pretty amazing. And even though the novacaine shot sucks, it's a little bit funny to spend the next hour or so biting your lips and putting on chapstick without being able to feel half of your mouth. I guess it won't be so bad...except for the half an hour of actually having the tooth filled.

Photo Op

Eric and I are trying to get Charlotte's one year portraits set up and we've mostly just been looking around at places like Target and JC Penny. Actually, we've pretty much decided on JC Penny. As we were comparing the prices/options of the two, we noticed relatively quickly how similar their websites are. In fact, everything is nearly identical: the portrait packages, prices, styles, enhancements, collections, even their coupons are the same. I don't know if one store copied the other, or if they have the same person running both portrait studios or even if the corporations are in league with each other, but I find it amusing that they don't even try to distinguish themselves from one another apart from their store name. Part of me feels like we should go somewhere else a little more individualized, but at the same time, with coupons, the prices are fairly reasonable, and we did a short Easter photo session at Target this year and they turned out really nicely, so maybe in the future we'll try something else, but for now, this is going to work for us.