{unconventional}

It isn't new news that Jay and I did everything in an unconventional manner (so far, in our relationship). Heck, even how we started dating was unconventional. The guy crashed my car into a tree!

Was our path rooted from the beginning that we would be different? I'm not all superstitious like that, but maybe!

Our relationship from the beginning was the typical high school relationship, and then I got pregnant. Oops?!

Then we moved to Stevens Point and went to college. I graduated, he graduated, I started grad school...

We 'got engaged' a couple of years ago. There was no specific date, no actual proposal, just decided. Well, in reality, I was perusing Craigslist one night, found a ring I liked in a price we could afford at that time and told Jay that that was what I wanted and we could become engaged. Up until that point we had somewhat talked marriage together, but it was always me that wanted to wait. I had even specifically told Jay before that, that if he asked me to marry him that I would say 'no'. Great, right?! And then I realized that I didn't know what I was waiting for, that my one and only was and always had been standing right in front of me. So, we bought the ring and became 'officially engaged' (despite the fact that at that time, the wedding would still be years and years away).

For a long time I didn't mind that I didn't get the whole big proposal thing. Jay and I just don't do things like everyone else, so it was really no surprise to me that we randomly got engaged. Not to mention that it took almost forever to answer the 'When is the wedding?' question with something other than 'Oh, sometime after I graduate (again!)' to 'September 21, 2013' and for that to not sound like light years away. Now I can say with ease, 'Oh, next September' and be excited about it.

I was in love with my ring... the simplicity of it. It wasn't ultra big, but I liked it. Until recently, when I started to feel the pull to get something of my own. I have nothing against the fact that I got a 'used' ring. I wouldn't have gotten it otherwise. But always moving forward is my motto and after almost five years with my current ring, I wanted to upgrade. I talked with Jay about it and he said that I could upgrade if I paid for it myself. What?! Bummer! However, I figured almost as much and knew I would have enough money from my photography set aside by late October and was set to find a ring come that time. I had plans on turning my current set and a necklace I didn't wear very often in for trade in value and knew I would get at least a few hundred dollars for that.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was on my way home on a Friday night, I called Jay to let him know that I wanted to go to Walmart to check for Ayden's birthday present and pick up a few groceries when I got home. Ayden was already gone camping with Jay's parents, so we were child free for the night. As we were headed to my car, I told Jay that he was driving because I had just driven from work and didn't want to drive anymore. We got in the car and we headed out in the opposite direction of Walmart. Um, okay? Where are we going?

Unbeknownst to me, Jay thought it might be a good idea to surprise me with a trip to Kay Jewelers to look at rings... just look, don't buy. Hmm, okay?! We can look, I suppose. I had it in my head I wasn't going shopping until late October, but now is fine, just to look. Not buy.

Or not.

Needless to say, we ended up buying, both a new bridal set for me and a wedding ring for Jay. The rings were on sale and I couldn't pass up the deal. And, Jay ended up getting a Kay's credit card and our first payment wouldn't be due until the end of September. I already had about 1/4 of the amount saved up and will have another 1/4 saved by the end of October. So already half of it is already paid for. Needless to say, I ended up getting something that cost more than I had originally planned, haha! But I got a TON more for my ring than I had thought I would. Hehe, but I didn't go overboard.

Actually, I didn't even pick it out. I picked out two sets that I liked and then left the store and let Jay pick out which one I was going to get. I like a little surprise in my life sometimes. Plus, I couldn't really decide on which one I liked best and wanted Jay to pick it out for me. It took over a week for the rings to come in and during that time my finger felt SO naked, like seriously, cover me up naked! I have been wearing a ring on that finger for the last how many years and it has become a part of me and now there is nothing there.

So, when the rings finally came in, I couldn’t wait to see what Jay had decided upon. I was hoping for some super sweet actual proposal this time around, but didn’t get one. That’s okay though, it’s Jay, wasn’t really expecting it. On the other hand though, Jay did did get me some roses on the same night he gave me my ring and he told me that he would ‘love me until the last petal fell’. I thought it was super cute and then he told me that I didn’t ‘get it’. Little did I know that one of the roses was fake, so the last petal would never fall and therefore he would love me forever. Mushy gushy! (Although, I highly doubt he came up with that himself, it was still super cute!) I don’t get flowers very often from him, so this was special.

And now… some pictures of my new ring! I know that you’ve probably just scrolled down this far to see them anyways. Hehe!The whole set… 401 days until I get to wear the other two rings!The pretty roses!And maybe it’s bad luck to take a picture of your wedding rings before the actual wedding, but I don’t believe in all of that jinxing stuff, so I had to take a few pictures of my ring and Jay’s ring already… sue me, I love ring pictures, hehe!You likey? Me likey!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{say cheese}

My weekend went pretty well. I had two photo shoots this weekend. One was a senior session and another was a family session and both went great. I shared some sneak peaks up on my photography page and will be busy editing the rest of them in the days to come! I have six more photo shoots scheduled through the middle of October. This is definitely a busy time of year for me and I love it. I will admit, that I get a little worn out by the end of the fall, but then I tend to have a few months with little to no shoots because of our lovely Wisconsin weather, and get ready for them again in the Spring. I itch to be behind the camera and love it! I had so much fun with the two photo shoots I did this weekend. I love that I can make a few extra bucks from it and do it on the side. I will admit, because I am doing more and more for individuals that I do not know, the pressure that comes along with producing a good shoot rises a little bit, but I think it also pushes me out of the box to be the best I can be. And when I release the shutter on my camera, my insides swell with joy. I get a high from taking pictures and being behind the camera. I've always loved taking pictures... pictures of just about anything. I look at things with a different eye most of the time, wondering how it would look in a picture. How I can manipulate it so it ends up like the vision I have in my head. I'm weird like that, haha! I'm not super artsy fartsy, but put me behind a camera... and let me loose!

I would have loved to grow up with my own dark room and to learn about photography that way. I know there are still people who have their own dark rooms and develop their photography that way. I am not one of them. I remember when I was younger having a film camera and begging my mom to get my film developed. So, my love of photography began well before the digital era. However, then it was more point and shoot whatever than try to set up a shot. Either way... And then digital began and I got my very first digital camera... this was probably a year before Ayden was born, a 1.3 mega pixel digital camera. We're talking big league here, lol! (Especially considering that my current phone has an 8 mega pixel camera on it!)

The very first pictures I have of Ayden are all grainy and wonderful. You can't even imagine their glory! And as time progressed, so did technology and so did my want and need for an upgraded camera. It simply just continued like that, especially after I discovered the technology of editing my pictures. Let me tell you, some of those beginning ones are just wonderful, lol!

And then...

I discovered the world of dSLR! Um, hello! Blow me away! I HAD to have one, just HAD to! And when I did, I knew there would be no turning back. I had a relatively good point and shoot camera at that time and thought I would keep it to bring with me in my purse on the occasions where I didn't want to carry my big camera around. Nope, didn't use it once after getting my first dSLR. I couldn't back track.

I had my first dSLR for about two and a half years before craving an upgrade again. At this point I had begun taking pictures for others and wanted something that would last me for quite a number of years. So, I upgraded and I have a current love affair with my Canon 7D. It is my second baby. It ranks right up there with my most prized material possessions. I do find that with my current phone, a Samsung Galaxy S2, that when I do not have my big camera with me, I am always taking pictures with my camera phone. It takes relatively decent pictures when the lightening is good. The shutter lag still gets me because my dSLR is super fast, but it is good for a phone camera. And I just love taking snap shots and sharing them with my family and friends on facebook.

I don't know that I'll ever stop loving being behind the camera. I hope I don't.

You know the saying... the first child always has the most pictures and then it gets less and less with the more children you have. For some reason, I doubt that that will be the case with our second child. Maybe third or fourth, but not the second... since I haven't had the opportunity to shower a new baby with the love of my newest camera. Just not going to happen. Sorry second child, whenever you decide you may come, you will be your mommiest newest obsession! Hehe!

And in a coming post, I might just decide to share with you some recent pictures that I've taken for myself. You know, because every now and then I do tend to get behind the camera for my own purposes and don't shove my son in front of it all of the time. Actually, speaking of that, I would like to get a nice 8 year old photo shoot of him!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{quiet}

My house is quite quiet right now. I am the only one home. This seems to happen quite a bit lately. I won't complain. I do enjoy a bit of 'me' time every now and then. And for the majority of the time that I am home alone, Jay and Ayden happen to be spending time together, and any father/son bonding time is okay with me. Unless of course, my dear son happens to be enjoying time with his grandparents. That has been happening a lot.

Today, Ayden and Jay are fishing. I am relaxing at home and getting ready for a photoshoot later this afternoon.

I enjoyed getting to sleep in this morning, as I was up at the crack of dawn on Wednesday when I was supposed to be able to sleep in.

On the downside, the cause of my sleeping in was me being wide awake at 1:00am with a stomach ache. I swear I am turning lactose intolerant because I had some ice cream before bed. However, in retrospect, I did have a stomach ache before I had the ice cream, so having the ice cream was probably not in my best interest, but I was craving some chocolate.

I went to bed around 9:00pm... mostly because I was falling asleep as I was reading and slept until 11:30pm at which point I woke up and stayed awake. I was awake until sometime around 2:00am. At some point I moved from the bed to the living room and turned the TV on so I wouldn't wake Jay up and slept on the couch for the rest of the night. It felt good to sleep in this morning (might I mention that Ayden spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house, so we were child free) and then lounge on the couch watching a Lifetime Movie in my jammies until whenever I felt like getting up. I haven't had one of those kind of days in a LONG time and I needed one, oh how I needed one.

I am finished with my online class for a few weeks again. About time, I was really just getting sick of it, although I am not really looking forward to the next one either.

My supervisor is taking a few days of vacation next week and the following week so I will have a few days off. On one of those days, my mom and I are taking Ayden to Funset for his birthday. My mom took him last year for his birthday and this year I happen to have off so I am going to go with them. Before we go, Ayden and I are going to stop off by my mom's work to see everyone. I worked at the same place as my mom for a little over a year (obviously doing something different) and it will be neat to see everyone for the last time. I say the last time as my mom's employer was bought out and almost everyone is losing their job. Insert sad face.

Then, I happen to have off on Friday of next week and I am going wedding dress shopping with my mom, sister, and hopefully one of my bridesmaids. I am really excited to try on dresses again and potentially find 'the one'. I really really liked one that I tried on at this place the first time I went and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I am hoping my mom and sister like it just as much.

Next weekend is also my dad's side of the family camping and my birthday on Saturday. I am looking forward to going camping with my dad's family as we usually end up having a great time... that and Ayden really enjoys seeing his cousins and running around with them. I love that he is at an age where the second he sees them, he is off and running!

And so am I... to my photoshoot!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{more non-sensical-ness}

Life drones on around me and I feel like I have nothing uber exciting to blog about. I read these awesome blogs on a daily basis and although I feel like I can convey my thoughts into writing how I want them to be, I am not anywhere near the great writer that some of my fellow bloggers are and that bums me out a bit. I know it shouldn't, but it does. I don't want my blog to be a drone on how boring my life is right now and sometimes I feel like it is. However, as much as I say that, I am not really writing for others, I write for myself and when I don't have anything going on in my life, I just don't feel like writing.

The days continue to come and go. It is pretty routine around here right now. Get up, go to clinic, come home, relax and unwind, go to bed, do it all over again. The weekends have been and continue to be busy. I like that we are busy on the weekends, but don't like that they fly by with lightening speed either!

This week I got out on a 2.6 mile walk with my bestie, Victoria. I know that I have mentioned us getting together on my blog before, so she is not new to you; however, I don't know that I've ever really given you the back story on us. (Sidenote, I've noticed that I love and overuse the word 'however'... I just like it, lol!)

So, Victoria and I have been pretty close friends since about the 7th or 8th grade... yeah, I know, it has been such a long time that I can't really even remember it. I couldn't honestly tell you how we became such good friends, nor am I sure that she could tell you either. I do know that we lived just a few blocks apart from each other for quite some time and often would walk to school together. I remember walking the long way to high school just so we could walk together. And we are still walking with each other to this day!

Victoria and I have a different kind of freindship that runs deeps. We were never the type of friends to pick up the phone and call each other, instead we wrote letters to each other. Yes, we saw each other every day, yet we still wrote each other letters almost on a daily basis too. I don't think I still have those letters, but I know at one point I had a huge binder full of them! We both love to write and it was how we communicated. Unlike with some of my other friendships, we never really had spats or arguements. We just meshed together well. And we both helped each other through some rough times.

I knew that moving to Stevens Point and farther away from Victoria meant that we wouldn't keep in touch as often and would see each other even less, but that didn't mean our friendship would mean anything different. We could go months without writing to each other, yet it would seem like not even a day had gone by when we would get together and talk for hours. I cannot tell you how great it is to be living in the same city with one of my best friends again. We have probably seen each other more in the last few months than we have in the last few years. We have always been close, but I feel that we are getting closer again and I LOVE IT! Having someone just a few minutes away that I can call up and go on a walk with on the spur of a moment... it feels good. Yes, I had friends in Stevens Point and I grew very close with a few of them, but most of them ended up moving away during the last few years... :( And honestly, friends come and go and there is nothing like talking to someone who knows you inside and out!

Even better, she has a young son who Ayden gets along with great so mommy dates can be play dates as well! It kind of just feels very refreshing.

And I've discovered another great thing about living back in Chilton (and yes for my sister if she happens to be reading this, I once again put great and living in Chilton in the same sentence again)... Jay's grandma stopped by the other night with a hot pot of bean soup for us for supper. Just out of the blue, she made a pot of bean soup for us and brought it over. Well, kind of out of the blue as she found out that Jay didn't get any bean soup while we were camping and wanted to make him some. But honestly, who does that?! I know, Grandma Hoerth! What a blessed heart she has!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{epic-ness}

Please excuse the awesome title of this post and the lack luster-ness that fills up the post. Life in general has been continuing to fly by at a break neck speed without any signs that it is going to slow down anytime soon. Oh well, I suppose one should be pretty used to that by now. I feel like I haven’t blogged in forever (and it has been a while for me, I usually like to blog every few days).

The month of August is big for me. Not only do I turn 26... not much of a milestone if you ask me, just another year older, but my baby turns 8. I know, I've mentioned it before, but 8. Seriously, come on people, how is that even possible? I look at this little face each day and just wonder where the last 8 years have gone! Although I've probably said the same thing on Ayden's last five birthdays, ha!

I've been going back through my blog and looking at some of my old posts and pictures and I cannot believe where I have come in the last almost four and a half years of writing. Of course people and grow and change during their life, especially as they become an adult. Who I am today is still the exact same person I was when I started this blog, in many many ways, but I am also a completely different person in so many other areas as well. Growth and change over the years my dear readers, it amazes me sometimes.

I was reading one of my earlier posts when Jay and I had been together for just five years. At that time, five years seemed like such a long time and here we are approaching our 9 year anniversary. I wrote a post back in 2009 about getting married some day and here we are, almost a year out of actually getting married. The time goes faster than anyone thinks as a child. I remember wishing the time away in high school, if only to graduate, and now (despite me still at times wishing the time away to graduate, yet again, for the third and final time), I want things to slow down. I am sick to death of watching my baby grow up. I want him to be little forever. I am scared shitless about him becoming a teenager and then an adult at some point. I'm sure every mother goes through these feelings at some point, but my baby is going to grow up and leave me at some point. Just like I left my parents and entered the 'real' world, which I'm still not even completely in yet. Ha! Guess I better consider popping some more youngin's out to keep my house full, hehe! As with everything else in my life, that time will come.

I am most anxious to just really 'start' my adult life because ever since Ayden was born, it's always been a waiting game. Go to college, finish that, then get married and have kids. Well, stupid me decided that we should prolong those options by another four years. You cannot begin to imagine what it's like to have to wait for something like that. Okay, so maybe you can. (And maybe I am over reacting just the tiniest bit.) And then not knowing if it will ever happen for you again. As blunt as it may sound, Ayden was an 'accident'... one that changed my life in ways I cannot begin to describe. One that made me whole even when I didn't know I was missing a piece.

I’m just ready to be done with this pseudo adult life. I want to start my career. I want to help support my family. I want to buy a house and know we’ll be there for a long time. I’m done with everything else. But, I have to wait, continue to be patient and wait. And I will. I mean, it is only 286 days until graduation and 412 days until I am Mrs. Hoerth. That’s right, thank you count down app on my phone! Haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!