Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Our holiday season was the best ever! I say it all the time, my life is incredible and though there are rough patches, they pale in comparison to the love and friendship that surrounds me. Dave, Mason and I spent the weekend in Truckee with David and Lisa Anderson. It was a lovely mix of girl time with Lisa, skiing in fresh powder with Dave & Mason (the best weather day of the weekend), shopping in Old Town Truckee, playing in the snow and the cherry on the icing, it snowed while we were there!

Mason didn't make it to midnight on Friday so we put our hats on, got our noise makers out and did it up big on Saturday night, too. It was a double dose of new year fun and kisses!


We ate amazing food, drank the best wine, and made a new favorite cake - white with cranberry filling iced with whipped cream. Decadent and abundant in food, wine and friends. We played Wii - sports, Shaun White's Snowboarding, Dance 2, and balance games. I suggested Mason put the balance games on because they are fun. He said, "Oh yeah, those are fun and they are good for the elderly, too!" Elderly?! Well, I guess when you are seven and everyone else is 44 or older, we look pretty elderly! I'm still laughing about that one -- but then again, I'm the 44, not the "older."



One bright spot in our trip was shopping in Truckee. Lisa said she wanted to buy me a Brighton charm for my birthday. We were looking at all the charms and I picked the inspirational style, I told her she had to pick the one she thinks is most representative of me. She easily narrowed it down to two; Laughter and Live. She said, "I'm choosing Live because you really do." There just aren't words to express how this touched my heart.

We made the trip home early Sunday morning so we had the day to heat the house (it was 40 degrees inside when we got home!), get groceries, do laundry,and get ready for work/school today. Well, I did those things and some writing while Dave built a fire and then slept on the couch watching football. Yep, you read that right! I'm not complaining, he did more than his fair share of cooking and other stuff at the Truckee house -- we take turns sleeping/watching (reference: Kathy's Christmas Day ritual).

Happy New Year friends! Make small changes one day at a time and measure your success in weeks. Weeks will turn to months and before you know it, another whole year will have passed and you will see positive changes all around you. The time will pass no matter what you do or don't do - either way, it's up to you!

A Birthday Party And A Storm!

It's been that kind of a weekend. Mason's birthday party was on Saturday and the plan was to cook up some hot dogs in the backyard, let the kids play, and then eat cake. It was fast becoming clear that even if the rain didn't get here early (which it did), it was going to be too cold to hang out in the backyard. Call me crazy, but I didn't feel like whipping the house into shape for 26+ guests to move the party inside. We went to Old Town Pizza and had a ball. The rain meant some of our "No" RSVP's turned to "Yes" so that made for a the-more-the-merrier scenario. All I could think the whole time was, WOW! Look how many friends we have! After pizza we went to the high school where the students put on a haunted house. Certainly not a Hollywood production, but the kids thought it was fun!

Sunday was heavenly! We slept in, stoked the fire, had pancakes for breakfast, played Monopoly and basically just enjoyed the storm. It poured here, something like 3 inches of rain and snow was expected last night at the higher elevations. We did venture out to sit in the hot tub and it was raining so hard, we put one of our patio umbrellas smack dab in the middle of the tub! It made the soak so much more enjoyable. I bet that was pretty funny to see, neither of us wanted to get out and get the camera so you will just have to use your imagination!

With that, use your imagination a lot this week. Imagine what you want your life to be. Imagine one little thing you can do today to make that happen. Imagine you are wildly successful. I will imagine you are taking that action because to me, you can make it happen, all you have to do, is do!