I just got home last night from an early childhood conference in New Orleans where I presented a session entitled "A Day in the Life of a Nature-Based Classroom".  The presentation went over so well that people applauded (UNHEARD OF), and continued to approach me to tell me how much they enjoyed it over the next two days.  It was wonderful.  And all this in spite of the fact that when I got there, the projector that I thought I had rented was not available to me, so I had to just wing it without my power point.  

New Orleans was WONDERFUL!  I will definitely visit this city again!  Some pictures...


The architecture was amazing...

Silliness.... but required silliness when you are in New Orleans....

The view from our hotel room.....

Pretty sure the hotel was haunted.....

Even the street signs are amazing, tiled right into the sidewalks....

Starbucks had the most incredible light fixtures ever...these were just iron grates (probably gates from somewhere) with clear globes hanging from wires randomly from them.  They were so gorgeous!

Of course, nobody on earth does cemeteries like New Orleans.  We noticed several with Xs carved all over the stones, but didn't know what that meant---I assumed either that the person (one of them, at least) in there was illiterate or they didn't know who it was.  After a little research, we found out that it's a voodoo symbol... 

Selfie station at the hotel.. I'm not much for selfies... or pictures of me at all, but it's time to get over my nonsense.  I look how I look, and I need to just take pictures sometimes.  For somebody who's all about the documentation, my hangups are ridiculous.

So.... this was in the lobby of the hotel....a very small casket.   No words...

More family crypts.....so amazing....

And, what is probably my most favorite store in the world.  

Really enjoyed my trip and can't wait to go back with my husband someday.  He will love it.

Thoughts on the New Year....

It's New Year's morning and again, I can't help but reflect on the past year and think about the new year to come.  So many wonderful changes this year, and I can feel the peace settle over me as I think about them.  The people in my life are amazing.  I'm pretty content. 

I looked back on some of my previous New Year's resolutions to see how they went over the years, most do not really go anywhere (shocking, I know...), but there were a few I want to revisit this year.  

1. Be Amie.  Embrace the Amie.  Do all that is Amie.  
2. Garden more.   Dirt therapy really is something amazing.  
3. Be happy in the moment.  
4. Send good karma out into the world.  Even to those who do not deserve it.
5. Love the crap out of everything!
6. Don't hold on to things that should be let go.  Things, people, whatever.

All of these things will work together to make a great year.  I promise.  

Potting Table in Progress....

This is the potting bench, in progress (view #1 on the left, view #2 on the right, along with the Hubbs).  

Jessica the chicken "helping... the finished table.  Hubbs wants to add another shelf under the top one, but I'm going to live with it and see if it's necessary.  LOVE IT!!!

Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year

I'm sitting at my computer this morning, drinking coffee with my annual holiday treat (leftover whipping cream) looking at the Christmas tree, enjoying the quiet after the family Christmas Eve get-together at my house.  I can't help but think how lucky I am this year.  I've spent several Christmases alone after my divorce because the kids spent some Christmases with their dad, and those were okay.  I would go to the extended family party the week before Christmas, go to the immediate (mom, her kids and grandkids) on Christmas Eve, sleep in, and go to my sisters for dinner.  It was okay, not nearly as bad as I had anticipated.  I could read, bake, garden, whatever I wanted to.  But this year was just FANTABULOUS!  No comparison, really.  

I got married last New Year's Eve, which means that my paper anniversary is coming up next week.  Three of my four kids were here including my son who is serving in the navy.  He SURPRISED me.  When I went over to my daughter in law's house for dinner one night, he casually came strolling out of the bedroom.  BEST.  SURPRISE.  EVER.  I don't know how they kept it a secret.  I usually stress myself out over everything holiday....gifts, food, money, decorations, anything else I can think of.....but not this year.  I just felt too blessed to let things weigh me down.  

I have a superior plan for putting away the Christmas decorations this year.  See previous post.  I'm going out shopping tomorrow for any bargains that I can find, and for bins for my master plan.  Next year will be a breeze.  

The only thing that didn't really go according to plan this year was the lights on the house.  Devan swore he wasn't going to put lights up because he has to do all the lights at the condos where he works.  But when we were looking at lights for the tree, he saw some he liked, and bought them.  He put hooks up on the house, put the lights up, but it stormed that night and all the hooks came down, along with the lights.  He fixed them, it rained again, and they are still hanging down in front and back of the house.  It's funny.  Next year I'll put the lights up, I guess.

The best thing is that the hubbs made me a potting table for the backyard.  It so far exceeds my ideas that I almost can't imagine using it.  (Don't worry, I'll get over THAT!)  It's warm today so I think I'll go out and putter around in the yard for awhile.  It's like 78 degrees already today.  Doesn't feel very Christmasy, but I'm not complaining.  In August I'm not very happy in Florida, but this December has been lovely, if a little warm.

So basically, right now I'm feeling very content.  The coffee is yummy, the dogs and hubbs are snoring, the chickens are clucking, and my heart is full.  

Merry Christmas everyone.

Pinteresting Things....

I kind of consider myself an expert Pinner on Pinterest.  I have more boards than anyone else I know, and a lot of pins.  I've tried a lot of things on Pinterest that were absolute FAILS.  (Let's don't even discuss the "Cake in the Mug" incident!)   I also tend to really avoid holiday-specific pins because they always look better and easier than they are.  However, this year I found some real gems that I want to share.  No idea where they originated.  

• Christmas Cards On A Ring--I always struggle with what to do with holiday cards as they come in.  We used to tape them to a wall (not ideal, leaving tape marks all over the wall of choice...), but this year, I used a hole puncher to put a hole in the upper left corner of each card, put them onto a binder ring (the kind that snaps shut) and added a little bow.  It looks so pretty, I keep the ring right in a basket on the coffee table (not a very clear picture, I know, but you get the idea....).

• Hot chocolate in the crockpot.  HELLO.... where has this idea been all my life?  Make the hot chocolate (recipes abound on the internet) and put it in the crockpot for the Christmas eve party.  
• SHOPPING!!!!--I saw something at WalMart last night that was absolute GENIUS.  A little late for this year, but next year I'm all over it.  A woman was walking up and down the aisles and she had two carts with gift bags open and labeled with names.  As she walked around, she put the gifts she wanted into each bag.  Naturally, I asked her what the heck was going on, and she let me take a peek.  For her grandkids, she had pajamas, slippers, their favorite treat, a small stuffed animal and a game in each bag.  She said she chooses a theme every year and sticks to that for everybody.  When the bags are full, she takes them to the cashier, who rings up each bag, putting the items back into the already-labeled bag.  When the woman gets home, she adds tissue paper and she's done.  Each person's gifts are in ONE BAG.  I was just amazed.
• Decorating--every year when I decorate the tree, I get out all the decorations, choose the theme of the year and the color of the lights and go through everything to find what I want on the tree this year.  (Yes, I am aware that having so much stuff is ridiculous, but it dates back to when we had a tree in every room, including bedrooms--now I'm down to two trees)  This year when I take the tree down, I'm sorting every theme into it's own bin, and white lights will go into one bin and colored in another.  Can't imagine why I haven't ever thought of this before.  

Gardening Advice for the Day....

So disappointed....

Here are two photos of my Christmas cacti.  This is the one that I babied through the year, letting it live in my kitchen, making sure to water and feed it regularly.  

This is the one I threw out in the yard in a bed I planted, actually FORGOT it was there.  Yesterday when I got home from work, I could see a pink mass in the bed and since it's December, I naturally thought, "That looks like a plastic bag, I better get that out of there."  I found this amidst the overgrown weeds and other plants in the bed....

Sigh.  

My advice is after the holidays, throw your Christmas cacti out under a tree and don't think about it again until next Thanksgiving.


This is the tree that my class decorated...100% with recycled materials.  Those are ALL water bottles on the tree.  Also, keep in mind that my class is FOUR-YEAR-OLDS!!!

GORGEOUS!!!  Also, if you look behind the tree, you can learn how to say "pumpkin" in nine different languages.  I'm all about the learning opportunities.

Thanksgiving Weekend Wrap Up

We just had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend.  We shopped, got a lot done, ate a LOT--it's the American way!  

The tree is up and looks gorgeous, as well as the small tree in our bedroom.  There is just nothing that makes me happier than a Christmas tree in the bedroom.  When my kids were little we used to put small trees in all the bedrooms and one in kitchen as well as the regular tree in the living room.  Nobody else really wants that in the house now (meaning Kaleigh) so it's just my room and the living room. They sure do look pretty though.  Because of all these trees, we have a choice as to the "theme" of the tree each year, and Kaleigh and I have extensive discussions before Thanksgiving about what we want to do that year.  First we decide on whether we want white lights or colored lights, and go from there.  Here are our options:

1. Red and white tree.
2. Americana tree
3. Ocean tree
4. Everything goes tree
5. Candy tree
6. Sparkly tree

Wow, I am ridiculous.  When I see them listed like this, I realize how very ridiculous this is.  When I put them away this year, I am going to put them into bins according to theme, which I have never done before...should make it easier next year.  

Today Kaleigh and I are hanging out.  I need to send Hillarie her Christmas package, which makes me a little sad, but it's full of things I know she'll love.  I try to send her all my positive thoughts and prayers every day, and I hope the day will come that she can come here and be closer to us permanently.  

Speaking of Hillarie, she did something so funny with her cell phone that I just have to write about it.  For each person's phone number, she found an age-inappropriate photo (usually from their Facebook) to attach to their names.  So Devan has a photo of when he was sixteen, I have one from when I was a senior in high school, etc.  It's funny.  But she's really funny.

Devan and I also went to some estate sales and yard sales over the weekend--I got a big collection of terracotta pots of all sizes from various places.  It seemed like everywhere we went there was a pile of them there.  So today (I'm off today) I'm going to clean those up and decide where I want my potting bench and garden beds.  I want to start prepping the area and getting some amendments into the soil now so I'm ready for action in the spring.  Also, the chickens have OBLITERATED the herbs and flowers I planted along their fence--I expected them to eat them, but dang!  So I want to plant some more out there for them.  They really looked pretty and the chickens sure enjoyed them.  Still waiting on my first egg from them.  

I hope everyone had as lovely a Thanksgiving as we did.  

Peace, love, and compost.