Monday, January 28, 2008

Happy Birthday to my cutest nephew!

Party people! We love TJ!!

Cutest nephew loved the balloon I got him.
It sings Happy Birthday!

All the people who love cutest nephew soooo much!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Mommie-Glow and Mr. Wonderful!

Friday, January 25, 2008

On Love...

"I only learned, last year, that love is infinitely more interesting, and more exciting, and more powerful, than really winning or really losing a fight." -- June Jordan

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

SS' Shower in WPB

So, I wasn't there this weekend for SS' shower but she did show me the tons of photos and I couldn't help but love this one. There were so many beautiful things about this event inlcuding her...Look at her outfit. I am so excited for her and Matt and little Baby S!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Visiting the other Kingdom






Mr. Wonderful and I had the day off on Monday and invited our special friend to come along with us to Animal Kingdom. The weather was perfect...A slight chill in the air and breezy. We went on a safari and hiked the trail with tigers and a tapir. Saw Nemo too! Pictures coming soon...

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Full House





So, this weekend, we had several friends in town for the PGA Golf Show. The South Florida Crew brought their two horses, ummm...I mean, dogs and we had a jolly good time since we have two extremely territorial cats. Apparently, the big one -- Mr. Bib -- was about to attack the golden retriever. I just have a hard time imagining that since Bib is such a sweet and gentle little kitty koo. We visited on Friday night over some Greek food at Mykonos. On Saturday, we frequented our little First Watch. The boys all took off to go to the show and K. and I hung back at the house and then went out for a Girls Day. First, took a quick trip to Salon Ciseaux which ended up bring a lot longer but it's cool since I absolutely love it there. K. ended up getting her hair cut by Rock Star Mom. She was so happy. We had a nice lunch and went home to prep dinner (she prepped with Mr. Wonderful) and I cleaned along the way. That's more my specialty. Rockstar mom and dad came over for dinner. All six of us enjoyed laughing it up over some yummy sauce and angel food cake. It was good having everyone over. Today, we slept in a little bit..well, everyone else did. Had a nice breakfast together and then went over to the State Park for a hike along the trail down the street from us. It's such a beautiful day today so it was great being outdoors.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Weekend Warriors

Preparing the wall...Steve getting ready
to make the magic happen.
AA helped for a whole five seconds. Way to go!

Mr. Wonderful, HH and Handyman Steve

AA + HH = smiles and fun


ToJo helping us tape it up in prep for painting.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Happy Birthday to the BeFrie!

Here she is with her boys! Happy Birthday to you!
Lots of love from me to you!

Monday, January 07, 2008

Partying with the Neighbors!

Our wonderful neighbors invited us over for their annual get together to watch the National Championship game. We wore red in honor of one of our favorite OSU fans. But, we knew at halftime that LSU was going to take the ballgame. It was fun though! Below is some of the food that we ate...Everything was so good and we met some super nice people.





Sunday, January 06, 2008

Beauty Attracts Beauty

So, earlier this evening I finished Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Wow! I mean, big WOW! I've been savoring each page, trying not to hurry through it too fast even though I could've seriously finished forever ago. So, when reading a book, it is like me to mark pages that have passages that stand out for whatever reason. As I review the 331 pages of this book, I notice that about half seemed to be marked. Needless to say, I really enjoyed the journey.

A few passages that jumped out at me along the way:

In Italian there is a seldom-used tense called the passato remoto, the remote past. You use this tense when you are discussing things in the far, far distant past, things that happened so long ago they have no personal impact on you anymore -- for example, ancient history.

Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

Yoga is the effort to experience one's divinity personaly and then to hold on to that experience forever. Yoga is about self-mastery and the dedicated effort to haul your attention away from your endless brooding over the past and your nonstop worrying about the future so that you can seek, instead, a place of eternal presence from which you may regard yourself and your surrounding with poise. Only from that point of even-mindedness will the true nature of the world (and yourself) be revealed to you.

The other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment. It's something like the habit of my dear friend Susan, who -- whenever she sees a beautiful plce -- exclaims near panic, "It's so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!" and it takes all of my persuasive powers to try to convince her that she is already here...because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.

(on soul mates) - Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.

Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well -- that would be the end of the universe. But try dropping it...Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens.

Okay...there are so many more to include but for tonight, I'll stop now and get some rest before my first full week of work since mid-December.


---
Tonight, I miss befrie. Her birthday's coming up and I believe she's overseas or coming back on Monday. Either way, I wish I could talk to her now. It's way past her bedtime so no such luck. Soon, I hope.

for the mom-to-be side of me

Today, I shopped for the first time for maternity clothes. The other day China girl and I checked out a couple of places but I decided to wait and go it alone when trying things on...so, I did it! Found quite a few things that I thought didn't look all pregnant and even though I'm still not really showing in a big way yet, I felt it was time to bite the bullet and get a few things as I do grow, grow, grow. So, after thoroughly perusing the racks as I so often do (in other non-maternity stores), I found quite a few things I wanted to try on. In the dressing room, there was one of those fake bellies. Of course, I put it on and thought it was upside down and then I changed it and it looked even more ridiculous. Whatever! After about a half an hour or so, I left with a couple bags of stuff that I feel will take me through to the end. There's only about four months to go so I didn't want to overdo it. Overall, it was a decent experience. I thought it might be dreadful since it's not along my regular retail stops but as it turns out, this is one of the best times in my life and to know that there are cute clothes to go along with it, makes me very happy.

Nurse Jerm

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!!!
(your first one as a daddy)