Hanging with the Z's

We have created a very special tradition while living here in Utah. Day after Thanksgiving is our time in Park city with one of our dear friends, the Zenes's family. This year we also have a longtime friend Bev along too. It is a time of relaxation, skiing, shopping and quite often crafts like card making. With Thanksgiving past, were heading fast into the Christmas holidays. My thoughts go to decorating our home for the holidays, sharing special neighbor moments, enjoying parties, friends and some of our favorite foods.

What are some of your favorite traditions? Are you in the process of creating new traditions?

I'm also looking forward to spending some time with our sons and thier families...it is such a joy to see the wonder and delight on thier sweet faces. Church services, choir singing, carolers, and Christmas light shows...ok I'll admit I even like fruit cake, go figure!

I hope to over the next little bit share some of my favorite recipes.

Zumba in the Today Show

I signed up for an exciting, invigorating, wild and crazy Zumba class...what am I crazy???

Sweet Sunday

What do you think of when you think Sunday? Sleeping in? Getting up late? Watching your favorite team play football on TV? Perhaps you savor it, staying up as late as you dare because Monday means going to work .

Since my dear sweet husband and I decided to trade in the 40/40 work plan (40 hours a week for 40 years for someone else's dreams) we don't dread Monday anymore...we enjoy Sunday as we really wanted to spend it. It really is a time to rest, refresh and rejoice in our saviour.

Today in church we were talking about barriers to sharing our faith. We talked about the importance of relationships. Isn't it true in so many areas of life? Relationships make the world go around. We enjoy the special priviledge of working side by side with friends. As we develop our relationships, helping each other toward freedom, we change our financial future and our dreams can become reality.

Canning Season

My trees are brimming with delicious fruit...red plums, Transparent, Red Delicious and another unknow variety of apples are hanging heavy on the trees. The weather threatens some freezing nights so several days ago we picked all the plums.



For a single tree we have alot of fruit, thank goodness for my friend Dixie. We prepared plum preserves today...In past years, and now this season, she has made the task of washing, sorting, trimming and finally canning the fruit much lighter. We started with three bags brimming with fruit. We set aside one bag of very firm fruit for fresh eating then got busy on the other two.



Someone recently shared that they sorely missed the time getting together to quilt, canning or in other ways help one another. It was thier observation that it was a time to solve the problems of the world and a time to train up the younger less experienced in life. I tend to agree...we caught up on each others families, shared our concerns of political manuvering going on in our nation, discussed how we handled problems, talked of how to be a better persons and generally enjoyed the process of making delicious preserves :)



It is alot of work but I'll do it again because it enriches my experience and gosh, it tastes wonderful...especially on warm bread.

Old Boxes and....Addictions

I found an old receipt that my mother had saved. It was stuffed in amongst one of the many of her old photos.It was for a camera she had purchased as a youth. She was an avid amateur photographer and she documented her life for years using the many cameras she owned.

I grew up thinking that all facets of life were kept track of through those little (at the time) black boxes. The many boxes of pictures my mom left behind have become to me a daily journal of who she was, what she loved and what she invested time into during the course of her life.

Interestingly I seem to have the same addiction to my camera. I keep one in my purse and as if that isn't enough, I also have one on my cell phone.

While surfing the net an article caught my eye on a particular site that made me want to post a comment. It was a discussion about Iphones and good pictures. What are good pictures to you? Are they always in focus? Do they have the images centered properly? Was the lighting perfect? My answer to myself was much more simplified...I love capturing the moment and I love that my iphone's always with me. I tried to express my point by putting together a Slide.com show of some recent shots while on vacation in Michigan. I've added it to my sidebar so you can see for yourself. I'm able to get some really neat shots...its all in the moment for me :)

Disney Magic and More

Our youngest son invited us on a trip to Disney this past week. As it turned out Disneyland goes through a dramatic transformation at this time of year. In a single day it is suddenly a whole new look at the park from fun summer activities to Harvest and Halloween Adventures.

The parades, costumes and activities are all turned toward the spooky, pumpkins, skeletons oh my! All done in the way only Disney can pull off...not too creepy...just enough to whet the appetites of those who love the costumed, the creepy the crazy and corn-y.

Disney Here We Come

I love the freedom of simply throwing a few things in our bags and hitting the road! I am so-ooo looking forward to spending a few days with Nate, Lauren & Fiona in Disneyland. Did our bosses give us a tough time when we planned to take the time off? No. Did we loose any clients while away? Nope. Were we worried that someone else was getting in good with the boss when we took time away? No. Did I lose a check while away? No Way! Why you might ask :) Well the answer is that we are not bound by the typical rules of play with a JOB! When we take time away our business grows and our check still comes. As Robert KIyosaki stated in his book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" ,“The richest people in the world build networks. Everyone else is trained to look for work.” Our Xango network allows us time freedom as well as financial freedom!

So....DISNEY here we come!!