Merry Christmas 2016!

I jumped into action and planned a great Christmas season full of love, friends, and family.  I'll tell the story with photos.....

Stacy, Lesley, Julie, Me

I started by having my girlfriends over for our traditional holiday lunch.  This year, they decided to pick up lunch and come over to my house.  We had lovely asian salads/rice bowls and loving and supportive conversations.  These ladies are like sisters to me.  Stacy gave us all twinner scarves, Lesley gave us all twinner bracelets, and Julie gave us all a great book to read.

We also decided to make some custom blend essential oils.  This is something we did in July and decided to do more.  Stacy has the best selection of scents we can choose from.  We had a lovely time!

Christmas Eve, I made plans to pick up Jennie at her Dad's house and spend the day together.  We were really lucky and were able to get appointments at the Kura Door.  We had a Japanese Ofuro bath and massages with a coconut oil drench.  We couldn't believe how good we felt after and how soft our skin was.  After the spa, we went to lunch at Bambara and then went to get Asian pedicures.  How spoiled we are!!

We came back to my place to visit and rest.  We ended up watching Elf on TV while our toes set.  We both love that movie and giggled through the whole thing.

For a new tradition, we decided to go out for a fancy Christmas Eve dinner and had reservations at Flemings.  Philip and Tiffany joined us which was great fun.  I have NEVER seen Flemings that crowded and they were totally off their game.  Made it difficult to enjoy as our meal got delayed and it took 3 hours to eat!  We were thankful when we were done but tired so I took Jennie home.  Luckily, I got back home right as the snow started coming down hard.

It continued to snow the entire day on Christmas.  I was very glad I didn't have to go out in it.  Philip and I decided to celebrate the morning with a waffle breakfast and stockings.  Philip and Tiffany made me a great stocking and gave me an electric wine opener.  I've wanted one of those for years!

Traditional stocking pos

They gave me some warm and cozy owl socks.  I love them so!

How Milennials celebrate Christmas morning.  Haha

Christmas afternoon, Dad and Cindy came over bringing a fantastic dinner.  I cooked a ham and we had funeral potatoes, jello salad, quinoa salad, rolls, pineapple, and a pie although we were all too full for the pie!

After dinner, Philip and Tiffany headed up to Tiffany's family party.  Dad, Cindy and I visited before they were brave enough to drive home.

As an added bonus, I took some time with Jennie, Dad, and Cindy for a lunch on Wednesday.  We went up to Layton to Roosters.  I just love their food.  It was great to catch up all together.

I wondered how this year would go with the change to my living situation and all that has happened over the year but it was very nice and I had a wonderful celebration that was stress free and relaxing.  For the first time in many years, I did not take vacation time during the holidays so I worked.  Threw me a little off my game but it was okay.

I hope you all had a great Christmas celebration as well.  Love you.

Back in the dating saddle again

I am trying out some new dating applications.  I figured the internet site is probably old fashion so I wanted something newer.  My friend told me about one application to try and sure enough I did.  It is sort of like I hear Tinder is where you get fed images of people and pick  yes or no.  You can also read what people are about and some basic information.  Frankly, my first 24 hours on there were crazy as I had probably 25 guys messaging me.  Guess my picture was a good one!!

What I learned pretty quickly is there are many fake profiles of people trying to catfish people.  Many people live somewhere demographically undesirable (they live far away). Another handful are undesirable age (23...really??)  But I did meet one guy that was in my age range and lived in the near area.  He had great conversation and seemed very real and genuine so I agreed to meet him for dinner. Can you believe he suggested one of my favorite places??  A great start in my book.

The date was very interesting.  He isn't the most handsome man but was not unattractive.  And I am very interested in what is on the inside than the outside.  We had a great meal although he eats like a bird (like 1/2 of a fajita).  He keeps talking about diets and healthy eating.  He tells me he has lost lots of weight which makes me feel a little more comfortable because the holidays have not been kind to my waistline.

He starts telling me about his OCD things.  Like someone hung up his shirts facing left which was clearly not right so he had to take them all down and rewash them because they were ruined.  He doesn't use public pens (I don't usually either due to germs), and he is particular how things are placed and used in his kitchen.  Okkkkaaaayyyyyyy.....

So then he tells me he collects bears.  Like stuffed bears.  He shows me pictures and there are probably over 100.  He tells me each has its own personality.  He was super proud of his new pink bear that when you push her tummy, she speaks!!  How precious is that.  He shows me another picture of some bears on his couch.  He proceeds to tell me that there are several that like to watch football with him.  He dresses them in jerseys and they watch the game on the couch.  I see in the picture that there is a dinosaur on their heads.  Brace yourself...he collects stegosauruses too.  He proceeds to tell me that the stegosauruses like to sit on the bears heads and he is really lucky the bears tolerate it because he simply can't stop that from happening.  You can image how weirded out I was.  But I was totally polite and gave confirmation statements.  But I was glad when it was time to go.

Luckily he told me he is deathly allergic to dogs and cats.  What a shame.  So I decided that was my out.  I went on and on about my cats and sharing pictures.  The next day, I sent him more.  I told him I was so sorry he was so allergic because he is a great guy but I can't imagine my life without my cats.  It was an easy out without hurting his feelings.  He was a great conversationalist and funny but his quirks don't quite work for me.

And now I have a fantastic dating story to share.  I so wish I was exaggerating or making this up but I swear on  my cat's life, it is the truth.  Poor guy.  He said one date told him he wasn't doing a very good job being dateable.  Very tactful.  I like it and might need to pull that out sometime in the future.

I must be a communicator

I wanted to share a little opportunity I've been given at work.  I can't go into tons of detail but here is what I can share.  I had an opportunity to join a new disability group at work.  It is a company sponsored program to promote and raise awareness of disabled people and sharing support we've received or need.

They reached out to me in November and asked if I would be interested in being the chairman of the communications efforts for the Utah division! It is a volunteer thing and I need to fit it into my regular daily schedule but I was thrilled to be given the opportunity.  It feels like a stretch for me but I know I have the skills to do a great job.  I am working on putting together a communication launch plan and developing programs that fit in with the national team efforts but appropriate for our location.

I think it is really cool to be able to take on a leadership role since it is something I've got in my back pocket of work skills even though my current role doesn't really challenge that avenue of me.  I look forward to this challenge.  I am already enjoying meeting other employees that are touched by disability.

Getting all Festive!

I set to work this week to decorate the condo and tree.  As you might know, I have lots and lots of decorations even though I did a pretty brutal job of sorting and tossing before the move.   I am pretty attached to some of my Christmas stuff so most of that made the cut.  I did buy a new artificial tree. The old one was really old...and really heavy.  So the new one is light weight and fluffy.  I also bought a slim prelit tree knowing the condo was small.

As I pondered what to do to decorate since the tree is smaller and I was inspired by some champagne colored glass balls that surfaced during the move.  These ornaments must be 25 years old and had not been used since then.  I decided to go easy on myself and decorate the tree with those and accent with the gold, silver, and crystal stuff I had.  I've got quite a few beaded snowflakes.  So that was perfect.  Earlier in the week I put the stuff on I had.  And then yesterday, I decided it needed just a bit more bling so I went to Joanns looking for some glittery sparkle.  The store looked like a bomb went off and it was significantly picked over.  But I was able to find enough to feel good about the additions.  I wanted a cream colored tree skirt but was shocked when I saw they were $70 at Hobby Lobby.  So I decided to take a blanket throw I had in my closet that had a sheep skin back.  I put it down upside down and tucked in the corners and voila!  I have the perfect skirt.  Sissy was thrilled with the blanket to snuggle into.  Luckily they keep the rest of the tree alone sans the tinsel fluff balls that look lots like a cat toy if I say so myself (I swear it is not).

So here is my tree, 2016.

I also got called upon yesterday to do my condo lobby decorating.  I was honestly a little worn out but I decided to go do what I could.  It was just me and another lady and was actually fairly easy.  We put garland down the stairs, hung big ornaments down the rail, hung a wreath, put out some glass trees on a table, a candle centerpiece on the coffee table, and a bowl of ornaments on a side table.  We decided to take the extra ribbon we had and tie bows on every unit's light fixture outside their unit. I'm glad it is done and I am also happy to be part of the community.  I fear this isn't going to be the first thing I get asked to be involved in.  Here is a photo of the stairs.  Looks pretty good!

I hope you are finding your holiday spirit and enjoying the start of the festive month!