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Thursday, January 31, 2013

quoteable | rainbow slushies

| setting: middle of nowhere, indiana - in a van |

Brooke: "it's snowing and the sun is shining. My prediction that we're about to have rainbow slushies"

travels | hot mess road trip | day one

We left our house at 5:03am this morning. Eleven of us headed out for what we have coined "the hot mess road trip". It started out as two separate events on two consecutive weekends and somehow morphed into a two-ish week long gypsy caravanning vacation thing. It's okay, I'm confused too.

Renting a Mercedes Sprinter van was one of the best ideas we've had yet. My parents get all the credit for that! As one of the tallest members in the family, I'm loving the extra headspace! And we're all feeling remorse over the fact that we've barely filled half the luggage compartment. Such a delightful problem to have!

Lots of snow and traffic in Indiana delayed us for a few hours. Of course! But we were able to get to the Marriott in plenty of time for me to blow dry my hair and freshen up my face before tonight's dinner. I'm a happy girl.

And Diet Dr Pepper is delicious.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

delightful | sephora's cinderella collection


How this managed to escape my radar, I'll never know.  But, Oh My Gracious! While shopping at sephora last night, my sister and I just happened to see the new Cinderella collection at Sephora!                           

At the risk of sounding immature and ridiculous, I'm telling you, Cinderella is my girl!  I watched that movie hundreds of times when I was a tiny girl.  Somehow I've always identified with her.  Apparently, its very common in this culture.  The identification with characters in fairy tales.  I have a friend who was Belle, just Belle, another who wanted to grow up and be a mermaid.  As humorous as it all is, I love a good story.  Cinderella happens to be my favorite.
 As I've gotten older I now appreciate different parts that make the movie so timeless, I will always love the story, and her prince!  The animation is spectacular!  Those colors and shadows throughout the film.  The songs!  A perfect soundtrack for rainy days like today, and especially good cleaning music.
My sister thought that the eyeshadow palette was lame (what does she know anyway?), I wasn't completely sold on it myself until I looked it up on Sephora's website and discovered that every color is custom matched to the original Panetone's from the movie.  My little color snob heart just leaped in joy!  Just look at the colors that they chose!
The perfume is called "So this is love".  I'm speechless!

The compacts both feature beautiful artwork and etched quotes on the inside.  Lovely!

Read all about it here!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

art | arc de triomphe



This little print was a gift from my sister. I find it perfectly delightful.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

thoughts | just flu in

Nasty, this flu virus.

My whole family (well about 10 of us so far) have gotten some variation of this bug.

Goodness, I think the whole world has been affected (or is that "infected"?). We had about 2/3 of our church out today. I was feeling okay, until about the middle of Dad's sermon. That's when my sinuses decided to give out.

So not lovely.

I've had plenty of soup and liquids today. I even washed down a handful of vitamins with an orange alka-seltzer. Talk about delicious! Remembering to take vitamins just makes me feel so smug.

Also, who knew that raspberry Emergen-C tasted so good? All these years I've been suffering through the "super orange" and "lemon-lime" when they make such a delightful raspberry! I feel like my world has been changed for the better. The sky is a little more blue!!!

Clearly, I'm all about the cheap thrills.

Friday, January 18, 2013

thoughts | facing my public

My sister and I close our little shop this Monday. I've never closed a shop before, then again I had never opened a shop before either. We have good, even great, reasons for closing. You think the general public would be at least half "okay" with it as we are.

Not a chance.

Please don't get me wrong, I love my customers. They've been lovely to us over the years. It's just that closing brings out the ugly in people. My pride is suffering as people tell me day after day how sad they are that we couldn't make it. I'm so bad at biting my tongue, nodding my head. Instead I jump in and give them all of my reasons. I need to let it go.

I feel like my sincerity is gone.

You can only tell the same story for so long. Today I just started agreeing with the customers and going along with it all. You think we're spies and this is our coverup? How did you ever guess!!! Will we be reopening next month? Do you think we will??? Can you still do special orders? Of course we can (NOT!). I guess we're just tired. It's becoming harder to be gracious as the days go on.

I should also mention that I went the entire day today without coffee.

Let's not do that again.

Friday, January 11, 2013

doings | greek for dinner

I played third wheel on my parents weekly date night. Or was it fourth wheel since my brother came too? A family outing. Hey, they were headed to the city and my iPhone conked out yesterday. Perfect timing as far as I'm concerned

My one request for the evening; no Greek food. But then we got lost on our way to Seasons 52.

There is now half a Greek salad and a dolmada in my fridge. Dimitri the waiter is well and the place is as tacky as ever.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

thoughts | just one of those weeks

The days that fill up the next few weeks will be of the "Eat your Wheaties" variety. 

Only, Wheaties aren't gluten free and I don't eat cold cereal. 

So, I'm drinking coffee.  Lots of coffee

making | salted caramel brownies

Cookbooks make excellent reading, you know. 
 
For Christmas, my Uncle Bob gifted me a copy of Ina Garten's brand new "Foolproof" cookbook. 
 
It's delightful. 
 
As were the Salted Caramel Brownies.
 


Friday, January 4, 2013

quoteable | seasick

|setting: the cabin bunkroom - 5am|

miss grace:  "hey brooke, want to see my new turtle light?  it makes noise like the ocean!"

  |miss grace (age 5)  turns on plush turtle light that makes noise like the ocean.  brooke & miss grace lay on the bunk bed and watch the blue lights dance on the ceiling as the sound of ocean waves fill the room.|

brooke:  "i feel seasick"

thoughts | officially adults

"I think this means that we're officially adults now" my sister, Brooke, said "We've had to make a 911 call"

I used to be terrified at the thought of having to handle an emergency.  Not a "we just ran out of printer paper" kind of emergency.  But the medical type.  I mean, how bad is "bad enough" to call 911?  What if it's not really a big deal and you get in trouble for a prank call?  Or worse yet, what if it is really bad? I'd wonder if the little first aid training I'd had would fly out the window when faced with a real, not staged, seizure. 

Yesterday, one of our elderly customers collapsed in the shop.  I was in the office and could hear Brooke chatting with Bob, he's one of our regulars.  In his 70s and mysterious, but really nice and he buys lots of milk.  The I heard her say "Are you okay?  Are you okay?", I could hear the panic in her voice as she called for me to get out here.  I got to the counter just in time to help him fall to the floor.  I was so worried that he had died, but he was still a bit coherent and I could feel his pulse.  I knelt down and held him up while Brooke called 911.  It felt like an eternity as we waited for the paramedics to arrive, I tried to keep him awake and talking about any and everything.  About five minutes later, the paramedics were there and after a few questions they took him to the hospital.  I'm still not sure how he is doing.  The worst thing about emergency situations, is that there is no closure, no call to tell you that everything is okay. 

As I was thinking over all of this last night and this morning, I realized that during the whole time, I wasn't afraid.  One of the things I feared most in life, had happened and God had gone before me and had given me peace during the whole ordeal.  I was so thankful that everything happened the way it did.  I'm not saying that we handled everything perfectly, but I am so thankful that we were able to be right in the middle of everything.  Bob could have been anywhere, but he wasn't, he was in our shop, we were able to get immediate help for him and we were able to pray the instant we knew something was wrong.  I am so thankful.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

thoughts | new year

I slept through it.  The first time in over a decade that I didn't even make an effort to stay awake to welcome the year.  My family spent New Years at the cabin, and I slept through it like a baby.  I was tired.  Tired from the drive north, tired from Christmas, tired from work, just plain tired of everything. 

2012 held more failures than victories for me.  Oh sure, there were accomplishments.  But in my mind they are lost among my many shortcomings.  It seems the things that have been on my resolution list for the past five years are still there.  And I'm the same person.  Still making the same mistakes.

New Years Day found me traveling home, a five hour drive.  My younger siblings have now ganged up on me and I've been relocated to the back seat.  It wasn't half bad, I was still able to keep them on the straight and narrow while catching up with a friend on iMessage.  The backseat also gave me a bit of privacy to reflect on things.  I read Ann Voskamps New Years piece, and was amazed that she was able to write out the words that I couldn't articulate myself. 

And I thought of my year. 

My "New Year".  Of God who grants us a fresh start everyday, as my dad reminded us in family devotions the other day.  "We will make our great plans and we will disappoint ourselves and God" he said. "But, we can start afresh anytime.  We can repent and He will forgive."  How I hate to hear that I will fail.  I've spent time working on my goals for 2013.  They're foolproof!  I want to get it right this time, but this is the truth, we will make mistakes every time.  If we "got it right" then we wouldn't need Christ or His glorious Gospel.  We need to fail.  We need to know that God is going to forgive, that He is greater than all our sin.

My goal for 2013 is RESOLVED.  I am resolved or determined to do things differently.  I've made my lists, oh gracious, have I made lists.  They are thorough and filled with great plans.  Some of which I will fail miserably at accomplishing.  But by the grace of God I am resolved to get to work on these good things.

love, abbe