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Archive for the 'Events' Category

Fluffy to Fabulous! A work in progress.

Published on September 27, 2011 in Beauty and Events. View Comments

Fluffy to Fabulous!  A work in progress.

Well, I have debated for months about doing this post.  Partly because it’s a bit personal, partly because I didn’t want to publish what I am doing, and partly because it’s just embarrassing (how did I let myself do this to…myself?).

“Um, hello, Jenny Craig?  My name is Dot…(slight pause)…and I’m fat.”

Yep, I’m pretty sure that’s how that phone call began the last week of May, 2011.  Several things have led me to the point of calling Jenny, and I’ll give you the brief rundown.  I’ve always been the “bigger” girl, not necessarily fat, but curvy for real with soft hips, thighs and killer ta-tas.  I stabilized at a near perfect size 14 at the end of high school, and relished the attention from men in college.  I enjoyed my body the way it was and did little to no dieting and/or exercise.  I know, bad BAD Dot.  My first real attempt at losing some serious weight was right after college graduation.  I signed up for a year with LA Weight Loss.  It may be great for some, but after a few months it was just not the program for me.  Having to go to the center three times a week for weigh-ins and discussions about your salad lettuce varieties and bowel movements…no thanks.  Trying to get over there three times a week was inconvenient enough!  I had two gigs with Weight Watchers, one before I got married and one right after.  I did like the program and I lost about 20 pounds each time.  It was easy to count the points and track my food and stuff, but the other women who attended the meeting time I chose to go to were super irritating.  I was the youngest by far, and these old and older ladies just sat there and yapped on and on and on…it’s a 30 minute meeting ladies!  Just spit it out and move on!  I’m all for encouragement and inspiration, but I do not care to hear your life story in EVERY meeting.  So…I stopped going.  Twice.

Now fast forward almost 7 years and two kids later.  I have not only accumulated “happy marriage weight”, but I also have leftover baby weight (and I wasn’t exactly tiny before I got preggers) and some emotional-eating related weight due to my dad’s unexpected illness and ultimate passing when my first son was 8 months old ~ he was 56.  And this past May when my second son was 8 months old, my mother-in-law suddenly passed away due to diabetic complications ~ she was only 51.  This is some heartbreaking and scary stuff!  I had that “A-ha” moment that Oprah talks about so frequently, and knew that if I could avoid all the potential health hazards that come from just being overweight, that I had to jump on that pronto.  No time to waste.  I want to be around for all three of my men, and I want to see my grandchildren grow up.  I have to make some changes.  NOW.

Having tried the diets that ask you to check in at meetings and allow you to feed yourself has not worked for me, so I seriously researched Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem.  I needed something that provided the prepared food for me while I learned portion control.  Jenny won overall because I liked the client reviews more and the food options were more up my alley.  I called Jenny the last few days of May, set up an account and had my first food delivery on June first.  No meetings or centers to go to, I weight in once a week at home, and I have one consultant who calls me once a week during nap time.  I sifted through the entire menu the first month or so, and now only get the things I really really like, while still feeling like I have enough variety.

Now, here comes the part where I hold my breath, cringe a little and tell you my stats.  I’m making significant progress and am seriously committed to this change in my life, so here we go:

June 1st, starting weight ~ 246.8       (OMG – I know)

Today, September 27th ~ 201.0

Current total: 45.8 pounds GONE.  Y’all – that is more than my almost-three year old!

I feel better, I sleep better, I am learning the right things to eat and how much of them.  The feelings of deprivation have changed dramatically…it’s easier (note: easier not easy) to turn down treats and temptations (sweet tea especially, large amounts of pasta and bread and ice cream).  I still get Starbucks once in a while, but my grande Cinnamon Dolce frapp. has turned into a tall Cinnamon Dolce frapp. with skim milk and no whipped cream (hey – it still tastes good!!)

And another awesome thing entirely unto itself – my clothes don’t fit!  I bought two pairs of cheapy jeans at Target for transitional purposes (my pants were bagging off my ass and I could pull them up and down without unzipping them), and smart girl here INSTEAD of buying a boatload of fall and winter clothes and upsetting my hubby with the Visa bill, I bought two wide belts – one woven brown leather and one black stretch with silver accents – to belt all my too-large shirts and sweaters and get through the winter.

My goal is to be the foxiest version of myself, and to have all my weight lost by next summer.  I’ve lost 45 pounds, and have about 50 pounds to go (seems extreme, but think here ~ I’m only 5′5″ – 150 pounds is right for that height).  I want to be healthy and active for my little boys and a goddess for my husband (he’s always made me feel like I am, but I want to feel it, too).  Is it weird to want my sons’ friends to think their mom is a fox???  I mean, later on in high school and college…not in kindergarten.  And NOT that I intend to do anything like Stiffler’s Mom!  Just saying.

Here are some of the “before” pictures I am sending to my JC consultant.  I need to get on a fitted shirt and my transition jeans and get Matt to take a picture for me.  You can make your dreams happen.  You can reach your goals.  But you gotta get off your tush and DO something about it.  It won’t happen all by itself, and as many times as I wished for a bag of Tinkerbell’s pixie dust, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn’t exist.

Be prepared – I don’t want your retinas to burn!

For comparison, that’s my sister on the left.  She’s a smidge taller and has always been very svelte.

Watch out – rear view!  This is just a week after I started JC.

With my son, in September 2010 (about 6 weeks after son #2 was born)

Current pictures will be added soon, I promise!  Just wanted to share the news and major transition I am making.  Hell, hopefully you guys will be like my fabulous Jenny consultant and keep me accountable! (Now tell me to start doing cardio ASAP).

OK – it’s not perfect – I’ll get a good one up soon, but this was a few weeks ago on a Sunday outing with my boys.

November 1, 2011 UPDATE:

53 pounds total!  Whooo!

Here is a recent one (November 2011)

58.6 pounds lost (December 2, 2011)

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European Adventure: Part II – Paris

Published on July 8, 2011 in Events, Family, Travel and Uncategorized. View Comments

European Adventure: Part II

Paris

On my husband’s 30th birthday we hopped aboard a train, much to our toddler’s delight, and were whisked off to Paris.  We loved seeing all the charming little towns and villages nestled in groves of trees as we sped towards our next destination.  We saw plenty of windmills – old and new construction, plenty of flower nurseries – no doubt hiding away next year’s plethora of tulips, and had an easy 3-hour trip.  The closer we got to Paris, the more the clouds dissipated…we were heading for lovely weather and hoped it would stick with us for the duration.

Our hotel was just gorgeous, tucked just one block off of the Champs Elysees and very close to the Arc de Triomph.  Our room adjoined my mom’s via a little entry hallway, and our room had a nice seating/dining area which made for the perfect communal space.  Mom and I laid out our journals and paints almost immediately, and we all made ourselves right at home.  Our days were sprinkled with marvelous adventures: A Siene riverboat cruise, Centre Pompidou, The Louvre (FINALLY!!), the Eiffel Tower, Chateau Chantilly, and a variety of cafes, restaurants and fou-fou boutiques.  My mom even gave the hubby and I the opportunity for a few date nights!!  IN PARIS!  How lucky are we & how awesome is my mom!!

Though they may not remember it, my children (at 2 years and 9 months respectively) have seen the Notre Dame Cathedral, they have been in the Louvre and seen the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory and a whole exhibit of Rembrandt’s work, and the toddler chased pigeons in the park while we enjoyed a cafe break and some fresh chocolate crepes!  It was all very magical, the weather was impeccable and we made family memories to last our lifetime.

Evan and his big truck (and the Eiffel Tower, of course)

Evan upon our arrival at the Chateau Chantilly

One of the breathtaking (and HEEE_YUGE) rose windows at Notre Dame

My littlest little & I at the Louvre with the Venus de Milo

The sparkling display we could watch from the balcony of our rooms!

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European Adventure: Part I – Amsterdam

Published on June 1, 2011 in Events, Family, Friends and Travel. View Comments

European Adventure: Part I

Amsterdam

Hello!  Nice to be back!

I have been absent for a while for a few reasons, some being personal.  One of the big ones, though, was that I was trying to organize, prepare and pack up my little family for a semi-extended overseas jaunt.  We are lucky enough to have been able to plan a grand two week adventure to Europe with both little boys and my mom.  The inspiration behind this trip is the temporary residence of my childhood best friend, her husband and their little boy who is just a few months younger than our oldest.  I never thought we’d be able to visit them while they lived abroad, as they moved 3 months before we were due to have our second son.  But my courageous husband said he wanted to go see them in Amsterdam, AND take the kids!  Whoo boy!  We were planning, but we weren’t sure if we were brave or insane…but in deciding to travel with two small children we wanted to make the effort worth it and we used up all of my husband’s vacation time for the year.

After a month long expedition in Australia and New Zealand back in 2006 with my husband and my immediate family and being aboard 18 flights in 26 days, I swore I would never never take small children on an airplane for any reason to any place.  And looky here…we were about to take two tots international.  A very daunting thought, and I had major anxiety about the actual process of getting to and fro.  I wasn’t worried about being there, I knew the kids would be fine after the initial time adjustment, but I sprouted what I swear are my first gray hairs worrying about the 7-8 hour flights across the Atlantic.

To our amazement and great pleasure, both boys were excellent travelers. We prepped for the time difference a few days before our journey by waking earlier and earlier, and moving nap times and bedtimes accordingly.  It really only took a day for us to find our balance again when we got to Amsterdam.  Of course, the extended sunlight hours messed us up (it was light outside till 10pm!!!) but we kept our early morning wake-ups and naps regular and did the best we could.  I had a large zip lock bag filled with little cars and trains that were new to our toddler (that were doled out one at a time if the situation called for it), we uploaded his favorite Disney movies in the iPad and purchased a child-size set of puffy headphones (which he thought made him super cool), and AMEN for the snacks I packed (granola bars, peanut butter crackers and snack packs of mini-fig newtons).

The weather was typical for Amsterdam so we were told…in the 50’s and rainy.  But because we were there to see our friends and let the kids play, it didn’t matter much and it wasn’t a mood/sightseeing killer.  My mom and I took the baby to the Van Gogh museum one afternoon (y’all – it was heaven for me…rooms and rooms of his work and his sketches AND there was a Picasso exhibit, too!!!!), we took a canal boat tour, the guys had a guy’s night out, and the girls had a girl’s night out…both evenings involved a stroll through the famous Red Light District, which was verrrrry interesting in a weird way (maybe another post on that later).  We ate out at a few divine places – one Italian, one Persian, had Greek delivered, napped, went to the local “mall” where a Kitchen Aid stand mixer cost a whopping 579 Euros (that’s like $700 or more US dollars!!!  I can’t do the conversion math in my head, but GEEEZ y’all, that it TOO much for their stand mixer!), and were generally lazy bums and just played with the kids.

The Dutch people were very cold in general.  Very snooty and mostly horrified that they had to endure the presence of Americans AND our offspring.  It was completely off-putting and amusing at the same time (trying to smile, be sweet and see how much we could make them squirm).  A strange highlight for me, though, was a street waffle vendor just outside the RL district, who proclaimed his love for me after less then 30 seconds…compared me to Hillary Clinton (um…thanks, I think??) and whom I bought a delicious fluffy “waffle to go” that I ate happily as we made our way home from our evening escapades.

Mom and I had time during nap hour & in the evenings to write/sketch/watercolor in our travel journals.  I still need to affix a few things in mine and finish decorating a few pages.  I may post pictures of that later.  Heck, I may borrow my mom’s to show you – she went wild with the watercolors, while I dabbled and returned to my favored black ink.  We saw a few flower markets, we saw old and new windmills, we saw the canals, we saw the girls with the Red Lights and we experienced the rainy cold grey weather in late May.  I think I can satisfactorily check Amsterdam off my list!

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Closet Exhibition…ism

Published on July 2, 2010 in Evening Out, Events, Family, Girly Girl and Summer 2010. View Comments

Closet Exhibition…..ism

So I’m backing up a few weeks ~ I’ve been in and out of town, trying to enjoy the last few weeks of freedom before I’m “grounded” due to the imminent arrival of baby #2.

I spent my little sister’s birthday weekend with her in Atlanta.  Just the two of us – the kind of trip that hasn’t happened in years due to school, family, kids.  The last trip we took alone was a Caribbean cruise in March of ‘08 – it was her senior year spring break and I was pregnant with my first son.   She is a whole decade younger than me, just turning 20!  But we’ve been inseparable since her birth.  Our relationship has been a variety of things…sister/sister, mother/daughter, babysitter/babysittee, therapist/client, fashion coordinator/client (the last two have gone both ways)…

So, needless to say, we were both quite excited about this rendez-vous!  Shopping, neat little restaurants, just planning our days as we went and not having to worry about the precious toddler I usually have with me when I’m visiting her in Hot-lanta.

Now another bit of background for you – and I’ll try to keep this short.  I’m an art major, and I did a few strange projects while in my major…some were more like social experiments and I altered my behavior to elicit certain reactions, some were more personally risque – using my entire body as a paint brush and wallowing on a 9′x13′ canvas, which I did do in the privacy of my own school studio, but then showed my technique by wrapping my naked painted self in bubble wrap for my walk from my studio (in a campus dorm) to the art building.  And not that this had to do with my classes, but senior year I enjoyed a near-weekly Friday night outing to see and participate in the Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local movie theater.  It was such an odd thrill to dress up in lingerie, gaudy (but impeccably applied) make-up and the tallest hooker shoes I could find that I was still able to walk in – and present myself to others like me who not only enjoyed the movie, but the act of preparing for it as well.  My mom asked my favorite professor at some point if he could “put me back in my box, just a little”.

Well, the last live Rocky Horror show I went to was the night before my college graduation in May of 2002.  I’ve thought fondly of those shows often, but not having a nearby local group that presents the live part made me figure it was pretty much a thing of my youth.  Until I realized where my sister & I would be – in ATLANTA – and that I would be toddler-less!  And as a bonus, it was not only her birthday weekend, but it would be her first live viewing!  And I’d heard great things about some of the Atlanta rocky troupes…so after a brief internet search, and a few phone calls just to confirm information, I decided that our Friday night activity would be Rocky Horror live!

I know, seems weird to do something like that with your little sister, but she seemed to like the idea very much, and we spent part of our shopping time looking for the perfect debut outfit for her.  She is taller than me by a few inches, extremely slender and fair, and with something like Rocky – the sluttier the better, but we were sure to pick “tasteful” whore clothing – she was fully covered, but looked HOT in her black corset, ruffle boy shorts & fishnets.  Her hot pink wig and matching boa, added to our amazing make-up work made it all just perfect.

Being humongously pregnant didn’t stop me from dressing up, it just stopped me from wearing lingerie as none of my former Rocky outfits fit right now.  We sliced up a black tank top of mine and found iron on rhinestone lettering to insinuate that I was carrying Frankenfurter’s baby, which in itself amused the crap out of me.  And after procuring an awesome lavender colored wig for myself, and a fabulous little top hat and purple boa to accompany it, we were set.  We began make-up application at 10 pm, and with our effortless & time-saving wigs (thank you Craig at Junkman’s Daughter!!) , we were out the door at 11:15 to make it to our movie date!

It was a full theater that evening, and my little “birthday virgin” looked smashing.  She and two other birthday viewers had the audience sing to them before the naughty pre-movie games and prizes.  We Time Warped with everyone in the aisles, shouted obscenities at the screen, while trying to take in the cast & crew’s fairly awesome props and costumes, and we thanked the cast as we left for such an elating, bizarre, fabulous experience!  for Elizabeth’s “first time” I wouldn’t have changed a thing!  We had a ball.  A weird ball, slutting it up together for a Rocky Whore-er evening.

Now I just sigh and count the years until I can do it again….

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National Doughnut Day – June 4, 2010

Published on June 3, 2010 in Events, Food/Dining and Spring 2010. View Comments

National Doughnut Day = June 4, 2010

Well folks, I’m not usually one to take note of all the random “National Days of Such and Such”, but this one caught my eye.  Tomorrow is National Doughnut Day, and being from Winston-Salem, NC ~ the birthplace and hometown of Krispy Kreme, this makes it kind of a big deal.  Being born and raised here has obviously skewed my opinion of what a good doughnut is, but once you’ve had a Krispy Kreme original HOT GLAZED wheel of melty, sweet yumminess – you’ll know it’s like no other doughnut made anywhere else!

We grew up going to Krispy Kreme sometimes on a Sunday morning after church…or getting Krispy Kremes as a special treat at a Girl Scout meeting, slumber party or after a swim meet.  It was always extra awesome if the red, round neon sign was on:

Then you raced over to get in line for your hot, fresh dozen!  It was most definitely not an every week thing, not even every month, but the memories I have from childhood of the very first Krispy Kreme on Stratford Road, mere minutes from home, make me smile (and drool) every time.

If you haven’t had a Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut, my friends – you are in for a treat!  Unlike other doughnut chains, whose treats are pretty tasty I’ll admit, these babies I’m in love with are far from cake-like.  If I want pound cake, I’ll go to a bakery and get some pound cake.  If I want a doughnut, I’ll go to Krispy Kreme, thank you.  They are so light, so fluffy, you can fit a whole one in your mouth at once and go through four before you’ve realized it….and licking the sugary frosting off your lips and fingers after every few bites ~ ohhhhh the ecstasy!

The original building is gone, but the newer modern design stands just meters from the sacred location of the first temple of hole-y deliciousness.  The happy green and white boxes are the same, the way the employees scoop out the hot doughnuts with a straw to fill the boxes as they come off the production line…all the same…There are fun holiday doughnut designs and flavors at different times of year now, the pumpkin spice Halloween design I can highly recommend, and if you are a sprinkle fiend then the Valentine’s heart is the one for you.  Shamrocks, Easter eggs, footballs….you name it!

So, tomorrow, get thee to your nearest doughnut shop and see if they are doing giveaways like the southeast’s pride & joy is.  You won’t leave with 1 or 2.  Hell, you won’t get away with a half dozen because for $0.78 more you can get a whole dang dozen!  So do like we do ~ stop by a friend’s house to share & split the calorie load.

And remember: the calories from the ones you eat in the car before you even leave the parking lot don’t count!

Yum yum Y’all!

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Macaroni & Cheese go to the beach

Published on May 21, 2010 in Events, Family, Friends, Frou Frou, Girly Girl and Spring 2010. View Comments

Macaroni & Cheese go to the beach

My sister-in-law & I dubbed ourselves Macaroni & Cheese after seeing “Juno” in theaters and hearing the line that went something like, “you are the cheese to my macaroni.”  If we could have a long lost twin sister, we’d have each other.  Our taste in everything is freakishly similar (translate: exactly the same).  We have the same clothes, shoes, jewelry, silverware, furniture, lamps, paint colors in the houses, we’ve seen the same hair stylist for years now, have artwork by the same artists, and for several years we had the same car (2004 mini-coopers ~ hers blue, mine silver) until I traded mine in for a more practical baby-mobile.  And the kind of scary part is that half of the stuff we do and have the same of, we aren’t even together when we pick it out!  We have joked that we should just build one giant house with two master wings, so we could save ourselves some money and just buy ONE of everything and share the living space instead of buying two of everything for our separate households.

Flashback: I met Tiffany in the summer of 1998 through my brother’s summer job (coincidentally also where I met my husband for the first time).  Tiff and my bro started dating in early 1999, and were married 6 months before my hubby and I took our own vows in 2004.  We’ve been kind of a “4 Muskateers” deal since we all met,  but more so after Matt & I started dating in fall of 2002….trips all over the country and the world, movies, get-togethers, game nights, it’s a pretty awesome little group.  And Tiffany and I have been basically inseparable since the first year we met.

Life is so much easier and awesomer (yes, that’s a word I use) when you like your sibling’s spouse!  So, this weekend – TODAY will be our first girly adventure to the Carolina coastline since all our babies were born.  The last trip I remember was a week or so we spent together in June 2008, a few months before my son arrived.

I’m skipping around, I know, I do that…but here’s a brief timeline for you of the last couple years so perhaps you can see why we are so ecstatic about this barely 48 hour escape…

February 2008 – I find out about being preggo with Evan

September 2008 – Tiffany finds out about being preggo

October-ish 2008 – Tiffany & my brother discover they are expecting TWINS

October 2008 – I deliver my precious redheaded son, Evan

November 2008 – Tiffany gets placed on bed rest due to some minor complications with “Baby A”

And from November-early May 2009, I chauffeur her to most all of her doctor appointments and we hang around the house making use of our Netflix subscriptions and enjoying the lazy days of having a newborn who just eats and sleeps all day (sigh….kinda miss those days now!)

May 2009 – Twin boys are delivered safely into the world, and the chaos hasn’t stopped since!

It’s a zoo around here, and I thought being a new mom to one was hard – I don’t even know how Tiffany and her husband have made it through the last year without their hair falling out and admitting themselves to the looney bin!

So, it’s been two years since Tiff and I were able to abscond together and go somewhere other than just a dinner out, or a monthly pedicure.  And I am fairly sure this will be the least exciting beach trip we’ve ever taken – we both predict lots of SLEEPING, a few of our fave restaurants, some trashy tv, and some more sleep.  But we’re looking forward to it!  We’ve been to the beach a thousand times and been to all the shops and gallivanted down the coastline to Pawley’s Island and Charelston, and I know we’ll go a thousand more times and do the same…so this one time we’re allowed a bum weekend.

It feels odd leaving the kids at home.  We’ve each made several beach trips with our respective mothers and sons, just not together (there isn’t enough room at the condo for all adults and all babies at the same time), and this is the first time for each of us to leave our kiddos for more than a few hours.  We’re not freaking out about it, and we’re confidant in the husbands’ parenting abilities…it just feels kind of weird to take a couple days to ourselves…not to have to get a child (or two) in and out of the car, not to do middle of the night diaper changes, not to have to consciously think of a child friendly place to eat, hell – it’ll be weird not having the car stuffed to the brim with high chairs, pack & plays, strollers, diapers, kid movies and toys ALONG with our stuff!!!

Baby #4 (between the two of us) is due in 11 weeks and counting, and the chaos will continue I’m sure….

This is the first time IN a long time, and the last time FOR a long time so we better enjoy it! 

Macaroni & Cheese ride again!


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BirdFest 2010

Published on May 4, 2010 in Evening Out, Events and Spring 2010. View Comments

BirdFest

BirdFest 2010

This past weekend began with Habitat for Humanity’s awesome Annual “BirdFest”.  One of their largest fundraisers for the year, and an event that I haven’t missed since…well, since I graduated from college and moved back home.  I love attending this fun evening shindig, I love supporting the cause, I love that the community comes together over the delectable restaurant samplings, and local artwork featured in a live and silent auction…It’s just a nice evening out, and this year my husband and I were able to attend child-free!  One of my sister’s amazing friends watched our little man so we could have a few adult hours together with friends and family.

Being pregnant, I nibbled on lots of everything, but also being pregnant I started with dessert!  Divine cake squares from Dewey’s Bakery, brownie nibblets, ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s…then I sampled the beef, cheese & crackers, pasta and mexican fare.  Everything was scrumptious, as always.  hunger satisfied, I was able to stalk the auction tables, feasting my eyes on all of the wondrous items created and donated especially for this event.  I made my way round the spread of goodies selecting my favorites and signing my name, auction number and bid (hoping I would be able to remember which things I needed to keep an eye on as the night progressed…it seems that I lose partial brain function and memory capacity while pregnant).  And I set my sights on a beautiful pastel that would come up in the live auction – the main event of the night.  I am an art lover – I love looking at it, I love doing it, I love buying something special and unique and hanging it on our home to enjoy.  My husband lets me indulge in this love of mine, which is wonderful except for the fact that I’m running out of walls!!!  I may have to start hanging things gallery style – paintings above paintings and besides other paintings, and sculpture on free surface areas…I told my husband I’d like a gallery built out back, but he said no.  We like our yard space too much to give it up for another enclosed structure.  Ah well, such is the plight of an avid art lover & collector!

Our local news anchorman is the emcee for the evening, he always makes things fun and keeps the auction rolling.  Plus, as he did add this year – he does have killer anchorman hair!  He announced the this was the first year the party had ever run out of bidder paddles, which is neat, but I definitely didn’t see everyone using their paddles during the auction.  I completely understand, money is tighter with everyone, and it looked like a lot of the “high rollers” that usually we usually see in attendance weren’t present that night.  But My mom, sister and I tried hard!  We gave it our best and bid on some fabulous sculptural pieces and my coveted pastel.

The pastel was one of the final three items up, so I had to be patient, but as Matt and I bid, I kept checking to be sure he’d stop me if the number went too high.  It didn’t, which is unfortunate as I’d love for Habitat to rake in as much moola as possible, but I’m excited that we have a lovely new piece that will hang in a place of honor in our basement as soon as the renovation/remodel is complete.  It’s a beautiful landscape scene – Tuscan hillsides covered in fields of flowers with the essential Italian villa peeking through the trees.  Things like this catch my eye because Matt and I honeymooned for two weeks in Italy: Venice, Florence and Rome.  It was a huge surprise for me, I’m amazed that everyone in our families kept their mouths shut for so long, but I was completely unaware of our destination until mere hours before we departed for the airport!  I didn’t even know Matt had a passport!  Anyway, I digress…but I was enthralled with our trip, the culture, the food, the landscapes and I CANNOT wait to return someday for another adventure!  This pastel reminded me of our day trip to Tuscany and the beautiful villa we lunched at…and I’m excited that that is the happy memory I’ll have every time I see it.

I had to leave the party as soon as the auction was over, as our son wasn’t feeling 100% perky and I promised our sitter one of us would be home by 10.  If Matt stayed, he could help keep an eye on the silent auction pieces and load up our treasures and spend a little more time hanging out, which is fine.

He helped me win a beautiful stained glass sunrise piece that I will definitely have to post pictures of (as soon as I can figure out how to do that).  I hope to hang it in my soon-to-be art room (also located in the remodeled basement).  And all in all, it was a much needed night out that benefited a worthy charity.

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