IKEA

Sometimes I wonder at our sanity.

Yesterday found us sitting in a car for 2 hours so we could spend 3.5 hours at IKEA looking at various storage solutions, only to then spend another 2 hours driving home. Whenever we are in Chicago for a weekend, we typically try to find time to wander through IKEA, but this was the first time we went down to Chicago with our only purpose being to go to IKEA.

A few things we learned on this trip:
1. It helps to go into IKEA knowing what you are looking for. Normally we've just ended up at IKEA for no real reason other than just walking around. That always ended up feeling a bit overwhelming. So it was nice knowing what we were looking for and having a game plan.
2. IKEA's Food isn't that bad. Sadly we had never tried any ok IKEA's food before this trip. While I had heard it was pretty good, I must confess I was still skeptical. But I think I'd eat it again.
3. It's helpful to go during the afternoon and not after 6:00 pm. For whatever reason, we always have stopped at IKEA on our way back up to Madison and so have tended to be there after dinner and we've always been really tired. This trip we were there in the afternoon and we were not tired. All I can say was we have far fewer arguments than ever before.

So all that to say is that we had a good trip and are learning to perfect our IKEA hunting excursions.

Braided Rug

The other day I realized that our kitchen rug was looking a little worn and tattered (which is kind of sad since I actually liked it). My dilemma however was I didn't really want to fork out any money to buy a new one.

Solution? I had this vague recollection of my mom making a braided rug once when I was growing up. I looked up some instructions online, went to the thrift store, and bought some old sheets ($4 bucks total...and they were even in colors that I liked and matched some of the other colors in our living room).

Then I went to work for about 4 weeks cutting and braiding a new rug. For my first attempt, not too shabby. I think I started out by braiding the fabric a bit to tightly so there's some small bumps in the center and I didn't think about how to start and stop different colors at first so the center looks a bit more jagged than I would have liked.

But overall, I like how it turned out and it was a fairly easy process.

Facebook, part 2

After thinking about my post earlier this week, I wondered if some might think that I'm completely anti-facebook or upset at how much or in the way that some of my friends or family post on facebook. Both of those would be false.

So I thought I'd list some reasons why I do like facebook and do still plan on using facebook and watching everything that friends/family post:

1. Keeping in Touch with Family: this is probably the biggest thing I love about facebook. Since we're several states away from most of our family, it's nice to see glimpses of their lives from time to time. In some ways, I think I'm more connected to family and their daily happenings because of facebook than without facebook. In that sense, facebook has been totally worth it and will be worth using in the future.

2. Discovering Interesting News/Photos/Articles/etc: I do really appreciate how many of my friends/family on facebook post challenging and interesting articles that they've found online. I've been introduced to many excellent blogs, videos, images and websites through their posts. I even appreciate how there's a wide array of views posted on facebook...it's been a great way to broaden my perspective on different issues.

3. Ease of Staying Connected: I love how easy it is to stay connected with college and highschool friends. For some reason it seems much easier than trying to keep tabs on a person's email or postal address. I also really, really, really appreciate how quickly you can inform a wide group of people of a prayer request, ministry need, or a personal update (especially people overseas).

4. It's Just Fun: there is something fun about posting on facebook and seeing how many likes you get...or how many comments a post gets...or seeing what other people are up to.

5. It's Addictive: ok this may not be a good thing about facebook, but it's true and a reason why I'll keep coming back to it. It feeds my desire to be in the know.

So like anything in our world, I guess there are good and bad sides to everything - even facebook. And like most things in our world, we have the privilege of discovering how best to use a technology like facebook for good and in a way that glorifies our Lord. And I guess I'm still personally trying to figure out what facebook means for me.

How much do you post on facebook?

One of the more interesting conversations Matt and I have had regarding being pregnant and having a kid is how much do we post on facebook or online in general about all this.

Specifically: where's the line between sharing what's going on and just being plain annoying? How much information is too much? Do I really want facebook owing the rights to pictures of my kid or do I want to run the risk of pictures being stolen and used without my knowledge by other Internet users? In 18 years, will our kid come back and sue us for posting to much or posting embarrassing information about them that they wish was never posted or that effects their ability to get a job?

It turns out we're not the only ones asking these questions:
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-03/living/posting.kids.photos.online_1_facebook-page-photos-social-network?_s=PM:LIVING

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/fashion/25facebook.html?pagewanted=all

It's still a fairly live conversation for us right now especially since one of us is a professional photographer, we have a few family members who use facebook a lot, and we also feel the tension between wanting to keep our family in California connected but still maintain a level of respect for our kid's future self.

So we'll see. My guess is that we'll end up being fairly guarded about what goes up (and probably more so on facebook than anywhere else). But the jury is still out.

Has anyone else out there wrestled with these questions?

Almost Made it a Year

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2011 was to post a blog at least twice a week. I was pretty proud of myself in that I made it to about October before slacking off. I think that's the longest I've ever kept a New Year's resolution.

However, to my defense I think I was blindsided by how tired I'd be during a first trimester of pregnancy. I heard rumors of such things but always thought "it can't really be as bad as everyone makes it out to be". Well considering that between October and December I was pretty much in bed by 9:00 pm and would easily take 2-3 hour naps on the weekend...I guess it really was that bad. So that seriously put a damper on my blogging goals.

So for 2012? I'm not sure what my goals with the blog will be. If I can get something posted at least once a week, I might be ok with that.

Here's to a new year!