Category Archives: Community

A Thursday Evening of Gratitude!

Good evening!

I have noticed a bit of theme going on with posts this week. Have you noticed it too??

It is happiness!

I have been spending a lot of time and energy on being thankful for the blessings I have and the blessings that I can see on the horizon, and it has caused me to change my perspective in my day to day dealings with people, work, stresses, challenges, and so forth. Looking at life through the looking glass of gratitude may be my key to life balance and happiness!

I really wanted to take the time to thank all of you, my readers, my friends. For stopping by and visiting, for leaving comments of encouragement or advice. I thank you for helping me realize how truly blessed I am, in being able to have this outlet to share myself, my stories, and my dreams with you! That is truly powerful, and for YOU I am truly THANKFUL!!!

So, I leave you, tonight, with this very short simple message of thanks…

THANK YOU!!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉

Motivational Quote of the Day!

Here is your motivational quote for today!

“The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out who you are, seek to determine what you want to be.”
~Neale Donald Walsch

Have a FABULOUS afternoon!! ;-)

Chunky Dunker’s Night!

Good evening!

Chunky Dunkers is a weekly weight loss/get fit support group that meet here online every Wednesday evening to get the opportunity to comment, and cheer each other as you each go through your journey to get fit and healthy!!! We will discuss hints, tips, and ideas on losing weight, staying motivated, and achieving your fitness goals, whether that is to lose 5 pounds, to do 10 sit-ups, or just incorporate some healthy habits into your daily life!!

As always, everyone and anyone is welcome to join us, or you may feel free to just quietly follow along. I look forward to hearing about all of your successes!

This week I have had my proverbial ear to the railroad tracks all week looking for some creative hints, tips and ideas to help us in our weight loss/get fit journey this week, and I think I found 4 really JUICY ones, that I just couldn’t WAIT to share with you tonight!!!

  1. When you get to your first 5 pound loss, or even 10 pound for that matter, and you feel like you still have SOOOOO MUCH to lose, go purchase a 5 or a 10 pound bag of potatoes and carry them around in a backpack all day. You will realize, soon enough, what great progress you are making!! Those 5 pound increments really add up!!
  2. Too embarrased to work out in front of anyone else, or more like my current complaint “It’s too hot!” Try jogging in place! That counts toward burning those calories too! and if that is too much try marching in place, or just stand instead of sit to watch the tele!!
  3. I stumbled across someone’s idea of charting a destination on a map, and seeing if you could “walk” to that location in a certain time-frame. For example could I walk to, say..Portland, Oregon (45 miles) in a month, and start tracking your progress on a map. Once you get to your first destination, choose the next, and so forth. How long do you think it would take to walk across the US??
  4. and finally, my Sweetie did this tonight at dinner, take a chicken breast and slice it in half horizontally, so it looks like you are eating two small chicken breast instead of one cut in half ! TOTALLY FOOLED ME!! That man is a genius!!! 😉

Do you have any ideas you would like to share?? Please do so in the comment section above.

Now, before I join you in the comments section for our weekly get-together, I wanted to make sure that I share my 5 Gratitudes with you for the day!

  1. I am thankful to have a husband who is happy in his new job – that is so REFRESHING to come home to!! 😉
  2. I am thankful for Kelly Rae Robert’s online class, “Flying Lessons” – it is re-awakening my sense of hope!
  3. I am still so thankful for my girlfriends at work!! Seriously, they can make ANYTHING fun!!
  4. I am thankful for my daddy! I have been thinking about him a lot lately, and I have to confess just the thought of him makes me smile with giddyness!! I love you, Daddy!! 😉
  5. I am thankful that God is helping me find work/life balance! Life is waaaay  more fun when you aren’t swimming in the mire of trying to please the whole-wide-world!! 😉

Have a FABULOUS evening!! ;-)

A Happy Monday!

Good evening!

I am very happy to report that today has been a very happy Monday! I managed to get myself up bright and early at 5:30 am to write my morning pages, which felt pretty darn good to get that habit started back up again. I know I will be up and at-em again tomorrow morning too!

I had a good day at work today, and even had the opportunity to laugh with my co-workers Chris, and Julie, which is ALWAYS so much fun!

This evening, after work, my sweetie surprised me by agreeing to meet me down at the grocery store so that I wouldn’t have to go grocery shopping by myself, and we made a game of it trying to get through the store under budget, and with a cart full of healthy food, which we did a mighty good job of doing! Thank you, honey!! 😉

After we drove home, the book I have been impatiently waiting finally arrived, and I was able to sit a spell and read some before dinner tonight, which my hubby made for us. One of his new specialties: tuna fish sandwiches with dices celery and pickles – which I have to tell you is might delicious!! You see, I thought I didn’t like tuna fish, and Jason convinced me a couple of weeks ago to try it again to make sure that I really didn’t like it, and sure enough – I had to fess up and admit that it was pretty yummy!! Thanks for that love! 😉

Anyway, I am going to try and list 5 things I am grateful for every evening here with you, and then I am going to try and make room for a 10 minute quiet meditation before bed, just to keep this happiness momentum going!! 😉

This evening I am happy for:

  1. My husband who I love more and more every day!
  2. My friends and coworkers at the office who help make a sometimes tedious job fun!
  3. Having a kitchen stocked with fresh and healthy food so Jason and I can make healthy eating choices!
  4. For Fay’s vet, who has given her medicine which is helping clear up her ear infection so she is her peppy self again!
  5. To live in a country where I can be truly free to do what I want, when I want, and how I want. What a blessing that is!!

Anyway, as I get ready to take myself up to bed!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Scandavian Festival!

Good evening!

I am very happy to share with you pictures from the second half of our outing with Amy and Leif yesterday at the Scandinavian Festival in Junction City, Oregon.

They had the cutest little shops buildings set up!

Here is Amy and Leif waiting patiently for Jason and I to catch up to them!

Here is Jason and I – we were really having such a very good time!

I can’t remember what this is called, but it is a Scandinavian wedding cake, if I remember correctly.

Isn’t this little windmill just adorable!! I ended up with tons of pictures of this cute little building. This was the min information desk.

I could have sat and watched these dancers all day. The announcer said that they had actually just arrived from Sweden the previous day – AMAZING!

OMG! I have to tell you about these little donuts. Jason discovered them, of course! These are the size of a quarter, and they had the coolest machine making these. From dropping the hoops of dough, to cooking the dough on side one, to flipping the donuts, to pulling them out of the machine. It was the size of a little toaster!! Jason not only wanted to eat these donuts, he wanted to take the donut-making-machine home. HAHAHA! Too funny!! 😉

Oh, and Jason had fun playing with the little wooden toys for children. He could’ve played with this little hen-pecking toy for hours. I mean, just look at the contentment on his face – SO OBVIOUS!! He is my big kiddo! I just LOVE this man!! 😉

They had some amazing hand woven rugs! I particularly LOVE this design, and the colors of this one!

There were a lot of people walking around in costume – it was a very fun and festive atmosphere!!

This painting was around the windows of one of the buildings. It was so cute, and I was just so impressed. It made me think about our little farm! I wonder if I could do a look like this on our little shed that I know we will have in the back! I can’t wait!!

All-in-all, Jason and I had the most memorable time with Amy and Leif, and I know we are already looking forward to the next opportunity to get together and make some more memories!!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Day at the Farmer’s Market!

Good evening!

My sweetie and I had the best kind of day today – we got to spend the day with our friends, Amy and Leif, which we hadn’t seen in almost a year. After finally getting to their place, we had gotten lost a few times, we started our day together by heading out to a lovely little cafe for a delectable breakfast. We spent the morning just catching up, and filling each other in on what has been going on with ourselves since we’ve last seen each other.

After breakfast, we headed over to the local farmer’s market. The Lane Country farmers market, completely blows ours in Salem away. It is more the 3 times as large, and it has such a bigger variety of booths, farmers, entertainment, and just more of EVERYTHING to see!!

Aren’t Leif and Amy just adorable?? They are so much fun to hang out with, they are so in love, and optimistic that it is just contagious!! I am sure that Jason felt that too!

My sweetie and I had so much fun walking around, playing, looking for treasures, and all sorts of lovely things to take pictures of!

There was so many delicious looking vegetables! It really gave us so many ideas for our little raised garden that we are planning on building for next Spring’s planting season.

Plus the many varieties of fresh, and colorful fruit and berries!!! Oh, makes me want to get a batch of freezer jam going!!

There was all kinds of honey, but this one in this little corked jar, was just the cutest!

And this artisan bread was hard to resist, and isn’t it just picture perfect? Smelled divine too!!

and let’s not forget all of the lovely flowers that the vendors had for sale. They were such a great value. Amy bought a large bouquet, and when she got it home, she was able to split it among 4 vases! Such a great deal, and they add such a personal touch to anyone’s home!

I ended up getting a simple pair of sparkly earrings, that were just too perfect to pass up, some  fresh cucumbers, and a small lavender plant – one of my FAVORITE plants!! I can’t wait to get it potted and watch it grow!! After going to the farmer’s market, Jason, Leif, Amy, and myself all headed across town to visit the Scandinavian Festival. I was able to get a lot of pictures of that too that I will be able to share with you tomorrow!

So, as I go finish my night out with my sweetie…

Have a FABULOUS evening!!  😉

A Beautiful Day!

Good evening!

I have been down and out for the last two days with a headache that just doesn’t seem to want to quit. So, instead of dwelling on that, I thought I would go back and pull out some lovely pictures that I had taken while out on a walk one morning!

Thanks for sharing that with me. It makes me feel better – I am exciting to be getting up out of  in the morning. You see, my sweetie and I are heading to out to spend time visiting with friends that we haven’t seen in almost 2 years! I just can’t wait! We are going to meet for breakfast and then head out to the farmer’s market – doesn’t that sound delightful?? I am looking forward to getting some lovely picture to be able to share with you!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Nesting on a Saturday Night!

Good evening!

I am having quite a lovely evening at home hanging out with my sweetie! I am busy running around the house, nesting my little heart out. Redecorating, reorganizing, arranging fresh flowers, and generally just having a GREAT time!! I feel like I am totally in my element right now!!!

Jason and I went to lunch with a friend of ours, and then the three of us went to the movies and watched Captain America. Good movie, by the way – Captain America was EXTREMELY HOT! 😉 I can’t wait to see the movie, The Avengers next Summer. There is something about the idea of Stark, Thor, and Captain America in the same movie – YUM!! Ok, so apparently I revert back to a teenage girl at a moments’ notice! 😉

After dropping our friend, Don, off. Jason and I headed over to Borders to see if there were any good deals to be had, which I am happy to say that there were. 😉 I did pick up a few books, but I didn’t stick around at all because it is not longer “my” Borders. I think I will make one more pitstop in about two weeks or so, there are a couple of literature books that I am really looking forward to adding to my collection, but if I can get them at a better deal, then it will be worth it to me to wait for it!

I wanted to tell you that the pictures this evening are all taking of my favorite building downtown. This building is the building that houses the US Bank downtown. It is called the Ladd and Bush Bank building, and was built in 1867. Isn’t it lovely??

As I finish toodling around the house tonight…

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Another Short & Sweet Post!

Good evening!

I am going to keep this post short this evening! My sweetie and I have just gotten back from the play The Underpants, put on by the Pentacle Theater. It was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! and we had an ABSOLUTE MARVELOUS TIME!!!

While I go off to dream about the amazing fun and laughter that Jason and I have shared tonight, here are some pictures from this play!

If you ever get the chance to get out to this little theater, I would highly recommend it!

Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉