The Magic of Shoes......

"One shoe can change your life." ~Cinderella

Saw this quote in a magazine and had to laugh!!! I LOVE shoes.....can never get enough of them and the greatest thing about them is that you can gain 10 pounds and your shoes will still fit!!! If I were a cat, what would make me purr? A beautiful pair of shoes, of course!!!

I just LOVE my Cupcake Princess!

This weekend, the Cupcake Princess was involved in another theatre performance at her high school. They are fine tuning their show in order to perform it in Scotland in August at the Fringe Festival. While the shows overall theme is dark and the setting is in one of the towers in New York on 9-11, her character injects well timed comedic relief and is quite witty through out the show. Ok, yea, I'm her mother, but, based on the audiences response to her, she really was good!

It was my first outing since the stupid surgery and I was a little nervous about it, however, it turned out to be no big deal. Thank goodness the air conditioner was working in the theatre because it had been another hot, summer day. Anyway, Big Daddy and I were such proud parents. Acting has always been her passion and you can tell that she really enjoys what she is doing. And now that college is only a year away, the big questions are "What do I want to do?" and "Where do I want to go to college?". She's looking at the theatre world long and hard......who knows what the future will bring for our Drama Queen. I am so blessed to have the Cupcake Princess as my daughter........I love you dearly,peanut.

A quick thought for the day.....

"Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here, we should dance." ~unknown

Life goes on...........

And now it's over........yea! I went in yesterday morning at 6 am and came home at 12:30 yesterday afternoon. Surgery went fine. Recovery is coming along......not fast enough for my liking, but what else do I have to do during Summer break from school? Thank you Alisa and Sherrie for your kind thoughts. I got up early today and this hibiscus bloom greeted me on my patio. I bought this plant at Home Depot two years ago and it survives in the Texas sun and heat and comes inside the house in the winter and stands quietly in it's pot trying to survive the dark days. But every Spring, I put it back out and it blooms again. A little reminder that life does go on and little bumps in the road don't need to slow down one's progress. What a beautiful red!

I've been tagged by Alisa from http://lifeisabeautifulplacetobe.blogspot.com/ and I'm always up for some fun, even with a pillow on my belly, so here goes..........

1. What was I doing 10 years ago:

I was working in the Dallas fasion industry as an assistant designer, a job I loved, but it's hours and stress load didn't go well with raising a young Cupcake Princess.

2. Five things on my to-do list:

• Order Cupcake Princesses contacts refill
• Schedule appoint for Cupcake Princesses Senior portraits
• Start organizing photos for Cupcake Princesses High School scrap book that I'm making
• Register for Instructional Leadership Development course
• Rest and recover from stupid gall bladder surgery

3. 5 snacks I enjoy (how can I choose only 5?!)

• chips and salsa
• chips and queso
• chips and quacamole
• puffed cheetos
• peanut M&M's

4. Things I would do if I were a millionaire:

• pay off debt
• help out some family members
• send Cupcake Princess to NYU Theatre School
• go on another European River cruise with Big Daddy
• buy a villa in Tuscany and grow olives and sunflowers
• buy an apartment in downtown Vienna for me and Big Daddy to stay in during Opera Season

5. Places I've lived:

• Texas (Dallas, Denton, Killeen)
• Virginia (North and South Arlington)
• Pennsylvania
• New York
• Oklahoma
• Kansas
• Germany

Must go get dressed as one of my team mates from school is bringing over a dinner for me and the family. I work with some GREAT people!!

Father's Day

Father's Day is here and I can't spend it with my dad, but did get to speak to him on the phone this morning. It's always good to talk to him because he's always interested in what I'm studying at the time in my Master's program. He's the prime example of someone who never grows tired of learning.

It's fun, too, to see him retired and relaxed and enjoying life to the fullest. And with the kids out of the house now, the dogs rule the roost!

Today, however, I do get to spend Father's Day with my husband! I'm taking him to the movies to see The Happening. A thriller movie our daughter doesn't want to see so we're going while she's working. Usually we spend Sunday's catching up on what we didn't do during the week so today will be fun playing "hooky". Tonight we'll have dinner together as a family.

Dad's are wonderful people in daughter's lives. While they don't always understand us or our strange ways of FEELING things, they love us unconditionally. Since I'm not as eloquent as some, I've found a few thoughts about Dads that say it better than me:

There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. ~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. ~Gloria Naylor

A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. ~Bill Cosby

The greatest gift I ever hadCame from God; I call him Dad!~Author Unknown

So, to the two most wonderful Dads in the world, my father and my husband, I wish you the happiest of Father's Days and the biggest hug ever. I love you both more than you'll ever know.

The First One..........

School's out and the first thing on the to-do list is to create my own blog site. Well, check that off the list!! An hour of messing around on the computer and I have a blog site, have imported pictures, and am making my first post. Amazing!

So, what is my purpose for this site? Well, that remains to be seen. Last December, while mindlessly roaming the internet and looking for places to remind me of my wonderful trip to Europe I had taken in the summer, I stumbled on http://merisi.blogspot.com/ and a door to a new world was opened. "Blogging, what's that?" (as my darling teenager rolls her eyes at me and sighs) "I've got to check this out and how can I become a part of it?" And the rest is history. I received a digital camera as a birthday present at the beginning of the year. Merisi's site has encouraged me to look at my everyday world in a new light.........there's so much beauty around us and things to be thankful for.....one just needs to slow down and change the way one looks at things......and now the dog runs away when he hears me turn on the camera! A new hobby has emerged....photography.....which blends nicely with my other hobby, scrap booking. I hope to use this site as a place to share my pictures and my thoughts, and maybe strengthen my creative writing skills while I'm at it. Should I make some new acquantainces along the way, even better! As I've mentioned already, Merisi has inspired me to change my perception of my every day life and Alisa from http://lifeisabeautifulplacetobe.blogspot.com/ has awakened the creative spirit inside me that has been buried for way to long. Next on my list of things to do is find my grandmother's old buttons and handkerchiefs, Alisa! Thank you ladies for adding a whole new dimension to my world!

So, I guess there's nothing left to do tonight but to hit the COMPOSE button. My site has many things left to be done with it, but it will just have to wait for another day. A last thought for the end of a very long day........"Anyone who has never made a mistake is someone who has never tried anything new." ~ Albert Einstein........here's to trying something new!!!