I managed to get about 5 hours of sleep last night and surprisingly enough, I slept through the entire night without waking up a single time. I must have been pretty exhausted when I decided to finally call it a night. I had planned on watching CSI and then Law and Order but my eyes began to flutter and I could feel myself drifting off to sleep. I decided to just turn the TV off and within seconds of my head hitting the pillow, I was off in la la land. I think Jo had a better night last night, well, better than he has been having anyway. He slept through most of the night without waking up. He did wake up pretty sore this morning though, which is probably from the physiotherapy, I’m sure.

We have been talking about my birthday, which is a week from tomorrow. And before you ask, I will be 29, which is the age I will remain. Kidding! It’s hard to believe that I am nearly 30. Time sure does fly with age, doesn’t it? Jo asked me earlier in the week what I would like for my “special day” (where he will undoubtedly pick on me for the entire day). Sadly, the only thing I could come up with at the time was “a handbag”, lol. How typical is that? We talked about it a little more this morning and instead of the handbag, since I have so many already, he’s going to contribute to my camera fund. I normally check dpreview.com once every week or so, just to see if there’s anything new on the market. I see that Nikon and Canon will be releasing new cameras in the near future (Nikon d300 and d3, Canon 40d). Financially speaking, these cameras are out of my league. Since Jo will not be getting his full income, I can’t very well feel comfortable spending much more than $800 on a camera right now and would prefer to spend that much to include not only the camera, but accessories too. I know I ask for a lot. So I started to browse through some of the recent reviews, where I stumble onto the Olympus E-410. I know a couple of people using Olympus cameras, all of which love them and have been pleased. This camera is “highly recommended” by dpreview.com, has a nice range of sample photos that are pretty impressive (both in the review’s sample photos and in the pbase.com galleries for this camera). Honestly, I don’t think I’ll be “settling” if I buy this camera. If I were going to settle, I’m sure I’d settle for something under $500 for sure and I refuse to “settle” this time.

That said, I’m hoping that within about 2 weeks I will be the owner of an Olympus E-410. Between birthday funds from my husband, mom, dad and various other relatives, along with the payout I received yesterday (and future ones in the next 2 weeks) I should be able to do just that. It will be so nice having a great camera again. One that I won’t have to fight with as often as I do my current one. Hopefully we will get a chance to visit Drumheller in early October - I have been anxious to photograph that area since our decision was made to move to Calgary.

I have a few things I need to hop on right now though and this post turned out longer than expected.

I would like to throw this out there though:

***Contest Reminder***
Don’t forget to submit to my contest - Handbag Love. Get your submissions in by midnight, August 31st for a chance to win a gorgeous bag by Rebecca Weis. The contest is open to anyone, anywhere and the requirements are easy as pie.