Thankful Thursday

I realize I put my vents on my blog to decompress.

Well today I want to put some things that have made me smile the last few days...

Flowers

BEAUTIFUL flowers sent by my wonderful husband for NO REASON (yup, no birthday, anniversary etc...just an "I miss you" bouquet) .  And those pick lilies are to die for.  They smell so great.

Smart movies

I love movies that have great dialouge and not need the big budget special effects to draw me in.  I had a date with myself last Friday and went to Georgetown to see this movie.  I have no idea, but I started to swoon a little over Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt.  And the dance number to Hall and Oats "You Make My Dreams Come True"...classic :)

A Great Book

One of those books you can read in one day!  You hate and love the main characters. 

Home Projects Accomplished

I channeled my inner Bob Villa...and after 2 hours of swearing (I have no upper body strength to hold things up), getting shocked (yup, I'm the ding, dong that forgot to turn off the breaker thinking "Well, the switch is off and I'm not going to touch any wires"  WRONG)  and a couple trips to home depot (1930 home was not made for modern light fixtures)...I hung my first chandelier! 

Then I got cocky....and decided to go for the under the cabinet lights (the are wired not the plug in type)

These ugly, dirty, ANCIENT lights, were changed to new...non humming/blinking, energy efficient lights!

And may I add...I'm getting faster at changing out fixtures. 

Next up:  New entry light!

New Years "Goals" Update

I'm a little late on this but here's my status...all and all I'm pretty proud of myself.  And while life has changed a bit in 6 months (aka...moving to a new city/state)...I think I can accomplish the remainder in the next 5 months! And notice that there are a lot of "changed to" updates to my list.  I'm a realist.  Life changes, so you adapt!

10. Loose the last 20 pounds by March 1st. 
So close yet so far :( I made it to the last 10 pounds and then I had my horrible hives that caused me to go on some major steriods.  I gained 10 pounds since then :(  Back to losing the final 20 I go (this time on my own...no meds, just excercise "gulp" and lack of will power).  First yoga class today!



9. Take 1 bubble bath a week (cheesy, but sometimes I need some relax time) 
CHANGED TO:
 read at least one chapter a day (any book you want)
Well I made it all the way to May on this until I moved...to a house with no real soaking tub :(  So I changed my goal to something else that relaxes me...reading!  Love it.  Very easy to do!


8.Take 1 yoga or Pilate's class a week (healthy mind and body is the concept I am going for in 2009)
Failing miserably.   Starting classes today.

7.I will finally go visit my friends WITH GEOFF in Texas in Spring (been trying to do that one since 2003)
CAHNGED TO:
 fall 2009 aka TCU homecoming weekend!
Tickets bought...ready to go

6.) Go back to California in spring for Colette's graduation (6.1) Will not be sad when I go back. Will be happy. Mom would have wanted it that way.
Done. 6.1 Done...pictures above :)  Missed graduation though, but made it to California and visited my grandmother.

5.) Get my teaching credential
CHANGED TO:
Get into grad school to get M.ED
George Washington starts classes end of August!!

4.) Once a month, get in the garden and plant something new. Post what I plant
Have been planting have not been posting.

3.)Volunteer once a month with any organization (Humane Society, homeless shelter, church etc)
CHANGED TO:
Donate once a month to any organization

2.)  Eat at least 5 meals at home a week. (this is going to be the HARDEST one by far)
Did so well....until I packed up the kitchen and moved up here.  Doing better since I bought a food/rice steamer.  Still have a ways to go!
 
 
Noticed I have one goal missing?  Well since I didn't real goal #10 I didn't plan that trip to Greece.  BUT my husband still wants to take it before he gets a job up here since who knows when he will be able to accrue that much vacation time again!  We'll see that happens.

California Recap

Finally had a chance to uplaod the pictures of my vacation.
Warning: Tons of pictures (but nt as many as Laura took...she was over 700 pictures by the 7th day!)

Santa Barbara

Great weather, beautiful beaches...great food :)

The Mission

We spent HOURS reading here...

Real Mexican food....yummy!!

I spy with my little eye...

Fire damage in the botanical gardens

Do you see what I see?

I hate stairs..

Lunch on the beach

Los Angeles Area

View from our hike up the Hollyridge

Santa Monica Pier

Malibu

Very cold water!!

Geoff got worried when he saw this picture!

I don't miss this at all!!! FYI this was on a Sunday at 3:00 pm.  Look past the smog and you can see Downtown LA

JAWS @ Universal Studios

The reason I came back home...Grandma Madeline.  Yup, I'm named after her. She'll be 95 in November.

This is her saying "cheese" !  Pretty good for having partial paralysis on her left side!

Depression Art.  The painter painted this for food and boarding.

The Langham in my hometown of Pasadena

More reading was done here!!

Laguna Beach

The Montage for Lunch...heaven

Fancy Pants

and finally my favorite place to "eat"

Pinkberry...how I missed you!!

Away We Go

I can't believe I never posted abut this movie yet.  Saw it a month ago with Geoff in DC (woohoo for living in a place with theaters that don't just play Transformers ...sheesh)

LOVED,LOVED, LOVED this movie...hilarious....too many AWESOME quotes.

"I LOVE my babies. Why would I want to PUSH them away from me!"

"I reject your aggression"

"Babies like to breathe and are good at hiding it. I put a pillow over a baby and I thought she wasn't breathing but then she was. She was sneaky. But I'll try again."

(Warning: First couple minutes can make some people a little grossed out)

And even though this is an older song (I remember it when it played on the OC)....I LOVE it..

We're famous...ok...not really

...got back from beautiful Southern California last week!  Had a great time and have TONS of pictures to post...but I can't.  I left my memory card in Alexandria, and I am down in Savannah until Sunday.

So Geoff and I were looking at the good old DVR a couple nights ago and it was House Hunters on TLC in Savannah.  We decided it would be fun to watch.    I spit out my drink when I saw OUR HOUSE in the neighboorhood they were looking for houses in!!   (We were not one of the houses they toured).

That was pretty cool (at least to us).  (Side note:  Two weeks ago we saw the original "Longest Yard" with Burt Reynolds and in a "blink and you'll miss it moment" We saw our house!! )

Then yesterday Geoff sends me the link to a video from the local news....

Yup there's my husband!!  Too funny! 

And since I have your attention....I'm going to throw out a couple pictures random pictures.

So we know our house is now "famous", Geoff thinks he has a movie deal after his local news bit...and Madeline....well I got to take a picture of a "famous" time in music history.

I stood in line for 20 plus minutes to get this photo 2 days after Micheal Jackson passed away.