I have a niece who is 18?

Its true.  I'm old enough that Nancy is now 18.  I'm having a hard time swallowing that fact and yet, its true. For her birthday, we went downtown and spent the day at bookstores and having lunch and then attending the YW General meeting.  Its always such a good time to be able to hang out with my sister and her girls.

And there's the next one who's getting old...not me!  She'll be driving in no time. While her mom was paying for stuff at DB, we did a traditional Aunt Fame photo shoot with the girls.

Here's the youngest of Meg's girls.  I think Meg calls her Molly on the blogs but I'm not really sure.  She's been in remission for a year, now, and we're all so grateful for that!  Her chemo curls are starting to come in straight now and she's still just as lovely and fun as she ever has been!

Finally, there's all of them together. :)  Just the girls hangin' out after some lunch at Archibald's.  I'm so lucky to have amazing nieces!  (why can't I ever spell that word correctly?!)

Stop and take a step back and ask

I just had this massive post typed and was ready to hit "Publish Post" when something happened.  Whatever happened wasn't accidental, I did it intentionally.  I hit backspace and didn't stop until the entire thing was gone.  Every last word of it- even the title.  It was mostly a post written out of frustration and irritation about things I can't control and really don't have to be concerned about.  So I think that once it finally got out of my head, I didn't need for it to be heard anymore.  My dear friend, Lou, has a blog and I hope she'll forgive me for leading traffic her way, but she wrote this awesome post the other day.  First let me say, she's some sort of English Lit graduate so try not to be intimidated by her freaking amazing writing skills.  Second, let me say, that I adore her.  And this post has been sticking in my mind as I've been getting frustrated. 
I think she has a really good idea goin' on there about Moses.  However, I want my Moses to teach me how to handle things I can't control- like how he handled the migration of a few thousand people without really being able to control them.  I mean, they ended up wandering around for a bit and yet Moses seemed to handle things fairly well.  I can only imagine the frustration he must have felt with having answers and good ideas and trying to help and they refused to listen. 
I keep mentioning controlling things.  I don't THINK I'm a control freak.  Maybe that's not the right word to choose.  Accept?  Being able to accept things as they are?  I'm not sure.  However, I've come to some understanding about Moses.  He wasn't able to do anything without the help and guidance of his Heavenly Father, who just happens to be the same Heavenly Father I have.  So as I'm wrapping this up, I guess Moses and Lou have both taught me how to handle things- ask my Heavenly Father.
Its my spring break at school. *sigh*  Its a good time to stop and take a step back and ask.

My weekend in pictures

My soccer girls and I packed up the car for a fun-filled weekend of music and athletes.  We left Thursday night after work and drove to Santa Maria.

The band we saw is called Great Big Sea.  They're from Newfoundland and quite popular in Canada. I got hooked when I saw them in Seattle a couple summers ago.  Their music is more folk/pub/story telling and you either like it or don't.  They put on a fun evening every time.

This is as close as I got to the ocean while traveling up north to San Jose.  This is a very stormy Pismo Beach at 80 mph (I wasn't driving when I took the picture- fyi.)

LOL the storminess followed us to San Jose for the game!  It was the season opener for our team so we thought- hey- GBS concert and soccer all in the same weekend?  Why not?!  The rains were relentless but we won!  By the time we got back to the hotel, I was soaked to the bone.  We had clothes drying everywhere!

And finally our drive home.  We thought we could just drive the two hours north to I-80 and head home.  About 1/2 hour before our split, we found out I-80 was closed due to blizzard conditions and zero visability.  Nice.  After waiting at a Target for an hour, we decided our best option was to drive BACK down south to Bakersfield and try to get home.  So we drove the 2 1/2 hours back down to San Jose and then another 4 hours back to Bakersfield.  (keeping track?  that's 9 extra hours.)  We came across Bakersfield to Barstow and ran into this lovely weather.  It rained and snowed and we finally made it to Vegas about 9 that night.  We ended up having to take another day off work and driving home Monday.  We found out from the Vegas news, that I-80 had finally opened that morning about 6:30 with four feet of snow.  They had been rescuing people all night and there was flash flooding up and down California haha! The reasons we went were so well worth it so the drive home just made it more memorable haha

P.S.... all pictures were taken on my phone.  I'm so impressed with it! 

My house is so cute, dang it!

Ever since I moved into my home 6 years ago, I've wanted to put draperies up in my kitchen and living room. The sliding doors to the patio had those awful vertical blinds on them, and while they have provided some privacy from the neighbor's incredibly high deck, they are ugly. I finally set my mind to it that this very month I was going to find something suitable. My living room has horizontal blinds and I don't mind them that much. The window is just drafty. So anytime you sit on the couch, you get cold. So after much searching (IKEA, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Target, Kmart, Shopko, Pier One... you get the picture) I am actually embarassed to say where I found something I liked! hahaha I could find bold. I could find the wrong green. I could find sheer or shower curtains that weren't long enough. I think part of the problem was that I didn't know exactly what I was looking for until I stumbled upon it. So here is the result of my weekends of searching. I quite like it!

Obviously the sliding doors- very neutral yet a perfect solution to merge the two separate greens in each room.

And the living room. You can't see it, but there is a very small pattern on these panels. It has brown, green, some gold/amber colors and some red in it. They're also a cross between corduroy and chenile so they add some texture at the same time. Every time I come downstairs, I think, WOW! Love the difference!

Wrapping up the 30 Day Challenge

Well- here it is! The final two days of the blogging challenge. Maybe you enjoyed it, maybe not. Either way, I no longer feel guilty for not blogging my entry every day lol Here they are:

• Something that irritates me is answering the same question over and over again. This is a problem due to the fact that I teach jr high. I have to say the same thing 57 times before everyone gets it and knows what's going on. I'm not even lying to you that I will barely get the sentence out of my mouth before someone has said "Robs, do we need....?" and some other kid will look at them and say "She just said that!" At which point, I want to hug that kid.
• My favorite season is summer. Not just because I don't work daily, but just because I love the sun and the heat and the water and the lazy feel of evening. I love that its light so much. I love taking long summer drives with the windows down and some Matt White on the radio with a good beverage. I could do that for hours on end.

So there you have it. 30 things you may or may not have known about me. Now I can get back to "regular" blogging, whatever that looks like haha

Sports I like to watch or play- Day 28

In no particular order, baseball, soccer and tennis. I love to watch live baseball but will settle for it on tv. Soccer- live is best and I don't play it. Never have and probably never will. That's why its so great that Maryanne and Rachael and our brothers that sit behind us at the games know all there is to know about it. And finally tennis... *sigh* that is my favorite sport of all time. Watching it live or on tv, playing it... everything about it. Love it.

Childhood memory tied in with my favorite dessert

My favorite childhood memory is my merry go round double layer chocolate chocolate birthday cake. That also happens to be my favorite dessert. Done and Done!