Happy Birthday, Abbie!

Abbie turned SEVEN in January!

How did my baby get so old?

Here's the note that Garrett left for her that day.  Abbie's birthday was on a Sunday, but Garrett worked a 14-hour day on Saturday and a 14-hour day on Sunday, so... he literally did not see her between Friday night and Monday night!  He felt pretty badly but what can you do.

She was really excited about her new soccer ball:

And some window clings!

We didn't do too much to celebrate on her actual birthday (since it was Sunday & Garrett was gone), besides a special breakfast and dinner.  On Monday night we went out to dinner with some friends at Cici's Pizza, per Abbie's request.  She had gone for another friend's birthday party the month before and had been raving to Ellie about the arcade ever since.  Both girls were over the moon to be there.

                                      

I love so many things about Abbie, but here are seven:

1. She is so creative.  She has big ideas for how to decorate for things, how to celebrate things, and how things should be.  I love this about her.

2. She is such a great big sister.  Olivia adores her.  I love walking into a room and finding her reading books to Ellie and Olivia.  So cute.

3. She's smart.  She aces all her tests and does all her homework perfectly (even if she resists having to do it!)

4. She's a great artist.  Several months ago when we went to the school to find out who her first grade teacher was going to be, another teacher found out who she was and said, "Abbie Woodbury!  I have heard about you!  I've heard that you are a wonderful artist!"  She was so happy, it was adorable.

5. This is similar to being a good big sister, but all little kids love Abbie.  When we go to the playground, they flock to her and follow her around like the Pied Piper.  She makes up little games with them, keeps them safe on the playground, and pushes them on the swings.

6. She is a great soccer player and a great dancer, too.

7. She loves to help me.  Help me cook, help me do the dishes, help me sew.  She loves to learn and try new things.

Happy 7th Birthday, Abbie.  We love you!!

Disney Princess 10k

                    

My friend Stef and I ran a 10k at Disney World last Saturday morning.

We left on Friday afternoon, after divvying out our kids to several different people until our husbands got home from work (her husband is a resident also, and she has 4 kids).  I wish I could say that the drive down was uneventful but it was pretty crazy!  First of all, it was raining pretty hard for part of the freeway driving which made me pretty anxious.  Then, we saw the two cars in front of us get into an accident.  So, we came to a stop behind them, but unfortunately we were in the lefthand lane of the 3-lane freeway.  Thankfully the car behind us also stopped, but that's where our luck ended.  The car behind him came barreling into him, but through some miracle we still didn't get hit by the person behind us.  Then, another crash and another crash... we just heard car after car getting hit.  Soon there was just a huge pileup behind us, plus the two cars in front of us.... and we were in the middle, untouched.  It was crazy, and scary.  I don't think anyone was hurt -- from what we could see, cars were just rear-ended and no one was smashed up badly. 

We drove to the expo, where we picked up our running gear.  Then, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom!  Stef is a huge fan of Disney; in fact, her whole family had Disney Annual Passes even when they lived in Wisconsin for medical school!  Haha.  We spent a couple of hours at the Magic Kingdom doing the bigger rides, then headed back to our hotel room for a couple hours of sleep before our race. (Incidentally, we were rear-ended on our way to the hotel!  Thankfully there wasn't much damage, which is especially good because the other car sped away before we could get any info from him)

Saturday morning we woke up early (3:45 am!) and headed to Disney World for the race (which started at 5:30 am).  We were done by 6:30 and headed right back to the hotel to shower and change (Garrett brought the kids down and we took them to Disney for the day -- blog post soon!).

All in all, it was a fun time.  I didn't do very well on the run -- probably a combination of lack of sleep and a few other things.  To be honest, I didn't love it, because I really don't love running!  But it was a fun experience and I'm glad it's behind me.  Stef is already trying to get me to run a half marathon with her next year but I don't see that happening (she runs 3-4 Disney halfs a year).  I don't feel like I have the time to train for a half marathon, or really much of a desire for that matter.

But hey, I got a pretty medal, which the girls loved wearing around the park that day.

And finally, a shirt at the expo that I wanted to buy for Garrett.  Oh, he would have loved this, don't you think??

10 Things

My friend posted "10 Things I'm Loving Lately" on her blog and I figured that copying her would be a good way to get out of this blogging rut (i.e. laziness).

So, 10 things I'm loving lately:

1. New running shoes

I got my last running shoes (Asics) for my birthday in 2010, and I have put a lot of miles on them in almost-4 years.  Of course, not all running (my running habit is very erratic).  But, in 2013 I ran about 100 miles and walked 225 miles, and in 2012 I ran 60 miles and walked 230 miles. I have already run 35 miles since the beginning of 2014 so I knew it was time to get new shoes (well, mostly it was because there was a hole in my left shoe).  My sister recommended the Nike LunarEclipse, but they have gotten really expensive recently  for some reason, so I bought some Asics on sale instead.  After putting about 6 miles on them, I knew I had to exchange them for something else.  My knees ached and it just didn't feel right. My feet are really similar to my sister's, so I trusted her and bought some Lunar Eclipses online (buying shoes online makes me nervous so I made sure to buy some that could be returned at a local store).  They were hard to find!  For some reason they are really expensive, and it's hard to find my size as well (9 - pretty common!).  I finally did find some blue ones (couldn't find pink, sadly), and I figured that spending $$$ now on good shoes is better than spending more $$$$$ down the road on knee surgery.  I LOVE them and haven't had any problems with achy knees since I got them.  Definitely worth it.  Thanks for the recommendation, Emma!

2. Grapefruit

I love grapefruit season.  Growing up in NH, our youth group would sell cases of grapefruit and oranges every winter for our girls' camp/scouts fundraiser (or maybe just the scouts sold them?? I don't even remember if I did or not).  Anyway, my family always bought 2 cases of oranges and 1 case of grapefruit.  Of course, I always ate grapefruit with a special grapefruit spoon and some sugar on top.  However, I've never been able to find grapefruit spoons so I've gotten into the habit of just peeling them like an orange and eating them that way (no sugar).  So good..... reallly messy (besides peeling off the rind, I peel off most of the bitter "skin" too).

3. The "Frozen" soundtrack

Oh man, I can't wait to see this movie!  The music is soo good and we listen to it multiple times a day on Spotify.  The girls know every word and I do too.  Even Olivia sings along!! (I will sing "Let it..." and she says "...go!"  and a few other words. Adorable).  Abbie has seen the movie (with a friend), but we will all go see it in the theater when it goes to the cheap place (hopefully soon)!  Did you know that the movie is based on the story of "The Snow Queen"?  I used to love that story growing up.

4. Roasted red pepper hummus

Always delicious.

5. Grocery shopping at Walmart

Okay, I'm not loving this. Our SuperWalmart is 30 minutes away so I don't make it there very often (ever).  I normally just go to Publix because it's only half a mile up the road (plus it really is a very nice place to shop!!).  However, I just did a giant grocery trip at Walmart and I just couldn't believe how much money I saved.  I did still go to Trader Joe's for a few things (some produce, meat, tortillas).  Anyway, I'm planning to go to Walmart again in February, for sure.  Just last night I had to make a quick trip to Publix for some milk/bananas/eggs/bread/lunch meat/apples (you know, the stuff that's hard to stock up on and runs out fast).  I grabbed a couple other things too, and I ended up spending SEVENTY dollars, and that was AFTER the bogo deals (saved $17!)!  Ugh.  Still can't get over how expensive groceries are here.

6. The Biggest Loser

I've always loved this show.

7. Going to bed earlier

I've been going to bed before 11 (sometimes even by 10:30) and it's so refreshing!  I'm getting nearly 8 hours of sleep a night!

8. The weather

Okay, it's actually been REALLY cold this week, but it's supposed to be 80 degrees this weekend.  I'm so excited.

9. My "groups"

One thing I really love about living where we do, is that there is such a big variety of activities going on all the time.  We have a book club, girls nights out, running groups, playgroups, a "homemade" group where we make different things each month (face cream, laundry detergent, candles, pickles, etc), ... just to name a few.  It's not out of the ordinary to get a mass text in the evening from someone saying that they are going out somewhere fun, inviting anyone who wants to come!  I'm technically "in charge" of the book club (I send out the reminder emails, host the welcome party every summer when new people move in, etc).  I used to go to playgroup religiously, but now that the older girls are in school, Olivia naps in the mornings so I don't go anymore.  I go to the "homemade" group, and I run with friends usually 2-3x a week.  I love my "groups", and now that Garrett is studying every night for boards it's nice to get away sometimes so he can study in peace and I can talk to some adults.  I do have to be careful though, because I could truly be gone at least 3 nights a week if I participated in everything!  That being said, I did just start a new group that I'm really excited about.  I started a "small business group".  We meet once a month or so (in the morning) to talk about our businesses (I talk about my quilting) and bounce ideas off each other, and we are going to start having reading assignments and stuff about growing your business, etc.  There is a girl at church who owns a very successful etsy shop (she has had over 8500+ sales), so she and I kind of started it together, along with my good friend who is an interior designer.

10. Catherine's Spicy Chicken Soup

I know I have shared this recipe on the blog before.. but it's worth sharing again.  I love it so much, and it's perfect for winter.

Lately

We've had some cold weather lately, resulting in some.... interesting outfits that Ellie has put together.

Finding books.... er, DVD's.... at the library:

Olivia, looking cute as always:

My friend put together a "boot camp" during the second week of Christmas vacation.  We met every morning at 9 a.m. for a 20-45 min workout.  It was a lot of fun!  And really hard because another friend of mine was "making" me run 3-5 miles with her almost every night that week too.

This was probably my favorite workout -- she called it "12 Days of New Years" and we did it on New Years Day.  There are 12 exercises listed and we did them just like the song, so:
Round 1 - we did lunges to the half court line.
Round 2 - we did sprints to the half court line and back twice, and then the lunges to the half court line
Round 3 - 3 burpees, the 2 sprints, 1 set of lunges
Round 4 - 4 plank walk-outs, 3 burpees, 2 sprints, 1 set of lunges
etc.

Olivia with her bed hair:

Ellie helping Garrett fix her bike:

Abbie, ready for a chilly ride to school:

Close-ups

Like I said in my blog post last week, I've been busy quilting lately!  Garrett and I took some pictures of my quilts over Christmas break.

This one is a favorite.  It's pretty big for a baby quilt -- it would be perfect for a toddler bed or even an adult lap quilt.  The patterns have a nautical theme to them, so I did triangles and simple straight line quilting.  I love this one!  The back is just solid white.

This one I really love, too!  When I was fabric shopping online over Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend, I randomly came across this fabric bundle and added it to my cart on a whim.  It turns out that they are gorgeous in person and so nice and soft.  This quilt actually sold soon after I posted a picture of it on my Instagram account (I got a new IG account for my quilting projects - @riseandshinequilts .  I'm "listing" my quilts there first to try to avoid Etsy fees.)

This baby quilt was a custom order and it was really fun to make.  I love pinwheel quilts.

Three quilts, ready to be mailed out:

I made this herringbone quilt and I'm in love with how it turned out!

I made a mint one with a navy binding, too:

... with metallic dots on the back

And THIS.... this is my baby!  Haha.  I started this last summer and was finally able to finish it after I bought my sewing machine.  The quilt pattern is called "Fireworks" by Camille Roskelley, and I actually used Camille's "Vintage Modern" line of fabric as well.  I love how it turned out!  

Not too bad for my first time doing "fancy" free-motion quilting!

Another close-up

It feels so fun to have found something I really enjoy doing - I feel like I found my passion!  I love trying new techniques and connecting with other quilters and I have a lot of big ideas for future quilts and projects.  I'm really excited!

101 Update - what won't get done

When I first created my 101 goal list, it was because I wanted to set goals for myself of things that I really wanted to accomplish eventually.  I didn't want to always say "someday I will do that", and have "someday" never arrive.

As I study my list and try to get everything done, I've noticed that there are a few things that just don't matter to me anymore. Since they don't have anything to do with building my character or making me a better person, I'm just going to skip them.  Forcing myself to do them at this point just wouldn't make sense.  These include the following:

2. Go to a UF football game

Unfortunately, it's too late for this to happen!  I really do like college football games and it would have been a great time, but this last season, Garrett was out of town or at work during literally every home football game.  Maybe I'll have to include this on my next 101 list?  We only have one more football season here in Florida!

32. Paint/refinish the old dresser I have

Well, this old dresser is in the back corner of our walk-in closet, so literally no one sees it except for me.  Also, the bottom drawer is broken so I can't push it in.  Not worth painting.

43. Paint my pantry door

I'm on the fence about this one.  Since we are going to be trying to sell our house in a little over a year, I'm tempted to skip it.  Still thinking about it.  I wanted to paint it a really light blue.

69. Paint our bedroom

When we moved into our house, I painted literally EVERY room except for our laundry room, master bedroom, and master bathroom.  It was a LOT of painting, especially since painting the living room had me teetering on the tippy top of the ladder!  I was so burnt out by the end that I took a break and told myself I would get to the master bedroom "eventually".  Well, "eventually" never happened and the yellow color has grown on me.  I don't love it, but I don't dislike it enough to paint it.

70. New hardware on the cabinets

Not something I want to spend my money on.  I don't love the current hardware but it's fine.

92. Reconnect with a close friend from the past, build up a strong relationship again

This might sound cold-hearted but I just don't think I can do this.  It's hard to stay close to people who live so far away, who aren't family members.  People grow apart.  I just don't have time to cultivate a long distance relationship with an old friend, who I may not even share common interests with anymore.  They have their own friends, I have mine.  We'll read each other's blogs and send Christmas cards and keep up with each other, because we do care about each other, but it's just hard to keep a strong relationship going.  I hope that doesn't sound mean.

98. Go to the pageant in Palmyra

It's too late to do this before my 1001 days are up.  I really miss the pageant, though!  I went a lot in high school and then I went with Garrett in 2007, when my grandparents lived in Palmyra for 3 years.  Hopefully we can go again soon!

There are a couple more that I may be skipping but hopefully not.  Unfortunately I saved some of the hardest ones for last!  Going to bed by 10:30 for two weeks.... keeping a 2-month cleaning schedule.... learn how to use our Nikon and Lightroom better.... ugh, I'd better get to work!

Busy

I am loving my new sewing machine.  I've been able to finish up a bunch of quilts that were only half done because I wasn't able to quilt them with my small machine.  I was also finally able to start selling them.  I'll be listing them on etsy soon, but for now I'm just posting them on instagram to try to save the hassle of using etsy (& mostly just trying to save on fees).  I've already been able to sell one that way and am hoping I continue to have some success!