Feeling Fabulous!!

Thank you Deb!

I'm feeling Fabulous and in OnE day

I will be 50 AnD Fabulous!

Deb the Lavender Chick has given me my first bloggy birthday present! Thank you so much! I love it!

So here are the rules: Copy and paste the rules and instructions in your post. When posting on receiving the award, make sure you include who gave you the award and link it back to them. Post five winners and link back to them as well. Post FIVE of your addictions. Add the award image. Let your winners know you gave them an award by leaving them a comment on their blog.

Here are my five addictions...in no particular order:

1. Sweets!~I love sugar in my tea, cream and sugar in my coffee and something sweet after lunch and dinner. M&M's or a butterfinger in the afternoon around 3pm is a must!

2. Pepsi~Coke will not do it. If I have a soda...it's gotta be Pepsi.

3. Hairspray~I gotta have it to make my fabulous hair stay in place. Ask my family.

4. Purses~when I found Kathy Van Zeeland purses, I was hooked. I never pay more than $100. I look at the fashion trends and find purses at Target, Marshalls, Ross, TJ Maxx or Macy's. I love a good buy on a purse.

5. My camera and taking photographs~With digital photography, I now take and save so many pictures of everything but especially my family. I nicknamed my self paparrazzi grandma because I have the camera out every time my grandchildren are around. I also study other photography blogs to learn how to take better pictures.

6. I almost forgot blogging...so had to add #6!

Now here are the Five Fabulous over Fifty bloggers I am passing this on to in celebration of my fabulous 50th tomorrow:

1. A new blog I've enjoyed is A Hint of Home. Please go over and check her out and tell her Connie sent you!

2. Another brand new blog I have enjoyed is Just A Little Something For You. Judy is encouraging and shares the best recipes with pictures. I just want to make everything she posts. Her daughter is in Pastry school and her desserts are to die for! Remember I love sweets! Yep...those desserts are calling my name!

3. For my decorating inspiration I visit Rhoda at Southern Hospitality. She is an amazing decorator. She loves antique stores and garage sales too! I wish I had an ounce of her talent.

4. For some real fun, stop by and see Diane at A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words.

She hosts Trash to Treasure Tuesdays. Again, I wish I had some of her talent and ability to see something for what it could be!

5. My last Fabulous 50 blogger is Cindy at Consider It All Joy. She is an inspiration to me with all she's gone through and where she is today. I love her story about how she named her blog.

These women are a few of my Fabulous Friends over 50! Thanks girls for all your encouragement and I look forward to exploring the 50's with you.

I've been thinking of putting this blog to rest and start a new one now that I have hit the BIG 5-0 tomorrow. I will let ya know what I'm doing. It'll take me a little while to get it all up and running so stay tuned for something coming in the new year. Gotta do something FUN!!

It's a HOT Day!

I've finally caught up with my sleep and am feeling good.  Thanks for all your kind thoughts and encouragement.  Saturday I missed seeing this sweet little one.... because this is what I ran into and they closed the freeway just ahead of me.  Yes, one of the California fires.
So today, I enjoyed this little one who was Emily Elizabeth for Halloween and....
her brother who was Clifford.  Isn't he the cutest???
I'm jealous of all of you with the weather turning like this...
We are still experiencing 90 degree days.  I know I should not complain but after experiencing the fall weather in Chicago a month ago.  I want winter to come.  I had to change out of my jeans today at noon and put on my shorts because I was HOT!

Thank you to Kim at Nothing Can Separate Me for the creative blogger award.  I feel like I'm running out of interesting things to blog about and then I click back into reality and this is really just my journal of my last 6 months to my fabulous 50th birthday!  So it is...what it is and I thank those of you who stop by regularly and have become bloggy friends.  It's so special to get a response and I love reading all your blogs about your lives, your crazy thoughts and feelings and whatever pops into your head.  I am supposed to make of list of 10 things that make me happy so here they are!

1.  My family-Hubby, daughter, son#1 and son#2...my life is so much better because of you!

2.  My grandchildren-Bella, Dylan and Mason..such joy you bring to my life!  I love the smiles!

3.  A call from my mother telling me she's okay and she loves me.

4.  My mother coming for Christmas!

5.  A lazy day sipping hot coffee or tea and snuggling in a soft blanket.

6.  Sitting on the beach watching the waves and the people.

7.  Coming home to a clean house.

8.  Cookies baking in the oven.

9.  A great photo that I took that just pops off the page!

10.  Good friends to spend time with.

Now I pass this on to.....Linda at 2nd Cup of Coffee, Heidi at the Zawisza Tribune and Denise at The "Cent"sible Sawyer.  I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do!

Connie

Another Award

I'm having some bloggy block like a few other bloggers I know so....hang in there with me.  I'm working on being a bit more creative.  Just been busy and too much going on in the brain that doesn't pertain to blogging.  So I received an award...

Brandee at the Berry's Patch gave me the BFF (Blogging Friends Forever) GOLD card!  Thank you Brandee for making blogging so much fun and becoming a bloggy friend.  I have enjoyed the last few months meeting so many nice people all across the United States and abroad.  

The following are a couple BFF's that make blogging enjoyable:

1.  Debbie at Dishing with Debbie-She is funny!

2. Kim at Seasons of My Heart-Happy Birthday!!!!

3. Laura at The Well Blog-Such a sweet spirit!

4.  A new friend-Sue at the Cotton Patch-Being a Grandma is great!

5.  Another new friend-Lavender Chick-Love her life in the country!

Please pass this on to your BFF's and enjoy a Gold card that you don't have to make payments on each month except to keep making comments on your BFF's blogs.  Isn't blogging fun?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Behind Those Eyes-Ms. Happiness & An Award!

I feel good and back to myself for the most part after surgery two weeks ago. Just have to watch the sleeping in thing...caught myself still in bed at 9am the other day and scared myself when I woke up!! Good thing I had nowhere to be that morning. :) You can get away with it when you have NO children at home and a hubby who heads off to work early everyday. :)

I'm late with my online bible study...Say Yes to God hosted by Lelia at Write From the Heart. We are studying the book "Behind Those Eyes" by Lisa Whittle. Lisa even joins us and gives us encouragment. If you'd like to join or read the insight of others doing the study...you can check it all out at Lelia's site here!

Chapter 4: Ms. Happiness

This was a hard chapter for me to write something down about.  I've started a couple times.

On page 59, Lisa writes~A lot of things can make us feel happy for a time.  But a lot of things can also let us down almost as quickly as they perked up up.  I can relate to that.  It happens daily that we let little things make us happy for a time.  I don't think I've relied on things or people really to make me happy.   I've been a pretty content person most of my life and look at the positive side of things.  I am a pretty happy person.  I attribute that to being a child of God and holding very high morals. (Sometimes to the detriment of missing out on a bit of fun!)  I became a believer in Junior High and rededicated my life to the Lord as a senior in high school.  I married a believer and we were blessed to sit under one of the godliest pastors I have ever known and I grew in my faith.  We have always been involved in our church, yearned for that deeper walk with HIM and for the most part have relied on the Lord for his care of us.  We have not had an easy 30 years of married life but we work at it.  We always come back together and focus on what God's word says.  I would have to say I have never focused on being HAPPY.  I have put on the mask of happiness when I wasn't for a period of time.

Lisa also writes that the true and lasting source of our joy that fills our hearts and overflows into the paths of those around us.  When we go to the real source of joy, we find the answers we need to secure our contentment in life forever.  I took to heart this verse long ago when I was at a ladies bible study.  I actually put the verse in my husband's lunch and he quit his job the next day to start his own business.  It is:  Philippians 4:11-13~Not that I speak from want:  for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  I know how to get along with humble means and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.  I can do all things through HIM who strengthens me.  

I took this verse to heart and it has helped me through each and every circumstance.

I take Lisa's prayer to heart as well...it is my prayer today.

Father God, we are women who desire to find joy, fulfillment, and peace in life.  We know that only You can provide these things.  But we admit we have sought other sources to make us happy, and they have only brought us temporary feelings of fulfillment.  You are our joy, and we seek YOU as our only way to be the happy women we want to be.  In Jesus' name.  AMEN.

This week I received my first bloggy award from Heidi. which just happens to fall in line with our Ms. Happiness chapter above because they give you that happy feeling for a short time. This reward requires you to name six things that make you happy! You will need to check out her blog when you want a laugh(go potty first if you are over 45!) or to see the cutest kiddos in Georgia!

Six things that make me happy:

1. My family~hubby, children and grandchildren

2. Sitting on the beach reading a magazine and listening to the ocean.

3. Looking at picture albums~I love looking at pictures!!! I also love taking pictures and sharing them with friends and family.

4. Learning something new from the Bible and applying it to my life. It gives me peace, joy and happiness.

5. Knowing that my children know the Lord and have grown up to be responsible adults attempting to make it on their own. I am proud of each of them!

Thanks for the award Heidi.  Please go here for a good laugh and here is another one and here one more.  You can also read about her precious son and daughter and her crazy husband who makes her laugh and makes her happy most of the time.  I'm supposed to link to 6 other blogs that make me happy but I've run out of time.  I've gotta get to bed as we leave for Chicago tomorrow and I still have to pack and get my nails done!  So Debbie, Nina Diane, Brandee, Carol, Carrie(Buzzings of a Queen Bee) and anyone else who reads my blog and comments, feel free to enjoy the award courtesy of me.  I'm off to bed...it's 1:20am!  I can't sleep in tomorrow!