I Love, Love, Love decorating for Christmas! It takes me back to childhood when getting the place ready for Christmas signaled that everyone was making plans to come home. We would congregate at Grandma Frankie’s house on Christmas Day. Although there was a real limit on material gifts, there was an abundance of Love, Laughter, and pure Joy! It’s in this spirit that I busy myself to get our home ready to receive family and friends for the holidays. Here’s hoping your holiday preparations are going well and bringing you lots of cheer.
Photo Credit: JD; Décor Elves: Briana, Derek, and Joselyn
Stevie Wonder and Andra Day’s rendition of “Someday at Christmas” is this week’s soundtrack. Enjoy!
Whew! This has been one fun weekend! We finally got around to celebrating the January through August birthdays with a mani-pedi party at a fab salon. We are DEFINTELY doing this again real soon! The girl time was great. The service was awesome. The refreshments were on pointe. We topped it all off with Lauryn Hill Radio on Pandora.
Ladies make sure you have some great girlfriends in your life to celebrate and support you. We need each other to help keep our lights shining bright like diamonds.
Thanks Tabitha for arranging our play date and hosting dinner!
This girl time reminds me of one of my favorite songs redone by Madi Davis during the 2015 season of The Voice. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”
The Lauryn Hill Radio station was rocking out. Here’s a sample of the songs we rocked out to:
This past week, I’ve had so many opportunities to work on being patient. I’ve shared with you that I’m working through a health transformation and while it’s going well, I am not seeing results as fast as I’d like to see them. I’m sure you can identify with me when I say, it seems like it takes ten times more effort to shed the unwanted weight and bad eating habits than it does to gulp down the sweet treats that helped me to pack on all this curvyliciousness (haha, the spellchecker did not know what to do with that word)! Even though it seems as if it is going slow, I’m still committed to eating well and exercising. Going slow in the right direction is so much better than going fast in the wrong direction. I know for sure that each day I’m feeling and looking so much better.
Source: http://pin.it/dgKQUuo
On the work/life balance front, I’ve committed to reclaiming my creativity. I’m happiest when I have fun things to do outside of work. I know it will take some major patience on my part to embrace my creativity. It seems that I lost so much of the creative side of my brain when I decided to study and then subsequently choose a career in STEM. In addition to patience, as I work my adult coloring book, or sew my headbands in exotic fabrics, I’ve started reading Julia Cameron’s work. She is the author of “The Artist’s Way” books; actually it’s a movement. Take a minute to read up on her techniques to help unblock creativity. Developing creativity helps to improve our attitude as we wait/work patiently to achieve our goals.
On the garden front several of the berries, herbs, and veggies are growing well. However, the zucchini and cucumbers are requiring a bit more patience than I expected. Last year the cucumbers were the continuous bumper crop; however, this year they seem to be producing well initially, but they die after only a few inches of growth. I’m going back to the drawing board and checking the basics to help ensure that I’ve set them up for success. You know sometimes despite our best efforts every endeavor; even ones we’ve been successful at before, has the potential to require more from us than we expected. In these moments we must have the patience to retrace our steps, course correct, and then keep moving forward.
Learning to be patient takes growth and commitment. It may not come all at once, but if we are brave enough to keep committing to our dreams, goals, or relationships, every day, we will develop this elusive virtue. Take a listen to “Patience” from the Dream Girls soundtrack; it will motivate you to keep working for the greatness that is destined to be yours!
