december recap

December was so jam packed with such good stuff that I hardly had a chance to blog.

• a week in Lake Tahoe snowboarding and relaxing (because one day of snowboarding requires an equal amount of recovering)
• last minute Christmas cards (though I actually managed to mail them before Christmas day) and shopping
• dinner at Aqua in San Francisco and Cirque du Soleil's Ovo with friends
• Christmas lunch with Jay's side of the family at our home
• a chocolate cake baking disaster
• major movement on baby blanket

With the New Year upon I just want to wish everyone the best in the coming year!

another christmas, another coffee

Last year, I accidently found holiday coffee at my local grocery store and decided to start a new tradition in my house of holiday coffee during the holidays. And I have been really looking forward to this not just because I'm a serious coffee addict, but also because it truly makes the season special. This year the holiday coffee is Chocolate Peppermint. Made the first cup this morning. And all I can say is 'mmm'!

deck the halls

Putting up the Christmas decorations on Sunday really put me in the Christmas spirit! And you know what happens when I'm in the Christmas spirit. . .I sing! It's my favorite part of Christmas. Max & Sparky even decided to sing along with me. (Thank God Jay was outside working because he hates it when I get the dogs all worked up when I sing.) So I made a bee line to all the Christmas CDs, divided them up between the living room and the scraproom and popped them into the player. Ah! Now it is truly Christmas!

post-turkey day

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I took a much needed "vacation" from the all things electronic and digital and loved every minute of it! I didn't text, Twitter, Facebook or check email. I only got on the computer once to prepare some flex spending claims I've need to do. So nice!

I appreciated every minute of my four day weekend, but lack of sleep and the cold made getting up this morning rather challenging ! I can already tell that it's going to be a long week. Still struggling to get to bed at a decent hour (read: 11pm) and the struggle will apparently continue after four days of late nights.

Jay and I spent Thanksgiving day at his parents followed by a quiet evening without Max & Sparky (they stayed with the in-laws; yeah, they are four-legged grand-pups). The next day we woke up to overcast skies and some drizzle. But we headed up to Sonoma anyway to pick up our wine and do some tasting at our favorite winery, Imagery Estate Winery. All I can say is 'yum'. After a nice leisurely lunch at Celadon in Napa we headed over to the Napa Outlets to do some shopping. I got some cute things for work and for play, like this super cute hoodie from Calvin Klein. (Might need to knit a similar scarf!)

We also decided to put up the tree over the weekend. While I was running on Sunday morning, Jay assembled our Christmas tree and pulled out the decorations from storage. Then we trimmed the tree after lunch. Fun! Love, love Christmas! xoxo

happy turkey day

let the knitting begin

So very excited! The yarn that I ordered finally arrived today! I can't wait to start knitting. All that yummy, beautiful yarn will become this super cute baby blanket. (I'm not sure yet if I'm going to also make Sheldon the Turtle, but he is adorable.)

I am making this for a sweet, special someone that I love and care for dearly. I hope she likes it. I thought the colors were kind of dark and since I don't know what she's having I decided to go with the "go to" neutral palette of yellow and green. I'll try to post pictures as I go along.

thankful

So much to be thankful for: good health, wonderful husband, two fur-kids who love me unconditionally, loving family, morning coffee and a warm coat.

in a blink of an eye

Can't believe another weekend is over! As always it much too busy with the ridiculously mundane, but it is what it is. {sigh}

I did finally get to play with my Studio Calico September kit, Yearbook. The paper was absolutely perfect for pictures from that day we went to eat at Taylor's Refresher in Napa. I need more practice with using my mists, but it was great to finally work with some paper and glue again!

So looking forward to the short week and even more excited about Thanksgiving and the long weekend! I can already taste the turkey and mashed potatoes. I am sad to be relinquishing Thanksgiving duties back to my mother-in-law since she and my father-in-law are back in California. Going to miss the smell of roasting turkey!

Have a awesome week! xoxo

born to run

Over the years, I've tried to start a running program,but I never seemed to be able to keep up with it. When I started running again in May (after a year and a half hiatus) I didn't know where this new journey would take me. Would I love it? Would I hate it? Would I still be running in six months? I wanted to get back in shape and running was my only option since I no longer had a gym membership. I was skeptical because my previous running experience left me feeling unaccomplished and disappointed.

I am now in my seventh month and I'm still running. And I am even loving it! Who knew! I've definitely come a long way from when I started. I could barely run two miles without needing to stop. There were many days that I just didn't have any desire to run after working all day and would try come up with excuses not to run. With encouragement {prodding} from Jay, I continued to run. I still experience days when I'd rather just chill, but changing into my running clothes as soon as I get home has almost become second nature on my run days.

Now when I run I can feel changes in how I run and that keeps me motivated. Keeping track of how much my mileage has helped to keep me motivated too. I love seeing my totals increase over the months. It keeps me reaching for the next milestone.

What accomplishment are you proud of?

finally, a layout!

Can't believe that November is just about half over and Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

Tried to get the scrapping mojo going a couple weeks by participating in a challenge at Cocoa Daisy. I used an old Cocoa Daisy kit and a picture from our parasailing experience during out last Hawaii trip. It's nice and simple!

good times

As luck would have it I came down with a cold over Halloween weekend: nausea-inducing sinus headache and cough, slowly developing into sneezing, running nose and low-grade fever. Thankfully the fever did not stick around for too long. I stayed home from work last Thursday and Friday because I felt bad about leaving my germs everywhere and I wanted to rest up for our Las Vegas weekend. It was all in vain, however, since I coughed and sneezed my way through every casino.

A visit with my parents is always a good tim! Enjoyed every minute! Driving them to the airport is bittersweet especially this time around since I couldn't take a lot of time off. They are already home in Hawaii and probably happy to be out of the cold.



Been enjoying my new found obessesion: knitting! Already planning a couple baby projects for some special people in my life.
Have a great Monday!

happy it's friday

I don't know if it's because I've been only getting six hours of sleep or less, but this week has dragged on! I'm happy though that it is finally Friday! I'm hoping this weekend doesn't go by too quickly with everything that is on my to do list.

My parents will be arriving next week Thursday so this weekend will be mostly spent cleaning the house and getting ready for their visit. They will be here for a full week, but they are old hats at getting to the city for some shopping.

In addition to the cleaning frenzy I'm taking a knitting class this Sunday at the local JoAnne's store. I'm so excited!

And tomorrow is our last tennis lesson! That was the longest 4 sessions EVER! I've never felt so unathletic or uncoordinated in my life. Ugh! And Jay will probably insist that we take the next level. Joy!

Adding this to my list of to-do's: S'mores Icebox Candy Bars! There's no baking involved. What could be easier?

Hoping to also get started on my holiday crafting because my list of projects keep growing by the minute! My scrappy mojo is coming back slowly. I already have a bunch of layout ideas that I can't wait to bring to life!

Have great weekend!

59 days

That would be the number of days until Christmas! And so starts the flurry of cardmaking in my house. This year, in addition to handmade cards, I also want to make handmade gifts, both non-edible and edible. I'll probably make biscotti and cookies for edible gifts, but I'm not sure what to make for non-edible gifts. But before I can even begin to make cards I need to update the card and gift list which I am expect to be an ugly task since I haven't updated it in a couple years and most likely will need to be completely overhauled. Ugh! Let me show you what I mean.


As you can see there are a lot of envelopes, a LOT of envelopes. And somewhere in there are a couple of lists, most likely from the year I got married, SIX years ago! So I have my work cut for me. I guess I better get to it!

xoxo

pretty persimmons

One of my favorite things about Fall is the lovely persimmon. About this time of year, the fruit of the persimmon tree start turning the beautiful golden orange color they are know for. And over the past week I've noticed more orange among the green leaves. I love this fruit! So sweet! So crunchy! I could eat them all day! I jumped that gun a little too early on these beauties in the bowl (just picked them today). However, the one in the background is absolute perfection. That one is being chilled and will hopefully be eaten in the next couple days.

What are your favorite things about Fall! Have a happy Monday! xoxo

for today, october 19

Outside my window...it is calm and quiet, everything is rejuvenating itself.

I am thinking...I have enough, I do enough, I an enough.

I am thankful for...for all my blessings, even the ones I don't know of.

From the kitchen...the remnants of a wonderful salmon dinner that we cooked together.

I am wearing... a sweatshirt, yoga pant, and socks.

I am creating...a life of serenity and contentment.

I am going...to enjoy my own quiet time before bed.

I am reading...essays on democracy.

I am hoping...for an even better day tomorrow.

I am hearing...sounds of my sweet dogs breathing.

Around the house...everything is settled for the night and ready for tomorrow.

One of my favorite things...is journaling before going to bed.

A picture I am sharing...the calm after the storm.

Inspired by The Simple Woman's Daybook found via Ali Edwards blog.

weekends were made for fun. . .usually

Once again it was an "action" packed weekend in my household, just not the fun kind. Still working on cleaning the condo, but we're much closer to finishing as of today! Need to get it on the market quick. And tennis lessons are meh. Kind of disheartening to have the instructor point in front of everyone out that you're totally uncoordinated. Not cool!

However, the weekend did have it's happy moments. On Friday I recieved some happy mail from Krystyn at Remember Moments. The package contained a card kit from her that I won from the lovely Vee about a week ago. Can't wait to put these together! (All pictures are from Vee's blog!)

I also did manage to get a little crafty myself on Saturday night, finally finishing my December Daily from 2008 (hah!) and starting my layout from my own circle journal in 2007 (another "hah!'). The theme was "Guilty Pleasures." Mine all involve food and drink: Peet's Dark Chocolate Freddo, Herd of Laughter Ice Cream, and Chocolate Covered Gummi Bears.

It's a work in progress, but I'm really happy about it so far. I will share it when I'm done. Hoping I'll have time during the week to work on it!

Have a great week! xoxo

where does the time go?

Been feeling lately like I just don't have time to do the things a want to do. Work, working out and the weekend blur of errands and cleaning, leaves me very little time to enjoy my usual downtime activities. I'll admit that I do have a small discipline problem, but there truly is not enough hours in the day or days in the week. In the short amount of time I have between getting things ready for the next work day and going to bed I can barely squeeze in time to snuggle with Max & Sparky!

This totally made me smile yesterday.

Richard Vogel AP

Hoping to get some scrapping time in tonight since Jay will be off playing poker with the boys! I have two awesome kits I want to crack open and play with. I will hopefully have some scrapalicious stuff to share with you before the end of the weekend.

busy weekend

Unfortunately it wasn't 'fun' busy. Jay and I started cleaning the rental and it was actually quite a bit of work because it looked like this.


Every wall, except for the bathrooms and kitchen, had every imaginable pencil, pen crayon, and highlighter markings. There also was some bright colored material that looked like play-do or adhesive. What a nightmare! But thank God for Magic Eraser! That and a little elbow grease got most of it out (except for the highlighter and pen)! Hopefully just another weekend of cleaning!

friday, friday

So good, I just had to say it twice. This has been a hard week! I just haven't quited recovered from the whirlwind Las Vegas weekend. The funny thing is that we didn't imbibe all that much. And there is no rest for the weary!

• Thanksgiving Mass for my father-in-law's sister
• Birthday celebration for my dear, sweet mother-in-law (I think I'm going to make this)
• The dreaded cleaning of the rental condo (I'm praying that the tenants were meticulously clean)
• Making cards for World Card Making Day (check it out, click on the picture below!)

Have a great weekend! xoxo

happy october

Well, another month has passed and we're that much closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas. {sigh} It would probably be more bearable if the weather actually reflected the season. Fall does not equal warm weather. I enjoyed the cold these past three days in San Francisco, but was thrown for a loop today!

On the hunt for a nice fall wreath to adorn our front door. I have been wanting one since we moved in, but have never been motivated enough to make. But I think this is the year. On top of everything else I want to do. I need to get to Michael's anyway for my new trimmer. My Provocraft one is driving me flippin' batty so I'm going with this Fiskars one.

Enjoy your first day of October! xoxo

vegas, baby!

Jay and I went to Vegas over the weekend for a little getaway. So much fun! Just a warning, this is a picture heavy post. And before you get any ides, we're the "gamble, eat, see a show" type, although we skipped the show this time around since we couldn't agree on one. We gambled, mostly video poker, but we also played live blackjack. I hit blackjack about eight time and ended up winning $150. We did a lot of eating too. From Bouchon to Postrio to Bellagio's Sunday brunch to tapas at Firefly, it was definitely a weekend of over indulgence. And the most important part we also got to catch up with some of my favorite peeps. Special mahalo goes out to Jared for the great food at Postrio. Loved the ahi and sweet corn ravioli!