Well, I Tried to Keep the Tradition!

It is Christmas Eve morning as I’m thinking about my blog.
Awake are just me, the cat and the dog.
A day of prepartion faces me down,
But maybe for a moment, with you I can clown.

This blog has been neglected, that much is clear,
I’ve still thought of you often and read during the year.
Will next year be better? That I don’t know,
Depends where its decided my time needs to go.

Well damn. The words just are not coming to me in the Clement Moore style this morning. Damn shame I can’t seem to make my Christmas tradition of a fun rhyming blog happen this year. This link to the blog post from 2014 has the links to my previous years’ posts in it. The one from 2012 is by far the funniest in my opinion. Last year’s was rather reflective.

Much is similar this year as far as my feelings about Christmas. The magic is different when your kids are adults. The best part of this season is having them home, and I know I will only even have that most likely for a few more years. This could be my last one with my older daughter still living here since she graduates from college in May. (How the heck did that happen???)

My love of photography has unfortunately taken a back seat to many other things these days. I think that is part of the reason this blog has suffered so much with lack of attention this year. Since September I can certainly add my new job as a 7th grade teacher to the list of reasons I’ve had other things taking up my time. I do still want to retain my blogosphere connection with my favorite bloggers out there – Dawn, Carol, Mike and Robin especially. I don’t always have the time to comment, but I do try to regularly stop by and read. I’ve even been neglectful of that in this busy season, running around like a crazy person trying to get it all done.

Perhaps I’ll try again later to do this up right. Perhaps not. Perhaps I’ll write another blog post before the end of 2016. Perhaps not. I like to leave open the possibilities!

To those of you who celebrate it, and actually still read my blog posts on the blue moon when they happen, have a very Merry Christmas! Happy new year too if I don’t see you before then! 😉

Grateful Days

I think this is the longest time I’ve ever gone without writing a blog post. I’m wondering if anyone still reads this space. If you do, thank you for having a look. Life has been busy and fun and active, and this Thanksgiving break has allowed me a moment to pause and think and appreciate, hence the title of my post.

The biggest change, as some of you may remember, is the new job I began this school year. I’m a 7th grade math and science teacher at a parochial school, and what an adventure it has been! Working for a private school is very different from what I’ve known of public school teaching, and as any job does, it certainly has its ups and downs. Overall it has been a very positive experience. There is much demand on my time, but now that I am finally teaching instead of being another teacher’s aide, I know I am doing what I was meant to do. If that is not a feeling of positive energy, I don’t know what is.

This fall has been filled with fun and adventure.

One frustrating adventure was the death of my iPhone 5 in September. One morning the screen simply refused to power on. I lost everything I had on that phone – photos were the saddest loss; I’ve come to like having those little reminders of where I’ve been and what I’ve done. The pictures that I’m sharing today are from my new phone.

Columbus Day weekend was sunny and warm. My sister and I went apple picking and found some side trips along the way. We headed up to an orchard a little bit north of the area we live in to pick my favorite type of apples, macouns. On our way to the orchard, we discovered the factory store to a local gourmet tea company was open.

Tea Guys in South Deerfield MA makes a huge variety of different types of tea. We each had a sample freshly brewed and made some purchases.

Then we found this little place for lunch with great soup and popovers – The Smithsonian Cafe and Chowderhouse Mmmmmmm popovers! A simple but delicious thing that I should try to make more often.

Apple bread was one of the results of this apple picking! So delicious and cinnamon-y!

Teddy and I got out for a nice autumn walk.  I wanted to write up a post to share for Robin’s Walktober but of course that got away from me too.
I’m ashamed to say Teddy and I don’t get out nearly as often as I’d like to and as this great dog deserves. He misses his college girls nearly as much as I do, and I’m sure it would do him some good. My dear friend Sherry, who often motivated me to get out for walks, is going through a difficult time with her sweet dog Angel who had a stroke early this summer and has not yet regained full control of her limbs and is unable to stand unsupported. If you’d like to know more about Angel, she has a page on Facebook: Team Angel Mulloy

October also brought an additional visit to Cape Cod. My sister and I had been down to visit our mother in September as we usually do, to celebrate Jennifer’s birthday. My mother had been on a waiting list to get into a new apartment, and she suddenly got the call 3 weeks before it was available. It was time for action! Jennifer and I went and did our best to help with the cleaning and clearing out and packing that goes with moving to a new place. As Jennifer and I traveled back home, I had a little laugh:

It was cranberry harvest time on the Cape and we were following this truck, getting pinged in the windshield by cranberries! Nothing harmful or too distracting, just a couple here and there, but enough to amuse me. It’s the little things sometimes!

During the last weekend of October, I had the pleasure of attending one of Meghan’s ballroom competitions. I traveled to Cranston RI for Brown University’s annual competition at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet

Meghan and her partner Kate placed in mambo.

Meghan hadn’t brought the beautiful green ballroom dress we got her for Christmas last year with her to this competition because she didn’t think she’d be able to dance this year to the style of dance that she could wear it for, due to a former partner choosing not to dance, but she brought along that pink dress just in case a need arose. As luck would have it, a former captain of the team came to the competition, and the last minute decision was made that he and Meghan would dance. I have less blurry photos from these dances, but none that show the joy that Meghan felt at getting to do this dance like this one does.

Early November brought a gathering of friends. The Halloween parties that I used to throw years ago, have evolved into an autumn dinner enjoyed with great friends. Somehow this is the only photo I managed to take of the evening:

I made a delicious ham and side dishes, and the girls came home and our whole crew of friends was present. I should have taken other shots to commemorate the occasion, but these things happen!

My most recent adventure was a day trip to Boston. Sarah had her Colleges of the Fenway Dance Project fall recital on the weekend before Thanksgiving. I drove out earlier in the day and took Sarah to eat and we visited the Prudential Center wandering and talking before she had to get ready for the show.

I really enjoyed the show, especially the student-choreographed piece that she was in.

(photo credit to Jack Tan)

As many of you know, I mourn the loss of summer and the glory of hot weather and lazy days. Every now and then I let myself like fall, just a little! I find delight in small moments of beauty, like:

a mockingbird landing on the deck and sticking around long enough for me to take a picture,

a pink sunrise on an easy weekend morning before we changed the clocks,

sunshine filtering through a tree dressed in its autumn colors.

In addition of course, we’ve just celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. The girls are home for the long weekend and I’ve been enjoying their company. For all these wonderful times, I am grateful. I wish you joy and beauty and peace in the days to come. Maybe by Christmas break I will be able to share again!

Chasing Waterfalls

One of my early summer adventures this year involved a couple of my favorite things. A day spent with both my daughters, having fuzzy Teddy along for the ride and photography. I feel lucky that I got my girls to agree to go on this ride-along with me! The four of us piled into my car and headed west to the Chester-Blandford State Forest, about a 50 minute ride from here.

I had hopes of taking some really spectacular pictures of rushing water, but it probably should have occured to me that late June of a fairly dry spring wouldn’t be the time for wild water. However, we enjoyed an easy walk through the shade of trees and followed a path that eventually turned out at a small fall that I imagine could be quite pretty when flowing at full capacity. I took this picture with Meghan in the shot to give some idea of scale.

Sarah and Teddy waited near the bottom while Meghan climbed up to do a bit of exploring.

My best shot of the bunch I took:

So not a glamorous rushing thundering waterfall shot, but a good day! Sunshine, a walk, my daughters, my dog, and my camera – time well spent.

Poking Around Pickity

I’ve mentioned many times the favorite luncheon spot for Jennifer, Renae and me, Pickity Place in Mason, NH. After going so many times, I stopped taking regular photos of our visits, with the exception sometimes of the oh-so-beautifully-presented food. However, Renae brought to my attention that Pickity was having a photo contest this year to win gift certificates! “Capture the magic of Pickity” is the theme of the contest. During our last visit, I brought my Canon and set out to find the magic. It isn’t difficult to do at this place, but I was also hoping to find a few shots that other folks might pass by. I’ve collected my favorites here. Some are just because I really like them, a couple I am considering submitting. I won’t tell you the ones that struck me as possibly contest worthy just yet. Tell me your thoughts in the comments and we will see if we are thinking along the same lines….

Baaa, baaa … well you know!

Foxglove-a-glow

Set me free…

A gardener’s work is never done

Dragonfly in Copper

Grow dammit!

How sweet it is

I have until Labor Day to make my submission. I may not be limited to one selection. I’ve inquired at the FB page for the contest. Which ones do you think might have a little magic touch?

If We Were Having Coffee: Summer Catch Up Edition

As I sat here Sunday morning drinking my coffee and reading Robin’s coffee share, I thought to myself, as I have many times this summer, write a blog post! But where to begin? I’ve been quite the slacker blogger as of late, with no real reason why. I’ve been active and busy and enjoying myself, but no real reason why I couldn’t write a post. So “stealing” a little bit from Robin in the title of this post, but giving her all the credit I made a decision to write this morning. My phone is a great reminder of everything I’ve been up to this summer so I’m starting there, with a selection of photos from the phone to bring me up to speed a bit. I have more shots in my “big girl camera” from some of the places I’ve been this summer, but I’d like to edit them before I present them – so maybe I will get a couple more posts done before summer comes rushing to an end and I imagine I’ll have even less time to blog.

If we were having coffee (or tea or whatever is your preference), I might say to you, pour yourself a good sized cup and strap in! I’ll probably ramble on for quite a while! If we were sitting together on my deck (assuming the awful humidity of late has passed) the first thing you might notice is the state of my “garden”. I made a decision not to plant one this year and the spot it usually occupies next to the deck is rampant with weeds at the moment. It was a sad decision, but that area would require more TLC than I was willing to give it at this time to make it flourish. The soil is spent and diseased and seems to be a breeding ground for awful things like tomato horn worms. Instead I bought myself two tomato plants and put them in containers. It seemed like a good idea back in June…

… but as summer progressed, not so much. I’ve gotten a few small tomatoes, but many have rotted right on the vine. I miss my giant beefsteak tomatoes I used to grow.

If we were having coffee, I’d say it has been a busy summer but I like it that way. One of the first things I did was an overnight Pickity Place visit with Jennifer and Renae. That doesn’t quite sound right – what I mean is, we went to Pickity Place and then stayed overnight at Renae’s house for a “girls’ night in”. I have some beautiful photos from that Pickity visit on the other camera that I haven’t gotten to editing and posting yet, but I think they deserve another post. I do have this picture on my phone of the yummy blueberry sour cream coffee cake I made for our breakfast the next morning.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I did something a little unexpected this year. I made a last minute decision to drive to Cape Cod for 4th of July weekend. Anyone from Around Here might say, “what are you nuts?” Traffic to the Cape on any summer weekend is notoriously bad, as you have to travel over one of two bridges to get there and it is an extremely popular vacation destination in these parts. But a long holiday weekend stretched out before me, my daughters had their own plans and my husband was working, and my mother (who lives there as I think you know) had vacation time. So off I went. The beach was crowded but pleasantly warm and breezey and we enjoyed some time together just the two of us.

If we were having coffee, you might be surprised to hear that I ticked off a photography bucket list item. I see all of Mike’s gorgeous waterfall photography and have been wanting to give it a shot. I finally did. The girls and I took Teddy for a ride to find a small waterfall just a little west of here.

It has been pretty dry all summer so the fall wasn’t flowing hard, but we went before the drought really set in to this area. Again I have more photos waiting for editing, but here is one from my phone:

If we were having coffee, you’d learn that I had only one visit to Maine this year and it felt a little odd to me. For the past few years my sister has very kindly invited me to join her family for a few days of her vacation to Peaks Island. I did join Jennifer for a few wonderfully sunny days…

…and beautiful sunsets.

The reason it felt odd to me was that normally, I’d be headed back to Maine a few weeks later for my own family vacation on Hills Beach. Last year, however, the cottage we have been renting there for several years was sold to a new owner. The new owners wanted to use the place themselves rather than rent it out. Can’t say that I blame them for if it was mine, I’d surely do the same, but that meant we had to find a new place to go. Unfortunately, as is the way of many private, quiet beaches in New England, small, affordably priced cottages directly on the beach are few and far between. Could we stay somewhere else not right on the beach for a reasonable price? Sure. But this is the way I’ve vacationed most of my life since I was a child and I admit being spoiled by having this ammenity for my vacation. It is our one big yearly indulgence. So I hunted around on VRBO (vacation rental by owner if you are not familiar with this website) and found a place in Truro, MA. Truro is on the outer part of Cape Cod, very close to the tip that is Provincetown, or as I like to call it “the end of the earth”.

If we were having coffee, you may have guessed by now that yes there are lots of pictures from this vacation, both on my phone and on the other camera. With how I’ve gone on and on, I’m sure you’ll be fine with the fact that I will share those in another post. I took myself on several adventures on that trip.

Now I’m sure that I’ve completely talked your ear off by now – hopefully I gave you some time to get a word or two in edgewise – I’ve got to tell you one more thing. Back at the beginning of our visit, I said the days are coming quickly where I’ll have less time to blog. If you’ve been visiting with me regularly for the last few years, you’re thinking, oh that’s right, school will be beginning again very soon. And you’d be right. But this year, for the first time in 11 years, I will not be returning to the middle school that has been my place of employment as a paraprofessional. I’m sure you remember the times I’ve mentioned that I am a certified teacher and the things that I’ve done to try to make myself more employable. In a couple weeks I will begin my new adventure as a 7th grade math and science teacher at a small private parochial school. There will be pro’s and cons to this position, but I’m looking at it as a new chapter in my professional life. I was at a crossroads where a decision needed to be made – stay in the job I’ve been doing for the last 11 years knowing that my chance for promotion to classroom teacher may never come or step outside my comfort zone to a new place with new challenges.

I made the choice to make the change. It is exciting, daunting and anxiety-raising all rolled into one, but a big part of my journey to me!

Although I take my inspiration from Robin, this post’s originating idea comes from Part Time Monster #WeekendCoffeeShare

Fitness Journey Continued

A couple months ago, close to my 47th birthday, I decided to mark a milestone in this fitness journey which I began in earnest in November of 2013. I’ve journaled here and there along the way about my progress. In March of last year, my fitness guru friend who has helped me all along the way, changed my primary mode of training to weight lifting. My personal weight and size has maintained at about the same level but I’ve really started to notice the changes to my physique now that I’ve been working this way. So in honor of training this way for a year and for feeling the fittest I ever have in my life as that birthday approached, I went to a photographer friend to have a few portraits taken.

I’ve been uncertain about sharing these pictures for a while now. I’ve always been self conscious being in front of a camera rather than being behind it. As a step in the direction of gaining self-confidence in the person I feel I am meant to become, I decided to share a few of the shots here today. I recently endured a big setback at work after the school year came to a close, a moment that temporarily rocked my belief in myself, but I’ve recovered, and I’m ready to move on and put that setback behind me. I present these pictures today as another step forward in my journey to me.

It sounds so cliche to say life is journey not a destination, but cliches come from somewhere – and that somewhere in this case is truth.  This is a journey of meaning that I will continue as long as I am able.  Improving my body deepens my mind and spirit connection, my desire to live in and enjoy the moment, to feel present in my own life.

 

 

 

 

Long Overdue

The title of this post has dual meaning. I am long overdue to write a blog post. It has been a wonderful spring with so many enjoyable moments! As I’ve looked around and enjoyed posts from Robin, Dawn, Kathy (welcome back!), Mike, Amy, Gerry and Carol, I get so very inspired to write and then something else takes my attention and I don’t do it. I decided to change that this morning and actually do it, so I started scrolling through the photos on my phone, looking back at the moments I wanted to remember for one reason or another. (Sorry Rebel camera, I have been very bad about picking you up and making use of you lately. I promise to change that soon!) My plan was to write another post similar to the last one I did – a journalish kind of post updating what’s been going on so that I had words to go with my photos. As I scrolled, I realized I had more than enough photos to focus on one very special event, one that was indeed long overdue.

Long time readers will know that my sister Jennifer, our best friend Renae and I have been like the three muskateers for most of our lives – literally we have been friends for 40 years! Since we were 4, 5 and 6 years old respectively. Even though Renae does not live as close to us as we would like any more (she was just down the street as we grew up), we make the time to see each other throughout the year. We have taken girls getaway weekends together. In 2014, we were planning another little trip together to a seaside town in New Hampshire. Then horrific news struck. I think Renae will be okay with me sharing this at this point, as she has gone public with what she has been through on her Facebook page, Renae was diagnosed with breast cancer and discovered she carries the breast cancer gene. A double mastectomy followed, then chemo and radiation. A year from hell. Strong, amazing woman that she is, Renae is doing well and feeling healthy these days and is a strong advocate for research into Stage 4 cancer – the constant fear in the back of any cancer survivor’s mind.

Back when Renae was diagnosed and we had to cancel our girls’ weekend, we promised ourselves that when she was well and ready, we would do a BIG celebratory trip – not somewhere within driving distance, somewhere we would have to get on an airplane together to reach – something we’d never done before. And we finally did it. Just about 3 weeks ago, the three of us boarded a plane to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

After a very late arrival Friday night due to a long delay and rerouting of our flight due to strong thunderstorms happening in parts of the south, we woke up Saturday morning to a beautiful day.

view from hotel room balcony

I could feel my entire body just relax into being present in where I was – a warm, tropical climate with my best friends in the world with no agenda other than to plop ourselves on the beach and enjoy each others’ company.

Ahhhhh!

Since we did not rent a car – just about everything you might want or need is in walking distance in Ft. Lauderdale – cocktails from the poolside tiki bar at the hotel were indulged in just about anytime we felt like it!

Something melon-y. I don’t remember the name, but it was good!

This is the hotel from the beach. That thatched roof you see to the right side of the photo is the tiki bar. Very convenient!

This is a great picture representing how we spent our days. Lounge on the beach, go for a walk, go for a swim – whatever we wanted. I went for an invigorating swim in the ocean in amazingly warm water with some wild crashing waves. It made me feel so very alive and thankful and conscious of appreciating the present moment.

Each night we walked to dinner at a local restaurant and we were not disappointed with any of our choices. How wonderful to walk the sidewalks and see tropical flowers in bloom as we went!

I think the three of us would agree our favorite meal was at Greek Islands Taverna. We had a wonderful Greek waiter who recommended this delicious Greek wine.

We would love to be able to find this wine for sale back home somewhere!

We shared a Greek salad as an appetizer – Renae took this shot of me with it.

And I had a delicious moussaka for my entree.

We were super full from a great meal that night, but we couldn’t resist taking some dessert to share to go – baklava AND baklava cheesecake!

The next night’s dinner was at Aruba Beach Cafe. Another wonderful choice. Our bartender took this picture of the three of us while we waited for our table:

That was one delicious margarita! Well, I think it was actually two delicious margaritas…

Appetizer and dinner that night:

Conch fritters

Seafood quesadilla

Our final dinner together was at 101 Ocean.
Appetizer:

Crab, artichoke and spinach dip

Dinner:

Lobster Paella

Both the Aruba Cafe and 101 Ocean are located in the quaint neighborhood of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, a cute little touristy area with shops and restaurants and ice cream. We decided that last night to enjoy one last walk on the beach – walked from the restaurant to the hotel. On the approach to our hotel, I noticed the palm trees there were decorated with lights and had to take a quick picture:

We had an early flight home on Tuesday morning, so on Monday morning I took an opportunity to enjoy an early morning solo walk on the beach.

I was so very appreciative that we made the time to take this trip. It is one I will remember forever, and something that I hope we make a tradition – perhaps an annual one. Thank you Jennifer and Renae for this wonderful experience!

Dancing Toward Spring

February has come and gone and we are nearly halfway through March. I had hopes for blogging more regularly in 2016 but somehow that just hasn’t happened. Life is good and keeping me busy! I’m going to scatter this blog post with photos as I let the words ramble from my brain to my fingers.

February is usually a month I don’t care for very much, but I honestly can’t complain about the one that just passed us by. We did have our only two snow days so far this school year (fingers crossed that we are out of the woods on those for the year – last day of school is scheduled for Friday June 17th at this point) but for the most part we have had a very mild winter this year. And well deserved after the winter we had last year. February was sprinkled with some good dog walks with friends, a couple fun get-togethers, and seeing my daughters during my February break.
Meghan turned 21 this February! Wow, I am the parent of a “legal” adult.

21st birthday gift from mom to daughter

Meghan had a ballroom competition in February that I attended. Got to see the new ballroom dress in motion and it looked fabulous! Meghan and her partners didn’t place at this competition. I thought she was robbed but I may be just a bit prejudiced.

A surprise invitation to a great show also happened in February. My friend Sherry won tickets to a performance of Lord of the Dance.

If you’re a fan of dance of any kind and you’ve never seen any incarnation of this show (it has had several versions throughout its 20 year history) you owe it to yourself to try to see a show. The power and talent of these dancers is simply amazing.

As we flowed from February into March, all of a sudden it was time for my daughters’ spring breaks from college. How nice for us that Wentworth’s and Clark’s breaks fell on the same week! On the Friday the girls finished classes, my sister and I got into my car and headed out for a bit of a road trip. First stop, Worcester MA, to collect Meghan and lots of her laundry! Second stop, MBTA train station Franklin MA to collect Sarah from her ride out of Boston. Third stop – Cape Cod to spend a weekend visiting my mother. It was chilly but a great visit celebrating Meghan’s birthday and my mother’s. We went out to lunch,

went shopping, and even had a bundled up visit to the beach.

A harbinger of spring I always look forward to is the spring bulb show at Smith College. There was a fun twist on the show this year, which added elemments from Edward Gorey’s The Evil Garden. Sprinkled among the beautiful blooms

were striped-socked legs poking from behind rocks, big hairy bugs, frogs spitting muddy water,

and “peaches, apples, plums and pears, guarded by ferocious bears”

It is the ending Saturday night of spring break as I write this post. My girls are each with their boyfriends this evening, and both will return to school for the final push of the school year tomorrow. Wonderful days are on their way – the official start of spring and more. Hopefully it won’t take me another month and a half to post again about that more!

As I See It

A month into the new year already and this is my first blog post of 2016. I’ve been full of inspiration for blog posts and they just haven’t come to fruition. My favorite bloggers have been inspiring me and I’ve seen some really great things that have been making me go, “Oh I should do something like that!” Amy over at PlainMama has started blogging regularly about gratitude – I loved what she had to say in this post. Two bloggers came back from semi-retirement recently as well: Scott at Views Infinitum was first to re-enter explaining about a challenging 2015 and then Gerry, of Torch Lake Views, much to my delight popped back on the scene. Sybil, up there in the north, moved from Eastern Passage to Sacksville and has started sharing the romps of her and her fourlegged friends once again. Katie the princess sheltie and her mama Dawn at Change is Hard, have had all kinds of adventures to report on in recent weeks. Despite being harrassed by Winter Storm Jonas, Robin has kept a steady stream of beautiful photography and well wishes and thoughts over at Breezes at Dawn. And who can forget Carol of Wanderings of an Elusive Mind – blogger from the other side of this country, but with whom I so often agree with her sentiments, sometimes I feel like we must have been related somehow in another life! Then there’s Mike at Picture Day – carrying on with the things I always say I want to do – get out there with the camera and get better at photography.

Look at all that inspiration! So many ideas, so much lack of blog post writing.
In the context of a walk I took today with Teddy, on a fairly mild January day, here are some of the thoughts that have been meandering through my mind. I took the Rebel with my 50mm lens attached on this walk for two reasons – its a nice lightweight lens so I didn’t feel burdened on the walk and they say 50mm is approximately the view of how we see with the naked eye, so you’ll see my walk as I saw it, for the most part.

Teddy at the first place we always stop on our walks. Missing Daphne here as no matter the weather she always wanted to lay down in the water

Gratitude. Joy. Confidence. These are concepts I’m doing my best to focus on for 2016. Time to really put the work into discovering and taking care of me. Does that sound selfish? I hope not. It isn’t meant to be. The joy of having my girls home for their winter break from college, and their subsequent returns to school, have redoubled my determination to find my true happy place, who I am outside of being a mother – motherhood defines me, but not every part of me.

“Daphne’s” creek (how I will think of it from now on) not frozen over

Heartache happens but it doesn’t stop the world from going on around us. Like this creek, we continue flowing with time. My wishes are to keep progressing and getting better in a holistic way as I flow through time.

Along the “tunnel” path

This is a familiar sight, that feeling of a natural tunnel – the feeling is intensified when the weather is warmer and the green fills the scene, but this is a piece that feels unchanging and constant to me, that part of life that gives you the foundation you need to deal with….

Formerly filled with brush, this section of path has been mowed down

…change. Change – some of us try to fight it, some of us welcome it, but it is inevitable. I’m learning to welcome it. There was a time I dreaded it, but I think I’m seeing things more clearly now. Don’t simply accept change – create it. Take the new circumstances and make them your own.

Blinking against the wind

No closing your eyes and pretending whatever the problem is will go away. We all have those days when we’d rather just pull the covers over our heads and tell the world to leave us alone. A good friend recently said to me, the obstacles we encounter are just bumps in the road. We will get over them and move on to bigger and better things.

Shadow of Teddy and me – connected by leash and by heart

As I continue on my journey, I have a sense of authenticity in my mind-body-spirit connection; it is becoming real and tangible for me. I’ve been calling it a fitness journey but it is really so much more than that – it is a journey to who I’m meant to be!

Christmas Wrap

I felt like sharing a little peek at our Christmas this year. With only 2 days of 2015 left to go, I’m feeling reflective as many of us are at this time of year.

After a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, bacon, and fruit, we did what we’ve done every Christmas morning for 20 years and sat by the tree and opened gifts. The girls are no longer up super early, eager to find out what Santa has left, but there were still some gifts to be excited about.

Sarah’s “big” gift was tickets to see the band Imagine Dragons.

She and I will be headed down to Foxwoods tomorrow. A great gift for both of us – precious time together and a fun way to celebrate New Year’s Eve. I enjoy the music of Imagine Dragons as well so it should be a good time.

We did not surprise Meghan with her “big” gift this year. As I’ve mentioned before, Meghan is a member of Clark University’s ballroom team, assistant captain in fact, and it is a huge joy for her. This is her third year competing, and for the first time, she will have a custom-made-for-her ballroom gown to wear. We are awaiting its arrival. This was something she needed to choose and many measurements had to be taken to place the order. Just to be silly, I took a picture of the dress from the website we ordered from and pasted her head on it. This is what it will look like but in emerald green:

I can’t wait to see her in the real thing.

Other fun things received – Sarah got a Chewbacca bathrobe and this cap relating to a character from the “Homestuck” web comic that my daughters read.

I got a new Kindle, as my old one has been acting rather wonky as of late.

My girls got together and gave me some grown-up coloring books and nice colored pencils. Have you noticed this seemingly growing trend of coloring books for adults? They have intricate designs that take some time and patience to color. My daughters had a couple of their own, and I’d remarked how I’ve always loved coloring and that I’d probably enjoy them too. Here’s my first picture I’m working on:

Interestingly enough, my sister had a similar idea, and also gave me one of those books. She put together a well-appreciated “zen” themed gift that also included yoga clothes and a gift certificate for the yoga studio I attend.

My sister and the rest of my family Christmas guests arrived in the early afternoon. We had a delicious feast – wish I remembered to take a few pictures of all the wonderful food!

Uncle “Sonny”

Jim (my stepfather) and Sonny

Joan (my mother-in-law), Mom, Jennifer (my sister) and Larry (her husband) Craig managed to avoid being within view of my camera’s lens!

Christmas celebrations continued and will still continue this week. We had a Christmas dinner with my father the day after Christmas at my sister’s house. She made a delicious white wine coq-au-vin. And this Friday, New Year’s Day, will be the famous annual Pig Out!

I hope the holidays are treating you well. If I don’t get my 2015 wrap up post done before midnight tomorrow (and I imagine I won’t since I’ll be seeing Imagine Dragons as we ring in the new year) a very happy new year to you all!