Fun things from 2010

As we say goodbye to 2010, I wanted to recap a few of my favorite items and new discoveries made throughout the year.

First and foremost, I set a goal to loose 20lbs and I DID!!! Thanks to the 2-Day Diet pill, which Valerie introduced to me. I, in turn passed this info on to as many people as I could…although some might say I was a “pusher”…LOL! I can accept that~

Technology~
For Christmas 2008, I had mentioned to Darrell that I wanted an IPod, so that’s what he got me. That IPod sat in the box for a year because I couldn’t figure out to use it. I’m not really technically challenged, I just hate to read manuals and I had no one to show me how to use it. So, On January 1st of 2010, my friend Romina came over and got me going. Of course I felt really stupid because it was so easy and I had been missing out for a year. Then when I discovered it came with earphones that could also plug into my laptop…I went nuts. There had been so many times I wished I could drown out the sound of Darrell’s TV show, and now I could. So…even though I am light years behind, I am now an avid IPod, ITunes user. We finally got Wi-Fi in our home in 2010 and bought 2-laptops so we could both be on the computer at the same time and sit wherever we wanted in the house. I’ve used my laptop so many times in the kitchen while cooking or watching TV. Finally, Darrell got me an IPad for Christmas and I am getting used to that…love it!

Cosmetic and Fashion
I LOVE that grey was one of the colors for 2010…I bought as many pieces of charcoal grey that I could and love how I can mix and match it with all the black and white I have. I finally mastered the application of fake (or in the apt. world we call everything “faux”) eyelashes. All it took was a few YouTube “how-to’s” and I was good to go. And as far as type or brand, I’m still trying to figure out which ones look best on me…but the point is I can put them on by myself. I wasn’t going to give up because if I can cut hair and manage multi-million dollar assets, I should be able to apply faux eyelashes, right? I discovered “bombshell” lipstick, Pet Me Blush, Print, Nocturnal and Sable eye shadows by MAC Cosmetics. I also started using Smash Box Cream eyeliner in Lava, I wore red nail polish for the first time during the holidays and discovered ARDEN B, where I bought a few “one-shoulder” dresses that I loved. An all time favorite and lifesaver was the “Versa Spa” spray on tan in a can from Palm Beach Tan. Yes, I did get a tanning bed this year, but try to alternate between the two. A few other must tries are Victoria Secret’s, So Very Sexy shampoos, conditioners and other hair products and I also love their Dream Angels Heavenly Shimmering Hair and Body Spray. From Sephora, I found Lash Plumper and Tarina Tarantino mascara and Too Faced Snow Bunny Bronzing Powder. I must recommend the Chi Blow Dryer to anyone who can make the splurge. Being and ex-hairdresser, I have always used a professional blow-dryer, but the Chi truly makes all the difference in the world. Finally, upon returning a few things to Bath and Body Works, I discovered Dr. Wexler Skin Care line and decided to give it a shot. LOVE IT!!!

Music
One word…Pandora. I had no idea Pandora Radio Stations existed until my boss told me about it and Brad Davis showed me how to get started. I LOVE IT. FREE music of my choice anytime, with a skip button. No matter what computer you are on, you can log onto Pandora.com and pull up your account/stations and listen…pretty cool. It’s free, up to 40 hours a month. Of course there is an unlimited version for a minimal cost if you so choose. Give it a try~

Food and Beverage
One of my favorite recepies of 2010 was Pozole Verde Soup and homemade margaritas. I was having a few people over earlier in the year and wanted something warm that would pair well with the Patron I was using in the margaritas. I found Pozole Verde on the internet and I warn you, it’s a very green soup, which goes against my food policy of trying NOT to eat anything green (mostly because that would mean eating a vegetable). But it was soooo good! Google it and give it a try. I also tried beignet's at Cafe du Mond with one of my besties while I was in NOLA for the first time…messy…but very good. I also have to give a shout out to Tim Mathwig, Deanna Jost and Gary Zelder because between all of them, I discovered my all time drink of choice, Kettle One and Sprite Zero. It was Tim that I noticed was always drinking Vodka-Tonic, but that was a little strong for me. Then Deanna said I should try Kettle One and Sprite because it was better and it was! Finally, Gary told me I should try it with Sprite Zero, since I wanted to cut some of the sugar. I added two limes and Presto!! My very own, poison~

Social Networking
Thanks to my friend Debbie (aka…D to the J) I was challenged to join the Social Network world. I am an avid Facebook fan, which has allowed me to reunite with two of my best friends from high school that were rekindled in 2010. Pam, Robyn and I have shared girls evening out at my house and Mi Cocina, dinner with our husbands at Anamia’s in Southlake and an afternoon out on Robyn and Jeremy’s boat. We’ve played Wii Golf at Pam’s and watched football at Robyn’s. I’m looking forward to keeping these relationships going in the years to come. No matter how silly it sounds…I have fun “checking in” on Foursquare and I am the Mayor of several places. My favorite part is making up my own places with friends, like Snake Farm, The First Tree on the Right and names for our houses (and rooms in our houses). I use my Twitter page to say what’s really on my mind, without being judged or questioned. I have a very limited handful of followers there and I’m very selective as to whom who I let follow.

Thank you’s
I want to give a special “shout out” to a few special/new friends and people that helped me out tremendously this year as well.

First, would be to Tim Mathwig/Camp Construction for remodeling my covered patio. Words cannot express the amazing job they did and how I love to be out there and show it off.

Secondly, I would like to thank Amy Zelder for coming over and saving me by organizing all my junk, clearing out my garage and having a garage sale. I didn’t think I was ever going to get rid of all that stuff nor did I have time to even think about it. So she spent two full days at my house and made it happen. Huge load off of me~

Friends
Finally, I’m grateful for all my new friends this year-Jonn & Vanessa Woods and girls, Dave and Krystal Simpson, Billy and Beverly, Marti Jackson, Annette Smith, Kelly Prentice, Kelley Mc Pherson, the Clarks, Valerie Gibson, Ronni Anthony and Teresa Brogdon. Thank you so much for all you kind words and support this year. A special thank you to Ms. Rubie, Ms. Ruthie, Keela and Richie Maxwell who were all very hospitable on our first and/or second journey to North Carolina.

To Beth Tuttle...whom I actually met in 2009...I'm so glad to call you friend. You are one of the kindest people I have ever met and I'm so glad our friendship really bloomed this year. Whether it be dancing for hours to a great band, under packing, over packing, laying out on the rooftop pool, dolled up in our derby clothes or just having a little "V"...I love you~

This year in review

Looking back, I cannot recall another year so difficult as this. Most of you know I lost my brother (Joshua) in July. I have lost other family/friends before, (dad, uncles, neighbors and even my grandmother), which I discussed in a previous blog. But loosing Joshua is almost unexplainable and changed me as a person.

January started off with a bang...Crystal and Mckenna were in a car accident on the first day of the brand new year (also in a previous blog) that totaled her car. It was January that I started to seriously evaluate my career and where I saw myself in the next five years. I started working on my resume, but as always...got sidetracked and tossed it aside. I started a daily diary in January and stayed at it until the first week in February. I wish I would have kept it up longer. It's so interesting to go back and read things I had forgotten about. Like going to watch Mckenna every Tuesday at gymnastics. She loved that class and it was so fun watching her jump all over the place giving it her all. She also started Mother's Day Out in January and she really loved that. Darrell finally decided to go check on a constant neck problem he was having only to find he really needed an MRI. Everything turned out fine, but it was quite comical getting him through that process. He is VERY claustrophobic. I think he knew this, but had no idea how bad it was. He asked to be removed from the machine on the first visit. Then he was so jacked up on zanex and pain pills on the second one he was drunk and talking crazy in the waiting room. Crystal went with him and was texting me...making fun of him. LOL! I got a text from my brother, Joshua on the 16th and I'm so glad I was still writing and have record of that. My son-in-law was accepted to Medical School in FW on the 29th and one of my uncles who resided VA also died.

In February Darrell and I celebrated 22 years of marriage and 25 years total. We also experienced an amazing snow, which I didn't realize could do so much damage. My nephew Gary, Crystal, Mckenna and myself played in the snow and made snow ice cream. A day I will never forget. Later that month, Crystal threw Ross a party for getting accepted into medical school and that was a VERY fun time and of course there was a Kenna Bear photo shoot for the occasion~

March, well that's when Darrell was offered a promotion (in San Antonio). He took it and life as we knew it changed. For better or worse was now being put to the test.

We put the house on the market in April, I turned 44 and my nephew left for a long journey of which, will forever change him. I also played in one of many association tournaments, but this time it was with Beth and in the rain...(the tourny was cancelled, but we were not going back to work) so we let our hair down and said screw it. I also made the final, winning putt of the day...I think...lots of cocktails were consumed. Oh, Mckenna and I also colored eggs (a tradition for the two of us) and there was an Easter party where Peter Cottontail was the star of the show.

We found out in May that Ross's potential to attend medical school in San Antonio was off the table. They enrolled Mckenna in preschool, moved closer to the school in FW and buckled down for the first semester of hell. A friend of Darrell's from high school was in a terrible car accident, which took her husband's life and left her fighting for her own life. She is still undergoing surgeries and recovering as I write this. This is also the month that I received my first piece of angelic artwork from Mckenna for mother's day, framed. Priceless~

June is the month I discovered the magic diet pill called 2-day diet, experienced NOLA for the first time, with one of my besties by my side (Beth), my sweet niece turned 16 and Mckenna had a Circus Themed birthday party, and Mickey the Monkey was the star of the show.

I attended the horse races for the first time in July, thanks to the Vendor Blender (also, with Beth). Darrell and I enjoyed an eventful weekend at Lake Fork with the Woods/Zelder clan and we also attended Ross's White Coat ceremony on July 24th. It was a great, long awaited moment for the kids and the last day I remember being truly happy. Because the very next day I awoke to a call at 6:30 am that changed my life forever. My brother passed away on Sunday, July 25th. I'll circle back to that in another blog.

Crystal and Mckenna ventured out to Florida for some fun at Disney World In August. It's a trip that will forever be etched in Crystal's mind as a week full of magical moments. Something about seeing your child having the time of their life brings an overwhelming joy. Mckenna started preschool when they returned, which later turned out to be a complete disappointment. She was later removed and now stays home until it's time to officially start pre-k. This is also the month that Darrell got his first tattoo or "ink"/"tat" as I have recently learned. He designed it and it was an amazing tribute to his love for my brother.

September and October were complete budget hell, but I did manage to join the Cool Kids Brunch Club, attend a Ranger playoff game thanks to JVo and take a trip back to North Carolina. I also gave notice at my job. I've been stable, predictable and cautious for 14 years. I have an itching to do something else, anything else...life is too short for regrets~

November was our first Thanksgiving without Josh, Crystal turned 27 and I managed to make a trip to see my nephew. All three of these events were bittersweet and brought tears to my eyes.

I rung in December by helping Beth turn 30 (shhhh), Crystal and I stayed up and enjoyed the lunar eclipse, with mimosa's, cheap cigars and a balloon sent off to Josh. We attended a few beauty pageants and watched Mckenna ride a mechanical bull in San Antonio. We celebrated Christmas without my brother or his girls and Darrell said good by to his favorite uncle.

If you are still reading this, then you can see that this was a year full of firsts, lasts and everything in between. Which is a reminder of what life is made up of and also what you/I are made up of. Life is unpredictable, death is final and "the in between" is what defines us. As a child, my parents continually asked me "why do you always have to buck the system", "why can't you just do what your told". I would always answer, "I don't know" because I didn't know. But today, I do know...it's more clear to me now than ever. It's who I needed to be to fight the fight, whether that be the childhood adversities, sticking my neck out for the underdog, or going after my brother's killer. There's always a fight to fight, a mountain to climb or race to be won and all of them require determination. As a child for me, it was called stubbornness or lack of sense...but as an adult I call it strength of mind, resolve, fortitude, purpose, resilience, tenacity and perseverance. We are who we are today because of the cards we were dealt and the way we played our hand. We can either fold into the fetal position or stand tall, proud and look adversity in the eye. I hope I learned all that I was supposed to learn in 2010. If it's true each adversity prepares us for the next, I'm a bit apprehensive as to what 2011 holds. I hope it's a year on the mountain top, since this last one was spent in the valley. But whatever is coming, cannot be stopped...so I may as well give it one hell of a shot. Every shot you don't take is a guaranteed miss~

Split Second

Well, today is the first day of a new century and a new year and it started off great...

We slept in, I did a little housework and made plans for a friend to come over and teach me how to sync my IPod. Crystal and Mckenna (daughter & granddaughter) stopped by and we had some lunch and played a while.

However, things changed quickly...I got a call from Crystal a few minutes after she left. She was hard to understand because she was crying and very shook up. Mckenna was also crying in the background...that's when my heart sank.

What she was trying to tell me is that they were just in a car accident. Someone had run a red light and hit them. She managed to tell me where they were and luckily, they were just up the street. She said all the emergency vehicles were on the way, so I told her we were too.

Darrell and I jumped in the car and headed to the scene. Her car was totalled, but she and Mckenna were in the back of one of the ambulances. They were both okay, but they were both completely shook up. Crystal was shaking and Mckenna was crying because her mom was hurt and scared. Mckenna was trying to explain to me that she was going back and forth in her car seat (due to the multiple slams in their car).

The paramedic gave Mckenna a little teddy bear (a great program, btw), the bear really helped comfort Mckenna and gave her something else to focus on...kuddos to whomever thought of that! They checked both of them out and told Crystal to keep an eye on her head injury (she slammed her head against the window) and then released them. Of course, that is the short version of the story...

The most important part of the this story is that just a few minutes before that all happened, Mckenna and I were playing a knew game I just made up called "sock sliding" (sliding on the wood floors in your socks, of course). Life was GOOD, she didn't want to leave and she kept stalling. Darrell finally picked her up and put her in the car. She was very angry because she didn't want to ride in the required car seat. She wanted to sit in the one for the next age up (I think you have to be like 5-8 for that oneand Crystal just had one in the car that belonged to a friend). Both her mom and Darrell told her no, and that she needed to sit in her toddler car seat and buckle up. She wasn't happy, but she was buckled up....

We shut the door and waived goodbye as they drove away. We always stand on the sidewalk until they are out of site and think...there goes EVERYTHING WE LOVE. In a split second all of our lives could have been changed forever. We could have lost everything because with only one child...all of our eggs are in one basket. That is a very scary thought that taunts me everyday...Not that it's any easier to loose a child no matter how many you have.

Would they have been in that accident if they had left when Crystal first said "let's go" instead of staying another 5 minutes playing? Or could the accident have turned out worse if she had left sooner and drove through that intersection a second sooner?

We will never know, but the point is, I thank God that it turned out just the way it did...another reminder of how precious life is and there is no promise of tomorrow for any of us. Life can change in a split second...

Happy New Year and remember to Keep it Real....

Treasures

A few years ago, I was asked by my grandmother to come help her downsize so she and my Pop could move into a retirement center. I thought how hard can this be?? Sure...I had no idea what I was about to embark on and how it would affect the rest of my life.

Needless to say, we had to go room by room and figure out what to do with all their treasures that they had acquired over the years. My pop was in the military and they had traveled all over the world, thus accumulating quite a bit of stuff.

Before I go any further...stop for a minute and think about all the things you have in your home that mean something to you. Think about your treasures, things like pictures frames, or boxes of pictures, newspaper articles, awards, the dishes you have used for so many special occasions, your favorite Christmas decorations, kids report cards or wedding memorabilia. Even your clothes, shoes , linens and keepsakes that have already been passed down to you.

As I was going through her things we basically had three options...I could have whatever I wanted, we could sell it in a garage sale we were having that weekend or it went into the trash pile. So think about that for a minute...Everything you have worked for, all your treasures, the things that you love looking at everyday will either end up with another person or in the trash.

She was pretty weak at the time this was going on, so she sat on a stool while I went through everything. If I didn't want it (and I couldn't take it all) then she would say sell or trash. This broke my heart and it didn't take long for me to realize this was going to happen to me someday, too.

You would think that after we finished our piles, the hardest part was over...but not so much? The garage sale was difficult, too. I had to send her back inside the house on several occasions. You see, her treasures were still very valuable to her even though they were not to the strangers rummaging through her stuff.

Let me go back for a minute...one other thing that was happening is she was trying to decide what she could take with her. She was downsizing from a 3 bdrm house and 80 years worth of belongings, to a small one bedroom type apt., with no stove, only a small fridge, microwave and one sided sink. One small closet for the two of them to share and only a small balcony-no yard-no garage- She said, "I only need 4-forks, knives, plates, cups". She only needed about 5-7 outfits and a black dress, in case she needed to attend pops funeral and her favorite blue dress.

My grandmother died about 5 months later and was buried in her favorite blue dress....She never really even moved into the retirement center. We did move most all of her things there and then she sent me on my way. She said someone else was going to do the rest. She was shortly admitted to the hospital, where she spent her last days. This is why I think she is a pillar of strength and I admire her so. All of my life I remember her catching a lot of flack for being so organized and trying to keep everyone on a schedule. (Some family members called it bossy/controlling) but even until she was too weak to do so, she made sure all her work here was done.

I think she knew she was about to leave this world and she had to do what she had to do. I don't know this for sure, but looking back, it explains the sense of urgency to sell the house and get this move done. She made it sound like it was just because she was fed up with all the work and responsibility that came with being a home owner and having all that stuff.

For months after her death I would just stand there and look at all my treasures and think...who would want this stuff? It was so surreal to think that none of what I had would really matter in the end. But what did matter is the impact that she made on my life and that will be a treasure that no one can take from me...as a matter of fact, I can pass it on and even take it with me when I leave.

So, take a look at all your treasures...and make sure you are storing them up in the right place...in the hearts of others.

I love you grandma and thank you for teaching me unconditional love. Thank you for teaching me strength and to stay the course. I miss you...

White Christmas 2009

I'm not sure why this year's white Christmas meant so much to me? I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that we rarely get snow in D/FW for the Holidays...but I think it's more than that.

On December 24th I was driving down the road and I really can't remember what song was on the radio, but it was inspirational. So I was already thinking what a great day it was and how lucky I was to see the falling snow, especially with so many people (or what seems to be) having left the world this year. I felt so grateful and was reflecting on all the good in my life and even though there was a little bit of disappointment this Christmas...it seem to all vanish the minute it started snowing.

Just then, I drove past a scene that I will never forget. It was one gentleman that seemed to feel the same way I did about the snow and beauty it brought. He was dancing around in the snow with his head looking up towards the sky and seemed to being enjoying that very minute. And right next to that, was a family of 3-4 people that had pulled their truck over on the side of the road to pay tribute to a loved one that was killed in that very spot.

I thought to myself, that sums it all up. The beauty of life and the sadness of death all in one split second. I actually started crying as I passed this scene (remember, I'm sentimental). It just reinforced what I was already thinking at that very moment...

Life is so short and there is no promise of tomorrow and that we need to enjoy every day to the fullest. If we were to sit at a round table with others and all turn over our cards, which represent our problems...I'd be willing to bet, we would gladly take our own back.

I believe that God does not give us anything we cannot handle, or that he does not equip us to handle. I know some days it seems like it's more than we can bare, but all we need to do is focus our attention elsewhere.

I hope each of you were able to find some beauty and comfort in the beautiful landscape that God provided this Christmas, even if 2009 was not your best year. It's almost like he sent that as a reminder that it's going to be okay.