From Drab to Fab

In trying to get organized, I purchased the much recommended Planner Pad last year. My how this planner has transformed the way I organize my days. But being the anal, perfectionist, I could never commit to embellishing it as the lovely Kimberly, Caroline, and so many others have beautifully and creatively done. My planner pad runs from July - July, so being that tomorrow is that first day - I thought I might try to get my creativity on. I don't think I did half bad!
Booorrrriiiinnnnnnggggg!

To Fabulous!

Photo Credit: Me!

Peace

“Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.” – Epictetus

Photo Credit: Imapix

Random Image from my desk

Thought I'd share w/you the pretty little thing that I get to look at 8+ hours a day ~ and thankfully it makes me happy!

This little beaut is what I was referring to here, item #1.

Photo Credit: Me!

Spreading the Blog-Love!

I am so humbled by the amazing support and sense of community of this here bloggyworld! This morning I found that I was gifted this lovely blog award -- Love Ya-- from not only Globetrotting Cacti, but from City Girl and the Analyst as well! These are amazing women with such great insight in all areas of life - please go and visit them now! I will wait......have you visited them yet?

About the award:

"Apparently this award is bestowed on to blogs that are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I would like to bestow this award to the following fab 8:

Montrealaise en Californie

The Inspired Room

Just a Girl

Easy at Home

Heart of Light

Reverie Daydream

Dirty Footprints

Nollyposh

Please go and visit these blogs as well. I've tried to include blogs that are varied in subject matter, and all of them are fabulous!

Butterflies

I seem to be on a Butterfly theme today, all things I have come across = butterflies! Here's another great quote!

"Butterflies are self propelled flowers" ~ R.H. Heinlein

Photo Credit: falsereality748

Happiness

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Photo Credit: Earlette

Blog Award!

I was thrilled to be a recipient of the "One Lovely Blog Award" from both Melita of Gussying Up the Tuttle and Alison of Globetrotting Cacti! My first awards since starting this blogging journey over a year ago...I am SO Excited! Thank you, thank you!

As a part of the award, I need to list 6 things that make me happy today...

1) The Orchid on my desk is starting to bloom! Yes, I have not killed it yet

2) Being a part of this amazing blogging community

3) My awesome family

4) My Santevia water bottle

5) My pink finger & toe nails

6) Enjoying the beautiful weather during my lunch break

Now in turn, I would like to pass this award on the the following blogs:

- Its a beautiful thing

-Blujay Studio

-The Inspired Room

-Blisschick

-The blessed Nest

-Rescuegirl

Please drop in and visit these amazing ladies - I'm sure you will enjoy them as much as I do!

Good Morning Miss Cranky Pants

Thought I’d confess my crankiness from this morning, being that I’m not normally cranky.

Dear husband gets up at O’dark thirty to let our Chloe dog out to go pee. Not able to go back to bed, he decides to be productive = hair up his butt, annoying beyond all get out! He first decides to wash the dishes (what a love) and makes as much racket as he can muster. This takes a good 20+ minutes because of course the dishes from dinner last night were still in the sink. Then he decides to open the automatic garage door….nope, close the garage door. Ah, fresh coffee, out comes the coffee grinder. GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Oh, the sink is a little clogged, on goes the garbage disposal. (can’t think of what sound that would make, but you get my drift). At this point I’m at the bedroom door, yelling “There is no possible way for you to make any more noise, is there?” This gets a feeble “sorry” from him.

On to more dishes… Argh. He then decides he needs a shower because he’s been “working” so proceeds to hop in the shower right when my alarm goes off for me to get in the shower. I was seeing RED! This is WAR! So Miss Cranky Pants marches into the bathroom declaring that this is MY Shower time. His response “Go to the bathroom, I’ll be out before your done.” Okay, that’s probably true. So I obliged, and sure enough he was out in a jiffy. Still feeling justified by my rudely awakened slumber I mumbled and frickafrashed and why-I-outta’d and stumbled myself into the shower.

Meanwhile, poor hubby felt badly and decided to make us breakfast. We had bacon (yum!) country potatoes and scrambled eggs. Awww! I was softening already. Then the cherry on top…he offered to make my lunch, chicken salad in a pita. I am currently enjoying said pita on my lunch break and thinking how glad I married this guy almost 20 years ago, with or without his quirkiness. Hey, we all have our quirky moments.

Mirroring Nature

“We Are Like Nature. Look around you, and you will find connection and insight. Notice how your moods shift from one to another like the sky shifts from bright blue to turbulent grays. Your thoughts are like clouds, appearing, changing shape, passing through, and then disappearing without a trace. The rain cleanses the sky, just as an emotional release cleanses your mind. The sky itself is your eternal awareness, unchanging underneath all these permutations. Let it reflect back to you your own abiding perfection. As you walk through the world, find your own metaphors for connectedness in nature. Flesh them out fully and follow them as they lead you through the mystery and intelligence of life.” – DailyOm.com

Photo credit: socceraholic

Misc. Musings

Misc. Musings

“Life is a bag of peaches. Be the juicy one.” ~ H. Jackson Brown

Love that quote! So relatable. Have you ever bitten into a peach and have it be dry, tough and tasteless? How about biting into a peach that was surprisingly soft, exploding with flavor and the juices are so overwhelming that they run down your chin? That’s what life should be!

Photo Credit: *Laura Ann's Photography*

On to another subject: I am almost bouncing off the walls this morning. I have been coffee free for some time now, choosing herbal teas instead. I have been reading Mariel Hemingway’s books “Healthy Living from the Inside Out” and “Mariel’s Kitchen”. I would highly recommend both of these books. They are very well written and she has such a wholesome view of foods, space and being. Anyways, she recommends being “mindful” of what you eat. Eating foods that are wholesome, from nature and not “noisy”. (Sugar laden, caffeinated, ECT.) But if you choose to eat “noisy” foods, be aware of how you feel afterwards. Well my friends, the coffee smelt wonderful this morning so I had myself not only one cup, but two. Keeping Mariel’s suggestion at heart, I noticed after my first cup that I felt constricted. Like Sponge Bob when he visits Sandy in her underwater dome. After my second cup, I feel like a 3 year old, bouncing off the walls, jittery, attention span at zero! (Which is probably why this posting is ALL.OVER.THE.PLACE!) I have consumed coffee for years, and never had been “mindful” of what the effects are to my body and mind. This was a real eye opening experience. I plan on taking this “mindfulness” to all my meals and really tuning in to what these foods do for me.

Finally, just for fun I thought Id share with you a little splash of my IPod. I’m listing the first 15 songs from my IPod in Shuffle mode:
1) S.O.S. – ABBA
2) Lay my body down –Midge Ure
3) Storm in Africa – Enya
4) It it’s in my mind, it’s on my face – Seal
5) Session – Linkin Park
6) Everywhere – Michelle Tumes
7) Fumbling towards Ecstasy – Sarah McLachlan
8) Jamaica Inn – Tori Amos
9) The Chinese Way – Level 42
10) Pocketful of Sunshine – Natasha Bedingfield
11) Tall trees in Georgia – Eva Cassidy
12) Thank U – Alanis Morissette
13) Bears – Lyle Lovett
14) Barracuda – Heart
15) Man in the Moon – Martin Page

I don’t know what the above selection says about me, if anything – I think I’ll just leave that up to you!

Wisdom

I received this in an email, and thought it was worth sharing. I sure hope it does't take me 90 years to really "get" it.

This is something we should all read at least once a week. Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio.

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone...

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ’In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

ps. I just love this photo! I want that to be me when I'm old. I'd be that crazy old lady that feeds those darn birds!

photo credit: soylentgreen23

Getting Yoga

Last night I FINALLY pulled out my dusty old yoga mat, found my yoga dvd's in my bursting bookshelves and got my yoga on.

It was so lovely! I don't think I've ever had that type of experience before. It was exhilarating/challenging, but yet sooo relaxing. I did the whole tape, and enjoyed it immensely. Sean Corn is such a great instructor, but I still don't know how to breath thru your kidneys (I thought your lungs did that?!?!?) Anyways, I was curious if you practice at home, and if so, what instructor/DVD do you practice with? I do have Kimberly Wilson's CD but I need the visual of someone to follow.

Photo credit: Opus104

The boy can boogie

This weekend I was planning on my same ol same ol of laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, you know...typical chores, when my son wanted a ride to the beach to go boogie boarding with some friends. Sounded like a great opportunity to stroll along the beach, sea shell hunt, and get breakfast at one of the great restaurants along Main Street.

Well, the weather was the typical "June Gloom" = overcast. And it was LOW tide, so the waves were far and few between. But I did score quite a few great sea shells, strolled with the hubby along the water, and rode our bikes along the beach walk and Main Street and had a huge breakfast at El Ranchito. My husband and I shared a plate, and we had enough to make 2 additional breakfast burritos for my son.

I don't know why I don't do things like this more often. It was so nice to get out and about and enjoy this great city that we live in!