Merry Christmas

Three Wise women would have. . . .

asked for directions,

arrived on time,

cleaned the stable,

made a casserole,

brought practical gifts and

there would be peace on earth.

Merry Christmas and have a wonderful New Year!

Sooo cute

I received this picture today from a friend, isn't it so cute? I love this sweet baby whitetail deer.

Busy Time of Year

Where has December gone. . . I have been so busy and right out straight. I got my shopping done during my many trips to San Diego, making 12 neck muffs for a craft exchange with 11 of my new friends, and making cake for a cake walk and cookies for the many cookie exchanges I have been to and have to attend.
Friday was our last day of school for two weeks and boy do I need a vacation, to bad it is cold and raining here, they are calling for a week of rain. Poor Wyatt was looking on the computer this morning for a place close by to go to so he can have some sun, Phoenix AZ was the closest place he could find. I m loving the rainy weather, I forces me to stay warm and finish up my second Afghan before I have to wrap it up for Christmas. I might even get a chance to work on my quilt. Of course I have to make two Steelers scarves before next Sunday. . . hmmmmm I probably should get working on them. Hope you enjoy this holiday season, I know I will I have many fun activities planned this week.

Here we are students and parents during our Holiday Luncheon we had Friday in my kindergarten class.

Here is Teresa with my cake she won at the cake walk, it came out super fun and cute.

Have you ever. . .

. . listened to the sound of really big waves through the fog and wondered what they looked like? This morning it was super, duper foggy at my house and I went to meet a good friend at the beach for some girl talk before work; just what the DR ordered. Once the fog lifted we saw these giant waves and it was a beautiful sunny, crisp winter day. . .where are the warm California days I love?

. . . wondered why a friend would tell you things like "oh I don't really like that friend" then turn around and say she is my BFF? I do not get it, I am really having a hard time right now with two faced "friends". . . I love my really tried and true friends, you know them the ones who are always there to listen to you, go places with you or just sit with you. The ones who love to do the same things as you or the ones who don't like them at all but introduce you to things they enjoy and its ok because you are having fun, laughing and listening to each other.

. . . tried making 12 quick Christmas crafts for your new group of super crafty friends and hope that your craft is as good as theirs? I still have 4 to do by next week.

. . . offered to have a BBQ at your house only to find out 40 teenagers (mostly boys) will be coming to eat? YIKES I am going to be busy Sunday after competition.

Mr. Sandman. . .

I did some Christmas pictures this weekend at the beach and brought some props, yup I live in San Diego and have these super, duper cute snowman kit in a can. I have had it for probably 9 years and it id so much fun at the beach, too. Hope everyone is enjoying this blessed holiday season, and don't forget to enjoy each moment of it, because you will not be able to get it back.

Happy Hanukkah

Hope you all have a wonderful Hanukkah celebration and enjoy the entire holiday season.

So True

Life is to short to wake up with regrets.

Love the people who treat you right.

Forget about the ones who don't.

Believe that things happen for a reason.

If you get a second chance grab it with both hands if it changes your life let it.

No one promised life would be easy,

they just said it would be worth living.

Grateful for days like these

I love days like these, cold in the morning then warming up in the afternoon. I live in such a great place and am so blessed to get to see such wonderful sights right off my deck. People in Encinitas are so cool and fun and really enjoy this wonderful town we live in. Why do I take my view for grated? I think life just gets in the way of me enjoying it. I really do need to take time every day to enjoy where I am living now, in his point of my life.

A few days late with my gratitude

I am very grateful for my parents, they raised me and taught me all the morals and values I have today. They are great parents and did a wonderful job raising all us kids. I know that I am their favorite, best child ever.

OHHHH SSSOOOOOOOO Grateful

Tonight I am grateful for an extra hour of sleep I should get when we set our clocks back. The Holy Cows were at the Lantern Festival this evening and need to be down at their school no later than 7:30 am. Hopefully I will be able to use the extra sleep.

I am Grateful ~ day 5

I am always so grateful for double coffee Wednesdays. I have started buying two soy lattes in the morning because right after school I have to head south to Point Loma for robotic meeting until 8:00pm so I need an extra shot of energy right after teaching all day. AHHHHH double coffee Wednesday!!!

Grateful for . . .

I am very grateful for Jeffrey. . .he has helped me be the mother I am today, he was my "Guinea Pig" child, if you ask him I was comparable to Hitler I try to explain to him that I was 21 years old and only knew what I had been taught (which I am very grateful for later post). Jeffrey is finally finding the confidence to branch out in his art, he is amazing!!!

Gratitide Day 3

Who would not be grateful for living in a place where you can see this sight almost every day? Yes, I do take it for granted sometimes, ok often. You know life gets in the way of enjoying the simple, beautiful things in life but I an oh so grateful to live where I do stand on my deck and view this beautiful purple, pink, orange sky. (no this one is not off my deck, but I had to stop and snap it while I was driving)

Day 2 Gratitude

Today I would like to express my gratitude for the ability to live in a country where we get a voice in the way our government is run. My mantra is and will always be if you don't vote you don't have the right to complain. I love our country!

Count down to Thanksgiving

In honor of Thanksgiving each day I will post a picture of something I am grateful for.

Day 1 ~ My son Wyatt he keeps me going day to day, he always makes me laugh (even when he is grumpy sometimes those are the funniest) and is the reason I am called Mom. I love you Wyatt!!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Do you remember these type of Halloween costumes? You know the ones that came in a box with the clear cellophane sheet over the cover so you could see the plastic mask and under the mask was the plastic one piece costume. I thought so. Well I am pretty sure that on this particular Halloween it must have snowed because under that plastic sheet we have on our snow suits. Well anyway I hope you enjoy your Halloween this year and if you are in the land whee it snowed last night, enjoy it!

Jeffrey finally has a website

Jeffrey has finally got a website going to showcase some of his art, it is still a work in progress and looks really cool. Its called "i landed upside down" to get to it click http://jeffreyschulz.weebly.com/.

Jeff's Carving

So Jeff is doing this art exhibit in Tustin this weekend and yesterday and today he competed in an open air carving, this is what he carved. It's a historic building on Main St. in Tustin. the picture isn't so clear because he took it with his cell phone and sent to to me, then I e-mailed it to myself. Tomorrow I will see the real carving and the actual building. I am a proud momma and had to post the talented carving of Jeffrey Schulz.

Expensive tree

Tonight I had to take my wonderful 15 year old out to buy new dress shoes for a robotic thing tomorrow. . .where do you buy size 15 shoes at 6:00pm? We headed out to the mall and prayed we would find a pair, worn out skater shoes could not replace dress shoes and oh yes "I need new gray dress slacks also tonight" Holy Cow kid your killing me with the last minute dress attire for the luncheon tomorrow.
Anyway as we were driving we saw this tree with this "freakin'" sign. Obviously someone was upset about the amount of money spent on this tree. Which was place in one of our 2 expensive round-abouts . . .they do not help the traffic flow to the beach, sorry Encinitas.

Rain, Rain, Rain

It has been raining this week, and we had to turn our heater on last night for the first time in a year. When we do get a break from the down pour I can see it hanging out right outside my back yard. Sometimes we get lucky and the rain just stays on the outside of our cove and heads to San Diego or north to LA.
The only good thing about all this rain is that we do not have the horrible wild fires and I get to make lots and lots of soups. Tonight's soup . . . sage and butternut squash, I think I will even make some parmesan cheese crisp to go along with it.

The big day has arrived!!!

After 2 long years the day finally arrived. . . he got his braces off! His teeth look so great, now he will be in a retainer for a year then just at night. Hopefully he doesn't throw it away while he is eating like I did when I wore a retainer.

Remember what they looked like 28 months ago? They were really jacked.

What do you miss?

It is fall a beautiful time of the year, the leaves turn to beautiful shade if golden yellow, bright orange and red and even a shade of purple. I miss this time of year, growing up on the east coast I have so many memories of fall the crisp cool air the smell of smoke from the fireplace, the sound of the leaves in the street as cars drive over them then the sight of those crushed up leaves flying around like glitter. I remember throwing my poor grandmother in a pile of leaves and the many, many pile we would rake and jump in. There is nothing like the colors of fall, it is magical . . .almost as magical as the first snowfall of the winter.
I hope everyone gets to get out and enjoy this fall, bake a pie, pick some pumpkins and apples and create your own special fall memories.

Pumpkin Time

On Saturday morning we got a call from a girlfriend to go to an amazing pumpkin patch in Fallbrook the Lavender Farms Pumpkin Patch. It was a REAL pumpkin patch . . .acres of pumpkins still on the vine. It was simple and beautiful and so much fun. He had 38 varieties of pumpkins, we were all in amazement, each one cooler than the first. We came home with 4 different types of pumpkins. Wyatt's favorite looks like a giant pickle.

Wyatt holding a traditional orange one.
This is one of the cool ones we brought home it has such character.

The entire driveway was covered with these great smelling lavender plants

Fields and fields with so many different types of pumpkins.

We will definitely return next year, this is by far my favorite pumpkin patch, simple and sweet.

Some Fun Volunteering

Yesterday we went to the Jenna Druck Foundation Family Day and volunteered a few hours of our day helping out during some grief counseling and at their picnic. It was a really good reminder of how lucky we are. I worked with the children some who lost parents, one who's 5 year old brother drowned on Father's Day, one who's mom delivered a baby and it died as the child was looking at her for the first time and a 10 year old boy who's dad just left the family and he has never heard from him. I knew I couldn't have helped in the Mom or the Dad grief counseling, many of them lost children tragically. Cancer, drive by shooting, traffic accidents and even abductions and murder. I would have been a mess.
I was able to meet Dr. Ken Drucker who started this foundation after his 21 year old daughter was killed in a bus accident while away at school. He is an amazing man to turn such a tragedy into such a beautiful thing for these families.
Here is a picture one of the children took of me. They were all so excited to get to use my camera. . . I had to delete 889 pictures. They had such a great time snapping photos around the room.

Wyatt was caught as well by one of the children. He helped set up, take down and rearrange chairs, serve food and play games with the children. . .how cool to get service hours and be able to play football.

I got to take pictures of the kids as they acted completely goofy, silly and just plain excited. I was nice to see them laughing and having fun.

Strange weather

We have had some very strange weather here in San Diego Monday it was 98 degrees on the coast then today we had down pours, thunder and lightning all day. Tonight we had the most amazing full double rainbow with the most amazing raspberry colored sky, it was beautiful.

My Boys

It is rare that I get pictures of my boys neither one of them like their picture taken, they see my camera and run. Last weekend we were at the beach so I managed to sneak a couple. I reallt want one of them standing beside each other, Wyatt towers over his older brother Jeff.
Wyatt can stand on his tip toes and touch our 9 foot high ceiling.
Here is a picture of Wyatt, Jeanne and Jeff at Aliso Creek in Laguna Beach.

John and Dawn

My brother won a trip to San Diego thru his work and they got to stay at the Hotel Del in Coronado, it was so nice getting to visit with them. I took them to their favorite hamburger place, In-N-Out Burger I don't think Dawn was impressed, but John loves it. Saturday was John's big, black tie award dinner I was so happy to get to go down and see them all dressed up, usually I see John in a hat. They looked awesome!!!

Dawn had called me earlier in the day to see if I would come down and do her hair. . . I do not have girls and do not really know how to do hair but I agreed and bagged up some stuff and tried to do what she wanted for the event. She loved it, so I was happy, but a hair stylest I am not.

Hello Blog

I have been away for awhile and thought I should share some of my beautiful summer beach pictures. Our summer here was cold and gray but I still got some great pictures.

Here is a tide pool with a great shot of a sea star, I love my fisheye lens it is so much fun! I do not know those cute kids but they were having so much fun.

Sea Lions on the rocks in La Jolla, they are loud and smelly but I feel so blessed to be able to live where I can see them up close and personal.

Welcome Mr. Sun

The last two morning I was awaken very early by the beautiful, bright light of the sun. My mood has been so much happier these days. I hadn't realized how depressed I was getting with the four months of gray, gloomy weather. I have been forcing myself to get up each morning and do different activities, I have been paddle surfing with different friends and found that I love it. I have been working frantically in my classroom trying to change it and make it perfectly, perfect for the first day with my little kindergartners ( I have some very big shoes to fill, the wonderful teacher who has taught kindergarten at my school before has set the academic bar pretty high). I started crafting (quilting and crocheting) with an amazing group of women who are super supportive, easy going, honest (I am still learning a lot from them) and fun.

This past weekend we redid Wyatt's bedroom, it looks very teenager esk. Gray, red, white and a bit of black. Jeff came down and did his handy artwork on the wall, it looks great! the painting goes around to the other wall next to his door.

I am so blessed to have such awesome responsible boys, true friends and an awesome life and man I am so blessed that the sun had returned!!

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,
We need to talk,
I have been so distant,

I am not even sure what to do about it, I have no excuse . . . I have been busy but no busier than usual, I still carry my camera around and take pictures every day. I always have lots to say I am not sure what it is, maybe its the July Cry weather (gray, gloomy and cold weather) we have only had about 7 days of sunshine in the last 3 months.

Today I went to a memorial service for a 45 year old teacher I use to teach with, she had gallbladder cancer and when they caught it 9 months ago it was already a stage 4. She has a young son who will be entering 7th grade this year. She new her lord and saviour and knew where she would be spending eternity but it makes you stop and think. . . am I enjoying each and every day that I am here and healthy? I always try to do this because who knows what my tomorrow will be.

Summer is here blog and I only have a few more summers to enjoy with my son, he is growing up so fast and soon he will be heading off to college. There are not to many more days of summer for the two of us. I am heading to Palm Springs tomorrow for a bit of sunshine, swimming and R&R. AHHHH.

Oh Blog I enjoy you and miss you.

xoxoxoxo
Cathy

So far 15 . . .

has been not the best year ever! It started off with the fall off the skateboard and cutting up the face, then puberty hit dropped T's and all the changes, and now a ruptured eardrum. Yup my baby has a ruptured eardrum, the day before he is suppose to fly to Indiana for a robotics competition. We spent our evening at the Dr. office, got antibiotics, ear drops, a bottle of motrin and a travel size Vaseline and cotton balls. Tomorrow morning I am sending my 15 year old baby and his ruptured eardrum off across the country with 2 men and 4 other teenage boys. NO I am not going on this trip, I didn't plan on going because I really wanted Wyatt to travel without me and now I feel bad and at the same time I know he is fully capable of taking all his meds and stuff himself. . . OK I wrote him out a full schedule of when to take everything and showed him where on the dropper 3 drops is. Wish me luck.

Goddess for a day

Today was my class end of the year party and the kids all got their faces painted so after they got theirs done they wanted me to get mine painted. After school forgetting that I had my face painted I went to the nursing home to visit Lou well all the seniors were so excited to see my flower. One man who had a stroke was yelling for me to come over to him so I did and he told me I looked like a goddess and grabbed me and hugged me not wanting to let go. I think I should

go be a goddess everyday.

Happy 4th of July

Today we went to Dominiques for the 4th, it was so cold the sun never came out! We had delicious Armenian food and Wyatt had a great time in the pool (he didn't care that it was cold or gray). We finally got up our nerve to get into the jacuzzi, it wasn't because it wouldn't be warm it was the getting out into the ice cold air that made us all not want to get in.

I hope everyone had a great day. My birthday was great I have been celebrating and eating out with friends for days, I am so lucky.

43 things to do in my 43rd year

1. Crotchet 2 afghans
2. Make myself a quilt
3. Always have fresh flowers on my table
4. Go back to WW
5. Spend more time with Wyatt
6. Take pictures with film and get better at it
7. Take another photography class
8. Go on a girls only get away
9. Blow up one of my own photos REALLY big
10. Stretch more
11. Wish on more dandelions
12. Be sillier
13. Learn to surf
14. Purge more
15. Wear more dresses and skirts
16. Volunteer more
17. Learn a new language
18. Be more disciplined
19. Go on a shopping trip to the Grove in LA
20. Host some military for Thanksgiving
21. Send more handwritten notes via mail
22. Go horseback riding
23. Step outside my comfort zone
24. Meet new friends
25. Give up caffeine
26. Get a haircut and new style
27. Take a cooking class
28. Have a makeover
29. Drive up the coast to San Fran
30. Learn to snowboard
31. Do a cartwheel
32. Secretly help someone in need
33. Write a kids book
34. Pay it forward
35. Learn to make pasta
36. Call a psychic
37. Give blood
38. Stay in a hotel downtown SD
39. Sleep in a tent
40. Do something spontaneous
41. Make a necklace
42. Walk on the beach more
43. Make a wedding cake
    

7 more days

Wow! how come I do not feel my age? I am proudly turning 43 years old in 7 days but man oh man, I do not feel that old. After school gets out I am thinking of going camping in Santa Barbra, I love it up their and I haven't been for a while. Wyatt wants to take a road trip to Tombstone AZ but I an thinking that the 115 degree weather will have to wait and maybe we will road trip to another cooler place. I am working on the list of 43 things I want to do in my 43rd year on Earth, I am excited to share that list with everyone.
I just signed up to begin another boot camp, I am hoping a different location and instructor will help me forget about passing out last summer due to my anemia. It is under control now but I still cannot shake that fear. Wish me luck!
Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Summer Reading

I have seasons for certain activities:

Fall and winter I love to crochet and cook,

in the spring I love to clean and purge and clean and organize

while during the summer I love to read!

I think summer is my favorite time to read because I am on summer vacation and I actually have a chance to relax. My two favorite place on earth to read are in Maine on the lake at camp and on my deck, listening to the ocean. As a child I did not like to read but now I really enjoy it, it is very relaxing.

Some of my books I have piled up on my night stand waiting for me to break into are:

*Eat Pray Love

*Three Cups Of Tea

*The Princess Bride

*Into The Wild

* The Secret Life of Bees

If you have any other good suggestions please let me know.

What are you reading this summer?

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Father's Day Dad! I miss you and love you. Today was a beautiful day here and no June Gloom, it was a perfect day 67ish. Have a wonderful week.

Self reflection

I have been super busy since my last post, I know it was a long time ago. I was awarded with an outstanding teacher award and several friends from my school came out to support me, they are all great friends to give up their evening to come support me, I love these people.
Also, I have been planning my class end of the year video, this is my last year of teaching Pre-kindergarten and I want to make it extra special. In addition to ending my school year I am planning my new curriculum and figuring out what I am going to sell on Craigslist from my Pre-K class ( I will not need it anymore). It is very exciting and I am so happy about the change next year.
Speaking of change I have been reflecting alot on my life, friends and my family as my 43rd birthday is getting closer. I have realize life is way to short for fake friends who only want to be around you when they need something from you. I have so many true friends that I do not need the others.
Wyatt is getting ready to finish his first year of high school and has a big presentation of learning to present before a board of 30 to finish up the year. He says I cannot be their because I make him nervous. Teenagers are way more difficult to raise than young children, this is when they really need their parents. They cannot lock themselves off in their rooms and ignore the family, they need to be part of the family unit and communicate daily with us. I am so proud of the man that Wyatt is becoming and taking satisfaction in knowing that as his mom I never gave up on him, he will become very successful in whatever he chooses to become. I know we still have the rest of high school then college to get through, but so far so good, pleas keep us in your prayers.
I am signing up for more photography classes and have two afghans to make for Christmas and I am making a quilt for myself. I will be posting a list of 43 things to do on my 43rd year of life.
Have a wonderful day!
Love,
Cathy