Our trip to Germany is slowly coming to a close. One week from today, we'll get on a plane and begin the long journey back home.

About a week and a half into our stay here, I began to feel slightly homesick - something that is very rare for me.   I alternated between wanting to go home at that second and never wanting to leave Germany.

(I no longer feel that way, but in hindsight, I think it was due to the lack of sun. It was so gloomy and rather depressing for awhile...and with weather like that, well, I couldn't help but miss my bright, sunny, airy room, the sun, and my friends.)

But now in this last week of our time overseas, I've decided to embrace every little thing. Embrace the time I still have with family. Embrace sleeping in (I know I'm going to be bombarded with things to do when I get back).

I'm going to embrace the last moments.

Is there anything you're embracing the last moments of?

-carlotta

PS Tomorrow I'm leaving for Paris! Eek!

PPS I added a poll on my right sidebar (below the followers gadget) regarding Happiness Is. Please give me your opinion via a vote, will ya? Thank you! 

It's that time again...time for Happiness Is!

If you haven't played along before, it's simple. Just write a post with two things that have made you happy this week, add the button (directly below) to your post, then come back here and link up! But please write the post before you link up :)

<div align="center"><a href="http://pastors-girl.blogspot.com"><img alt="Happiness Is..." src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1064/4732886685_1331802b43_m.jpg" /></a></div>

Happiness is...

...finding out that I'm going to Paris! That was definitely the highlight of my week. I can't believe I leave the day after tomorrow already!

...sisterly love :) This was taken on MeMe's birthday, and it was so sweet how excited Lilly was about everything. Super cute.

Your turn!

-carlotta

PS Would y'all like to continue Happiness Is? Or would you rather have some sort of a photography blog hop (I'm not sure yet what kind)? I'm curious :)

Lately I've felt a bit uninspired when it comes to blogging.

You know those times when your head is filled with so many ideas you could write ten blog posts a day? I experienced that a few weeks ago. Now? I'm pretty much the opposite.

Blame it on the rainy, cold weather (which means it's hard to go places so I can take pictures), blame it on writer's block...but when you don't have any ideas, then you don't have any ideas.

So instead of wracking my brain trying to come up with a halfway decent post, I decided to work on my blog design. I've rewritten my about me page, tried to figure out a two column design and went back to a three column, since the formatting didn't want to like me, redid my header, and moved around some things in the sidebars. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? I'm still tweaking everything a bit, but overall I'm fairly pleased by the outcome.

(And my header was sibling approved...if that's worth anything ;))

Have a wonderful day! I'm off to get my hair cut :)

-carlotta

They say

(linking up above photo to Macro Monday)

that a picture 

is worth



a thousand words.

If that's true,



then here's



a very long monologue.



(Alternately titled: I'm suffering from a major case of writer's block)



On a side note, I uploaded these photos via Flickr. Please let me know if you can't see them! This is getting very tiring...sigh.

Also, I recoded my blog button...for those of you who couldn't grab it before, it should work now (find it on the left sidebar). :)

-carlotta