Canvas Night

I recently blogged about my mom/daughter night at The Canvas on Broadway on the CoMO collective blog. I will definitely be bringing Jenna to one of the family paints on the weekend. Check out my post at thecomocollective.com.

True Pinterest Party

I was so excited recently to take part in my first ever Pinterest party. Headed up by one of the craftiest girls I know, my friend and work buddy Allie, all of us gals from the office decided to take our interest in Pinterest to the next level and actually create something that we've pinned. 

For those of you living in a cave, Pinterest is the shiny new social media channel where you create pin boards of all the things you want need or desire. Once you're in, it will suck your evenings or weekends away from family and friends while you accumulate many boards full of the beautiful life you wish you had. But all those aspirations that we've been pinning are still sitting on our boards inside of our iPad and laptops. 

Allie had already been to two Pinterest parties and I myself had been jealously living a Pinterest party girl life vicariously through my Facebook newsfeed, watching other people participate as they created their own Pinterest inspired projects straight taken straight from their Pinboards and into reality. 

Allie being the seasoned veteran, became our party planner. She had already organized two for friends and family so after hearing of her exploits we volunteered her for our own soiree. She decided we would all agree on one easy project to make together while purchasing our own materials so as to put a personal spin on each of our creations. 

Our newest gal Korrie (a self proclaimed Pinterest addict who absentmindedly looks for the "pin it" button when perusing through an actual magazine before realizing that it's made of paper and not pixels) decided we needed our own True Media Pinterest party pin board to pin all of our party ideas onto. We all surfed the boards at leisure and when we found something we thought would be cute and easy and fun for all of us to make together we would pin it on the board. Then we scanned all the ideas pinned to decide what we wanted to make that night. At our Pinterest party meeting at work (note to our bosses, file this under team building) we decided together which  project made the cut. 

This is the one that we decided on. We thought it pretty decorative and easy enough for any skill level. It was really fun to listen to how each person was going to make the same Pinterest  project but put their own personal inspiration and interpretation to it. 

We also decided to have the same kind of fun with all the yummy recipes that we see on the Pinterest food boards. Each person was tasked with bringing a Pinterest- inspired recipe.

We had everything from homemade Pinterest-inspired desserts like this one to sangria which i recommend only in moderation especially if there are glue guns laying around.  I chose to make Mediterranean anti pasta skewers.

One Friday after work we all brought our yummy food and our creativity together to make some pins a reality.  I have to say the crafting was fun but the best part was definitely the food. So even if you're not a crafter you could have a Pinterest party of your own and just do the food. It's definitely worth it.

Funny how each of us took the same inspired piece and created our own individualized work. No one's was at all anything like the other person's and everyone had a story behind why they decided to use a certain piece of fabric or her first initial instead of her last initial. It was so much fun and at the end of the evening, our bellies full of all of our treats, we lined up our finished products.

Check this great picture. That's my "L" in the middle. 

I think I'll be ready for something a little more intermediate level next time but I still don't think I can aspire to the greatness that I see on Pinterest everyday.Some of that stuff is just amazing - I don't know how people do it.

Spring break

Yes, I realize my last post was about resolutions...it's been a while. I know. Don't judge. It's not that I don't have anything to say, I just have very little time to put the words out there. So this short sweet post is an attempt at least.
Anyway this post is about spring break. Now that I am back to work full time - going on my second year back now - I look back on all the school breaks that I got to spend with the kids when they were young. It makes for a melancholy trip back in time because I remember how excited we ALL were for that break to get to spend time together. Today was the first day of spring break, and I got up this morning and left everyone for work. So it's still kinda a break for me - I only have to worry about getting myself up and ready and out the door While I had my usual work day of meetings and calls my kids stayed home with my husband. Even though on one level I wished I could still be the one off with them on another level I was glad that he got to have this day with them. Especially after I got sent this picture of catfish man.

 
Then this one of bluegill girl..

See, dad took them fishing in the backyard, probably not what mom would have done. As I showed off my kids catches at work, one of my coworkers asked me if I missed being with them when they aren't in school. Well, yeah, I do, but I got a to spend lots of spring breaks and days off with the kids when I was home with them full time. I'm thankful for that. Today I was thankful that my husband has an ungodly amount of vacation days compared to me. And I'm thankful he got to do spring break his way with the kids today.

Goals for 2012

I don’t do resolutions. The word itself has a certain connotation of failure attached. Resolutions are meant to be broken.

However, the word goal on the other hand has a different vibe. Reaching goals seems to have more accountability, more of something to reach for.

2011 has been a transition year for me, a year of setbacks as well as a year of challenges for me to overcome. It’s been a year of change for me in a lot of ways and because of this I’ve decided to write down some goals that I think will help center me for the next year and work on some things that I’d like to see happen in my life. I hope to come back to this set of goals throughout the year and blog about my progress in instituting these goals into my everyday life.

1.      Become more spiritually active. This includes reading more about spirituality, finding things at my church to be involved in, but also spending more time specifically on charity and grace in my life. Giving not to receive, and forgiving even when not asked to. Learning to let go of imperfections and not dwell on the little things that go wrong.

2.      Find and cultivate more creativity in my life, including picking up some new interests and renewing myself in long lost ones. The new ones include this blog, to which I hope to add more direction and

photos - pinterest.com

cultivation, as well as getting involved more in the arts. The long lost ones include getting back into creative things that interest me, including theatre and photography. If anyone cares to join me on any of these let me know. I'm happiest with a creative outlet.

3.      Spend some time being fearless; not being afraid of the outcome of my actions and owning up to them when they don’t turn out to end as planned. I want to learn how to be more confident in myself. This one is an ongoing challenge for me.

I'd change this to "You have opinions?"

4.      Continue to be outspoken and not afraid of my own convictions, while being more respectful of other people and their opinions as well. Realizing that you don’t always have to agree to get along. There are a lot of voices in the world that deserve to be heard, and having an opinion is OK. It’s good to stand up for something. 

5.      Be more kind. To everyone. Every day. People I don’t know as well as those I do know. At Christmas mass our priest said in the homily “Christmas is about giving to all. It’s easy to give a gift to someone you love, but when was the last time you gave a gift to someone you didn’t like?”

6.      Actually make a date with a list of people and invite them to dinner or lunch in order to reach out to people I care about that I’d like to be friends with or learn from. Surround myself with people I want to be more like and that I admire.

7.      Travel more, experience new things in life and learn from them to broaden my horizons and understanding of the world. I want to see some new perspectives that are different from my own.

8.      Make goals and keep them to organize my time in order to live the life I want to lead. This includes finishing projects and staying more organized. I've got a lot of these around my house.

9.      Be more patient and understanding while still believing that having high standards of expectation is a good thing. This includes being more patient with my kids and loving my family unconditionally.

10.   Physically take more care of myself and not putting "me" last on the list. Committing to a healthy lifestyle while realizing that Life is a journey not a destination (my favorite overused cliche). I want to be mindful that God gave me one life and one body to take care of every time I do something with it or put something in it. This also includes letting myself get pampered and let off a little stress relief when I need it. Stress really does me in easily, even little things, so I want to make sure I take care not to let it get me down. My family will really appreciate this one.

So that's it. I need to figure out a shorthand version of my 10 goals so that I can tape it to my bathroom mirror or something. I want to be mindful of them every day. I'd love it if you'd share your goals for this next year, we can try to keep each other on track.

Taste of Home Cooking School, Mom and me

I had a great time with my mom last night at the Taste of Home cooking school. Read all about it here, I did a blog post for the CoMO collective. It was a super lot of fun to hang with my mom, and this was a great Mother/Daughter event. She even won a t-shirt and dinner and a free night's hotel at the casino. Yeah, she said she's giving that to me. But she's keeping the shirt.

Mom and me in the photo booth, courtesy Red Light Photo Booth