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What is your favorite scent?

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So today I am amidst Lilac Blooms.  What a beautiful scent of summer!!  Also some fresh scent of lemon as I have just cleaned!  You ever notice the way the “lemon-fresh scent” energizes you to clean quicker?  I think the citrus puts me in a great mood!  Anyways, I am so ready for another great weekend!

Last weekend, I went to visit Nomad and it was glorious.  We had no planned agenda except to eat, sleep and yeah sounded enough of a plan to me!  We ended up cooking….going to the driving range (where I sucked it up quite nicely), the batting cages (where after 13 years I still kind of got it!!) and Church where there were smells of the city.    We drove until the wee hours of the morning thru the country and got lost.  It rained later that night as well so the smell of sweet rain fell upon us.  We fed the ducks.  He lives off a pond set up so the smell of water was pure.  I just wish it was a lake to go swim in!  He even tried teaching me how to chip a ball using a club.  We drank a little wine and it was so relaxing.  We walked a little after dinner too.  Someone clipped the grass and it made my nose itch.  It was just over all really nice!  I just cherish that time.  Frankly, I dread saying good-bye to him.

Do you ever find that you are just flooded with the smells of comfort?  This weekend I hope to be surrounded by fried chicken, apple pie, lake water, some citrus in there and other smells of summer!

So what are some of your favorite scents to be surrounded by?  What tickles your fancy?   Happy 4th of July!

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(Princess)Ogre…to Birthday!

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Room clean……..check!

Party had…………check!

Teeth brushed……check!

Old………..check, check!

Saturday-ay? was a wonderful day.  Truthfully.  Aside from the minor attacks from the neighborhood dogs, cake attacks from the siblings, or the blind dodgeball game my little brother and our cousins decided to play……OR flat out being called an OGRE in the middle of the mall today!  That was probably the highlight.

So, this will definitely make you pee your pants with laughter…adult-dipers in place….check!  Ok you ready for the story?

I met my friends Katherine (Special K) and Catherine…..which is confusing on its own accord! (the really bad thing is that I am by birth right a Catherine too!  ThankgoodnessIgobyyyyysomethingelse!) at the mall today.  I was finding them a million and one things to try on–they all looked fabulous!  So needless to say I was enjoying playing Barbie’s and getting them new clothes.  Well as you can imagine yelling “K/Catherine, how’s it going?” over in the changing room direction would be not so smart.  I did that about a billion times!!  I really don’t know what my deal was!

So then we walk into this accessory store and I am looking at rings.  Then this little almost 4-year-old girl walks up and we start to converse.  Mind you, I was half asleep when I got dressed this morning…but I was wearing a neon green shirt and a grey zip up.  I also was holding my bright green puffy jacket.  Our conversation literally moves from “wow, that ring is beautiful!”, “oh I do like that one, but this gold swirly one is pretty neat too…WHOA YOU LOOK LIKE AN OGRE!  I quickly proclaim….”AN OGRE????? What constitutes ME looking like and OGRE?”  She then states, I am wearing all green.  I gave her the “I am offended” look and she goes, “NOOOOOooooooo! You look like princess Fiona!”  OH Great…at least now I am Princess status!  As I was walking out she blew me a big kiss and it made things all better!

Aren't I beautiful??? hehe....that stance is very familiar to the feisty CatMan...dun dun dun!

Well I must say I had such a wonderful birthday weekend.  I went shopping with my girls.  What could be better??  All of Sunday was really low-key.

SIGH. 🙂

Went to church and family breakfast.  I then had my cousins help me clean up my house from the party we had the night before….next SUNDAY NAP!  Oh that was totally my favorite!  Next, my mom asked me what I wanted to do for dinner because it was my day.  That was really sweet of her to ask.  🙂  I love my mom.  Well I briefly told her lets just make all the left overs up and let’s have a feast!  No fuss just company and good food.

I was trying to get a group of girls together to get some wine…nothing worked out and everyone was so busy.  I must say I really didn’t get all that disappointed!  Well I invited my friend Laugh-a-lot out and the two of us ended up at the most random of spots!  We laughed, chatted about all of the idiot boys in our lives who will never realize how wonderful we really are….and ease dropped on the table behind us talking about onsies….”They have a onsie for that!”  It was such a random and beautiful day!

It was an amazing transition to a Quarter of a Century!  YAY!

I realized that I am above all blessed with such great people in my life.  I love my girl friends for all that they are and what they give me as far as perspective and hope goes.  Truly, to all the men who think I’m going to give you the time of day when you treated me like I was no greater than a speck of dust:  Skip You!

I just thought this was funny.... hahaha!

LOVE YOU GIRLS!

xoxo

Ho, Ho, HO!

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You'll shoot your eye out kid! Merry Christmas! HO, HO, HO!

 

 

I love Christmas for the very reason, there is Church opportunities to see friends and family that you haven’t seen for years, family comes from all over to see you, and plenty of food is provided to feed a small army…and then some!

How fortunate and blessed we are to have such a great and wonderful feast.  I also must think how spoiled we are in such a nation that we can pay NFL players millions of dollars for a starter season, yet we have people who are struggling to make ends meat.  It seems a little back words to me.

This Christmas, we started off with a trip to the Redi-med to get my Anut stitches. (This is a very typical start to a Holiday!  For an instance, I cut my hand pretty badly day before Thanksgiving…so TAG Anut…YOU’RE IT!)  No stitches from a Red Ryder BB gun…She somehow managed to trip on carpet and gash her head.  6 stitches later…sigh…we could start prepping for Children’s Mass.  We ate Italian Beef for Christmas eve and then relaxed as Santa came.  My siblings told us that they were going to wait until 9:30am to wake us up for presents…they actually stuck to their bargain!!!   As a family gift we received the game “Just Dance 2” for Wii.  I must say it really brought the family together!  We played it for hours on end and everyone was laughing and carrying on to the point that we forgot poor grandma was still eating in the kitchen!  It was my two sisters and I, my littlest brother, cousins–mostly their wives though, my parents, and Anut.  (Anut is how I used to write my Aunt Cathy’s cards and notes out because she is a school principal with an english background…she used to get so irritated! I am not the best speller; however I did that one on purpose.  It stuck with her now for years and years!)

When people get over the fact that you look stupid while you’re playing the game, you tend to have a lot more fun.  No joke we were probably burning so many calories from laughing and dancing that it really wouldn’t matter what we ate!  Life is too short to count the calories anyways!

Family is an interesting dynamic.  Sometimes it is easier than others to tolerate certain members but all in all they are what they are.  “Families are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts.”  ~Author Unknown.  (Couldn’t have said it better myself!)   You were chosen by God to be with your family and embrace that!  They are the only family you got!

How was everyone else’s Christmas?  Any funny stories to share?

Last night, she said….

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Friday was a girls night. Fun and much needed.  We had a dance party in the bar…this celebration continued thru the weekend…etc.

Saturday’s a rugby day!  NOT.  I wish…that would have been cool…But, I had a delightful day of football instead.  🙂   I went to one of the biggest games from my Alma Mater, Indiana University, which is called The Old Oaken Bucket Game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Oaken_Bucket.  ACTUALLY, I cannot just simply say that I had a fantastic “-day” because literally since Thursday I have really been enjoying myself.  This weekend was full of mischief, old friends, and lots of laughter!

Well back to Saturday, the game was a good game…even better company!  We totally had a blast.  I got back around 7pm and then met a few other friends out and about.  This is where more humor happened to find me.  I was very early so I was the first of my friends to arrive at this dive bar across town.  I went in scoped out the table situation and realized there was not an open seat in the house.  Then, I made friends with a table of guys that were sitting at a booth where I was standing.  5 minutes later  Mr. T shows up so, I just said my good byes to the kind gentleman and went from there.  He then handed me a card for a “Chip ‘n Dales” event!  AHHH THIS MAN WAS A STRIPPER!  I took the cards and scurried back to my friends.  Then later into the night, a friend of a friend was introduced.  Guess what?  He was a stripper too!!?!??!  Two in one night!  How lucky could a girl be???  UH NOT!

Also some other funny things happened…I got thrown over a guy’s shoulder and spun around, I had to climb over a booth table and ended up being “eye” level with everyone…I also ended up meeting a guy that had EVERY single opposite team liking as I did.  THAT was interesting.  From rival high schools to NFL, MLB teams….etc.  It was crazy funny.  I must say we were pretty cordial.  I found a bunch of Sweet and Low and sugar packets in my purse, walked into the Men’s Restroom, and then almost got asked out by this huge black man.  Literally, this could ONLY happen to a CatMan.  No….for real though!  It was such a great random, fun night.

 

OPA! Just felt like saying that for some reason...

 

 

Sunday, went to church with the family then to breakfast.  We continued to laugh our way thru it.  My brother as cruel as this sounds announced at the table that he had gone hunting the day before and shot a duck in the wing.  Unfortunately, he had to wring the duck’s neck (that’s the cruel sad part) but that they had some delightful duck meat to share.  We are hunter’s and gatherer’s over here!  Either way, it was funny how he told us.  Then the Colt’s lost….that was an incredibly horrible game….sigh.

Monday is a Monday.  Today I am listening to “The Muse” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsp3_a-PMTw and working on a bunch of hodge podge items.  I feel like I am being torn in several different directions…although I cannot say I am overwhelmed.  This is good.  My aunt is in from out of town so I think that we are going to go for lunch tomorrow.  What an excellent part of my week!

My last thought for you all today is this, if you appreciate your family and friends, please tell them often.  You never know what kind of day they are having or if they will be around to see tomorrow.  🙂

Keep smiling, keep loving and keep sharing ideas with the world my loves!

CatMan