& plenty to catch up on around the house...

**Saw swim trunks on sale at Kohls, so may drop by there today, for the kids. Reminds me, my friend looked horrified when I told her I only had one pair of swim trunks for each kid. But for her asking to borrow one, it's never been an issue. :rolleyes (The friend who wonders how one-income people do it... Step 1 - your child does not need 5 pairs of swim trunks).

**Still going through potatoes. I have been making "french fries" every Sunday mornings. Yum. (More just like frying up sliced potatoes with some seasonings). Becoming a bit of a habit.

**If I am really ambitious, I will start posting items on Craigslist. Kids got toys and I the contents of my shelves are still strewn around my bedroom.

**Of course, I have taken tons of pictures over the last few weeks that I have meant to share - may get to those???

**Today is nice and quiet here. We have seemed to have never-ending guests, with dh feeling better and everyone wanting to see how he was doing. Since most of our friends and family live out of town, my Sundays have been rather exhausting.

Oh, but I am only working Saturdays for 2 more weeks. Yay! Next weekend will surely be crazy with Easter - a big deal for dh's family. Lucky for us, dh's local cousin feels up to hosting. I think we stepped in the last year or 2 - I don't remember. I don't need a pile of houseguests, nor to spend my one day off driving all over tarnation. Phew. Easter is always super fun there anyway. He had surgery too and hadn't been up to it for a long time. Dh and his young cousins have all been having surgery and been hospitalized lately (last 12 months or so?). It's kind of absurd. It will be nice to celebrate everyone being alive and well. Too much medical drama for a bunch of young 30-somethings.

I am sure some of dh's extended family will be surprised to see how well dh is doing. Will be good to see everyone.

**Thanks to daylight savings, and dh feeling so well, I am hanging in there. I REALLY look forward to getting my Saturdays back. BUT, daylight savings has afforded me a lot more time for evening bike rides and walks. Phew.

Of course, the forecasts call for a ton of rain this next week - which may make working easier. I've never seen so much rain - we haven't turned on the sprinkler system since 2009. Which is just crazy. The water is good though, as long as we don't flood.

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Saw something that made me gag. Almost everyone I have met in this city, who is a mom, is also a "professional photographer," all of a sudden.

Don't get me wrong - they can do NICE pictures. They all seem to be pretty professional, serious and talented. BUT, then again, how hard is it to be a novice in this day and age (with fancy camera equipment, digital cameras, printing options, etc.)

SO, one of these friends sent me a link to her blog. It was all about how one should consider the $2500 deposit or so for a professional wedding photographer, and then save up another couple of thousand for the whole she-bang. You don't have to buy it all at once, you know.

Anyway, CDs break and everything, but photo albums last forever.

LOL. Seriously? I don't buy that for a second.

As I read the article, I gagged. Out of curiosity, I checked her wedding package photos, and the only info was, "Starting at $4000." Yes, literally, starting at $4k - for the minimum crappy package. Though I would hope her minimum package isn't crappy, but who knows.

I will be fair to my friend. She is obviously very passionate about photography, and her wedding album means a lot to her.

I just gag at the idea that no person's wedding is complete without spending a few thousand dollars on photographs. To that, I say, "give me a break." No wonder everyone is so broke.

(For the record - our wedding photographs were free. Our photography dabbling friends and relatives took the shots with their cameras - and we paid for all the prints. We also have the digital copies saved all over the place - many copies). No, we don't have any postcard picture perfect type photos. But, we have plenty of lovely photos for the day. I personally think anything more would be "just for show," more than anything. Sort of a Joneses thing. We have plenty of wonderful photos to remember the day. Which is all we need for ourselves. We have nothing to show off how fancy the affair was or how much we spent on a photographer, no.

Anyway, I was discussing with dh, who could care less about photos, but is a huge video-phile. As I expected, he could identify with putting a lot of value on a wedding video. So, I asked him, "So, would you spend $2k, 3, 4 or $5k on a wedding video?" He asked me if I was crazy. LOL. He did spend $1500-ish on our HD camcorder. If he could do it all over, he'd get one of his friends to shoot the video with our camera, and edit it himself. I suppose that speaks to dh though. He just wants the high quality video. He doesn't care so much about the "show." We don't need all the fancy graphics and high end editing. He just wants a crystal clear picture. Which is kind of the approach we took to our wedding, since we knew so many people with professional cameras.

Dh actually isn't thrilled with our free wedding video, and has reworked it quite a bit. BUT, our wedding was pre-HD days. I think that is his main complaint. & to this day, he doesn't regret it enough to spend 4 figures on a professional.

Anyway, the point of this rant is not to disagree with anyone who has spent a lot of money on photographs. For some people it means a lot. Fair enough. I just gag at the marketing angle. "Your wedding isn't complete until you pay me a small fortune." Sorry, not buying it!