And one of the areas of my life- one of the true things about me- is my online life. The blogging, the twittering, the facebooking, and the DIGITAL MOM part of my life… they are a big part of who I am. And, I am totally doing myself a disservice by not blogging about them.

I think I took a wrong turn somewhere when I told myself I shouldn’t blog about blogging. I didn’t think I was doing my readers any favors by reading about online life stuff. But in not blogging about anything else in the blogosphere, I was hampering my ability to build community.

I’ve mentioned twitter here and there, but I never promote twitter parties or reference the friends I’ve made there. I don’t talk about forums I frequent and the relationships I’ve built there. IRL (aka in real life) when I talk about being online, about the digital mom part of my life, I kind of get embarrassed and try to change the subject. I try to defend hours I spend at the laptop.

Actually, let me tell you a story.

After the Today Show segment aired, I never came back to this space to explain anything people saw on TV. I stewed over many things that irritated me, I quit reading Dooce because of what her commenters said about me, and I was kind of glad we went on vacation right away and had almost no internet access. It allowed me to just skip over it and go back to blogging stories and sharing pictures.

But it wasn’t me. I was denying a part of who I am. If I’m going to say I’m a digital mom on national TV, shouldn’t I be comfortable writing about it as well?

So, as I move forward with figuring out who I am, I embrace the fact that I am a blogger, I have a life online, and I’ll probably be writing about it a bit more in the future.

Technorati Tags: Wordless Wednesday, red, bokeh

1. A 5th generation iPod Nano. This is a cop out since technically I already have it. Damon bought it for me back in September as an early birthday gift. I love it because it has a small video camera. I just need to learn how to convert the files to something I can work with. (Of course, I would take this protective case for it, since they finally seem to have some on the market.)

2. The Nikon 35mm lens I have been wishing for. I learned that a 50 mm lens that works with my camera is really expensive. But a 35 mm prime lens is cheaper and just as good.

3. Wii Fit Plus – I have the Wii, I have the Wii Fit, why not add Wii Plus?

4. This Kodak printer because our printer has problems and I want a cheap way to print some photos at home.

5. An all expense trip to Blissdom, including being able to take Damon and the boys, who would love hanging out at the Opryland Hotel. There is a boat ride in the hotel! Fuller would love it!

6. I would love an eye-fi card for my camera. I got to see it in action at Type A Mom Conference when I saw Rick Bucich (from Tiny Prints) using one. He was really great about explaining how it worked and it made me want one a lot!

7. The latest version of photoshop so I can really know what all those photoshop tutorials are talking about.

8. I have a crush on Burberry. Some women like Coach. I like Burberry. It’s the plaid. I want this purse. (See, I said some were outlandish.)

9. I think our family could use a Netbook for travel. Love my laptop, but traveling with it and the baby stuff and the camera is a bit much.

10. Someone should send me (and my family, I guess) to Hawaii. I want to photograph volcanoes, coffee plantations, and surfers. Anyone want to send us? We love to travel!

11. (Ok, this is a bonus.) I would love some of these photo mailers.

So there it is. The “what I want for turning 33″ top ten. Want to see other Top Ten lists? Check out OhAmanda for the linky!

Technorati Tags: top ten Tuesday, birthday gifts, digital photography, eye-fi, Nikon, Blissdom

I always worry I might miss the peak of Fall colors and with all the rain we had recently it would be very easy for the leaves to change and then throw themselves on the ground in disgust, sick of being heavy with rain and under the cover of clouds for so long.

Last year Fuller and I took a Fall walk on Lookout Mountain so I could try and capture some of the Fall splendor. This year, we tried to do the same, but a sleeping Tebow sent us elsewhere… to a playground. The sky was clear and bright, lining up for some beautiful shots.

I’ve been obsessing about lens flare lately, a photographic technique that adds magical orbs of light to the picture. I wonder if it is because the sun has been missing from our lives a lot lately that I went seeking to get it into my pictures yesterday. Like I want to keep some memory of it, in case it goes missing again.

It was a beautiful Fall day, and I hope every year I get a chance to take my boys to discover the beauty found in our backyard.

Technorati Tags: Fall, sun flare, lens flare, Lookout mountain

Next Monday I am turning 33. My birthday always gives me a sense of excitement and entitlement. I always want it to be about me, me, me. From the moment I wake up, I desire to have everyone around shower me with love, attention, affection, and gifts.

Honestly, it doesn’t ever really work out that way. In fact, a lot of things haven’t worked out in ways I thought they would. I’m the type of person who, when it comes around to certain milestones (birthdays, New Year’s, etc.), I tend to dwell on the way things haven’t worked out. It’s not a particularly happy past time and some might even say it isn’t healthy.

See, I think the reason I think about the things is because I’ve been trying to answer the question “Who am I?”

I know at some point along the way I have lost myself, a struggle plenty of women have. And when I think about my dreams that didn’t become a reality, I use them as the starting point to get back to that “Who am I?” question that plagues me.

But like I said before- not a happy thing to do and probably not healthy. And I never come up with any answers, just more questions about why those dreams didn’t become a reality.

So, in an effort to find answers (because I don’t think there is just one) to the “Who am I question?” I plan on trying to focus on things I do know and accept about myself for the next six days. Then, as a birthday present to myself, I’ll hopefully be looking forward to the future, happier, and closer to being sure about myself.

Technorati Tags: questions, who am I?

A few years ago I bought a spray can of gold hair/ body glitter. I didn’t really have an idea of what I should dress up for on Halloween (if at all), but I knew I wanted there to be glitter involved.

I opened the can for the first time on Friday. I decided, even if I didn’t have a costume, glitter in the hair on or around Halloween was perfectly acceptable. I wanted to be shiny and sparkly.

Then, when we were at Wal-Mart last week, I found a pair of fairy wings for $5. Specifically, I found a pair of orange wings for $5. So, I decided I would slip them on my back and become the Magical Mom. Wings, glitter, and me- my ideal costume.

(I even sprinkled “Mommy Dust” wherever I went, since the glitter transferred to everything I touched, looked at, or even thought about. Tebow’s diaper changes were interesting.) (Oh, and the wings were great since I could slip them over the straps of the Ergo when I had Tebow on my back during our church party.)

Hope you had a good Halloween, I know I did!

I’m very excited to have my pictures published in a local magazine! If you think you’ve seen them before, you probably have in 2008 and 2007.

Also, please check out my Wordless Wednesday on our family blog!

Check out other Wordless Wednesday pictures on MomDot and Five Minutes for Mom.

Technorati Tags: wordless Wednesday, photo credit, Chatter, Chattanooga, Pride of the Dixieland Band, Tenessee Vols, Marching Band

Last Friday, Damon and a friend participated in Camp Out to Stamp Out Homelessness. It was put together by our local Interfaith Hospitality Network, a homeless ministry our church is heavily involved in. While it was fun for Damon and Dave, they got to make things out of cardboard (they did a tailgate area) and camp overnight, it also made me think how awesome it was that I got to go home and sleep in my house and in my own bed.

However, I have to admit that various circumstances have me not liking my house right now. Our fridge isn’t working again. I’m disorganized because we have so much stuff and not enough room to store it all. And every evening that we have problems with Tebow sleeping through the night, I curse the fact that we don’t have another bedroom to put him in to cry it out (don’t bug me about this).

So, in order to change my attitude, I am going to write ten things I actually like about my house. And I’ll leave this window open all day if I have to… just to get TEN THINGS.

1. The sense of accomplishment. We might be on year ten of our five year plan to renovate the house, but every time we complete a project the sense of accomplishment gets us so high, we decide to keep on keeping on!

2. Our built-in book case. It looks so nice and actually does help us stay organized to some degree.

3. The bamboo floors. They really warm up the dining room and living room, and still look great, three years later.

4. A working dishwasher. I think having a broken dishwasher would be worse than our broken fridge. (We are using the dorm fridge from D’s office in the interim.)

5. My kitchen island. This is addition to our kitchen gave us such a great amount of counter space. And when I pile junk on it, I still have plenty of counter to do work on!

6. Two bathrooms. Enough said.

7. Sunlight. Sure, it rained today. But! We have plenty of southern facing windows and it really helps warm the house on days when the sun is out and strong.

8. Our attic. I might complain about lack of space, but Damon did a bang up job on making our attic an excellent and safe place to store things.

9. Our dog door. Once we had our fence installed, we put in a dog door. This has changed so much for us. I feel safer knowing the dogs can head outside any time they hear something or need to do something.

10. The roof. We aren’t homeless. We have a roof over our heads. It has been raining sooooo much this Fall, the roof has protected us from all that rain.

For more Top Ten lists, check out Oh Amanda!

Technorati Tags: top ten Tuesday, top ten list, home, interfaith hospitality network, camp out to stamp out

Right now my living room is an obstacle maze of fabric, bits, and bobs all intended for Fuller’s costume of 2009. Which is why I’m going to look back to last year for this week’s I ♥ Faces theme: Halloween Dress Up! (And if you know our family, you know dressing up isn’t restricted to just Halloween. But I still want to show off Captain America!)

What I’m showing off this week is Fuller’s Captain America costume from last year. We took our little Captain America to several events and some special locations for various photo shoots. This particular shoot was irritating to Fuller because the sun was in his eyes. This is cause for melt down. I remember we tried to tell him Captain America would suck it up, but it didn’t translate to the then four year old.

Head over to I ♥ Faces for more links to costume fun.

BUT! Before I could move the food from the dorm fridge to the big fridge, I had to clean it up. It was gross. There was dried on yuck under the veggie drawers. There were some moldy things and dried lettuce stuck the bottom the drawers. And so, I had to clean it.

The thing is, I had to figure out how to get the dried on yuck out. It didn’t just wipe out. And at first I couldn’t scrape it away. So I set the tea kettle on the stove and waited for it to whistle. Once the water was boiling, I poured it directly on the yuck. Within seconds, I was able to scrape it all out. Then I was able to disinfect and scrub with soap.

So, that’s what worked for me.

To find other inspiring (mine was inspiring, right?) works for me tips, just go see We are THAT Family for the links.

Technorati Tags: Works for Me Wednesday, hot water, cleaning, fridge