NEW LOOK, NEW PLAN

If you haven't noticed already, I gave my blog a "fall" make over. I've been playing with a few ideas for a couple weeks now, and knew I wanted to incorporate fall, but I wasn't quite ready to go all orange, red and black. So I went on a different spectrum and made it "Shabby Fall"

I may tweak a few things here and there, but it'll be nice to look at for the next 4 months, and then I'll swing into Christmas gear...( holly crap, Christmas? really? It's coming so soon!)


Also, some big and exciting news.

I think C and I have finally agreed on when we'd like to start the process of getting married....(again) We're very seriously toying with the idea of New Years Eve, and inviting all of our close friends and family to Portland to ring in the new year and to celebrate our transition into a new, better, year. We both I agreed not to stress over any details while we're working on our Halloween season, but once things calm down in the first week or two, we're going to set something in stone.

We have decided to either throw the party on New Years or elope some place tropical and have a reception sometime next year.

Again, we're not doing anything huge, because of all the money we lost last year, I'm just looking forward to finally making our commitments and start focusing on building our family.


I wont have internet or computer access for the next few days as we make our transition into California, but once we get everything up and going I'll be sure to post about our trip!

2 WEEKS...

In 2 weeks we'll begin our journey back down to California for another Halloween season. I will be packing up all of the bare essentials and leaving the rest behind. My bed will not have anyone to lay on it for 3 whole months. The TV we had to save for 6 months, will not have any use. The fridge and freezer will be emptied, the cable turned off. The potted herbs that are growing so well will be carted down to a new state, where the heat will more then likely kill them.

The windows will be shut and locked, and when we return, they will not be opened since it will be nearly winter time. The water will come out slightly brown because it hasn't been ran for some time. The house will lack any warmth, any love, and any of us.

Spencer wont get to run with his best friend Oscar ( the neighbor dog) My favorite little girl will be bigger, and taller and have to get used to me again . There will be houses actually built in the field Spencer used to run so freely in.

I will miss our gym, that we frequent 3 days a week plus a boot camp. I wont have boot camp.

I will be spending more money on groceries, house payments, and sales tax. Gas will be more expensive. Our AC bill will be through the roof because Sacramento summers last until October and usually hover around 98 degrees on a cool day.

I wont have my own computer, just C's work computer. I wont have my own office, bathroom or 3 stories. I wont be able to watch all my favorite shows since we wont have cable, and chances are I wont have time for hulu.com. Cooking and baking will slowly die down, since my kitchen will be small and I wont have the energy after a 14 hour work day and lots of heavy lifting.

Having a business posts challenges and lots of changes. Carlos is reading a book; Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And in that book he says " you can't be afraid of change or you will fail. Failure is essential in business, everyone must fail in order to succeed"

So to me he says, be afraid of change, let yourself fail. It's okay. It will only help you in the long run, it will only help you grow and become more successful.

But what he doesn't know is; I'm not afraid of my business, I'm afraid of my life. I'm afraid of what was suppose to be. I'm afraid of our old cast asking too many questions that will inevitability break me down. I'm afraid people will think differently of me, and not see me as the person in charge. They will see my weakness, and take advantage of me. Or worse yet, they will feel sorry for me.

So please, during my journey down to another year of Halloween madness, say a prayer for me. Send me your kind words, encouragement, and support. I will need every last ounce of it.

 There are positives to every situation, and I'm trying so hard to see them all.


I am grateful, I am loved, I have support and that's all that matter in the end.

A TRIP IN REVIEW.. Day 1-3

Unfortunately there isn't much to "review" this was a business only trip and I knew that going into it. So let's start there....


We left Oregon on June 24th a Thursday, which generally is a bit early for us on the normal scheme of things. We decided a few months prior to have a garage sale, to get rid of stuff we've accumulated in the last 4 years. I didn't get any pictures because, well it's a garage sale. LOL ..nothing too exciting! We pretty much sold out and made over $600 which was a huge bonus! I highly recommend doing one..not only does it empty your garage but to add that chunk of change to your savings account? Heck yes.

I have a few tips:

1) LOTS of signs. it took us over 2 hours to post them, but we used about 40 signs total. We made our signs years ago using paint, and have kept them nice and neat in a box..people always complement us on signage.

2) Start planning early. Carlos and I are both a bit OCD about keeping things neat and organized, and that was the basis of how we ran our sale. We had "sections"..electronics, house hold, office, etc. People loved that they didn't have to look through everything. They could go to the section they were interested in and find what they were looking for.

3) Hang your clothes. I hate going to a garage sale where they have all their clothes thrown in a box or on a lawn. We hang all of them on a clothes rack so they look nice and neat.

4) Price everything before. This is HUGE. You already have your hands full, the last thing you want to do is track down your husband, mother in law or father in law to find a price on something. So have everybody pre price there stuff before hand.

5) Last but not least; Make deals! if someone is buying one thing, I generally would leave the price as is. But if someone had their hands full of stuff? I always made them deals so they wouldn't put anything back!


We only had our sale on Saturday because everything sold so quickly. on Sunday we spent our one and only day off at the local pool, and then we had dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant. I was so stoked to be in the SUN and lounging as much as possible. Good thing I did, because the week to follow wasn't so kick back and relax.

TIDBITS

We're a day delayed in our trip to California but for good reason ...I was sick :(  I woke up 4 days ago with a huge headache and swollen cheeks. When I sat up in bed, I had lots of drainage and a cough. yuck! I'm pretty sure it's a sinus infection, and I've been taking sudafed for it, which seems to be helping. I'm just praying all of the symptoms go away soon, as the headaches seem to be the last thing holding on for dear life, and you really can't get much done when you have one of those.

 I haven't lost a single pound this week, but lost 3 last week. I hate the ups and downs of trying to loose weight this time around. I'm convinced I need to get my thyroid checked out. Which leads me to the fact that I would get it checked out if I had medical insurance.  We're between coverages right now, and haven't decided which new group to go with. Lets pray and hope neither one of us needs anything major in the form of medical in the next 30 days!

I still haven't seen a "real" summer. Oregon has the funkiest weather this year, and I just cannot wrap my brain around it.  It will be beautiful and sunny outside and stay around 65 and then within minutes the whole sky will go dark gray and then it's 75 degrees. It makes NO sense. But I guess that's the Oregon weather rule of thumb. You go 10 minutes or 10 miles and the weather is different.


On our trip to California I'm really trying to squeeze in some "fun". We don't really have a budget to do any overnights or anything, but we can do a few day trips. I'm thinking about the water park, possibly an amusement park, or a picnic at the beach or even just heading over to San Francisco. Either way, with all the hard work that has already happened and the even harder work that's approaching, I think we need to treat ourselves to something fun...We'll chop it up to *encouragement* to keep moving forward.


I made a hair appointment with my favorite hair lady. I just got my hair done a few weeks ago with a salon that I found on Groupon.com and she messed it up! It wasn't a horrible mess up, but I went in for a root touch up and she ended up bleaching ALL of my hair. In fear of having my hair fall out, I've been deep conditioning it every night, putting a hair masque on once a week and not blow drying or straightening it as much. It seems to be in pretty good condition, for just having a ton of chemical put on it 3 short weeks ago, but alas it needs to be fixed!


That about sums up everything going on! I wont have very much internet access in California, so I'll probably just do a recap post when we get home sometime around the 6th of July!

California Bound

It's a really long drive that we make every 2 or 3 months. This time, we only went 30 days in between so it made it even longer.

12 hours in a truck, driving through every single weather condition you can possibly imagine only to know in the back of your mind you get to do it all over again in just a few short days. So Not COOL.

But as always, I stayed graceful and tried to see the positive side of the situation



( it's a cell phone pic. It doesn't get any bigger then this. sorry!)

The dog also made light of the situation. Actually, he was just happy he was going. He always thinks we're going to leave him every single time we start packing our suitcase. He will not leave or side, or budge for nothing.



(again with the crappy cell pic. I didnt want to pull out the big camera!)


We ended up arriving in the Napa Valley on Monday evening. We had some dinner, and went right to bed. The next day we were heading up to Lake Tahoe to do some boarding!


Unfortunately, I only got 1 or 2 pictures of Tahoe. We got there late Tuesday, and started our snowboarding lesson  early Wednesday morning.




We really had SO much fun. We bought snowboards something like 5 years ago and  haven't gotten much use out of them. We actually haven't been in close to 3 years, so we felt we should take a few refresher lessons and dust off some old snow rust. Surprisingly I didnt forget anything and picked it up really quickly. I'm thinking that Shaun White Wii game helped out! ;) I also learned a few new tricks and now can most likely master Blue runs.

We had so much fun, I think we're going to buy a few lift tickets for some local mountains in Portland and get a few more days in before the season ends.



Anyhow, we're finally home, (after yet another grueling drive home) and i'm just happy we made it home in time for Valentines Day.