this little life of mine

Good morning and welcome to Friday Five! This Friday Five was originally going to be for last week, but I never finished it, so I'm recycling it for this week. It's still all new to most of you since I haven't been online in, like, forever, though, so I hope you enjoy it!

1. The 12th through the 16th was a long working weekend for my mom and me, and last week was, too (although just a regular-sized, two-day weekend!), because we FINALLY received all our tax stuff so I was FINALLY able to my and my mom's taxes!! It's so frustrating to wait for certain agencies to mail out the tax info, and I hate, hate, HATE that they absolutely WON'T mail it out until the middle of February no matter how much you beg. I could've been done WEEKS ago if not for the one stupid thing! So annoying!!

2. I finished The Unintentional Time Traveller by Everett Maroon on the bus yesterday, and I loved it! I love time travel books (movies, TV shows, whatever) anyway, so choosing this book was a no-brainer. I particularly enjoyed the body-switch aspect of it and how a teenage boy deals with suddenly being a teenage girl, as well as suddenly being in a completely different time period! Apparently this is to be part of a series (as it's listed on Goodreads as Time Guardians #1), and I was originally uncertain about that, but after finishing the book, I'm really looking forward to book #2!  Of course, in the past I have been thrilled with the first book of a series only to be so disappointed in the second book that I didn't even bother with the third (or any subsequent) books.  

3.  We've had very strange weather here recently. It's gone from 70s or 80s during the day a week ago to 50s or 60s, and the past few nights have been around or below freezing! We even had a hail storm on Monday (which sadly, I missed as I was in SLO)!  Still, I've seen bright yellow daffodils, and white and pink blooming trees (not ours, yet, though), and other signs of spring around town. It's lighter in the morning when I get up, which makes it a lot easier to get up, and it's staying light later, too, and I'm loving that!

4.  Last night was the last of our first 6-week ballet-yoga sessions. There were only three of us, so it was like having a private session! (The class started with 12 and has been fairly consistent with between 7 and 10 people throughout, so I'm thinking a lot of people thought we didn't have it last night. Heck I was trying to remember if it was week six or not myself! Also I received very very VERY bad news moments before class started, so I almost baled myself. I'm so glad I went, though, because I really needed it!) I really enjoy this class, and already signed up for the next 6 weeks - which starts next Thursday! It's really hard, I can't do much of any of it well or even at all, but it's a great work out, I'm sweating by the end of it, and I feel great! Also, no one appears to be judgy about my inabilty, so that's good!

5.  And, finally, a pretty picture.

The trees downtown were blooming when mom and I were wandering around a couple weeks ago, and I couldn't resist taking tons of pictures!

So what are your plans for the weekend? Let me know in the comments! Cheers! 

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So I had a very long, very busy five days off from work. Last Thursday the 12th was a holiday, and I managed to get Friday the 13th off from work, then yesterday, the 16th was another holiday. And, I spent most of those days getting stuff done.

Thursday we just did our regular Saturday errands - post office to return things, Home Depot for paint and supplies, Staples for a new mini scanner, and Big Lots and the Discount Grocery store for food and sundries. It may not sound like much, but it was exhausting!

Friday mom and I dragged every single little thing out of the garage, decided whether or not to keep it, cleaned off the keepers, and put them back neatly in well organized, labeled bins. The non-keepers we took to Goodwill (after photographing some of the items that had some mild sentimental value to me) in two separate loads. It was an all-day job, it was hot and gross, but, Lord, it felt good to get it done! The garage is now clean and clutter-free!

Saturday we decided to take a day to have fun, and after breakfast at Bru, we planned to wander around the  lovely downtown Atascadero and go wine tasting, check out the new antique and thrift stores that just opened up, as well as some of the other quaint little shops, have lunch at Fig, and finish off with some tea at Wilwind. Sadly, things did not go as planned. The EmPOURium where we were going to do our wine tasting was closed (even though it was 11:20 am, and the sign said they open at 11:00 am.), as were several of the other stores we planned to visit (including The Barrel Room which also offers wine tasting, and Envisions Gallery, which I was surprised to find had gone completely out of business! So sad!), so we were only able to visit the two new thrift stores - Thistle Do Nicely and 805 Vintage, cute names, but we weren't impressed with either shop to be honest - Violette's Wings and Gifty Things, and Rhonda's Relics (both super fun, awesome stores!). It only took us aobut a half hour to check everything out, and since we were still full from breakfast, we decided to just skip lunch and tea, and just go home. It turned out to be a serious  bummer that left us wishing we'd just gone to Paso! Or Morro Bay. Or Cambria.

le sign.

Sunday was painting day. I had a wood CD cabinet in my previously light blue room, that was painted a slightly darker shade of blue than the walls just for fun. Since remodeling my bedroom, there's no space for it (and the colour doesn't match), so it has been residing in the den, which is painted light green and contains cream and dark brown furniture (so it still doesn't match!). So we purchased a quart of Glidden Banana Cream Pie coloured paint, and covered the CD case - as well as an old white Q-bit - in a couple coats to match the furniture we already had. They both turned out really well, and go much better with the other stuff in the room. Here's the before and after of the CD cabinet:

Finally, Monday was a free day, and I took the opportunity to get my hair cut (nothing drastic; just a trim, really) and indulge in a mani/pedi. It was SO nice to have a day to relax and reflect on all that we accomplished over the weekend! I still need to go through the rest of my closet and get rid of more stuff (to make way for spring stuff of course!), then attack the kitchen and den, but I'm thrilled with how successful this weekend really was!

Also, I hope everyone had an awesome Valentine's Day on Saturday! I made cards earlier, and mailed them out hopefully in time for people to get them.

I hope you all had a great weekend, too! Did you do anything fun? Do any work? Did you even have any holidays? Let me know in the comments! Cheers!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read •Open to a random page •Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page •BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) •Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Good morning and happy Tuesday! I finished reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up last Friday, and found it has kind of inspired me to, well, tidy up! While I probably won't be going nuts and talking to my stuff, or getting rid of everything I own a la, the KonMari method, I do have a few days off from work coming up, and plan to spend the time reducing  the amount of my belongings dramatically. Starting with the book itself. Does this spark joy? Hmm. We shall see!

Anyway, this week I'm reading a YA novel called The Unintentional Time Traveller by Everett Maroon. I'm just a few chapters into it, but so far I'm really enjoying it! I've always enjoyed time travel books, and this one has a pretty good twist I'm finding interesting and entertaining! Here are my teasers from page 39 on my nook:

"I'm fine, mom."

"You are not fine. You haven't been fine since that day in the lab."

So, what are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments! Have a great Tuesday! Cheers!

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Good morning, and TGIF!! So, for today's Friday Five, I was originally going to list the five subjects I'm contemplating studying for the Master's Degree I would like to get, but as I arrived at the bus stop, tragedy struck! I dug in my purse for my phone so I could read the early morning FB postings of my clever and witty friends, and suddenly realized: my phone was at home still plugged into the wall!

Oh! The horror!

Yes, I foolishly took my phone OUT of my purse this morning and decided to charge it up a bit more because it only had 85% power. Now, I've done this before, actually, have remembered to grab it before leaving. Today was not one of those days.

So, I'm having a Phone-Free Friday! Ack! After my initial panic attack, I started thinking back to when I did a Radical Sabbatical during September of 2013  where I basically went tech free for 30 days. It was hard at first to not check FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc., a few times a day and all day on the weekends, but in the end, it was almost freeing. It was like living in Ye Olden Days when we didn't carry cell phones on us at all times. We called people we needed or wanted to from our home phone or a phone booth, we visited friends we wanted to interact with, or we sent them letters through the post.   

Ahhh, the good old days!

So, yeah, that was a fun experiment, but not one I really wanted to do today! It's not 1984, it's 2015, and I miss my iPhone! So, here is today's Friday Five: Five Things I Miss Because I Don't Have My iPhone Today (*sniff*):

1.  Not being able to read my friends' early morning FB posts.  I have several very creative, funny friends who post mostly fun, witty entries very early in the morning. They are very entertaining, and their posts start my day off on the right note!

2.  Not being able to check my eBay stuff, or get notifications from eBay. (eBay is not available on our computers at work. Neither is FB, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest) It's always fun to get that little cash register cha-ching! sound when I've sold something, or checking in to see how many people are watching or have viewed my items.

3.  Not being able to take pictures. We had another gorgeous sunrise this morning, and I was unable to capture it. I was sad.

4.  Making a list. I've been making lists on the little notepad app that came with my phone. Today I have to jot things down on sticky notes like they did in the caveman days.

5.  Not being able to randomly tweet some witty, but inane tid-bit about myself or my day. For example, today's random tweet of no significance would have been:  I have long sleeve t-shirts to wear under sweaters, but did I remember to do so today? When it's cold? Um. No. I did not. Am dumb. And cold.  See? Aren't you sad you missed out on my brilliance today?

Have you ever forgotten your cell phone, or some other item of importance? How did you get along without it? Let me know in the comments! Have a great Friday and an awesome weekend! I'll see you next week! Cheers!

via Instagram http://ift.tt/1DJdVwF

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read.

•Open to a random page.

 •Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. (I tend to go over this limit a LOT!)

•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Good morning, and happy Tuesday! This week I'm reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I don't normally read self-help books, but I am hoping to clean up, organize, and reduce clutter in my home this year, so this book sounded like just the thing to help me accomplish that goal. Also, it's not a great big hulking thing, so it's easy to carry around and read on the bus. I've already posted a couple pictures of the book, which is why I didn't bother posting another one here, in case you were wondering. Anyway, here are my teasers from page 61:

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose. To get rid of what you no longer need is neither wasteful nor shameful.

Wow, that's actually really powerful, and really speaks to me! I often have trouble throwing out something that is still perfectly fine or useful even though I don't really want or need it, because it feels so wasteful, and I feel guilty! Apparently, I don't have to feel bad about it at all!

Have you read any self-help books? Did they actually help you? Did they change your life? Let me know in the comments! Have a great Tuesday! Cheers! 

Well, hello, and welcome to my January fav ... uh, hey, wait a minute! What happened to January?? I swear I was just watching The Twilight Zone marathon on SyFy and the Rose Parade on HGTV yesterday, and now, all of a sudden, it's February!! And I'm doing my January Favourites!!

O. M. G.

O.K. Deep, cleansing, yoga breath in ... and out. Time is flowing faster than ever, but it's gonna be okay. It has to, right?!?

Anyway, okay, enough of the shock of turning over the calendar already, and on to some of the things I found, liked, loved, and enjoyed during the month of January. Enjoy!

Cosmetics: I've been using L'Oreal Paris' Infallible Pro-Matte foundation in #102 Shell Beige, and pressed powder in Porcelain for the past month, and really quite like them. The foundation colour I chose seems a little dark, but for whatever reason, actually blends in with my natural skin colour really well. Also, really like the Almay Get Up and Grow mascara (in Black Brown waterproof formula). To take it all off at night, I'm using the Neutrogena make up remover wipes, and yes, they really do remove waterproof mascara as well!

Fragrance: While I was cleaning out my cosmetics drawer, I found a couple sample tubes, and used them the past couple weeks. Unfortunetly I don't know what they were, but at least one of them was really nice. Pity. Also, I found a sample of Lilly by Stella McCartney, and really liked the nice, fresh, floral scent. Not sure if I would buy a whole bottle of it, though.

Fashion: The only shopping I did in January was to pick up a few tops from IGIGI. I was going to write up an "Un-boxing" post, but didn't get around to it. Also, on Thursdays when I have Ballet Yoga at 6:15 PM, I've been wearing my yoga leggings under a maxi skirt and a sports bra under a tee-shirt or sweater for work, so I don't have to go all the way home to change. I can just slip into the bathroom at the studio, and step out of the skirt and switch out my shirt for a work-out one, and I'm ready to go!

Book: I spent most of January reading The Curiosity by Stephen P. Kieman. As I've mentioned several times, I really really loved this book and highly recommend it.

Music:  This is more of a dislike and a bit of a rant: My favourite radio station - KLIFE - changed its format (and its name) at the beginning of the year, and I'm not sure I like it. Sure they still play Christian music, but I miss The Wally Show in the morning and Durban after work, and when Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant come on I cringe. And, I have yet to hear some of the edgier music they used play like tobymac, Skillet, Lacrae, or Stellar Kart, who are some of my favourite artists that I discovered through KLIFE. Granted I only listen during my five minute commute to the bus stop in the morning and back at night, so I'm not listening all day, so it's entirely possible that Durban is on the air at a different time, and they still play cool music at some other time of the day. But it just feels to me like KLIFE is no longer the fun, edgy, high energy Christian radio station it used to be. It's like it went from being 24 years old to 60 overnight.

TV: Galavant was fun, and it looks like there's going to be a second season! Sweet! 

Food: Nothing really spectaular. Hopefully I'll be able to do some more cooking in February.

Beverages: I was watching a marathon of Bar Rescue and during one they made a drink with spiced rum, orange soda and bitters. I've been enjoying a rum and Coke occasionally on the weekends, and thought this was worth a try. After all I love orange soda, and I'd already purchased some spiced rum that I planned to make hot buttered rum drinks with over Christmas, but never did. So, I tried this drink at home, and loved it!

Well, I think that's about it! What did you use, or discover in January that you really liked? Or maybe didn't like? Let me know in the comments! Hope you January was fantastic, and that February is awesome! Cheers!