Weekly Goal #2 and ART

First things first. I actually have three goals this week that I have been thinking about a lot lately. Quite ambitious of me!

First and most important to me, choose my battles with Lucy more wisely and let the small stuff go. This is an ongoing goal for the rest of our lives. I have been talking with several very helpful and knowledgeable mommas lately about Lucy's "attitude." I think that I am letting it get to me more than I should. We are having a battle of the wills and I think I am actually making it worse by making a big deal about it. I feel like I end up telling her No a million times a day and then I wonder why she says no so much. She is going through normal 18 month old stuff. Most children go through a no and very vocal (in not a good way) stage. I am so used to my quiet, sweet Lucy and this new temperment has just caught me off guard. I am going to take the approach of ignoring her seemingly constant whining and shouting no and really praise her good behavior. She HATES to be ignored, so I think it will actually work and won't require Justin or me raising our voice. I am only going to use time out for very serious things - like hitting, which she doesn't do much. Time out is extremely effective with Lucy, and I don't want to lose that by over doing it. I am pretty sure that she is not actually a bratty child, she is just enjoying testing me at the moment. Thanks to all of my friends who have let me vent about this and have given me such great advice. I truly appreciate it. I don't know what I would do without such great friends.

Second goal, organize our tax deductions. I STRESS out in a major way about taxes every year. Our taxes are really complex and take a lot of time to get prepared for the accountant. We always have a million unorganized receipts all over the place. This year, I am not going to stress because we are going to tackle it this week. I am going to have everything ready to go to the accountant by the time all of the W-2s and 1099s get here in the mail. I will not work myself into a tizzy over taxes this year. WILL NOT DO IT! I am so excited to be so ready to go this year.

And my final goal, read the owner's manual of my camera and watch my Nikon dvd. I need to actually know what the buttons do in order to maximize my picture taking. I have literally never opened my owner's manual. I pulled the camera out of the box and just started shooting. I want to know more of the technical stuff.

And now, what I am just giddy with excitement about - I picked up all of our artwork from the framer that we bought in Vietnam. It is all back on stretchers and looks awesome. Here are all of our pieces. You can't see all of the detail, but they are each amazing and several have a lot of texture to them. They are all oil paintings done by artists in Ho Chi Minh City. If you are ever in Saigon, DO NOT MISS THE ART! It was such a pain in the butt to get all of this home, but it was so worth it. Which one is your favorite? I think my favorite is the red one with the Vietnamese girls and the Buddhist monks. I can't wait to get it in frames. Slowly but surely I will post pictures of the pieces in frames and actually hung on the wall!

Three small Van Goghs. These will likely go in our downstairs bathroom. They are very textured because the paint is very thick. These were $15 each!!!!!

Three men with no face (Thomas Crown Affair) paintings - all of the paintings this size were $35 - seriously, I feel like we stole this stuff

The detail on these is so amazing. The gold is very metallic and rich. I wish you could see it better. You kind of can in the up close one.


This is for Lucy's room. One of my favorites

This one is kind of hard to see, but it is elephants where their legs are kind of stilts. The color is amazing.

Working in the field. The grass is all textured.

This one is so cool - it is swans in a lake, but their reflection is elephants. Until the recently, I had only seen the elephants and never noticed the swans.

The Buddhist monks. My other favorite. I actually really love every single one of them.