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Day 22

I’ve never been a fan of hot beverages, but it has been so cold I picked up a Tim Hortons hot chocolate. It was just okay. At least the banana nut muffin was tasty. Either way, I felt lucky to be able to indulge in a yummy treat. So many people having car problems, heating problems, etc. in this crazy winter weather we’ve been having – I’m lucky that everything is up and running and we are all safe and warm.

Day 23

Just when you think that your kids are all grown up and they don’t need you as much anymore…you realize that there are certain things that you will always have to do no matter how old they are. Even my husband is so kind to leave this chore for me, probably so I can feel needed. Thanks, love you too babe.

Day 24

Karli is so much like me sometimes it is scary. She catches the smallest details while watching T.V. Her unicorn made an appearance and she had to pause the show and run upstairs and grab it. Sometimes she catches flaws on shows or in movies just like me. I am OBSESSED with finding mistakes in film!

Day 25

I have to admit as much as I hate snow and cold weather the view is sometimes beautiful.

Day 26

Tori is my little shadow. Wherever I go she always follows. However on this cold day, she wasn’t budging. She refused to my leave the warm comfy spot. Little stinker stole my spot!

Day 27

I can’t even tell you exactly how many snow days we have had this year already, I think 8, but I am not positive. Its been a strange month to say the least. The month is nearly over and I feel like the kids haven’t been back to school since Christmas break! No complaints here though, I could totally get used to this schedule even though it’s more nonproductive than anything. I hear there is more blistering snowy winter weather to come too!

Day 28

The things we learn from teenagers! Andrew has been having me buy him the shapes macaroni and cheese for him lately and it drove me crazy because there was less macaroni in the box and it has to cook even longer. Finally I gave it a try and the shapes macaroni does taste different and BETTER than the regular noodles. YUM!

Please join in! I would love it if you would share your posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter using the hashtag #365dog.
You don’t have to have a blog, you can just share your photos and thoughts on social media only. If you can’t keep up with it every day that’s okay too, just do it when you have time or something you would like to share that you feel grateful for.

In case you haven’t noticed I am now going to share my #365dog photos and posts once a week instead of every day so that way I can focus on further aspects of my blog and my YouTube Channel!

Day 15

One advantage of the kids getting older…they can help one another study! I usually quiz Blake the night before any History test and I hate History more than any subject. Chase did an excellent job asking Blake all the questions even if he accidentally gave Blake the answers half the time. Oops!

Day 16

Daisy and Pippa love the snow so much. They love running around the yard chasing one another. Their fur is out of control! I prefer when they have their buzz cuts that they have in the Spring and Summer, but in the winter we let their fur grow out. Pippa looks cute, but Daisy’s fur grows out all frizzy looking. She’s like the sister that got the bad frizzy hair. I love them equally though :)

Day 17

This photo was actually supposed to be the thumbnail for a video that the kids made. It was this comedy/fashion show thing. Unfortunately we recorded the video at night and the lighting was terrible and they video clips were unsatisfactory. Maybe we will try to redo a similar video in the daylight someday. At any rate, we had fun recording it and the kids were laughing so hard it was all worth it.

Day 18

Chase won first place at his wrestling tournament. But guess what – he didn’t have to wrestle anyone to get the medal! There was only one other kid his weight/age category but he was sick so Chase won by default. I’m sure this is going to happen quite often considering Chase is 11 and only weighs 57 – 60 pounds. I plan on picking up stuff to start making him some peanut butter milkshakes again. We need to beef this kid up!

Day 19

We gave 3 of the dogs baths with a LUSH bath bomb. If you don’t know what these are you are missing out big time. The bath bombs make your skin smell so wonderful! I wish I could take a Lush bath every day, but they aren’t cheap! Our smelly dogs got a pretty pink spa day- which they hated of course! We even made a video of it. They are the sweetest dogs ever though, you can tell how precious they are, well until I got some bologna out.

Day 20

Love my new MacBook Air case that I got off Amazon. They have a ton of different colors too. The color I got is called Hot Blue, but it’s really more of a turquoise, sort of Tiffany Blue color. It’s a rubberized case, rather than plastic, so it’s feels really nice as well. I feel so much more comfortable carrying it around now. I did read on the reviews that people didn’t like that it was hard to take off and when you tried to take it off it often broke the tabs on the case. I’m not too concerned since I don’t know why I would be taking it off and on all the time. I Love it!

Day 21

I’m pretty darn grateful on days like this (it’s freezing outside) to be working from home. I still had to leave the house a few times throughout the day, but at least I didn’t have to go outside at 7am and warm up my car and show up at a job in dress clothes that are paper thin. I’m sitting here cozy in my sweat pants and blanket. Yes, I know I still have a table as a desk. Ugh, remember this video? That was 8 months ago! I just can’t decide what I want in this room. Originally I wanted to have built in counter tops and custom shelves mounted to the walls. Then I seen a couple of setups from IKEA that I thought would do the trick. But I just don’t know! One minute I want to move, the next minute I would rather stay here and have extra money to travel, and then the next I am looking at houses in Virginia Beach. So basically I end up doing nothing. I’m pretty sure that the desks (setting up a separate area for the kids too) are not going to be permanent though. I’m just to indecisive and I would rather have the option to move things around, or to another house. Maybe.

Day 8

Super grateful for my friend who suggested we take the kids bowling today to burn off some of their energy. We are on our third snow day and being stuck in the house has begun to take its toll on us all. There is nothing more enjoyable than chatting with a friend while the kids act silly and make memories with their buddies.

Day 9

Every once in awhile the kids (Chase and Karli) actually get along. When it happens, it’s so sweet. And a miracle. Feeling grateful for the small window of quiet time.
I was actually able to get some work done. School has already been canceled for Friday so Old Man Winter – thanks a bunch for the extra week of Winter Break. Now please, PLEASE, let’s get things under control by Monday so my kids can go back to school. The kids are even ready to go back.

Day 10

Karli’s closet…she organized all of her short sleeve shirts and tank tops by color.
Karli has organized and cleaned her room so many times this week I have lost count. I would say out of all the kids she has had the most fun and really used her time wisely. The boys either get on their video games or complain that they are bored. Karli will play in her room for hours, do crafts, color with markers, draw, or just play around on her Nook or iPod. Or chill with me. I love my little sidekick and I certainly don’t mind when she likes to clean.

Day 11

We celebrated my niece Emma’s 10 birthday today. Isn’t she a beautiful? We bought her all kinds of fun makeup and a case to put it all in. Anyone who has known me in real life or followed my website/blog from the very beginning might remember Emma from when she was just a little baby. She had so much dark hair! Actually I still have this old webpage on my site from her birth and such.
I love going back and looking at all the old photo pages I have of the kids from when they were little. Most of Karli and Chase’s entire lives are practically documented on my website. I have 4 years of photo still on these old graphic style webpages that were so popular to make.
A different subject… I was all concerned about waking up early this morning for Karli’s dance because we have all been sleeping in all week. Well that certainly wasn’t a problem considering I woke up to Ken jumping out of bed at 6am because the alarm was going off. He went straight to the safe and got out his gun and took off downstairs and I swear I think I just sat there in a panic. Do I follow him, do I call 911, do I wait for him to tell me what to do? It ended up being our shed door that wasn’t closed all the way that set off the alarm. It must have blown open. Anyways, I was very much wide awake after that. I think it took an hour for my heart to stop racing.

Day 12

My brand new MacBook Air that Ken got me for Christmas had to go back to the store. First this blue stripe about 2 inches wide appeared on the far right of the screen, then a pretty rainbow of colors replaced the blue, followed by a bunch of scrambled pixels. I started taking my files off of it immediately and eventually it went away. But then it returned about 2 hours later. At any rate, I returned it to Best Buy today and exchanged it for a new one. I was still within the window of time to be able to return it without any questions, verses having to send it in to Apple for repairs. For that I am grateful!

Ken thought I would be bummed having to set everything back up to my liking and such, but I don’t mind at all. I love taking a brand new computer out of the box and turning it on for the first time. It wasn’t like I had all that much on it yet anyways. It only took me about an hour to get everything back like it was and transfer some files back over.
Time for bed…this is going to be fun, waking up at 6:30am for the first time in 3 weeks :( I’m so excited to get back into a routine though.

Day 13

My alarm went off at 6:30AM this morning and I hopped out of bed as though I had a good nights’ sleep when in reality I barely slept 5 hours. It didn’t matter though because I was that excited to be back on a schedule. A lot of the time I lay back down after I make sure Blake and Andrew are awake, but I was up and mopping the kitchen floor and throwing in a load of laundry. Then I hopped in the shower, woke up Chase and Karli, and got them off to school all by 8am. Then I worked, I made a meal plan for the week, went grocery shopping, and then worked some more. I cooked dinner for the kids and popped my plate in the microwave so I could workout after Chase left for wrestling.
We are lucky that we have exercise equipment at home so I am able to exercise on days even when time is limited. We have a treadmill, elliptical, and the Inspire FT1 training gym which I love and still haven’t used to its full potential. I used this app on my iPhone that I just downloaded called Running for Weight Loss and its really nice. It focuses on interval walking and running and you can use GPS or on a treadmill as well. Not like you can’t do interval running without an app, it’s pretty easy. But the app really makes it simple and you don’t have to focus on the time since the app tells you when to run and walk.

Day 14

Writing when you’re grumpy isn’t very easy. I don’t know what my problem is. Today wasn’t a bad day, just little things get under my skin. Things that aren’t in my control so I just have to let them go! Like the weather, ugh! I so want to book a vacation for Spring Break, but can’t decide if I want to spend the money. And I’m tired today.
Anyways…Karli gets a little break at dance and her and I get to spend some alone time at a nearby diner. She had homework to work on, but it was still a nice break. She’s doing so well at dance this year. In jazz she is dancing at Advanced level with many older girls. If you haven’t seen her video from her Christmas Program/Nutcracker feel free to check it out. You can see in the video the routine she performs with the older girls – the one with the white shirts.
I’m so proud of her! She works very hard and it shows :)

Day 1

New Years Day is always one of my favorite days of the year because we take the Christmas tree down and get the house back in order. While I love Christmas, I get so tired of the clutter by the end of the month. Today, Ken and the kids all pitched in and we got things straightened pretty quickly. Afterward I took Chase and Karli to the store because Chase had a couple of things in mind that he wanted to purchase with his Christmas money. When we came home the kitchen smelled wonderful. Ken had made the most perfect chicken and dumplings. My stomach was growling when I realized that I was so busy all day I hadn’t eaten anything except a handful of chips and salsa. I’m so thankful that I have a husband that knows his way around the kitchen and does a pretty darn good job cooking. He’ll often make grocery lists and do all the cooking for the whole week. We always follow the “I cook, you clean” rule and it works great for us.

Day 2

Karli has been such a great helper to me here lately. She helps with cleaning, folding laundry, organizing her room, and the list goes on. Even when we took the Christmas tree down she participated the most with putting everything away. Now don’t get me wrong, she can destroy a room quicker than anyone, but she knows she has to clean it up afterward. I suppose that’s to be expected being the only girl and all. I love the little notes she writes me and how she shares hugs and kisses every night before bedtime. I love how hard she works at dance and the pride on her face when she learns a new move or perfects a tumbling trick. She’s been my little shadow since the day she was born and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Day 3

The kids scores are on the left, Ken, Andrew, and I on the right.

Ken forced us to get up early today and by early I mean 10am. We have been on a terrible schedule all of Christmas break, but unfortunately it ended today. We took the kids bowling as we do every winter break. I love that we have this tradition with the kids. I hope we continue to do this with the kids forever, even when they are all off and married and have children of their own.
We aren’t very good bowlers, but I guess that’s to be expected when you only bowl once a year. Chase gets pretty upset when Karli beats him which is pretty much always. They are almost like twins that way, so competitive with one another. Afterwards Chase, Karli and I did a little shopping. I tried to buy the Naked 3 palette, but once again they were sold out. I give up – I’m just going to order it online.
Other than this horribly cold weather I have really enjoyed our winter break and I’m sad to see it come to an end.

Day 4

My sweetest little pup Tori was spoiled this Christmas. I have always thought about buying her some steps so she can climb up into our bed by herself and I finally got them for her. She got used to them pretty quickly and it only took me one night of running into them in the dark to get used to them as well. Tori is a bit of a baby and probably receives more attention from Ken and I compared to the other dogs. We play with them all equally, but she gets spoiled with laying in our bed and cuddling more often than the other dogs. Shaggy sleeps with Blake and the two Poms still sleep in the kitchen. (Small dogs are the best, but the very worst when it comes to potty training.) We also chat with Tori more than the other dogs. Ken and I are constantly asking her questions about what she did when she ran away from home for two nights/three days this past summer. We’d love to know what she was up to that entire time. If only pups could talk. That whole thing is a time in our lives we will never forget. I still thank God for that everyday. Makes you believe in miracles after going through something like that. Yes, I do refer to all my dogs as pups even though they aren’t puppies.

Day 5

Yummy Crockpot Beef Stew
We had this yummy beef stew over the weekend. Super easy…just toss all the ingredients in the crock pot and after 6 hours on high the meat just falls apart in your mouth. I don’t measure anything…just toss it all in the crock pot and cook on high for 4 – 6 hours.
I used:
3 lbs beef stew meat
4 cups beef broth
6 potatoes
bag of carrots
bag celery
medium onion
1 cup red cooking wine
bay leaf
about 1 tsp each of salt and pepper
about 1/2 tsp each of garlic, rosemary, basil

I had woke up early to go to Chase’s wrestling scrimmage and just as I had warmed up my car and scraped the icy snow off the windows Ken texted me and said I could stay home because there weren’t too many kids in Chase’s weight class. That made me quite happy since I didn’t feel all that great. I ended up crawling back into bed and stayed there the majority of the day. Thank goodness for weekend movies and evening mindless television. I would cry without my ABC lineup – The Bachelor, Revenge, and Betrayal. Then I caught the end of Crazy Stupid Love on TV – right at the part with Ryan Gosling’s “photoshopped abs”. The night ended on a good note at least.
I guess you good say I felt grateful for a household that can function by itself on days that I just don’t feel up to par. The kids all felt grateful for school that was closed for Monday due to snow and extremely cold temperatures. I was a little bummed considering I haven’t worked in over two weeks and I am ready to get back into the swing of things. But hey, I won’t complain about another day of sleeping in.

Day 6

View from my office.
Snow day Monday = No school. Wish it meant no work…
I realize how lucky I am to work from home on days like today. Not having to go out in the below zero temperatures and high winds is a nice perk for sure. Working from home also has it’s challenges on snow days because the kids are still home and that always makes it harder to work. I decided rather than do my regular work duties I would use the day to get all of my tax stuff organized. Normally I wait until Spring to get all of the final numbers together, but I decided why not just get it off my To Do list now. What a good way to start off the new work year, right? Plus we have to pay 4th quarter estimated taxes by January 15th and I would certainly rather have more definitive numbers to go off of rather than sending too much like I usually do.
I always start out the new year with good intentions of keeping my tax stuff, business deductions primarily, organized so I don’t get slammed at the end of the year. I actually did pretty good considering my spread sheets went all the way to September when I stopped and just ended up putting everything in a file folder. It only took me a few hours to finish it all as well as file a bunch of receipts and stuff that has piled up over the holiday. Feels good to be organized. Feels like I am starting fresh for the new year!

Day 7

See that little blue light in there? That’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. That blue light means our bodies remained a steady 98.6 degrees today rather than freezing to death.
We woke up to our furnace not working and the house was really cold. I remember waking up a few times thinking that it was unusually cold, but I assumed it was just the record breaking -15 °F temperature outside. But nope, it was worse than that. The furnace wasn’t running and the pilot light was out as well as the pilot on the hot water tank. Our gas was working so it wasn’t that unfortunately. We made a couple of calls to get someone out to check it out ASAP and got “We are closed”, “We can come in two days”, and “We will add you to the list”. None of those answers made me feel any better.
Ken and I just ended up doing what we do best when things stop working. Unplug them, turn them off and on over and over again and continually accuse one another of not knowing what they are doing. He ended up going outside to make sure the vent wasn’t clogged and it did have a little bit of snow around it which he scraped away, but it wasn’t obstructed at all. But somehow magically when he came back in and turned the switch on that is directly on the furnace the pilot lit and we had heat! We followed the directions on the outside of the water heater (turn off, unplug it, turn the thermostat all the way down, plug back in and turn it on) and that worked as well. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I have never been so happy to see that little blue light before.
Thank goodness it was nothing serious. I mean, I still don’t know what happened. A couple of people told us maybe an air pocket in the gas line? Who knows, I just hope this darn furnace keeps on trucking because it is as cold as Alaska out there. Actually I think it’s warmer in Alaska right now than here in Michigan.
Yep, I was right. It’s currently -8°F here and 26°F in Anchorage, Alaska.
So I’m not feeling to happy about the weather today, but I am grateful that we are warm and safe in our home as I know others are probably dealing with all kinds of problems caused by this horrible winter storm.
Hope everyone is safe and keeping warm!!

I played around with the idea of starting a hand written gratitude journal to focus more on the positive in my life. Sometimes I let the smallest things ruin my day and I forget that despite those things I have a gazillion things to smile about. Things to be thankful for. Reasons to feel blessed. Grateful. I imagined myself writing and creating cute little doodles on the pages as I pour out my heart each day. And then I remembered I can’t draw for crap and writing hurts my hand after about 5 minutes. But I can sure type really fast and take photos…so why not just do it here.

Welcome to the first page of my 2014 Gratitude Journal.
I’m going to use the hashtag #365dog for 365 Days of Gratitude.

UPDATE: I decided that I will be sharing the photos 1 week at a time, rather than daily here at my blog. I will share the photos daily on Instagram and Facebook with a little blurb. The weekly blog posts might contain more elaborate thoughts about the photos so they will still be fun to read…well hopefully :)

Please join in! I would love it if you would share your posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter using the hashtag #365dog.

You don’t have to have a blog, you can just share your photos and thoughts on social media only. If you can’t keep up with it every day that’s okay too, just do it when you have time or something you would like to share that you feel grateful for.