Posts from the ‘Personal’ Category

Jul 17

Honoring 40 Years Together

Happy 40 Year Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Thank you for setting a wonderful example of a steadfast, loving, and happy marriage, that we only hope to emulate. We have a great deal to aspire to. We are very grateful for your constant unconditional love and support. We are truly blessed with loving and supportive parents who are always there for us.

We know that you will have a wonderful trip together commemorating this admirable milestone! We wish you many more happy years together!

We love you always.

“To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.” — Lao Tzu

Jun 26

Revisit: Word for the year — Flow

I figured since the year is nearly half over, it would be a good time to revisit my word for this year, “flow.” I highly recommend having a word, mantra, or theme for the year.

Flow defined: flow /flō/ verb 1. move along or out steadily and continuously in a current or stream.

This year I have been working to be open and flowing with what comes my way. I think I have been embracing this sentiment pretty well. I feel like I have been doing a pretty good job in general — keeping things flowing and not getting stuck. The word “flow” has been particularly useful in my photography project. I am making steady and incremental progress on my project, while refusing to let hiccups and unforeseen circumstances derail me. Through this all, I have learned that working on a large endeavor takes longer than initially anticipated, and you have to keep going and keep the faith. My hope is that the ‘photo gods’ help keep things flowing to help me finish a solid draft of this project. I will take any and all help I can get, if you know what I mean!

Happy Friday! Have a great weekend!

Jun 24

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Blogs That Fill Me Up

Today I thought I would share what I’ve been reading lately that fills me up with inspiration. I do not spend as much time as I used to reading blogs, for a variety of reasons including time and my desire to read more books. I want to read blogs that build and inspire; and contain authentic stories.

With those things in mind, here are five of my current favorites that you might already be reading or might be new to you:

1. Today Is Going to Be Awesome — Lisa Congdon: I especially like the personal artists essays, which are inspiring.

2. Moments of Being — Dani Shapiro: Shares thoughts about living a creative life, specifically being a writer.

3. Elizabeth Gilbert: Contains interesting posts and thoughts about living a fulfilled and creative life. I truly enjoy her posts.

4. Be More With Less: Contains interesting content about simplifying life and getting to the heart of the matter.

5. Gratefulness: Has interesting posts about finding gratefulness, in the smallest ways, along with sharing a daily, inspiring quote.

Jun 19

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Inspirational Stones

I love inspirational quotes and sayings. In fact, my fridge is covered in roughly 65 magnet quotes, give or take! On my desk, I have a bowl of stones that I have collected over the past couple of years from my travels, each engraved with a word(s). I find having them nearby inspiring, and I plan to continue to collect these types of stones! These stones sit next to my wish ball and daruma doll. I believe these all channel positive energy.

On another note, we are excited for Doug to come home this weekend from his travels! During Doug’s trip, due to service and connection issues, we were unable to speak on the phone and Face Time together. This has been the longest period of time that we were unable speak since we started dating, nearly eleven years ago! Thank goodness for email and texting! I know Doug is excited to see his fur girl, and we have missed him! Tomorrow we are going to dinner at one of our favorite Thai restaurants and, after dinner, we are going to see a play! And, most of all, Victory is ready to celebrate her Daddy for Father’s Day on Sunday! (We think being ‘puppy parents’ counts!)

(We truly hope that Victory is on the mend from her infection, which we have been battling for over a month. We should know for sure how she is doing in a couple of weeks when we complete a urinalysis after she finishes taking her current antibiotic.)

We hope that you have a great weekend and Happy Father’s Day!

Jun 17

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Start Now: What Will You Regret When You Are 80?

This week I started reading, The Power of Starting Something Stupid, by Richie Norton. I am about half way through this book, and it is a good read thus far. I thought that I would share an interesting insight, the Bezos Test: Will I regret it when I’m 80?

Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon. Bezos stated, “If you can project yourself out to age 80 and sort of think, ‘What will I think at that time?’ it gets you away from some of the daily pieces of confusion. You know, I left this Wall Street firm in the middle of the year. When you do that, you walk away from your annual bonus. That’s the kind of thing that in the short-term can confuse you, but if you think about the long-term, then you can really make good life decisions that you won’t regret later.”

Bezos did the “crazy thing” and became a legend and changed the world as we know it with his idea to start Amazon.

The Bezos Test: Will I Regret It When I’m 80?

The Bezos Test sets forth a set of questions to ask yourself, which leads you to the ideas that are most important to you, thereby outlining the ideas for you to focus on first.

Question 1: Do you have a pressing thought or idea that simply won’t go away?

Question 2: Looking at your list, what would you regret not doing?

Question 3: If you had only a short time to live, and you were required to rid yourself of all things from your list except for three or four, which three to four ideas would remain?

Question 4: If you had to prioritize these few things in order from most important to least important, which order would you choose?

“The common question that gets asked in business is, why? That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, why not?” –Jeff Bezos

So what is your ‘crazy idea’ that you would be foolish not to start? The best time to embrace your ‘crazy idea’ is now.

Jun 12

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Around Here: June

Well, the year is nearly half over, and it is really difficult to believe how fast this year is going by! Below are some items that have occurred around here in June!

-received positive feedback on the first portion of my project from my first reviewer. I have been hard at work working on final edits for the first part of the project. Also, the photographing for the project is near completion.

-started reading this book — so far a helpful and good read. I am trying to get through all the books that I want to read!

-making breakfasts together on the weekends with Doug.

-finished watching the Witness, a French series, on Netflix. It was very good!

-enjoying evenings and dinners together on the deck with Victory!

-still selecting and printing images for the house — my goal is to finish framing prints by this fall.

-having date nights with Doug! Tonight we are going to see John Mellencamp; and next weekend, we are going to see the play, The Price, by Arthur Miller.

-still enjoying my yoga class (and the gym) and hopefully improving my skills each week!

-Doug leaves this weekend for a week-long work trip overseas. We will miss him.

-Victory let out her first loud bark last week before ‘night-night!’

-Victory started a new round of antibiotics, which is upsetting her little stomach. We are working on trying a third antibiotic. We hope that the right antibiotic will do the trick and hopefully she will finally be able to get over her urinary tract infection.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend! (It’s a real hot one here!)

Jun 8

A Refreshing Summer Snack

This is not a food blog, but I thought that I would share a really tasty, easy, and healthy summer snack that I have been making. You can also prepare this as a side to your lunch or dinner.

1. Cut up a fresh cucumber.

2. Add sea salt to your taste.

3. Add freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to your taste.

4. It also tastes good to add a splash of a good italian dressing for additional flavor. (I really like this dressing.)

This makes for a really refreshing snack that takes only a few minutes to prepare!

Happy Monday!

Jun 5

Recap: Our Time Away!

We returned home earlier this week from visiting family. It was nice to get away from everything, if even for a little while, especially since we have had a really busy spring thus far. Our Victory is very happy to be home in her familiar surroundings and predictable routine! She let out the loudest bark while playing in bed before ‘night-night’ earlier this week — a sure sign she is happy to be home! I think we are up to about a handful of barks now!

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing the Rolling Stones! (Doug has seen the Rolling Stones five times before and he wanted to see them again before it was too late. It was my first time seeing the Rolling Stones.) We traveled down to Columbus with my sister and brother-in-law! Some photos from the concert are shown below! We had fun talking and catching up since we do not get to see each other often enough. Fortunately, the rain held off during the concert and we all had a lot of fun!

Since we stayed over night in Columbus for the concert, Victory also had her first ‘sleep over’ with her Grandpa Dick and ‘Uncle Nick,’ my parents’ dog, pictured below! Victory slept in the bed with her Grandpa Dick, and Nick slept in his bed beside the bed — Nick never likes stray too far from his Daddy! Victory did very well, and this was the first night that we spent apart from our fur girl! At least we know that she likes her Grandpa and Grandma’s house! Doug and I were happy to see Victory when we returned to my parents’ house the day following the concert.

Nick and Victory get along well, and they are both pros at begging for food, especially for chicken at the dinning room table! (I know, this is a bad habit to encourage.) Victory made her rounds under the dinning room table pushing her wet nose against everyone’s shins — her way of requesting more food! Meanwhile, Nick sat waiting for food, specifically chicken, his favorite food, and he jumped up and barked — reminding everyone that he wanted more chicken! Maybe Victory can learn to bark more from Nick who is a very vocal guy!

We also took Victory with us to Culver’s while in Michigan. She and Nick shared a burger! They had a good time!

It was nice to catch up and visit with family and we also enjoyed some favorite restaurants such as LaRosa’s Pizza; Skyline Chili; and we also enjoyed eating Graeter’s ice cream several times! We also tried a new restaurant as well, Smokehouse 52!

Happy Friday and hope that you have a great weekend!

May 21

Taking a Breather…

We are headed out-of-town to visit family, and we are looking forward to our time away! We decided to disconnect during this time and enjoy our time off. It has been a really, really busy spring, and we are looking forward to a breather!

Meanwhile, if you are in a blog-reading mood, you are warmly invited to check out the archives — links are shown below.

Dog Related posts

Dog Rescue posts

‘Dog-Centric’ Artists Interviews

For Artists posts

Photography posts

Personal posts

Victory Related posts

We’ll see you back here in early June! As always, thank you so very much for visiting and reading the blog! I am most grateful for you! Thank you!

P.S. While we are away, I do plan to post images while we are away via Instagram (our Instagram feed is also shown on the right side of the blog!)

May 18

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Around Here: May

Well, it is getting near the end of May, and it feels more like summer than spring with the warm temperatures and high humidity. Below are some items that have occurred around here in May!

-I finally finished the first draft of the first part of my project, after two and a half years of work, which is being reviewed; and almost all the dogs for the second part of my project are photographed, a big feat. I plan to finish up photographing my long-term project at the end of June.

-finished reading this book — a good read, especially if you want to make more time for yourself and activities you enjoy. I still have a stack of books on my nightstand to read and I am slowly getting through them along with a list of books I want to read in our Amazon queue!

-my garden in is full bloom and my pink hydrangeas are gorgeous!

-making breakfasts together on the weekends with Doug.

-finished watching a new mini series, The Casual Vacancy. (Doug also read the novel.)

-began watching the Witness, a French series, with subtitles, on Netflix. If you liked The Killing, which we did, we heard the Witness is a good one! So far we like it!

-watched the movies, Wild and Cake; and I really like this quote from Cheryl Strayed in the book/movie Wild, “There’s a sunrise and a sunset every day, and you can choose to be there for it. You can put yourself in the way of beauty.”

-working on printing and framing fine art prints for the house.

-we finished getting the house ready for spring and summer!

-we are enjoying the furnished deck and enjoying dinners on the deck with Victory!

-having date nights with Doug!

-taking Victory on more outings, longer walks, and rides in her Hound About since the weather has been so nice!

-still enjoying my yoga class and hopefully improving my skills each week!

-going to visit family later this week, including going to see the Rolling Stones with my sister and brother-in-law! It should be fun!

-it seems that Victory is on the mend with her infection, thank goodness. The blood present in her pee, at the end of last week, gave us a scare. The antibiotic seem to be working; and she still has another week on the antibiotic. We hope that the infection was an anomaly and that it will not be a recurring issue indicating an underlying issue. Apparently, female dogs are more prone to these types of infections.

-we gave Victory a bath yesterday, not her favorite activity, but she tolerates it and she looks great and her furs feels silky smooth — the best part of giving her a bath! She got her nails and paws clipped at the vet last week — Victory gets a manni and peddi monthly — mostly because we are too scared to clip her paws and trim her nails ourselves! Below is an image of Victory freshly bathed relaxing on the deck last night while we watched the sun set, which is becoming a Sunday evening ritual! We are grateful that Victory is in better spirits.

Happy Monday!