Archives for May 2017

Focusing on Fun

funtime3On Wednesday, I spent more than half the day with some of my crafty girlfriends. I have been making an effort to insert fun with friends into my crazy schedule.  I realized a while back that I missed the quality time with friends and that if I wanted it to happen, I needed to literally put it in my schedule like an appointment and treat it with as much importance. Five of us spent the time working (or almost in some cases) on some of our craft projects and catching up. I always walk away feeling light. By that, I mean less burdened. funtime4Before we left, we decided we would take a photoshoot with the cute picture frames they had in the room. Having them in the room with us was like leaving a child alone in the room with candy – irresistible! We even solicited a person from the store to come take our group shot.  In another post I will share with you what I worked on so I won’t burden you with too many photos in this post. funtime5In our busy lives, we have to really make time for ourselves. Focusing on fun is healthy for everyone and I am going to be sure to integrate more for myself moving forward.

These pictures are great reminders that I need to let my hair down and play freely more often. So I am grateful for my friends and the time we spend together.

I have family coming in from Florida so this weekend should be wonderful for my entire family. New moments to treasure later.  Hopefully, the weather will warm up so they won’t freeze the entire time.

Well, I am off to go heat up some tea on this gray day and dive into some genealogy. Have a blessed day.

Belinda

Happy Monday Catch-up and Gardening Goodness

Hello, everyone and happy Monday! It’s funny how I had so many thoughts of sitting down to write a post last week, but to be honest, the summer-like weather were experiencing kept me outside on my deck and in my garden. So Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all the mommies out there! I had the most relaxing Mother’s day yet and it started off with yummy breakfast-in-bed. My gift was awesome. They got me a year subscription to Ancestry.com. I will write a separate post about this so I can fully gush.

Last week, I began my first week of my spring Clean Cleanse. It actually helped a lot to have the warm weather because my water intake was great and eating more vegetables always seems to come easier to me in the warmer seasons. I am beginning week two and feel good. The first few days are always tough for me but the benefits felt, make it so much easier. More on this later.

My reading life took a hit with a slump but I have since recovered and will be writing some reviews of my recent reads in the Book Nook. I also have a book haul to share so come on back and take a peek!

As for work, I have been officially off from work for a few weeks, trying to rethink and plan stuff. I also have to begin the process of pairing down for our upcoming trips and summer vacation. I have decided not to send the boys to camp this year since we have two big trips coming up and they would miss too much for that to be a good choice. So I will be working out what they will be doing before I plan my reduced work schedule.

As for my gardening life, I planted my seeds in trays around May 10th for additional beauties to add to my garden this spring. I am not as confident when it comes to transplanting the baby plants when the time comes but it’s worth it when I am successful. So I am giving it a try again this year. Last year, with the advice of my garden girlfriend, Ashley, I had quite a few successes. So I’m at it again.

Leao painted our deck over and I am in paradise. That is my favorite place to be from May – late October.  We eat all of our family dinners there, I eat lunch there and breakfast in the summer. I spend hours reading there or listening to music. I bring my laptop and work out there, I color there. It’s my place. So when he said he was going to repaint it, I was ecstatic! That along with the new blinds makes it feel so warm and tropical.

I also received some happy mail last week. I didn’t know my name was entered for a giveaway when I signed up for an online class and this package arrived with all these great stamps and dies. I am so thrilled that they include sentiments so I can use them on different projects.  I rarely win anything so this was a real surprise. I can’t wait to play with them.

Well, I will leave you now and I hope that you have a blessed day!

Belinda

Happy Monday!

Hello, everyone! I hope you are all well today. I have planted my butt in this chair to get some work completed today but first I wanted to check in with you.

Last week was a fun week for me. I coordinated my schedule with my husband so that I could spend a day and early evening hanging out with my crafty girlfriends. I call them that because if you saw the beautiful stuff they create, you would agree the name is quite fitting.  So Leao picked up the boys from school and heated dinner for the boys while I caught up with my friends. Somehow, I have allowed way too much time to pass since I last spent time with them.  However, moving forward, I would like to get to make it happen more often. Time is too short to skip out on great friends. I always am so happy about how wonderful I feel after a day with my girlfriends.  It’s good therapy!! While out with them I purchased the lovely cart for my craft room. It was 50% off so it was quite less than I paid for my IKEA cart I bought a few years back.  I needed another one and this is perfect. It holds my Copics at a lovely height that I can roll right up to my desk and color away. I also have some of my business journals that hold product ideas. I also put some of my genealogy resources in there and a storage for recent cards that I create. Love it! It makes me smile when I walk in the room. Yes, I am that geeky!!

While out with them I purchased the lovely cart you see above for my craft room. It was 50% off so it was quite less than I paid for my IKEA cart I bought a few years back. So I was really pleased with this purchase. I needed another one and this is perfect. It holds my Copics at a lovely height that I can roll right up to my desk and color away. I also have some of my business journals that hold product ideas as well as some of my genealogy resources. I put one of my card storage on the bottom shelf to hold the recent cards I have created. Love it! It makes me smile when I walk in the room. Yes, I am that geeky!!

This weekend was date night for Leao and I. We somehow fell off our schedule over winter and are now getting back into the swing of things. We brought the boys to spend the weekend with their grandparents and Leao took me to Sculler’s Jazz Club to go see Ravi Coltrane Quartet perform. For those of you who are familiar with Jazz you will recognize the name. He is the son of the great jazz musician John Coltrane! I have so much of his father’s music, I couldn’t pass up a chance to acquaint myself with his son’s music. It did not disappoint. We first had dinner and then went to the club to watch the performance. It was really fantastic.

We woke on Sunday and went for a nice walk on the track and then headed to one of our favorite breakfast spots to eat all the calories we just burned and then some.  It was quite yummy.  It’s just so much fun to have time for just the two of us. We always appreciate it because we don’t do it as often as in the past. So we are always grateful for the time.

I also picked up another book to read last week. My reading was slower last week because I was out in my yard dethatching and weeding.  But this week, I plan on playing some catch-up.

Oh and Saturday was National Free Comic Book day and as usual, the boys and I hit up some comic book stores for some freebies. Nick was thrilled and even had an artist at one store, draw one of his favorite characters. It was fun and Nick scored on some great sales to add more to his collections.

Well, I need to get back to work but I hope you have a blessed day!

Belinda

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Hello, everyone! Happy Friday and Cinco de Mayo!  It’s a bit gloomy outside but that’s alright, my plants need it. This week flew by mighty fast. Sometimes I will prepare a meal for the occasion but today we decided to geek out and see the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 at the movie theater tonight with the boys. We all enjoyed the crazy first and the second doesn’t look like it will disappoint.

My photo above is this week’s flower in our sitting room. I love watching the transformation of these beauties from the initial bud to this alien-like explosion of shape and color. They are truly magnificent. Yesterday, I kept stopping to look at them instead of reading my book. It’s funny how flowers still keep me in awe. In this photo, it hasn’t fully opened but each stage is stunning.

This weekend is date night with my man but before we drop the boys off with their grandparents, Saturday is Free Comic Book Day so the boys and I will wake up early and hit up some local comic book stores. It’s really fun. This will be the third year we have participated. Nick started talking about it a month ago. For those of you that haven’t experienced it, most of the local comic bookstores and chain stores, have free comics and other novelties available on this day. The first year, we walked out with a bunch of stuff. It’s really fun for the comic book lover.

Well I am keeping this short so I can wrap up some things before it’s pick-up time.  I hope you have a fun Cinco de Mayo and a blessed weekend!

Belinda

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