Category Archives: Friends

Saturday of Decisions

I am not sure what to blog today, and I am not sure how long my PC is going to cooperate with me (I think it is on it’s last leg!), and I am a little blue this afternoon.

But…I guess the best place to start is that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my family! I live for them. Some of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE people are family members. I am learning that there is a time and a place for every thing and every thing and every place has a time. So when my sis came over and told me that she had made the decision to move back to AZ with her kiddos, I was really, REALLY torn. Happy and sad, both at the same time. I really want her to be happy. Really, REALLY HAPPY!!! Having her here has brought such joy, and optimism into my life. She is like home. I am sooo HAPPY that she is making the right decisions for herself – she is worth taking care of!! But, I must confess, I will miss her TERRIBLY!! It makes me want to move out of Salem too. I feel like this is a sad, lonely, and closed minded town. Maybe changes are coming for us too???

The show I am watching mentions decisions like this:

“People don’t seem happy where they are, they are looking for something better. The grass is always greener on the other side. ”

My thou ghts are, sometimes you may have to plant your own grass! 😉

It goes on to say:

“Frogs symbolize new life, new transformation. The journey from tadpole to frog. That is what any of our life’s decisions are all about, trying to make sure that we don’t die as a tadpole, we want to become full-fledged frogs!”

LOL!!! Thanks, I needed that!!! I may have to get out my book, Who Moved My Cheese?.

Oh, and hey – I LOVE YOU, ALEX!!!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉

Mamma Mia!!

Have you ever wanted to step foot right inside of a movie??? I watched Mamma Mia with my sis, Alex, and I have to tell you – that movie NEVER gets old!!! Every time I watch it I can’t help but want to join in all the fun!

I just LOVE all the bright colors in this movie!! I was wondering what my place would look like if I were to use this movie as my MUSE to decorate… this is what I came up with:

That was fun!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

Project Simplify!

Good morning!!

My mind is racing a bit this morning – I have A LOT of stuff to get done!! I just have to stop in my tracks and decide what is important to the big picture and what isn’t! As you may know, I have been really trying to simplify my life/home/work etc. etc. etc. Some of it is working BEAUTIFULLY and some of it is proving to be a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. You see, I have a sponsor child in Mozambique. I have been sponsoring her for about 2 1/2 years now and I try to write at least one letter to her every month. She has basically nothing, and lives in a one-room hut with her entire family; so when I write to her I am not supposed to comment about what we have, or give too many details about anything that might make her feel bad about not having much herself. That really wasn’t leaving me with too much to talk about and I was really having a hard time not repeating myself to her letter after letter – how often can you talk about the weather???

Anyway, about 6 months ago, while trying to come up with topics for my little girl’s letter, I made the realization that my life had become more about things and possessions then it did about people and experiences – that is what started me on this journey. I wanted to, and am currently working on transforming myself into a people focused, experience loving person!!! I finally understood that when I die, none of these ‘things’ are going to go with me, why had a placed so much importance in them???? So, that is where I am and how this whole journey came about!!!!

There had been some basic housekeeping-type duties that were falling by the wayside, and it was really starting to depress me, so I started looking for ways that I could make those weekly duties much more simplified!! What I came with, so far, looks something like this:

  • Make the bed and empty the dishwasher every morning
  • If needed, cycle the laundry as soon as I get home from work and then fold the clothes in bedroom, so that they can get put away right on the spot
  • Every evening set out clothes the night before to make getting ready in the morning a breeze
  • Tuesdays is the dogs’ bath day
  • Saturday mornings are cleaning mornings, including sweeping/ mopping/vacuuming floors, thorough cleaning of  bathrooms, and changing bedding
  • Sunday is cooking day: pre-prepare foods/meals/lunches to help make preparing meals a little quicker and easier (for example: making a large pot of veggie soups in handy to-go containers so that you can just grab and go for lunches)

So far this has been going really well, and has made it possible to get a lot more important/fun things done during the week!!! Spending more time with family and friends, and more time getting out there and LIVING MY LIFE!!!! 😉

Other, bigger, simplifying things I have been doing have been:

  • Getting rid of unwanted book
  • Magazines
  • DVDs
  • Purging old/unnecessary paperwork in my office/craft room
  • Deciding what craft supplies to keep/donate
  • What clothes/accessories/jewelry I wear/don’t wear
  • Really taking stock of what is important in my life and what is not

So far, not everything has been easy, but it has been worth it! I can’t wait to see where I end up with all of this, but I really want to get off of the materialistic rat race that I had seemed to stuck on. I think that is where my idea of living on a small farm stemmed from, and the more I dream about it, the more excited I get about actually winding up there!!!

As for now, my morning chores are done, and I am heading off to work!!!

Have a FABULOUS morning!!! 😉

My Vision Board!

Here is that vision board I had told you that I was wanting to put together…

Sorry for the blurriness – I tried something new, that didn’t work out as expected!!! but the gist of this board for me is that I want a simpler life that I can share with my husband, with a small farm, a sweetly chic country home, a child (or 2), and a home furnishing/accessories business. I am loving the idea of long walks out in nature, planting my own gardens, lazy afternoons spent up in the orchard picking fruits for jamming, and pies, and such, and room for friends and family to come over, replenish themselves and make some fun memories together!!! Ok, so I may be dreaming of a slice of the Barefoot Contessa’s life, but I sure there will be enough room for everyone!!!

I can see my future as clear as a bell – the trick now will be figuring out how to make it come to fruition!!

Wish me luck!! 😉

Good Day!

Today has been a very busy day, but a very, very good day!!!

After about 6 hours of rushed sleep, I met one of my besties at a downtown coffee shop, and we had a very pleasant visit catching up on our holidays! Then my sweetie and I rushed off to get to our sister’s wedding, and we enjoyed spending some time catching up with friends and family, before heading off to Border’s to do some serious magazine perusing!! Have I mentioned I LOVE BORDER’S???

Anyway, after a quick run to the grocery store, and returning home, my husband popped in our leftover lasagna from last night into the oven, got some drinks going – YUM, and my bestie, Dawn, came over to to have dinner and to watch a movie with me – thank you, Babe!! Jason and I then finished watching our last episode of Eureka off of our Netflix account, and now I am here telling you about my day!! LOL!!! That pretty much sums it up!!

So anyway, I am heading up to bed, I have got to get up early so that I can go to church tomorrow (yes, dad – I am going to church in the morning!!!) 😉

Have a FABULOUS evening!

New Year’s Eve!!!

Good afternoon!

Here is the day! The last day to get whatever it was you wanted to get done during the year 2010 – if you haven’t gotten it done by now, you’ve got some work to do. As for me, I am getting ready to close the door on 2010, and start over – YEAH!!!!

This past year has been a year of ups and downs, successes and failures, laughter and tears, but all-in-all, I am so thankful to have made it to eagerly anticipate 2011. I have made my New Year’s resolutions – or more specifically my 60 Day Life Makeover goals:

  1. Lose 20 pounds
  2. Sock away an extra $1000 into savings
  3. Find a church home
  4. Clean, organize, and purge our entire home of unloved and/or unused belongings from top to bottom
  5. Purchase and refinish one piece of furniture to sell to get the ball rolling on getting paid to do what I love

These are my actual written goals for the next 60 days, but if I had the ability to wish for one thing, I would wish for happiness – whatever that looks like! So, my goal for the next year is to live my life seeking out true, authentic happiness. I want to laugh more, love more, dance more, hug more, smile more, and just BE HAPPY!!!

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? I would LOVE to hear about them – please feel free to post them in the comments sections above. 😉

As for this evening, we have a small group of friends coming over for a casual and impromptu get together, dinner of lasagna (one of my favorites), games, drinks, and maybe a movie, but hopefully lots of fun, and memories!!! We are going to have fun ringin’ in the New Year!!!

To all of you, I wish you an extremely HAPPY and SAFE New Years!!!

Have a FABULOUS day!!! 😉

Happy Saturday!

What is your idea of perfect happiness? A lazy, naked Sunday hanging in out in bed with my Sweetie reading, watching classic movies, or other extracurricular activities.

What is your most marked characteristic? My smile

What is the trait that you most deplore in yourself? Fear

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Living without faith

What is your favorite occupation?
Being a designer

What is your greatest extravagance? Books! Books! And more Books!!

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being married 15 years in a time when divorce is something that happens as easily and as often as you change your panties!

Which word or phrases do you overuse? For fucksake! (Sorry Dad!)

Who or what is your greatest love? My family, hands down!!!

Who is your favorite fiction hero?
Auntie Mame!!!

What is the quality you most like in a man? Honesty, drive, humor and generosity

What is the quality you most like in a woman? Honesty, drive, humor and generosity

Where would you like to live? Paris, France

If you were reincarnated, and you could choose who you came back as, who would you choose? I would want to come back as one of the Cosby kids!

How would you like to die? Happy

What is your favorite journey? Discovering what my purpose is

Which talent would you most like to have? To be successful with anything I try

Who are your heroes in real life? Audrey Hepburn, Della Reese, Diane Von Ferstenburg, Isaac Mizrahi, Oprah Winfrey, Rick Steves, and JK Rowling

What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Patience, but only because I don’t have any

What is your current state of mind? Pleasantly exhausted and happy to be done with Christmas shopping!!

On what occasion do you lie? Only when it saves someone from getting hurt

What is your motto? I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength

– Christina

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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! 🙂

Blessings & Birthdays!

Whew!!! It is officially the end of Friday and these past two to days have seemed to be a whirlwind of fun!!

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving at Jason’s mom’s place and we had a blast. Unfortunately my camera has crapped out so I was able to get 0 photos – BOO! HISS! Oh well, maybe I will just have to ask Santa for a new camera so that I can keep up with my hobby of photography.

So yesterday it was my job, along with my 7 year old niece to make the deviled eggs. What I was not aware of, however was that my niece LOVES hard boiled eggs and has the life philosophy that if, as she is pealing an egg, and it should break, then they are no longer deemed worthy of the deviled egg plate – hence she can just eat them to put them out of her misery! Cute, but NO!!! She ended up breaking sooooo many eggs that at dinner time she actually passed on the deviled egg platter as it came around because she had already eaten something like 4 whole eggs! Gotta love my girl!!!!!

After dinner, most of us managed to go for a quick walk in the neighborhood, which was good since the group was seeming a little cooped up. Then a few of us adults hung around to play the game Mad Gabs – WHAT A HOOT!!! That game is so much harder than it seems – I may have to pick this up, so I always have it on hand – could be fun at dinner parties!!!

To say the least – we had FUN!!!

As for today, it is my Sweetie’s 35th birthday and we literally spent the day doing WHATEVER he wanted to do! FUN!!! I won’t go into all of the details here, but we did a lot of walking around downtown checking out all of the French/European stores, made a pit stop at Great Harvest Bread Company – Yum, checked out this great kitchenware store for some supplies, and eventually made it back to Bentley’s for an absolutely DIVINE dinner!!! All-in-all, a damn near perfect day!!!

Happy Birthday my Love!!!! I love you more and more every year!!!

(And Daddy, keep your spirits up – you are in my prayers!!!)

Have a FABULOUS evening!
~Christina 😉