My Happy Place

This is my Happy Place.  

This is the place where my best friend lives.  She is wonderful.  Her husband is wonderful (of course, he has the same birthday as me.)  She has two "mini me's"  and they are wonderful (no kidding!)

When I am in this place, I am loved, accepted, happy and relaxed.  

I can channel my inner "hick" when I am here.

I listen to country music all the way to her house.  She lives 3 hours from me which is a sad distance for a best friend to live.

I eat the most amazing food when I am there.

I laugh, read, and talk about important things.

This is my Happy Place.

She was so sick during this trip, poor girl. We layed in bed and watched movies.

They have a guest house called the "Love Shack".  Her AquaMan made sure I had a fire going and candles lit everynight before I went to bed. (Sorry about the picture quality here.)

She took us horseback riding because she knew Cali would LOVE it.  And she did!

Love you!

xoxo

Carol

To Do

I love making "To Do" lists.  Something about things all lined up is lovely to me.  If there is a little dot or asterisk before each item, even better.  I know, I'm wierd.  But the best part of having a to do list is crossing things off.  I get such a great feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.  Sometimes I cheat and write things down that I already finished just so I can cross them off.   :)

The thing about "To Do" lists though is they can come back to bite you.  Sometimes I can get so caught up in my to do's that I forget what is really important to me.  My to do's can also weigh me down and feel very heavy if I let my list get too big.  I like being busy.  I like having a lot to do.  I never get bored because there is always something on my list.  But I don't want to be so busy, that I don't take time to enjoy simple pleasures like morning coffee with my man, or a good conversation with one of my kids.  Sure things need to get done, it's part of life.  Just not the most important part.



xoxo

Carol

Chloe and I are cooking

Chloe and I are cooking today.  I'll post the final results and recipe next week.  Have a great weekend.

xoxo

Carol

Embrace the Camera with the anderson crew week 2

A few Friday's ago, I posted a link to The Anderson Crew Blog.  Everyweek she has embrace the camera day.  You take a picture with a kid, loved one, friend blog about it and share it.  Last time I posted a picture of me and Bailey.  I will have to post for the next several weeks, so I can get all of my kids in here.

This week I am posting me and Cali.  Cali is my youngest and a ball of energy.  I can hardly keep up with her.  I am HER personal assistant.  And, good thing there are only 24 hours in a day because I am sure she would come up with more things to do.  Love you Cali Girl!

I like you.

I'm not sure about you, but when I was growing up, I always wished I looked like someone else.  I wish my hair was dark, or my nails would grow long, or I had a figure. I wished I was smarter and stronger.  The list goes on, believe me.  I was never happy with me.  Sadly, I don't think I am the only girl who has grown up with those feelings.  For many years of my life, I felt like I wasn't good enough, but as time went by,  life happened and I grew up.  I learned to like myself.  I learned to be happy with freckles and flinstone toes and glasses.  It's part of me.

Then one day, earlier this year in fact, I was watching some old home movies.  As I was watching them, I found myself feeling very uncomfortable and wanting the movie to hurry and be over.  I starting asking myself what was going on.  Why was I feeling this way?  I realized that I still harbored some old feelings deep down about not being good enough. I had made mistakes, bad decisions and had many regrets.  Now this part sounds funny, but I litterally told myself, stop!  I like that person.  Stop hating her.  That 20 year old version of me is ok.  Sure my hair was permed and very big.  Yeah, I had pink eye shadow and wore high wasted pants.  But that was the style.  I had kids young and quit college.  I was still growing up.  I was immature and young and a mom and trying to figure out life.

That was one of those "ah ha" moments.  I stopped condemming the "old" me and all the mistakes I made. I stopped regretting things I had done and decided to embrace them as they are part of my story and what make me, me.  Yeah, I learned the hard way sometimes, but I am thankful for it.  ALL of it.

xoxo

Carol

Bloggers Everywhere

I just got back from the 2011 BlogHer Conference.  The conference was held in San Diego at the Marriott Marina. The view from our room was great.  We could see the Coronado Bridge and Island.  The weather was perfect as it always is in San Diego.  We arrived a few days before the conference and were able to spend some time at the pool and and have a spa day before we began our adventures.

I really didn't know what to expect from this conference.  I am pretty new to blogging and this whole community, but I looked forward to learning some and getting to know other bloggers.  There was a vendor/sponsor expo.  Too bad the only men were cardboard.

Just kidding.

I actually got to meet Bob Greene from The Biggest Loser.  I was very excited, see my last post, you'll understand why.

I had no idea how large this conference would be.  There were over 3500 attendees.  Pretty amazing.  If you saw this post a few days back, you saw that I had the privilege of sharing this wonderfully fun experience with my friend Alexis Asbe from The Mermaid Ranch.  We had a blast!  

Two of the mornings, we got to do outdoor yoga.  I've never done yoga outside before and I loved it.  What a great way to start off the day.


We got so much loot, or swag as it is now called, that we had to ship it home.  Too much to carry on the plane.

We had time to see some sites and grab some amazing grub.  We found a great restaurant called Alchemy Restaurant.  If you are visiting, or live in the area, I highly recommend this place.

And let's not forget the crazy parties.  Alexis and I decided we are bringing our husbands along next year.  They'll love it!  Can't wait for New York!

TV Tuesday aka. Family Time

Every Tuesday night my family gets together to have dinner and watch one of our favorite shows.  It all started because we wanted to watch "The Biggest Loser" together.   It quickly turned into a tradition and now every Tuesday night we get together.  Sometimes we watch TV, sometimes we hang out and talk by the fire pit, sometimes we do fun things. 

 We always eat dinner together and we open it up to whoever wants to come hang out with our crazy family.   It's really great when others want to come join us.

It doesn't really matter what we do, it just matters that we like to be together.  I know this may not last forever.  I hope it does, but if not, I will cherish these days.  I am so grateful my kids like to hang out as a family.  What more could a mom ask for?  It's a dream come true.