Someday...

Someday I will go on my dream retreat which is here http://www.bravegirlsclub.com/  The scenery is gorgeous, the food looks divine, the projects are right up my alley and I love how they have decorated everything.  It is my little "happy place" online.  I pore over their website to see the projects and dream about going.  The catch?  Happy places don't come cheap.  This retreat whistles in to the tune of about $1200. Yes you read that right.  :-)  So for now, it is filed under a someday.  Go check it out anyway though, we all need happy places. 

Healthy Living...All it's cracked up to be?

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

—Mark Twain

I love to look at ads from the past, a couple of nights ago I couldn't sleep and found these helpful (not) little "gems". Makes it hard to believe that any of our ancestors even stuck around long enough to procreate the next generation! Hmm...Beer for babies, smokin' mamas, arsenic and tape worms, apparently I have been going about this weigh loss and parenting thing all wrong!

Maybe that would have helped Joey sleep through the night.....

One dollar for nothing! Surely they jest!  One dollar can buy you white skin, deathly pallor, arsenic poisening...all for 100 pennies, 20 nickels, 10 thin silver dimes or 4 quarters!  A bargain!

What is his name - so I can never go to him!  Eeeww!

Mmmmm...lard.  Does anyone else feel queasy?

Is it my imagination or is mom looking at them like they are crazy?

Or is she just thinking about her "stylin" swimming suit and wonding if she is showing just a little too much skin?  What will all of the ladies say at the country club?  Silly lady, they won't care because they are too busy smoking and eating lard!

No more toothache, wait, are those children creepy or is it just me?

 How can they build a house out of sticks if they are high on cocaine? 

Uh, there are so many things to say about this,

 I can't even sort and process them because my "smart a**" filter is on overload.  :-)

What!  You mean I have been killing myself at the gym and all I had to do is this! 

Uhg, this is gross on so many levels, and I can not believe that people were really stupid enough to do this.  Maybe all of the cocaine and arsenic helped. 

All I can say is that I think that Mr. Twain was right on this one.  Be careful of advertising - it's a killer. 

 I can't wait to see what I find on my next sleepless night.

Mirror, Mirror

My Friend, if I could give you one thing, I would give you the ability to see yourself as others see you . . . then you would realize what a truly special person you are. ~Barbara A. Billings




I wonder at what point in our lives, do we stop being that little girl with the super sized, super-hero type of confidence? Why as women are so down on ourselves? It is amazing to me to watch a little girl walking about the world, without a care, knowing that she looks "fantabulous" in her red and green cowboy boots, red long johns with a tutu over-top and a tiara. She looks great, she feels great and she KNOWS it!

Somewhere along the way, we lose that sense of self. We don't always wear an outfit because it brings us joy; we wear it because it is in fashion. We look in the mirror and see a nose that is too big, instead of a beautifully shaped mouth or tilted blue eyes.

Now, I realize that to an extent is it important how you look, we need to be well groomed and take care of ourselves. We should take pride in who we are, after all, Heavenly Father gave us our bodies ...ah ha ladies, that is what we need to remember. Who we are is NOT reflected in the flat magazine pictures of personality deprived models. It is in remembering that we have a divine source.

I look at women all around me and am so amazed at their creativity, their flair and their beauty. I honestly don't think that I have ever looked a woman and said, "WOW! WHEW! She is beyond hope! GET OUT THE PAPER BAG! Cover this chick up she is making MY EYES BLEED! Puleez!

But what happens when we compliment someone? They usually demur, not out of false modesty, but because they really can't see what I do when I look at them. Sad.

I have to admit, as much as I love that quote above, I fall into the same category...Stupid media. Just sayin' makes you think doesn't it?

I must, I must, I must decrease my butt!

It is exercise alone that supports the spirits,
and keeps the mind in vigor. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero

Fizzbert to Cicero! What was that guy thinking? Did he need a hobby? I have to say that I can think of the many things that lift my spirits ~ and working out on the weight machines is not one of them!

When I was younger, I was very thin, loved to run, could eat like a horse, still had a 21 inch waist.

Grew a little older, had kids, health issues and gradually my weight started to increase. Still, I thought to myself, “well, I don’t like my stomach muscles because after 4 c-sections and two other surgeries, they were basically mush, however I can live with it, if I have to.”

My butt, I can honestly say I didn’t worry about, not because I thought it was a toned thing of beauty, I just decided it was everyone else’s problem because they could see it and I couldn’t. :-) Now, as I get older I find things happening, like the fact my butt is indeed my problem, somewhere along the line, it started to creep its way around my hips one calorie at a time until I do notice it and I am not happy about it!

Since, for some strange reason, whining and thinking about exercising didn’t seem to be melting anything off of my body, I’ve started to work out.


One of my problems was that I don’t know how to exercise. Never did, I didn’t have a weight problem, did the sports I liked, but like many thin, young people, I didn’t have a good idea of whole body health.


Enter Prudie at the Y. Our YMCA does a free 8 week program several times a year. You go and work with a personal trainer two times a week and learn how to use the machines, how to exercise for your fitness level and how to gradually increase what you are able to do. During this time you have a Y card and can go as many times as you want outside of class. If you complete their program of 16 classes, you can join the Y without the initial start up fee. Very cool.

This humorous kicker? For me the only class I can fit in is the one at 5:30 in the morning. Yep me, confirmed card-carrying member of the night owls club, is getting my hiney out of bed, driving to the Y and working out. At first, I could only make it the two days, but I have been gradually increasing amount that I have been going, and working out at home when Shon has the car out of town.

You know what? I hate to admit it that Cicero might be right, I am kind of starting to like this exercise thing….Who would have thought?

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

"That is what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason other than sheer enjoyment~Julia in a letter to Dawsey



Sometimes life can change in the blink of an eye by a seemingly random occurrence. We always assume that there needs to be a cataclysmic event for this to happen, something dramatic, something dark. Usually though, it is small acts that set off a chain of events that can be life changing. Many times, changing our life for the better and brighter.

For the main character in this book it was as simple as receiving a letter. The time was January 1946. The main character Juliet Ashton is a British author who along with everyone else in Briton after WWII is simply trying to move forward. She opens her mail one day to find a letter from a stranger with with a simple request that sets her life moving in a direction that she never dreamed of.



This book is written in an epistolary form, usually a style that I find stodgy. However, the characters in this book are vibrant and original, an eclectic mix that somehow works. The writing flowed so well, that I forgot I was reading letters. Juliet learns about the letter writer and his friends, as well as how the war affected the people of the Channel Islands. I didn't have a clue that there was British Territory that was occupied by the Germans in WWII. Somehow, I always thought all the occupation was on the continent.



I found many laugh out loud moments, few sad ones, and several clever quotes that stayed in my mind long after the book was done. If you are looking for a book about bold adventure and intrigue with heart stopping moments, this is not the book for you. If you like a gentler story about the strength of human nature, having a sense of humor and human triumph I would recommend this in a heartbeat.



Below, is a link to the real Channel Islands. It was a wonderful virtual trip, although, sadly I didn't get a suntan. :-)


http://www.visitguernsey.com/guernsey.aspx

Hi there!

*While taking a break from blogging recently, I took the opportunity to update my blog. I have decided that one blog will cover everything. :-) After all, family, scrapping, creating, reading, photos...they are all part of my life!


*Thanks to everyone who kept emailing wondering if I was going to blog again. It would be so fun to meet some of you!


*The buttons below the header will keep everything organized (and we know how happy that makes me!) That way if all you want to see is tutorials, you can hit that button and not read the rest of the "scraps" that make up my life.


*I had to share these pictures of our winter visitors. They are so cute and not the least bit shy. We are never sure who is going to be in our backyard! It takes every ounce of persuasion to make sure that the kids don't feed them!