Coasters

Even though Mike and I got married six months ago, I'm still sifting through all the wedding stuff. Just recently I ran across a gift card someone had given us for Crate & Barrel. Mike told me to get whatever I wanted, so I went to the website to order something.

Now, the tough thing is that the gift card was for $25. Normally $25 can buy a lot...at Target, you can get silverware for four, some frames, or a blanket. At Pier 1, you can get some candles or throw pillows. But at Crate & Barrel, everything is so expensive that $25 can't get you much. I was seriously considering buying a pretty vase or a bowl that you float flowers in, but space is at a premium in our tiny apartment and I don't get flowers often. In the end I bought a set of coasters. I was bitter because my old coaster set, which consisted of four bamboo coasters, had cost a dollar. But I had to spend the money somehow, so coasters are as good as anything, I guess.

When I got the coasters I saw they were actually kind of cool. They're made of thick glass and they stack up in a wooden holder. What's even better is there was a space in each one where you could insert a photo. After sifting through our photo collection I selected four of our wedding photos and went on walgreens.com to order wallet-sized prints to fit into the coasters.

Mike saw what I was uploading and said, "So you're putting wedding photos in the coasters?"

"Well, they were wedding gifts," I replied.

"When are we going to stop using wedding photos every time we need a photograph of us?" Mike asked.

"Probably when we have some pictures of us that weren't taken like this," I said, stretching my arm out and pretending to aim a camera at myself and snap a picture. It's true...the only pictures of us that we have that were taken by other people are our wedding pictures. All the other pictures of us together were taken by holding a camera at arm's length and snapping a picture of our faces. It's class.

Truth be told, I'm getting kind of sick of our wedding pictures. They're beautiful, sure, but I've spent so many hours staring at them. They grace several frames in our apartment and I've ordered print after print for friends and family. I organized them into online albums so everyone could see them. I ordered photo books from Snapfish and MyPublisher to serve as our wedding albums, and I haven't even started to organize all of our loose prints into the set of three photo albums that Mike's parents gave us. I'm done with wedding photos. I want something new.

This weekend Mike and I are going to his parents' camping trailer. Maybe I can use the timer on my camera to take some pictures of us in the woods. Then I'll have something to use the next time I buy coasters.

Projects

I'm not sure if I posted this yet, but if I didn't, here it is:

It's some kind of green stone that I can't remember, green colored freshwater pearls, and sterling silver spacers.

This is cooler:

I got these wooden beads on Etsy. They have hologram pictures of saints and religious images shellacked onto wooden beads. I think it's retro and pretty cool.

Here's a close-up of a bead:

I enjoy it muchly.

So much for that

Yesterday after seeing everybody's input, especially Marc's statistics, Mike decided that Natural Family Planning was too risky to try. I briefly considered ditching my pills and doing NFP behind Mike's back, but that would be pretty dishonest. I also considered making Mike pay for my birth control since I was no longer interested in it, but eventually I decided against that plan as well. In the end I was fairly bitter and went to bed thinking angsty, adolescent thoughts such as, Fine then. I'll keep taking my birth control pills and keep putting myself at risk for cancer and blood clots and when I finally pop a clot into my heart and die everyone will be happy, because at least I wasn't pregnant. Hmph.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that I've had a grand plan fall apart. The other time was when I was hoping we could buy that house, and once I found out it was sold Mike said it was probably for the best. He also mentioned that he didn't want to think about buying a house for a long time. Both with the house and with the NFP he said I could keep looking and educating myself so that in the future we could go forth with my plans, but I'm not a sucker. Learning more about it will only make me want it more, which will set me up for more heartache.

So now I'm in an awkward spot. I learned enough about NFP to be really discontent with my birth control pills, but I don't know what else I would use. I also can't chart my cycles out just for my own education because I no longer have real cycles and real ovulation. All the symptoms are fake. When I learned we couldn't get a house I could at least re-direct some energy into revamping and repairing our apartment. There's nothing I can do to replace the urge to practice NFP.

Sigh.

***REPRODUCTIVE GIRLY STUFF AHEAD***

Yesterday while we were out Mike and I picked up a book that was recommended to me called Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. I was interested in finding out about Natural Family Planning/Fertility Awareness. I'm interested for three main reasons:

1. Even though I was prescribed my birth control pills for reasons other than contraception, and I was taking them before I lost my virginity, I'm Catholic and I really shouldn't be using them

2. I figured that if I'm hippie enough to use a menstrual cup, I'm hippie enough to do this

3. It would be like a science project every single month!

Reading the book is an interesting experience because right now I'm on the pill, so none of this ovulation stuff is occurring. However, the prospect of trusting my body this way is frightening because my body rarely cooperates in my schemes. I diet and still gain weight. I take vitamins and still catch colds. I sleep and still wake up tired. I was getting pretty worried until I turned a page in the book and saw...

...a graph.

A beautiful, clear, clean-cut graph showing waking temperatures. It was so...scientific. When I saw that curving line I knew this was the method for me.

There are still a ton of things to consider, but it's interesting to think about.

Photoful!

Today Mike and I took a walk around town. We walked to the mall for lunch, then strolled through the Third Ward and the Milwaukee Public Market, and finally walked along the lakefront before heading home.

Of course, I took my camera.

I love old painted-on ads. Of course, I'm not too sure this one is really old, since there was another ad on the same building for Car-X, and that was a lot more faded.

No more need for you, snow plow!

I love this photo, with the old building peeking between the new ones.

This was actually really cool. Near the Discovery World childrens' museum there are these half-circle things standing on tall poles. You can move them by turning the wheel at the base, or let them just turn in the wind. They're covered with little mirror discs that look like rippling water when the wind blows across them. They sound kind of eerie, though.

Part of the Milwaukee Art Museum building. It has these two big wings on it, like bird wings. They open up every morning and then close down close to the building every night.

The walkway around the lakefront. There's actually a really nice park area all along the shore. It was a beautiful day - very sunny, but with a nice cool breeze coming off the lake.

I hope your Sunday was as nice as mine!