Self-Portrait Tuesday

The SPT challenge for this Olympic month is to find ways that we're incorporating the Olympic motto in our own lives.

Citius. Altius. Fortius. 

[faster, higher, stronger]

This week I'm focusing on Citius - FASTER:

At the beginning of each month, I make out a dinner calendar for the month. 

Here you see it on my fridge.

Having a planned menu for dinners helps me to be faster 

in making my grocery list, 

but most importantly...

it makes me faster at answering that age-old question - 

"Mom, what's for dinner?"

Self-Portrait Tues - uh - Thursday

Lelly was inspired by the upcoming Olympics 

when she issued the SPT challenge for August.

"Each week, think about the Olympic motto, 

and how it can apply to our every day lives. 

Citius. Altius. Fortius. 

[faster, higher, stronger]

Are we giving our best? Can we find victories 

in the efforts we make every day?"

Today I decided to put these babies on and 

work on getting STRONGER again.

It's been exactly a month since I went under general anesthesia and had a bad reaction to it. It has been a month of nausea, headaches, and eye pain, with some general misery mixed in. I've had a CT scan, blood work, and many doctors appointments. No one can explain what's wrong with me. On my last doctor's visit, my primary care doc finally admitted that my symptoms could be a reaction to the anesthesia (none of the doctors I saw were willing to accept what I was saying - that all of this had to be a reaction to the anesthesia).

A month later, the headaches are still here, but they're not constant any more and they aren't as painful. I can actually look at the TV, computer, or a book now, just not for very long.

So this morning, I was determined to start making myself STRONGER again, by exercising. It felt good to hit the pavement again.

Sadly, I had only done one block of my walk when the headache came, but I stuck with it and finished my regular course.

I'm just hoping they're right when they say:

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Self-Portrait Tuesday

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ICE CREAM - 

the final element of summer in Lelly's SPT challenge!

It was my birthday yesterday (35 - sigh) and to celebrate we went to Cold Stone Creamery. If you don't know what Cold Stone is, you're missing out. It's an ice cream parlor where you choose your ice cream flavor and some goodies and they mix it all together on a marble slab right in front of you. It's really yummy!

It's rather pricey, so we save it for special occasions. Cold Stone has a birthday club where you get a free Love It signature creation on your birthday.  Go here to check it out.

For my creation, I chose "The Pie Who Loved Me" - I substituted cake batter ice cream (my favorite Cold Stone flavor) for the cheesecake ice cream. They mix in fudge, Oreo's, and graham cracker pie crust crumbs. The only thing they could add to make it closer to my ideal would be brownies - but that might be too much of a good thing.

 

What's your favorite ice cream flavor?

Self-Portrait Tuesday

This week, Lelly's Self-Portrait Challenge focuses on grass.

In New Mexico, if Mother Nature were left alone this is the kind of grass that would grow:

But no one really wants to leave Mother Nature alone, so instead we insist on trying to make grass grow in the desert. The city is the worst culprit, but we're the beneficiaries of all of the money they're willing to spend on water for that grass.

This is my little grassy nook while we're at the pool. (Emily was so immersed in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series that you couldn't tempt her to get in the pool.)

To avoid the frustration that comes with trying to grow grass in a desert (and to save our bank account from an insane water bill), we've opted for artificial grass. 

You can read a previous SPT where I talked about it.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Another week to discuss Lelly's challenge: the five elements of summer. This week our focus is on shade.

When I'm being a good girl, I exercise 4-5 mornings a week by taking a brisk walk around my neighborhood. There is very little shade on my route, so I'm grateful for this stretch of shade provided by the lovely (read with sarcasm, though these are better-looking than most) cinderblock walls that everyone uses here to fence in their backyards. I probably should reverse the route I take because I hit the shade at the very beginning of my walk, before I'm drenched in sweat. But, I'm a creature of  habit and therefore I'll never get to enjoy a shaded end to my exercise.

Right now, though, I'm not exercising and the only shade I care about is the shade my "shades" provide my poor eyes!

I had minor outpatient surgery a week ago and have been having a horrible reaction to the anesthesia. For some strange reason, it appears that it gave me a massive sinus infection which has been giving me ocular migraines. My eyes hurt all of the time. Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in soon and I can go back to normal life soon, including those walks with so little shade!

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Lelly issued a feng shui SPT challenge for July: sun, water, shade, grass, and ice cream.

This week's focus in on water.

Despite the fact that most of New Mexico is a desert, there are parts (up north) that have water.

This was a gorgeous little stream next to our Girls Camp site.

I had to laugh because last Tuesday the SPT challenge was sun. I posted about how much sun we have in Albuquerque, but that day ended with a rain storm. (You can see some raindrops on the bottom part of the picture.) We even got a double rainbow.

We're always so grateful when water falls from the sky around here!

But this is my favorite type of water ... the kind that goes in my water bottle.

I'm the hydration queen! My water bottle goes with me everywhere. I even used to take it to church, until my kids started begging to take their water bottles to church, too.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Lelly came up with an awesome set of SPT challenges for July:

"to help channel our personal chi, let's take time this month to focus on the 5 elements of summer: sun, water, shade, grass and ice cream!!"

This week the focus is on SUN!

Living in New Mexico, I see plenty of sun. Albuquerque boasts an average of 310 days of sunshine a year! There's so much sun, that our airport is called the Sunport.

Our state flag consists of a Zia sun symbol.

Here's a self-portrait of me in front of my old street sign. In case you've never tried, it is really hard to take a picture of yourself and get the top of street sign in the same shot!

So here's a shot my daughter took.

We used to live on Flor del Sol street.

- which means Flower of the Sun,

AKA Sunflower!

Self-Portrait Tuesday

This week's SPT challenge is:

Stars and/or Stripes Forever

I decided to take a little different spin on this.

Last night, Shad and I went out for a much-deserved date. 

We decided to go see the "stars" on the big screen. 

That's right - we went to the movies to enjoy a little star power!

In case you're wondering, we saw Get Smart. 

It was funny, but there were a few too many 

crude jokes for my personal taste.

(P.S. The lighting in movie theaters makes taking pictures really difficult. The first picture is of us in the hallway with a bunch of movie posters, in case you're wondering.)

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Lelly's challenge for this week is:  

My Home, Sweet Home

This is the home I grew up in. My mom sold the house about 7 or 8 years ago and I hadn't been back to Kansas City since then. We took the family this summer and it was fun to see my old house again. Every time we've had to look for a house, I've always lamented the fact that no one builds houses like this in Albuquerque. It was just the right size for a family of 5.

When you walk into our house, 

one of the first things you see is this sign:

You know you're at my home when you see birdhouses. I have them lined up on top of my kitchen cabinets. I also LOVE my red wall! (Ignore the messy kitchen and just appreciate how realistic this post is!)

But, of course, it wouldn't be "Home Sweet, Home" without this:

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Lelly came up with some great SPT challenges for the month of June - they are all borrowed from patriotic songs.

Tuesday, June 3rd the emblem of the land I love
Tuesday, June 10th the twilight's last gleaming
Tuesday, June 17th my home sweet home
Tuesday, June 24th stars and/or stripes forever

With Girls' Camp last week, I fell behind so here are the first 2 challenges:

The Emblem of the Land I Love

I love this country and so I think a heart-shaped flag is a perfect emblem for the USA. No matter what problems our nation has (and I do realize that we have plenty), I firmly believe that God presided over the founding of this country and that it will remain great as long as we do not turn our backs on Him.

The Twilight's Last Gleaming

I realize that this is not a patriotic photo (at least the author is American), but whenever I hear the word "twilight" I think of this awesome book. If you haven't read it, run to the library and get it! You'll stay up long past twilight to finish it - the first time I read it I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. to finish it.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

This is the last installment in the Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue challenge for the month of May.

Here's my something blue:

One day my oldest (10 year-old Emily) offered my husband a Jolly Rancher. He asked her how she knew it was jolly, did it tell her? She thought about it and replied that the blue Jolly Ranchers aren't actually jolly; they're melancholy. Now there are Envious Ranchers (as in "green with envy"), Displeased Ranchers (watermelon), and Annoyed Ranchers (cherry). The purple ones are the only Jolly Ranchers. So yesterday she offered me a Melancholy Rancher and I accepted.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Continuing on with our May theme, this week's challenge is Something Borrowed:

Technically, my post could fit 3 categories, something old, something borrowed, and something blue!

It's Emily's costume for her class's end-of-the-year play, Pinocchio.

She was the Blue Fairy (the final performance was last night). We borrowed this BLUE dress from one of Emily's friends. It is actually an old dress that belonged to Emily's friend's great-aunt. (Emily's crown is also borrowed.)

OOPS - I just realized I'm not in this SPT at all! I'll have to see if I can find something that I borrowed that I can include in a self-portrait.

***EDITED: I found something that I've borrowed, in fact a LOT of somethings that I've borrowed!***

Here's me and my stack of books that I borrowed from our library. Life has been busy (it's the last week of school) and I'm hoping that things will slow down a little and I'll be able to make some progress on my stack of books.

You can check out my GoodReads site to see what I'm reading.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Here's the second installment of the May wedding theme for SPT : Something New!

I proudly present the NEWEST addition to my life:

My husband got me this NEW camera for Mother's Day! I'm so excited! My old camera died 3 months ago. Shad's camera is rather large and so I hate to take it places. It's also a VERY nice camera and so I hate to use it, for fear that I'll break it.

My NEW camera has all sorts of features - auto smile detection (won't take the shot until the subject is smiling), face recognition (it searches out my children's face to focus on if they're in a crowd), image stabilization (anti-shake technology), etc.  

One feature that will be pretty cool for Self-Portrait Tuesdays is the self-portrait mode! You put it in that mode. Point the camera at your face and push the shutter button down half-way. It won't take the shot until your head is all the way in the shot. Pretty cool! Here's a self-portrait I took (Laura decided she had to get in the photo too. None of us knew she had done that until we actually looked at the picture.)

Oh yeah - my new camera also takes videos. 

Here's what I found when I turned it on:

Gotta love Emily's plea for a puppy. 

However the answer is NO! 

That's one NEW thing I don't need in my life.