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beautiful kitchen!! (not mine. belongs to famapa.)
Morning's Light
Glimpses of beauty and simplicity around the world.
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Photo: Desire Thursday Inspire
It's another Friday, another winter weather advisory, another day to brush snow and scrape ice off the car. Will be cooped up at home tonight and was happy to find this gem from ellmania:
How do we survive the dark months of the year? Well, if you'd ask me I'd say: with lots of tea, all kinds of beauty and some music.*
*I read ellmania in Google Reader and request the blog to be translated into my language. This quote is from that translated page.
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Loving these photos of a workplace shown on les carnets du design….that there can be empty space in a room and a desk not pushed up against a wall. Very, very pretty.
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So my friend Kirsten was to spend the night Saturday night due to bad weather – so she could avoid an hour long drive turned into….three hours? if she drove on slick, icy roads. (umm..would slick and icy be the same thing?!) I was busy all day and got home an hour before Kirsten's arrival – to clean, put things away, take out the garbage, smooth it all over so that I could collapse on the couch and act all nonchalant, as if "Yes, I live with my apartment this clean and sparkling all the time!"
So we go out to dinner at an Irish pub then Kirsten decides to drive home before the bad weather starts. I wave goodbye and then turn around and am faced with such a clean apartment I don't know what to do with it! I decide to keep it that clean for one week.
success!! I have kept it clean for 48 hours now. CLAP CLAP CLAP Turns out it's a lot of little PUPA as a former Monica-on-Friends-Cleaning-Twin-Roommate liked to point out. (Pick Up & Put Away). Turns out she's right. I've been putting away things each night and cleaning the kitchen after every meal (vs. letting the breakfast dishes + dinner dishes sit there all not-pretty until bedtime at which time they might be put off until the next day).
Bathroom? Clean
Kitchen? Clean
Entryway/Dining Room? Clean
Bedroom? Spotless. (wait, ignore the half-made bed. I tried…like a six year old tries)
[I browsed Flickr for photos of clean apartments and got sucked into the vortex that is Flickr. I began a search for sparkle (photo 1), then tried "sparkling clean" (photo 2) and ended up with a photo of a clean hallway (photo 3).]
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
Favorite new blog:[i] LoveLife Not sure if Pilot is her daughter's real name..but she also has a dog named Crash.
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Please note: no cleaner was added to the cake or the ice cream at said birthday celebration.
We celebrated my niece Mimo's birthday on New Years Eve. Her older brother Caleb taunted her with, "You're not really four until 11:30 tonight." So when people would ask her age, she'd look a bit sad and say "It's not my birthday until really really late!" (I stopped Caleb's comments by telling him there was a leap year in there since Mimo was born, so wasn't she really already four years old?!)
We gathered at Chipotle for burritos and chips, and when the manager found out the birthday girl in the birthday crown (she made it herself) chose Chipotle out of all restaurants, he gave us our entire meal (for seven people) free. It was as if we were the Customers of the Day. After the meal, I walked Mimo up to the register so she could thank the staff, and they were delighted and proceeded to sing happy birthday to her. Even the employees taking a dinner break joined in the singing. A beaming Mimo asked if she could have the pretty gift card featuring a foil-wrapped burrito with a red bow around it and the manager said "It's yours!!".
What could top this? How about special drinks at Starbucks, games and a ride on the ferris wheel at Fun World, then home for cake and ice cream. Gramma made Mimo a doll cake – but unfortunately had to cut the legs off the doll to get a correct fit with the cake. All was well until Mimo pulled the doll out of the cake; we all gasped! (OH NO!! A NAKED DOLL WITH SAWED OFF LEGS!!) But Mimo had eyes only for the frosting covering the doll.
When order was restored, we settled in to watch The Best Birthday Gift EVER….. a personalized Dora DVD with Mimo's photo in the episode as well as Dora saying "MEE-mo" every minute or so as she addressed the birthday girl. The best part for me was at the end when all the characters were singing Happy Birthday and I waited for this part:…"Happy Birthday, dear _________" and all the characters stopped singing so that the recorded voice (singular) could say "MEE-mo"….. then the group continued on to the big finish, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUUUU!!!!"
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A morning was then spent at the YMCA – at the family pool. Kathy brought her four kids – including two year old twins, Meghan and Luke. They lasted less than an hour in the pool, as Catherine (age 8) decided it would be a good idea to force her brother Sam (age 6)'s head under the water despite my protests. Sam was understandably freaked out and that ended the swimming for our group.
We dressed and trooped out to the snack bar area which is where the following took place:
Luke enjoyed a nacho or two and is waiting for an icee to arrive.
The icee arrives!
Nachos + Icee = heaven.
Catherine demonstrates the ideal way to enjoy a chip: dunk the chip into the container and take half the cheese before putting the chip in the mouth – without getting cheese on your face…then smile for the camera. Note some people are more successful at cheese-less faces than others.
We can't wait to return to the family pool again! When Luke wants to go to the pool, he'll either dress in his swimsuit and wear it all day – or he'll take his swimsuit to daycare with him – in anticipation of such a great event as swimming in the POOL!!!
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I am not working again until Monday. It's been refreshing to have so much time off at the end of the year, but it turns out I'm horrible with lots of free time. Give me four tasks to do in a day and I'll work in cleaning, sorting, and tidying up, but give me an entire day with nothing that has to be done? Then in the afternoon you'll find me still in my comfy clothes, curled up on the couch, debating whether an episode of House or of What Not to Wear appeals more to me at that moment.
With that in mind, I found photos to inspire me to pretty things up and wear some cute clothes as well. Sorry I don't know where these photos came from!!
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My nephew Hudson enjoys playing with his new train set on Christmas morning. Or contemplating playing with the train anyway as he stares off into space.
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Just watched this film and found it charming. The wardrobe of Jacks, the main character, takes after Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffanys. I loved her little bedroom, wardrobe and the lessons learned in the film.
(Note to self: do not spend $5 renting the film at Blockbuster then return home to check your netflix queue and see that you could have "watched it instantly" and saved yourself $5.)
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A college classmate/photographer, Greg, is in France at the moment.
Beautiful photos.
photos: Greg Strock -
Morning's Light 
