Thanksgiving Weekend

Rick and I took a road trip to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving. I did not take any photos of the big event (Thanksgiving dinner), although it was lovely. We ate outside which was a first for me with Thanksgiving. It was very enjoyable.

Between dinner and pie we walked down to the nature park. Well, some of us walked, others rode in the chariot. (This was part of Mara's Halloween costume this year.)

Here's some of the family walking around the park. We saw ducks and were attacked by a crazy goose.

Saturday we went to the beach. Here is Ava ready to play.

Danny, Cameron and Rick spent some time in the water. The waves weren't great, but they had fun. Dolphins and a seal came to play with them.

Mara was not happy to be pulled away from her book to go the beach, so she built herself a little shelter to read in.

We decided to detour on the way home and took the back way from Vegas. We stumbled upon the Extraterrestrial Highway. (I don't have photo of the sign- it's on Rick's phone.) It's the road to Area 51 and reportedly has a lot of UFO sightings. We didn't see any, but some of our things were strangely tampered with when we got home. I'm thinking our memory of it must have been erased. :)

We found a little gift shop which was closed but had fun stuff around it.

Here we are about to be abducted.

Rick breaking into the Alien Research Facility at Area 51.

We had planned to get home early, but obviously had too many distractions and did not get home until 11PM. Worth it.

It was so nice to have a weekend away with Rick, spend some time with his family, and forget about the stress of life for a bit.  Definitely a needed and refreshing trip.

November Birchbox

What's up with blogger. I can't make a draft. Annoying!

I've been so busy that I haven't had time to blog. Don't have time now so you're getting a version without too many details. Here goes....

Little bottle of hairspray. Yay. Perfect for my office drawer.

Geez. Also can't figure how to rotate. This is an oil for your face. You apply under your make up. I thought it would leave my face greasy, but it didn't, although I don't know that it did much else either.

Pomegranate soap. Nice.

Why are these all upside down! I like the separating and lengthening of this mascara, but I prefer thickening, which this doesn't have. But it does have the handy application mirror on the side. 

More perfume samples. I'm getting quite a collection!

It's People

My last two blogs are just part of what I've been thinking lately. And by lately I mean the past couple of years.

In my single life, I would leave about 7AM to walk to work. I had plans most nights and would get home just in time to go to bed an start over the next day. I had lots of amazing friends and there was always something to do. Being social has always been a big part of my life.

I remember after my freshman year in college I was thinking about all the fun people I'd met that year. My world had just been opened up from my little high school bubble. I remember saying to a friend, "I am so thankful for all of the people in the world that I don't know." What I meant was, knowing how the new people I had met during the year had enriched my life, I was excited about all the people I had yet to meet. I loved having that perspective.

One year in college, my roommates and I had the motto, "It's people." That meant that no matter what else we thought was important, it wasn't as important as the people in our lives. I remember the day we came up with it. We were going around our apartment saying, "It's not this book, it's people. It's not the lamp, or the TV, or my car. It's people." What a great perspective on life. I've lost that somewhere along the way.

I have had a hard time connecting with people since I've been married. I've also lost connection with a lot of people I love. We always say we'll get together, then don't. I think there are many reasons for this. First, I love spending time with Rick. I never get tired of it. The more I'm with him, the more I enjoy being with him. (Cheesy, huh?) But I need to remember that my life will be enriched by added diversity. I need to expand.

My peers changed drastically when I got married. I went from the single scene with a bunch of high-powered friends who traveled and went out every night, to suburbia where everyone has been married since they were in their 20s and had families. That was harder for me than I thought. They all had family life mastered and I was drowning trying to figure it out. I'm sure I could have used their help and advice, but mostly I just felt out of place and depressed.

Another reason for my social-less-ness has been my stress level. I've had a steady stream of health issues the past 3-4 years. That plus the stress of going from single girl to being a working mother has made balancing my time difficult. I'm gone most of the day at work, come home, clean the kitchen, fix dinner, clean the kitchen again, and crash. Weekends are for errands and hopefully a date with my hubby. Try to fit in exercise and extended family, and I'm pooped!

So... enough with the excuses. It seems the health issues continue. One ends, another starts. Maybe this will just be my life after 40. I'm old an falling apart. I am learning to disconnect my physical well being with my emotional/mental well being. Time to drink a bottle of suck-it-up and not let it hold me back. I'm also getting better at balancing my time, or to put it more precisely, not care that everything isn't getting done. I can have friends over for game night even if my kitchen floor hasn't been mopped. It's people, not my floor, that matter.

Rick and I set a goal to entertain at least once a month. This will be old friends as well as new people we'd like to get to know better. We made the effort this month, but friends schedules didn't work out at the last minute. Not giving up. Looking forward to it. It's people!

What I'm going to do about it

I liked my sister's comment on my last blog. She said maybe I needed to be the one to host the community event in my neighborhood. Good idea. Instead of complaining, I should do something about what I don't like. Here's the plan.

I've already talked to a neighbor who feels the same and is ready and willing to jump on the bandwagon with me. She said she and her next door neighbor have had similar discussions and they are both wanting to do something about it. So- already three of us ready to go.

Next Halloween, said neighbor will have soup potluck early in the evening, my family will do a spook alley in the garage, and then we will find someone on the street above to do hot chocolate / cider. Families can work their way through the neighborhood with fun and social stops along the way.

In the meantime, I am going to the annual HOA meeting and volunteering to plan some events during the year. I am scared to write that down and commit to it, as I had such a horrible experience on my last HOA board. I'll give it a year and see what happens.

Halloween Rant

It's been a while since I've had a nice little rant on my blog. I guess we're due for one. I never thought I'd rant about Halloween since it's my favorite holiday, but here it is.

We love Halloween. Rick and I dress up to pass our candy every year. We put giant spiders on our house, a graveyard out front, strobe light on the balcony and spooky music. Growing up, it was my goal to be the cool house with the great candy, so we give out full sized candy bars. We usually have a lot of fun.

Here we are ready for the kiddos to start coming.




We had a lot of trick-or-treaters this year, but I was very disappointed. Very few kids from our neighborhood showed up. I was looking forward seeing all the kids I know dressed up in their costumes, but I recognized very few groups of kids. I think the kids in our neighborhood go to the exclusive subdivision just above us, thinking it's better candy. Many of the people who did show up at our house were obviously hitting as many neighborhoods as they could and were trying to quickly get through ours to move on to the next one.

I couldn't believe how much candy those little kids were hauling around. There was one little girl who couldn't have been older than 6 who had an extra large shopping bag (the paper bags with handles that you get at a department store when you have an extra large purchase), it was almost half full of candy. WHAT?

I could see some kids' parents in the car ready to whisk their kid off to the next neighborhood to get more candy. It was kind of disgusting to me. We turned off our lights at 8:30, even though we weren't out of candy yet. I felt that instead of supporting a fun community holiday, we were promoting gluttony.

Do I sound like an old lady yet? Just wait....

When I was growing up, Halloween was a neighborhood celebration. We'd have neighborhood spook alleys and parties complete with a costume parade around the living room. We'd love seeing all the neighbors out trick-or-treating and socialized as we went. At the end of the night, when we were back at home divvying out the haul, we'd talk about how next year we would go to the big houses in the subdivision above us to get the awesome candy from the rich people, but we never actually did it. I'm so glad my parents never let us. They knew the holiday was more about community and less about candy. The memories and friendships we developed by everyone on the street investing in the neighborhood far outweighs any candy that would be eaten or thrown away soon after.

It's not just this holiday that I've felt like this. I often am sad that my neighborhood lacks a sense of community. Maybe it's the demographic of my specific area. We moved in when our kids and a lot of the kids on the street were a little older- tweens and teenagers, which can make it harder to find common ground for socialization. I know I come from a very unique situation that is not fair to judge all neighborhoods against. I was very blessed to have an amazing street to grow up on with lots of friends. We regularly held neighborhood talent shows, carnivals, parties, night games, and secret girl club meetings. These weren't church or community sponsored, just parents or kids planning and hosting events. I don't expect every place I live to be so social. I know I had a unique and wonderful experience. I sort of feel like I've gone from one extreme to another.

I've strayed a little off topic. My basic complaint is that, from my experience yesterday, I feel that the community aspect of Halloween has been lost to the quest for more and more candy. Am I wrong? In years past, we knew more kids who came trick-or-treating. Maybe the nice weather made it easier for people to not stay close to home this year and then stay out longer getting more and more candy. Maybe this isn't as epidemic as I'm viewing it to be, and it was merely a result of specific circumstances this year. Please someone share a more positive experience they had to give me hope that my favorite holiday hasn't turned into pure gluttony.