It just seemed to hit me all at once..........my oldest will be a senior this year :(

 

Last year he started driving now this year he will be a senior

I am having a very hard time right now emotionally. All of a sudden it hit me that Gage my 17 year old (my oldest) is going to be a senior this year and we are talking about college right now. This is hurting more than ever, it's like I just woke up and realized he is almost all grown up. I am praying to God he picks a college that he will live at home and commute to. I feel so selfish for thinking that, but I will support whatever he wants to do. The thought of him leaving already is killing me. My heart is breaking and I don't know if I am ready for this. Time has just flew by :(  

I am looking forward so much to him working with me this summer, our 2 week vacation together and so much more, but why am I already thinking of the future and how bad it's going to hurt. Instead I need to find a way to be excited for him, knowing that he is now going to be going to college and pursuing his dreams.

One important thing that I am so thankful for is the amount of vacations that I have taken with my husband and two sons. We have taken more vacations then most people take in a life time and this is something I have always ALWAYS looked forward to, building memories with my family and giving them as much as I can with traveling and experiencing so many things.

I have to be strong and know that everything will be fine, but it's just hurting me right now and I have to tell myself not to think about it.

waiting at the Pittsburgh Airport last year to go to Fort Lauderdale

Pepe's Pizzeria in New Haven, CT last year

pizza place in Florida last year

Dun-Well Doughnuts-Brooklyn, New York

We went on a little weekend getaway in March to New York City and one of the places on my list was Dun-Well Doughnuts in Brooklyn. I am SO glad we went, these doughnuts were one of the best I have ever had and all of their doughnuts happen to be Vegan :)

We bought 2 dozen of doughnuts to go and the flavors we bought were Peanut Butter and Jelly, Chocolate with Peanuts, Glazed, Vanilla with Sprinkles, Mexican Chocolate (this is the only one we did not like, but if you like spicy chocolate then you might), Chocolate with Sprinkles, Cinnamon Sugar, Coconut, and Blueberry (my favorite).

The doughnuts were all so fresh and so good! They have different flavors daily, we went when they just had opened so they had a great selection.

Happy Birthday Great Grandma Miller

My Great Grandma and Me

My great grandma died when I was 5 or 6 years old and I am now 36 years old, but I do remember her. She loved to crochet and knit and even tried to show me one time how to. I only have a few memories of her but I remember her making me a colorful beaded necklace, reading books to me, me going up in her room trying on her clothes and using her powder puff (those perfumed powder puffs), putting white perfumed powder all over myself. She had very bad eyes and had cataract surgery, and one time I remember taking some of her eye patches and her old glasses and wearing them to school when I was in first grade. I think of her every year on April 22nd and I found this picture on my computer that I had scanned in many years ago. Happy Birthday to my Great Grandma Grace Miller.

Two Product Lines that I am loving right now

I have been replacing all of my beauty, cleaning, and household products with natural, organic, cruelty free, vegan, and all around more healthy choices. Two of my favorites are below.

I found Moksa Organics from just searching online for something that was Vegan, Organic, Cruelty Free. When I came across the website I was so happy to see that this company was everything I was looking for and also Palm Oil free in which I just recently learned so much about why we shouldn't use Palm Oil.

I placed my order for the Key Lime Vanilla and Kilimanjaro Body Butter and the Cafe Milan Body Bar. When my package arrived I was so excited, especially with the generous amount of body bar samples. The smell of everything is INCREDIBLE! I immediately tried the body butter and the smell of the Key Lime Vanilla is out of this world. A little goes a long way and it works best if you step out of the shower and lightly dry off and still have a little wetness on your body when rubbing the body butter in, this helps so you don't have to use a lot at a time.

I found already that the body butters are incredible on your lips and hair. Also I put a very very small amount of the Kilimanjaro one on my face and my face is very sensitive and acne prone and it did not break out at all. The soaps create a wonderful later and I look forward to using them, the fragrance just makes me so happy.

I can't say enough wonderful things about this company, Melanie is incredible and so friendly. I can't wait to place another order!

I have never been one to do well with lipstick, I just don't like a lot of makeup to begin with and lipstick especially is just too thick for me. For years I just used Cherry Chapstick, it gave a tinge of color and kept my lips moist but then I realized there was awful ingredients in it (one is sheep oil listed as lanolin) so I immediately started looking for something natural and vegan. I found a lot of reviews on Hurraw lip balms and saw the Black Cherry gave a tint to the lips, perfect for me. I immediately ordered off of their website directly. I absolutely LOVE all three that I ordered, Almond, Black Cherry and Vanilla Bean. They all smell incredible and keep my lips so moist, much better in so many ways then the chapstick that I used for years, my lips are more moist not waxy feeling and the scents are SO incredible! They use organic, vegan and raw ingredients!

2013- Looking forward to making every day a good day!

Being Happy for me is with my family at home & traveling together

Wow time flies and that's not really a good thing in my eyes, I want to enjoy every moment, every day, make something good out of everyday, even if I work full time during the week, I need to make those days count also. I love coming home after work to my family, watching a movie or walking or just sitting around hanging out with my boys, my husband and my cats :)

We LOVE to travel and we have been very lucky to do a lot of traveling every year. In 2010 we went on 3 big vacations-Texas-Colorado and Cancun and our smaller ones in between (Chicago and NYC) We usually plan 1 big one every year and small ones in between. I want to see as much as I can. This is what I live for and what I look forward to. My husband just got his 2 weeks approved so I put mine in and got them approved as well, so now it's so motivating to look forward to it. So far I have NYC and Chicago both booked for March, just weekend trips. Gage's birthday is in March and he wants Deep Dish pizza from Chicago. We love Chicago! Tom and I are going to a Vegetarian Festival in NYC. This summer we are planning a big one, we were going back and forth about Alaska or a Midwest Road Trip and I think it's leaning towards the Midwest one, more of a variety.

We are still planning everything but we are thinking of driving to Nashville and Memphis first then heading over to visit Oklahoma City, New Mexico (Santa Fe and Roswell and Albuquerque) Utah and Colorado. We haven't decided which way we will drive home yet, either Chicago and home or Kansas City, St. Louis and then home. I am so excited just thinking about it. My boys have been so lucky to visit so many places growing up and they really do appreciate it and we have SO many memories of all of our trips. I get so happy just thinking about it :)

Almost 4 months later :)

It's been so long since I updated my blog, it's been that hectic here. We have all the remodeling done, all the painting (except trim work in a few rooms but that can wait) we are taking a break for a little while. It's nice to not have someone in our house for once. Our contractor guy was super nice and great but everyday coming home to someone here wasn't relaxing.

So from August to November we

• Painted the upstairs kitchen, eat in area, and living room/stairway

 **finally put a picture in that picture frame yesterday using one from our trip to Area 51 in 2008

I still need curtains!!!!! This picture is too dark but you can see Haystack's glowing eyes :)

• Sun-room and Family room -ceiling and dry wall redone in a lot of spots, the previous owner did not use tape when putting the drywall up or used such a little amount in spots that the drywall eventually started to split and cracks were showing thorough.

•  Downstairs bathroom ceiling redone and new shower put in-then Tom painted it Behr Green Crush Eggshell (I wish I would have used Semi Gloss).

• Deck finished off, the previous owner spent over $10,000 in Trek deck and installed it himself but never finished the bottom part and also when we took the hottub out that was there, the underneath had to be done, so we spent a ton just to get the materials to finish it, it looks a little off right now because new beside the older but the weathering will eventually even it out. (too much snow covering it for pictures right now)

• My bathroom was completely gutted out, I tore off 3 layers of wallpaper and the dry wall was so damaged underneath that it needed to have new drywall, so we redid everything including the floor. I love how it came out. We used Behr Venus Teal -Semi Gloss.

I love how he did the tile work

Finished (picture using Panarama on Iphone)

• Tom did almost all of the painting and I did trim work. We had a nightmare in the Family room, I wanted to do 2 walls in Behr Sunny Summer which a super bright yellow, we bought the primer and tinted it properly but the yellow would not cover the wall, yellow paint is transparent so even with 6 coats of paint and 1 coat of primer, it still would not cover the dry wall patching which was white. For 1 coat it took 4 hours so Tom spent 28 hours that was completly wasted because we had to start over.  So we decided to do the whole room in Antique Tin which took 1 coat of primer over the yellow and 2 coats of the Antique Tin.

Sadie jumped on the window with the paint still being wet

Tom covering the yellow with the gray primer

Family Room Finished

We just finished painting the sun-room a few weeks ago and it took 3 coats of the Behr Ultra paint in Summer Heat, we did one coat of primer and we used white primer instead of tinted. I love the color!

Haystack my sweetiepie

Still Busy with Remodeling

It's been a crazy few weeks with painting and working and trying to get everything done. We finished the downstairs bathroom the other day and now we have the family room and sunroom to paint, then we have to go back and paint all of the trim in all of the rooms. I plan on posting pictures when we are all done, hopefully that will be in the near future.

Until then I need to go vacuum because as you can see below my little Miss Haystack likes to chew apart her box and spit out the remnants all over the place, lol.

Oh and we bought my 16 year old son a car! Very exciting!

I wanted his first car to be a big car, something safe. We found this beautiful 1994 Chrysler LHS in Ohio, an older man that had just passed away this year had treated this car like a baby and it shows. It's in beautiful condition and it was very well taken care of. There are only 71,000 miles on it and the body has NO rust. He is happy with it too. We didn't want to go out buying him an expensive car for his first one. It has so much room and is SO comfortable. I already said we should stop renting cars for our weekend trips and take this one :)