Monopoly

Out of the mouths of babes (even if they are 15 years old):

Since our kids didn't have any sports games Friday or Saturday - and that is a rarity around here! - we decided to do dinner and a movie last night. The boys decided they wanted to stay home and play on the computer, so my husband and I took our daughter and I also asked his mother to join us.

On the way to the restaurant, my husband and mother-in-law were talking about a property in town that is for sale. They are always checking out property and houses that are for sale for a new investment. Well, my daughter piped in with, Hey, that's like playing Monopoly, and my husband said, You're right; and do you know how to win at Monopoly? And she said, Yeah, you buy lots of property and houses, ...

...and when another player goes to the bathroom, you steal all their money!

Green Acres

"...is the place to be. Farm living is the life for me." But sometimes I miss the shopping on Park Avenue ;) I've just got to drive farther to get to it now. We've been in our new house for 2 months now and are learning about country living. We got a dog and 2 horses, so we're on our way.

When I go out into the countryside and see the sun and the green and everything flowering, I say to myself Yes indeed, all that belongs to me! ~Henri Rousseau

God made the country, and man made the town. ~William Cowper, The Task

My father asserted that there was no better place to bring up a family than in a rural environment.... There's something about getting up at 5 a.m., feeding the stock and chickens, and milking a couple of cows before breakfast that gives you a lifelong respect for the price of butter and eggs. ~Bill Vaughan

I'm not getting up at 5 am, but I am getting up about the time the sun rises; everybody outside is up and ready to eat!

Favorite French Quote

Since we went to Canada this past week,

I thought I'd share one of my favorite French phrases;

it is also a very pretty song:

Je vous souhaite tout le bonheur du monde.

(I wish you all the happiness in the world.)

Our New World

Change Will Do You Good

Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.~Keri Russell

Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.~Robert C. Gallagher

Change always comes bearing gifts.~Price Pritchett

If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change.~John A. Simone, Sr.

We will be changing our residence once again after we pack out next week. We will be setting up a new home in Florida as my husband has retired with 27 years of service to the US military. Lots of changes coming our way over the next few weeks...

Time Keeps on Slippin'

Our time is slippin' by here pretty quickly now. Twenty days until we pack up our household to have it shipped down to Florida for good.

Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you. - Author Unknown

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr. quotes (American best selling writer, author of Life's Little Instruction Book)

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
From The Holy Bible (King James Version)Attributed to King Solomon
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sow;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war; and a time of peace.

"Clean" Quotes for the Day

I am taking a (short) break from the cleaning and purging of our house for our upcoming move in June. In the process I found some humorous "clean" quotes; these are just a few of my favorites.

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry, because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? - Author Unknown

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, "A house guest," you're wrong because I have just described my kids. - Erma Bombeck (U.S. humorist, 1927-1996)

She who waits for her knight must remember - she will have to clean up after his horse - Author Unknown

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. ~Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, 1966

8 Things About Me

I like these getting-to-know-you type tags. I enjoy learning new things about old and new friends. Here are my 8 Things (by an indirect tag from my sil Shelley).

8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Moving to Florida this summer
2. Building our dream house
3. Living near family
4. Working again
5. Getting back into a work-out routine
6. Flip flop and shorts weather
7. Planting a rose garden
8. Moving to Florida :)

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Ate crêpes for breakfast
2. Played on the Wii with my family
3. Went to lunch with my family
4. Watched a lacrosse match
5. Took a nap
6. Picked up my daughter from Girl Scout camp
7. Watched The Amazing Race
8. Talked with my mom on the phone

8 Things I wish I could do:
1. Have more patience
2. Have less fear when downhill skiing
3. Water ski
4. Whistle really loudly (the kind you can hear across a football field)
5. Speak in front of a group without fear
6. Have a green thumb
7. Get rid of my pregnancy stretch marks
8. Sing

8 Shows I watch:
1. Lost
2. The Amazing Race
3. Survivor
4. Grey's Anatomy
5. Desperate Housewives
6. What Not to Wear
7. American Idol
8. 24

8 Favorite Fruits:
1. Cherries
2. Pears
3. Apples
4. Grapes
5. Pineapples
6. Tangerines
7. Strawberries
8. Plums

8 Places I'd like to travel:
1. Greece
2. Alaska
3. Spain
4. British Columbia, Canada
5. Egypt
6. South America
7. Iceland
8. Neuschwanstein ("Cinderella Castle" in Germany)

8 Places I've lived:
1. Virginia (Norfolk & Chesapeake)
2. Paris, France
3. California (Imperial Beach, Coronado, & Seaside)
4. Guam
5. Sasebo, Japan
6. Florida (Gainesville & Fort White)
7. Florida (Gulf Breeze, Pensacola, & Milton)
8. Georgia (Atlanta)

A Mother's Love

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. -- Agatha Christie

I would never have truly known this myself if I had not become a mother. Have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!

Keep Well

I have been sick (actually 'in bed all weekend long' sick) for the past 5 days. I've been updating my main blog Life Experiences of a Southern Rose but just have not had the energy to come update Part Deux (sorry!). I have been reminiscing about our lazy (ha!) days on the little Pacific island we lived on from 2002-2005.

Enjoy the rest of your week... and keep well!

Happy May Day!

Now is the month of Maying,

When merry lads are playing.

Fa la la...

Each with his bonny lass,

Upon the greeny grass.

Fa la la...

The Spring clad all in gladness,

Doth laugh at winter's sadness.

Fa la la..." - Thomas Morley

Happy Chocolate Wishes

“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
Guillaume Apollinaire (French poet, 1880-1918)

I have been cooking and baking up a storm this past week, breaking in new "clean" recipes for the family. I'm so happy that the kids have been liking the non-processed, non-HFCS meals and snacks. Most have been so good that it could be hard to lose weight.
One of my downfalls is chocolate. I began switching to dark chocolate treats a couple of years ago mainly because of all of the hype that it is better for you and of course has less sugar and fat than milk chocolate. Here's someone that is fighting the fat and is celebrating her recent weight loss with a give-away: http://happytexans.blogspot.com/2009/04/sweet-success-giveaway.html.

Summer Time

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. ~Russel Baker

We've been waiting for the a/c repairman for a couple of days now. Seems like when 90 degrees hit here, everyone's air conditioners broke. It hasn't been excruciating yet. I'm just happy it's shorts and flip-flop weather - finally!

Renew Thyself

Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again. ~Chinese inscription cited by Thoreau in Walden

On January 1 this year I decided to make a new year's resolution list; I hadn't made one of those since I was in school. I have done pretty well but am not where I thought I would be by now. One goal was to start eating better (and at the same time maybe lose a little weight) and start working out more consistently. I had major surgery last fall but thought I had recovered with the new year. I began running again 3+ times a week, but my body decided that that was not a good idea 5 weeks into the routine, and I haven't been able to get back to running consistently since. I am finding that my body may still be recovering and adjusting from the surgery. But I have not given up. On certain days, maybe the beginning of a new month or week or after a holiday, I think, today is January 1 again and pull out those resolutions.

This week I started a cleaner diet for the whole household. When we got back from spring break Sunday night, I decided Monday morning was January 1 again. Even though yesterday was a bit of a bump in our eat clean week (we had a birthday in the house), I got up this morning and had lost one of the pounds I gained over spring break.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...~Dory (Finding Nemo)

It's a Zoo Around Here

I have this magnet that I bought at the San Diego Zoo
many years ago on my refrigerator; I thought it was funny.
Our house reminds me of a zoo sometimes.

PLEASE DO NOT
ANNOY, TORMENT,
PESTER, PLAGUE,
MOLEST, WORRY,
BADGER, HARRY,
HARRASS, HECKLE,
PERSECUTE, IRK,
BULLYRAG, VEX,
DISQUIET, GRATE,
BESET, BOTHER,
TEASE, NETTLE,
TANTALIZE OR
RUFFLE THE ANIMALS
~San Diego Zoo
~San Diego Wild Animal Park

My Family

Bonding Brothers

Darling Daughter

Happy Hubby

Mother Me

Back to Life, Back to Reality

My husband did a lot of the work over spring break; I picked out some colors and signed some papers (and no, those are not really what our houses are going to look like (from my last post)). We did the 12 hour trip back yesterday, and the kids are back in school today, and I am catching up on e-mail, blogs, paperwork, etc. I still need to go to the grocery store, unpack, etc. I see lots of et cetera's in my life for the next couple of days.


The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. ~Tom Clancy

“Reality is the #1 cause of insanity among those who are in contact with it.” ~Unknown

Working and Playing

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." ~ Proverb first recorded by the Egyptian sage Ptahhotep around 2400 B.C.

We have been working and playing here in Florida while on spring break. We signed papers for a new (temporary) house and are also trying to start some preliminaries for the house we are building. Today we are going to play (the boys are fishing and the girls are going shopping).

our temporary house

model of the new house

Memories

“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.”~Kevin Arnold (The Wonder Years)

I have been posting old e-mails from our 19-month visit to Japan 9 years ago at my other blog. They are all bundled together here: http://southernrose.wordpress.com/our-experiences-in-japan/. It was great to go down Memory Lane.

"Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things." ~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal

Vacation Time

A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in. ~Robert Orben

We leave for Florida tomorrow for Spring Break. I wish I could say it is totally for vacation, but we are moving there in June, so we have a little work to do for the move. Hopefully not too much work though ;)

Hoppy Easter to all!

Home

I'm thinking about posting quotes, poems, sayings, etc. here as they relate to my life at different times. I have been searching over the past couple of weeks but found none that struck me until today. We are going to our homeland of Florida this next week for Spring Break; it is where we will move to this summer after my husband's 20+ years of military service. I have been thinking about home a lot lately.

"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."-- Frederick W. Robertson (1816-1853), English reformer and minister

Be Kind

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle." -Plato (not Play-Doh*)

*See my blog at http://southernrose.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/weather-softball-and-plato/

Green Give-Away

Check out Life with Liane at:

http://lifewithliane.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-and-giveaway.html#comments

She has a great give-away from the Holy Cow Company.

Life Experiences of a Southern Rose

Follow me to my current blog at www.southernrose.wordpress.com

Thanks!