The Price Is Right and TheBump.com

I went to my first TV show tapering on Monday, now I can mark that one off the bucket list. A friend and I went to The Price Is Right together for their baby bump special in conjunction with TheBump.com. All the prizes given away that day were baby oriented. From diapers n' wipes to maternity clothes to an entire nursery, and of course cars cars and more cars!

The Experiance:
Let me start by letting you know tht if you want to attend the tapering of a game show, plan on it being an all day event with a lot of hurry up and wait. We arrived two hours prior to the entrance time of 8:30 to get in line outside the studio gates. At 8:30 they began allowing entrance to the studio where we waited in line again, with seating thankfully, where CBS employes checked everyone's ID's and social security cards. You have to bring this information for contestant eligibility and tax purposes. You finish processing through this line by takeing a green screen picture that can be purchased as a souvenir. Around the corner, another line! You wait here for your 30 second interview done in groups of about 10-12 people at a time. This is your chance to make a big impression quick, because this is when they are picking the contestants that will be called up to compete. After the interview you turn another corner and...you guessed it, another line. Here again there is seating like in all the other holding areas but also tv's where they play clips of the show for your entertainment and to get you excited. Finally, it's time to enter the show! The studio was much smaller in person with lots of moving sets on stage. They like to keep the energy high and make sure you are yelling and clapping the entire two hour tapering. I was half horse by the end but had fun none the less. Drew Carey is very funny as well as the announcer! George Gray. We got mini comedy shows during commercial breaks, that was a fun freebie. Although neither myself or my friend got to be a contestant no one walked away empty handed thanks to TheBump.com and affiliates who gave everyone in the audience a $300 gift bag. All together it was 6 hours of waiting and 2 hours of tapeing. My body was aching by the end of the day and all the next. I will definitely do it again, I plan on hitting up the talk shows around Christmas and getting in on those awesome giveaways.

GIFT BAG 

BABY SWADDLER

I'm Pregnant!

I thought I would give you ladies and gentlemen the 411. It's official, I am 12 weeks pregnant! It has been a particularly hard pregnancy, especially in comparison to the first two. I have had the full gamet of fun symptoms, to the MAX. Thankfully it should start calming down in about 2 weeks. Not to make excuses but this is partly why my post and communications have been somewhat in consistent. However, summer is here and school is out, my son is on vacay and I plan on takeing full advantage of being able to catch up with y'all and my work.

I am glad to be sharing in my joy with everyone. We were not exactly sure how far along I was for a couple reasons. I had an IUD for over for four years and no menstral cycle for over two years. On April 8th I discovered my IUD was no longer in place..very strange for an IUD to discharge after so long. So we decided to use alternate birth control until closer to the end of the year when we would be ready to start trying for a baby. This would give my body time to adjust and get our home buying situation in place, ect. God seemed to have other plans. Oh, and by the way I don't think you can trust the contraception or pregnancy test from the dollar store,lol. By May 7th I had a positive pregnancy test. My husband happened to be flying out on a family emergency that day so not much time to celebrate..in fact I was scared to death.

I thought I would be happy. I should be right? I wanted us to have a baby...but the reality of now raising 3 children set in hard. Not sure if I was capable, worried about the damage to my body and more. I was overwhelmed. On top of all that the week he got back all the pukeing and cramping and everything started. I was sure this child was going to kill me and it was so hard to be happy.

My husband and I had our first appointment on Monday. I am happy to say everything is just fine. We got to see our lil' squirt and I was filled with a renewed joy for our growing family. I was suprised to see a whole baby, not just a little tad pole. We are calling the baby Forrest right now because he/she was in there running at full sprint! Those lil' arms and legs were goin 90 to nuthin'.

Challenge Update

On Monday, I set a challenge to myself and all of you to keep a log or mental note of the negative self-thoughts that pop into your head throughout this week. I called it our Stop Being So Negative Challenge .  If you missed the post it’s never to late to get on bored.  For now it’s time to review what we kept track of this week.

copyright Sheanna Marie

Here’s My List:

I’m not accomplishing enough

I’m overwhelmed

I just don’t have the energy

I’m not motivated

Who cares anyway

I can’t do this

These were my negative thoughts for the week. Pretty much the same ole’ things I’ve been hearing in my head the past few months. I sat down and prayed about this list today and said “God, what do I need to learn from this?” His response to me was simple, Philippians 4:13 I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me.

Please join the conversation through the comments button at the bottom of the post and let’s stand strong together. 

The "Quit Being So Negative" Challenge

Identity by Sheanna Marie

During a recent Bible study class I came across a quote in our study book Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry by Kris Vallotton. This quote has inspired the discussion for today and challenge for this week.

For a little background info:

The past six months I have spent launching my business. I have been going full force with no other income and no other hobbies or jobs. At six months in, as you could guess, I’m not a millionaire mogul, yet. As a person with a history of instant gratification, being a spoiled only child, and impatient to say the least; I started to really get down on myself and question my abilities and worth as an artist and entrepreneur.  I was becoming unmotivated and deeply negative about every aspect of my life, concentrating only on what wasn’t happening and what wasn’t going right.

Here is what I learned:

“You did not paint yourself, God painted you. Not only that, but Jesus is the one who sat in the chair and modeled for the [your] portrait. We are created in His image and in his likeness. Every time we demean ourselves we are talking badly about the Artist and the Model. “ – Kris Vallotton

WOW!! What a revelation this was to me. How quickly this truth resonated inside of me and began breaking chains immediately. As an artist myself I can totally relate to this. If someone were to be rude and demeaning about one of my paintings it would be offensive to me and the subject in which I had painted. We are all made in God’s image.

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” –Genesis 1:27

So to speak and or believe negative things about ourselves is to speak and believe negative things about our God.

So the next time you catch yourself saying something negative about yourself or anyone for that matter, take the thought captive and ask yourself again in this format..

EX: “I’m stupid and can’t do anything right”

STOP

“Do I believe God is stupid and can’t do anything right?”

I suspect that you will find that you are speaking a lie about yourself. Much of our thinking and behavior problems come from a problem in what we believe about our God.

I encourage you all to take a challenge with me this week. Spend this week keeping track and taking purposeful notice of the negative thoughts that enter your mind, especially about yourself. Consider keeping a journal or note log. At the end of the week look back over these notes and see if there is a common link in the negativity so that we can together begin to figure out what our incorrect beliefs are and begin to guide each other in truth and knowledge.

Guest Post with Katie Price

Hello Everyone! I'm excited to be here to talk with you about one of my favorite things: graphic design. In college, I minored in fine art and quickly learned that having quality supplies makes a big difference. So today, I'd like to share with you what is in my graphic designer's toolbox.

1- MacBook Pro
My Macbook is where it all happens. It is powerful, beautiful, and portable. Do I think you have to have an Apple computer to do graphic design? No. But you do need a powerful computer. Running any of the Adobe Creative Suite programs will use a lot of memory. {And we aren't talking about the "500 gigs of harddrive" some of the cheapy computers come with. That is an entirely different kind of memory.}

2- Photoshop
Photoshop houses both my canvas and my tools. It is where the magic happens. If you are interested in trying your hand at graphic design, I would recommend first starting with the much less expensive Photoshop Elements to see if you like it.

3- Color Picker
You have probably seen the beautiful Design Seeds palettes floating around Pinterest. But how do you take those colors and use them in your designs? By having a color picker tool that reads the color & outputs it as a HEX value that you can use in Photoshop or on the web.

4- Google Web Fonts
Free is good. Google has a collection of fonts that are completely free for personal and commercial use. As a designer I can't just use any font out there, it has to be commercial use ok. GWF is helping to bridge that gap between beautiful fonts & free fonts.

5- Bamboo Tablet
The Bamboo Tablet allows me to sketch or draw straight into Photoshop or Illustrator. There is definitely a learning curve to getting familiar with using a digital canvas, but the tablet is extremely helpful when I am trying to make organic shapes or trace edges.

I hope that gave you a little peek into the tools I use everyday! Please come visit my blog where today Sheanna is giving away a special print!

blog | studio | pinterest | twitter | facebook

Tuesday Tango, Connect and Spread Your Influence

The Tuesday Tango is a multiple link-up post for everyone to meet new people and grow your audience. There will be four link-ups you can add your link to - Twitter, Facebook, Hello Cotton and Bloglovin. All you have to do is follow the host(s) for that week and then add whoever else you'd like to! It's that simple.

Host Links:

After Nine To Five | Sheanna Marie | Framed Frosting

Directions:

Follow the host(s)

Add your links to any/all of the link-ups

Add at least 5 people from the link-ups

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