Monday, December 21, 2015

Me On Monday

I'm sitting here at the office, in the middle of the Support Center Department, listening to all the employees on the phone.  I literally can't hear myself think there is so much chatter.  Our office holiday party starts at 5 p.m., which is my reason for being in the office on a Monday.   I'll be happy to have that get underway!


Our weekend was fairly quiet. Temps a little colder, but they are going back up as the week progresses. We are expecting rain for the next several days and 70 degrees F on Christmas Eve. That is literally unheard of in these parts.  But it seems to be a similar story in lots of places this year.  So despite the weather wherever you are, Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Me On... Wednesday

I approached this week with the best of intentions, but once again I'm fashionably late to the party.  I just hope everyone hasn't gone home already! Here I am waving hello to Sian and her merry band of Monday-ers from a warm Wednesday evening in the Eastern U.S.

The weekend was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the upper 60's (breaking records for three straight days) - that's roughly 20 degrees celsius for all my friends across the pond.  Jay and I got to attend an outdoor flea market for what will likely be the last time this year, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm taking advantage of the good weather while we can, knowing full well we are going to pay for it come January.

Although we have had a few mornings of frost, necessitating scraping ice off windshields, this all burns off by 10:00 a.m.  In any event, there won't be any white Christmas around here!

That didn't stop us from finally getting some ornaments hung on the tree.  Even without the snow, it starting to look a lot like Christmas!

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

THRIVE - November

I'm trying to stay accountable to myself for the things I have set out to do. THRIVE is a big word. This is what thriving looked like in November...


1. Read A Book:  In November I finished Rising Strong by Brene Brown.  It was a good read but not (IMHO) as strong as her other books.  I'd highly recommend The Gifts of Imperfection if you haven't read Brene Brown yet but are thinking about it! 

2.  Try A New Recipe:   In November I tried a recipe for crock pot Sesame Chicken.  It was a complete and utter failure, well unless you really love the taste of soy sauce, which I don't.  I still need to find some good crock pot recipes that aren't roast or stew.

3.  Declutter:  If the van load of STUFF I took to Care & Share yesterday is any indication, November was a banner month for decluttering. Two entire Rubbermaid totes of former "guest" bedding plus a lot of miscellaneous Twin XL college bedding, a chunk of my winter wardrobe, a bunch of Jay's old computer textbooks... so glad to have that stuff out of the house!

4.  Complete An Unfinished Project:  My UFO was the long-procrastinated clean out of our basement storage room which was the source of a lot of the items being decluttered in November..

5. Improve Flexibility - um, yeah, about that....  

6. Scrapbooking - My Favorite Five - I signed up for LOAD216, so I know I'll be scrapbooking in January and February.  Not even going to try to do anything beyond my December Reflections to finish out 2015.

7.  Photography - November was a lot better. Photos of the changing leaves and fall decor actually happened, as well as Jay's annual birthday photo!



8.  Art Journaling - um, not so much.

9.  On the Wellness front - I completed physical therapy and graduated myself right  after Thanksgiving.  I'm still hanging in with the Intro to Fitness class, trying my best to keep up with the sadist instructor.   I'll be starting with a personal trainer that I like and trust in late January.  So I'm still trying.  Two steps forward, one step (or two or three) back. That's the way it goes.  




My November gratitude page.


Monday, December 7, 2015

Me On Monday

The weeks come and go and honestly my life is so busy and full, I plan my Me On Monday posts in my head. Then Monday comes and goes and the post doesn't get done and before I know it another week has flown by!

This past weekend... Saturday saw some great thrifting at a local senior center indoor flea market, followed by a lot of prepping and pricing to get everything ready to add to the booth. Then on Sunday a seriously fast-paced round of adding items and rearranging the booth ... in 20 minutes or less... so I could meet the rest of the family in downtown Allentown for this:


Can I just say that Cirque Du Soleil really puts on a FANTASTIC show?!  The lighting and costumes were phenomenal. The acrobatics weren't quite as death-defying as some of the stuff I've seen, but there was so much of it going on it was often hard to know where to look. And even though our seats were very much to the side of center stage, Cirque had it set up and choreographed to play quite nicely to all areas of the theater. If you are interested, the show is still touring throughout the U.S. and Canada through September 2016.

This week I'm hoping to get my Thrive post up and get all my Christmas prep DONE - Becca comes home for Winter break on Thursday and Rachel on Saturday, so I don't have a lot of time left to make Christmas happen!  What are you doing this week?

Waving hello to Sian and all the Mondayers.