July headed out for Maui

Yes, the above picture is of the 3 of us and the below picture is our organized drawer in the bathroom.

I am posting this because it is a symbol of Morgan and I ejecting Mark from our bathroom. With Marks departure we gained one extra drawer in the barroom :)

The good news is that Mark refurbished the down stairs bathroom. New sink and vanity so he could take all of his manly items down stairs. Even put a fan down there.

We purchased, new pink "smart store drawers" and put everything that was just laying around in the drawer into separate containers. I swear this shortens your bathroom time, which is good with a 6th grader she just wants me out of there.

I might do a Maui blog when we are there but for sure no Facebook. I just want to dis-connect. We are staying for 3 weeks a sort of mini early 50th birthday party. I have mixed feelings about turning 50 in February. I guess I am in shock that 50 years have gone by. I remember standing in our front yard when I was about 9 and doing the math in my head about what year would it be when I turned 50. 2015 seemed like forever. How can 2015 be 6 months away?

I have so much to be grateful for which makes it easier to say, Yes, I am turning 50.

I find it easier to say, "Yes I want to do that"
Have a house keeper and get my nails done "Yes I want to do that."
Sleep in late on the weekends vs. getting up early to get everything done so I can be an extra attentive mommy to Mark and Morgan "Yes I want to do that"

I am feeling that 50 is not so scary as I thought it was. Maybe even come February I will have a big 50 party and invite all my friends to a lunch/margaritas party.

Blessings and July Maui Love,
Gaelen

Ok this is an older picture that I found on the mini iPad. Morgan and I in Maui 9 years ago.

Which is exciting because in 28 more days we are heading out to Maui!

Time is rushing/slipping right by and I wanted to post something for June.

Here is something. All is well.

Love my new washer and dryer.
What we were using I purchased when I bought my house in  Long Beach and brought up here. I am considering them my 18 year old high school graduates in a way. Just let them go.

I am enjoying the summer time yet not really enjoying the bright morning light that wakes me up at 5:50.

It seems as though this year tax season isn't really over for me. We extended so many returns for our clients that the summer is mostly calling the clients and seeing if the clients have gotten what ever they didn't have to file the return on April 15th.

Looking forward to seeing both of my sisters next weekend on July 4th to take our 3 sisters photo which really needs to be done as we have skipped the last few years of doing it.

Morgan is oh so very very happy with her new cell phone with unlimited talk and text.
I am not so happy seeing her text, text, text.
Remembering telling her when you are in the 6th grade we will get you a cell phone and why oh why did we even say that?

Happy end of June and real start of summer.

March with 5 weeks Miracle

This is a story about listening to God.

After staying late at work I picked up Morgan at after school care. I asked  her where she wanted to go for dinner. She said California Pizza Kitchen which was actually no surprise. We ate our dinner and skipped dessert as she wanted to go home so I could make her a root-beer float.

Diving slowly thru the mall parking lot I noticed 2 girls walking.
Not paying attention to the traffic but staring at the 2 girls, God said to me that is Claire. I mentally thought NO Claire is in Santa Barbara with her mother. Yet my intuition was screaming THAT IS CLAIRE.
I said to Morgan that is Claire. Morgan said NO its not. I slowed down the car (didn't care there were cars behind me) and rolled down the window. I shouted Claire! She turned to the window and saw me. Morgan got out of the car and went to hug Claire. We were all so amazed. How did we end up in this exact place in the parking lot in time to see them? Claire later told me they almost walked a different way.
Fate-Destiny-God what ever you want to call it here we saw Mark's daughter. We made arrangements to pick Claire up later in the week for dinner (California Pizza Kitchen) and go to our house so Claire could meet Kiki the kitten. We all had a great time and it was so wonderful to see Claire.

What a great End of March Miracle.

February is Great!

I love February.
It is my Birthday Month and my birthday was great.
There is Valentine's Day and that was great!
Today is great! It is raining and that is great!
Everything is great!
I have no picture to post on this Blog and that is great!
Ok I will look for one and that is also great!
Morgan is yelling make my rootbeer float and that is great!
Why watch the news when you can watch adventure time! that is great!

I did find a picture and that is great!
This Blog took a very small amount of time and that is great!
I am trusting that you are great!
xo, Gaelen

Happy New Year and No Resolutions

Really all I am going to do is to keep on doing what I did in 2013. With some small improvements.

Walk my 10,000 steps a day (ok if its raining not really). Eat less bread (except Friday night pizza). Sleep more (that means going to bed by 9PM to have some reading time and sleep at 10PM ). Continue to be Kyra and Seelah at gamescape. Continue to stay calm (remember to take deep healing breaths). Think about what I say before I say it (watch your words). Learn to communicate in a new way. This might help when asking Mark to do something (take out trash, etc.)

Looking at this I think it is a good start.

Happy 2014

Turkey Menorah

 

Turkey Menorah

 

                                                       Yummy Yummy

                                                      Christmas Snake

Happy Happy to you! whichever holiday you are celebrating another Happy Happy to you!
We had a great time at the post thanksgiving and current Hanukah celebration last night. My favorite Oyster Rockefeller along with tons of caviar and a memory of didn't my doctor say to stay away from tons of bread and cheese?

I must back up though to Thanksgiving morning at my house where Mark and Morgan built a Fab gingerbread house with our newest member Christmas snake and all morning we ate homemade pumpkin spice muffins while I cooked.

Tonight as I sat down to write this Mark had the rack of lamb on the BBQ and I have to say the lamb with the stuffing and sweet potatoes and green beans was DeLish! Happy too that all the leftovers are gone!

Amazing that on December 1st we could still walk down ok drive down to Blackie's Pasture and

Mark and Morgan could play football. My Fitbit just popped up and said overachiever 12,640 steps today 5.19 miles walked which is for sure making me feel better about eating that yogurt ice-cream sandwich after dinner.

Halloween was actually fun

Ok I actually had a lot of fun trick or treating last night.
Next year I might even drop off Morgan at the corner of Trick or Treat (Safe) street and wait for her at the corner and let her her walk the 30 houses all by her self.
It was not cold and I didn't have to ask someone "Thanks for the candy and can I use your restroom"
We were home at 8:15 and Morgan brushed her teeth and we sat down to watch a recorded Mad and then I saw her sorting her candy and eating a skittle "What" after just brushing your teeth!
Anyway we all in bed at 9:00 reading. Just my kind of night.

In Your Strangeness You Are Perfect

Ok I forgot to post a September blog.
I am still perfect.
In my own strangeness I am still perfect.
My 30 year High School Reunion was cancelled due to low sign ups and that was perfect, yet kind of strange, yet perfect.
All my worrying about it was also perfect.
Why? Because I learned that all my worrying was a BIG waste of my time.
Even when I cannot step/think far enough to see outside the picture, it all ends up perfect.
I am happy because in looking at the bigger picture, sometimes it happens years later, I see it all ended up being perfect.

Happy October

Sweaty Men and Jackhammer Noise

Ok so normally I am not sitting at home listening to the sound of a jack hammer all day long.Due to a tree root lifting up the old concrete patio and heading toward our foundation and it was time to pull it up- the tree-the concrete a total makeover for the backyard.

                                                          Mark in the orange shirt

                                       Lots of hard work has been done and plenty more to do.                          

Annual Trip to Mendocino

Morgan's white feet and tan legs.

Plenty of kayaking

Lots of fried green tomatoes and abalone

Plenty of beer

 

Great foot ball playing and falling down

Yummy Yummy

Sand Castles

Beautiful green thing for me to look at

My Plate

One Great Day had by all

 

Montana Vacation

I cannot say enough about how cool Montana was.
In Yellowstone the geysers were interesting as walking thru them the steam was warm and yet it was super cold outside.
Chico Spa and Resort in Pray, Montana and our little cabin was right by the horse stable and Morgan was so excited to pet the horses and didn't mind the horse poop smell.
I loved it because the restaurant had all my favorites: Lamb rack, crème brule, great wine and the little café/gift shop had mocha espresso!
I guess I should mention on our way to Mark's brother's ranch we stopped in Virginia City and went horse back riding. Well for me in was more Panic Attack Riding. I refused to go up  the side of a hill and told our guide to take us a different way. I was seeing myself dropping out of the saddle. I felt like I was up so high on the horses back and if I fell it would be a long way down. Of course after the ride everyone was making fun of me and Morgan was calling it the PAR ride. At 10 she still has the notion that everything is funny. Looking back maybe it was a little funny, sort of.
Greg's ranch Western Star Ranch was great (top picture) and houses 6 horses that Morgan can't stop talking about. Ruby, Sadie, Dexter, Anita, Chanel, Carter. She was the first one up most days and grabbed my camera to take pictures. Greg bought Morgan some boots (you can see her in her boots in the above picture standing next to Ruby) and Montana doesn't have sales tax so when something has a price that's the price, no math necessary to add the tax. We saw a Golden Eagle standing in the middle of the high way, a Yellow-bellied Marmot under a porch, a Bison and Elks in Yellowstone, Pronghorn's along street where Greg lives. Montana is a place where you better have a full tank of gas as you can drive miles and miles and miles with out seeing a gas station or another car. We all had a relaxing time, enjoyed the wild life and big beautiful fluffy clouds. Happy June :)

Mirror Front

As May is approaching its end I am getting excited for Chef Tom to arrive and cook us dinner for our 11th anniversary. No idea of what to get Mark for a present. In a waiting for great idea to come zone.

The crayon drawing above is "Crayon drawing on paper by Gaelen"

I love restaurants where there is a big piece of paper over the table and crayons. Mark and Morgan used most of it playing dot art, then Morgan un screwed the parmesan cheese top and didn't quite screw it on tight and it spilled on most of my half of the table while I was trying to put some on my pizza slice. You can see the cheese stains below my drawing are not my messing eating stains.
The Butterscotch pudding desert relieved my feelings of  why didn't I check the top after I saw Morgan messing with it? 

I also love buildings that have a giant mirror in front of them. Hence the picture above. Notice Mark is using his phone as a gps to find the pizza place.

Happy May!

Wait a minute April's almost over?

Yes, we went on a hike at the beach today. Actually it was at Fort Chronkhite and now I will post a picture of that

my car is down there in the parking lot and you can see people trying to surf in the ocean but growing up in So. Cal I don't know if you can consider these waves. If the H2O wasn't so, so, so , COLD I would swim in it and not be scared of getting crashed on the head. Anyway the hike was great with ocean views

and as ever I am always looking for a heart either in the form of a rock or cloud but today leaving I looked down and saw this

Well time to watch our Saturday night movie with Morgan "Clone Wars" with our new surround sound.

Happy end of  April

24 Hrs till Easter

Happy to say we are having Easter Dinner/Late Lunch at out house and my sister and her family are coming here.

Having family for Dinner though takes a lot of work.

1st- Buy the Lamb Rack, Honey Goat Cheese, Point Reys Blue Cheese (Mark's Pick), Brie (Sinfully Creamy) Cheese (My Pick), Lobster Soup, and more $ of other stuff.

2nd- Install new Skylight (see above picture of Mark) 10 minutes before it started raining.

3rd- Install new smoke detector in kitchen since I by accident pulled the cover off the old one when alarm was going off. Easy to do with all the ringing in my ear, though I could never get it back on hence why we had to but the new one.

4th- Ask Morgan 100 times to put all of the Legos, Books, Misc. junk in her room away.

5th- Admit to myself I need 24 Hour Allergy (ALLER-TEC) medicine when I realized the back yard was covered in Acacia Pollen, I was sneezing, had a sore throat was really crabby with a runny nose type of person.

6th- Say a prayer + add some gratitude that I have time while Morgan's mac n cheese is cooking to do this late March blog.

Happy Spring!

New laptop and I sitting in bed

Ok this is the first picture taken with my new laptop. "Wow you got a new lap top you ask" and I reply  "Why yes Mark and Morgan gave me a laptop for my birthday yesterday" We had a great time and even got to watch Twilight -the movie- on regular T.V. Now its 10:30 and me and my laptop have to go to bed. Very happy that I can sit in bed and write my blog.

Happy New Year 2013

As I sit here and think about wishing everyone  Happy New Year the reminder from my high school for my 30 year Reunion is blowing my mind. Is it even possible 30 years has passed? Looking at the pictures from the 20 year reunion tells me its true. Ugh.

I don't even want to let my mind wander to the "What Should I" about the Reunion. 9 months away.

I just took a mini break to stare at my mandala. Feeling better, slightly.

Thinking about this post earlier I had so many ideas about what I was going to say. Now they have gone away just like the 30 years.

I keep telling myself I am 34 but I guess I'm not.

Ugh.

Anyway wishing you a Happy New Year and a great journey on your travels this year.

Gaelen