Fully Alive…Ready to Smile

Aidan has recently discovered that the wall in the dining room is warm in the morning. The other day I noticed her place her hand on the wall and then put her cheek to it with her thumb in her mouth. This morning I saw her doing it again. Too cute. When the wall cools under her cheek, she moves over to a warmer spot.

There’s this email going around amongst my friends called “The Game is on”. Basically, you are supposed to forward the email to all your friends and they are supposed to email you ONE word that describes you…if there is any one word that would encompass how they view you. So I thought this was a fun one and I’m posting the results on the side of my blog.

I was excited as each one came into my inbox, and they’re all sweet (I guess no one is going to email you nasty traits that you have, LOL). A lot of them are naturally how my Sanguine personality operates (creative, cheerful, like to have fun, etc.), but one of them is the biggest compliment I’ve ever gotten. In fact it got me all choked up. My next door neighbor Tara labelled me “Friend”. Big deal, right, we all have friends. Yes, but all the other personality traits can be somewhat natural to a person, while this one means something on a deeper level. I don’t try to be Effervescent (that’s great that someone thinks I am, though!). You have a decision every day to be a friend or not. Everything you do and say to other people is important. If there’s any one thing that I want to be known and remembered as, it’s FRIEND.

I’m not writing this to bask in the glory of people telling me nice things about myself, rather I want to remember each day what’s really important. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own lives and how important they seem to ourselves, but unless we’re reaching out and touching other people’s lives, it’s all for nothing. It was WAY out of my comfort zone to introduce myself to my new neighbors, I don’t do that, but it got me one of the best friends I could have. Her and her husband Chris are two of the most generous, friendly people we know. There’s no greater gift in life than good friends. So to all you, my lovely friends, thank you for taking the time to invest in my life and put up with all my effervescence and craziness, I love you all so much. May God bless you each as richly as you bless me!

Since I don’t actually drink coffee, I thought I’d see what they have to say about that. Apparently it shows.

You Are a Frappacino

At your best, you are: fun loving, sweet, and modern At your worst, you are: childish and over indulgent You drink coffee when: you’re craving something sweet Your caffeine addiction level: low

Twice today I felt like such a snob. Not intentionally! I went for a walk today…and I must interject here, that walking is when I’m the biggest snob ever. I don’t make eye contact at the best of times, but when I’m walking I feel so vulnerable, so out there, and I don’t look at the people in cars driving by. It’s a defense mechanism. I always have people saying “I saw you walking the other day and you didn’t even wave”. That’s because I didn’t see them. I’m in my own little world. I have my music blasting and so even if you honk, I likely won’t notice. Back to today…I’m walking back onto the street that leads to our bay and there are 3 people walking with a dog. I see one of the people and I don’t recognize her so I just look the other way and keep going. So I’m home shortly after my walk, sitting on my deck, when the aforementioned 3 people and dog walk around the corner down the street from our house. That’s when I realize it’s neighbors from down the street. Oops. They must think I’m a jerk! Yikes.

Second incident, I’m driving to my parents to pick Ella up and I see a woman and a girl on bikes just before my parents driveway. I don’t really pay attention even though the woman makes eye contact with me and I drive by. Then I do a double take and realize I think I know who that is. Double whammy! Twice in one afternoon. I’m going to start making a point of looking at people who drive or walk past me. So if I’ve given you an unintentional brush off, sorry! I’m going to try better.

Okay I have a beef…ham…whatever. Why does EVERYONE serve ham at Easter around here? Why? All 3 family gatherings this year (and every year) are serving ham! We don’t even like ham!!! It’s so annoying! I’m not even supposed to eat pork with this cleanse and so I’m going to be bringing my own food to all 3 gatherings! That’s ridiculous. Okay, I feel better now that I got that off my chest. Maybe we’ll just have to start our own traditions…bunny anyone? : )

So as I’m always on the search to make my recipes healthier so I can eat them, I Googled “Whole Wheat Pancakes” this morning and I found THE ONE!!! Oh was it good. My family ate a lot. The great thing is, there’s no white flour, no sugar. Yay!!!

Whole Wheat Pancakes

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp honey
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup yogurt (vanilla’s good)
2 tbsp oil

Sift together dry ingredients. In separate bowl mix together honey, beaten egg, milk, yogurt and oil. Whisk quickly into dry ingredients. Preheat pan (if needed use small amt of butter). Makes 6-8 pancakes

I ate mine with yogurt on it (Astro Balkan Style yogurt - it has less sugar than most yogurts and was the recommended brand for a candida cleanse). The hubby and kiddos used syrup. It would be great with fresh fruit on it as well. Well Happy Easter Everyone!!

I dragged my tired butt out of bed this morning an hour earlier than I usually do…I don’t want to hear any snickering or mocking, so I’m not even going to say when. It may not be early for most people, but it’s very hard for me. So as I was saying, Louise called me this morning to make sure I was up and then I exercised! Oh yeah, baby, I was hurtin’ and sweatin’ and well you get the picture. I’ve been pretty much sedentary for the last 4 months and so this was an accomplishment. So my goal is to do this every morning (Monday - Friday) and starting next week I’m going to add in my daily walk (I’ll do it in the evening and spread the love a little over the day), hopefully it’ll warm up by then! Maybe my cleanse will actually do something on the outside then, too : )

So after much deliberation and 20 suggested titles from 14 different participants, I finally had to ask a lovely assistant to help me. It was such a hard choice that I actually tallied up the whole lot to see what it would cost to buy everyone a book…I wish…maybe just a little more than my budget could handle as books are not cheap…so back to the bowl and my lovely assistant…

Drumroll please…..

And the winner is…..

scroll down…..

Charmaign Derksen who requested “Child of the Mist” by Kathleen Morgan via an email to me.

And I was feeling in a particularly magnanimous, generous mood and didn’t want to leave my other lovely assistant out, (she was frantically saying please to stick her grubby little fist in the bowl) so the second drumroll please….

And the second winner is….

scroll down…..

Val who requested a parenting book of my choice that I love. And no, her sucking up had nothing to do with it, although it was nice…thank you to all the sweet suck-up comments I got…but in the end it was completely random.

And to all the rest of the contestants, BAFAB Week happens again the first week of July…you never know, I may just participate again…Maybe you should think of participating, too…

I saw this meme at Sognatrice of Bleeding Espresso a couple days ago and wanted to do it then, then today I saw it at Cherrye of My Bella Vita and both of them were not tagging anyone for it so I thought I’d just do it because it was kind of fun…So here it goes.

I’m eating a leftover hamburger (w/ mayo, on wheat bread) and sautéd zucchini as I type this. What did YOU eat last? Well, I haven’t yet had breakfast, so that would make the last think I ate my late supper last night. I shared a bacon double cheeseburger pizza from Boston Pizza with Janice and then we shared a chocolate mousse pie crammed with pieces of cheesecake, pecans and toffee all on a chocolate crust. I think it put me in a sugar coma…wasn’t supposed to eat that!

So, if you noticed my side emoticon there, I’m overwhelmed. Why? Because I’m trying to choose the winner of my BAFAB. I had 13 responses, thank you. All very good. So I will mull them over and hopefully sometime today I will have a winner for you. Stay tuned….

Okay everyone….here it goes…

I’m Pregnant again!!!! Yikes…
A little unplanned, but oh well, we knew we wanted

more……………………………………………………….

……………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………..

more info below…..
…………………………………..

…………………………………..

…………………………………..

………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………

.…………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………
HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Just Kidding….

Happy April Fools!!!!!!! oh now no one’s going to believe me when I really am pregnant…so much more fun!

So I’ve been tagged by Louise and I thought at first this meme would be a no brainer because I love music so much. In actuality, it’s really quite difficult because I don’t think I’d only want to listen to 7 songs for the rest of my life. But I’ll try.

So, if I could only listen to 7 songs for the rest of my life they would be:

1. Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden because it’s been “our” song since the day it came out and probably always will be! In fact, I dubbed it “our song” before “we” were even a “we” : )

2. Feelin’ Good by Michael Buble because it’s the one song that will always put me in a great mood. It’s the kind of song that makes you want to dance!

3. You Decide by Fireflight because you need a good song that you can jump up and down to and really belt out the song with a wooden spoon.

4. All Around Me by Flyleaf and When You are Near by Jeremy Camp tied for my worship song. They both make me want to close my eyes and just sway. Can they count as one? Well, it’s my blog and I say they are both #4!

5. So She Dances by Josh Groban This song represents grace and elegance to me. I’m playing it right now. It makes me want to just be that!

6. Stayin’ Alive by The Bee Gees or the dance version because it is so nostalgic for me…oh it brings me back to highschool…I’ll always break out dancing if it comes on

7. Home by Michael Buble because it’s very melancholic for me. Everyone needs a song that they can listen to when they are in a mood.

So those are my choices of the moment. Ask me again in a year and they’ll have changed. Music is evolving for me, as I change my music changes. I have eclectic taste and I appreciate pretty much any music. There are probably other songs that I could list if I could remember them. I listen to so much that it’s really hard for me to pinpoint favorites. I’m not tagging anyone, but if you want to do it, please leave me a comment so that I can come check it out.