I often ponder the idea of my grandchildren sitting in my attic and reading all about my life and having all sorts of questions about who I was.  This may be a weird thought, but I remember times when I was able to read something a family member had written when they were much younger and it was fun to slip into their life for a moment.  Today I felt inspired to do a little journal writing.  Hopefully someone one day will read all these things I write and think I’m super cool!!!!  Ok sorry I would write more but there is a fly in my room that is driving me NUTS!!!! Gotta go sorry!  I’m on a fly killing mission now!

Oh and PS.  Happy Easter Everyone!

Enjoy!

-erika

I love my husband but he always seems to get hurt when I have plans to hang out with my momma.  For instance last time we were going shopping and he got kicked in the chin and went to the hospital to get stitches.  Then we turn our attention to this time…….I planned on going over to moms and dying Easter eggs, just something I enjoy doing with my mom the day before Easter, well I get a text from TW telling me that he got bucked off a horse pretty hard today, followed by a picture.  So of course (after chatting with my mom a bit ok more like a lot of bits) I rushed home to play doctor.  Last time apparently I wasn’t very concerned so this time I made sure that I ran in and went straight to him and checked him out.  Now please don’t think I don’t care about him or love him but he as do many boys has a tendency to sorta milk it when he doesn’t feel on top of his game.  So yes I babied him.  And now he’s happy. …… well as happy as you can be with huge swollen knots, a cut in your eyelid, and bruises and scratches all over your head and I’m sure there’s a nice accompanying headache to go right along with that, oh and not to mention the back pain I can imagine from landing wrong.

Enjoy!

-erika

I am in love love love with Orchids.  This may not mean a whole bunch to a lot of people but it means alot to me.  When I was younger and we lived in Santa Cruz, California my great aunt whom I liked to call Grandma Sandy due to the fact that my mother lost her mother when she was just 18 years old meaning I didn’t ever get a chance to meet my true grandmother.  Either way Grandma Sandy was my grandma.  She was amazing, so friendly and sweet, everyone loved her, she was also an amazing artist and had the best personality of anyone I’ve ever met in my life.  In fact I can’t even remember a time when she was mad!  For me she was the most inspiring woman in my entire life.  The year TW and I got married December 2006 she was not going to be able to afford to come out and be in attendance, which deeply upset me, but since I was much older and wiser than my California days I was able to understand how expensive flights were around the holidays.  Grandma Sandy and my Uncle Norm (her husband)  :)  owned and operated a wholesale flower shop that I just loved to go to!  In fact I remember getting to go inside the fridge and getting to see all the flowers in buckets and that smell!!!!!  LOVE…..  All these years later I will catch a glimpse of that smell and it will send me back to those carefree days and I’m in my own little world, in fact when we first got married I was at the store and I smelt this candle and it was THAT smell…..yep bought it on the spot!  The point of that whole story is this, since they wouldn’t be able to attend our wedding they sent flowers as a gift.  I was so excited to have Orchids in Mena Arkansas during Decemeber!  I honestly don’t remember what anything else besides my bouquet looked like!  I was so greatful for that gift when she passed away the summer of 2007 following surgery complications.   I won’t go into detail about how devastated I was and how much it rocked my world, but she was honestly the first person in my life that had passed away that I was really close to, so I’m sure you can imagine.  So the point again is that I love Orchids.  All kinds, they are beautiful and remind me of Grandma Sandy.  So when we went to Dallas two weeks ago and I saw these beautiful flowers in IKEA it was definitely destiny!  :)  So now they have a happy home on our bookshelf where I can see them daily.  I love you Grandma Sandy!

Oh and PS>  I’m furious at you readers……..I made a post yesterday asking you to tell me who got April Fooled or pulled a really amazing prank on someone and guess how many comments I got………..ZERO!!!!  I even was going to give away a prize……but too late……instead I’ll share with you who got me real good!

My cousin Sean, whom lives in Hawaii and we all keep up with his life via Facebook posted a picture of him and his girlfriend and it stated “She said Yes!”   Oh of course Sean totally punked me!!!!  I texted my husband and emailed my mom!  Oh he got me good!  That punk……..pay back is in the future!

Enjoy!

-erika

I tried to play an April Fool’s joke on myself at the mall today and no one played along!  I made this sign and walked all around the mall.  All I got was a bunch of people staring at me as if I had no idea what was on my back.  Of this I can say two things, first of all where’s the fun in not playing along and secondly……apparently we have some really kind hearted people at the mall that were willing to stare and tell their friends and not give me a swift kick in the butt, but no one actually came up and told me I had the sign on my back.  Really I honestly don’t care though.  It was all really just for a self portrait anyways.  It was a fun little experience, and although I had originally packed my “real” camera for this shoot and the batteries died the second I took a test shot leaving me to revert to my “crappy” (meaning point and shoot) backup camera that I carry in my purse, I’m pretty happy with how this image turned out.  Although for a Thursday I really was expecting quite a few more people out shopping!

I would like to hear about your April Fool’s experiences today…..did you get someone really good today or were you on the receiving end of a hilarious April Fool’s?  I want to know!  Leave your comments below and I think I might just hand out a good prize for the best prank!  Please use the honesty rule here though as there is obviously no way I would really know as to if you were fibbing to me!  

Enjoy!

-erika

TW came home about a week ago with a truck load of grass seed that had apparently been sitting outside the feed lot and was about to be thrown away, so he rescued it!  I’m a little excited about it.  When we were unloading it there were patches of grass that started growing to bags as well as those big wood palettes.  I admitted that I felt like Dick and Jane in “Meet Dick and Jane” when Dick decides to get his lawn back by patching parts he had stolen from others’ yards…..producing a very patchy mess.  Today I decided to water our little patches of grass and unsprouted grass seeds.  I really hope they grow!  What inexpensive landscaping that would be!  Oh PS. the patches of grass have already laid claim to the land so there’s a little bit of progress already!  :)

Enjoy!

-erika

Wow.  So today I was asked for a headshot and I almost immediately whipped out the one I had taken almost a year ago, then I changed my mind……..”what a great idea for my self portrait today”.  All I have to say is that was tough!  It wouldn’t have been nearly as hard if I would have had a subject to focus on that wasn’t rolling in the grass and moving around every time I tried to focus my camera!  But in all honestly thank you Ellie I couldn’t have gotten anything without you, including all the outtakes!  :)

I really didn’t realize how pregnant I look (part of it I imagine is likely to be the dress) in the second picture til I got it loaded on my computer.  This shot was really an outtake because I was scolding Ellie.  She got me pretty frustrated.  But she just sat there giving me those adorable puppy dog eyes so I just couldn’t resist hugging her and petting her and saying I was sorry for getting mad.  I have a feeling I’m going to be suckered as a parent!

Enjoy!

-erika

We started our evening with a date with free food.  My grandma Rosie gave us gift cards to Chili’s where we ran into some old friends of mine from high school.  Then off to watch Alice in Wonderland.  That was an interesting movie.  It was really fun to remember parts of the movie from when you were a little kid, I think that was my favorite part about the movie.  I must have fallen asleep though when I was little because I didn’t recall any of the end of the movie, or then again it could have been changed for us older kids.  Anyways I wanted to get a picture in front of the Alice in Wonderland movie poster but all I had was my camera phone.  It was pretty dark in there so I think my phone was having trouble getting a good picture!  ha ha I will post a series of images that we took.  It makes me laugh.  Actually I think a couple of them look pretty Alice in Wonderland ish myself!  Then off to McDonalds for some 99 cent ice cream cones!!!  :)

Well that was a fun date night!  :)

Enjoy!

-erika

Just yesterday TW and I spent lots of time together cleaning and rearranging our home.  We spent a lot of extra time taking care of the office…….much needed.  I really appreciate TW’s help, I promise, but sometimes he made me have a few mini meltdowns.  Yesterday he knocked over two of my external hard drives (and if you don’t know those things are super sensitive!!!!).  The whole day I was moving and hiding my cameras so he didn’t knock those down either!!!!  So tonight we decided we didn’t like the second computer in the living room so he was moving it into the office again……and almost knocked over the monitor……so this face totally describes how I feel when TW helps.  I love you TW!!!!  :)

Enjoy!

-erika

Alright I have been on the go for the last few days!  On Saturday I went to Dallas and late this morning I just got back from Illinois.  So that means I have two self portraits to blog about!

Monday:  This was the day we left to go to watch TW’s cousin Tyler and his wife Amanda get sealed in the same temple we were sealed for time and all eternity three years ago.  I just love the Nauvoo Temple!  It’s so historical as well as beautiful.  On our 8 hour drive up there we rode in his mom’s car with his younger brother Luke.  Luke is the bull rider in the family so we stopped at this country store on the way to try to find some sort of bull riding rope I believe……  Anyways as soon as we pulled into the parking lot everyone quickly hopped out of the car and ran inside, everyone but me that is.  I love TW’s family but there are a few times, such as this one, that I definitely feel out of place.  So I decided I would write about it.  I realize this picture doesn’t really look like a country store because of all the wine advertising but I think they just don’t sell a whole lot of wine so that’s what they want to advertise?  I’m not real sure, and also not real sure why you would try to sell wine and cheese inside a country store?  Anyways I decided to sit outside on the curb for this shot to describe how I felt.

We finally arrived in Illinois a little after midnight.  The following day Tyler and Amanda weren’t scheduled to be sealed until 3pm so we decided to take advantage of our time in Nauvoo.  We all got up and headed out for the sites.  Like I mentioned before the whole town is historic, well historic if you are mormon I guess.  I love being there.  I don’t write a whole lot about my faith, not really for any particular reason, I just don’t.  I know my religion plays a big part in who I am but I also feel that there is a lot more to me than that side of it.  Maybe that’s why?  Anyways enough gabbing……..Being in Nauvoo is always a really spiritually uplifting experience.  For me it strengthens my testimony of the gospel and that it has truly been restored here on the Earth today.  To be there and witness how much work it was for people to live in the 1800′s is a humbling experience as well.  It’s so hard for me to imagine not having a computer or a camera!  I also couldn’t imagine that if I wanted to go anywhere I would have to have a horse or a wagon……you mean I can’t just walk outside and start up my car with a key and drive all the way to Dallas any time I want?  CRAZY!!!  I must say I am very very greatful that I live here right this very moment!  I definitely wouldn’t change it for the world!  While we were in Nauvoo checking out the sites we stopped in at Joseph Smith’s Red Brick Store, which is actually owned by Community of Christ of which I am not affiliated with, but none of that matters.  What really matters is that I saw the cutest candle stick ever, as seen in my picture.  I must explain: “This is a Courting Candle.  Courting candles were used when a suitor came to call on a young lady.  Parents would show their approval or disapproval of the gentleman by setting the candle at a high height allowing for a long visit or at a lower height which meant the gentleman would be leaving soon.”  Isn’t that just the cutest thing ever?!?!?!  I loved it and had to have it.

Enjoy!

-erika

My Tummy shot will be posted today.