It's My Life

 So much excitement and anticipation in those five words! I LOVE it!! We paid tribute to our favorite hobby tonight and I thought I would provide you with pictures! To honor the 10 Best Picture Nominations: 1. Appletini's from The Social Network . We started the afternoon watching the Before the Red Carpet on E! and then the Red Carpet Coverage on E! and then switched over to the Red Carpet on ABC. I love all the pretty gowns. My favorites: Anne Hathaway, Hailee Steinfeld, Reese Witherspoon, Hillary Swank, and Sandra Bullock.  Some of my least favorites: Annette Benning, Cate Blanchet, Christian Bales (let's all hope that beard is for an upcoming role!), Marisa Tomei, and I hate to even think it but Nicole Kidman (I really did not like the dress). 2.  Venison Stew from The Winter's Bone. I grew up eating venison but I have not had it in years. I would really like to thank my friends, the Honeysuckles because they are the ones that provided us with the deer meat for this

It's here, It's here!! Oscar weekend is here!! I am almost as excited as I was when I was a teenager and I got a letter in the mail from a boy that I liked! Or when I had my first date with my husband! For the past 14 years, the Oscars have been one of my hobbies. It started off so innocently, I had actually seen several of the movies that were nominated for Oscars and I discovered that watching the Oscars was more enjoyable if I had knowledge of the movies. So began the quest to see as many nominated pictures that I can. This year when I was creating my "bucket list" I put attending the Oscars on my list. Over the years it has gotten easier...you get to know what the Academy likes and does not like...sorry Justin Beiber fans, I do not think "Now or Never" will be earning any nominations for best picture. This year I had most of the pictures seen before the nominations were even announced. (Do I need to say that Nomination Day is only second to Christmas

This one was taken this past Monday, February 21. So some time ago I posted that I had been given a product called BioJen 9. I totally feel like this product is working for me! I wrote the company an email and shared a photo of myself with them. They asked permission to use my testimonial and today, they emailed me the following link. As I look at the photo I sent them on January 25, I am still impressed with how much my hair has changed in a month. Customer Testimonial

What a weekend we have had! Thanks in part to the school district and the State honoring President's Day, we had a nice long weekend. So, we made plans to head south to Branson, MO! What a wonderful weekend to be away from home; the weather was so sunny and warm! It was the perfect cure for the winter blues and the cabin fever this family has been experiencing for some time. The boys spent the weekend with their feet in Lake Taneycombo trout fishing. I spent the weekend hanging with Olivia and sneaking in some scrapbooking every chance I got. The boys caught 7 fish, I finished 16 pages in my 2009 scrapbook. You all know what that means right....I did not go on a fishing trip this weekend and squeezed in some scrapbooking. It means I went on a scrapbooking weekend and Wayne squeezed a little fishing in! (you all know he is not happy about that!) Most everything else in Branson was closed (their off season is January/February) so we really just hung out at the condo, swam, fished

Those people who enjoy exercise, get a rush from it, just totally amaze me! I made a committment on Monday to walk for 30 minutes every day and so far this week, I have kept that committment. In fact, I have made my way into West Virginia on my quest to walk across the USA this year. But, it is STILL a challenge everyday. I have to wonder how long until I become one of those Exercise Fans? Will I ever become a fan? I am really loving the website http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ . It is so simple to use and has been way easy to track my food intake and exercise.  I am pretty proud of myself for following through with both the walking and the tracking.  However, this still does not touch the biggest accomplishment I have had this week; I have yet to eat red meat. Research shows that being overweight is a red flag for Cancer. So is a diet high in red meat. I am actively addressing both of these. I have no intent to give up red meat (as I am typing this, a steak sounds so good!) but I do 

I love love! I love that I am here and celebrating another Valentine's Day with my favorite three people; Wayne, Jacob, and Olivia.  I also love sharing love to those around me, so I spent some time yesterday making homemade valentine's to hand out at work today.  Since I am obsessed with tea/tea cups right now, I made these cute little tea cups. I put a packet of Tazo tea in each cup. The tea flavor was "Passion" and I have to tell you, I made some iced Passion tea for our V-Day dinner and it was so yummy. Even the husband and boy loved it! And the most perfect thing about the Passion flavored tea...it's PINK! So besides today being full of love and the celebration of love, it is full of something else for me. Today is the day I start my journey to becoming fit and healthy. I have admitted to neurotic thinking since my diagnosis and I am sure this is a continuation. BUT, I am determined to become as healthy as I can be to minimize my risk of getting Cancer ag

Today, I am thankful to have a teenage boy and not a teenage girl. I do realize that one day I will have a teen girl, but not today! Tonight is the big 8th grade dance for my son's school. It is the school's big celebration that the kids are over half way finished with elementary school and will soon transition to high school. In fact, this past Thursday was freshman enrollment. While Jacob's "mean" mom made him finish out the school day, many of the young women going to the dance checked out of school early. Many had to tan. Most had to get their nails done. Oh, and you know they all got their hair professionally done. Right now I am wondering, do you hair stylist love this day or dread it? While the girls were running around getting extra pretty tonight, things on my end were pretty easy. The boy showered. We watched a you tube video on how to tie a tie. Wayne is the only person in our household who knows how and he was not home from work. I actually think

 We all love to hear nice things, especially about ourselves. A thank you will go a long way in this ungrateful world.  Praise for a job well done often keeps up motivated to keep going when things get are not going so well.  So if we as individuals enjoy praise, why wouldn't a company like to hear it? That was my thought when I looked up Pravana and sent them an email. Ihave been so pleased with how well this product has worked at helping me grow my hair back. And it seems to be working quickly! So I wanted the company to know, they have a believer and a faithful consumer in the middle of the USA! What happened next, shocked me. The company was very  happy to hear from me. They asked permission to use my testimonial and offered to send me more product (whether I said yes to the tutorial or not). I was so excited to come home and find a package from Pravana in the mail today!

I dreamt about fairies last night. I woke up thinking about how to execute this birthday party! I can not tell you how obsessed I am over fairies right now! It is easy to be obsessed, I have the cutest fairy living in my household.  I mean how could you not find that smile infectious? The boy has had years to get to know his mother's crazy obsessive habit of over planning his birthday partie, but the Short Chic, she is still new and has no real idea. I woke up in the middle of the night to tell my husband he needed to find me some grass. We have inches of snow on the ground and I am thinking about grass! Well, if not real grass at least some type of indoor/outdoor carpeting that looks like grass.

My morning began at 5:30 a.m. when my sons school called to say that school was IN session today. Seriously!  I was so annoyed I could not fall back to sleep. So, I got up and headed to the computer to catch up on some blogging. Yesterday a blogger I met through the cyber world recommended me to one of her friend's blogs. Her friend is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. So, I was anxious to get to reading. Before I left my bedroom, I thought I had turned my alarm off. Well I did not. So after about 55 minutes of blissful, uninterrupted blog reading, I hear my alarm going off upstairs. Now my wonderful husband would sleep through a tornado, so I knew there was no way he would get my alarm turned off. I jumped up from my comfy chair to rush upstairs before the blasted alarm woke the entire house. I failed to account for the fact that I had been sitting on my right leg and cutting off the blood circulation. So, when I hopped up and put weight on that foot, I immediately rolled

Man it is cold today!  I have spent the entire day cold.  On the coldest day of the year by executive order they cut the heat in the building down to 70 degrees. Apparently, this measure will reduce the state's deficit. I personally think it will increase the likelihood that I as well as my coworkers will get sick. On my way home from work, the car thermostat read 5 degrees! I have spent the day and the evening dreaming of warm beaches and fruity drinks. I would love nothing more than to have my feet buried in hot sand, a good book on my lap, eating fresh guacamole, chips and salsa, with a cold cerveza somewhere. Instead, I am fixing soup. I came home tonight and made up some Chicken and Dumpling soup from Tastefully Simple. I should tell you, I am not a Tastefully Simple consult (but I do know one). This soup was super easy to make and very taste. If I would have known, I would have made it sooner because it has been in my pantry for a while. My belly is comforted with every b

My niece turned 1 this month! Although I am not her Momma, I will tell a bit of her birth story. My brother's girlfriend has a heart condition and her pregnancy was high risk. I know she spent the last week (if not more) in the hospital trying to prevent Baby 'laska (this is what our short chic calls her) from being born. On a night when my brother was not at the hospital, and not in a cell phone coverage area, her doctors decide it was time to go ahead and take the baby by c-section! Baby Alaska was born several weeks early and very tiny (less than 2 pounds) in the wee hours of the morning. Well, when you look at her birthday photo, I promise you will see no resemblance of the preemie that she was. She is a beautiful little girl and really a happy baby! We gathered at my mom's for a small family celebration for her birthday. Unfortunately, the short chic had a crazy high fever on the day of her actual birthday and we could not travel to Moberly to be with her. Alaska