My day/week in pictures

Kalie suggested I show what a typical day/week looks like for me in pictures. Since my days are always different it's hard to show a "typical" one but I tried my best. My weekdays consist mostly of work and snuggling with Luna. So here you go...

I could not show the forms I am always filling out or the doctors offices I am in but I think you'll get the gist ;)

Gooooooood morning Mom! Wake up! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Wake up, Mom! Feed me, Mom! Let's go on a walk, Mom!

Some mornings Luna and I go on a run. These are my favorite pants and jacket ever. I would wear them everyday if that wasn't totally weird.

Hard to get a good running shot.

And since it's cold in our house most days I try to keep Luna warm :)

Some mornings we have dance parties...

She always wants to play!

Then I get ready... (I cheated and put on my concealer and foundation so I didn't look like death)

This product saves me every day. I could sell it.

Makeup.

My old person pill organizer.

What to wear... what to wear...

Some days I wear scrubs.

 Most days I dress up. If I like my outfit I take a picture so I have options to choose from when I get stuck.

I go downstairs and get myself organized. Luna helps.

I get in Trunk. (The pic was taken when our trees were being trimmed)

 I load up on Starbucks for my accounts. I live on these. I pretend they're not energy drinks. Please no one tell me they are. 

 Many mornings I have presentations on how to use our products or selling my urine drug testing service...

 I get lame/sometimes hilarious pee jokes sent to me all day by my coworkers

We also take motivational photos and send them to each other. We are in the North West region "NW" 

 I work out of my car all day so it becomes quite a train wreck. I have to clean it daily.

Sorry the pic is sideways.

 I take random pictures in the elevator? Not usually.

 I pop into grocery stores/cake shops/Starbucks to get treats for customers.

 I hold my breath when I walk across this client's walkway since I always think my heals are going to get stuck in between the planks. This cannot be up to code. 

 Drive drive drive...

Occasional dance party... ok this happens way too often.

 

Making appointments with offices...

 Did I mention I bring Starbucks?? A LOT of Starbucks sometimes?? (This is HALF.)

Drive drive drive...

HOME!

 

Sometimes we eat quick meals

Some days we get a little fancy...

 Luna always thinks we're boring at night. Must. Sit. Must. Do. Emails. Must. Watch. T.V.

 They wait for me as I get ready for bed- which Jeremy will tell me nightly is the longest process of life.  And they always fall asleep just like this.

There's a typical day for ya :)

With love from Roseville,

Paige

A taste of Nov 3

I've been a bad blogger. A real bad blogger! I think this is the first time since I started my blog in October 2007 that I went a whole month without a post.

Well I've gotten many texts from Kalie... both encouraging me to blog, giving me ideas on what to do, and telling me it must happen today. ;) So here you all are.

We got a new fancy camera, a Canon Rebel, and we are just figuring it out. Jeremy has taken photo classes and is really great at taking pictures and editing them. I say this because all of the pictures today were edited by me so don't judge him if I made his great pictures look terrible.

Note: I just uploaded all of my edited pictures (which took forever) and not one of the edits were saved so I no longer care. lol

This week has been filled with a lot of family time. My Grandma Dean is here for a week from South Dakota so every night someone has hosted something revolving around food and kids and dessert and we've had some great quality time.

In between family breakfast and a smaller family dinner, we cleaned our home, decorated for Christmas*, and had a break in the backyard. Here are some shots we took on this beautiful, 75 degree day. (Which, if you're unfamiliar with Sacramento's weather, is unseasonably warm!)

*Dear people who have a problem with this: I couldn't care less! Thank you.

You can click on each picture to make it giant, if you'd like.

Back porch:

 All of our trees are starting to turn light green!! Such fun colors.

 Looking at our house from below.

 We let Luna out to explore. This ended in her rolling in poop.

 I'm a little obsessed with my rain boots. And a little afraid there will be a snake in the tall grass, let's be honest.

 I may or may not have about 100 other pictures that look like this, or a much blurrier version of it.

 Luna swimming in the creek that's gotten much fuller since we had rain a week ago. Crazy that this will rise at least 8 feet this winter.

 Surveying the land.

 My handsome man!!!!!

 Drying Luna off after her bath because she rolled in turkey poop.

It's Christmas time!

Putting the tree together while I supervise...

 My favorite part: decorating!

 Evie and Chet LOVED playing "Find the Pickle"- from Elli last year. I had them play first and then they ushered in everyone else one by one to find the pickle. Evie did well not pointing it out but Chet would stand right next to it and point and say, "DO YOU SEE THE PICKLE?!?" :)

 Oh Christmas tree...

 Costco oraments, how I love you so!

I mixed silver/white ornaments with gold ones from Barb and our homemade ones.

Barbie gave me her gold ornaments from the tree I grew up spending Christmas around!! It's so special to have them on my tree. I remember being in awe of hers growing up and I'm so glad to have our tree be full of such memories.

 Oh Luna, I love you.
P.S. I can't WAIT to find a white or gold or silver skirt and matching stockings! If you see one that's a good price let me know.

 Seriously this place is home. I love it here.

With love from Roseville,

Paige

Keeping the Sabbath Wholly

My friend Elli highly recommended a book for me to read, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, after hearing how busy, and consequently chaotic, my life has been lately.

Now my first reaction to getting the book was, "I already have no time and now I need to devote a day to doing nothing? This isn't going to work. I need to go, go, go..."

Elli also writes a blog (which you should read:)) where she talks about her and her husband, Caleb's, attempts to have a sabbath day each week. I figured Caleb is in med school so if he's keeping a sabbath with that chaos I could at least give it a try.

Well yesterday was the day Jeremy and I dubbed our Sabbath of this week. Saturdays are great because we are recovering from a chaotic week. We already take the mornings slow, go to Starbucks and sometimes Chipotle with Luna, watch shows, etc. Usually in the afternoon we attempt a project, cook,  clean, do some work while watching TV and then sometimes hang out with friends or family.

In attempts to create a day that was full of rest and rejuvenation, we cut out housework and work. We did our regular Starbucks, shopped for our fence materials, I bought two pairs of adorable shoes(!), cooked, etc. Ok so our sabbath was pretty expensive but that's another lesson to be learned.

And it was AMAZING.

There was no, "We really should be..." or "Yeah in 5 minutes, I just have to finish this email..." conversations. We were fully present, fully relaxed, and fully enjoying ourselves and our time with each other.

This morning, instead of waking up to half-finished projects around the house I woke up to one big project. I've pretty much stayed focused today, tackling some organizing before church, after church we did our grocery shopping and cleaning, Jeremy is currently putting up the fence and I am finishing work emails and distracting myself from working by writing this blog post ;).

My biggest takeaways of this practice so far is:

1) God has commanded us to have a sabbath and yet we willfully choose to disobey him and not take one. This needs to change for all of us who are Christians who don't already participate. For Jeremy and I the change started yesterday.

2) Having a day of true rest is good for me in every way. I feel rejuvenated and ready to go for the week. I thought I'd feel stressed out and behind, but I don't. Now I can focus on work on Sundays instead of trying to do 1/2 work and 1/2 fun.

3) I am learning to say no. Sunday is my work day now and I can't fit everything in that I'd usually like to, especially with church taking up 1/2 of it. But that's ok and it's the necessary sacrifice to balance it all and keep the sabbath holy.

With love from Roseville,

Paige

Bad Habit

I've got this bad habit that I kind of love. 

1) I really enjoy hosting. I've always looked forward to having a home to decorate, work on (which, let's be honest, Jeremy does most of the work) and fill with people. I like when people leave stuffed and 10 pounds heavier because of an ample amount of delicious food. I love having our house be a place where people are comfortable.

2) I also really love having a clean house. Not normal clean... like I-could-lick-the-ground clean. I like fresh food, fresh meals, fresh flowers, everything to be de-cobwebbed, Chlorox wiped, not-a-dog-hair anywhere clean.

3) I also really like my job. And I want to keep my job, so I have to work lots of hours like most people who have a full time+ job.

4) I also really like to relax. To watch TV show after TV show and have zero guilt because I've truly relaxed after a long day, hanging out with Luna and Jeremy.

So I've got this bad habit that I kind of really love.

I want a ridiculously clean house, amazing food, and a "finished" feel anytime someone comes over. But there are time constraints, reality and relaxing that are a part of life.

Last weekend after being at a conference in Vegas I flew to San Diego and stayed at the Grand Del Mar, a super fancy hotel in, you guessed it, Del Mar, with Jeremy for a conference he was working. The place was immaculate. Everything was rich people colors, gold and dark wood and floral print couches. There were service people everywhere who opened doors and they even served ketchup in a fancy dish.

And although the place was beautiful, I felt out of place. I felt stared at and judged and cheap. I felt like my shoes weren't designer enough and that I didn't do my hair well enough. I felt poor. I felt fat. I felt uncomfortable in this place that is made with the only intention of it's guests having comfort.

And that, my friends, is my problem. I want people to come to my house and see the Grand Del Mar version. I want my laundry to be folded and my windows to be washed (which never happens, let's be honest). But people don't want the Grand Del Mar version. That version, although designed to be for comfort, makes us uncomfortable because it's NOT REAL.

Now of course we should still prepare for guests. We should be thoughtful and considerate. But is my true intention to make people impressed with me or to welcome them??

You see, I've got this bad habit of wanting to make people impressed with me. And I hate that I love it. I hate that I need it.

I've got this bad habit that I'm trying to break. To learn how to welcome people regardless of how that reflects on my material possessions.

With love from Roseville,

Paige

Driving in squares

This is a bit of a repeat post but I have been so aware of this idea of " coming to terms with change" lately I can't help but write about it again.

I am not good with directions.

You see, growing up with a mother who (sorry mom) is bad at directions, I thought I was pretty good. But my job has me in my car from 8-5 and I can barely make it to the grocery store without my GPS, let alone any of my offices. And sometimes the GPS confuses me and I get lost (last night. twice. downtown. I HATE DRIVING DOWNTOWN.).

I have finally become aware of this and don't push back on it anymore. I suck at directions. I'm overly confident in my abilities to get from point A to point B and that oftentimes leads me to not listen to directions thoroughly, take proper notes, and my "winging it" rarely pays off.

I have known this for some time now, but I've resisted accepting it. Maybe it's one of those "I'm not my mother" syndromes we all suffer from (once again, sorry mom) or a pride thing. But last night as I was making squares downtown on one way streets trying to find the freeway (did I mention I HATE DRIVING DOWNTOWN?) while I say sarcastic remarks to my GPS, I decided to embrace it:

I am not good with directions. And I am my mother.

One more to share:

I am not good at "giving things to God."

I was talking to my wonderful friend Lauren via text about life and decisions and she remarked that she has to constantly give her life and decisions back to God, every day, because she wants to take back the control of it all.

Well Lauren is one smart cookie and someone who's opinion and spiritual advice I've always appreciated, so today I thought I'd give it a try giving my woes to the Lord.

A 15 minute out loud-in-my-car-conversation-to-God later, I somehow came to the terrible conclusion that "I've got this" and "that's great for Lauren." Ugh.

Repeat: I'm not good at "giving things to God."

Something that I like about identifying what I'm not good at is that I realize my weaknesses and I don't resist them anymore. I embrace these things I'm terrible at and then I can consciously make an effort to be better. Otherwise I'm in denial not working on them at all.

So good luck lowering your pride and realizing that you just aren't good some things, even if you once thought you were. It's humbling and has ended up making me more self-assured and at peace with who I truly am.

With love from Roseville,

Paige