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!