What I'm Loving About November

It is early days in November but so far I'm loving this month. October was so busy that it almost seems like a little reprieve before the holidays begin. Things I'm loving this month are leaves even though there will be raking involved. I love seeing them piled below a tree. I'm also loving Gingerbread Lattes, I had my first of the season today. Yesterday was the day that Carrie Underwood's new CD was available and it is so good. You've got to listen to Temporary Home, it's a tearjerker. I love this CD. Days like today are just blessings.

Sometimes Winning Doesn't Involve a Trophy

October was so busy with football games and band competitions. My younger son's band worked so hard this past month in anticipation of the big competition which took place yesterday. You may remember last years post in October when they won the competition so there was a lot of excitement this year among the kids as well as the parents. This one didn't end up quite like it had been envisioned but may be one great life lesson for us all. We all thought they did a great preliminary performance but the judges did not place them in the top 8 who went on to compete in the evening. All of the other bands who did not place were able to leave in the afternoon but our band because they won last year was expected to play The Star Spangled Banner prior to the final awards. That meant staying and watching the other bands. The kids were amazing. Sure there were a few tears shed but they quickly disappeared and they sat in the stands and cheered on the other bands with great enthusiasm and when it came time to march in and play they did so just as if they had won the competition. I think they won a great deal more and I am so proud of each and every one.

Fall is here!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the weather, the leaves, the food, and the clothes. I spent the past few days changing out my wardrobe from summer to winter. Even with a stuffed to the gills closet (I do live in an older home with small closets) I am still thinking of new sweaters. After perusing the Anthropologie site I have attached a few that caught my eye. If money were no object my whole wardrobe would come from that store but unfortunately I have to wait until the items are deeply marked down. And what are new sweaters without new flats so here are a few unbelievably cute ones. Now I need to find the skirts and slacks that will go with my fantasy sweaters and shoes. What fall clothes are on your mind?

Innocence Lost

I know by now this subject has been hashed and rehashed but every time I see the clip of sweet Taylor Swift having the microphone taken away during her speech I am just appalled. I have since seen scenes of the culprit (will not give him the honor of having his name in print by me) swigging from a bottle of Hennessey at the awards. I am in hope that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated anymore. There is no excuse that is plausible for what happened. I know that Taylor will go on from this and become even greater than before but she has also lost a little of her innocence because of the incident and she can't get that back. That's what makes me so sad. There is so much in our society that causes our young people to lose their innocence earlier and earlier. I hope that we will all take a stand and do what we can in our positions to make a change in the world for good.

I'm Back

I can't believe I have been gone so long. I have had a blogging block of sorts. I have had lots of things in my head that I want to write about but somehow just couldn't make myself push those keys to bring it to the blog. I have continued to read all my favorite blogs and marveled at how those delightful people managed to make it happen almost every day. I decided that part of block had to do with the fact that my blog does not exactly have a theme like crafting, baking, celebrity gossip...you get the picture. It is just a mishmash of a lot of things that just happen to be in my world. After some soul searching I decided that's pretty much me. I have a lot of interests so find it hard to really stick to one particular theme. If you could see my IPOD playlist you would see a very diverse group of music. I have to credit the recent book Blogging For Bliss for pushing me back to putting my thought out there.
Here are some other inspirational blogs I visit frequently:
www.aliciapaulson.com
http://www.self.com/fooddiet/blogs/eatlikeme
www.acottageindustry.typepad.com/
www.blogdorfgoodman.blogspot.com/
lillyella.blogspot.com/

So anyway this is just a blog about me being 50 something and hoping that maybe any who read can relate.

Ugg boots not good for your feet. What?

I just heard on a news report that Uggs are not good for your feet. Apparently it has something to do with the lack of arch support. I have had my Uggs for probably 3 years now and they are the first thing I put on the mornings and in fact wearing them right now. I have never cared if they are considered ugly, it's all about the comfort. The report did say that if you insert an arch support they would be better for your feet. I am lusting after the boots on this page, what could be better than Uggs and flowers. Along the same vein I also love my Mary Jane Crocs. I was never a fan of the original Croc but did fall for the Mary Jane. In fact someone recently told me they had heard they were going to stop making the Crocs so I had to order another pair of Mary Janes, the very ones on this page. The company where I ordered from, www.surfanddirt.com, was amazing. I had the shoes the next day after I ordered them and they were on sale.

New York, New York, Part 2 or Planes, Trains, Taxis and Buses

My second trip to the Big Apple took place in the summer of 2000 with a friend and her teenage stepdaughter. We stayed with the friend's family in New Jersey but went into Manhattan most every day. The one major mistake of this trip was trying to save money and fly into Islip, New York and take the train into NYC. Once you land in Islip you have to get a taxi to get to the train station which means transferring your luggage several times. Once we got to Penn Station we had to haul our luggage around Manhattan to find the Broadway theater where her brother was working. This was not the fun part and unfortunately we had to do the whole process again in reverse only this time the train had a problem on the way to Islip so we had to get off the train and haul our luggage onto a bus that took us to the train station where we then had to get a taxi to go to the airport. It definitely had the makings for a bad movie. Fortunately the rest of the trip was good. This trip we took the boat around the island of Manhattan and you truly do get a whole new perspective including the reason they can build so many huge buildings in such a small geographic area is that it is made of rock. We were fortunate to see the show Footloose from the second row. The stepdaughter was not thrilled about having to do so much walking but other than that it was a great trip.