o, btw...

i am co-hosting a Royal Wedding Party tomorrow.

eat your hearts out.

or join me in spirit!

it will be fabulous, i can assure you.

if you have time on your hands and are looking to plan a party,

head on over to TomKat Studios for some free

R O Y A L   W E D D I N G

printables.

oh yeah baby, that's right.

FREE.

i printed them all and will be celebrating beginning at 5:30am EST.  EDT?  whatev time.

i'm proud to announce my coworkers have agreed to meet up at work beginning at 5:30am for food and royal festivities.  

i'll be bringing the wedding cupcakes and tons of wedding excitement.

{it's ok to be excited.  i mean, it's like a real life fairytale, except for the see-through-dress she wore.  what was she thinking?}

i honestly am in love with this princess-to-be.

her hair is to die for.

*sigh*

and yes, that's about all it's going to take to convince me she'll be an amazing princess.

{because fairytales aren't real, it's ok for me to also be shallow.}

thank you TomKat for hookin' a sistah' up!

yayaaaa.

hip, hip, hooray!

another great set of before/afters...

and

SHOCKER...

they come to us via

Design*Sponge.

if you know me, then you know i am a super-fan of Design*Sponge.

totally fabu.

t o t a l l y.

so, instead of showing you both the before and afters, i'm going to show you just the befores.

you totally need to hit up DS for the afters.

it is totally worth it.

{no matter how annoying i am with my "totally"s tonight.}

and so we begin:

head over here to see what they've done with the place(s)!

{you totally won't regret it.}

awesomeness. in a dorky way.

so i love to blog hop.  constantly.

i have found so many new blogs lately, it ain't even funny.  but guess what?  they found me back.

well, at least one very awesome blog did... W I T H  T W O  C A T S totally did a mini-feature of my sweet lil' blog.  ok, so it was more of a featured-my-feature-of-someone-else's-feature, but i felt so honored!

i ain't gonna lie.

check it out here.  oh, you don't see me straight off the bat?  if you are a loyal follower, i think you can figure out where i am. 

it's the little things, right?

p.s.  such a great idea to feature great ideas from followers!  blogging is where it's at!

fooey.

you know, sometimes life just knocks the wind out of your sails.  it's decidedly up to you to make what you will of the situation.  it doesn't mean it doesn't suck, it just means, we need to regroup.

i opened up cjane's blog today and found four fantastic pieces of advice:

" From Bryn- We are a family that works. When my children wake up they know we will be working (housework, school work, gardening, etc) and they have a choice, to work along side me or find something to do by themselves. When the work is done we play, but I don't entertain my kids all day.

From Sarah- When life isn't pleasant there are only two things to be done, make a change or change your perspective.  

From Sarah (again)- Our children have it good. Really good. Stop worrying whether or not you are giving them enough, especially when you have to get things accomplished not involving their immediate happiness. They are extremely blessed.

From Kathy- If the baby is crying and your kitchen is a mess, let the baby cry and clean the kitchen."


with the wind out of my sails this past weekend, i needed to change my perspective.  Sarah, you, my unknowing-friend, are brilliant.  

last week we were told my father-in-law's cancer was back.  his latest pet scan revealed new undeniable growth, something we always knew would come back, however, something we didn't know would return so soon.  it was Easter weekend last year that he was first hospitalized with extreme jaundice, ending in a determination that he had pancreatic cancer.  it was Easter this year that he was rushed back to the hospital for two blood transfusions --- he had been loosing blood at a rapid rate, so much so that he was down three pints in the last month.  

he was very disorientated, short of breath, and agitated, all of which lead to him slipping into a bit of a depression over his state and the unknown future he was about to learn of.  thankfully, two transfusions later he stopped thinking it was the very end and he started thinking he would be more open to other cancer treatments than previously decided upon.  

without knowing it, we did exactly what sarah mentioned in her first point {highlighted in red} above.  we changed our perspective.

we were grateful.  it was an unfortunate reawakening and call to reality reminding us that we cannot take time for granted.  we are on this earth for but a short time and it is up to us to make the most out of that short time.  i can't do it for you.  you can't do it for me.  these are decisions you or i make.  for ourselves.

i choose to change my perspective.  i choose to live my life being positive about my father-in-law's state of health.  he didn't expect to be alive last Christmas, yet he was.  not only was he alive, he was told there didn't appear to be any new signs of growing cancer in his body.  it was a miracle if i ever saw one.  and while yes, it did come back, every day is a gift and i am grateful that i have received far more gifts this year than any of us ever expected.

my father-in-law is a great man and today  i choose to be grateful.

fav-o-remod

i finally found it.

my favorite remod of the week.

{or last ten days.}

i have been searching and waiting... and finally... it found me.

thank you apartment therapy.

you were there on my dashboard when nobody else was.

{i will love you forever....}

check out Beth Beattie's tiny office remod.

you know what's the best part?

she told us where to find all of the components of this room.

for me, that's like gold at the end of the rainbow.

her before:

and after:

not only is it beautiful...

it appears bigger.

{i want to be there.}

go hit up apartment therapy for the full deets.

yummy.