Happy BirthWEEK to me!

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy and there's so much I want to write about; living with my son again, taking my Dad's ashes to his home town, more downsizing, more juicing, getting back into appointment setting, only a month left before my move, and simply loving my life.  For today, I'm just going to focus on becoming 44 today and share a little about my week that's been filled with friends, food & fun.

It's a good sign that I woke up at 6:30 this morning without an alarm and didn't want to go back to sleep.  There's so much I want to do today and so many friends I want to spend time with before I move.  I have the best friends and one of them started off my Birthweek last Saturday by giving me a pair of glass bottles to use for my green juice.  She said she wasn't sure what to give someone who was radically downsizing her life, but knew it needed to be beautiful and useful.  She knows me well and found the perfect balance. 

My Mom took me to lunch on Wednesday to my new favorite restaurant, J. Coco. I ordered the Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast & she had the Pistachio Crusted Salmon.  The chicken was great, but I'm definitely going back for my own order of salmon before I leave town next month.  

Yesterday a friend gave me several "consumable" gifts - a couple of cold-pressed green juices by Daily Greens and some Zum Mist Aromatherapy body spray & soap.  I'm drinking one of the juices as I type on my new laptop.  I've been planning to trade my desktop in for a laptop as part of my move and after a "I'm so Pretty" moment when I deleted the .pst file that was the back up for my Outlook, I decided to go ahead and get it now.  I even bit the bullet and finally invested in Office 2013.  I've been using Office Professional 2000, well, since 2000, so hopefully this version will last me another 14 years.

Today's forecast includes ABUNDANT SUNSHINE (one of my favorite phrases) & I have plans with several lovely throughout the day.  I also have an organizing session scheduled with a client this afternoon, and plans for a walk with my dog afterwards.  I even shaved my legs this morning!  So, watch out folks, it just got crazy up in here.  I hope you all have a wonderful day too!

A Place of Her Own

The last couple of weeks have been crazy.  After almost 2 months of renovations, we moved my Mom into her own apartment last week. Making the decision to follow my dream to Santa Fe also meant that my Mom had to find a new place to live because she didn't need all of the space with my Dad gone and me moving out.  She moved from a 1200 square foot house with a garage into about 700 sq feet.  Naturally, I've been helping her get organized & downsize.  I sold sold some of her large pieces of furniture and we shopped together for some pretty new items to replace them.  

It was just a white box when she bought it, so we had the cabinets above the counter torn out, then painted the upper cabinets "Svelte Sage" and the lower cabinets "Connected Grey".  The living room walls are "Accessible Beige" and the new carpet is a warm "Taffy".  We found the black "TV" cabinet & her black corner desk at a lovely little consignment store called Great Finds and she's using it as her pantry.  I found the round, drop-leaf kitchen table & bar stools on Craigslist and kitchen the chairs at Tuesday Morning.  All of the pictures and art on the wall she already owned. 

This is the first time in 71 years that she's truly lived by herself.  Well, there are more than 100 other residents in her new high rise, but the apartment is all hers and she got to put her own personal stamp on everything.  I was just there last night helping her hang all of her pictures and make some adjustments to the furniture placements. While we were having dinner, I asked her how it feels to be living by herself for the first time in her life and, without hesitation, she said, "Great!".  

I am so grateful we were able to get her settled in such a lovely and safe place and that we were able to tackle this project together.  It's only a few minutes from her church and the building is full of people over 50 and there always seems to be some sort of activity in the building.  I just know that she's going to be having her own adventure here in Omaha when I'm in Santa Fe.  I love you, Mom.  Have fun stormin' the castle!