Honey, I'm home!

I can't believe I've been gone for 9 months! Sheesh, I could have had a BABY in that time. Thank goodness I didn't...Lord knows I'm too old and way too busy for a baby. Now a grand-baby?  Maybe one of these days.

So, where did we leave off?  Oh yes, I do believe it was February.  Where oh where do I start.  Well, it's been a VERY busy year.  I'll do my best to catch up and not bore anyone to tears.

The most exciting thing that has happened all year is that my beautiful oldest daughter, known here as "Bear" got married in April.  Crazy, isn't it? I'm WAY too young to have a daughter of marrying age, right?  Hardly! Bear got married to her fiance Barry (I did NOT make that up.) and it was a lovely, perfect wedding.

We were all thrilled that everything came together beautifully. It was both exhilarating and a huge relief at the same time. 

After the wedding, we slid into a very warm summer.  Sometime in mid May, Kona managed to tear his CCL (the dog equivalent to our ACL)  He had to have knee surgery on July 9th.  Not fun, not fun at all! 

We are extremely lucky to have a huge support system, many of them coming from Kona's FaceBook page. If you are on FaceBook, be sure to like his page. He goes by Kona the Love Sponge. I may have been gone from here for a while, but I've been busy on his page just about everyday. Priorities, right?  Haha! 

Back in July I also did something that some people might have thought was a bit odd.  I shaved my head.  One of my dearest friends is battling breast cancer, and I shaved it in her honor and to share the experience with her.  My hair has pretty much grown back now, but she is still fighting, and if I had my way, I'd still be bald.  

I didn't mind the look, and it sure was easy!  It was a great experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat...

Kona's rehab took quite a while, but in the long run it was totally worth all the work we did with him.  He had weekly cold laser therapy sessions and underwater treadmill sessions.  We were so thankful to find a fantastic place to take him.  Here is a little bit of what he went through.

Kona wasn't the only one who surgery this summer. The Boy managed to do a heck of a job messing up his knee and also had ACL surgery...He also had a summer of physical therapy and work to get back on his feet.

As they say, if it's not one thing, it's 15 others, right?  

So now, here we are, staring the holidays in the face.  I know I've said it before, but it's amazing how the time flies. The Boy is back at school at Purdue University for his final year. It was just yesterday that he was leaving and I was a sobbing mess.  Bear is married, and Pickle, my baby, is out and about, enjoying her independence and spreading her wings. She turns 21 in less than a month. I swear I was just taking her to kindergarten...

Hubby and I celebrated out 24th anniversary in Oct.  No Halloween party this year - the wedding was enough to take care of this year.  We are kicking around the idea of another Halloween blow-out next year, but that is still to be determined.  

The dogs keep us busy - Harley will be 12 in April, Jill tunrs 10 next month, Kona turned 7 last week, and our puppy, Lucas (aka Squirt) is already 18 months old! Remember when he was just a little guy? Yup - time flies indeed. 

Well, that's it for now...a little bit of catch up. I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of stuff, I mean it has been 9 months for goodness sakes.  I'll be back soon, and I promise it won't be another 9 months.

365 Days of Gratitude

Well howdy!  See, I told you I'd be back soon.  Here it is, the 2nd of January, and I am thinking about the year to come. I am so thankful that 2013 was a good (or at least BETTER) year for me and my family for the most part, and I am hopeful that 2014 will also treat us kindly.

Last January I stumbled across a post somewhere (maybe it was on Facebook, maybe Pintrest, I don't remember) about how someone made themselves a jar of "Happy Moments."  I loved the idea and decided to do one for myself.  Here is an excerpt of what I wrote about in on my FB page.

This is the best idea I've come across in a long while. I saw this at the end of last year, and added my own little twist. Last year (2012) was a really tough year for me - so I was determined to remember the good moments of 2013. With each note I wrote I included a little cash. This morning, on New Year's Day 2014, I opened up each note, reminisced about the happy moment, and started adding up the cash. When all was said and done, I have some incredible memories, and $826! AWESOME! This will be a yearly tradition for me for sure!

Here are some pictures from when I opened my jar yesterday...it was so fun! 

As I mentioned, I will be doing this again this year for sure!  It was a wonderful way to stroll down memory lane and remember all of the really joyful days I had in 2013. The extra cash at this time of year is pretty sweet to have too!

I've already started my jar for this year - and have my first "happy moment" note it in - with a bit of cash of course.

I've heard about 2 other really fun things I think I'm going to at least try to do this year as well.  The first is the "weekly bank" game that so many people have been talking about.  You start off the first week of the year, week 1 of 2014, and you put $1.00 into a piggy bank, or other safe place.  Then, at the end of week 2, you put $2.00 in the piggy bank, and so on...until the last week of the year, when you are supposed to put in $52.  If you do it every week without cheating, at the end of the year you will have $1378!  That's not shabby! 

I LOVE this idea, but once again I'm going to put my own little twist onto it.  I'm going to reverse the order. I'm going to do a count-down with the money (since my funds always seem to be tight at the end of the year with family birthdays, holidays, etc.) So, every Friday, starting with tomorrow, I'm going to put money into a piggy bank.  Tomorrow I'll put in $52.  Next week on Friday I'll put in $51, the week after that $50.  You get the point.  I think it will be fun to do, especially if I can remember to do it each Friday!

The other thing I'm going to try to do this year is to post my 365 days of Gratitude.  Again, someone mentioned this to me, and I thought it would be a fun and easy thing to do.  This one is very simple. Each day you take a photo of something you are thankful for.  You post it either on your blog, or FB or Instagram, etc, and you simply mention what it is you are thankful for at that moment.  You don't need a long explanation, just the date, a couple of words and the photo.  I think this will be really fun to do.

Since it's only the 2nd of January, I figured it wasn't too late for me to start doing this.

So, here goes for my first two posts.

Jan. 1, 2014 - I am thankful for this group of friends, and so many others that weren't able to be with us on the stroke of midnight. 

Jan. 2, 2014 - I am thankful for these lemons, picked from the little tree in my yard just this afternoon. Without lemons we couldn't enjoy the sweet taste of lemonade. Corny? Maybe. But certainly true.

So...give it some thought and let me know if you plan on joining me in any of these little adventures...I'd love the company. 

6 Months!

I bet you gave up on me ever returning to this blog.  Heck, I even thought of giving up on it....but as always, I am drawn back.  I still love this blog and appreciate all of my readers, especially those who have been so faithful and have continued to check back day after day, week after week, and month after month.

Well, here I am!  Alive, well, and as always very busy.  Christmas is the day after tomorrow, and I can't believe that the last time I posted it was summer time and we were in the pool every day, enjoying the warm weather, etc.  Honestly, I don't know where the time has gone.

I'm making a New Year's promise to myself....I'll blog at least once a week in 2014.  It may sound silly, but I actually REALLY miss blogging!  I am on facebook a ton, but it's just not the same.  FB is great for the quicky little note and photo, but I don't get to share what's in my head nearly as much as when I get to sit down and really ramble.  Haha!  

For now I will leave you with our family Christmas card, and Kona and Lucas' card... yes, I had a special Christmas card made for the two of them....Kona's FB page is now up to over 11,800 fans....how crazy is that?  That boy and the little Squirt certainly keep me busy.  If you want to follow their antics, click over to their FB page, and "like" it.  I'm on that page at least once a day....here is a link for you.  Kona's Page

Merry Christmas, and happy holidays!  Let's keep in touch! 

In Limbo

I'm sure you've noticed that I haven't been spending much time on my blog lately. I don't know why, I can't put my finger on it.  I feel as if my blog is in limbo.

I can't pinpoint if it's that I don't have the desire to constantly update it...or if I have things going on in my life now that I'm not comfortable sharing. Maybe it's a little of both of those.  It's also partly because when I post I like to put a lot of thought into what I post, and thought takes time. I haven't had a lot of that lately.

For some reason, about a month ago I got a wild notion of starting a FaceBook page for Kona. Don't ask my why. It was just a silly idea. I thought it would be fun to see if anyone would "like" it.  Well, come to find out, I've had nearly 7000 people like it in just over a month! That's been a fun little project for me to play around with. Posting the pictures is quick, easy, and doesn't take much thought. I get the instant gratification of the people giving his posts the thumbs up.

It's been fun for me to watch his page grow. I guess speaking through him is like having a little alter ego. A sweet, furry, lovable alter-ego, that everyone seems to love. You can't knock that. If you are on FaceBook and want to check out his page, his link is Kona "The Love Sponge"

I've had plenty of stuff going on here, some really good, some not so good.  Such is life, right? I try not to dwell on the not so good, but sometimes that is easier said than done.  I'm sure it's like that for all of us.

On to some of the good.  Yesterday was Mother's Day.  I got to spend Mother's Day with my Mom, my husband, two of my children and my dogs.

 

We went out for breakfast, spent part of the day out and about, then came back to the house where I got some lovely gifts, and we enjoyed an afternoon of fun in the pool. It was a very pleasant, low stress, relaxing day.

I've got two big, exciting things coming up very soon. First a trip to Hawaii in just a couple of weeks that I am really looking forward to. I owe that to the fantastic company I work for - the RGT Group. Be sure to check out our new web site. www.rgtgold.com 

We are staying at the Sheraton Black Rock, which has some of the best snorkeling on Maui. 

I love to snorkel, and I am really excited about getting on my gear and hitting the water. So excited in fact, that I got it all out yesterday and did a little test run in the pool!

The other exciting "thing" happening soon is that our addition to the family will be coming home in about 4 weeks.  We paid a visit Saturday. Needless to say the puppies have changed just a little bit since I saw them last.

One of these 3 little fellows will be coming home with us soon.

 They had all had baths just before we arrived. They were cuddled and getting dry in towels SO cute!

 This was Kona (on the left) at about the same age....and one of the males from the litter.

 Snugly little wet faces.

 One of the sweet females.

So, as you can see, there are a lot of things going on. I've only mentioned some of the good here. There are more good things to tell about.  Fun, exciting things going on in the house. I'll try to stay focused on the good.  Promise. 

I'll do my best to keep up a little better, but please hang in there with me. I'm probably not going to be as consistent as I was - at least not for a while. Just too much other "stuff" going on. 

April 4- and the prompt is..

Today's photo-a-day challenge prompt is "This happened today..."

For me it was another busy day out and about.

I visited my Dad, and brought new flowers (my school colors, by the way!)

 I was a beautiful view from the Cabrillo National Monument, just down the road from the cemetery.

 The coolest thing that happened today, and my "official" entry for today's challenge is this one below. This is a photo of my cousin once removed, Danielle, and Pickle. Today they met for the very first time. They've lived their entire lives less than 120 miles away from each other and it took over 19 years for them to meet.  Is that crazy or what?  Welcome to San Diego Danielle, lets not be strangers.  

A Year Gone By

Sometimes the best of intentions don't quite work out the way we want them to. I was reflecting yesterday about my Dad's funeral.  It was a year ago yesterday. An ENTIRE year ago already has passed. It is so hard to believe. I remember when I wrote this that I had every intention, as I mentioned, to share more pictures and stories.  I never got around to it.  I don't think I could bear it. Now it's been a full year. I've gone through one of everything. I've gone through his birthday (March 4th) without him,  Father's Day without him and all of those other special days that we would enjoy spending together. I have so many wonderful memories with him. I still think of him everyday, but I feel like the smiles come with those thoughts more often now than the tears do. But the tears still come, and I'm sure they always will.

For now, I'll share these photos with you. My friend Bobbi, captured the whole day for me in photos. It may have seemed strange to others who were there that I'd asked someone to walk around and take photos, but looking back now I am SO glad she did this for me. These are invaluable to me and my family.  Thank you Bobbi, from the bottom of my heart! 

 It was nice to see so many people come to honor my Dad.

 Military Honors

The presenting of the flag to my Mom was beautiful. Such meaningful words.

 My brother gave a perfect eulogy. He couldn't have said anything better than what he said. I LOVE this picture that Bobbi took. I know in my heart that my Dad was indeed looking over my brother's shoulder and smiling. 

 My parents' beautiful grandchildren - all 6 of them.

 The bagpiper played "Danny Boy" my Dad's favorite, and "Amazing Grace" - it was perfect. 

I'll explain the orange another time.

 After the service, it was time for a celebration of my Dad's life at our home. We had a house full of wonderful family and friends.  It was a beautiful afternoon. Dad would have loved it.