Monthly Archives: December 2010

Christmas at the Capitol Building

I find myself relishing this amazing moment where I have an excuse to sit in the middle of Salem Capitol’s building’s marble stairs,  and just take in the lovely sound of school children singing Christmas choral music. There is nothing quite like listening to children’s voices singing at Christmastime in this seemingly magical historic building. The acoustics in here are full and rich – the perfect environment for having a nice break from a stressful day at work.

The children singing are made up of 3 or 4 of the local schools here, ranging from elementary school all the way to one of the high school’s many choirs. At one point in the 2 hour program, all of the schools sang together; a beautifully haunting piece in an echoing kind of arrangement and I could not help but close my eyes and just take in the angelic sound of those sweet voices – like the voices of angels sent straight from Heaven (this is where the parents sigh, and wish that they could be this “angelic” all the time). As I am sitting here listening, I can’t help but wonder who have walked these halls before us, who’s voices have been raised within these halls to mark the Christmas holidays both past, and who shall come after this in the future.

This event has given this Christmas season a sense of nostalgia – something that I have been longing for and have been sadly missing this year, until now that is. As the hustle and bustle of this holiday season can sometimes fly by in a mass of to-do lists, and obligations, I pray that each and every one of you reading this get to have at least one memorable moment to give you a sense of Christmas magic like these children have unknowingly blessed me with today – that or next time, we can  make a date and sneak some of our own Christmas magic by coming to the Capitol building and listening to the next round of carolers together. Sounds SIMPLY DIVINE!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Tornados In Oregon?

Have you seen the news?

There was a level 2 tornado that touched down in Aumsville, Oregon yesterday, just before noon. This little town is about 20 minutes from where we live. How crazy is that??? Tornadoes are definitely NOT what Oregon is known for! Traditionally we are known for a lot of rain, some flooding, some big wind/ice storms, and the minor earthquake every now and then. Tornadoes are definitely NOT a part of what we are accustomed to usually handling!!!

The tornado damaged many buildings there, including leaving 10 families homeless, but even with that sadness, no one was seriously hurt in any of it – THAT IS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!

I pray that all of the families there that have been effected by this anomaly all find warm safe places to sleep, and comforting arms to give them peace during this holiday season!

May our prayers go with you!

Quickie Post!

This is just a quickie post to answer a question from my sis! “What does eating frogs mean?”

Well, this is something I learned from one of my favorite authors, Brian Tracy. Eating frogs is basically just a time management tool that means that you do the biggest, scariest, ugliest thing on your to-do list first, and get it out of the way. Anything else you do for the rest of the day, will be a cake walk in comparison. So, Brian Tracy basically recommends that you go out and eat your frog first thing every morning!! 🙂

If you had to “Eat your Frog” today, what would that look like??? Please feel free to share in the comments section!

Have a FABULOUS day!!! 😉

Good Morning!

I have often heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expect to get a different result. Well, being someone who is a creature of habit, I find myself reflecting on this idea a lot. I wonder if I am in a rut, and if so, what needs a good shaking up in my life!!! I think that my natural self is to be very nomadic, moving from one place to another, one activity to another, but that all changed when I lost my mom when I was younger. Now, movement and change is something that I have to purposefully concentrate on, otherwise I find I end up getting stagnant!! EW – that just sounds gross, but I am sure you know what I mean!!

I have 3 main areas of my life that really need my attention right now: my weight, my finances, and my home. So, when I woke up this morning, I asked myself what are some different actions that I can take to help improve these 3 areas in my life? So, I decided to make a list:

  1. Avoid the snooze!! When my alarm goes off in the morning, and I hit snooze, I really am awake, so basically I am just wasting sometimes up to 2 hours wasting time “trying to get a little more sleep”. Not today – up with the morning rooster!!!
  2. Get ready for work before anything else!! That way, when I have extra time left over, I am able to get any other things needing to get done before I head out to the office, and still be on time!
  3. Put me back on my to-do list! Now, I have a tendency to create a mental daily to-do list, and then cut out anything that would be too hard, or any “I don’t wannas” – not today! I am going to GO EAT THOSE FROGS!!!
  4. I am going to take my daily walk this morning, even if that means walking in the rain. I usually “try” to get my walk in at lunch time, and because work is usually so busy, it is super easy to find ANY excuse to not go – so today, there is no hesitation – it gets done first!!
  5. I am going to spend at least an hour, actually focusing on my finances today – they have been neglected far too long. Now, I don’t mean that my bills don’t get paid, but what I mean is that they are usually paid electronically, and I don’t always know how much money I am paying for what, or to what! So, I need to start living my life on purpose, and I know that having financial wealth is the key to true freedom to choose what I want to do, so now is the time to get that in check!!!
  6. and last but not least, I want more than anything to sell our condo and move into my home – wherever that may be. My husband and I daydream about owning a house on a small parcel of land, where we can create, and grow, and thrive, and make memories with our family and friends. I know that is out there somewhere, and I am so anxious to get started on that portion of our lives, but if I don’t start taking some kind of action to move in that direction – it will sadly never happen, and I just cannot sit idly by as we let our dream life is pass us by. So, today I want to do at least one project in the house that will make me feel like I am on my way!!!

Anyway, I am off to go get my morning walk in!!

Have a FABULOUS day!!! 🙂

Sunday Evening Update!

Today has been a pretty good day! Got up, rallied the troops and then went out and did a little shopping – ok a lot of shopping!!! Went over to my sister-in-law’s and helped decorate a Christmas tree for her and the kiddos. The colors were rich chocolate, medium brown, gold, and burgundy. I was a little worried about the chocolate brown, but it turned out looking GORGEOUS!!!

Anyway, after decorating my sweetie and I headed home, I hopped into my jammies, turned on my Christmas lights and snuggled up on our couch!! I am pretty happy that I at least got out of the house, having been sick for the past 2 days!

Anyway, I have a long week of work ahead of me this week, and a lot of last minute preparations to get ready for our Christmas trip down to Roseburg.

So with that in mind, what are some things that I can do to help me have a Level 10 (as in perfect)???

  1. Take my i-pod to work, fully charged, and rock out to music while I work.
  2. Take time out of my work day to go for an energizing walk.
  3. Have plenty of ice water on hand – maybe even cut orange slices to give my water a little flavor.
  4. Pre-plan my work day the night before. Make sure my to-do lists are already created and ready to go.
  5. Get to bed on time every night this week. Sleep is your friend.
  6. Take a 10 minute meditation break at ;east once a day to help ease stress level.
  7. Make sure to pack healthy breakfast, lunch, and snacks to stave off hunger and to keep blood sugar level.
  8. Keep telling myself, “You are blessed” over and over again.
  9. When all hell breaks loose, PRAY!
  10. Remember that you can’t control everything that happens, you can only control yourself. Decide to have a good day!!! It’s A CHOICE!!!

On that note:

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Cookie Night!!

Tonight I got to spend some time with my best friend, Dawn, her fabulous daughter, Sam, and my sweetie this evening. We spent the evening baking cookies. Well, wait, actually Jason and my girlfriend’s daughter baked cookies, while Dawn, and I chatted at the dining room table. Dawn was dealing with a painful tooth and I am dealing with a yucky bout of bronchitis.

Jason and Sammy made ginger cookies, peanut butter crunch bars (my personal favorite), sugar cookies, and chocolate butter cookies!! It was so much fun watching them in action. Dawn and I spent our evening trying to get pictures of them, and giggling at all sorts of mayhem and silliness – FUN!

Anyway, as I was sitting here trying to decide what to blog about, I thought I would rack my brain and see if I could remember any memories that pertained to cookies growing up. You see, Jason had asked me the other day what were the special cookies in my family, and to be honest with you I couldn’t remember any. However, after a while I did start to have some memories pop up, and the first one pertains to sugar cookies. I know my mom must have been making them, and I must have been about 4 or 5. My mom had some sugar cookie dough that she was making cookies with, and I remember that I was playing with my Barbie on the kitchen floor. My mom would occasionally pinch off a small portion of dough and give the pieces to me to eat – they were delicious!! I remember actually taking a piece or two and squishing them into my Barbie shoes – I was so amazed that the pieces actually fit. Silly me! 😉

I do remember my mom making peanut butter cookies; I would watch her as she would meticulously press the tines of a fork in a special pattern on the top of each cookie. I LOVED watching her do that, although I don’t really remember ever liking the taste of peanut butter cookies, it still is a GREAT memory for me!

Ooh, I just had another childhood cookie pop up in my head. My mom used to make these chocolate no bake cookies! HMMMMM…I can even smell the oatmeal and the chocolate sents wafting in the air. These cookies were cooked in a pan on the stove, and after the mixture had cooked the appropriate length of time, my mom would drop rounds of the hot mixture on parchment paper to let them cool. After coming home from school there were times where there were these chocolate no baked cookies on every flat surface in the dining room and kitchen, and if we were lucky, and if we didn’t get caught in the process, my sisters and I would always go in and try to grab one before it had cooled. Warm and gooey, and ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!! You know, come to think of it – I bet that my mom always had a couple of extra cookies set out just so us girls thought we were stealing some, when in reality she was planning on it. Man, moms can be soooo sneaky!!! 😉

Do you have any cookie memories that you can think of??? I would LOVE to hear about them in the comments section.

In the meantime,

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Happy Thursday!

OK, happy might be a little bit of an overstatement this evening, seeing that I am sick with some kind of a cold. I know, I have been sick more than my fair share of times this season. I think that the amount of stress that I have been dealing with has been beating down my poor immune system – that combined with consistently putting off exercise and not making good food choices – I was bound to be down eventually. So, I am taking it easy hanging out on the couch, with my girls, a bottle of water, and an obnoxiously large roll of toilet paper (who ever thinks to get a box of kleenex???? Not I)!

Anyway, today was super, extremely, oh my goodness, what the heck is going on, crazy, busy!!! I just couldn’t seem to get anything done with all of the interruptions I had to deal with today! Now mind you, interruptions are a very normal part of my daily work life, but USUALLY I can get SOMETHING done during my day!!! It’s all good! I am blessed! I am blessed! (thank you, Sis for that advice!!) I am blessed! I am blessed!! I am blessed!!

Talking about work, I have to tell you that there is a co-worker there who has been my saving grace! If it weren’t for her, letting me vent, going for walks, getting out of the office for lunch,  I would probably just lose it!! Thank you, friend, you know who you are, and if I don’t say it enough, I am saying it again now – I SO APPRECIATE YOU!!!

This is a song that this same friend taught me, and when things are getting rough I think of it, and all I can do is smile. Sometimes when she knows things are getting rough, she will even IM me the lyrics – and I swear I can hear Winnie the Pooh himself singing it!!!

I encourage anyone who happens to be reading this to take a moment to reach out to one of your friends, and just let them know just how special they are to you!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 🙂

The Lessons of the Christmas Pageant!

After work this evening, my husband and I got the opportunity to go to our nephew’s preschool/kindergarten Christmas pageant. We were fortunate to sit in the very first row and I just did my best to be in the moment and to observe as much as possible. Some of the lesson I learned are:

  • When you have done a good job, don’t be afraid to clap for yourself – you deserve it
  • If the mood strikes, it is OK to cry in front of a large group of onlookers
  • You are never to old to want your mommy
  • When you make a mistake, make it loud, and make it look like you are having a blast while doing it
  • Always be ready for the paparazzi, because you NEVER know who will want to take your picture
  • If you are assigned the role of pageant donkey, and you don’t want to wear your donkey ears, you don’t have to
  • If you have to take a potty break in the middle of your performance – the show will go on, even if you do run to the potty
  • Take every opportunity to flirt with your cute neighbor (even if she happens to be a cute little cow)
  • Only you can know when you have hit your limit. When you are done, know it, and accept it. Even if that means you are stripping your costume off in the middle of the pageant floor, while walking back to your classroom.

Thank you, Morgan!!! We had such a good time this evening, and you are just growing up soooo quickly!!! I hope that we have many more opportunities to share memories with you!! Thank you for the lessons!! Auntie Chrissy loves you!!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!

Getting Back to More of the Same!

The fact is:

You are already doing what you want!

You Choose.

Period!

OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system…I am having a quiet evening at home, an old Patty Duke episode on the tele, Christmas lights lit, my sweetie Christmas shopping in the next room, the girls sleeping on the couch, and I can hear the hum of the washer and dryer going. It has been a long productive day.

I don’t think I’ve seen the Patty Duke show since I was a little girl. It reminds me of all of the trouble my sisters and I used to get into. I used to do all of the babysitting of my younger sisters while my parents were at work. My sisters loved to make my life difficult, and I loved to return the favor in kind, so to speak! LOL! I have so many stories of the crazy, zaniness, that we got ourselves into. One of the things that comes to the top of my head was the time that I was about 12 and caught the kitchen on fire. Not a “ooh the pan is on fire”, but “OMG THE FIRE IS TRAVELING UP THE CABINETS!!!!” fire!! After putting out the fire, I put the troops AKA my sisters, into cleaning mode!!! All I kept thinking was, if we clean this up mom and dad will never know!!! HAHAHAHA!!! Well, no – they found out. Matter of fact I remember my parents walking in, I was standing on the stove cleaning the ceiling, one of my sisters was cleaning the floor, another a wall, and another standing on the counter next to the sink cleaning cabinets!!! The jig was up!!! I am amazed we all made it into adulthood!!!

Gotta love those memories!!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉