Christmas Time

Once again Christmas has rolled around on us. The year has flown by and we are putting up trees and shopping like mad! I think I finally have all my shopping done. I wrapped it up on Black Friday. I would love to write a blog on the Black Friday deals I got, but 90% of the are Christmas gifts, and cannot be revealed until December 25th. So, that being said, this blog is going to be about just Christmas sadly. First off, I already had a head start in my wrapping and used a ton of gift boxes I purchased last year marked down after the holidays.

That is my huge stack of wrapped gifts, all for Chris, Jeremy, and Justin. I still have a lot more wrapping to do before I am finished and I am custom making a few gifts as well. So I have a lot do do before I am done, but I am excited to see what everyone thinks of their gifts this year. Last year we were really tight and Christmas just wasn't that great. I also have my tree up and decorated, but I want to add some more ornaments before I take pictures. This year is a blue and silver theme.

Fancy Wedding Shoes

Well, after about 45 minutes of google searching, these two pictures below fit the description best as to what I am looking for wedding shoes. The only bad thing is, they both are over $100 each!! That is crazy talk for something that will go on my feet! My goal initially is to make most of my wedding day supplies not a one time use thing. Like these shoes for example, I want something super cool and special and I can wear them to parties and family formal occasions. Plus I feel they really represent my artistic style and taste. So at this point I am looking at making the shoes myself. Which I would not imagine to be too hard, except, shoes take a much heavier beating then most of our clothes do.  So I plan to make a few practice pairs, and if they turn out well I can wear them for the wedding, or sell them on Etsy. The one pair is from that site. If you want unique art or gifts that is the place to go. My wedding is still a ways off, but I am slowly planning and gathering supplies, so when it does roll around I will be able to enjoy it without the fret of finances getting in the way. I am totally open to suggestions on the shoes, or if any one knows of any good websites to buy unique shoes from!

Piggy Banks

Everyone knows what a piggy bank is and its' purpose is to save money. I had a pink plastic rabbit and a clown bank when I was a little kid. Both of which I murdered so I could get the money out because I was a greedy little butt munch back then. I have always thought piggy banks were really cute, and picked up a few at yard sales and such. Then, a few years back, a great idea dawned on me. I knew I wanted to have kids some day and wanted to be able to provide a great future for them. Since I was always pretty poor it worried me a lot. Especially about sending them to college and such. So that is what started my piggy bank collection.

I fill my piggy banks with pennies, mostly. This keeps me from thinking about high dollar amounts stashed away, these two banks above maybe hold a couple of dollars worth of pennies each. If they doesn't sound like much, it adds up when you have a lo of banks like I do. I have a all shapes and sizes.

The bank above I got on Halloween clearance this year. Basically what I plan to do is when the baby is born, I will take and cash out the banks into a savings account or invest in bonds, or similar things to help the money grow.  Then probably about every five years I will do the same thing again. The sooner the banks fill up the sooner I will cash them out. So in many ways it is true what they say about a penny saved is a penny earned

Coco, My dog

Yep, this post is about my dog. But coco isn't any ordinary dog, she is the best dog I have ever had and she is my baby.

I got Coco four years ago from a breeder in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Now, I had been several different places and looked at several different puppies. One places was a seriously tragic puppy mill, where some of the dogs didn't even have full coats of hair. Another was a great place in Des Moines, Iowa where I could have gotten a beautiful merle colored puppy. I played with them for a while but none of them stole my heart. So finally I went to a family home in Cedar Rapids. They only had two puppies left. One girl and one boy, so tiny and calm. They had their small children playing with them the puppies were just calm and content with the handling. I picked up the little girl and held her, and from that moment on I knew she was meant to be my baby.

I paid for her, a hefty $200.00. I held her the entire ride home, and I have never regretted spending a single penny on her. When I showed her to my mom, she came up with the name Coco for her, because of her chocolate colored fur. She is a full blooded Deer head Chihuahua. Where I lived at the time the floors were always cold and she was so tiny, it seemed only obvious she should sleep with me. So she did and has everyday since then. She loves to cuddle and is always ready to curl up with me.

Coco suffered a bad back injury about a year and a half ago, we believe she fell down the carpeted stairs at my moms house. It caused severe swelling around her spine, which cut off the nerves to her entire lower body. She was basically paralyzed from the waist down. After several visits to the vet, I had to put her on special wet dog food with added lubricant, so she could pass it. Then I also had to take her outside every few hours and squeeze her bladder so she would pee. She had to have some one supervise her nearly all the time. She is the kinda dog that was everywhere I was. So if I left the room she would struggle to follow me, dragging her hind end, hurting herself. So I had to devise a system, I placed her in a tote with clear sides so she could always see me, and then moved the tote from one room to another as I did, so she would feel safe.

Coco was like that for about a month, and then the next 4 months or so she slowly regained use of her back end, and then slowly went back to normal. She is pretty healthy today, but I have to watch her to make sure she doesn't fall or jump onto high things. The vet told me when I saw him that she may never recover, and may always be handicapped. There was no hesitation for me to say that I would care for her if she stayed that way. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for that little doggy. Coco is always happy to see me, loves me unconditionally, and never lets me be sad alone. She is a amazing comfort, and I would never give her up for anything.

I hope everyone can have a pet they love as much as family. Coco is cuddled up next to me while I write this, and I love her!

 

Key Art

I saw the coolest picture on the show 3rd Rock from the Sun. It was a neat framed photo with dozens of real keys attached. So I have been gathering keys for most of this year, and I am excited to make some key art very very soon. I have googled some pictures below of other neat key art ideas. I love the idea of taking everyday objects and making them into recycled art. Like I want to use old bowling balls as lawn ornaments and making a privacy fence out of old doors. So there is no end to the possibilities when it comes to recycling things. I also have a ton of broken jewelry and pieces that I plan on making into unique art as well.
**I do not own and I did not create any of the images below.

Getting Pregnant

So, if you know me personally you know I am trying to get pregnant. Also if you know me, you know I can't get pregnant the natural way. I use a medicine dropper for babies to self inseminate myself such as the one pictured below.

Since this object is small I am able to ease it in without too much pain. I have done research before on getting pregnant and I am doing more now. Before I generally understood the concept of following my ovulation cycles and loosely followed them. Basically I used the method of counting days after my cycle, but looking back now that is not exactly accurate since I have a long cycle, lasting up to 32 days between periods. So, this time around I am actually going to be purchasing a ovulation prediction kit in hopes of increasing the chances of success.
With a ovulation detection kit you actually know before you ovulate that it is about to happen. Where as with the counting method or taking your basal body temp it is more of guess or you know afterwards. The kit tests your urine for a hormone called Luteinizing Hormone, which right before your ovulation becomes very high.
As for the cost, there are a variety of places you can purchase them. Amazon.com offers them for only $13.02 for a 7 day kit. Then I can also pick them up at my local WalMart.
I haven't purchased any yet, because I am still waiting to see if I get my period this month. I keep my fingers crossed that we did something right this time!

Arts and Crafts

I love to do crafts, and I have always considered myself an artist. I love doing various crafts such as sewing, knitting, drawing, painting, and just plain creating. One of my favorite things to do is make ATC's. ATC's are Artist Trading Cards. They are basically a form of mini art for you to share. You don't sell them, you just trade them with other artists. The pictures below are examples of three different cards I have made in the past. The top one I used stamps and a sticker with a neat background, the the one with the Christmas tree I hand painted, and the dragon one is a cutout from a magazine that I pasted and added glitter and pen to the background. I have see many different ones in my time trading them and I truly enjoy doing it. Right now I am doing a personal challenge with ATC's. I am doing a card for each letter of the alphabet in zentangle style. If you have never heard of zentangle I highly suggest you take a moment check it out on google here. So far I have gotten the first 6 letter of the alphabet done and I am working on three more. I do three at once because the designs take a long time and I can easily switch back and forth between the cards as I run into artist dead ends.

If anyone is interested in trading these cards or other swaps, please check out Swap-Bot, it is a great and fun site. Also I would be glad to help any new members!

Very Personal Post

Warning! If you don't want to read super personal and medical things, skip this post. It may make you blush a little!

Now that all that is out of the way, back to what I wanted to write about. I finally got to go see a real gynecologist for the first time on Tuesday. Pretty bad since I am 24, but all I have seen is nurses.  I have never been able to have sex, and it is not for lack of trying. I am just very lucky that I have had great relationships with great guys who didn't push me on the matter. I don't know if I blogged about this before, but some time last year I watched a special on MTV called I Can't Have Sex. One of the girls on there has the same trouble and symptoms as me and I self diagnosed myself with a condition called Vaginismus. Basically it causes the pubococcygeus muscle, to spasm and tighten when ever something gets near it. Like how your eye will blink automatically when something gets close. This muscle is located only a few inches into the vagina, and this reflex can cause extreme pain, and even prevent gyno exams. That makes me super nervous because I still have not been tested for cervical cancer. 
This condition is some what common, although I had never heard of it before then. When I was at the doctors he did verify that it was the condition I had. There are several methods to treat it, there is physical therapy(which I have been doing on my own), psychological therapy(which I don't know if I can afford), and there are some medications. Basically the goal is simple, I have to teach my vaginal muscles how to relax. The process is painful for the physical part, but not unbearable. There is a chance because of this that I may never be able to have children. I have been trying once again to self inseminate myself, using a medicine dropper. If I cannot get pregnant this way, I may never have biological children. I would love to adopt, but then I want to have my own as well. Also, getting pregnant may make the condition worse. The doctor said that if I were to get pregnant, due to my vaginismus, my vagina would not react correctly to the birthing process and I would either never go into labor or be in perpetual labor, because my cervix would never open.
So, basically I have a lot to be depressed about, freaked out about, and think about. I am just so lucky to have a man supportive as Justin by my side through all of this. How many guys you know would marry a girl, knowing he could never have sex with her??

Awesome Winter Gear

Today we had our yearly holiday meeting at American Eagle. At which they introduced two of their newest products, which I had to have! The top picture is my new earmuffs which are also headphones, and the bottom picture is a stock picture of Justin's new beanie, which also has headphones connected in it! I love the bright colors of mine and Justin just loves that his have head phones in them. They have a assortment of colors for both styles and they are pretty affordable too. They are roughly $20, add tax and etc. I got me and Justin's both for only $20 because of my employee discount! So I have to say I am pretty happy camper and thanks to American Eagle some people are gonna get some rocking Christmas presents!

November!

Wow, it is so crazy November is already here! I had a pretty good October, with the minor exception of Jeremy losing his new job. But I went and got my nails done for the first time!

I love how they turned out! Things are going well and I am deep into my Christmas shopping. I already have gifts for everyone in my household. I have no idea what to buy my brother and sister! I dont really know what they are into. I did purchase several Halloween markdowns today, but I have to say my favorite is the pumpkin piggy bank I got.

It was only $5 at Target!