An intervention...

Did you see that The Gap is bringing back overalls? My mom is feeling the panic! I swear I wore overalls for about 3 years straight. (I had more that a few pair) She finally had to have an intervention with me. Don't worry mom, not this time around!

An intervention...

Sex and the City II

I think the lady that snapped this photo had too many cosmos!

Last night I was invited to the Sex and the City Premiere! We were guests of Lesley Burley and ReMax. It was an amazing evening benefiting Dress for Success, an organization that enables women to re-enter the workforce with professional attire and career development tools. As guests we were asked to bring a donation of appropriate dress shoes and handbags. It was a wonderful way to benifit a very important woman's organization with a great movie about the importance of women supporting one another.

One of the raffle prizes was a pair of Louboutins! Dang it, I didn't win. I'm not sure $900.00 shoes are appropriate for mowing the lawn and grocery shopping, but I wanted them BAD!

The movie was 2 and a half hours of eye-candy, cute boys, and a fabulous dance number! The best part was seeing old friends and being able to catch up!

Go see the movie with your girlfriends, it is a great escape for a few hours, and this time you won't cry and threaten BIG's life like last time!!

A big thanks to Leslie Burley and ReMax for the invitation!!

Sex and the City II

Mahjong

I'm learning how to play Mahjong. This is not a drop in game that you can just "pick up". My girlfriend Lisa K. hired a Mahjong teacher, and she comes to my house every friday morning and guides us through the game. She is NO NONSENSE! (which is kind of hard because all of the ladies here are FULL of Nonsense!) My favorite part, aside from the snacks, is how someone will mention Rummy Tiles, and our teacher will say, "This is NOT rummy tiles!" duly noted, ma'am. (then we give eachother "the look" and try not to laugh out loud.)

My mom said that she played a few times when we were kids. Which seems strange because it seems like such an East Coast thing to do. I do remember my friend Cindy's mom setting the table with Brach's Bridge Mix, which we tried so hard to sneak! The game went so fast, 3 Crack, 4 Bam......

Now I'm learning!! It's fun. My 16 yr. old came in and was making fun of all of the New York and New Jersey accents going on!

Do you play?

Mahjong

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Lighting a candle in Crystal's memory.

I went to visit my friend Crystal's Memory Garden today at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado. My friends Ellen and Paula and I met with Crystal's mom for breakfast (serious carb loading!) and discussed our feelings about Crystal and what she meant to us. We all know it is still very hard for her mom to live on day to day when she misses Crystal so terribly. As moms we cannot begin to fathom her loss. We shared tears and pancakes with the hopes of making some sense out of this terrible loss. As we shared our feelings about God and tragedies, we all tried to explain where we were in all of this. We are all over the place it seems.

I was dumbfounded when I returned home and searched for the Mother Cabrini prayer and read:

My Jesus, I have not always recognized your loving plans for me. Every day,with the help of your light,I learn more of your loving care. Continue to increase my awareness of the gentleness of your loving plans. I want to follow the purpose for which I was created. See, I am in your hands. I need you to help me choose the best way to serve you. Walk with me, Jesus. Stay by my side and guide me!

Crystal and her mother are Catholic, but the rest of us are not. But I really felt like the prayer says a lot about our conversation at breakfast. The mysteries of life are way bigger than we can fathom. It is amazing that our conversation was exactly about trying to figure out how to learn from Crystal's life and legacy.

Alma (Crystal's Mom) Ellen, Me, and Paula

When we ventured out to the shrine I noticed a smaller shrine located in a garden. The name of the shrine was "Sorrowful Mysteries" and that just about sums it up.

Her plaque in the wall of memories.

At Crystal's funeral (a year ago) there were doves released in her memory. As we kissed the dove goodbye it really did feel like we were letting her go fly away. It was the hardest part of the day by far, I didn't want to let her go, but I know she really is all around us. Today, when I got home from the shrine I decided to search the internet about Mother Cabrini this is what I found.

"Villagers and members of the family recalled later that just before her birth a flock of white doves circled around high above the house, and one of them dropped down to nestle in the vines that covered the walls.
The father took the bird, showed it to his children, then released it to fly away."

I had goosebumps reading it. I still do.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Works for Me!

G-Dub has quite an assortment of rolling carts, and they can be used for a million different things. I thought I would show you a few here:

Before

After

Before

After

Roll dessert and coffee right to the table.

Vintage Typing Cart as a side table.

Stainless Steel Cart to haul flowers in and out of the garage

until the last frost has passed.

Beautiful. Rolling Carts Work for Me!

Works for Me!

My Little Garden

I've been hauling my garden plants in and out of the garage in the boys' old wagon every night. It has snowed TWICE since we put the garden bed in. I finally got the courage to plant the beds just yesterday.

Here's hoping for some sunny days ahead!

My Little Garden

Have your cake and eat it too.

Challa for my Mahjong Lessons!

Blueberry Buttermilk Scones

Homemade Hamburger Buns, yum!

I'm 42 or 43 (I never can remember, and the math is out of the question.) It occurred to me the other day what that quote means. I took me 40 something years to get it, I'm not kidding. I never understood "have" your cake and eat it too. I thought that "have your cake" meant to eat it. So eat your cake and eat it too made no sense but I guess I didn't care to figure it out until recently. You see I have turned my kitchen into a bakery for some reason. Maybe my husband's grandfather who was a baker in New York has taken over my psyche, or maybe I just have a lot of time to read baking blogs, but the point is this: I would like to have all of my creations in pretty dishes, but I don't really want anyone to eat them. Weird. I just want to look at them, I wonder why that isn't enough for everyone else. (I like for my girlfriends to eat them because they love pretty dishes and actually sit down to enjoy them!) I think watching all the boys in this house grab one half hanging out of their mouth while they mow the lawn is just sad. A tea party with boys is out of the question. Oh well, there is more where that came from!

Have your cake and eat it too.

Not in a Bajillion Years

OOhhhh look at the beautiful fireplace vignette, wait is that a dismembered doll of some sort. No.thank.you. Have I mentioned my fear of things coming to life in the middle of the night lately? Walking legs by themselves??......those people are braver than me, I can say that. Did I mention I was a voracious reader as a child and my favorite books were compilations of scary stories, that I would tell to my cousin Lisa and give her nightmares? Not nice. (but very entertaining at the time!!)

Not in a Bajillion Years

Mothers Day

My husband and boys built a raised garden bed for me! Thank goodness we didn't have a chance to plant the vegetables, or actually put the flowers into the ground because we are expecting SNOW again this week. You have got to be kidding me. I had to pick up all of the flower pots that I had placed into the flower bed and return them to the garage! Spring in Denver is CRAZY!

Mothers Day

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to "Mommie" my biggest fan! I love you!! (We'll Skype you later!)

Happy Mother's Day

Good News...

The Good News is that my son lasted 3 whole weeks before he damaged the car. The Other Good News is that he left a very sweet note on the OTHER car that he hit in the school parking lot. More Good News! We know the girl that he "bumped", and her parents are being very sweet about it.

The BEST NEWS OF ALL!! I found a therapist that can see me next week!!

How was your week?

Good News...

Dee's Dieting Tips

I'm unclear as to why it's not working.

Dee's Dieting Tips

One of my favorite Bloggers

I started reading the NieNieDialogues about a week before her accident. At first I didn't belive that it was "real". Her story is as about "real" as it gets.

For some reason part of the screen is cut off on the right side. I think if you click on the video it will take you to You Tube to see it clearly.

One of my favorite Bloggers

Read any Good Books Lately? Yes and No

Here's the problem with reading a great book: You don't want it to end. I just started The Help and already I've had to ration myself so I can't devour it all in one sitting. I know I'm late in the game on this one but I've had this book on my Kindle forever. I was savouring it.

So I downloaded this little book and devoured it in one sitting. Like a cupcake. It is a quick easy read, but the subject matter is divorce. I'm NOT getting one, but I lived through an Epidemic of them with my friends in the last few years. I'm telling you men need to come up with a new script. The book takes place in Marin County (suburb of San Francisco) where we lived for a few years. It is an unusual place of organic gardens and dot com couples. It's a memoir, and although the subject matter is sad, in hindsight the author makes it humourous. I laughed out loud many times. ( And not just at the husband's, "No, there isn't anyone else!" speech. Oh, there never is ladies.....(yeah right)

Oh boy, the cover of this book is beautiful. But DON'T judge a book by it's cover. This little number took me FOREVER to read, (I used to be a very fast reader) and due to the time span of three generations, I had to take copious notes (due to that pesky head injury) and I kept thinking....this is going to get better right? WRONG. I read "The Secret Garden" a million times as a kid so I didn't need to read a knock off version. She uses so many literary fairy tale metaphors that when one of the characters pricked her finger on a spinning wheel in modern day England I almost wrote the author a nasty note. I was an English teacher, and the book felt like a high school essay on how to modernize a fairy tale with every literary device you can cram in. That's not very nice to say but unfortunately it's true.


If you are looking for a great novel that will make you squirm until you have to put it down because the characters need to be yelled at, download ANY and all Elizabeth Strout books. I LOVE HER!!

Read any Good Books Lately? Yes and No