Cafe de Valentine

so, i enjoy blogging and i promise to get better at it. we've now had this blog for over a year and i still have no clue what i'm doing. up until yesterday i had no clue how to add blog buttons on my side bar. hooray for me, i figured it out all by myself! now, how do i make my own button? that is the question of the day. also, i'm determined to figure out how to post a link within a blog as just one word. like blah blah blah i like the boots found "here" and the word "here" is the link to the boots i like. etc. get it? i just discovered how to put a picture up on my header. that's cool. i like it. i've vowed to get way more involved in photography. i'm now going to be the crazy lady walking around with her camera 24/7. hubs already makes fun of me when i take pictures of old trucks, or random flowers, or the same thing over and over again. i also now need to be diligent with figuring out photoshop elements 7. i need a class or something

so ryan and i aren't quite ready to have kids yet. my type "a" personality has a lot more planning to do before that can happen. *who will watch the kid(s) while i work? *how will i afford to take time off for maternity leave? *how will we afford to decorate the nursery? (this is important people) *what if i have to go on bed rest during pregnancy? i don't have disability insurance *is it worth having kids if someone else watches them 7 hrs *do i trust the public school system to teach my kids? would i want to pay for private school? do i have the patience to home school? could i even home school while working? there are a million more things that i think of, trust me, this head of mine never stops. one thing i always thought i knew was that i was created to be the mother to boys. girls scare me. of all the years i worked at the school i always related better with the boys. i used to babysit girls and i had fun with the dress up and coloring and watching the princ

life has an interesting way of changing all around you without you noticing it. i often wonder what happened to the season that hanging out with friends, drinking coffee, seeing movies, dreaming up perfect dates, and stressing about the final exam was my whole life. some of those friends fade as you move into jobs/careers, you marry, you have two families to accomodate (see previous post) and you now cling to your few married couple friends to help you learn how to do marriage (see previous post). then you learn that there are HUGE "issues" money, jobs, kids, family, health, houses, etc. i've moved from celebrating birthdays and weddings and baby showers to watching people struggle with infertility, losing children, having miscarraiges, and watching someone my age die of cancer. life takes turns that we sometimes don't see coming. do i live my life in such a way that in enjoy the here and now? or am i always looking for what's to come? when you're young, you c

so i was reading a post today over at Big Mama's blog (if you haven't read her blog lately, you should. she's hysterical and funny about all the things that we often find "discouraging". bigmamablog .com) she was talking about gals in their early twenties. mostly single gals and the struggles that comes with finding a husband. i was interested because that was me for many years and i have a huge heart for girls in that role. however i also think that your heart beats for different things as your stage of life changes. while i still have a passion for wanting girls to be patient in that in find their own fit in life and be content where they are rather than long for the married phase, i now have a burning desire for married gals. marriage is a huge joy in my life. i found an amazing husband who loves me, serves me, provides for me, helps around the house, does ALL the yard work, takes me on little get aways, handles our finances, got me out of dept, taught me how