The Balancing Act

Hiatus

2010-05-10T09:44:00.001-04:00

This is rather like stating the obvious... but for the time being, The Balancing Act is on a hiatus. Why, you ask? Well... for a whole myriad of reasons really, but mostly because I don't feel like I have much to say at the moment! Also because I've been focusing on my (getting to be pretty successful) craft blog, and because I've been super busy in general. It's difficult to keep up with one blog, let alone two! That being said, I don't have the heart to delete this blog... it's not over until the fat lady sings, you know?! So feel free to check back every once in awhile... you never know when I might pick this back up again! Thanks for reading!

Trip on a whim!

2010-03-17T12:09:00.000-04:00

Flights were booked today and Travis and I will be heading to DC for a couple of days at the end of April to visit our dear friend Tim and his girlfriend Terri!

This all came about because Tim has a whole bunch or air-miles that are soon to expire and that he won't have the opportunity to use before they do. He asked us if we wanted to come visit him - and that his air-miles would cover our flights!

The entire planning process for this trip happened within about the space of an hour this morning. Totally random!

We're really excited! We had a great time the last time we were in DC, back in August 2008... and can't wait to see Tim and Terri. It will serve as a bit of a warm up to our VEGAS trip in May! So fun!

Secrets!

2010-03-15T13:58:00.000-04:00

I am a really, really terrible secret keeper. Well... not about all things... but certainly about GIFTS. I am HORRIBLE at keeping gifts a secret! That being said, I have been dying... just DYING to tell Heather about her birthday gift for weeks now. It's been driving me nuts! This weekend was her big day though, and I was super antsy to let her in on the secret!

She is trying to figure out what the piece of paper in her hands means...

When she figures it out she cries!

After the first hug Lily thinks that we each need individual hugs...

I got Heather tickets to go see MICHAEL BUBLE! Yup - we're super stoked! We're roadtripping to Detroit on the 25th to have a girls night with Michael Buble! SO FUN!

And then we ate cupcakes to celebrate!

Help me help the kitties!

2010-03-12T10:50:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, folks!

Do you remember the kittens I fostered last summer? When I first found them they looked like this...

Then I started a blog (The Kitten Mama) about my journey as a kitten foster... you can find it HERE.

At 10 weeks old they were ready for adoption, and Spock, Magnus (now Ozzy), Tabitha and Napoleon (now Mac & Cheese) went to wonderful homes...

One kitten, Spock, went to live with my parents. Here he is today (on the right) with his new big brother Felix...

We also rescued a little kitten from the streets (technically, she was under the hood of a car!) this summer and fostered her as well. Her name was Buick. She also got adopted into her forever home...

And of course you know that Travis and I have two wonderful, goofy big kittens of our own, Oliver and Beyonce...

You see I've always loved cats - and grew up with them as pets. It wasn't until I fostered the kittens this summer that I realized the cat overpopulation problem we're dealing with nationally - and the plights of feral, stray and semi-friendly cats that are living on the streets.

Carol's Ferals, a non-profit organization here in Grand Rapids, provided me with resources to foster these kittens - and in turn I accepted a position on their board of directors. I feel privileged to assist this organization grow and expand its efforts to provide T-N-R services, and to place friendly cats in permanent homes. You can visit their website HERE.

T-N-R stands for Trap, Neuter, Return, and is the humane solution to cat overpopulation. Essentially, our organization spay/neuters feral and stray cats to ensure that they do not continue to reproduce. Cats are given shots and medical treatment if necessary, then released back to their colony - hopefully under the care of a human who is willing to provide food and shelters to these outdoor cats. The cats can live out the rest of their lives safely, disease free, and without bringing more kittens into the world.

Since our organization is run entirely by volunteers, I am leading the charge in fundraising efforts right now. Back in the fall, we used Facebook to successfully launch and complete our $500 / 500 Campaign. In one month we were able to raise $500 and reach 500 members on our Facebook Cause page. It was a great achievement!

Now we're trying to do it again. We launched the $1,000 / 1,000 Campaign this week - with a goal to raise $1,000 and reach 1,000 members on our Cause page. And I'm asking you for your help!

If you're a Facebook user... head HERE to visit our Cause page. You can join the Cause to receive updates and help us reach our member goal, or make a donation to support our work! You can also read more about the campaign in my blog post for the organization HERE.

Thank you so much for your support!! Together we can curb the feline overpopulation, better the lives of stray and feral cats, and find loving homes for friendly babies such as these...

Mimi

Money

Misty

(All of these cats are currently in our adoption program and looking for homes - do let me know if you, or someone you know, is interested in adopting one of them!)

South Haven Winter Weekend - Part Three

2010-03-10T09:59:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the final installment of our South Haven Winter Weekend, brought to you in part by my procrastinating writing my paper that's due in class this very evening at 6:00pm... which I have yet to start!

On Saturday afternoon after a quick nap and some snacks, some other friends joined us out at the condo. It wasn't long before the tequila was flowing (yikes!) and Jim was making goofy faces for the camera...

We all went and grabbed dinner at an Italian place in town. Note the putrid-color green beverage in front of Heather in this picture. I must point out that I exhibited a good friend moment when (not shockingly!) it was too sweet for her, so I made a trade with her right after this picture was taken. I choked it down, too!

Here's a shot of my husband and I, and my incredibly frizzy hair. Boo!

Jim and Justin were dates for the evening, splitting their check on buy one, get one free sandwiches. Sensitive!

Then we headed out to the bar. Looks like that about this time my husband was beginning to enjoy the evening... and his beverages.

He'd be a good bartender, no? Keeping the beer flowing? Note the disposable glasses... classy.

Heather and I snapped a quick picture while the boys went off to play pool.

After awhile, and several games of pool, we moved on to the next bar. Here's a shot of the girls!

We didn't get back to the condo until close to 2AM. I can't remember the last time I stayed up anywhere close to that late! Yup, I'm old! I was so tired the next day that I spent most of the day on the couch... but it was totally worth it to get our friends together and hit the town!

South Haven Winter Weekend - Part Two

2010-03-09T09:42:00.000-05:00

On Saturday after lunch Travis, Heather, Anthony and I head back to Saugatuck to tackle some stairs...

Intimidating, right?! You see, Heather and Anthony got married at the top of these very stairs, so each time they are in the area they like to head back and climb up to the spot they got married at. They invited us to come along, and since it was a beautiful day we jumped at the chance.

We just didn't realize how much hard work it was going to be!!!

We stopped for a snack...

For pictures...

To look up and see how many more stairs were left to go...

But it was well worth it when we finally made it to the top. Check out those views!

We got some great pictures - it was such a gorgeous day out. We were all loving the sunshine!

I particularly like this picture of Trav and I... it's the best one we've taken in awhile.

The climb down was a ton easier than the climb up! We were so tired by the time we were back down that we drove back to the condo and all fell asleep! Does that mean we're old? : )

More tomorrow!

South Haven Winter Weekend - Part One

2010-03-08T10:37:00.000-05:00

How was your weekend? We had an absolutely lovely one. It was so lovely and filled with fun that I'm splitting it up into several posts over the next couple of days.

Travis and I headed to South Haven a little after lunch on Friday. Our good friend's Heather and Anthony joined us a little later that afternoon. We headed down to the beach to take a walk and it was gorgeous, so gorgeous that Bella decided that running INTO the lake would be a good idea! Oops!

The weather was so nice. It got into the upper 40's and is really starting to feel like springtime. I know that 40 degrees isn't warm by any means, but it's enough difference from where we were that coupled with the sunshine on your back - it was such a nice change!

Heather and Anthony posed for a quick picture before we headed back up to the condo to warm up and get ready for dinner...

After a couple of drinks and some snacks at the condo we headed into Saugatuck (about twenty minutes away) for dinner. We ended up at a cool burger joint named "Wally's" and enjoyed appetizers and dinner. It's not often Heather and Anthony have the chance to go out without their kids, so it was nice for all of us to have a little adult time together!

Come back tomorrow for more photos and stories from our weekend. I hope that YOU had a fabulous weekend as well!

Putting a little Spring in my step!

2010-03-03T12:04:00.001-05:00

The weather here as been BEAUTIFUL.

Okay, beautiful is definitely a relative term. It's not like I'm running around in shorts with an ice cream cone in my hand, but it's sure the best outside it's been in MONTHS!

The sun has been shining daily for about a week straight - it's amazing how much the sunshine can help your day be just that little bit better!

I'm finally feeling healthy again, for the most part. I'm trying to take good care of myself. I'm taking daily vitamins, making the effort to eat right and drink more water and less caffeine, and I even went for a (gasp!) run yesterday.

The running was rough - I'm not going to lie! Plus I decided to take Bella with me (her energy levels have been obnoxiously high lately resulting in not so great doggie behavior!) which made it even harder. It's kind of a constant reminder of how out of shape you are when your dog is barely trotting next to you, looking back at you and pulling on the leash as if to say "Seriously? Can we not go ANY faster?!" while all the while you're gasping and panting your way through a (very short) jog around the neighborhood.

By the time we finally got into a rhythm... I was dead tired and ready to head home! : )

It's been wonderful having Spring Break this week - I've spent lots of time crafting and writing and even doing a little house cleaning. I'm hoping now that Spring is truly on its way... what do you think?

Can't Sleep!

2010-03-01T02:10:00.000-05:00

It's 2AM (phew! I don't even remember the last time I was up this late!) and I can't sleep. So frustrating. I guess this is as good a time as any to swing in here and catch you up on the past week or so here in the Roehm household.

I was attacked by a nasty cold and out for much of the week. Gross. Spring... can you hear me? Please hurry up and get here!

I got a call (out of the blue!) to write a craft article for a parenting website, a paid article. I'm pretty stoked to say the least, and working hard on making it awesome.

Speaking of awesome, Travis and I are still obsessing over our new-ish Netflix subscription and are currently in the midst of watching the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" from the very beginning. It's been... how can I describe it? Legen... wait for it... dary! I don't know if there is any other show on earth that is as laugh out loud funny as this one. Love it.

We're heading out to the condo in South Haven this coming weekend with ten (yes, ten!) of our closest friends. While it may not be a big crazy party weekend for me (the whole getting-over-the-cold-and-staying-healthy thing, you know how it is) I am very excited to spend some time with all my favorite people. And looking forward to a change of scenery.

This week is spring break - which means no classes for me - and marks the halfway point for the semester. Six (or thereabouts) weeks to go!

That's all folks! What have you been up to lately?

Thankful Thursday

2010-02-18T10:28:00.000-05:00

I'm playing along with Katie again this week... we're never too busy to take a moment and give thanks for all of the wonderful things we have in this life!

Today I am the most thankful for the sunshine that's streaming in through my windows. It may still be chilly outside, and the sunshine may not last very long, but I am enjoying it and appreciating it while it is here. Think Spring!

I'm thankful that I was able to finish my twenty page paper in time for class yesterday... even though I procrastinated on it for weeks and weeks and waited until the very last minuted to finish it. I guess I should be thankful that I work well under pressure?

I'm thankful that Travis started to clean the kitchen and get the laundry together last night while I was in class... two less things for me to do today.

And I'm thankful that the weekend is coming up, and that we don't have any real plans other than spending some time together, and with friends we haven't seen in awhile (can't wait to see you, Seth & Kel!) and kicking back.

What are you thankful for today?

PS) I'm having a little giveaway over at my other blog. If you're into papercrafting (scrapbooking, stamping, etc.) head over there and check it out!

Catch Up!

2010-02-16T17:23:00.000-05:00

It feels like I've been absent from this blog for waaaay longer than five days! Maybe it's because I've been thinking about it so much! I have been doing that, you see, been thinking about this blog. A lot. I continue to be sooo displeased with it! I've started several posts over the past two weeks and just abandoned them... my ides for weekly themed posts have gone out the window... and to be honest not a lot has been going on for me to write about. I'm so uninspired!

Travis and I were talking about this blog a few weeks ago while we were out to dinner. I was griping about how unsatisfied I am with it... and he made an interesting point: "You're good at writing, you're funny and interesting to read, so just forget about everything else and go with that." Okay, this was three weeks ago and I can't remember exactly what he said... but it was certainly something along those lines. And the part that got me even more is that even though I live with the man, and he knows everything and more about what I post here, he still keeps up with the blog because he likes hearing me tell our stories from my perspective.

So that got me thinking. The reason I'm struggling so much with this blog is because of all the effort I'm putting into my craft blog... and how easily that comes to me. You see, it's not difficult for me to write that blog. I'm an artsy person, I'm a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I've been teaching arts and crafts classes for years now. I almost always have projects going on that I can post about, and that I enjoy sharing. I'm so organized with that blog, and have such a wonderful core group of readers... I even have a weekly schedule that I keep to keep my posts organized and planned ahead (so unlike me to be anal retentive like that, I know!)

When I started this blog about a year and a half ago I didn't have an agenda, I didn't have a theme, and I had fun! The more I learned about blogging though, the more amazing blogs I found with great, witty writing and interesting information and fabulous projects and thousands or readers...the more it grew to be a little intimidating. What I'm realizing is, though, that although my life may not always be witty, fabulous, or even interesting... it's my life. And I like my life!

So I'm not going to worry about who's reading and who's not, and how often I post and how often I don't. It's part catharsis, part journaling, part connecting with friends old and new, and 100% Joanne. Is that okay with you? I think I'm good with this! : )

Now with all ramblings aside... I figure if I'm going to be a better blogger so to speak, I should catch you up with a little bit of what's been going on around here...

We (Heather, Lily, Mariah and I) had an impromptu shopping afternoon... we bought shoes for Lily (seriously... baby shoes could possibly be one of the cutest things ever!) ate gourmet at the food court, and picked out some new (very brightly colored!) school duds for Mariah. She's pretty hip you know...

And it looks like Lily is following in her sister's footsteps...

We celebrated Valentines quietly this year with homemade breakfast at home (monkey bread - yum!) and Travis' delicious pasta for dinner. Travis got me beautiful roses, a daffodil plant (think Spring, think Spring!) and a massage gift certificate. He's such a good man.

The one thing we did do was go to the Hot Tub Gardens in the afternoon. Do you have a place like that near you? We went for an hour and relaxed in an outdoor tub surrounded by evergreens with an outdoor fireplace and our own sound system. It was fun and different... you should totally try it! Very relaxing.

We actually have quite a lot of fun things coming up... we're especially looking forward to heading out to South Haven for a weekend with friends soon. It will be nice to get out of town and have a change in scenery! Right now I have a massive assignment due in class tomorrow night that I need to get to. I've had weeks to work on it, and even set aside the entire day today to work on it.

I have yet to start.

Yikes!

Maybe I just need to accept the fact that I'm a procrastinator? Some things may never change! Until next time... wish us luck! : )

(Beyonce is pretty supportive when it comes to homework... as you can see!)

Thankful Thursday

2010-02-11T09:46:00.000-05:00

I know... I haven't been around much this week. I'll explain soon...

But in the meantime, I decided to participate in Thankful Thursday over at Love & Lattes today, and I suggest that you do too! We can all afford to take a little time to recognize and verbalize what we're thankful for.

Today I am thankful for the small things... the hot cup of coffee and delicious chocolate-y creamer that sits on my desk, the opportunity to share my love of stamping and crafting with a new group of ladies this evening, the pasta dish hubby and I will be cooking tonight that I've been looking forward to all week, and a little road trip with my BFF Heather tomorrow.

I am also thankful today for the big things in life... for my husband, family and friends, who guide me and listen to me and love me unconditionally. And for my talents, even if I don't know how to use them all the time... for my ability to create, for my ability to write, for my ability to make music, and for my ability to advocate for others through non-profit work.

What are you thankful for today?

Weekend in Review - The Superbowl Edition

2010-02-08T11:52:00.000-05:00

So this weekend was really, really busy! The Superbowl was just a small part of it... but I got some great shots during our little party that I wanted to share today. I'll fill you in on the rest of the weekend a little later in the week!

We went over to the Hill's place for a little Superbowl party. We had a great time!

We made frozen peach margaritas... nothing to do with the Superbowl at all... but yummy all the same!

We had a nice little spread of food, complete with themed cupcakes (of course!)

We wore silly glasses!

We managed to get a cute photo of Trav and I!

We ate delicious ribs!

And we crafted! Again, nothing to do with the Superbowl... but Heather and I aren't so much into football... can you tell?

Hope you all had a fun weekend!

Pink Glove Dance

2010-02-07T10:28:00.001-05:00

You know how I love bad group dancing and general silliness... well this one is for a great cause. So fun! Happy Sunday!

Bella-boo

2010-02-06T00:00:00.001-05:00

It's true, she can be a royal pain in my ass... but she is a beautiful dog, and incredibly loving, and we are truly blessed to have her in our lives.

Busy Day...

2010-02-05T08:51:00.001-05:00

No Critics Choice to share today... if YOU have a movie, book, TV show, product, etc. etc. you'd like to share, please leave it in the comments - we'd love to hear!

I'm swamped today. Lots of painting going on... can you tell? : )

The next 24 hours are going to be crazy for me. Remember how anal retentive I am about list-making? I couldn't go to bed last night without writing my hour-by-hour list for today. I was so scared I would forget something!

Wish me luck, and have a great weekend!

The "Looking Forward to..." List

2010-02-04T06:00:00.002-05:00

In both high school and college, when I was bored in class, and tired, stressed, and ready for a break. I would doodle lists in the back of my notebook or planner. I would countdown the days until fun events, vacations, holidays, etc... as if to convince myself that they really were going to get here... and that school would be over, or at least on a break, soon enough.

As I've mentioned about a million times... I really hate this time of year. Grey skies and wintery colds seem like they are never-ending. So... here's my adult-life countdown to the things I'm looking forward to...

Impromptu Girls Night! (1 day to go!)

Superbowl Party with Heather, Anthony, and Lily! (3 days to go!)

My parents coming to visit (and dinner at Bombay Cuisine)! (15 days to go!)

South Haven weekend at the condo celebrating belated birthday's for Trav and Kristen, and an early birthday for Heather (29 days to go!)

VEGAS! (67 days to go!)

What are YOU looking forward to in the next few months?!

Where I Live Wednesday: Giddings Ave

2010-02-03T06:00:00.001-05:00

I live on Giddings Ave, SE. It's a one-way street.

And I get really agitated when people drive the wrong way on it. I swear that they are ALL doing it on purpose. Just to bug me.

You can only park on one side of the street... which is unfortunate.

But it's a really good area for walking.

And there's a big park nearby.

And Bella likes that a lot.

: )

It's Official! Vegas, HERE WE COME!

2010-02-02T00:00:00.002-05:00

For (what seems like a) long time now, we've been planning a trip to Vegas. And by "we" I mean myself and Travis, our friend Tim and his girlfriend Terri, and our two brothers, Will and Tyler. I've never been to Vegas, and Travis has only been once when he was really little... so it's essentially our first trip. We're REALLY excited!

We officially booked out flights last week - so we can start the rest of the planning! We're getting a great deal at the Marriot Grand Chateau Vacation Villas, which are right next door to the Planet Hollywood complex on the strip. We're getting a suite that sleeps all six of us - which is going to be a blast!

Tim and Terri will be coming from DC, Trav and I obviously from MI, my brother Will is in Austin, TX, and although Tyler is in Texas right now, he will most likely have moved (who knows where!) by then. My point is that we all live far away from each other, so this trip is going to be a get together of epic proportions!

There will sure to be lots of quotations from "The Hangover" along the ways...

We fly out May 14 and return May 17 (Friday-Monday) and I'm already unbelievably excited! So, friends who have been to Vegas, share your tips, recommendations and must-do's! I can't wait to hear!

Weekend in Review

2010-02-01T00:00:00.002-05:00

I'm still on the mend, but was able to do more than lay around on the couch this weekend... which was nice!

I worked on assembling flower headbands for my Mum to use in a show she is costuming at Siena Heights University...

We ordered delicious (and gigantic!) calzones from a nearby pizza joint... delish!

We played The Office DVD Trivia Game. Yup, we're awesome. Travis won.

We inherited an old school Nordic Track machine... more on this later (excuse the disaster in the basement... I'm re-doing my craft studio!

We took Bella to the park...

And I made cupcakes... you can see more of my cupcakes HERE.

I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend!

Critic's Choice Friday!

2010-01-29T09:46:00.000-05:00

My weekly "Critic's Choice" post will always feature a review of some sort. Could be a movie, book, product, TV show, whatever! And I'll be looking to you, dear reader's, to share YOUR reviews as well!

I've felt considerably better the past few days... my nose is draining like none other (that's a good thing, right?!) and I still have daily stomach upsets that I will not discuss here... but other than that it seems I'm on the mend! JUST in time for a one and half hour drive to a six hour Saturday class non "Budget & Accounting for Non-Profit Organization's" class tomorrow... oh joy!

Other than my sickness, one of the most exciting points of the week (this indicates the general excitement level of our life, lately!) is that Travis and I joined Netflix! Yes, yes, I know Netflix has been around for YEARS and the novelty has quite worn out for most of you... but it's all brand new for us!

You see, in general I wouldn't call us movie people. We don't go to the movies often, and we don't even rent them too often. Except that last month, we rented about six movies (because it was the holidays, perhaps?) and then last week we rented two in one week. We were just appalled with the fact that for two new releases at Blockbuster it was more than $10 after tax. Yikes!

So we checked out Netflix. We're on the basic plan with one movie in and one movie out at a time... and our first month is free. Maybe I'm a dork... but I've had a lot of fun searching through the databases and strategically planning the order of our "queue"... and we were BOTH excited when our first movie came in the mail! Yup... it's never-ending excitement here at the Roehm's!

Plus (and I never knew this before) with a Netflix subscription you can watch all kinds of things (tv and movies) instantly on your computer. Love it!

I bet you're just dying to hear about our first Netflix movie, aren't you?! Drumroll please...

Julie & Julia

Ha! Were you expecting something a little more cutting edge? Thrilling, perhaps? I think Travis took pity on me because I was sick and let me choose the movie. He's nice like that.

Seriously though... I've wanted to see the movie ever since it came out at the theatre, so I was really glad to have the opportunity to finally watch it. I love Amy Adams, and Meryl Streep is a legend of course. And the movie appealed to me a) because although I wouldn't consider myself a cook by any stretch of the imagination, I have been rather "into" baking over the past year or so... and could see that maybe developing into an interest in cooking someday and b) because the storyline revolves around a blog.

In case you've been under a rock and don't know the storyline... Julie Powell (Amy Adams) started a blog in 2002 where she challenged herself to cook every single recipe in Julia Child's (Meryl Streep) "The Art of French Cooking" in 265 days. The blog was released in book from in 2005 and then was re-written into a movie by Nora Ephron which tells the story of BOTH Julie and Julia simultaneously. Neat-o! The original blog is still online here: http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html

Anyhoo... it was a good movie. Full of laughs and life... and I could definitely relate to Julie (during the kitchen meltdowns, perhaps, Travis?!) I certainly recommend this to all of you... cooks or not!

What movies have you seen lately? And are you a Netflix friend? Let me know the secrets of the Netflix and movie rental world!

Have a great weekend!

Very much looking forward to this movie!

2010-01-28T12:59:00.000-05:00

Husband, take note!

Yes, I'm a sucker for romantic comedies.

This reminds me a little of Love Actually -- great flick.

What do you think... will you go see this?

Place Holder

2010-01-27T09:56:00.000-05:00

No "Where I Live Wednesday" today - even though there's a beautiful fresh blanket of snow on the ground this morning. I'm still sick, so after finishing some schoolwork I'm laying low today. If you'd like, head over to my other blog to check out a giveaway I have going on there. Until later this week, take care of you!

Weekend in Review - The Birthday Edition

2010-01-26T10:19:00.000-05:00

I'm a day late with this post, but I'm fighting sickness (again!) and spent most of yesterday in bed. Booo! I did go to the doctor and got an antibiotic as well as some things to help with all my sinus congestion problems so hopefully that will do the trick... and soon!

This weekend was a very special one... it was our friend's son, Landon's, first birthday party!

We also did a weekend-long celebration of Travis' 25th Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRAVIS!

Night out with friends...

Birthday breakfast and fun decorations!

Dinner, cake and gifts with Travis' parents...

Birthday gifts and dessert at home...

Critic's Choice Friday!

2010-01-22T00:00:00.001-05:00

My weekly "Critic's Choice" post will always feature a review of some sort. Could be a movie, book, product, TV show, whatever! And I'll be looking to you, dear reader's, to share YOUR reviews as well!

I'm a planner girl. No matter how far technology has come and how much I utilize a million forms of online communication, I'm still bound to pen and paper when it comes to mapping out my schedule and to-do's.

This year I dropped the ball a little bit and didn't pick up a planner until (gasp!) mid-January. When I finally did set about picking one up, I did it rather haphazardly. I stumbled into Barnes & Noble and picked up this teeny little thing (I generally go for over-sized, way too much info, will not fit in my purse type of daybooks!) for 50% costing me a whopping $4 and some cents.

And you know what? It's seriously the best planner I've ever owned.

And not just because it's little, and cute, and pink (watermelon, actually!) but because it's so much more. You see, it's made by a company called ecosystem...

And it gets better.

There is a handy-dandy pocket inside the back cover (along with daily calendar space and a notes page for every week!) and on that pocket is an ID number. Now, if someone were to find my planner, they could go to the company website, plug in the number, and get in touch with me. And if I login to the site, I can find out EXACTLY what my planner is made of, where it was made, how many people are employed at that location, and more. It's incredible, really!

So if you're a planner person or even if you're not (they also have lines of journals and other books) head over to ecosystem and learn what they are all about.

And in the meantime - tell me about YOUR planner, or lack of one. How do you keep yourself organized? Leave me a comment below!

Happy Weekend!

(a day late) Where I Live Wednesday: Our House, in the middle of our street...

2010-01-21T15:34:00.000-05:00

"Where I Live Wednesday" will feature a different place in Michigan each week. It will start out very local, with the immediate area in which I live (different areas of town, my house, stores and restaurants, etc. etc.) and expand over time to include adventures to other places in the great state of Michigan.

Miss last week's "Where I Live Wednesday" post? Go check it out!

I apologize for being a whole day late on this post... but life got the better of me. Schoolwork was out of control and I just couldn't find the time to get this post up until today.

I knew that I wanted to talk about my house here in the Eastown community of Grand Rapids this week, and show you around it a bit. As I was planning the post, I started having anxiety about the current messy state of the house and trying to clean it up for pictures. Then I realized that I wanted to give you a true portrait of where I live - so I abandoned any extra cleaning and just took some shots! I hope that's okay with you! : )

Here is my lovely home...

This picture was actually taken last Spring.

We moved into our FIRST (owned) home in October of 2008. It is a 1920's craftman-style home on a one-way street.

It's not perfect, it needs some TLC, and its sometimes a lot of work, but it's ours and I love it. I know that no matter where we go, I will always love this house.

This summer we turned our back yard mud pit into a lovely area for entertaining...

After living in an apartment for years, it was so lovely to have an outdoor space of our very own.

This is our (slightly fuzzy) living room... complete with sleepy dog on the couch, and shredded TP rolls (aso courtsey of the dog) on the rug. One of my projects for this year is to completely re-do the curtains, I'm going to try and MAKE them. We'll see how that goes.

Here is our dining room. When schoolwork gets crazy I bring the computer downstairs and take over the dining room table, where there's more room to spread out than in the office.

I looooove this leaded glass built in, and the windows. And I'm extra proud of the chair in the corner... I covered it myself!

We haven't made any changes to the kitchen since we moved in. I plan on painting it yellow. Eventually we'd like to completely remodel it. It's a good size space, which is nice.

We call this the blue room. It's technically a bedroom on the first floor. We have a futon here that converts into a bed, the piano and all things musical reside in there, and this is also where we watch movies (the big TV is behind the door out of sight).

The downstairs bathroom is super tiny. It's a jack and jill so it connects the blue room and the kitchen.

We're lucky to have this HUGE jet tub. It was completely unexpected when we were looking at the house. Unfortunately it hardly ever gets used, and we're currently discussing if we want to keep it or not when we re-do this bathroom sometime in 2010. Taking a long bubble bath always SOUNDS like a great idea... but I hardly ever do it!

So that's it, the first floor! Next week I'll share with you the upper floor, and some shots of our street and neighborhood. In the meantime -- why don't you tell me what you LOVE (or hate?!) about your home? : ) I'd love to hear about your place!

First Week of School

2010-01-19T00:00:00.001-05:00

Remember when you were a kid and the first week of school was exciting fun, colorful, and easy-going? At what point did it switch to a week of fear, panic, and overwhelming workloads?! Ha!

Last week marked the beginning of another semester of graduate school for me at good ol' WMU.

Having done my undergraduate work as well as my master's classes at WMU, I do love it. What I don't love about this semester is that both of my classes are held at the Battle Creek Campus. That's a good hour and a half drive from my house. Yowser!

The good thing about this semester though, is that it's sort of my final semester taking classes. You see, during the summer all my classes are online, and then in the fall I write my thesis. If all goes to plan, I will graduate next December. Woohoo!

I have a class this semester that meets every other Saturday from 9-4, a total of 6 times. It's a budgeting and accounting class, and I'm actually kind of liking it. My professor is fun and very down to earth and I think I'll learn a lot.

My Wednesday night class is another story. It's going to be HARD. Hundreds of pages of reading each week, three to four page papers per week, and I have to declare my THESIS TOPIC two weeks from now! Yikes! I know I bitched about my statistics class last semester, but this very well may be WORSE! Wish me luck!

Weekend in Review

2010-01-18T09:09:00.000-05:00

(top to bottom, left to right)

1. Watching the Golden Globes (yea, Glee!)

2. Teaching and old dog new tricks (FINALLY taught Bella to consistently "sit pretty")

3. Six hour graduate school class on Saturday

4. Comfort food - chili with noodles, Hill Family style!

5. Stampin' Up! Open House (Read more about this on Tuesday HERE )

6. Homemade Chicken Tikka Masala

7. Valentines M&M's -- sooo pretty!

8. Dinner and cards with Justin and Kristen. A TON of delicious to-go Chinese food!

(yup, we certainly ate well this weekend!)

Happy Monday to you all!

Piano!

2010-01-16T06:00:00.002-05:00

I know I said I wasn't planning on posting on the weekends, but here I am nonetheless!

On Thursday we welcomed a new addition to our home and family...

Isn't she pretty?

Trav's parents are getting rid of some things in their home, and were gracious enough to pass on their piano to us (which, as I understand it, has been in the family for years)

I am beyond stoked to, for the first time since I was a very little girl in England, have a piano in my home.

Yup, that's me as a wee one.

I majored in music you see, and as the years go by I find myself moving further and further away from all things musical. If it's not your career (I never intended to be a professional musician) then it's hard to find appropriate outlets for it, and squeeze it into a busy schedule.

So when the piano arrived on Thursday night I spent an hour plunking out poor chordal accompaniments (yeah, despite my music degree I'm actually a downright poor pianist!) and singing my little heart out. And it felt good.

Thanks, Kim and Phil! We will take great care of it!

Critic's Choice Friday!

2010-01-15T00:00:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the first edition of Critic's Choice Friday!

My weekly "Critic's Choice" post will always feature a review of some sort. Could be a movie, book, product, TV show, whatever! And I'll be looking to you, dear reader's, to share YOUR reviews as well!

This week, I've got two delicious food items to recommend to you!

No matter how yummy and satisfying my dinnertime meal is, I'm almost ALWAYS left craving something sweet to finish it off. In my half ass effort to slim down a little before our trip to VEGAS in May, I decided to search out some low-fat ice cream while grocery shopping last week.

Edy's ice cream was 2/$4 at Meijer (apparently Edy's and Dreyer's are the same company -- I was confused by the differing names on my container and the image below I pulled off of the internet. Good ol' Wikipedia can tell you more HERE) and I picked up some of this...

Yup - black cherry vanilla swirl! I was a little hesitant, because usually anything that's frozen yogurt-ish tastes less ice cream-y and more sorbet-y, but this was rich and delicious! And the best part? 100 calories per serving! Now I just need to stick to one serving! : )

And here's my second food recommendation... Folger's Gourmet Selection Creme Brulee coffee.

My ~~addiction to~~ taste for coffee has only come into play in the last couple of years. Before then I wouldn't touch the stuff, and couldn't stand the taste! Even now I'm one of those girls who likes the froofy drinks at Starbucks that are actually very little coffee and lots of other really high calorie sugary stuff.

That being said, when we buy coffee for home I insist on something with a bit of flavor. A lot of times we'll buy bagged coffee and it will smell delicious but you can't really taste the flavor when it's brewed. This stuff is quite the contrary! It smells AND tastes yummy! It's so good I can drink it with only a little bit of creamer. Yum!

Want to do a review for me on Critic's Choice Friday? E-mail me at joanneroehm(at)yahoo(dot)com and we'll get you on the schedule!

Have a wonderful weekend!

I'm crazy for Flash Mobs!

2010-01-14T00:00:00.001-05:00

Wikipedia defines flash mobs as follows:

A flash mob (or flashmob)is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.The term is generally not applied to events organized by public relations firms or as publicity stunts.

Wikipedia will tell you all sorts of interesting tidbits about, and history and examples of flash mobs HERE, but I'm most concerned with the dancing ones. Yup, I'm a sucker for dancing flash mobs.

My first encounter with flash mobs was this video, which I actually posted in this blog previously...

And then there was the prank pulled on the Oprah season kickoff show... (note the HORRIBLE live performance by BEP. Booo!)

A couple of days ago I encountered this... a flash mob performance in Italy to a medley from the show GLEE! Now you know I love Glee, so Glee + Flash Mob is pretty much the best thing ever.

So there you have it. Dancing flash mobs. Anyone want to get together, choreograph some dance moves with me, and get a big group of people to do it in a public place? Just let me know... I'm so in! : )

Where I Live Wednesday: An Overview

2010-01-13T00:00:00.002-05:00

*** Pardon the interruption! I'm doing some re-organizing here today, so don't mind my mess while I make some improvements to the blog!***

"Where I Live Wednesday" will feature a different place in Michigan each week. It will start out very local, with the immediate area in which I live (different areas of town, my house, stores and restaurants, etc. etc.) and expand over time to include adventures to other places in the great state of Michigan.

For my first post, I wanted to give a general overview of both Michigan, and Grand Rapids, where I live.

According to Wikipedia...

Michigan is the eighth most populous state in the United States. It has the longest freshwater shoreline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair.Michigan has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds.A person in the state is never more than six miles (10 km) from a natural water source or more than 87.2 miles (140.3 km) from a Great Lakes shoreline.

Michigan is the only state to consist entirely of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is often dubbed "the mitten" by residents, owing to its shape. When asked where in Michigan one comes from, a resident of the Lower Peninsula may often point to the corresponding part of his or her hand. The Upper Peninsula (often referred to as The U.P.) is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km)-wide channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Upper Peninsula is economically important for tourism and natural resources.

Although born in the UK, I moved to Michigan when I was in 8th grade, and lived with my parents and brother in the small city of Tecumseh (I'll introduce you to Tecumseh in another post!) I now live with my husband Travis and our small zoo of animals in Grand Rapids.

Again, according to Wikipedia...

Grand Rapids is located on the Grand River and is approximately 30 miles from Lake Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 197,800, making it the 114th largest city in the United States. It is the second largest city in Michigan (after Detroit), and the largest city in West Michigan.

Nicknamed the "Furniture City", the major industry in Grand Rapids once was furniture production. However, the city and surrounding communities are more economically diverse today, and contribute heavily to the health care, automotive, and consumer goods manufacturing industries, among others.

You'll have the opportunity to read lots of posts about Grand Rapids in the future, there is a lot going on here and plenty to photograph and introduce you to! But for now, take a look at this video. It is a little cheesy, yes, and some of the footage is a little dated, but it's nice all the same. The accompanying song "My Giant Little Town" is written and performed by Brian VanderArk, of The Verve Pipe fame. Grand Rapids is pretty proud of Brian and takes to using him in promotional things whenever possible it seems! : )

Enjoy!

Come back next week Wednesday to start exploring my life in Grand Rapids!

The Bloggy Plan

2010-01-12T08:00:00.002-05:00

Thanks so much for all of you who gave me feedback about this blog... it's really helped me come to grips with where I want to go with it. I've given it a lot of thought, and decided that in order to continue with this blog and keep things interesting - I need a little more structure.

A lot of blogs that I've checked out, and some that I read regularly, have themed posts by certain days of the week. Now, I didn't want to have a pre-established theme for EVERY day, but I figured that doing something consistent a few days of the week would give me a little more focus.

So, without further ado, here's the weekly lineup:

Monday's: "Weekend in Review"
In my "Weekend in Review" posts, I'll share a photos and stories from my weekend. You can see my first one, which I posted yesterday, HERE.

Wednesday's: "Where I Live"
"Where I Live Wednesday" will feature a different place in Michigan each week. It will start out very local, with the area in which I live (different areas of town, my house, stores and restaurants, etc. etc.) and expand over time to include adventures to other places in the great state of Michigan.

Friday's: "Critic's Choice"
My "Critic's Choice" post will feature a review of some sort. Could be a movie, book, product, TV show, whatever! And I'll be looking to you, dear reader's, to share YOUR reviews as well!

I'll fit in other things on Tuesday's and Thursday's as they come along, and will generally not be posting on the weekends. Because let's face it... we all have more exciting things to do on the weekend than post to or read blogs!

I'll be making some cosmetic changes to the blog over the next couple of weeks too... so bear with me. I have a renewed excitement about this blog, and look forward to sharing my little piece of cyber-space with friends old and new!

Happy Tuesday! Come back tomorrow for my first ever "Where I Live Wednesday" post! : )

Weekend in Review

2010-01-11T00:00:00.001-05:00

...Anthony's 11th Birthday... Belated Christmas with Meg and Matt at PF Changs (with a HUGE bowl of wonton soup!... Sunday night Scrabble (I won)... Dinner date at Carrabas Italian Restaurant (Adam was our server)... Dog Park on a sunny Winter day... Sunday breakfast with Irish Creme coffee...

Feedback, please!

2010-01-08T00:01:00.002-05:00

My dear, dear blog friends... I need your assistance!

You see, I have to be honest. I just don't know what to do with this blog!

If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that I have two blogs. This one (obviously) and this one. The latter is a craft blog (again, obviously) with entries detailing my adventures in stamping, scrapping, sewing, knitting, and baking.

My other blog is a lot more high maintenance than this one. A lot more people read it. I post to it much more frequently. It has a focus. It knows what it is supposed to be.

This blog. Well... it doesn't have much focus.

As I learn more and more about blogging and the community that is the blogosphere, it seems that blogs tend to fall into categories...

Special interest (art, music, craft, cooking), Babies and Family, Awareness for illness or disease, Business Promotion...

You get the picture.

And my blog... well... it's just kind of here.

Half my readers know me in real life (helloooo, friends and family!) and half of them have surfed in and happened to come by one of my better, more interesting posts, and have chosen to stick around (thanks!).

I'm not one of those super clever, witty writers. You know, the ones who blog about everyday life but are sooo enthralling and funny and clever while doing it? I'm not good at posting consistently, I share a lot of pictures but am so bored by the time they have all uploaded that I can't bring myself to write much about them.

I'm bored with my blog. Which makes me feel even more sorry for you -- since you're actually reading it!

I should give myself a bit more credit I suppose. I think yesterday's IKEA post was pretty fun. And I have some other favorite posts... like this one, this one, and this one to name a few recent ones.

In general though - I feel like my life is pretty un-interesting on a day to day basis! : ) Ha ha! If I'm going to continue with this blog, I'd like to make sure I'm appealing to those that know me well and those who don't. And I'd like to inspire you to leave me some comment lovin' and participate in the dialogue.

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself... (chirp, chirp...) Is anyone out there??!?!

So what do you think? What do you like to read about? Do you like lots of photos? Silly stories? Shared articles and video clips? Movie and TV reviews? A little bit of everything? What keeps you swinging back by my little piece of cyberspace?

So please... help me, help you, help me make this a better blog. We'll all be better off I swear!

Happy Friday!

Joanne and Heather's IKEA Adventure

2010-01-07T11:56:00.001-05:00

Have you ever been to an IKEA store?

We have ONE store here in Michigan, and Heather has been wanting to take me for AGES.

So yesterday we set out on my maiden voyage to IKEA! It was a mini road trip... about two hours from Grand Rapids to Canton, MI. In fact -- mile for mile it is about the same distance from Grand Rapids to the Chicago IKEA store -- but when you factor in Chicago traffic we were much better off heading to Canton.

Anyhoo... off we went, and two hours later... we arrived!

It wasn't long before our big blue bags were getting heavy, and we had to get a little granny luggage cart, thing... yup, I hung my purse on it too in true old lady style. I'm sweet like that!

We were kind of amazed by this under the kitchen sink cleaning supply organizer thingy. Isn't it sweet? It affixes to the inside of the cupboard and then pulls out, as Heather is demonstrating!

I purchased these spice racks -- since we don't have one. I loved it because you could buy each rack individually for only $3.99 and then a pack of jars for $2.99 and then you can hang them how you want them. So fun!

The kids room section was ridiculously cute. Almost made me want a kid of my own so I could decorate their room... but not quite... : )

After almost two hours on the upper floor, we stopped at the cafeteria-ish area for a snack...

You know, power shopping food -- real healthy stuff...

Revitalized, we headed down to the lower floor to embrace all things kitchen gadget-y and more!

Seriously, wow!

And then we ran into this...

FABRIC! On sale for $1.99 per yard. I almost bought some, but am trying to exercise some crafting restraint. If I'm not purchasing for a particular project - I shouldn't buy it. Right? But so cool nonetheless.

By now the granny cart was long gone and we upgraded to a real cart...

Heather looks so happy to be at IKEA!

We eventually finished up, and loaded up the back of the car...

I didn't actually buy anything big, no furniture or anything. Just going there and looking gave me TONS of ideas for our house, but because I'm a good wife I figure I should talk them over with my husband first before making any large purchases... : )

After all of that shopping there was only one thing left to do...

DINNER!

Both Heather and I's moms LOVE them some Bahama Breeze (as do we!) and they don't seem to have them on the West side of the state where we live. It's a super fun restaurant that's island themed. Feels like a little bit of a tropical vacation when you eat there.

Of course these helped with the tropical theme...

YUM! Bahamaritas! I know you're jealous.

So we sipped our fruity drinks on the heated, covered deck. We ate some delicious food and jammed to the guitar player/singer guy doing some bad, overly synthesized covers of Bob Marley tunes, and relished in a kid-free evening (okay all of my evening's are kid-free, but Heather's are not. And as much as we both love those kids, it was super fun to have an adults only, girls only evening)

Pretty much the best Winter Wednesday, EVER! : )

Holiday Rewind 2: Christmas with the Roehm's

2010-01-05T09:49:00.000-05:00

On December 27th we headed across the state to Portage, MI for Christmas with Travis' family. His brother Tyler was in town from Texas (funny how both the brothers ended up in Texas!) and we have a great time giving gifts, seeing movies, and playing games.

Seeing a tree lit up and stockings on the mantle never gets old... no matter how old WE are!

Trav's mom Kim was VERY excited to get "Peter and the Wolf" on CD.

I got some really pretty silver jewelry from an artisan in Arizona!

Trav and Tyler got these beautiful cutting boards... I think they also came from Arizona?

We got Tyler a crock pot and crock pot cookbook. We couldn't LIVE without our crockpot in the Winter months!

The kids gifted the parents with a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant in St. Thomas to use when they vacation there this Spring.

Fun stockings filled with treats!

We enjoyed a delicious meal of baked spaghetti with the extended family.

Oh, and Bella was festive as always in a red bow!

Trav's family are all Seinfeld buffs so we played their new DVD Scene It Seinfeld game. I never really watched the show - so I just operated the remote! : )

Grandma Roehm knitted me these slippers... she knits the BEST slippers! I need to have her show me how to make them. So cozy!

It was a lovely time!

Holiday Rewind 1: Christmas with the Eversden's

2010-01-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

Look! I'm FINALLY getting around to posting pictures from Christmas! Better late than never I suppose!

We spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day with my side of the family in Tecumseh. We had a wonderful time - but missed my brother Will of course - who was stuck in Texas working and couldn't make it home for the holidays.

Here are some of my favorite photos from our trip...

Travis and I on Christmas morning.

My mother was VERY excited about this ornament! (well is is super cute!)

Travis was equally excited about his Vegas guide book. He's learning all he can in preparation for our trip in May! (apparently Bella wanted in on the action, too!)

My Dad is silly. He tries to guess EVERY gift and is about 99.9& accurate. No joke!

Even Bella got a gift or two. She must have been good this year.

I love me some "Vanilla Bean Noel" from Bath & Body Works!

And I was waaay too excited about my new cooling racks! Ha!

Mum got a fancy new ipod...

Nothing says "Christmas Morning" like mimosas!

Santa got the boys these silly hats. We made them pose in them with their first beer of the day...

Here we are before dinner...

And afterwards... posing with our Cadbury's selection boxes... an annual tradition!

We ate sooo much good food that day! YUM! And it was great to spend some relaxing time with my parents.

Stop back tomorrow for "Holiday Rewind 2" - highlights from our Christmas with the Roehm side of the family!

Wrapping up the holidays...

2010-01-03T16:43:00.000-05:00

... it's finally here. The official end of the holidays for us. Travis goes back to work tomorrow and I have about a week and a half until classes start again. The tree is down and the decorations are packed up. It's refreshing and sad all at the same time. I'm ready to forge into 2010, but we've had such lovely holidays this year and great times together that I will miss that everyday couple time with the hubby!

This past weekend we've soaked in the time relaxing together at home. We did a little puzzling...

We took a nap or two... (because puzzling is such hard work!)

And we tried out the nifty little slider maker that Travis got for Christmas. Little burgers are so much cuter than big ones!

Oh, and we tried to go see a movie. TRIED to. We both really want to see The Blind Side but we got to the theatre and it was just NUTS! It took forever to find a parking spot, and then the ticket line was out the door! We gave up and plan on going tomorrow night instead. Hopefully it will be a lot less busy!

Speaking of movies... did you see any good ones over the holidays? We went to see Invictus with Trav's family and it was FABULOUS. I highly recommend it!

For those of you milking the last few hours of the holidays like we are... Happy Sunday and ENJOY!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

How has 2010 been so far?

We had a great new year's eve... the best I've ever had in fact. Alison & Noah, and Heather, Anthony, and Lily came over for snacks and drinks before we headed out for dinner. Afterward... Alison, Noah, Travis and I checked out some live music at a bar down the street and counted down to midnight there. We then headed home for champagne and games. What a wonderful evening!

Stay tuned for Christmas pictures... I swear they're coming! Until then, Happy 2010!

Resolutions

2009-12-31T10:28:00.000-05:00

I'm back!

Did you have a wonderful Christmas?

We had a FABULOUS holiday... but after all of the traveling and Christmas-ing I am sure glad to be back at home, and getting the house back in order. I look forward to all the 2010 will bring, and am anxious to get back to some sort of routine.

I have a ridiculous amount of photos to post here -- Christmas parties and family gatherings galore. They will all come in good time over the next week, don't you worry.

But for now, I'd like to share some New Year Resolutions. Not because I think I'm necessarily going to keep them all, or because I'm super into making them in the first place, but mainly because I think it's good to have goals - and writing them down holds you a little more accountable than just verbalizing them.

Plus I am writing them in a public place... so there's really no excuse not to make an effort, right?! : )

Here goes...

1) I will be less judgemental, and try my best not to jump to conclusions about a person, place, or thing. (Although I think that I am a good judge of character and situation and that is a skill that can be helpful, I am way too quick to make assumptions in my day to day life, and need to realize that things and people are not always as they seem. I need to be open to the fact that my gut-reaction or opinion is not always the right one. Go figure.)

2) I will take better care of myself so that I am around for a long time to come. (This is pretty general, but includes: seeing a doctor when sick or hurt, drinking more water than caffeine on a daily basis, eating healthier, and making it to the gym consistently)

3) I will take better care of my house. (Does this need any explanation?! I am horrible at keeping up with the house cleaning...)

4) I will do my very best to NOT procrastinate. (Especially with schoolwork! I need to make a work-plan for each project and stick to it, so I'm not tearing my hair out the night before due dates!)

5) I will make a valiant effort to keep in regular contact with my loved ones both near and far. (I think it gets harder and harder as we get older to keep in touch with our friends and takes a lot more effort. I have some wonderful people in my life, some of whom are very far away, and I want to maintain those relationships... even if it means picking up the phone when I'm cranky and tired after a long and busy day... it will most likely make me feel better in the long run!)

So what about you, dear reader? Do you have any resolutions? Do share them with us! What goals are you setting for 2010?

Let me make a like resolution for you... : )

If you're a regular reader to this blog, and haven't done so already, hop on over to the right side of the screen where it says "Followers" and click "Follow." Yes you will be asked to create a username and ID if you don't already have a google or blogger account, but it will take you all of three minutes, and it will allow you to leave comments for me! It will let me know that I'm not just writing into cyberspace, and that people are actually reading! Blogging should be interactive, so I always love to hear what you have to say about my posts... you becoming a follower could even help me with my fifth resolution... so come on, help us keep in touch, and add as a follower!

Happy New Year to you all!

Christmas Letter 2009

2009-12-24T08:00:00.001-05:00

Happy Holidays! How quickly 2009 has come and gone!

This year we shared and celebrated lots of new beginnings in the lives of family members and friends. Joanne was honored to be a bridesmaid for our dear friends Alison and Noah Bradow’s wedding in April, and Travis was thrilled to be a groomsman in the wedding of our good friends Justin and Kristen Salava in September. Additionally, we welcomed baby Landon to friends Justin and Kristen Salava, baby Claire to friends Adam and Carrie Kendall, and baby Issac to Travis’ cousins Grant and Emily Bowman. So much joy!

In March, we were lucky enough to fly out to Austin, Texas for a long weekend to celebrate Joanne’s brother Will’s 21^st birthday. Our dear friend Tim flew out for the occasion as well, and we enjoyed visiting the Alamo, the San Antonio Riverwalk, and of course experiencing the infamous 6^th Street bar scene. It was a great trip! Now that Travis’ brother Tyler is in Texas as well, we hope to squeeze a visit in to see them both again in the New Year.

In June we celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a trip to Mackinac Island. We enjoyed a relaxed weekend filled with delicious food, sightseeing, lots of lilacs, and reminiscing about our wedding and our first year of marriage. It is truly amazing how fast this first year has gone, and we continue to be just so thankful that we have each other to share, learn, love, and grow with.

We were hit with unexpected bad news in July when Joanne was laid off from her job. It was an incredibly emotional time, and we were thankful for family and friends who rallied around us. Luckily, we’ve been able to turn the experience into a positive one, as it’s provided Joanne with the opportunity to go back to graduate school full-time. Joanne made it through a tough first semester back with good grades and now has just five classes and a thesis to go before she will have earned a Masters degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Non-Profit Leadership.

Directly following Joanne’s lay off, we became parents to a litter of four day-old kittens! After finding them near our house, we took the kittens in and fostered them until they were old enough to be adopted out. This experience led to Joanne’s active involvement in local 501c3 non-profit animal welfare organization Carol’s Ferals, where she has accepted a position on the board of directors and has been involved in kitten fostering. It has been a challenging but rewarding experience thus far – and Joanne looks forward to working hard for the organization (and the animal population) in 2010.

This fall, Travis joined a local chapter of United States Masters Swimming. USMS is a national organization that provides organized workouts, competitions, clinics and workshops for adult’s aged 18 and over. Programs are open to all adult swimmers (fitness, triathlete, competitive, non-competitive) who are dedicated to improving their fitness through swimming. While it was certainly a challenge to fit into his busy schedule at times – Travis really enjoyed getting back into swimming.

We are still enjoying our “new” home – and are finally settling into the roles and responsibilities of being homeowners. Although our to-do list of house projects is still long, we were able to get a good amount of painting done this year, as well as put in a new fence in the back yard and have the back yard landscaped. We celebrated our back yard’s evolution from “mud pit” to “party space” at the end of the summer with a BBQ for family and friends.

We are so very thankful at this time of year for all that we have, especially when many around us have so little. May this season bring much love and joy to you and yours, and 2010 be your best year yet.

Love,

Travis, Joanne, Bella and the Cats

Joanne, Travis and Bella -- December 2009

I'll be taking about a week or so off blogging while we travel up and down the state to spend time with each of our families. I look forward to sharing our Christmas celebrations with you, and welcome in 2010, upon my return. My very best holiday wishes to each and every one of you!

Celebrating the Season with Friends

2009-12-23T17:41:00.001-05:00

Although it sometimes get hectic, running from place to place to exchange gifts and catch up with friends old and new, but there's no doubt in my mind that it's worth it. The holidays are a beautiful time of year to get together with dear friends.

Joanne, Travis, Kelly, Seth -- December 2009

(Christmas gift exchange)

Joanne and Kelly -- December 2009

Joanne, Allison, Angie and Kenyon -- December 2009

(Angie was home to visit all the way from Kansas!)

Anthony, Travis, Anthony, Heather, Lily, Joanne, Mariah -- December 2009
Roehm-Hill Family Christmas (Part Two!)

Looking forward to much more memory making with these dear friends and many more in 2010!

Christmas at Home

2009-12-22T15:04:00.001-05:00

I am always impressed by the folks who are able to take beautiful holiday pictures with everyone looking smiley and their dog sitting nicely and looking at the camera (ahem... Meg and Matt Herr!) For us... it's not so simple...

Ah well. There's always next year!

Since we travel to both of our families during the holiday season, Travis and I do our "own" Christmas at home before the rush of Christmas begins. For the past couple of years we've introduced stockings in lieu of a large gift. I think it's fun to have multiple things to open - you can really take your time and make an evening out of it.

This year, we celebrated Christmas together in Grand Rapids starting with dinner at our local Indian place. Yum! We enjoyed a couple of martinis and some delicious grub.

We then headed home to open our stockings! They looked so pretty sitting on the mantle...

It's so much fun to opening gifts together! I got Travis Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation -- it's a tradition to watch it every Christmas at his parents' house.

I got a new wallet and some candles....

Travis LOVES olives... especially in bloody mary's!

And Bella just loves the wrapping paper... : )

Travis' reading library is now stocked for 2010...

Woah... not sure what this is all about...

My loot...

Trav's loot...

But wait! Santa came by a little early and dropped off a gift for BOTH of us! Wasn't that nice of him?

And Bella and the cats were thoughtful enough to get us something as well.... aw....

We finished the night with popcorn and a flick... (I was REALLY excited about my new cozy socks!)

I hope that you and your spouse carve out a little holiday alone-time for each other this year! Merry Christmas!

Ornament Exchange

2009-12-20T11:07:00.000-05:00

Every Christmas, Cindy and I exchange ornaments. It's a really sweet tradition that I'm very thankful for. This year we went out to breakfast and did our exchange there. It was a fun morning of catching up!

Thanks, Cindy! For this lovely tradition that we share!

Roehm Hill Christmas 2009

2009-12-19T12:42:00.001-05:00

For the second year in a row, we got together with the Hill Family to celebrate the season. Heather and I met while working for the YMCA three (or so?) years ago and over the years Travis and I have become very close with Heather and her husband Anthony and with their kids Mariah, Anthony, and Lily.

It is SO much fun getting together with them for Christmas. Something about watching kids open presents is just wonderful. I especially enjoy our time together at this time of year.

This year we celebrated at Heather and Anthony's home, and feasted on chili and cornbread and an array of cookies and sweet treats.

I spy a kitty cat!

There were gifts for everyone!

We got Lily a mini Bella!

Travis loves his bloody mary's!

And I was REALLY excited about this punch! Yup, I'm a crafty dork!

The boys got each other the same thing!

We ended the night with a rousing game of Pictionary Man. Soooo fun! Thanks so much, Hill's for having us over!

Um... where did the week go?!

2009-12-18T11:11:00.000-05:00

Apparently Christmas is literally, right around the corner! All of a sudden it's Friday and we have exactly one week to go until Christmas. That's nuts! I had really great intentions of keeping you up to speed with all the"really exciting" stuff going on around here this week - but I failed miserably.

You see, we recovered from last Saturday's party.

My niece Mariah had a band concert...

We hosted a work party for Travis' co-workers...

All the while I was busy with this, this, and this! Not to mention baking, wrapping, and all of the usual holiday "stuff"... yikes!

How are you guys holding up? Ready for next week? Or do you still have a lot to do? Are you hosting family and friends in the coming week? Celebrating annual traditions? Whatever you're up to - I hope you're having a WONDERFUL Holiday season!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

2009-12-14T10:36:00.005-05:00

This post is a little late, since the tree has been up for the better part of a week now, but oh well. Better late than never!

Like the lights, this year's tree has been quite the debacle! First of all it took us forever to find a place to purchase one, then ages to pick one out we actually liked. Once we got it home it wouldn't fit in the tree stand so we had to saw a bunch of low-hanging branches off. When we finally got it up it was super crooked and we were afraid it would fall! So we anchored it into the wall as an extra protective measure!

What I need to keep in my head is that it is a REAL TREE. It is not going to be perfectly straight and symmetrical. That's part of its beauty, right?

Anyhoo... we did have a lot of fun decorating it....

I love, love, LOVE unpacking the ornaments each year. Almost every one holds a special memory with it. Here are a few of my faves...

We got these two ornaments on our Honeymoon. They are hand-painted and just so pretty.

My grandmother got me this one. If you look closely you can see that the paint is starting to crack. I always put it at the top of the tree so it's safe.

This is not a good picture, but these are cherries and they jingle! It came from my parents house and was always one of my faves as a kid.

One of my oldest friends, Angela, made this for me. It has a little mini camera, scrapbook, and some other personal things inside to represent me and my hobbies.

Meg and Matt got us this last year to celebrate our first Christmas in our first home!

This one came from our trip to NYC last December with Trav's family. So much fun!

Travis' Aunt and Cousins got this for me at my bridal shower last year.

This one came from Travis' parents' house...

Cindy and I exchange ornaments at the holidays every year. This one was from 2008.

Do you have any ornaments that are especially near and dear to your heart?

(I like to go a little crazy with the lights!)

Happy Monday!

Second Annual Roehm Christmas Party!

2009-12-13T12:28:00.007-05:00

For the second year in a row, we hosted a Christmas party for our friends. It's an opportunity to get everyone together and celebrate the season. Everyone brings a dish to pass, something to drink to share, and a donation of some kind. Last year we collected "Toys for Tots" and this year we collected pet supplies to donate.

We ate lots, drank a fair amount, and laughed a TON. There was MUCH merriness in the Roehm house yesterday evening! Here are a few highlights...

The house - all ready to go!

The bar area...

Heather and Anthony - getting the party started!

Noah really was excited to be there I swear...

I wish this photo would have turned out better. I heart them.

Pet "stuff" to be donated.

Heather and I decorated cupcakes and cookies.

Cracker time! I'm told that the crackers marked the beginning of the end of the evening...

Kelly's crown was so sweet that Bella wanted to jump up and steal it from her!

Alison and Noah rocking out their crowns (or "helmets" as Heather called them!)

Aw, they match!

Adam and his little robot guy...

Heather got a whistle in her cracker. She thought it was the best thing ever.

We got Kristen and Justin an ornament. Kristen looks sad here but I think she was just overwhelmed by our sensitivity! : )

Hands down my favorite shot of the night. Hilarious.

Classy is our middle name...

Certainly not the most attractive photo of me ever - but the only one of Trav and I from the night...

The end of the night... Kelly was out cold and Alison and Noah were fading fast...

Thanks so much for coming, everyone! We had an amazing time with you all!

Baby It's COLD Outside!

2009-12-10T09:30:00.003-05:00

The advantage of Travis and I sharing a car temporarily is that I don't have to drive in the snow. I HATE driving in the snow. In fact - I'm one of those people who is so nervous driving in the snow that I'm generally a hazard to others. Yup, snow + Joanne driving = bad news.

The weather people have been threatening this "terrible blizzard" for days. It's kind of become a joke around here actually - because there's been so much media coverage about our "winter storm" but nothing to show for it.

We finally woke up this morning to some snow...

All the schools are canceled, but I've really seen much worse. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about? We DO live in Michigan after all - this is pretty normal. That's not to say you'll catch me driving in it... I'll happily stay at home in my PJ's until the roads are clear again!

Slowly but surely, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2009-12-09T12:22:00.003-05:00

It's so ironic - I've been looking forward to the Christmas season for MONTHS - wishing school was over so I could partake in all of the decorating, shopping, baking, and merriment. Now that it's here, I'd be lying if I didn't say that so far - it's been a bit of a pain in the ass!!!

You know how sometimes nothing seems to be easy? That's how our Christmas decorating experience has been so far. It started with the lights debacle (which, might I add, turned out wonderfully in the end!) and then progressed to a crooked Christmas tree... not enough lights for said crooked Christmas tree, garland that wouldn't stay hung, cats trying to EAT said garland... you get the picture!

Anyhoo - I'm pleased to report that the tree is UP (still a little crooked, but isn't that the beauty of a live tree?! I keep telling myself that at least!) and LIT. Tonight we'll move on to putting ornaments on it... surely nothing can go wrong there?!

The garland is also up... though I need to get some glittery thingys to stick in it and spruce it up a little bit. AND - the cats don't seem to be eating it any longer... guess the novelty wore off!

We're being threatened with a HUGE snowstorm here that has yet to come to fruition... I'm getting a little panicky only because I am WAY behind on Christmas shopping and HATE driving in the snow. If this storm comes through I'll be even MORE behind on the shopping.

How are YOUR holiday plans going? Feeling rushed, hectic at all? Or are you cool as a cucumber with everything completely under control?? I think I'm going to grab a warm up on my coffee, put on the Christmas music, and just sit on the couch and admire the pretty lights for awhile. That should put things in perspective! : )

Happy Holidays! Stay Warm!

Christmas Lights 2009

2009-12-08T09:10:00.003-05:00

And it only took...

6 strands of lights
4 extension cords
48 hours
3 trips to Target
1 electric shock
2 ladders

... to make it happen!!!

Major kudos to Travis for sticking with it - I was ready to give up two days ago and try again next year!

What a Weekend!

2009-12-06T09:01:00.003-05:00

In the past two days...

1) Winter arrived... (yes, I took these photos out of my living room window because it was too cold to go outside!)

2) I found out I got a B in Statistics! Can you believe it?! Sooooo happy!

3) Tabitha, Napoleon, AND Buick all got adopted! (Head HERE for the full story...)

4) We (finally!) painted our living room! (I started getting some of the holiday decorations out, as you can see... and I need to hang some things on the walls... and I swear Oliver's eyes are not that creepy in real life!!!)

AND... we're going to get our Christmas tree today! Yeah! Stand by for the standard putting-up-and-decorating-of tree photos coming soon to this blog! : )

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

Give

2009-12-02T09:53:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's that time of year. Excuse me while I get on my "non-profit advocate" soap box...

Since children, we've been encouraged at this time of year to be thankful for our good health, family, friends, and lifestyles, and to think about those less fortunate than ourselves.

Now that we're adults, we can go one step further.

November and December bring year-end campaign letters in the mail. If you have donated to a charity in the past, you are bound to receive at least one letter, although those of you whom have never given may receive something as well.

I want to take a moment to encourage you to make a year end gift this year. I know that money is tight, and I know that we're all busy and stressed, but even a contribution of $25 is beneficial to many organizations, and well-deserved at this time of year.

Year-end dollars are unrestricted funds that non-profits are able to use for general operating monies throughout the year. The funds literally go towards keeping doors open, lights on, and staff employed, rather than on specific projects or capital expenses.

And it's doesn't end there. Many organizations accept food, toys, clothing, educational supplies, and more. All of these contributions are tax deductible as well. The bottom line is that we all have something to give, and there are plenty to give to:

There are educational organizations who give children the opportunity to learn and grow.

There are animal shelters who are aiding sick animals and placing unwanted ones in new homes.

There are hungry children, people who have been abused, children without toys this Christmas.

There are parks and safe-havens being destroyed by pollution.

There are people are dying of cancer and diabetes and malaria and AIDS.

There is so much heartache in our world.

Year-end giving allows us to touch the lives of others during the holiday season, and provides you with one final charitable write-off for your taxes before the calendar year closes.

What can you do to help? Can you give $25, $50, or $100? Giving back to your community is truly the best Christmas gift you can give.

I'll be adding a sidebar on my blog today compiling a list of worthy charitable organizations and their websites as I come across them throughout the month of December. Leave me a comment with the name of an organization you support, and a link to their website, and I'll add it to the list. Feel free to pass my blog link to anyone you come across, and spread the word about year end giving.

I'll try my best to highlight some of the organizations in blog posts throughout the month as well.

Stepping off my soapbox now... : )

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."

Winston Churchill

Happy December!

2009-12-01T17:41:00.002-05:00

How was your first day of December? Did you get any snow? It was beautiful, sunny and mild here today, despite the snow trying with all its might to come down yesterday evening on my way home from class. I did hear that we're supposed to get REAL snow by the end of the week. We'll see what comes our way...

Last night I officially finished my semester - and I am still rejoicing in the fact that for the next five weeks I have no set schedule, no deadlines, and a whole lot of Holiday to celebrate!

It started to feel a little Christmas-y around here today. I stuffed a package of "Holiday Fun" for my brother in Texas. I'm sad I won't get to see him at all this Christmas.

I hung our wreath. It's pretty much identical to last years, and again was purchased from Costco for about $15. If I remember correctly - it lived way past the Holidays last year!

I started getting out all of the holiday dishes and servingware, and begun inventorying cups, plates, and napkins for our holiday get togethers.

Travis helped me bring all of the Christmas boxes up from downstairs. I packed up the fall stuff, and a waiting patiently to pull out all of the Christmas goodies until I get the house good and clean. It's a bit of a disaster after a busy close to the semester!

And tonight we'll open our advent calendars for the first time this year. This is an English tradition - but I'm seeing them more and more over here as the years go on. It's a kid thing really - but I'm quickly approaching 30 and still enjoy opening a door each day in December to count down to Christmas. ESPECIALLY if there's chocolate behind the doors! : )

And isn't that a big part of the holiday season? Allowing yourself to feel like a kid a little bit? I honestly felt giddy this morning when I woke up knowing that school was over and it was time to start preparing for the holidays. I've actually been ENJOYING cleaning my house - dusting, vacuuming, sorting, organizing, putting away. I love entertaining, especially at this time of year, and I enjoy making our house look as festive as possible.

Happy December, my friends! Enjoy!

The home stretch -OR- Holiday traditions to look forward to -OR- I really should be writing my paper...

2009-11-29T10:24:00.004-05:00

Hi there, "Queen of Procrastination" here. I also go by "Very Easily Distracted"...

I'm working on my FINAL paper that I'll present on Monday and that will finish my semester. It's a 20+ page monster and I'm in the final stretch of it. Knowing that I'm almost done doesn't help my procrastination and ability to get very easily distracted however. But can you blame me? With the holidays so close I just want to shut the computer down and decorate the house, make my Christmas cards, and shop for stocking stuffers.

When I was in college and the semester was getting tough, I'd doodle lists in the back of my notebook that were "countdowns" until events I was looking for. I'd list how many days until Thanksgiving, Christmas Break, New Years, parties with friends, etc. Although I'm not making those same countdowns this year, it's the thought of holiday parties and merriness that's keeping me going.

Now that we have a home and can entertain, we're starting to make some holiday traditions of our very own. We'll be hosting our second annual holiday party for our friends this year - everyone brings a dish to pass and an item to donate to charity (last year it was Toys for Tots, this year it's pet-related items for animal rescue agencies. Go figure!) and we'll be celebrating Roehm-Hill Family Christmas with our dear friends the Hill's.

To give me that final push to get through this paper, I thought I'd check out some holiday photos from last year, to remind me of all the good things ahead. Take a look at these posts from last year...

Decorating

Trip to NYC

Parties

What holiday get togethers are YOU looking forward to this year?? Do share!

Thankful...

2009-11-25T10:13:00.007-05:00

This year, I'm thankful for the simple things in life...

1) My Statistics class being over. (Yes, seriously, this is number one on my list!!!)

2) My incredibly supportive and loving husband. 2009 has been challenging in a lot of ways - I am so very lucky to have him by my side through thick and thin.

3) My equally amazing family and friends. Words can't express how much I love you all - no matter how near or far you may be. I speak to some of you every day and some of you only a few times a year, but you are still important people in my life and I thank you for that.

4) All of the crazy animals in my life (or that have come in and out of my life). They bring me so much comfort and joy... (isn't that a Christmas song?!)

5) My home. We haven't accomplished even half of the home decor/improvement items I started out to in 2009 - but it's ours, and I love it just the same. No matter how messy I let it get!

What are YOU thankful for this Thanksgiving?

My very best wishes to you all this holiday!

Study Buddy...

2009-11-23T15:01:00.002-05:00

Procrastination, Exhaustion, and Overwhelmed-ness-tion... : )

2009-11-18T13:45:00.002-05:00

Woweeeeeeee!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not naive enough to not realize that this is a BUSY time of year, but man, I am SWAMPED!

I hopped on here to let you all know that I'll be mostly M.I.A. until mid-week next week... and then realized that by doing so I'm only procrastinating reading ANOTHER Performance Management case study this afternoon... : )

I am completely overwhelmed by the amount of school work that needs to get completed in the next six days. I haven't had a semester like this since undergrad and the panicked and rushed feelings of end-of-semester-finals-week madness are all creeping back!

Only problem is -- back then I could stay up most of the night and still make it through most of the week -- and I only had a dorm room or apartment to worry about keeping up -- and no husbands or pets to be concerned with caring for (for those of you know me well and have done since undergrad - insert bad jokes about failed all my college boyfriends and "relationship" drama here!) These days - if I don't get a good 7-8 hours of sleep I am TOAST! (reason number 489 why I don't have kids yet...!)

So... I'm plowing through it all - with my computer streaming the Christmas music radio station to keep my spirits up. Visions of sugar plums dancing in my head and all that...

I can do this... I can do this... I can do this...

See you on the flip side, folks! : )

R&R Weekend in South Haven

2009-11-15T18:22:00.007-05:00

This weekend we escaped to South Haven... finally! The past few months have been... for lack of a better word... shitty. We've just been dealing with all kinds of issues - large and small - and there's been a lot of stress in the Roehm household. We were really excited to get away this weekend and spend some QT together.

Saturday was a BEAUTIFUL day - so there was lots of time spent outside walking and playing...

Paired with lots of time inside napping, reading, and relaxing...

I even picked up the BEST SLIPPERS EVER! Just $5.00 at Wal-Mart! I'm absolutely in love!

And of course lots of YUMMY food. Ultimate comfort!

It truly was a beautiful weekend on Lake Michigan. The weather was unseasonably warm - and it was a nice end to the fall season...

I feel rejuvenated and refreshed - and ready to tackle the holiday season! I hope that you had a wonderfully therapeutic weekend as well... and if not... why don't you come along and enjoy South Haven WITH us...

PS... Meg - I think you'd enjoy South Haven even more than Mackinac Island -- more to do! You should absolutely plan a trip out next summer so we can (gasp!) meet in person! : )

I've been awarded!

2009-11-12T10:31:00.007-05:00

My dear friend Angie awarded me "The Fabulous Sugar Doll Blogger" award. Isn't she sweet?

So now I'm supposed to share 10 things about myself. Here goes...

1. I hated coffee and soda my entire life until 2005 (soda) and 2007 (coffee) and wouldn't have anything to do with either. Now I'm hooked on both and it's a horrible, horrible thing.

2. I was born in England. Okay, most of you know that already, but it still cracks me up when it comes up in conversation with someone I've known for a while and it turns out they had no idea. I'm not (yet) a US citizen. Rule Brittania!

3. My house is always a disaster. I am horrible at keeping the house clean and tidy. I wish I could do better!

4. I screen my calls. A lot. Thank goodness for caller ID.

5. I honestly believe I'm a little seasonally affective. I get really bummed out when the sun is not around.

6. Sometimes I wish life was a musical and that we could all break out in song and dance at any given time. Sometimes I do it anyway... : )

7. I don't like to be in new social situations with lots of people I don't know. I get shy and nervous.

8. There are times when I like animals more than humans!

9. My major in college was music - but I currently participate in zero musical activities.

10. I am way too dependent on my e-mail. I'm obsessed and check it a million times a day. I will be making a new year's resolution to tone it down. Gah!

And finally, I'm passing this award on to the LOVELY Abby over at Steinway Street. Go take a peek at her visually stunning blog!

The Weekend

2009-11-09T14:57:00.002-05:00

(from left to right, top row to bottom row -- click to enlarge)

1. Bella in the backyard - it was 72 degrees! 2. Travis raking leaves 3. My cup o' joe at our favorite breakfast spot - I was excited about the design on my mug! 4. Mariah's 12th birthday 5. Travis and I at "Opera Untucked" -- a fundraiser I worked on for Opera Affiliates / Opera Grand Rapids. 6. "Untucked" food 7. "Untucked" centerpieces 8. Apple basket decor at "Untucked" 9. Birthday cupcakes for Mariah

HAPPY MONDAY!

Merry Christmas, Noah....

2009-11-08T09:23:00.003-05:00

Those of you in Michigan or who have a Facebook account may very well have already heard about this little boy...

-----

Noah Biorkman is a 5 year old boy in South Lyon, MI who is in his last stages of a 2 1/2 year battle with Neuroblastoma cancer.

Noah was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma in February 2007. He went into remission in August 2007. In September 2008, Noah relapsed with lesions in his right arm and right leg. After going through six different trials, the cancer continues to spread.

This year, his family is celebrating Christmas early, and Noah loves to receive cards.

Please take some time to send Noah a Christmas card. Please do it as soon as possible and invite all of your Facebook friends to this event so they can do the same.

Noah Biorkman
1141 Fountain View Circle,
South Lyon, MI 48178 USA

He is precious:

http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/21525126/index.html

Please see Santa's early visit to Noah and Noah's mother's request that you simply put $1.00 in your card that will be used for Neuroblastoma research and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/21546169/index.html

Thanks

-----

Please, take a minute to watch the videos to realize the impact of this story and this Christmas card project.

I will be making a card today to send to Noah, and will be sure to put a dollar and maybe some other goodies inside. Won't you send a Christmas card to Noah as well? Let's give this boy an amazing Christmas.

Moments...

2009-11-04T13:26:00.003-05:00

Travis' parents joined us for dinner at our house on Sunday night. It was the first time they had eaten at our place - EVER! We all enjoyed good conversation and delicious food (good job, Trav!)

Heather, Lily and I did some Christmas shopping today. Lily LOVES to pet the Old Navy dog. Too funny!

I got home from shopping with a couple of baskets to stash blankets and warm weather slippers and socks in in our living room, and no sooner had I taken my coat off when I found this... : )

Happy Wednesday from me and the gang!

Halloween Fun Part Two

2009-11-03T09:35:00.005-05:00

It was so fun that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year!

Since our neighborhood doesn't get a lot of Trick or Treaters, and since I had MADE Mariah and Lily's costumes - we headed to the Hill's for an evening of ghoulish festivities.

Mariah and Lily were incredibly cute as cupcakes! I thought that the costumes turned out pretty well - especially since I'd been sick all the week before and didn't get the chance to make them until the morning of Halloween!

The kids Trick or Treated and we sipped on Sunday Coffee and took lots of pictures. Even Bella came along!

After we'd braved the elements (wind, rain, cold!) for long enough we headed back to the Hill's for pizza, festive snacks (jello hand and heart!), Halloween coloring, and general candy sorting.

And in what now is Halloween tradition - the girls posed in their matching, festive socks!

It was a really fun day - thanks Hill's, for having us!

Halloween Fun Part One

2009-11-01T08:35:00.006-05:00

For the past four years we have carved pumpkins with our good friends Dustin and Cindy. Trav and I always look forward to heading over to their house for some snacks, festive beverages, carving fun, and of course lots of photos.

The boys aren't quite as enthusiastic about the actual carving as Cindy and I, but they are good sports all the same.

We had a great evening, thanks Cindy and Dustin! I'm already looking forward to next year - our five year pumpkin carving anniversary! It's going to be EPIC!

Before...

Scary!

Trav is always the first one done...

It takes two to carve a pumpkin?

Relaxing after carving...

Can you guess which is mine and which is Trav's?

All finished!

Enjoying some Witch's Brew...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Kind of defeats the purpose...

2009-10-30T11:29:00.003-04:00

... of having clean laundry... but I don't have the heart to move her. Sweet girl!

I'm slowly re-joining the world of the living, and hoping that I continue to get better today so I can have a little Halloween fun over the weekend.

I hope that YOU all are all staying healthy... and that you have a lovely Halloween weekend!

Pardon the Interruption...

2009-10-28T11:00:00.002-04:00

... I've been hit with a nasty flu bug and have been in bed for the last few days. I hope to return to blogging by the end of the week...

Date Night

2009-10-25T10:28:00.003-04:00

Trav and I have been so stressed and busy lately that we carved out some time yesterday to head out on a date.

We checked out a restaraunt in East Grand Rapids we've been meaning to try for forever called Olives (thanks for the gift certificate, Phil and Kim!)

Highlights of the meal (other than spending time with my wonderful husband, of course) were the appetizer... (and I'm not even a big fan of mushrooms!)

Mushroom Crostini
Sautéed wild mushooms, toasted baguette, herb goat cheese, scallion oil, demi

Yummy (but expensive - yikes!) cosmopolitans for me (sorry Mum, no photo!)

And dessert... a tiramasu cheesecake. YUM!

It was really nice to get out and try someplace new. Thanks for a lovely evening, hubby!

Midterm Miracles

2009-10-21T15:22:00.003-04:00

Two days ago I was losing my mind when it came to school. I was CONVINCED I'd failed my Statistics midterm, and actually FORGOT to do my take-home midterm for my other class. For real. I was trying to figure out how I could withdraw from classes and just write this semester off as a wash.

Yikes!

Well, by some miracle, I survived midterms unscathed. I pulled off a B on my Statistics midterm (I was beyond thrilled!) and have a solid B in the class thus far, and I aced my other midterm keeping my A in the course in tact.

Phew!

I feel re-energized and ready to conquer the second half of the semester! Maybe I need to have more confidence in myself?

It's go time!

Pumpkin Adventures

2009-10-20T07:30:00.004-04:00

October marks the beginning of the Holiday Season in my eyes - kicking off with all things Halloween. It's become an annual tradition for us to visit a local farm with Heather, Anthony, and their kids for pumpkins, donuts, cider, and a hayride. I always get incredibly excited about this adventure!

We had a truly wonderful afternoon. The sun was shining most of the time, we picked a whole cart full of pumpkins (Travis was the pickiest and had the hardest time selecting his pumpkin!), and took lots and lots of photos...

(Click on mosaic to enlarge)

After some great fun at the pumpkin patch, Trav and I are now looking forward to another annual tradition - pumpkin CARVING with Cindy and Dustin Bylsma. We'll be joining them for the fourth consecutive year to carve our pumpkins and roast some yummy pumpkin seeds.

What Fall / Halloween traditions with family and friends do YOU have?

Making Strides 2009

2009-10-18T21:29:00.003-04:00

This weekend we participated (for the third year in a row) in the American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. Although I wasn't nearly as prepared for this event as I usually am - we managed to raise $300.00 in a very short amount of time. Thank you SO MUCH to all of our friends and family who donated.

It was a beautiful day, and we had a wonderful walk through Grand Rapids for a great cause. We also snapped some lovely photos!

Travis and I were so glad to spend the day with our dear friends the Hill's. After the walk we all headed out for some Pumpkin Patch fun... check back tomorrow to hear about our adventures!

These kittens just keep showing up...

2009-10-16T15:29:00.008-04:00

... is this a sign of some sort?

Today Heather and I were running around town doing some erranding after our morning workout when we ended up in the Cherry Hill district of town.

We saw a little bit of a commotion and realized that there was a little kitten running down the street.

We pulled over and jumped out to see what was going on. Essentially this kitten was roaming around by himself, looking a little worse for wear, and no one was able to catch him.

A girl who was particularly concerned and myself tried to catch the little one for at least twenty minutes. It involved him running under a gate into a fenced off parking lot with "no trespassing" signs and the girl hopping the fence to try and get him. No luck.

Suddenly he ran back under the gate across the sidewalk and under a car. I thought "Yes! We'll get him now!" we immediately looked under the car and he was gone - vanished! And then we heard purring.

The kitten had climbed up into the body of the car.

Yikes!

Now I COULDN'T leave. I mean, I had no idea where the cat was in the car and what would happen if the owner came and started the car with the kitten in there.

Heather and the girl went into all the surrounding restaurants and businesses trying to find the owner of the car with no luck.

We went to a local deli and purchased some stinky tuna to try and lure kitten out. No luck.

Finally (at least an hour after all this began!) the owner came back. She popped her hood and there sat our little friend among the engine parts.

Phew!

Heather grabbed him and we wrapped him up in my coat and headed to Brooknelle (rehab facility of Carol's Ferals) to clean him up.

Although very skinny, goopy eyed, with matted fur and flea dirt - the kitten appeared relatively healthy and social. She purred as Heather held her.

Yup, I got a chance to find out that the kitten was a "she" at this point. At least I'm 99% sure she is a she. I don't have a 100% track record on this (poor Napoleon - he was a girl for the first five weeks or so of his life!).

I brought her home and bathed her and fed her and she's contentedly living in my craft room for the weekend.

On Sunday she'll head back to Brooknelle to be checked in at intake and will head to the vet for an exam, and if she's healthy and heavy enough, to be spayed.

Assuming she's healthy - she's be put up for adoption.

I figure the worst case scenario is that - if she DOES have disease for which she would have to be euthanized - at least she would pass away peacefully, after being loved on, rather than in the engine of a car. Know what I'm saying?

So there you have it - another crazy kitten story. Why does this keep happening to me?

Keep your fingers crossed for our girl "Buick" (named after the car she was rescued from... obviously!) and I'll be posting updates over on The Kitten Mama if you want to keep following her story!

Bella Update

2009-10-15T10:53:00.004-04:00

I'm not the only one having a rough couple of weeks. Poor ol' Bella is having a hard time as well. Bella had been diagnosed with food allergies of some description a while back, and has to eat limited ingredient food otherwise her stool is... well... you can imagine, and she would get ear infections all the time.

When we first changed her over to this new, special (expensive!) food she was doing really well, but not so much any more. She experienced some hair loss and bald patches at the end of the summer and in the last few weeks she has been itching herself a lot and is currently on drops for yet another ear infection.

A couple of days ago after noticing her licking and itching at her paws and toes a lot we were alarmed to discover a lot of soreness, raw skin, blood, and general mess in between her toes. Almost like athletes foot but yuckier. Poor baby! The vet had us clean in between her toes (can you imagine how easy this was?!) and put some neosporin on them.

Her feet are looking a lot better, and she's heading to the vet this afternoon to see what the deal is. Hopefully we can figure out something more specific in regards to her allergies and help her feel a little bit better.

Poor Bella-boo! We love you puppy!

Stressing Out!

2009-10-13T11:53:00.003-04:00

How do you manage stress?

I feel like I do a pretty good job of it on a day to day basis - but then once in awhile everything seems to pile up at once and the end result is Joanne = basket case!

Yeah, I'm being a little melodramatic, but you know the feeling right? When you hit breaking point?

What with our car drama, Bella being sick (again!) and off to her second vet appointment in a week, a HUGE grant due for Carol's Ferals by end of day tomorrow, my Statistics meeting this evening, plus just general allergies and fatigue on my part... I'm all over the place today!

Obviously there could be WAY worse things going on in our lives. This is all relatively trivial. I don't mean to be a brat and complain... but everyone needs to whine sometimes, right?!

It's hard to find your center and ground yourselves in times like these.

What do YOU do to keep your stress in check?

Making Strides for the American Cancer Society

2009-10-09T17:29:00.004-04:00

For the third year in a row, Travis and I are leading a team in the Grand Rapids Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. Last year we raised $500 as a couple, and hope to raise the same this year. Additionally, we are challenging our team to raise $500 between them as well. If we succeed - we will have raised $1,000 for the American Cancer Society!

The walk is Saturday October 17th (just one week away!) at Calder Plaza here in Grand Rapids. There are two ways that you can help us MAKE STRIDES for the American Cancer Society...

1) Walk with us! All are welcome! Go to http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?team_id=502732&fr_id=19845&pg=team and click on "join team" and add each of your family members that will be walking with us as team members. We would love to have you walk with us - and will be hosting a brunch after the walk to celebrate our participation!

2) Donate - and help us raise money for the ACS! Just go to http://main.acsevents.org/goto/joanneroehm2009 and click on "make a gift to support" We would appreciate this so much!

I'm organizationally a little behind on this event this year - but am hoping you can all help me still make it a success and make a difference in the fight against breast cancer. I'm hoping we can still get our team together and raise some $$$ for the ACS in just one short week!

Thank you in advance for supporting us, the American Cancer Society, and MAKING STRIDES!

Check out my post to learn about and see photos from last years' walk by clicking HERE.

The Red Neon of Justice... or ... My Life is a Sitcom... or ... Cars are such a hassle...

2009-10-08T10:59:00.006-04:00

My current ride
"The red neon of justice" - 2002 dodge neon

Sometimes I think life would be simpler if we all lived in urban areas, relied solely on public transportation and mass transit and didn't have the need for cars at all.

I'm joking.

Sort of.

This week was filled with car troubles. There's nothing more stressful than car troubles.

You see, I'm not good with cars. I'm not good at taking care of them. I don't keep them clean. I am bad at keeping up with maintenance.

However, after an almost disaster involving ZERO oil in the car over the weekend (my fault) I vowed I was going to be better. My car was super clean, I got an oil change, and I was 100% committed to turning over a new leaf.

And then karma got me.

As if to punish me for all of my past grievances towards my car. Problem after problem occured.

You see, my dashboard light kept going out. You know, the one that lights up your gauges and such? My Dad replaced the fuse two weeks ago and it went out again last week, so he replaced all the bulbs over the weekend.

It went out again on Monday. Lovely.

As I got up from my seat to leave Statistics (joy!) class on Tuesday in Kalamazoo, I realized that I couldn't find my keys. I emptied out my bag and purse to no avail. I booked it over to the parking lot knowing, KNOWING, that they were locked in my car.

I get the the car and they are sitting on the seat. Nice, Joanne.

I tried every door, and on the last one - OPEN! Saved! Phew!

So I happily pull out of the parking lot thinking to myself how I need to not be in such a hurry all the time and really think about what I am doing (and where I put my keys!)

I felt lucky.

I had no idea what was coming next.

I got about half way home when all of a sudden there's flashing lights and sirens behind me. A state cop pulled me over. Now, I've been pulled over before for tail lights and the occasional speeding ticket (oops!) but this time I had NO IDEA why I was being pulled over. In fact, the weather was pretty bad - rainy and windy - and I had been driving safely and cautiously in the right lane. Really!

Well, the state police officer (who was a really nice gal!) had pulled me over because ALL of my rear lights were out. Every single one! She had me put on my hazards and sent me on my way.

But it wasn't over yet.

So I'm in the home stretch, about 15 minutes from home, pondering my lack of rear lights (that had been checked and working the night previously!) when all of a sudden my car starts FREAKING OUT. Lurching and sputtering and jumping. Yikes! I try to pull off the side of the road and I'm in a construction zone (of course!) so I have to weave my dying car through construction barrels to get off safely.

Awesome.

Travis came and got me, and we had the car towed the next morning. Goodbye $75 in towing costs.

Turns out it's a transmission problem. Sweet. The car is getting a diagnostic at a second garage today and we should find out details this afternoon. If I need a transmission - it could likely cost thousands of dollars - and in that case it would be bye bye neon.

I feel bad that just as I was starting to take care of it - it may now be at the end of its life.

Sorry neon.

So, wish us luck! Hopefully we can get all this car nonsense figured out over the weekend. See... didn't I tell you cars were a pain?

And in honor of the neon I figured I should pay homage to the rest of my past rides. What a charismatic bunch... (note: all of these photos are google images, not photos of my ACTUAL cars) Please join me in a moment of silence as we review the cars that have served me well over the years...

"The Blue Flyer" - 1998(?) pontiac grand prix
The first Eversden car purchased in the US. Driven regularly by every member of the family at one point in its life. Recently donated to the purple heart foundation. RIP blue flyer.

"Henry Honda" - 1987 honda civic
Broke down on I94 on my way home to see a Croswell Show. Had a sweet CD player and velour seats. RIP Henry.

"Willis the truck" - ???? toyota pickup
Taught me to drive a stick shift, took me to my first year of college and all too frequently transported way too many people crammed into its front seat, and sometimes in the bed, too. Thoughtfully decorated with car markers by the BMB boys my freshman year. I loved that truck. RIP Willis.

Fall Lineup

2009-10-06T10:42:00.007-04:00

I was never a huge TV fan. I mean, as a child I had obsessions with various children's shows and movies that I had to watch over and over again on repeat - but in high school and college I really didn't watch that much.

Nowadays I am a bit of a sucker for winding down from the day on the couch in front of the tube. Maybe it's because I'm getting older? Who knows. Nonetheless - I have been VERY glad to move on from the *crap* that is summer television (which makes sense - we SHOULD be outdoors doing super fun summery things rather than indoors in front of the telly) and embrace this years' fall lineup.

If I may say so - I don't think I've EVER been this enthused about a television schedule! Here are a few of my faves...

I can't miss...

THE OFFICE - Funniest show on earth. Seriously. We're just a little obsessed. Trav and I have seen every single episode, and have been known to throw "season premiere" parties involving putting objects in jello.

GLEE - I loved the preview they did of this show back in the spring but love it even more now it's in a full season. Not only is it very cleverly written while tackling some controversial topics, it has GREAT music. AND... takes me back to my high school show choir and theatre days a bit!

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE - I'm such a sucker for this show. I know it's a little cheesy - but it really has brought dance to the attention of the public. Plus, there's some really GREAT performances on this show. Love. (side note - Trav HATES this show!)

A new show I am enjoying is...

COMMUNITY - This show is in similar style to The Office and while it took me a couple of episodes to get warmed up to it - it's really pretty laugh out loud funny. Plays on stereotypes that just make you giggle.

My reality show guilty pleasures are...

REAL WORLD ROAD RULES CHALLENGE - THE RUINS - Oh MTV, what ridiculous-ness you put on TV. And yet I still watch you. My college years are long gone but still I watch the drama unfold on The Real World and all The Challenge shows. Mind-numbing TV at its best...

SURVIVOR - I have no idea what season this is, where the survivor's are, or any other relevant info. BUT - it's all pretty much the same from season to season isn't it? And I still watch it.

TOOL ACADEMY - Oh I am so embarrassed to admit that I watch this. But it's funny. Stupid and funny. Watch it when you need to make fun of someone. Seriously.

AMAZING RACE - I like to think that this isn't as cheesy as most reality TV. I honestly enjoy seeing the cities they travel to all over the world. And the drama... : )

I know these guys are on too, and getting rave reviews, but I haven't had time to see them yet...

HOUSE - Travis and I are late bloomers to this show. We just started getting interested last year with all the re-runs. We really need to rent it and watch from the beginning. I haven't caught a single episode yet this fall.

LIE TO ME - This show is sweet. We watched it last season, but I have no idea what day it's on this fall?

GREY'S ANATOMY - I'm about 53 seasons behind on this show. Okay not really - but I'm pretty sure last time I watched Izzy's old man boyfriend was dying and she was crying in a prom dress. Now I hear that George is dead and Callie is a lesbian? Dang - I have a lot of catching up to do if I'm ever going to get into this show again!

Phew! That's a lot of TV. I swear I'm not really a couch potato!

So what did I miss? What shows do YOU plan your schedule around? And what shows are you embarrassed to admit that you watch? DO TELL!

What's the perfect end to the weekend?

2009-10-05T11:12:00.002-04:00

A yummy bedtime snack...

Hope your weekend was lovely. Happy Monday!

ArtPrize Grand Rapids

2009-10-01T14:38:00.007-04:00

Have you heard about ArtPrize?

It's happening right here, right now. Here's how their website describes the competition:

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At ArtPrize, any artist—from established to emerging—has the chance to show work. Any visitor can vote. The vote will determine who wins the largest art prize in the world. We also took the unusual step to allow people in the city to open a venue and choose the artists to show in their space. There is not one official curator or jury for the competition.

The number of venues is fluid, so the number of competing artists is fluid. The possibilities are wide open.We can't predict what will happen, but it should be a lot of fun finding out.

Come and see.

Top prize: $250,000
Dates: September 23 - October 10
Location: Grand Rapids, MI USA
Winner is determined by public vote
All attendees of the event can vote
Top 10 entries will receive a prize
Multiple artists can collaborate on an entry
Artists may only submit one entry
Property owners/renters in downtown Grand Rapids can become a venue
Number of artists represented is only limited by number of venues that become available

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It's a radically different kind of contest - and the first of its kind from what I hear. Over the past week the media has been filled with ArtPrize info and downtown Grand Rapids has been an eclectic mix of visitors, artists, and art exhibits large and small. It truly is a spectacle!

With week one of the contest coming to a close at midnight last night, Travis and I headed downtown (finally!) to check things out and cast our votes.

The top ten finalists (of over 1200 submissions!) will be announced tonight, and voting for the top ten will go on for the next week until the grand prize winner is announced.

Here are some snaps from our adventures..

These portraits are done with push pins on a cork board! Incredible!

We voted via text message as we went from venue to venue...

Each piece had a five digit voting code and you could cast a vote up or down for it dependent on if you liked it or not...

This was crazy but cool. All kinds of charcoal stenciled "thoughts" from the artist on himself and his art process. There were pencils for you to add your own thoughts.

This sculpture is made from pieces of car tires...

These packing tape sculptures were kind of creepy...

Lego men and women?

See the resemblance?

Check out the HUGE table and chairs on top of the bridge behind me...

The Nessie Project!

This one is for you, Dad...

Phew! We didn't even see a quarter of the exhibits - there are so many all over the city! The atmosphere and traffic downtown was so exciting, though! We're going to go back next week to look some more and check out the top 10.

What a great thing for Grand Rapids and for Michigan!

Random Monday Smiles

2009-09-28T08:06:00.004-04:00

Have a case of the Monday's? Here are a couple of things to make you smile...

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

UPDATE: I'm adding this video (10:00AM) my mother sent me this morning. It's not funny, or smiley, but a true representation of a) ignorant theatre goers - come on people, turn your damn cell phones off! and b) really good acting...

Have a video you'd like to share? I'll be spending most of my day in the office and online working on homework and some things for Carol's Ferals and Opera Affiliates. E-mail me the link (joanneroehm@yahoo.com) and I'll add it.

Have a great Monday!