Fascinating Friday: the 13th

Okay, so it's not Friday the 13th today, but that doesn't make this any less fascinating.

I was born on Friday the 13th.

My maternal grandfather's lucky number was 13 & it kept popping up throughout his life (much like it has in mine).

I met Josh on April 13, 2004 (Can't choose when you meet someone!).

2 of my brothers have this tattoo!  I like to think it's
because they love me so much... & not because they love
the tattoo artist that much.

Josh proposed on June 13, 2005 (okay, so it was planned, and it was on my birthday).

Josh & I got married on May 13, 2006.  We'd planned & hoped for May 6th- our official 2 year anniversary- but I had my last exam for school on May 5th, so we decided to push it back a week.  And then we realized it would land on the 13th, so we knew it was perfect that way!

We always said we'd wait about 7 or 8 years to have kids... well, that leaves us at the year 2013.  Looked perfect to me.  Honestly, when we decided to try starting a family earlier this year, I pretty much fully expected that we wouldn't get pregnant until we'd have a due date in 2013.  So I was a little shocked when everything happened so quickly.

But yesterday?  Yesterday I think I figured out why.

January 13, 2012 is... you guessed it!  On a Friday.  Friday the 13th.

10 days before my due date.

I mean, how can she not come on the 13th?

I mentioned it to my brother on Facebook, and my cousin chimed in reminding my that January 13 is also my (paternal) grandfather's birthday.

So I've kind of decided that this baby is definitely going to be born on January 13th.

Truthfully, I've only felt so sure of one other thing in my life (other than God), and that's when I knew I was going to marry Josh.  It was the beginning of July 2004 and he'd made a CD for me with 2 songs on it.  Right as the 2nd song came on, I was driving through a church parking lot & I hit my brakes & thought, "God, I'm going to marry this guy, aren't I?"  It was such a big & scary thought, especially since I was 18 and had just met him 2.5 months earlier.  But somehow, in an unexplainable way, I just knew.  I'm not even sure that I was in love with him yet... but I just knew that we'd get married.

So I could very well be wrong...  this baby could be so overdue she's born in February... but don't think I won't be trying every labor-inducing suggestion on the afternoon of Thursday the 12th!

Fascinating Friday: Wonderland. (You are really going to want to see this!)

I stayed up way too late last night looking over all these photos... truly in awe of a most beautiful story and amazing creativity.  All I could think of was, this is absolutely fascinating... a true wonderland!  So I had to share it with you.

Passion, creativity, and excellence are three words to describe this artist.

She began this project "Wonderland" after her mother died & it's been a way of coping for her.

What a beautiful, magnificent tribute to her mother.  She describes it as 


"a very personal tribute to the memory of my mother, and the stories she read to me as a child. The plan was to create a storybook without words – an unexplained collection of strange and magical characters, set in the woodlands and landscapes that surrounded my home."

And let me tell you, Alice in Wonderland-- as great as the recent movie was-- needs to be checking out these pictures for inspiration!

You can also see the behind the scenes pictures (which were way awesome) here!

There's no way to share part of a picture and do it justice-- you're just going to have to go check them out and truly soak it in!  Let me know what you think!  Were you sucked in to the magical world like I was?

Entitlement, Hard Work, and AFAB

Admittedly, I haven't kept up with the whole Wall Street protest thing.  As I researched to find out what it was all about, it seems to me that the actual movement may have something to it, but 99% of the people involved probably aren't smart enough to understand the intricacies of it.  I know I'm not.

So this post isn't really about the whole Occupy Wall Street thing because I can't really make an informed statement about it.

This post is more about entitlement.  My generation is often called 'the generation of entitlement' and that is not in a good context.  I admit, I have a sense of entitlement that I have to keep in check.  I feel that I've worked hard, made good grades, done the right things, made wise choices, and therefore I should be able to afford to buy a house instead of live in this tiny apartment.  I mean, I have a lot of friends that didn't work as hard or make as good of grades.  They partied through college & they already have houses...

But the thing is, we can't afford a house right now.  We're saving up, and although we feel like we should be at a point where we can buy a house, we just aren't yet.  The end.

Whose fault is it?  Well, it's not anyone's fault... it's just a fact.  It's not the government's fault, and it's not the bank's fault.  It's just not in the cards yet.  Big whoop.  I still have a roof over my head & money to pay the rent every month, so life really isn't all that bad!  Yes, I want better than what I have right now, but I'm very grateful for what I have.

I've seen this flying around Facebook & it really struck me:

I could have written this myself.  Other than a few minor details, this is my story.  I still can't figure it out, but somehow I knew from kindergarten that I needed to make good grades to get a scholarship to go to college.  There were 5 kids in my family & I was expected to go to college ('cause Lord knows I wasn't going to cut it in the family construction business!).  In order to go to college, I had to get scholarships.  I was terrible at sports, so everything was riding on my good grades.  Luckily, I was good in school, formed good study habits, and graduated in the top 5% of my senior class.

All but my room & board were covered in scholarships at the modest state school I went to.  It was a university & provided a fine (although quite liberal) education.  My parents were able to (& gladly) covered my room & board.  I maintained a 3.8 throughout college & graduated a semester early.  I also got married after my sophomore year, so my parents no longer paid room & board because Josh & I were paying rent instead.

By the time I graduated I was making much better than minimum wage.  I started at a counseling center filing paperwork & worked my way up until they trained me to actually work with clients to reach their therapy goals.  We did have debt, so Josh & I both took to working nights at Domino's delivering pizzas.

Then?  Then God called us to move to Atlanta & we both pretty much started over job-wise.  And did you know that between delivering pizza's & working as a nanny for 20 hours a week, you can live in Alpharetta, GA?  You can.  We barely made ends meet, but we made it happen.

My point is, there's no replacement for hard work.  You can be given all the money in the world, but unless you're responsible, it won't last for long.

Did we 'make it' on our own?  Absolutely not.  As my dad always says, "No one makes it in this world on their own."  Remember how my parents covered my room & board those first two years?  And that job at the counseling center?  My boss hired me & put a lot of faith into me.  And when we moved to Atlanta, the church we were leaving totally rallied around us & many members gave us money & gift cards out of the goodness of their hearts.

And that's not even giving any credit to God, which really... He gets all the credit for anything we're able to accomplish.

So yes, no one makes it on their own, but at the same time, you can't expect things to be handed to you.  Nothing replaces hard work.

How to put 300,000 miles on a car.

Last year I made a bucket list.  I've learned though, that there are some things that you don't even realize are on your bucket list, until you've done them.  Like, driving through a bridge-tunnel.  For some, that's no big deal.  For me, that's a huge, scary deal!  But I did it!  And now I can't even count how many times I've done it... even beside a tractor trailer!

Yesterday marked another milestone that I didn't really want to admit how bad I wanted to reach it.  It's one of those that is somewhat in my control, but also somewhat out of my control.

My car hit 300,000 miles.  

No, really.

How do you do that?

1) Buy either a Nissan, Toyota, or Honda (this happens to be a 1997 Nissan Sentra).
2) Give it to a teenager who dates a guy in the next town.
3) Now have that teenager go to college 30 minutes in the opposite direction from said guy, making the trip twice as long.
4) Have that same teenager move back to her hometown, but still go to college 30 minutes away.
5) Have the now 20-something move to Atlanta & get a job in sales where she drives her car all day long.
6) Then have the husband wreck his car, sell it, and make the Nissan their 'family car.'
7) Give husband the same job.

So yes, I've had the car since I was 16.  My dad bought it for me in the fall of 2002 & it has 73,000 miles on it.  It's a straight drive, and it has only been in one wreck.  It was pouring rain, and despite going about 25mph, I still hydroplaned into a ditch.  A few years later my dad backed his truck into the side of it as well.

We've replace the basics on it, and bigger things as it hit 150K & 250K miles, but overall, we haven't replaced anything unexpected.  Biggest repair was $1200 for the clutch.  Ouch... but really... it was around 200K miles at that point, and it should have only lasted 120K.

Why do we still have the car?  Well, why not?  Honestly, if we had anything else, it'd be beyond our means.  We saved up and came across a great fabulous deal for our 2nd car.  And now we're saving for a car to replace this one when it breaks down beyond reasonable repair.  Honestly, I feel like that may be right around the corner... but I've said that before... many times... a couple hundred thousand miles ago!

Fascinating Friday 2.0

There is really no telling where this picture originated from, or whether it's real or artwork.  But who cares?  It's fascinating!

On a completely unrelated note, I also find this terribly fascinating.

Yes, it's circulated around Facebook and emails for years now.  According to Snopes.com, it is an actual surgery from 1999.  The woman was 21 weeks pregnant and the baby, Samuel, had spina bifida, which was why they performed surgery while still in the womb.  The baby & mother were both under anesthesia, so the baby wasn't moving around, or actually 'grasping the doctors hand' as stories suggest-- but isn't it just amazing?

I'm nearly 25 weeks pregnant now.  Sometimes it feels like I'm not even pregnant... hard to connect with the little one inside of me.  But seeing this... it just makes it all so much more real!  My baby has tiny hands like that!  Except, to me, those don't look tiny-- those things are punching around inside my tummy!

So yes, Fascinating Friday.  Totally fascinating.  :)  I hope you enjoyed!

Fascinating Friday

Okay, so I likely won't actually keep up with posting something fascinating each Friday, but it definitely has a killer ring to it, doesn't it?  I thought it up all on my own!  Although... I'm sure it's in existence elsewhere as well.  Nothing new under the sun, eh?

At any rate, I didn't have any other category to put this in, so Fascinating Friday it is.

On Pintrest the other day (Are you on Pintrest?  How do you pronounce Pintrest?  P-intrest?  Pin-trest?) I found where a friend pinned this shirt:

I find it totally fascinating because, well, I am not a hugger.  I'm about as far away from a hugger as you can possibly get.  I tried to find a "I'm NOT a hugger" t-shirt, but apparently they don't make them?  Go figure.

Another fascinating item?  A zebra cake.  More on that next week (or the next) when I'll devote a whole post to it.  Bottom line?  I tried it, I succeeded.  Yummy.  It took me 3 days to clean up the mess I made in my kitchen.

Have a fabulous & fascinating Friday!  What do you find fascinating today?