Monthly Archives: January 2015

Mike Singletary is Going to California

I’ve been going through everything in the house trying to decide what to take to California. We haven’t even really unpacked in this house so it’s been fun going through the boxes, finding things I didn’t remember. 

mike

One thing I decided is that Mike Singletary is going to California with us. There were only 1000 of these made after he retired from the Bears and I was so happy to get one.  I love him a lot and since we’ve been here, he’s been in a spare bedroom, leaning against the wall, with the other artwork. I told David that we would have to decorate the guest room in orange and blue so Mike would fit in. 

Then the other day, I was shopping at Hobby Lobby and I saw these:

lamps

And I fell in love. By the time I got home, I was obsessed. I must have them. I must now bring fuchsia into the guest room so that I can have a place for these amazingly fantabluous lamps that I cannot, will not, live without. 

So they will hang out in the guest room with Mike. 🙂

Going through another box I came across a folder of things I want to have framed. In it I found this:

elton

Is he not PERFECT?!?! I will have him framed and Elton, too, will hang out in the guest room with Mike. I love the way this room is coming together in my mind. I’ll be sure to do an update blog when I’ve got it together in real life. 🙂

Book Review: Beside Manners

Bedside Manners (Breakup Doctor #2)Bedside Manners by Phoebe Fox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book just like I loved the first book in the Breakup Doctor series.

This book is a continuation of Brook Ogden’s life and growing her new Breakup Doctor practice. Brook really grew in this book along with her practice and it was fun to watch. I loved her new group idea and the characters that were in the group, seeing them solve their problems. Watching the relationship between her best friend, Sasha and her brother, Stu was good, too.

Brook has some of her own breakup issues in this book and I hope the third book will bring her back to Ben who seemed to be the perfect guy for her.

Great book. Great series. Two thumbs up! 🙂

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Book Review: With Vics You Get Eggroll

With Vics You Get Eggroll (Mad for Mod #3)With Vics You Get Eggroll by Diane Vallere
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second book in this series that I’ve read and I loved it.

I love design and the fact that Madison Night is an interior designer that specializes in mid century modern design just makes this series one I really enjoy. I think it’s so cute that she dresses like Doris Day and I love the descriptions of her outfits.

This time, there is a killer on the loose in Lakewood and Madison wants to help Tex, someone she has somewhat of a relationship with as he is the police lieutenant who is implicated in the case. There is also another love interest for Madison, Hudson, who is her handy man and helps her with construction jobs that take more that she can handle alone. She seems very undecided between the two in this book and I hope she will choose the right one.

This story twists and turns and I was kept guessing until the end. I highly recommend this book, this series. 🙂

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Book Review: Walking on Trampolines

Walking on TrampolinesWalking on Trampolines by Frances Whiting
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh how I loved this book! Easily the best book I’ve read this year. I was sucked in by the story immediately and I didn’t want it to end.

The book begins with Tallulah (Lulu) waking up after sleeping with her high school boy friend on his wedding night to her high school best friend.

The couple gets over it but Lulu cannot. The story weaves its way through high school where she finds them together to her working for her dad at his plumbing service. She is unable to get past the fact that Josh and Annabelle did that to her. Eventually, her dad sees that she should do more with her life and basically kicks her out.

Through one of her good friends she lands a job with a radio personality as his personal assistant. He has four ex-wives, a bunch of kids, a dog named Barney and a larger than life personality. They become very close over the years and when he dies, he leaves Barney in her care. He buys them a house on Willow Island where she goes to try and get herself together, eventually turning it into a B&B, her boss friend’s post humus suggestion.

The story is wonderful, the characters are colorful. I sincerely loved this book so much and highly recommend it!

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Book Review: Face to Face with Jesus

Face to Face with Jesus: A Former Muslim's Extraordinary Journey to Heaven and Encounter with the God of LoveFace to Face with Jesus: A Former Muslim’s Extraordinary Journey to Heaven and Encounter with the God of Love by Samaa Habib
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a wonderful testimony of the love of Jesus. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down.

As a small child and through her whole life,, Samaa wanted a relationship with God. But even though she practiced Islam with her family, she never found a connection. War tore through her country and in an effort to be able to protect herself from gangsters on the street, she started taking Taekwondo classes. The classes were taught by a Christian and along with martial arts training,Samaa learned about Jesus and Christianity.

Samaa began attending church and eventually was baptized as a Christian. One day, unknown to the church, four bombs were set to go off inside the building and Samaa was standing right in front of the second bomb that exploded. She died and went to heaven where she came face to face with Jesus. As someone who had evengelized several of her family members and friends already, Samaa was conflicted when Jesus asked her if she wanted to stay with Him or go back. She though of all the good she could do for Him if she went back and that was her choice.

The book isloaded with testimonies of all kinds from God’s love and faithfulness to His healing and provision. This would be an amazing book written by anyone but the fact that it is written by a former Muslim gives it even more impact.

I hightly recommend this book if you are looking for a true story of the love of God. I believe it will strenthen your own faith to read it.

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Wheels on His Feet

Another new year and in a month or two, we’ll be in another new location. “But didn’t you just move to Tulsa?” My friends ask. “Yes, but David has wheels on his feet,” I reply. 

And it’s true. We move more than anyone I know. Mostly I’m okay with it. Each new spot is someplace to explore. New restaurants, new things to do. Sometimes I’m lucky enough and there’s a Kroger to shop in. 

sanjose

This time we’re moving to San Jose, CA. California is a state I’ve visited but never in a million years thought I’d live in. 

We went to San Francisco for our 20th wedding anniversary to watch Metallica in concert with the San Francisco Symphony. We took the boys out of school and it was an awesome trip. I’ve always wanted to go back to San Francisco with David alone and stay at the Fairmont Hotel and do adult things. Like shop and eat at good restaurants. 

Shortly after that trip, I took Geoff out to Malibu to attend a baseball camp at Pepperdine University. We stayed in a surfer motel and I really loved it there. I noticed that the Pacific Ocean looks very different from the Atlantic Ocean and we ate breakfast every morning outside on a deck over the water. I could have been happy living there.

As it turns out, David’s new project is in the San Jose area and I’m pretty sure I will like it there, too. When he told me we were going to be going there, I started looking at the different areas to see where I thought I’d feel more comfortable living. I told him I’d move if he let me live in a high rise and got me a bike. He was okay with that.

So after looking  around on Google, I decided that the downtown area of San Jose is where I want to be. They have, what looks like, a thriving downtown organization. There are places to eat, shop and be entertained. On Google Earth I have walked to the library from each of the places we’re considering living. The library is super important to me and it looks like they have a nice one.

My friends who are aware of my raw veganism have suggested that it will probably be easier to live as a raw vegan in California than in Oklahoma. I think I’d agree with that even though I have no direct knowledge yet. I’m really looking forward to checking out my new home and seeing what all it has to offer. The fact that it’s neither as cold or hot as Oklahoma is appealing, too. 

When David took this job, he was to be based out of our home here in Tulsa. And I haven’t seen him since. He’s always gone so the main attraction of the move is to finally be able to live, like really live, with my husband. I miss him terribly.

The hard part will be having to give up my frequent visits with the Glambaby. I’ve been hanging out with her for twice a week for a while now. I know it helps Nikki out but my time with her is the high point of my weeks. She’s so much fun, so inquisitive, so smart. I love having a running conversation with her. And run it does. She doesn’t slow down too much. I love hearing her pick up new vocabulary and ideas. I love sharing songs and toys with her that I loved when I was a kid. Facetime just isn’t going to come close to what we have now. But, at least we’ll have facetime. I keep thinking how awesome it would have been for my mom to have facetime, or even email, when the boys were small and we were living all over the world. 

glambaby

Since we don’t plan to sell our house straight away, I figured i’ll be back frequently to have my hair done and get my glambaby fix. I also hope they’ll come visit us so we can show her California. 

I think living in the Pacific time zone is going to be difficult. I’ve never done that before and I watch David when he’s there and it seems like he puts in more hours at work just so he can be awake when the East and Central time zone people are awake. We are early to bed kind of folks. I wonder if we’ll want to go to sleep at 7 p.m. every night since it will be 9 p.m. central time?

Thanks to twitter and facebook I have friends that live in the Bay Area so I will already know people when I get there. Also, my aunt Nani lives north of Sacramento. I’m looking forward to hanging out with her at least once a month. We haven’t seen her since we went to the Metallica concert. Her daughter, my cousin, Maile, lives in NV but not too far away so I’m looking forward to seeing her again, too.

It will be different and I’m not looking forward to all aspects of the move but over the years, because he has wheels on his feet, I’ve definitely learned to bloom where I’m planted. I think my blog will become more exciting as I explore and learn about my new location, too, so you have that to look forward to. 🙂 

Play Doh Isn’t As Tasty As It Looks

We have recently gotten Play Doh for the Glambaby. I loved Play Doh when I was a kid and, at almost three years old, I felt it was time to share that love with her.

We started out with just four cans of it: pink, purple, green and blue. I like those colors and so does she. I was worried about them getting mixed up so we would play with them one color at a time at first. 

play-doh-snake

We rolled them into snakes and bracelets, rings and cats. Her favorite thing to make with it is a birthday present. And if she’s being really fancy she’ll add a bow on the top of it. Then we hand it back and forth and open it, talking about what the birthday present is and commenting about how lovely it is. 

She also turned it into a birthday cake one time. It was entirely her idea to use the crayons as candles and I got a laugh out of that, thinking how clever she is.

play-doh-cake

I’ve loved how having only the PlayDoh stimulated her imagination. But once we started playing with it, she found some videos on YouTube where they have other Play Doh accessories they use to make dresses for Disney Princesses. So I started looking at other things we could get to go along with the Play Doh we already had. 

For Christmas, we ended up getting two different Sofia the First sets and one big set of cut out tools and shapes, like cookie cutters. 

IMG_0553

With the Sofia sets, we also got the much desired Sparkle Play Doh! Sparkle Play Doh is available in a six color set for the price of $3.50 but it was completely sold out before Christmas. I still could have gotten that same $3.50 set for $40 if I had wanted to pay that to the guy who was selling it on eBay. But I decided we’d take what we got with the Sofia sets and hope that the other set was available by her birthday in February. It’s very nice and sparkly and we weren’t disappointed with the ones we got. 

glitter

The day after Christmas we were playing. It’s amazing to me how long this busy little girl will sit and play with the Play Doh. The Sofia sets are nice. One makes jewels and one makes treats. We’ve begun opening more than one color at a time and we haven’t had too much mixing of the colors. 

The glambaby has never been one to put things in her mouth that don’t belong there. Several months ago, we were coloring and she randomly stuck the orange crayon in her mouth. It was so weird because we really never had to watch out for that sort of thing with her. She was surprised that it didn’t taste good but something about it must have looked good to her for her to decide she wanted to taste it. I teased her about eating the orange crayon and we laughed about it. She hasn’t tried to eat another crayon since. 

Imagine my surprise when she decided to taste the blue Play Doh. The look on her face was priceless. Clearly, it wasn’t as tasty as she thought it was going to be and we had to brush her teeth to get the look off of her face. 

IMG_0526

The first time we baked cookies, I felt sure she would eat the dough. But we were almost completely finished rolling and cutting out cookies before she finally decided she should sample the dough. She liked it and I think it’s possible she ended up eating more of the unbaked dough than actual cookies. 

I have to believe that the Play Doh reminds her of cookie dough. Especially since we now have what look like cookie cutters to use with the Play Doh. Sadly, Play Doh will never taste as good as cookie dough no matter how brilliant and tasty looking its colors are. 

Playing with the glambaby lets me be a kid again and I love introducing her to toys and songs from my past. I can’t wait until she’s big enough for a pogo stick. I think that would be a lot of fun and I never had one when I was a kid. I figure by the time she’s heavy enough to work a pogo stick, I’ll be about 60. 😉

Book Review: Since You’ve Been Gone

Since You've Been GoneSince You’ve Been Gone by Mary Jennifer Payne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a good book that I couldn’t put down.

Edie and her mom are on the run again, this time to London. They’ve be running much of her life to get away from her abusive dad. Shortly after arriving in London, Edie’s mom goes missing. She had only just started in a new school and tries to carry on with her life until it seems the authorities are after her.

She and her friend Jermaine decide to try and find her mom. They find friendship and eventually come to learn what happened to her mom.

The story sucked me in right away and was fast paced but could’ve been a little long. Still, I liked it! 🙂

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