Week 2 of my new series and I am already cutting corners. I am burned out from the holidays. Decorations were put away faster than you can say MLK day. Yeah my kid are already asking when their next day off is.  I have never looked more forward to the kids going back then on day 16 of winter break, followed closely by day 78 of summer vacation.

Window shopping. I inquired about the sign, a local designer will ship one directly to my house, seen at Koto in Fashion Island.

10:30 am:  I’m having Vegas flashbacks sitting in this dark booth, listening to guys scream at the TV as the watch the woman across the aisle wash down her second martini, straight up. My stomach clenches.  As promised I let the little one cash her student of the month award, a free stack of bone shaped pancakes from her favorite LazyDogCafe.

I wake up notice a HUGE spike in traffic to the blog, seems that a whole lotta people are Googling how-to-make-a-Flipagram-slideshow …. which was taking them to a post I had talked about last summer. I felt so bad all those poor souls landing on that old post so I start working on a new Flipagram post I eventually launch sometime in between work and play in Week 3.  By then I kinda got shy about posting my finished project because everyone and their cousin was doing it. Which seriously should never sway me. The finished video is in the side bar over there somewhere  —- > you can watch it here too.

We had a birthday in the office this week, another strong female Capricorn in my life. Have yet to meet one that wasn’t brilliant, driven, goal oriented and beautiful inside and out. If you meet one you really should do yourself a favor and friends and partner up.

I broke out the Mini Instax among other cameras, the entire office wore funny glasses for the day, not your typical Thursday. Celebratory lunch was followed by dinner at the home of birthday girl’s parents. To say the view was breathtaking is an understatement as you can see.

Just take it all in. Hello big blue Pacific. You can view the Polaroid version on Flickr.

 

They had groovy pets too…

I shared a few photos in this months 10 on 10 series from this night. I had a great time getting out my head space for awhile an just learning to relax and enjoy the little things.

I’m shooting and editing, shooting and editing trying to finish up this months 10 on 10. The word is “RESTARTING” and the post is here. Chicken Pot Pie recipe coming in Week 5 when I make it twice in one month.

 

As goes your house, so goes your life

This weekend my sons Lacrosse team had the mots brilliant idea, they had everyone donate gently used items that they would inturn give to a company who sorted and sold and gave a portion of the proceeds back directly to our program. What a WIN WIN for me, I get the opportunity to dump some clutter and we directly benefit with a tax write off and much need fundraising for the team. We recently sold an investment property which trust me on this one never yielded a dime. It was a money pit. It was a good idea in theory (bought in 2005) but soon after the housing bust we knew the writing was on the wall. It was only a few short years later that we began to see that this nest egg was turning into a burden. Over the summer my husband wanted to remove about half of the contents. The idea of bringing home a Uhaul full of stuff that we already owned in spades was causing me to break out in hives. I agreed that it could stay boxed and live in the garage, some thought leaked back into our home. The extra TV is parked right under the chandelier where a dining room table was designed to live. So anyway this was my BIG weekend. I was in a tear, I ran around in a manic state screaming at everyone, “if I see your stuff laying on the floor it’s mine, do you hear me? MINE!” I am so tired of living in a pig sty, this AL HAS TO GO! ALL OF IT DO YOU HEAR ME!?!? And room to room I went. Of course I had been bagging stuff up ever since I had the date on my calendar but I started to panic thinking I wasn’t going to arrive at that place where it was all gone. I really wanted to experience the lightness of not having the stuff at my feet just this one time. I don’t’ even know what that feels like. I divert my attention away from the feeling by ducking into a corner of the house with my distraction of choice, Instagram.

The “last call” at 3:00 was quickly approaching I yelled at my husband that there was time enough for one more load. I threw a bunch of stuff in the back of his car but he was later  refused. I waited too long. Angrily he drove back, unpacked and deposited the unwanted items back into our home. Defeated. I resigned that day to keep the momentum going so that there would be brighter days in the future.

I just read a quote that struck a chord with me on Outside voice (I met Pam at ALT Summit she is my sister from another mother check this photo of us from that party.) In her post about surviving a home renovation she quotes her dad “As goes your house, so goes your life.” That couldn’t be more true for this family that has to live with my clutter and my issues surrounding that clutter.

I took a long walk outside to clear my head instead I became concerned with what I was seeing. Several of our trees were infested or suffering from some sort of disease. Ugh. ‘One-more-thing’ is what I hear going through my head. How can I deal with this AND everything else. Do I take photos and Google it, do I enlist professional arborists, DO I just spray with neem oil and call it a day? I opt for photos and neem oil. I strip the leaves. I poke around on the web (its a mystery to me how people lived without the internet) its a Red Grass Palm and it is infected, according to Google with… mealy bugs. I still haven’t figured out what happened to that Liquid Amber with the big rotting spot (pictured left). We will save that problem for another weekend.

And so it goes.