Five for Friday - vol 14.1.3

The excitement of the new year has not faded on me a bit yet. In its honor, here's a Five for Friday about things I am looking forward to or hoping for in the new year, in no particular order.

1. A trip to Cali with my love to see FSU win the BCS championship. I am looking forward to the trip. I love to travel period and love to travel with John. He's such a good travel partner. I am hoping FSU wins the game. Even if they don't, however, I still believe this will be a once in a lifetime experience that I will cherish forever -- the last BCS game, my team playing for the title, at Rose Bowl stadium. But let's be real..they're [hopefully] going to win.

2. One of my BFFs, Patty, having her baby boy. I am looking forward to my friend becoming a mommy and hoping to meet him sometime in 2014.

3. John getting a promotion. This is more so a looking forward to; it's just a matter of when. My hope for him is that it's sooner in the year.

4. My mom moving near me or my brother. This is a total hoping for. It's all going to depend on if she can get a civil service job in either of our areas to continue working toward her retirement. *fingers crossed* Even if she doesn't move where I live it would be so nice to go visit her and have my brother and his family (my niece!!!) close enough to visit when I'm in town.

5. Speaking of my brother and his family, I hope they have another baby in 2014! Obviously I am so in love with my niece I want them to have another one for me to love and play with. Good thing they hope for this too, it makes it a reasonable hope for the new year.

2014, I think you are going to be golden. I look forward to everything you have in store for me, my family, and my friends!

A Grey Distraction

I'm halfway through Fifty Shade Freed.  Between this triology and cooking/baking and Christmas shopping and spending time with friends I've been a bit distracted from this blog.  I will do better.  Right after I finish this book..

P.S. To be fair I didn't know it was a triology when I started the first book.

Mother Daughter Weekend

My mom's coming up this afternoon for our first annual mother daughter weekend getaway!  We're going to be spending the majority of our time in Cincinnati but the fun starts when she gets in town tonight with a couples massage - her first massage ever (!). 

I have a feeling this is going to be a wonderful weekend.

Happy Friday!

Babies vs. Pumpkins

A few of my favorites from a great day at the pumpkin patch with Leedie, Angela, and Mallory to celebrate my birthday.

The girls trying to figure out what the deal with these pumpkins

Such a happy baby

Photographic proof of how hard it is to take a picture of this girl!

Old friends chatting it up

Happy girls!

With their pumpkins

Random Writings - Books

• It's Friday!  Woo hoo!!  I am happy about this fact.
• The Monthly Menace Express finally left Funkytown and it's now stationed in Normal City.  Thank goodness.
• I recently made a blueberry cake from scratch loosely following my Berry Natural Strawberry Cake recipe.  The result was an outrageously cookie-monster-blue cake with purple whipped cream frosting that was just as delicious as it was odd to look at. 
• The blueberry cake was only made because the thing I tried to make, a blueberry roll, failed miserably.  John did eat it and said it was good but I still consider it a fail since I tried to follow a recipe and it did not come out as it was supposed to.
• I am going to the library to return some books and am really excited to check out new ones.  I do find it a bit overwhelming though to try and figure out what books I want to read.  I am interested in so many things that finding the right book is a bit daunting.  As of late my current choices in books have been non-story books.  I've been in the mood to learn.  To improve.  To do.  Story books, fiction and non-fiction, are great but lately I've wanted to take action.  On my list of books to pick up today are two self improvement/motivational type books and two cookbooks.
• This weekend shall consist of things such as cleaning the house while watching college football.  That combination sounds delightful at the moment.
• I still have to post the last day of the photo challenge I started in April.  Maybe I'll do that this weekend too.

How do you pick which books to read?  What is a non-story book that you love and recommend?

Tears of Relief

This is a post to recognize that miraculous moment when you spend thirty minutes on the phone with your childhood best friend who sounds like she never went through brain surgery two and half weeks ago. 

I sobbed for at least ten minutes when I got of the phone.  (And cried all over again when John came home and I told him the story.)  Tears of relief.  Tears of joy.  Tears of thanks.  I am still weak with disbelief.  My friend is doing amazingly well.  I am too overwhelmed too explain it all but I want to thank anyone who sent a prayer or a positive thought to Christy and her family.  Everything was heard. 

I do not feel like I am exaggerating when I say I feel like I experienced a miracle talking to Christy on the phone. 

My heart hurts with gratitude and happiness for my dear friend and her family. 

Random Writings - No News

• I have no update on Christy.  We haven't heard from her family since last week.  I'm trying to tell myself not to think worst case scenario and that no news is supposed to be good news.  I hope.
• I have the worst time moving on from sadness.  It's hard for me to be happy when there is such sadness in the world.  Me feeling overwhelming sorrow in no way impacts the sadness that it exists but it's just hard for me to shake the feeling.  I need to change how I react to these kind of situations.
• The Golden Girls may be my favorite TV show of all time.  It's not serious, it's funny, and the girls love one another.  They are one of the main reasons why Mr. Woo and I are together - there's a story to explain this.  I love them so much I even had the theme song play at my wedding reception.  The Golden Girls to me is comfort food to my soul..without the weight gain. 
• I feel the need to be domestic but instead I will eat cookies while watching The Golden Girls.
• So much for not gaining weight from watching The Golden Girls.

I. Am. Speechless.
[Source]

Life's a Laugh

I'm back in less than a week with hair darker than a raven.
Saturday was my hair appointment with a new person at a new salon - a first after five years with the same person.  I liked the salon a lot which is good considering I had never seen it and I picked it pretty much solely based on the fact they could get me in Saturday morning.  I liked my stylist too.  She was cute and friendly which always makes me feel comforted when someone is working on my hair.  I sit down embarrassed by the state of my grays and ask for hair dye two shades above black.  This is pretty much what I always say, except for the one time my co-worker did my hair and I let him do whatever for my 21st birthday (hello blonde highlights), because I'm so horrible with coming in for maintenance.  We also talked about trimming off an inch to an inch and half and adding in long layers.  After small talk turns out she knows my SIL and that they were friends in elementary school.  When she asked about her and mentioned they were only acquaintances in high school because of the one year grade difference I was concerned she might have just been saying that and the friendship might have gone sour at some point and that I would end up with a shaved head as a result. (Paranoid much?)  Luckily my fears weren't realized and I was pretty happy with everything at the end of my appointment.  Not amazed but happy.  When I left two hours later I felt like I had found my new salon and stylist for the next five years thanks to its good location, good hours, nice stylist and great price.

Fast forward a few days and I've realized the color is a bit too dark.  It doesn't look bad or anything but it's definitely darker than I would prefer.  Oh and even though she shampooed my hair twice my dye is still coming out when I wash my hair.  I've damaged a towel or two and have had to sleep with a t-shirt over my pillow when I went to bed with wet hair. 

The gray coverage is the best I've had though so it's not all bad.  And I do still think I found my new place to go.

The rest of the day was spent hanging out with Angela and Michele to celebrate Angela's 30th birthday.  It was mostly a good, chill, low-key, just hanging out kind of day so there isn't too much to share.  We went to Improv in the evening and saw Jay Pharoah from SNL.  The place was probably the nicest I've been to and the show was really good.  Most importantly I think the birthday girl had a good time too.