It's not always forward motion

Things at the house have seemingly come to a grounding hault.  The bathroom... is well not where I want it to be.  The back bedroom looks like a supplies closet threw up...

But I'm okay.  I know that with time and sadly money that bathroom will be done and beautiful and that will take care of most of the back room's problems.

Why do I share this with you?  Simply to know that everyone has their problems.  Those days when you take a deep breath and hope that the back you hoisted to your back won't crush you.  Sometimes you have to set you pack down and know that it AIN'T going no where.  (yes, aint was necessary)

Today is a day to pause take into account all you have done and look forward to what you know you will need to do.

By Rachel Abi

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Things you don't admit on a blog

I am tight.  Not in the "girl's tight"/hot kind of way but I am frugal/cheap/stingy... I just don't like to spend money. I don't.  Don't get me wrong I love stuff... I mean more than I should. I think that most things I come across are awesome for some reason or another (save for trinkets, bobles and other things that just don't speak to me).

Beneficially for a lot of reasons, both personal and business, this "cheap" nature as allowed me to keep out of debt.  Though raised in a family without money one thing I walked away with was a deep desire to be out of debt. To have a budget and work within it saving as much as possible for those times when you really need it.

One other thing about me you probably don't know and is going to sound odd to bring up since it is one of those topics never to speak of publicly but I am political.  I like to be aware. I am totally cool with people not agreeing with me and the only thing that makes me upset is when I hear people basing their votes by the appearance of a candidate... for any office.

How do these two ideas come together?

The US debt deficit.

I am not sure you are aware but the US Government owes a lot of people a LOT of money.  This year the government has to borrow $0.40 on each dollar. It would be like buying everything in your life on a credit card and then sending the credit card company a nickel each month and thinking it would be able to pay it off... ever.

Did you know that the US dollar is the world's global currency? I'm sure you were smarter than me and knew this and what this means but just in case:

Simply put right now most countries in order to money for goods, the country has to have US dollars. Ie: if Mexico wants dolls from China they would have to take their own currency and put it into us dollars before making the trade.

The US Government is so in debt the only way it can pay even the interest on the loans is by printing more paper money: this devalues the dollar.  Not just for you and me but for the world.

This devaluing has been going on for years!  And so many so much more intelligent and brilliant than me see that the US dollar will not be able to maintain it's value and thus will no longer be the Global currency.

What does this mean?

Simply, the dollar will become worth very little.  Right now you know what $100 dollars means, the concept, what you can buy but when the $1 is no longer worth anything... it is hard to conceptualize.

Look at Germany after it's collapse after WWII, people started burning their currency because it was worth more as paper then money.

Look at England in the 60's their government got broke enough that they couldn't pay government workers to take care of trash.

I say all of this because it is scary. The prospects of what could happen and the fact that at my age of 25years most people I know do not even know that the US Government is in a lot of debt let alone what that means.

It is scary for those I love. It is scary the scenes from books I've read and movies I've watched pop to mind...

If you don't believe me there is a long but worth while video you can watch:

http://pro.stansberryresearch.com/1202ENDOFAMR/6PSIN316/

I man much smarter than I am walks you through what he knows. It is long but worth you while.

Written by Rachel Abi

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She's a freak hoooussee...

Do you ever feel like an oddity?  Like kind of a freak?

Sometimes I sit in awkward silence judging myself for being weird. This morning it is focused on the fact that I love organization but reject schedules.  Don't get me wrong I still have a schedule, even for blogging I have my day broken up into 30min segments as to keep from overlapping too much and wasting time. For example: commenting on blogs is broken up because not everyone posts at the exact same time.  

Yet despite my understanding how helpful a schedule is I still reject it. I blame my mother, as we all do for way to many things, in this case I feel like it is just.  When I was growing up my mother was super scheduled.  We had our time scheduled, our chores scheduled and we were allowed to play with one toy at a time, after which we had to put it exactly where we found it before we got another. This may sound ridiculous to some of you but to be honest, I respect my mother for teaching me discipline and the importance of order and cleanliness... I guess my rebellion is not liking that schedules rule.

No matter how much I am shown otherwise I reject schedules everywhere possible... so mainly when to eat... that's about it.  "Yea, well you say I have to eat breakfast _____?  I'm just going to eat an apple and then have a big brunch!  What'cha going to do about it?"  Yes, I do give myself attitude.  

Written by Rachel Abi

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Budding

I can't believe how fast time flies... I mean really it is spring already!  

I'm excited.... except for the whole cutting grass thing.  I mean really, who is a fan of that...Not that I have room to talk since I am pretty nerd-y.

There is such promise at the beginning of each season and with spring and all it's buddings... it so beautiful.  This spring promises lots of change for Chris and me. 

Today I am at the Fix with Jasmine star... and that's a big part of the change.  I have been doing wedding photography for years now but I am determined to make it work... to plug on. 

Oh, spring be kind!

By Raleigh Wedding Photographer

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Getting your blog into shape:the link up fiasco

In response to my dear Rambling Heather, today's post is all about virtual organization part one:

The link up fiasco

I came late to the blogging game, for sure.  In college I had a random blog but lost it years ago to the way life gets busy... who am I kidding is busy.  But two years ago there was a huge change in my life, my husband and I quit our jobs to buy a business.... alas it didn't work out but all the same in launched a completely new BOOK (not just a new chapter) in our lives.

With a blog the point/reason will vary but any which way it is nice to know you are being heard, being looked at.  When I started blogging I looked around to see what would be great way to do this and in laid a system already in place: link ups.

One of the ways Google places your site higher on the search list is by the size (amount of content) and the number of sites your linked with.  I looked around and decided to map out the options of link ups.  I wanted to come up with a better/more effencient way to link up.  I started marking down the link up options on Monday I found, I did searches, followed buttons, gathered information for each day of the week and started with this horrible looking piece of paper:

I have four blogs but only three do I link up with other sites so I did this chart with the intent of three sites across the five day "work week".  I slowly weeded out the link ups that asked too much, that were too specific in their desires making it impossible to link up with more than one blog in a day.  Till I whittled it down to this spread sheet:

Sorry it is hard to see but it is the same list idea as above but now instead of having to type in each link up site I can click and jump right over.  Most days there are only a handful of sites that have a close enough theme that one post can touch on it all but Wednesdays are completely different.  Everyone and their mother's brother does a Wordless Wednesday: it is like a global blogging hug where we can all come together with one project and beneficially for any that are participating you can link up with all of them.  I know of over 100 sites that do link ups for Wordless Wednesdays.

The number one thing to remember about linking up is courtesy!  Make sure if you are linking up with a blog you have their button, if they don't have a button just do a straight link back.  You are getting the benefit of their readers make sure you give back.  If a blogger doesn't like you linking up, don't whine accept it, say sorry (whether you think you did something wrong or not) and move on.

If you are nice to others, comment, praise, mention others the blogging world is a reciprocatory place!

By Raleigh Wedding Photographer

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Organized Chaos

One of my goals when I started this blog was to talk about organization... I haven't done that a bunch.

There isn't really a right way or wrong way to organize something.  Just because "Suzy" likes the label maker and Rubbermaid containers doesn't mean you have to too.  "Organized Chaos" is actually a legitimate style of organization... so long as it actually is ORGANIZED chaos... and not just chaos.

I do a bit of OCD organization but I also have my "Organized Chaos" areas too: one being under our bathroom sink.  It doesn't look neat and pretty but it all works.  Things we use on a regular basis are at the front and refill items are at the back.  All "getting" ready products are in the same stack and all grooming aids are in a different stack.  

The point is: no organization style is better than another.  If you do better with labels so that everyone knows where it goes: GREAT!  If you do better when things are stacked: AWESOME.  If you do better with having messy baskets that divide up your categories: AMAZING.  

If it works for you and your family: don't let someone look down on you for it.  Be you in every way!  Even down to the silly things like organization: find your organizational personality.

By Raleigh Wedding Photographer

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Won't last past the Apocalypse but. . .

I don't ever feel like I have enough storage space in a bathroom.  I'm pretty sure each bathroom should have a closet built in for all the stuff you actually want to store in your bathroom. . . or am I alone in this "way too much stuff to space" thing?

All the same I went looking around for options and found out that above the toilet cabinets are silly expensive for even the mesh boards with sticker like material over it to make it look like wood you're looking at around $100 or more.  That seems a little silly to me (when it is not a higher quality cabinet at least).  

So I set out on a voyage to find a solution that won't break the bank when I came across this.

I was walking around target and found it.  It was $15 and wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was a price I couldn't argue with.

The instructions and construction process was fairly simple, took me all of 5 minutes to get it all put together.

Hanging wasn't too bad either.  The screws go through the metal and so it has a big enough space a pen can go through it and mark the wall so there wasn't really a need to measure if you have a level and are okay with a little guessing.

Next came the drilling.  The cabinet is about 18" so it doesn't work well with hitting 2 x 4's so the kit comes with the wall brackets.  My drill head choices were not the right size so I simply and slowly drilled in and circled the drill around the hole.  Slowly removing a bit of drywall till I got the hole to the right diameter.  

Next you just take a hammer and tap the wall bracket in place.

Then screw it in place

And fill it with all your stuff

Though it isn't exactly what I wanted and won't last after the Apocalypse comes for $15 I couldn't much beat it and you got to love an easy insulation process!

By Raleigh Wedding Photographer

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