Thursday, February 26, 2015

Weekly Snapshots

Hey All! Here are a couple snapshots from this past week :)

Today: Peyton does this a lot. It's sweet. We keep each other warm. The amount of slime that covers my back from this is - I can't even.

Tuesday: I took a couple of business classes!

Monday: Made some delicious thai soup.

Sunday: Had some amazing bengies from Lucile's and went to the museum and studied quilts!



What was a bright spot in your week? 

XO,
Rachel

Friday, February 20, 2015

Missing My Buddy Today

Lately I have been thinking a lot about Audry - she was my first true love Bulldog - I got her by myself after I moved out. She was a rescue and I had four wonderful years with her. She came to the shop with me, just like Peyton does.

 
She died suddenly on July 25th, 2013, in my arms at the doll shop of a heart attack. It was one of the saddest, most precious moments of my life. My family and friends on Facebook really helped me through that time. I still have all of the sympathy cards on my desk. They meant to much and still do!


Four months later, I opened my heart and doll shop to Peyton. It was like getting a puppy.
 

It's amazing how DIFFERENT the dogs are. They are nothing alike. Audry was overweight, sweet, emotionally self supporting, and very wise. She didn't care about the small stuff and nothing really interested her. I loved that about her. She basically didn't give a f*ck. She didn't like any other animals and was content sitting in the grass, watching the world. Peyton is lean (almost underweight yet she eats like a wolverine!), wild, inquisitive, playful, and extremely needy and insecure. They are polar opposites - yet both were puppy mill rescues. Peyton is 100% more work than Audry.



Peyton had to stay home today because she was so disruptive yesterday and she needed a time out. I am missing them both. Today, I am grateful for furry blessings. They are HARD work but so worth it.

Happy Friday Friends!

XO,
Rachel

Monday, February 16, 2015

Someone Has To Start The Slow Clap - Lent 2015

My friend Danny AKA my gay husband, posted this picture on my status last week where I announced that I was once again giving up Facebook for Lent:

This was absolutely hysterical and I am still laughing about it.

Lent for me is a great time to unplug Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Facebook. It's a fantastic way to engage, learn, and keep up with friends and family.



If you follow me on Facebook, you may see a lot of my adventures. I share a lot. It's interesting when I talk to people from the outside whom I haven't seen or talked to in awhile and their reaction to my posts is usually something like, "OMG it looks like things are going SO GREAT for you!"

Well they ARE in many ways. I have worked really hard to be where I am today, right here, writing this blog. I also have some stuff I need to work on.

If you have a perfect life, relationship, job, house, body, etc, then you can just stop reading right here and enjoy this picture of Peyton in drag.


For everyone else - I am sure you can identify with me when you have thoughts or goals that you would like to see accomplished - and perhaps are sick of saying over and over, "I would like to...or I wish I had...such and such."

Lent is 40 days. In my 40 days, I have a couple goals and I am putting them out to the universe which makes them automatically more real than if I kept them floating around in my head.

1) I would like to learn something really well - to the point that it impresses people. 

  • Learn three facets of doll history REALLY well that I didn't know before. I want to learn the quirky stuff - so when I am doing my job as an appraiser and speaking on a subject, people might have light-bulbs go off because "I never knew that before!". 
  • I want to be able to talk on three subjects fluidly, without books or reference materials. This is a bigger and will require reading, retention, and commitment. To accomplish this, I will have to lay off a lot of my guilty pleasures like Daily Mail, Facebook (obvi) and reality television.
2) Lose the 8 lbs I have been dragging around since Christmas/Birthday/Miami. I know how to eat right, I know how to workout (by building it into my schedule), and I know the consistency it takes. Enough excuses. I had fun gaining those lbs - if you follow my Facebook page, then you got to see basically everything I ate. (It was glorious.)



I need to revisit in my mind when it is worth it and when I am just being irrational/bored/etc surrounding my health goals. Still knowing all the stuff, having seen a nutritionist monthly for 18 straight months, I have not been consistent since Thanksgiving 2014. I am hoping to use Lent to recommit and lose some unhealthy patterns that I have been sliding back into.

3) Send the ladder back down. I want to give back, help someone else out, and not tell anyone else about it. I have been given the ladder many times in my life and once you climb it, I firmly believe that it is your duty to send it back down. I don't know if it is going to be in the form of pro bono appraisals, working extra hours, helping a stranger, mentoring a friend, or giving money I earned to a great cause, I want to send the ladder back down and only I will know about it.

 (You are not the only one on the ladder.)

I will be blogging during my Facebook sabbatical so feel free to check in here to see what I am up to and I will be posting with how my goals are going.

What are your goals? If you have some things you are working on or towards, I would love to hear about them! Just sharing them "out loud" helps them manifest. If you are already working on something, awesome. If you want to start with me over Lent, GREAT. Let's get started!

There is ONE catch - your goals have to be something that gets you off the couch.




What are you going to DO?

Remember, you can make anything happen. You CAN do something SO WELL that is impresses people. Really, when you think about all the great things about yourself, can you name 5 things you can do really well and not just things you are (like nice, honest, etc). Being something is great but doing something is really important, too.

You don't have to take fancy cooking classes to learn to cook. Google it and watch some videos. You don't have to see a nutritionist or join a gym to meet your health goals. There is a wealth of information out there that you can access for free both online or in libraries. If I have accomplished or done something that you have wondered about or wanted to figure out for yourself, shoot me an email and lets chat about it!

Now, Danny, if you please - on Wednesday morning, feel free to start that slow clap. 

XO,
Rachel