current thoughts

30 was great. it was a nice, luxurious-feeling, relaxing weekend. we celebrated with jared's family on saturday afternoon (with the cake, singing and presents) and then had dinner with some new friends on the outdoor patio of the newly renovated marina near our house. it was fabulous! the water, music, food and drinks were all so good, i almost forgot that i was in TN! i got some gift cards to lowe's, which will help me get some of my to-do list done. got a barnes and noble gift card, a beautiful orchid plant that i'm going to do my best not to kill, clothes and....a season pass to nashville shores! i really really hoped i would get that, though i thought it was a long shot. now, if only the rain will hold off so we can go enjoy it!
(the other biggie i wanted is a tattoo...jared said we might get that taken care of soon too!)

we've been taking foster classes for 3 weeks now and i'm eternally grateful to all the people who are taking turns watching alena from 5-9+pm every thursday. it's a huge help. help isn't a big enough word. we simply couldn't take the classes if someone wasn't watching alena. but i'm going on a roller coaster ride of feeling optimistic and pessimistic about whether we'll actually get a child in a reasonable amount of time.

the other big thing right now..i'm getting contacts! now, i know this is something everyone else went through around 6th grade or so. but i didn't need glasses until i started college. just for driving and reading notes off the white board or overhead. my vision isn't really bad at all, but each year, it's gotten gradually worse, even if just slightly. i've noticed that if i'm out of the house, i'm wearing my glasses. at home, i wear them if i'm watching a movie or a tv show i really care about watching (like grey's). in FL i had cool glasses with magnetic sunglasses. however, this last time i wanted the big plastic frames. no magnetic option there. i really don't want to shell out the cash for Rx sunglasses only to lose them somewhere. so i've been choosing between squinting or seeing....and seeing usually wins. i've decided to give contacts a shot, esp. if i'm going to be hanging out at the water park all summer. i need to see alena without wearing glasses in the pool. so i had an appointment today. and to my surprise, he had a trial pair to give me right then. i wore them for about 4 hours before taking them out. i think i'll do ok, i'll just have to get used to them. i'm pretty sensitive to dirt and whatever in my eye, so it's really hard to remember not to dig them out of me eyes. it's also really weird to drive without glasses on. so, 15 years behind everyone else, i'm getting contacts. maybe i'll follow it through and get the freaky colored ones in a couple years too! ;)

last thing. i wish i could paint...so i think i'm going to try it. i've tried once before and, though jared will try to say differently, it looked like a 1st grader did it (and i don't mean "cute"). but i want a new painting in our living room and everything i like is over a grand. even on etsy. so i'm going to give it a shot. i can mess up a lot before i spend $1,000, right? this is what i'm going for. hmmmm..........