Bad, Naughty Terrible Wendy.

Okay. I never spend money irresponsibly. After bills, my money replaces clothing when it's torn or shrunk beyond fitting. It buys food, household supplies, and a TON of gas. Once in a while it gets an oil change, and if I really feel like pampering myself, a haircut. I also buy gifts for people twice a year; birthdays and christmas. I'm also paying for a wedding in June.

Yesterday, however, I indulged in a major expense, for no other reason than I've wanted to for a really long time. I bought a camera. It's not just a little point and shoot camera; it's the Minolta HTSI Plus SLR camera that I've wanted forever, with a nice lens, and a couple of simple filters. The camera has some really great whistles and bells; I can choose between fully automatic point and shoot mode, and fully manual mode, and it can even take clear photos of rapidly moving objects, with a shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second. I'm completely excited about getting really clear, sharp pictures, and being able to produce real photographs, instead of just snapshots.

That's not the same lens I bought, but the camera body is right. I guess it doesn't really qualify as an impulse buy. I have been wanting one of these for a long time. It just happens that the moon and stars lined up in a way that made it completely irresistable. Minolta's discontuing them in favor of a new model, so the price dropped by a few hundred dollars; plus I stumbled across it on the Internet for even less than its discounted local price.

On top of financial considerations, Forest and I are travelling again in a couple of weeks, and I was extremely dissatisfied with the performance of my old camera on our last trip. The photos turned out to be dim, grainy, and somewhat blurry. It also had terrible red-eye problems, and some shots are just plain off target because of parrallax.

I had the same level of dissatisfaction with last year's Christmas photos, and don't want a repeat of that. This is an important year in our lives, and I'd really like the faces in my photos to be recognizable and undistorted, in the very least.

Of course I also want to be able to capture some of our wedding for myself, and definitely want a decent camera to take honeymooning.

To make a long story short, the time seemed right, but I was dragging my feet, because it still seemed like a lot of money for something that wasn't absolutely necessary for our continued survival. Then Forest urged me on; encouraging me to go for it. His blessing was all it took for me to toss caution windward and make the call.

So now I'm eagerly awaiting its arrival!! Of course I'm a pansy about travelling with it; but I think I'm going to build my own camera case out of an old Winnie the Pooh softsided lunchbox and some foam, so it will be cleverly disguised from thieves, I hope. If that's not big enough I guess I could always opt for an old backpack.

I am obviously very excited about this indulgence. I hope I'm a clever enough photographer to get some good use out of it!

Last night's taekwondo class was at once great and a killer. We were very active, did lots of repetitions of everything, and by the end of the night both Forest and I were limping. The beginning class went well, and though the students don't know it yet, they are doing a pretty good job with the material for the midterm (palgwe chun pub). Still, I caught someone who was falling, and somehow hyperextended my right knee.

It didn't start to really hurt until partway into advanced class, when we were doing repetitions of different standing and flying kicks. It wasn't painful to kick with it, but it certainly was painful to stand or land on it. By the end of the night it was heartily swollen.

Forest is still suffering from his sprained hip adductor. Don't ask me how he managed to basically sprain his butt, but it's not a good thing for taekwondo. He really needs to just sit out a couple of classes and let it heal, rather than reinjuring it every week and making it worse. The trouble is, he doesn't feel that he can let the next-ranking student take over. There are two black belts in attendance who outrank me, so I can't do it, and each of those black belts has personal issues with a student in class, so Forest doesn't feel comfortable asking them to, either. Of course Master Kim is there, but he is trying very hard to retire, and letting Forest do as much as possible on his own; which would include finding a substitute if he can't perform adequately.

Basically, I need to get a higher rank, so he can leave it to me once in a while, and not have to worry so much.

We limped our way home from class, reluctantly driving two separate cars, and Forest got pulled over! I was really suprised a few minutes later to see a smile on his face. Apparently the officer spotted the taekwondo uniform he was wearing, and asked him where he took class. When he replied that he was a student of Master Kim's, the officer was really pleased, and apparently was one of our fellow students. He looked at the license and registration, informed Forest that the car was pretty loud (the Geo sounds like a dozen chainsaws) but he understood that Forest was a student, so as soon as he could afford it, he should get the exhaust system fixed.

Forest was rather pleased by that.

Once we got home, we limped into the shower. It may sound strange, but the shower is often a great place for us to talk. We share our thoughts and feelings on this and that, debate politics, and discuss the nature of the world. We hop on a train of thought and just naturally drift from spot to spot. For instance, last night Forest told me that he loved me SOOooooo much! I replied that I loved him right down to the little itty bittiest core of myself, to the molecular level. Laughing and hugging me, he promised me that his yet undiscovered sub-quantum particles loved me wholeheartedly! From there we talked about how all biology eventually leads to chemistry, and once you break down chemistry it's physics, and then when you get to the very tiniest particles of physics, it all comes down to faith; so all science is somehow linked to religion.

As you can see, we like to get rather philosophical in the shower. It's also a forum for discussion about our families, plans for the next day, or whatever else needs our attention. I highly recommend showering with one's mate, and not just first thing in the morning when you're both asleep!

We both needed ice before bed; so we propped ourselves up on our ice paks and played Tetris for a while, listening to the Marshal Mathers LP. I'm not usually a rap person, but honestly, folks should turn off their sensitivities, turn on their senses of humor, and listen to an Emminem album, just once. He really is very very funny. Of course there is a lot of foul language, and violence; I wouldn't recommend it to my mom. Well, maybe it's not for everyone, but it appeals to my sense of humor, and I'm about as square an individual as you will find these days.

The best part of my day, though, was crawling painfully into bed with Forest, and having him wrap himself around me (we love to spoon) just as always, and tell me how much he loves me again. I vaguely remember chattering quietly on about something, but he gently ssshhhhed me to sleep. I love when he does that.