Thankful Thursday

I am grateful that I have started seeing a counselor. Today will be my third session. I feel like I am being proactive in how I handle the crud in my life. He inadvertently showed me something about Mark that will help me to better deal with some of the things he says to me that have thus far been very difficult for me to listen to.

I am very thankful that Mark had a great birthday, complete with cards and gifts and a lobster dinner from my dad! And SUN. It was raining when he came home from dialysis. He proceeded to expound on how it has rained every year of his life on his birthday....blah blah. I think God decided to get him and made the sun come out!

That sun let me have a fantastic walk. And yesterday after I showered and got dressed, I looked in the mirror and for the first time, thought maybe I look a little smaller than I used to. That feels pretty good.

And I am grateful the election is over and behind us. I am still more grateful that it was decisive, with Obama/Biden winning both the electoral and popular votes. I expected him to carry Ohio, but I am so pleased that he also won Florida. Also proud of the state of Washington for passing the legalization and taxation of marijuana, and for backing the state legislator in granting marriage equality. The times, they are a-changin'!

Won't you join me in expressing a little gratitude?

(Button in the sidebar.)

Dandelion

Some Wordless/Wordful Wednesday Link-ups

Coffee Jitters

Parenting by Dummies

Create with Joy

Live and Love Out Loud

By Word of Mouth Musings

Feeling Beachie
Mushroom Printing

My BlogSPOT: The Linky!

This past Saturday I said, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."  And I think several of you were interested in playing along - yay!

Today is the day to share the "wheres" and "hows" of our personal blogginess.

How do you get your blog on?




<a href="http://www.justjenniferblog.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt=""src="http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb331/JenAnnHall/Blog%20Photos/juliusfront.jpg" /></a>


I have a documented case of "Mail-itis", or "I'll-get-to-that-later-itis" or "All-these-people-who-sent-me-crap-in-the-mail-can-suck-it-itis".  This means I often have PILES of crap mail all over my desk, with nary a spot for my coffee cup.

Yet other times, I have succumbed to the piles, gone through them and actually dealt with all the crap mail and my desk looks neat and clean and it could accommodate several cups of coffee.

So I will share both states of my bloggy space with you.  'Cause I'm generous like that.

My computer is in our living room, at the back, I guess you would say.  The space where we have these cool built-in shelves is exactly the right size to fit a small desk.

See?  The desk is behind the couch.

So this is where I'm sitting when I'm blogging, reading and commenting on blogs and doing the majority of my tweeting.  Except for.....

....I got that there Kindle Fire with the Best Buy gift card I won from The SITS Girls, so I do some tweeting and RSS feed reading on that as well.

Did you notice how my monitor isn't sitting back on the desk?  That's because I need it as close to my face as I can get it.  And I don't have a keyboard tray because it's a really cheap desk, so I'm practicing very poor ergonomics.

As far as any "tricks of the trade go".....I will do my actual blog writing whenever I can, as the mood strikes me or whatever.  I seem to perpetually have 5 draft posts that I will go back to at some point.  I rarely publish a post as soon as it's ready.  I prefer to publish first thing in the morning because, honestly, you all are more likely to be paying attention at some point during the day.  Before any of you started coming around here, my publishing was all willy-nilly like.  Oh, and I'm a wee bit anal about the date of each post.  For example, I never post Monday Listicles Sunday night.  And, I've found that while the idea of listening to music while blogging seems like a good one, I tend to be very distracted by wanting to sing the lyrics.  But if just the TV is on or my family is trying to talk to me, I can tune that out.

OK!  Now it's YOUR turn!  Grab the button with my Julius' mug above, stick it in your post and link up! Linky will be open for 1 week, and I will read, comment and tweet ya!  (You could be really super nice and do the same for others. Just sayin'.)

Year in Pictures

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Magic Moments

Shell at Things I Can't Say has been hosting photo link-ups for a few months now and this month is...

So below please enjoy some of my favorite pics from over the past year or so!

My little boy's sweet face

My daughter having dessert on her 10th birthday, smiling at her friend.

This is special because it was our first meal in our house

This is MOST of my Dad's side of my family out at Lake Roesiger here in WA state.

Christmas 2010 - the first in our house

OMG, this cake! It is a BLACK and silver ice cream cake from DQ for AJ's 5th birthday. The black frosting made a HUGE mess! I do not recommend black frosting. But he thought it was pretty awesome, and I guess that's all that matters.

Portraits we had done of the kids to commemorate them being 5 & 10. AJ will never be exactly half of Cami's age again.

I've shared this picture before, but I just love it! Camryn at her Girl Scouts bridging ceremony back in June.

A sibling moment

Me and my kids walking on a Lake Tahoe beach

Me and J.Ho...and a hose :-D

Summer Fun Challenged

I've said it before (just the other day, in fact) and I'll say it again - this summer in the Pacific NW has been lame.  As I prepare this post, it is overcast and only 66 degrees.  It's August.  Just try to tell me that's not a disappointment.

So when Shell at Things I Can't Say said her big photo link-up for August would be Summer Fun themed, I thought I might not be able to participate because I only have a few pictures from this summer so far.  Now, if this linky were being held AFTER our trip to Tahoe, this would be a different story.  To add insult to injury, I apparently deleted the only picture I had of the AJ playing on the slip 'n slide!

%#$&;!

Wait! ......Maybe I shared the slip 'n slide pic on Facebook....I did!  Yay for Facebook!

Bowman Bay, near Deception Pass, WA

AJ sitting on my Dad's motorcycle

AJ riding HIS bike - no training wheels!

Cami sitting on her bed in the big covered wagon at camp

So that's about it from me!  Go link up your Summer Fun photos for a chance to win prizes from Ubisoft!

It's All About the Yum!

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking

if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

~Voltaire

I love food.  Unfortunately I spend a lot of time fighting the urge to eat, or to eat too much.  I recently had a little tirade where I lamented the fact that all the best foods are bad for you.  It's just so unfair!

But, we do need to eat, now don't we?  Below are 10 foods I wouldn't want to live without.  In fact, I could probably live on only these 10 foods if I had to.

1. Caramel - goes well with ice cream, candy bars, apples and in coffee!

2. Cheeseburgers - because you can do so many things with them and eat with your hands.

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3. Salad - I love me a big salad with things like chicken, shrimp or crab, tomato, avocado, nuts, carrots, croutons and honey mustard dressing. Could eat one every day.

4. Pasta - just about one of the most versatile foods.

5. Potatoes - baked, fried, mashed, scalloped, tots, sweet...

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6. Burritos - Or almost anything on a Mexican restaurant menu.

7. Ice Cream - I have a sweet tooth and enjoy most any dessert, but I have to say ice cream is hands down my favorite. Even more than pie, and I really love pie. My perfect ice cream would be vanilla with pecans/pralines and caramel and fudge ripples. I've found a few that come close, but none with just THOSE specific ingredients.

8. Sweet sauces - BBQ, teriyaki, fruit-based

9. Cheese - what was that advertising slogan the cheese industry was using awhile back? Something about cheese making everything better. It's totally true!

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Isn't this picture awesome?
10. Coffee and Wine - OK, these are beverages, not food. So sue me. I love them both equally. Coffee is so warm and soothing and I make it yummy with my flavored creamers (and it has caffeine). Wine is just....so good, my reward at the end of the day, relaxing...
AND, has healthful properties I might add!

Nom, nom, nom.....

That Was Funny!

10 things that made me laugh last week:

1. Trying to play frisbee with my kids and that I can't catch the darn thing!

2. After doing something he needed to apologize for my son said to his sister, "I'm sorry and I mean it!"

3. My father told me a 22 year old hit on him.

4. I changed my blog description to "or Just Plain Awesome".

5. My daughter was out in a little tent in the backyard and got out because she needed fresh air. I had to point out, "You're already outside."

6. My husband found a little frog hanging out with our hose. It was fun to watch the kids playing with him.

7. Cami has ADD and for some reason the kids were discussing this over breakfast (mine + Cami's friend). AJ chimed in with "it means coffee is good for you!"  I told him that's not what it means, but we all cracked up.

8. In my dad's SUV on the way to drop Cami and her friend at camp, listening to 2 giggly girls in the back seat.

9. Grabbed dinner at a local dive with my dad and AJ who was apparently pretty hungry. I mentioned that he was eating a lot and I thought AJ said back that he ate a "freaking" lot. He actually said "50 fries".

10. This

The Good Life
@NorthWestMommy