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