Beauty in Bloom

Pinned it, did it & some weekending.

How was your memorial weekend?

Ours was a mix between relaxing and a little busy.  Before I go into that, I want to share a little project I completed a few weeks back that I found on Pinterest.  I am glad I waited (or should I say sometimes being lazy pays off) because this week Alicia's Happy Day Project was to actually make something that you have pinned.

I have seen a few different ways to make your own laundry soap, but this recipe of ingredients is the one I went with.

All of these products together cost less than $20. First just shred the zote soap with a cheese grater. It is a soft soap so it will shred easily. Then I just put all of these together in a small tote and mixed them up! SO easy. I included a link below to the original pin so you can see what other's thought of the detergent. Also, if you have any questions about it, you will likely find it in her comments section.....Visit Being Creative to keep my sanity blog and you can see her original post.

I could not stop there of course. I wanted mine in a pretty glass jar too! Luckily I found a really big one at the Walmarts. It was only $9.99! Then I put my super awesome Silhouette to use and made it a pretty label.  I sort of love it. It is the only cute thing in my laundry room right now. Also, I am happy with the cleanliness of our laundry. It makes a lot and you only have to use about a tablespoon per load because there are no fillers. I think she said hers lasted about 9 months. I guess we will see!

Some other things I have tried/made.

1. Microwave brownie in a mug. Go here.  It is sooo good and easy.

2. Ranch dressing made from greek yogurt, ranch powder and milk. Go here.  I am not completely sold on this one. I may have to try one more time to make sure. I do however, like the low calorie aspect to this dressing. :) Around 250 calories for the whole jar!

3. Lastly, I pinned this awesome chalkboard. My sweet hubby helped me make it. I blogged about it already. You can find it here.  I didn't have the space that she did so I had to modify a bit. It is super fun though!

My chalkboard.

 

The original. {source}

 

Ok, I think that might be all the pins that I have actually made lately! Thanks to Alicia for hosting such a fun link party! I hope to find a few more things worth making!

 

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Some memories from the weekend......

 

On Sunday, we attended my niece and nephews birthday party. It was a hot one, but the kiddos had a blast! In the very top left pic...that is Grandma Julie getting bombed with a water balloon! She is such a fun Grandma! I love it!  Good times.

 

On Monday, we went to my Grandpa Joe's neighborhood pool. My momma and cousin Danielle and her baby met us there. It was a fun day. I always love watching my girls with my Grandpa. He loves his grandchildren and great grandchildren to pieces! We have been swimming at his pools(there have been a few different ones over the years) since I can remember. It is a fun little family tradition on my Mom's side of the family.  I wish we could do it more. I miss seeing family.  Darn busy lives!

Did you see that PicMonkey has their collage section up and running? Yay!

Hope y'all are enjoying your week!  (that y'all was for my husband, hehe. I have picked up this little habit from reading too many blogs whose authors are from the south)

 

Catching up

I don't even know where to start. I guess I could start by telling you that I am super lazy. True story. Baby I was born this way...hehe. Most of the time when I have a lot going on I tend to shut down. Instead of working my way from task to task tackling things one at a time, I don't do anything. Blogging included it seems. Although, I must say that we have been cleaning a bit the past few days to get ready for friends arriving later today. So excited about that!

I will not be sharing every single photo I took from the past week(even though it may seem like it), just some of my favorites. Oh, and I am sorry if you follow me on Instagram. You have seen most of these. :)

Let's start with Mother's Day weekend.....

The girls were put to work planting flowers for me. I need to take advantage of this more often because they did a great job!

There was also breakfast from Bread co, antique shopping at a new favorite spot and playing in the hose.

Me and my girl. We have been hanging out on the front porch together a lot. It's our new favorite.

Here are a few more pics from that day. The girls found a slug and had some fun playing with it. Ummm, that is so out of character for the Seawright girls. I went with it though.

One last picture from Mother's Day weekend...My sweet hubs working on the dresser I found on the side of the road. Two thoughts: 1. I love him. 2. Maybe I shouldn't even paint it. I kinda like the way that looks.

 

Ok, moving on. I can't remember what night it was but my toddler chipped BOTH of her front teeth. Poor girl was dancing around the kitchen and then ran into the corner of our granite table. It was horrible. Thank goodness it wasn't worse. So ya, that night kinda sucked.

 

In other news, I found a great shade of red lipstick, finally! It is called Wine with Everything by Revlon. I was sooo channeling my inner Kelle Hampton and searching for unicorns that day. It is something she does often. The whole seizing life thing. I sorta love her. She also says that "Red is Ordinary's kryptonite."  THIS  post is what did it for me, you know, made me love her that is. You must read it. Seriously, I mean it. It's sooo good. If you already have, well then read it again. :)

 

I don't know about you but I LOVE me some Barn Owl primitives. Shop here. They have the cutest artwork but I am poor so when they announced that Homegoods would be carrying canvas prints of their work I was so happy again. ;) I have been searching for weeks and I found this one. $16.99. Much more in my budget.

 

How about some more randomness. My bathroom is moving at a snails pace. Many unexpected issues have come up. Thankfully, I have a patient and talented husband who has worked through most of the problems. So far, we have drywall, and a tub & shower. Yay! I can't wait to take a bath in my new soaker tub. :) 10 years I have been dreaming about this. Ha!

 

So that just leaves me with the weekend. It was good. Real good. Friday night I went to a super late 10:30pm movie with my friend Lara(HI LARA!). She is awesome by the way. The movie was too. We saw What to Expect When You're Expecting. So funny! I recommend it.  Saturday morning was graced with fresh donuts. After being up until 1am what else was a Mom to do?? I was tired, so no cooking for me! We woke up and jumped straight into the car in our pj's.

(by the way, they will only eat chocolate long johns. Maybe they do want to be like me afterall! hehe)

 

My mom came over for some jewelry making. She has been hoarding supplies for months and wanted my help with a few pieces. It was so much fun. I even played around and tried to come up with a few pieces from odds and ends that I had on hand.

 

Here is my owl on a branch necklace. I kinda like it. It was kind of random that I even had a bead that was the shape of a branch. Why even fight it, I say :)

The pink earrings were Faith's design. Annie wanted ladybug earrings and that is all I could come up with. The eiffel tower necklace was for Faith. I was literally just piecing random things together. I think it turned out cute though.

Saturday night was our annual progressive dinner for my moms group. This years theme was Around the World. The first stop was Mexico(aka..Margaret's house) where some yummy layered taco dip was served. Next up was Greece(Kathy's house). Where you guessed it, Greek salad was served. Again, very good. The main course was at Lara's house. She did a beautiful job with the food and decor. Italy was captured for sure. We had eggplant parm. My first time and I loved it! Dessert was also had at Lara's(Alyx had to bring it there because her poor son had a fever). It was Jamaican. Ginger carrot cupcakes with coconut flavored cream cheese icing and some sort of chocolate cake. So yummy, but by then I was dying from being SO full that I was only able to take a bite or two of dessert.

The decor.

You see those sunflowers? I got to take them home! Lucky me :)

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It was a great weekend. Nothing crazy or particular busy about it. Just life passing by us too fast. Annie graduated from preschool Sunday. I may have cried before she even walked in. But, I will share more on that tomorrow or the next day. She is my sunshine girl for sure.

To to end this long long post I will leave you with the theme song from Phinneas and Ferb....there's a 104 days of summer vacation.......

SCHOOL IS OUT!!!! YIPEEEEE!

Highlights from our week.

Hello. It's Saturday afternoon. I wanted to have this up early Friday but oh well. Such is life. I did however take a little extra time to make this snazzy little collage. I am loving Photoshop Elements! Thanks again St. Hubs.

1. Annie at ballet class.  2. Lollipop gerber daisies that I coveted on a trip to Lowe's BY MYSELF.  3. A trip to the new self serve ice cream shop. It is always a big deal when something new opens up in our small town.  4. Playing around in a little community garden connected to one of our favorite parks.  5. Olivia loving on her baby doll.  6. A free printable I created. (find it here.)  7. Picnic under the Ampitheater.  8. Me having a good hair day.  9. Liv swinging at the park.  10. A gorgeous sky.  11. New shoes I found at Goodwill for $10! I wasn't sure if they were cool until the young male cashier was jealous :) Score!  12. A gift for mother's day from Faith...chocolate covered stawberries made at Girl Scouts.  13. A trip to Steve's Antiques. Junk galore!  14. One of my favorite's. Hope Floats.  15. Playground down by the river.  16. The bridge in the community garden with friends.

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I also want to post some pics from our riverbank outing on Wednesday.  I packed a lunch and picked Annie up from preschool and we headed downtown.  As much as I complain about our town, it really has some beautiful things about it too.  I just wish our house actually overlooked the Mississippi.

 

The sky that day was breathtaking.

 

Lunch under the Ampitheater. In the summer the fountains come on down here and you can play in them. They were not open yet on this day. :(

Sandwich stealer!

 

(The fountains shoot up from the ground....its really fun! Can't wait until they are on.)

The marina.

 

It was a good week. I was so happy that the weather cleared up. We needed it.  I am looking forward to tomorrow. My family has instructed me not to worry because they plan on pampering me. Good to know!!!

Happy Mother's Day sweet friends!!!!

 

 

 

Weekending

It's still raining here. Don't get me wrong, I like rain. Just not day after day after day. Especially not when I have to grocery shop. The kids need to get out of this house too. We are driving each other b-a-n-a-n-a-s! (said like Gwen Stefani, the original Hollaback girl)  At least it is cooling back down though. Over the weekend it was already 92 degrees. Sheesh!

So this weekend we.......

.....went antiquing again. Well, not we, but Annie, Liv, and I. Faith was at a birthday party so I needed to kill some time. I went into this one shop that I have not been to before. It was a gold mine. I wish I had more money. However, I did find matching frames to use for bathroom mirrors. (Which I will post pics of as soon as it quits raning!)  They are a deep teal color. I may be a little more excited than I should be. I hope mirrored glass isn't too expensive.

....worked on a project. I got out the Cameo to make some vinyl for my homemade laundry soap jar. It took forever. I guess next time I will read the directions. Ha!

 

....celebrated Cinco de Mayo with some dear friends.  Saturday evening we decided to head to our favorite mexican restaurant. Cristalle texted me asking if we wanted to meet her family there as we were walking in the door. Lit-er-a-lee.  I thought about having a margarita, but I am scared of tequila. True story.

 

....went bowling!!!  It was so hot that we didn't know what else to do. It was fun, and we even ran into some cousins too!

 

...gazed at the moon.  Or should I say 'I' gazed at the super moon. Bob was snoozing in his chair and the girls had been in bed for hours. I went outside alone and like a nerd I took a bunch of snapshots of myself with the moon.  I wonder if the people driving by thought I was crazy.

(I have no idea how to take a picture in the dark)

other weekend activites include: Church, lunch at McD's(oh joy), dance, last minute shopping for a birthday present and our missional church group meeting. Not in that order :)

Ok, gotta go. Kids are fighting.....Tout à l'heure!! 

 

 

 

Still recovering.

The entire weekend as a whole was not the problem. In fact, it was relaxing and fun at times.

Something happened that freaked us out good though, and I am still recovering from it. It could have been prevented but I let my guard down for. one. second.

We lost Olivia at the St Louis Mills outlet mall for what seemed like forever. Now, I am not talking about her losing under a rack in a store or to the next toy aisle over at Target. No. Like lost her in a mall food court the size of two football fields. You are probably saying to yourself, "how does one let that happen? Where you watching her?" Well, I don't know. And yes, I thought I was. In fact, I am one of those overly protective mothers out in public and it still happened to me. It happened so fast too.

We were cleaning up our table. I let her out of the stroller because she had been in it for a while before we sat down for lunch. Some good friends and their children were also with us. Olivia was asking me to go to the playground. More like begging. "Mommy, pa-weeeze. Pay-gownd." Ok, baby. Just a minute. I say. That is the last thing I remember happening until I noticed that she was gone.

Where is Olivia? We start frantically searching. Eventually, lots of people from the food court got involved. Some were just looking at us like we were crazy. Doing nothing. It was a very busy Saturday too. Lots of people around. I was screaming her name. Bob was too. It was dramatic. I think I left my body for a few minutes and saw myself spinning in circles screaming my baby's name, fearing that I would never see her again. I am serious. I thought she was gone forever. People were asking me what her hair color was and I was in such a state of panic that I had a hard time answering. I could barely breathe at the thought of what was happening.

Then it hit me. She asked for the playground just minutes before. Looking back, I think it took me a while to think to even check there because the playground is really not that close to the food court. At least not for a two-year old. I took off running. I am not a small person either. I am sure I looked crazy too. As soon as the playground was in my sight I saw her. Running into it without a care in the world. I finally reached her and scooped her up while sobbing. I didn't even notice my husband behind me.(Our other girls were back at the food court with our friends) He grabbed her from me and held her tight. So angry, yet so relieved. Our instinct was to be mad at her even though it was not her fault. I have never been so angry and so relieved all at the same time.  I have also never felt so helpless, stupid, and frightened. Parenting fail.

We learned something Saturday. Well, I learned a lot of somethings. 1.) Don't trust your two-year old. I never dreamed that she would do that, ever. That kid got far.  2.) Don't assume that your spouse is picking up your slack. 3.) I would never be able to live if I lost my child.  Especially that way.

The rest of the weekend was spent holding on to her, kissing her. I don't think she left my lap much that night. I even woke up this morning, two days later, in a panic thinking....where is she?!! Oh wait. It's ok. She is safe. Bob even told me that during his midnight shift on Saturday evening into Sunday morning that he had a few panic attacks and had to make himself remember that she was fine. Safe at home. 

This is hard for me to share. Mainly because it makes me feel like a bad parent. But I feel like I should because it is never my intention to be inauthentic on this blog. I know it was an accident. I know things happen so fast. Things are chaotic, you think you are in control, then a kid dissapears. All I can say is...I don't know how people who actually lose their beloved children live through something like this. Those 3 full minutes or so where my mind went to that place thinking...Oh dear Lord, she is gone....was almost more than I could bear and my child was only gone for a short time! Thank you God. That is all I am still thinking.

One more thing. I am more patient. I think I am at least. It has only been a couple of days though. I am hoping that this is something that sticks. I pray for it all the time. Maybe this was God's way of answering that prayer. Just a thought.

And because I can not post without pictures...here are a few from the happier times we had this weekend....

The stinker who cause her parents to have a mini-stroke. This was on Friday, at her sister's dance class.

 

Some pics from Cabela's at the mall. My husband's holy place. The girls love it too. I love it because it is right next door to Archiver's. My holy place. :)

(Enjoying ice cream after the drama)

I found some treasures at Archiver's. Oh yes I did. Love this new line by American Crafts Studio. Tiny pre-made bunting. I die.

Mason jars. Serious love.

Other highlights include: Making banana bread muffins because my mom gave me old bananas and receiving my Bloom from Amy's shop. Love it Amy!!! Thank you!

I am a nerd and I know it!  Isn't the bloom pin purr-ty?? I think I took 39 photos with my cell phone to get one where I looked half-way decent. This one was taken in the van before church on Sunday. Just keepin' it real. Oh gosh my face is wrinkly.

Ok, I am done. So glad that weekend is behind me.

Happy Monday friends! What's left of it. :)

3 day weekending

I am going to start at the beginning.

The weekend was great. Mostly because it was the first weekend my husband has been home with us this year. We didn't do much of anything. It was so nice.

It unofficially started on Thursday night. Annie came running inside completely out of breath while Bobby and I were catching up on our days...

"Mommy and Daddy, can we have a bonfire."

We looked at each other, then looked at her and then back at each other and then back at her and said, "Yes. Yes we can."  Without any hesitation. It feels good to say yes sometimes. So what that it was a school night. I scrounged up some old heart shaped Valentine's day marshmellows, stale graham crackers, and chocolate chips. Because who keeps chocolate bars on hand? AND, what's a bonfire without s'mores? 

Seriously, what is with the posing?

So the very next day was a complete 180. Heavy, heavy rain and hail!!! What the heck?

I got soaked taking Annie to preschool. Through 2 layers! I swear it waits to rain really hard until I have to walk out the door. Every. single. time.

Saturday was normal. I say normal because usually my husband works every weekend and there is not much time for "family time." So we always have to rush to get some in before he goes to work.

We woke up late. 7am. That is late for us. We lounged around. I did some very light cleaning at home. Then I snuck over to my mom's with Faith to help her with some cleaning. She is going to need me for a few weeks until her mobility is back to semi-normal. Later in the afternoon we took off for the in-laws house about 45 minutes away. We wanted to visit Bob's grandma who has not been in the best of health lately. I have to say, she was fiesty and so much fun to be around that night. A major change from the last time we saw her. There is no doubt in my mind that my husband gets his playfulness from her. Love that sweet lady.

Oh, and we also scored some new treasures. His parents need to get rid of some things they have been storing to clear the way for in-home dialysis supplies. I don't have pictures yet because they are going to bring them to us later, but we aquired two round pedestal tables. One of them is big enough for our family(which I will paint white!) and the other one is an antique claw foot pedestal table that Bobby's grandfather wanted him to have. It's from the 1930's I think. Too bad it's too small to use in the kitchen. It will make a beautiful game table though.

I also brought two of these home. BIG plans for these old wooden shutters. The best part....Bobby's dad has like a 100 more in the barn.

Sundays. I love them so. After church and lunch at our favorite local mexican restaurant, we came home and did almost nothing. The only pictures I took are of my littlest little.

Someone got a hold of the stickers.

Time for a picnic with mom. She insisted. Like 50 times.

Today was busy. The last day of our 3 day weekend. I went back over to mom's to finish up some laundry and to run an errand for her.

Here is what my kiddos do when they are at Grandma Kim's.

They play in the Mickey room. The joke is that it is our inheritance. My brother's and mine. This is just one corner of the room. The others look just like this one. It's CA-RAy-ZY!

This little nugget slept through most of our time there today. 

A very uneventful weekend indeed. But, I will take it. We were together and that is all that matters to me. I love normal. Like, a lot.

I also love Dance Moms. Does anyone else besides my bestie Cristalle watch it? I am not proud, but I can't stop watching it. It's CA-RAy-ZY too! Abby is so mean! yikes. Please, if you watch this trainwreck tell me so I can feel better about myself. Ha!

Happy Monday friends.....or should I say Tuesday at this point!

Weekending

What a big weekend we had around here.

My Annie decided that she was ready to get her ears pierced. This is what I live for as a mom of girls....and this sweet memory did not disappoint.

Before:

{She was so excited...not scared one bit.}

After:

{Look how happy she is}

I had no idea that she was going to spring this one me. All I had to take pictures with was my cell phone. We were at the mall to drop our books off at the library(our library is in our mall) and walked by Claire's. I had to be home in 20 minutes to get her sister off the bus on Friday so I tried to talk her into waiting until Saturday morning. She insisted that she was ready and wanted to do it right then. I think if we would have waited she might have lost the nerve. 5 minutes later, she was a big girl. I loved that this was her decision. She even picked the earrings she wanted. Multicolored daisies. Because her friend has the same ones. All weekend long she showed anyone and everyone her new ears. I think she asked me 100 times if I thought she looked pretty. Be still my momma heart.

Big sister Faith was not about to let her little sister out shine her for long. Faith decided it was finally time for her to face her fears and get her ears re-pierced. You see, she is my starter baby and I may have forced it upon her at an age where she was not ready, therefore, causing them to close up. Live and learn.

Before:

{holding the teddy bear, trying to be brave}

After:

{She was so happy that it didn't really hurt. I am so proud of her, even though she may have done it out of peer pressure or sibling rivalry.}

Her best friend Bella came with us. That was the deal. I will do it if Bella comes, she said.

My sweet 8 year old...you can see the joy in her face.

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On Saturday we headed over to the USO at St. Louis Lambert airport with Faith's Girl Scout troop. The girls were delivering the cookies they sold that were generously donated by friends and family. Such a special thing. We got a tour of the entire facility. They really take care of our soldiers and their families that are traveling. It was truly something to see.

The girls also made special thank you notes to hand out to the men and women of our varied military branches. Oh my goodness, you would have thought we asked them to walk up to them and start singing or something. They got so nervous! Which is strange considering this group of girls. It was adorable though and the guys were very sweet to them.

Here she is with the special delivery...

Other weekend highlights include....Coffee talk on Friday morning with a dear friend, ballet classes on Friday evening, the wedding of a sweet new couple that have recently joined our missional church, girls night out for me Saturday evening, church, lunch with good friends after church, and our missional church meeting Sunday evening.

A very full weekend indeed.

Happy Monday! I am off to Annie's prechool parent-teacher conference.

Linking up with Carissa @ lowercase letters

Saturday morning {valentine's edition}

Mornings when we are all together are kind of hard to come by around here.  My sweet husband woke up this morning and made heart shaped pancakes for his girls. It was all his idea.

Kind of the sweetest thing ever.

 

Love times like this. Especially when they follow days that aren't so hot.

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One more thing...

 I was on Facebook this morning and the House of Fifty shared this colorful photo...

{source}

Makes me so happy. Well that, and my sweet family.

Happy Saturday!

Weekending

Lord have mercy. Today was a rough one. I don't know about you but days like these make me want to quit and run away. BUT then, I sit down to write this post because I have documented our weekend and want to share it with you and I realize how I wish I could do this day all over again. Because now, I will never get it back.

I was going through the pictures of our weekend and I am overcome with such gratitude.

And some guilt too.

I know how lucky I am, but sometimes I wish things were different. I am not sure what I wish was different though.

That's why I feel the guilt.

Enough whining. I did that on Facebook already. Thanks to all my girls for the support. I knew I wasn't alone. Holla!

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We started our three day weekend early by playing hookie from school. It made up for Thursdays mini-blizzard (exaggeration) that actually made national headlines because of the horrendous road conditions. Our school didn't call off either day! I guess we will be happy about that in the summer.

I found the girls outside happily eating snow. Also, might I just add that today, just 3 days later, the temperature reached over 60 degrees. Crazy!

 

Sophie girl. Our doggie loves snow.

 

 Friday night: Ballet

 

Saturday night...dinner at Steak n Shake. Just the girls and I. I think I took this photo 25 times just to get this blurry shot. They asked for a shake and I said YES! Yay me :)

 

Sunday after church. 

 

Sunday afternoon at 3pm marked the start of our date night. Yes that's right.

Date night baby.

We started at Crate & Barrel.

 

Sweetheart mugs. Love. I brought one home with me.

 

Next we headed to the Galleria. We checked out Anthro, Restoration Hardware and then we ate at the Cheesecake Factory. How sweet of my husband to do what I wanted. I love him.

I want to bring him home. But for $69, not likely.

 

Instead of a piece of cheesecake, I ordered "The flying gorilla." A milkshake made of chocolate and spiked with banana liquer. It was divine. 

After dinner we had time to kill before our movie started at 7pm. The mall actually closed at 6pm so we left for a bit and headed to World Market and Trader Joes. 

We found some Bacon flavored syrup at World Market. Strange.

I love that when you walk into Trader Joes there are beautiful & affordable fresh flowers. If I lived closer than an hour away from TJ's I would have fresh flowers every week.

 
 

 After we left TJ's I will admit we almost went home because we were kinda feeling tired. How pathetic! I am so glad we went back to the Galleria and saw the movie. It was the new Mark Walberg one called Contraband. A compromise of sorts for all the shopping I made Bob do. The movie was good, but it stressed me out! I do like Marky Mark though.

Here we are before the movie started. My husband might think I am crazy. Taking pictures all night long. He never said a word though. He just lets me do my thing.

I am a lucky girl. 

A lucky girl who still has bad days.

The weekend.

This weekend was a long one. Full of birthday parties and an early Thanksgiving celebration.

I am exhausted.

This weekend we......

  

...attended my nephew Dylan's 5th birthday party. It was at his Taekwando studio where he takes classes. The girls loved it.

We also had the honor of being invited to a special little girls 1st birthday. It was also a party for her cool older brother because they share a birthday...9 years apart. My best friend is adopting this sweet child whom they lovingly call "gizzy". You know, as in Gismo. Hence, the Gismo cake. I love that cute little Mogwai.

On Sunday after church...which was a very emotional morning where I could not stop crying for the life of me....we headed up to Bob's sisters house to celebrate an early Thanksgiving. It was a beautiful day and the girls had a blast with all of their cousins.

This is Faith & Annie with some of the boys.

It sure was windy.

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I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year. Mainly because nobody else wanted too. I have so much to do. However, I refuse to stress.

REFUSE. I mean it. You hear me Mom? I swear. Do you believe me?

This is my motto today:

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." ~Andy Dufresne