Easter Pictures Past and Present

I'm missing a few years throughout my 28 Easter celebrations, but here's a little summary of those years. I'll add more as they come through.

Molly, Tyler and I always try to coordinate each year. Molly and I pick out dresses that go together, then Tyler asks what color shirt or sweater to wear! Isn't he adorable! :)

1987

1990

 

1991

 

 

 1995

 

 2006

 

 2009

2008

2011

2012

 2013

Valentine's Day - 2k13

To say Valentine's Day this year was better than last year would be the understatement of the year. It was 5 billion times better! ha.

Flowers from La'Moll

My lovely little sister brought me the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. Thanks Molly. She said she was determined to make sure I had a better day than in the past and it worked. 

I also got a postcard from one of our students studying in Brazil. It made me smile that she though to send me a post card. I did not ask her to send me one. Ok, I did.

I got some chocolate covered strawberries too that were very yummy. My student workers were excited I shared the goodness with them.

During the day, our student council had a fundraiser where we sold valentine calls. I got one from the vice president of the university thanking me for my work as the council advisor. It seriously made my day. Then Molly and I made the most epic phone call ever to wish one of our students a happy valentine's day. The message was purchased for Bowie to call him. Bowie gets a call request and not me. :(

I also had a student council meeting that evening and I made cake balls for all the kids. There many nice words about how they were the best dessert ever, definitely helped make my day.

Later that evening I went to the movies with Molly and my friends Cara and Jill. We saw "Safe Haven" with Julianne Hough and Fergie's husband. OMG! I'd never read the book before so I was shocked!

By far, it was the best Valentine's Day I've ever had. Ever! Seriously. It was just so much fun.

I hope all future ones are this amazing. It was truly focused on my friends this year and what they have meant to me over the past year - and still do of course. And that's what I'm going to do from here on out. :)

13

Avery has been like my little sister since I first met her in November of 2001. She was 6 months old at the time and from then, I have watched her grow from one of the cutest babies I've ever seen, into the sassiest 13 year old I've ever known (that is including my sister Molly!). :)

The day I moved away to college she was 2 years old and she and her mom and sister came to visit me just a few minutes before I left. I remember crying and crying because I was afraid she and her sister would forget me. :(

Luckily, I visited them often when I came home from college and they never forgot me. We still go on vacations together each summer and now that they're teenagers, we walk the beach looking for cute boys instead of building sandcastles. ;) 

Happy 13th Birthday Miss Avery Rebecca. I'm so glad you have been a part of my life and I hope you'll always consider me one of your big sisters!

Playing catch up!

Soooooo, so much happened while I was away for Lent! It was a much needed social media break. I didn't get to focus on everything I wanted and I even found me relying on my work social media a lot more as a time waster, so that's not good, but I learned through the process and that's what life is all about. You live. And you learn.

I did many, many things over the past 40ish days, so I have a lot to share.

I flew by myself for the first time ever. This might not be big for some people, but it is for me. And it was amazing. And I absolutely love traveling by myself. That sounds weird, but I can see me taking vacations in the future for just me after this. I wasn't nervous one little bit. I guess that's what anxiety medication and mega strength dramamine will do for you! :) 

I ran in a half-marathon with my best friend at Disney World! It was amazing! I ran the whole thing. Only stopped for water breaks, to wait for the bathroom and when we had to dodge people that were walking! I almost - almost - cried as we were running towards the finish line because I just kept thinking "OMG, I just ran 13 miles." I was extremely proud of myself and Erica for completely this. Many more in the future.

I went to Disney World. Not the first time I've been there, but the first time as an adult. I rode every ride there - including the roller coasters. I have never been a roller coaster rider, but again, thanks to anxiety medication and anti motion sickness pills I was a roller coaster rockstar. More theme parks in my future. :)

I went to the Gulf of Mexico. My friend Jill was there with her family so I spent a day recuperating in a lounge chair by the beach, as well as on a patio with a margarita. And I was determined to swim in the water, so even though it was freezing cold, I jumped in.

I went to a non-country concert. Jill and I had free tickets to go see Tiesto. I had no idea who that was, but apparently he's the #1 DJ in the world and I saw him. I won't be calling him to DJ my wedding, that's for sure. ha.

I made a quick little trip to Chicago to visit the family up there. It was there last weekend as Chicago residents, so I wanted to get in one last trip to that city that I love. Lots of coloring, dress-up, special treat walks, and iPad game playing!

I went snow tubing with Julie and some of the students from school. I'd only been once in high school so it was fun for me! 

I went to Northwest Arkansas! Which seems like the home of every blogger I read. Ok, a bit of a stretch, but I really felt as if I knew the city already just by reading their blogs. ha. 

I ate a cake from Rick's Bakery. If you've ever read one of those NWA blogs, you know about Rick's cakes. They even decorated it in Ohio State for me and my students! And it was the best cake I've ever had, no doubt.

I was rebellious and climbed on this giant cross in Fayetteville and got my picture taken.

I visited the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis! Going up was not scary at all and the views were amazing.

Other cool things that happened:
Met Ali Vincent from the Biggest Loser
Met Cinderella
Rode Dumbo and Cinderella's Carrousel for the first time
Spent five amazing days in Florida with my best friend who I miss so much
Visited 7 states in 10 days, with Illinois being hit 3 Fridays in a row
Visited 1 new state (Arkansas)
Visited 4 new airports (Cleveland, Chicago, Tampa, and Newark)
Saw the New York City skyline
Saw the Worlds Largest Catsup Bottle
Saw the original Walmart
Saw the original "Rosie the Riviter"
Was in the same building as Drew Barrymore and Harrison Ford and didn't even know it
Found my next pet - a teacup yorkie who I'll name Bitsy
Took my students to a ghetto club.....smh
Babysat my cousins cat
Filmed TWO Harlem Shake videos
Attended yoga for the first time
Hosted my first 'in home' party
Had my apartment professionally cleaned in preparation for said party
Found out our family is growing again!
Had sushi with my favorite girls - well, they did and I ate chicken
Watched The Bachelor every Monday with Jill


Basically.....I just lived life! :)

More specific posts on certain events to come in the future.

Lent

Lent begins today. For the last few years I've been observing it as a time to give up something. One year it was pop, one year it was fast food, last year it was all social media.

This year I'm again doing the fasting from social media and all things 'extra', like the games on my phone, blogging, and obviously facebook, twitter and instagram. Why all these things? Because they all take my time away from things that I should really be focusing on.

Since social media hit the scene back in the mid-2000's and everyone got smart phones thereafter, I feel like we've lost our focus. It's so easy to spend an evening at home watching TV and playing on facebook and reading blogs about other peoples lives instead of actually having relationships with people and learning about their lives through face to face interaction.

I'm not dissing social media or blogging at all. I've actually met some of my dearest friends through these mediums. Brittany and I met three years ago through a Kelly's Korner link up, which resulted in us then meeting lots of other bloggers from Columbus at a 'meet up' and I get together and do fun dinners and things with them all the time. So blogging has been a real blessing in my life and I'm so thankful for the wonderful friends I've met through it and the encouragement I've gotten from others that I don't know and will probably never, ever meet.

But back to social media being a time sucker upper. I have been late to work mutliple times because I lay in bed of a morning and scroll through pinterest, twitter, instagram, facebook, email, etc. all before getting out of bed in the morning. Then I go through them a second time just in case anything has been added as everyone was waking up and getting on social media as well. And I can't even count the number of evenings I just sat at home and played online instead of doing something productive.

But it's time to get my life back on track. Lent is a time when many Christians prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline. I've done that before and I'm doing it again. This year it's a little more meaningful, as the true purpose behind Lent is to set aside time for reflection on Jesus Christ - his suffering and his sacrifice, his life, death, burial and resurrection.

Last year while I was on my social media break, I started attending a bible study with a friend. I loved it. Prior to that, I had gone to church for holidays, but never on a regular basis. During Lent I really started going and understanding the bible. It all made sense and I really felt a complete change in myself - with confidence, less anxiety, ease that things were going to work out how God has planned and that I can just trust him.

Attending church every Sunday continued until summer came and I got busy, and to be honest, lazy. I'm still going to bible study on Monday evenings, but I can tell a complete difference of how I'm focusing now and how I was focused last year. I'm not focused at all, basically. I miss class or show up late. Sometimes I don't have my lesson completed. My mind is somewhere else and not there. So it's time to cut back and focus. Get rid of the materialistic things (even though you can't actually hold social media) and get back in touch with what really matters - my friends, my family, my faith.

So, I encourage everyone else to take a little break from something that is absorbing your time and focus on the important things in your life. :)

Columbus Ink

Tried to think of a quirky post title and that's all I got. My spin on Miami Ink.

Last spring my work hosted an international festival for students and one of the booths was free henna. I have never wanted a real tattoo, but getting a temporary one was appealing to me. Well, I had a meeting and it didn't work out. So Tuesday morning when I found out it was festival day again I literally ran downstairs to get in line for the henna guy.

I was so excited I didn't know what to get. And I had on my boots. Not exactly henna friendly footwear when you want a tattoo on your foot. So I went home and changed shoes to my flats and came back. I scrolled through my pinned designs (yeah, I made a board for my fake tattoos on pinterest), but when I got there, I didn't use the paisley design I'd taken with me.

I wanted something like this on the side of my foot, or one of the designs on the top of my foot:

 And this is what I left with:

right after it was done.

today.

also today.

I got cheetah spots on the top of my right foot. And Script Ohio on my left wrist. Molly also got the cheetah spots on her right forearm, which looks awesome. The guy did it a little bigger than she originally wanted. Like a lot bigger.

For now, I'm just going to stick with henna tattoos once a year, when they're free at the festival. Anything more permanent is definitely out because I'm super annoyed with how I don't think my script Ohio is centered and the dot touches the top of the "I". So I'm glad it's just temporary. Plus, I could never decide on one thing that I'd want on my body for the rest of my life. I go through too many phases. How many times do you hear of people saying they wish they hadn't gotten that Tasmanian devil tattoo on their calf when they were 18!? :)

Wonderful Weekend and a Whiny Cat

This was one of the first weekend in probably months that I didn't have anything on the books. Not one thing. And I was THRILLED!

Friday night I went out to dinner with my friend Maggie. I've had a gift certificate to an Italian restaurant in our city for a long, long time, so I suggested we use it. Tony's Italian Restaurant was super fancy, but the food was amazing! She and I sat for hours laughing and talking. I am so glad that we have become friends over the past year and always look forward to our dinners. One of these days we're going to align our schedules and knit or quilt together.

new red and gray cheetah scarf for my 'date' with maggie.

Saturday morning I attempted to sleep in, but that's impossible with Bowie. Gone are the days of her sleeping in the living room and me having to wake her up. Sigh. After doing some massive cleaning up and laundry, I headed to the gym. Since my 1/2 marathon race is 20 days away at this point, I know I needed to run. And run more than 2 miles. So I decided I was going to stay at the gym for as long as I needed to and run at least 5 miles. Well, surprise, surprise, I ran 10 miles! 10 MILES! That's a record for me and I was so unbelievably proud of myself. I wish I'd sucked it up and done another 3 just to do the whole half, but I was tired, sweaty and hungry.

Bowie doesn't ride in a cage. Bowie rides shotgun. (I was not texting and driving. I was parked.)

Saturday evening was low-key. I drove home to Piketon, went out to eat with Mom and Dad and made a visit to Walmart with Ty. Obviously it was a super exciting day.

Sunday morning I headed to church bright and early for the baptism of my godson, Layton. :) I'm so honored that his mom and dad asked me to be his godmother. I love this little boy and his mama.

Sunday afternoon was also low-key with my mom. I slept for a long time. After dinner with the folks, Tyler and I went to Mam and Papaw's to watch the first half of the Super Bowl. I really had no interest in the Super Bowl at all this year. I was cheering for the 49ers because Ohio State had FOUR former Buckeyes on that team. And I was also cheering for the Ravens because Michael Oher was playing, and it was Ray Lewis' last game. To be honest, I did't even know who Ray Lewis was prior to that game that was his 'last game' where he did the dance. Where they in a wild card game? I don't even know!

Ty and I watched the game with Mam, Papaw and Uncle Randy. I had such a good time. Game commentary by my grandpa is even funnier than game commentary by my sister. We watched the half-time show there too. That was a hoot! I was so excited for Beyonce's show. More so than the actual football game.

True 'dat.

When Destiny's Child came out my grandpa said "They must be new. I've never heard of them before." ha. I thought the half-time show was good. It wasn't as good as Aerosmith, N*Sync and Britney Spears back in 2000, but how can any show ever top that? And it was SO much better than Madonna last year.

We left when the power went out in the second quarter. THE POWER WENT OUT AT THE SUPER BOWL! How in the world does that happen?

Monday morning I had a doctors appointment scheduled and it worked out that I could drop Bowie off to get spayed. After I'd done all my errands and before I could pick up Bowie (5pm), I visited my mom at school. She's the principal at her elementary right now while the permanent principal is on medical leave. I helped kindergarten students write journal entries, played "Cat in the Corner" in PE class and opened 3,493 ketchup packets at lunch. I had a blast. I definitely enjoyed spending the day at the elementary school and someday think I might want to work at one. Someday. Not any day soon. There was also 3 cases of head lice in the classroom I helped with. Do you know how much I itched that day? Ugh. I'm itching again just thinking about it.

twitter shout outs i got from Chuck Wicks and Terrell Pryor for the OAA tests a few years ago. Still hanging up at Jasper.

Cue the Sarah McLaughlin songs. I locked her in the carrier and she about had a fit. 

Bowie was NOT happy when I picked her up. Girl has an attitude. When we got back to Columbus, she was a hot mess. She tried to run from me, but she was in a lot of pain, so she cried. She tried to jump on the couch, but cried. She tried to jump on my bed but only made it half way up before letting out a loud cry. We finally got situated in the bathroom, which is now 'her room' and I went to bed. She cried from 2-3am, so I got up and sat with her. Yes, I was that cat mom that sat on the bathroom floor with my cat til she went to sleep. I think she has separation anxiety. She eventually fell asleep and I went back to bed.

Tuesday night she did great. I let her out of the bathroom, she took her pain pill and just laid around all evening. After I got home from work, we watched Hart of Dixie and the Bachelor together. It was a girls night in. ;)  And she slept at the foot of the bed the entire night, never made a peep.

Her incision is super tiny. Not even two inches. And she has bright pink stitches! I was so worried about how I was going to take care of her, but cats seem to be pretty self-sufficient. Thank goodness!

It was a good weekend of working on my goal of not being so busy! I consider it a success. 

Bowie Lately

Someone asked me recently if Bowie was my pet or my roommate. I replied "I live in her house." And it's so true.

I'd never had a pet before Bowie joined me back in June, so I had no idea how much personality they can have or how diva like cats can me. Holy Moly!

Right after the first of the year, Bowie went through her first heat cycle. OMG! That was miserable. For both of us. I couldn't take the whining and rolling on the floor, and pigeon like purring. The cries at night were the worst. I thought about opening that back door at 3am multiple times. But then I'd probably end up with a litter of 8 kittens come March. THAT was not going to happen.

I've always had every intention of getting her spayed, but the vet we go to is 'home, home' and I didn't want to deal with it over Christmas. I was selfish and now I'm suffering. And so is she. Ugh. #worstmomoftheyear

But I think we're over this first heat cycle and she's scheduled to get spayed real soon. She has no idea what's coming. She is going to hate me and I'm afraid I don't have the patience right now to deal with a recovering cat. I thought cats were easy animals? Why is mine so high maintenance?

She went through a spell of dumping her water bowl out - so I had to get rid of her "place mat" (it was just a dish towel!). I swear she's always, always drank a ton of water. It's her favorite. She drinks more water than she eats food. So I've had to switch back to drinking water out of a bottle because any time I sit a glass down, she's drinking it. She doesn't touch my milk, tea or hot chocolate. But if it's water, she has her head down in the glass trying to get to it. 

Another new trick she's learned is to jump on the mantel. It started when I took the Christmas decor down, so I'm thinking I need to fill it up again with stuff so she can't get up there. OR she'll knock it all off. Probably the later.

I'm not supposed to be up here!

I think that's all for her new tricks. The last few nights she's been an ok sleeper. At least we aren't whining all night. But when she is awake, she wants me awake too. So to wake me up she scratches on the side of my dresser. She doesn't hurt it, but it makes a really loud noise that I hate. And when she's sleeping she wants to be right next to me.

But if I occassionally fall asleep on the couch, she's fine. She doesn't bother me at all and sleeps the entire night through on her cat bed staring out the window. I think she's in that adolescent phase where she needs me for comfort. You know, how you had to have your mom or dad sleep on our bedroom floor when you were little just to know they were there for comfort? I know that wasn't just me. Right?

How I woke up this morning - she has so many options of where to sleep!!!!!!!! But she chooses my pillow/head.

So anyway. I love my cat. But if anyone would like to babysit anytime soon, I might be willing to lend her out for a few days. Or at least one night so I could sleep for more than 3 hours at a time. I mean, even parents of real humans want a night away from their kids sometimes. Is it bad that I'm looking forward to her being drugged out after her surgery? :)

Wearing her houndstooth for the Alabama-Notre Dame National Championship Game! Roll Tide!

 When I get really frustrated with her, I just look at old pictures of her when she was a wee-little thing. They usually make me happy.

Bowie when she was cute, slept 90% of the day and wasn't annoying.

Shine *bright* like a diamond

Junior League had a fundraiser at a local jewelry store this weekend. I just worked it for volunteer hours, but I got to see a lot of shiny, sparkly jewels while there. The fundraiser part of it was that you could come and have breakfast, drink mimosa's, shop around and make a wish list for your hunny to come back and buy later! ;)

The majority of them were way out of my price range. Like, way, way out. For example, everyone knows that diamonds are a girls best friend. So naturally, we were all attracted to this giant rock! Who wouldn't like to have that engagement ring, right? It was only $64,000!

More than I make in a year.

 There were other jewels there that looked a little more in style with today's fashion. I could have taken them home, but they too were a little on the pricey side.

Loved this one!

so pretty!

 

I think Molly would like these turquoise ones.

And then you would have a statue like this. Who decorates there house with these things! (No offense if you have one!) And for $5,000. I could spend that much money in whole lot better ways. 

My gift for Erin and Layton for his first birthday!

 There were also amazing cupcakes and other breakfast foods there. I had a peanut butter cupcake. My favorite.

And another little gem that I got in the mail on Saturday, an invitation from Barry and Joe for the inauguration ceremony. Too bad it happened five days prior to my receiving it. Still honored though.