Looking Back Now, Life With Lei Lei 5,6,7/52

Those eyes that sparkle and feel like home.

As independent as she may be, she still thinks playing is more fun with mama in on it. :)

Photography by David L. Clark, all photos.

Somewhere amongst all the business of birthdays this month I neglected to take or post any of my photo challenge pictures. I could beat myself up over it, but life goes on. I am only human after all. It doesn't help that I never set a specific day of the week that I would share the series, so I'm deciding that after this game of catch up it will be Mondays. The pictures here were taken two days before Lorelei's birthday by my husband. I love how he catches both Lorelei and myself just as we are. :) I'm still trying to grasp the fact that she is two, and has been for almost 3 weeks. I swear it was only yesterday...

What Am I Gonna Do With Her?! Life With LeiLei 4/52

I set out to snap a cute picture today, and got more than I bargained for! Lorelei didn't want to hold still at all (as per the norm lately). We're only 5 days away from 2 now, and it's more apparent every stinking day. She came up to me the other day, and I had put on a dress and tights (more thought put into my clothes than usual), and she came up, grabbed the hem of my dress and said, "You be-ootiful." Talk about being a puddle on the floor. The same day David was buckling her into her carseat and I was making silly faces at her in front of the windshield and I could hear her inside the car saying, "Mommy's craazy!" When I got in I asked her what she had said and she replied, "You a crazy baby," something I've been telling her forever. She has us looking at each other in disbelief, or trying to see who loses it first and laughs at her when she's bad a lot lately. We kind of suck at discipline because some of the bad things she does set us off in hysterics. She's constantly telling us we're "mean" or "rude. And she has a penchant for "Your face" jokes. I think it's inherited, my middle sister could never come up with anything better than "Your face" either... What a weird, awesome, smart, "Be-ootiful" girl we have. :)

This Kiss 3/52

I'm running a little, okay, quite a lot, late with my Life With LeiLei picture this week. I wasn't feeling very inspired to grab the camera. Then I went into the bathroom to wash my face and discovered this gem of a photo opp. Neither David or myself knows when her little mouth planted this, the mirror had stayed pretty clean for a while, but there it is. I haven't brought myself to wash it off yet because, seriously, a little squishy kiss in the middle of the mirror is precious. :)

This picture took a lot of experimentation to capture the lips marks in good detail. At first I tried keeping the camera out of the picture, and then I realized (as did my husband at the same time, we REALLY share a brain) that the darkness of the lense would make a good background for the lips to pop on. You'll have to forgive the fuzz on the mirror. I tried to blow it off while snapping, and I tried to edit it out, but it is what it is. I like it regardless. Our little wild one knows how to keep us on our toes, and falling deeper, and harder for her all the time. 

In other news WE'RE NOT MOVING! That's coming late, since we found out last Friday, but David and I got knocked on our butts for several days with some weird/awful headaches. Speaking for myself, and I'm sure David too, we're relieved. Nobody likes the process of moving (at least no one I've ever known)! Both of us started feeling like something was off in the whole transfer process, it just didn't feel good, so we decided to withdraw the request, but learned the next morning it had already been done. There is some melodrama behind that, but not on our part so I won't elaborate. I'm glad that my life doesn't feel like it's in upheaval anymore, and I'm more appreciative of what we have. Lessons learned. 

Thanks to everyone who wished us luck in the process, I believe it went to the right place! 

Why So Serious? Life With LeiLei 2/52

It seems that more often than not, Lorelei is quite serious for the camera. Oddly enough, because she's a total hoot the rest of the time. She is speaking sentences and constantly babbling now. Most of the time she speaks very clearly, especially when saying "I love you." She has us smiling and melting into pools all over the floor/couch constantly. :) Yesterday I put on a necklace (very rare, I'm not much of a jewelry wearer) and she was obsessing over it so we went to Target and let her pick a little cheap one. I love having a little girl. Right now she is taking a nap, which pretty much doesn't happen anymore. So I get to blog about her. Hehe. She's going to be two in 3 weeks. I might die...

David put in his transfer request for the job in Tacoma on Friday, so we went and looked at the apartments to figure out which one we'd be moving into. Aesthetically, and functionally, the new apartment will be a huge downgrade, but it's going to save us so much money, get us off food stamps, and allow us to save money for our business. I'll admit I was so not gracious while looking at the apartments. I sort of had a laughing/crying meltdown trying to see the good parts of them while really being fixated on the bad.

The cons of the new apartment are:

• Single sink...this doesn't accomodate that I wash a lot of dishes by hand: bamboo cutting board, measuring cups and spoons, cast iron skillet, baking sheets, baby cup, etc.
• Unmatching, old appliances (this is really mostly aesthetic, but I've been spoiled with all matching, new, good working appliances.) I just hope they work, because I cook 3 times a day...
• No built-in microwave, so we'll have to take up counter space with a clunky one.
• No light fixtures in the bedrooms, so we'll have to buy some.
• Albeit the good closet space, the shelves are almost like unfinished particle board. Ugly and catchy.
• The cupboards are hideous, plus discolored and dingy looking.
• Closer to the "ghetto" part of the complex.
• The playground is in the "ghetto" part as well. 
• Farther away from Trader Joe's and PCC, where we shop every week.

The pros are:

• Savings in rent, and utilities, plus pay raise.
• 2 bedrooms.
• Fireplace.
• Gorgeous view of golf course and ponds.
• In a residential area. Our current apartment is in a shopping/commercial area, and that's not our thing so it's not really appealing.
• In Tacoma, which is an area that we do like.
• More opportunity for growth as far as David's employment.
• Gets us off of food stamps. This way we'll be able change our grocery shopping schedule and buy larger quantities of staples in bulk.
• Ample storage space. Coat closet, linen closet, pantry, walk-in in master, storage closet on large balcony, decent closet in second bedroom, and lots of cupboards.
• Linoleum in dining area. We currently have carpet. You can guess how that goes with a toddler.
• It has a little built in desk in the dining area, so I'll have a space for reading recipes, meal planning, list making, and putting on my makeup in natural light. 
• The living area won't accomodate our desk, so the computer will go in our bedroom. There it will be less inviting for David or myself to spend a bunch of time on, and Lorelei won't ask to watch so many movies. Out of sight, out of mind. 
• Vaulted ceiling in living room, and lots of natural light. 
• Having a larger kitchen again, maybe I'll start making more homemade breads like I did before...
• Closer to WinCo, a nicer WinCo than we have to go to now.

Obviously the ups outnumber the downs. I'm just hoping we're there long enough, and I get comfortable enough to decorate and such. I'm excited to have a little budget wiggle room to buy supplies for DIY projects I've wanted to do for a year. Wish us luck. I'll try to keep up here, no promises though. Hope your Sunday is going well! :)

So This is the New Year, Life With LeiLei 1/52

Here I am, finally getting around to the first post of the new year. I thought a lot about what I would say regarding resolutions, goals, a fresh start, yadda yadda, but I guess I wasn't really feeling it. I have a long, revised but not finished, list of goals for 2013 but I'm not ready to share it because I don't feel particularly committed.

I started out the year with a cold, quick moving and not too horrible, but now I've got some sort of stomach bug too. Good excuses for my lack of motivation. There is also this inner struggle going on over projects I thought I'd be getting to like getting the last two boxes in the apartment unpacked, and hanging things on the bare walls. The problem is that we very well may be moving, again. I should be used to this by now, as I've lost track of how many moves I've made in my life. The number is greater than my near 23 years of age.

This move would be great. It would be due to a position and location change in the company for David, a much bigger apartment for less money, a pay raise, and being in Tacoma, where we thought we might like to move a few months ago. The only problem I have with it is that I am so, so sick of packing up my entire life and taking it somewhere else again. I've never in my life had the luxury of feeling settled, or like a place was home. Part of me never lets my self get to comfortable for fear of being uprooted. Hopefully that will change sometime within the next 5-10 years, after we start our business.

One thing I did decide to commit to for the new year is a photo challenge. At first I thought I'd do a 365, but who am I kidding, that fizzled out by the 2nd. Then I decided a 52 week challenge would be good for me, as I only have to commit to once a week. I've seen a few other bloggers doing it this way and I'm feeling good about it. The reason I want to do a photo challenge is that I have absolutely no skill or knowledge of photography. I had been using Auto mode for everything and wasn't pleased with my images, so I had my husband give me a quick lesson on manual focus, shutter speed, aperture, lighting, etcetera... And I got to shooting. My theme is Life with Lorelei. This may mean pictures of her, or pictures that could be from her point of view. Some weeks I may do just one image, and others a set of images. Should be fun. :)