Month: December 2015

DianaK

Appreciations 4. 133 – excellent end to a wonderful year

What a satisfying and fun final day of 2015!

Started off with a productive morning of work, crossing a few t’s and dotting a couple i’s.

Then, a nice afternoon with Katie, shopping and hanging out. I found a cute pair of boots. In my size! On clearance! Now I can stop wearing my poor old purple converse sneakers out in the snow. 😉

kappa piscoFinished off the day with a delicious dinner with my sibs at Jeff & Laura’s house. The gluten-free pizza Laura made was so yummy — and for dessert we had mulled wine jello with fruit and coconut whipped cream. Delicious!! And Jeff introduced me to Pisco (a Chilean brandy made from Muscat grapes). It was amazing! I love that they both live in town now!!

Happy New Year to you all!

 

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DianaK

Appreciations 4.132

robot flying cardThis morning’s drawing – the flying robot! What should the caption be??? I’m open to suggestions and I will use the best idea I find or see or read or think of. If your good idea wins, you can have the card. If you want it. Or, you can have the glory that comes with having something you’ve written on one of my drawings. 😉

Hanging out with the kids this evening… and learning about this most excellent video of ‪Jimmy Fallon, The Roots & “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Cast Sing “Star Wars” Medley (A Cappella)‬. Soooo good.

The cornucopia of cat toys I discovered behind the piano while cleaning up a spill. The cats seemed to like it, too. cat toys

DianaK

Appreciations 4.131

Enough snow to make it look like a real winter, but not so much it was a huge headache to traverse.

Working with a really excellent therapist. 🙂 One of the things I really appreciate is being reminded of how far I’ve come in reaching some of my goals. It’s nice to take a minute to enjoy that sense of progress, even while looking ahead to new goals and new growth.

Coloring things and making pirate cards! (Tinkerbell gave us the card making kit…that Tinkerbell sure does know how to pick the perfect gifts for us!) 😀

created happiness coloredpirate card

DianaK

Appreciations 4.130 – holidays continued…

It was lovely to take almost 4 days off from work (I worked a tiny bit on 2 of the days…almost like not working at all!) and funny to notice how quickly NOT working started to feel like the norm. Haha. How quickly we adapt!!

I super appreciate that the predicted snow waited until after I was done with errands to start falling. Thank you, snow! (I also appreciate that I found this snow effect I can use on my blog. Neat!!)

A wonderful visit with Sarah and Ida to exchange gifties. I love her thoughtful and funny gifts – including the ingredients and recipe for the amazing dinner she made me a few months ago, a box of hard-to-find seasonal gluten-free cookies, and a new game! What fun! It was also super fun to watch Ida open her gift… a purse of her own (that looks like mine, which she recently took a great liking to) filled with toddler treasures… you know, like a package of kleenex, toddler-sized sunglasses, and some crinkly cat toys. Hahaha! What a sweet end to the day.

DianaK

Appreciations 4.129 – quiet days

After many days of bustling activity (all of which I thoroughly enjoyed!), it was nice to have a quiet, nearly solitary day of doing and not doing. I took a few “Oh, I guess I’ll take a nap” naps — you know the kind you didn’t know you were about to take? 😛

I appreciated the great service I got when I called Mike from the Wildlife Removal Services in Bloomington… In a couple minutes on the phone, he helped me figure out it’s more likely that there are mice in the attic than squirrels (which makes me a little less anxious!) and gave me some tips on what to look for and listen for. He was super helpful and I will for sure hire him if I can’t figure it out or if it is squirrels.

Ibuprofen for reducing my muscle discomfort! I am still happy I was able to DO the shoveling yesterday, but today a couple of my muscles were like, “Dude. What did you do?? If you’re gonna use us, you gotta give us some kind of heads up or something…” 😉

DianaK

Appreciations 4.128

Snow! So pretty – and light enough that I could do the shoveling without needing too much rest afterward. I appreciate that even though my heart is pretty wonky, I’m still able to do most of the things I want and need to do. Don’t ask me to run up a bunch of stairs really fast, though. 😛

So fun to watch the livestream of Ellis performing on APHC today. She was amazing! 😀

Little kitty miracles… like both cats sleeping on me at the same time.

Little photographic miracles, like me managing to hold the phone far enough away to capture the little kitty miracles. 😉

Kitty socks!! Thanks, Debb! kitty socks

DianaK

Appreciations 4.127 – Christmas day

Beautiful day with the family. I am grateful that I enjoy my family so much. What a treat to get to see Debb, Tim, and Sawyer, too!

robot and mouse padMy new mouse pad and robot toy for the office! They will make working even MORE fun! Thanks, Katie, Cina, and Mckenzie! 🙂

After gifts and dinner, the kids and I went out to see Star Wars again. Haha! I so rarely go to movies… but this one is really good! 😉

DianaK

Appreciations 4.126 – Christmas eve

Meowy-Christmas-1One of those perfectly perfect days! Started this morning (after a good night’s sleep – hurray!) making more cards while Holiday Inn played on the tv in the background.

Then, after a day of projects and wrapping, I got to see the Best. Christmas Pageant. Ever. It was sweet and funny and inclusive and involved lots and lots of singing, and best of all, featured my favorite Ruby as one of the angels. 🙂 Beautiful! Surprise bonus: sitting behind Sara and Rochelle and getting a chance to reconnect with them. What a sweet treat!

Perfect end to the day: Seeing the new Star Wars movie with Mckenzie. It was awesome! Feeling pretty darn grateful about everything right now. 💗

DianaK

Appreciations 4.125 – Birthday!

holiday cardsWhat a wonderful birthday! I enjoyed a quiet morning working on holiday cards and then had an excellent brunch with Katie and Mckenzie. The food (gluten-free pancakes with pecans!) and coffee were delicious and the rain turned to snow while we enjoyed our meal. Magical. 🙂

Then I got to spend the rest of the day with the kids, running errands and finishing up projects. What a treat!

I’m happy to have added to my art print collection – a new O’Keeffe for my Georgia wall and a new Van Gogh for the kitchen. I can’t even explain how happy these prints make me feel!

o'keeffevan gogh

Nice clear, dry roads for traveling tonight. Made our late-night trips in record time!

DianaK

Appreciations 4.124 – More solstice fun

The perfect end to the day yesterday… Hanging out with Katie and Cina and working with them on their holiday cards. So much fun! And then, right when we were finishing up, it started to SNOW. Beautiful!

Today’s miraculous DMV visit to renew my license…. walked right in and there was NO LINE. Fastest DMV trip ever – plus getting to chat with a super friendly clerk who was excitedly looking forward to finishing work and going to see her grandson get his yellow belt in tae kwon. Sweet. 😉

Finishing up a busy day watching Rudolph and White Christmas while working on holiday stuff. I love this time of year. 🙂