The Meandering Thoughts of Jan

Weekends need to be longer.  This past weekend was splendid, if I do say so myself.  Here are a few things I did... After sleeping in on Saturday I woke up in the mood for something warm and delicious  (other than Danny, hehe) so I decided to make blueberry muffins, one of Danny's favorite.  I tried to make it a surprise, but since I rarely make breakfast, Danny was curious and caught me.  I may have posted this before, but here is the recipe I used. In the afternoon, we were invited to my nephew General J's birthday party.  This was a birthday of success!  You see, I'm not much of a gift giver.  It isn't one of my talents.  I don't usually give gifts unless there is some type of get-together involved.  I don't mean that in a rude way, I just don't usually think about it.  Anyway, General J told us a few weeks ago that all he wanted was a popgun.  You know, the old school toy gun with the cork in it so it pops. ...

So the purpose of this post is to share this article I came across today.  It is an interesting study concerning happiness.  I don't think this is the first time I've posted articles about this topic.  I just find it fascinating, since that is what everyone wants, right?  To be happy.  The author (who wrote a whole book about this stuff) talks about how often we put off happiness until a goal is reached, whether it is a relationship, a promotion, recognition, whatever we view as success.  When, in reality, his research shows this formula is backwards.  Success comes to those who are happy.  So to be successful, one needs cultivate happiness first.  It was a good reminder to be grateful for what I have and live in the moment more. In other news... I finished reading  The Hunger Games Trilogy last night, just in time for the first movie.  I'll do another post with a full book review, but just so you know those books were emotio...

I've been MIA recently because Danny and I went on a little Spring Break excursion to the land of California.  We went with my sister Michele and her husband Dan and had a blast.  Since pictures are worth a thousand words and there are a lot of pictures, that makes this one wordy post, meaning I don't need to say much more.  Enjoy! Whale Watching and Other Sea Creatures A little stingray going about his stingray business. Our boat for the mighty voyage. Michele gazing off into the distance. Dan and Michele rocking the boat.  Ok, not really. Me and the husband on a three hour tour... A dolphin and the dolphin whisperer. The dolphins swam right next to our boat! This was my favorite part of the whole whale watching tour we went on. Sisters! It is kind of hard to see, but that is a gray whale in the ocean.  Whales are a little camera shy. Sea lions living the life of sea lion luxury. My picturesque picture. ...

In a effort to make our apartment more "spring-y" I ventured into the world of creating tissue flowers.  I've seen tutorials all over pinterest and it didn't look too hard.  I used this tutorial , which is actually for crepe flowers, but I modified the directions.  I used the peony template found on the website.  I found the green wooden sticks at the craft store. I added a little bit of a cotton ball to the top of the wooden stick and covered it with orange tissue paper and taped it down using floral tape at the base of the orange tissue paper for the stamen.  I did this before I started adding the petals.  I cut out the petals from the tissue paper (about 35 of them) and then kind of scrunched/twisted the bottom of each petal and used floral tape and wrapped it around the stick adding the petals one by one in layers.  I learned a few things:  a. tissue flowers take longer to make than one expects; however the amount of time wasn't a h...

This past weekend was so great in many ways. We had a really chill weekend sleeping in and eating. We spent some time with family and I got a few things done which I have been meaning to do. First off, Danny and I have been on a smoothie kick lately.  Unfortunately the smoothie cravings only occur after 10pm at night.  This is unfortunate because our blender is really loud and we share walls with other people since we live in an apartment.  We are pretty sure our neighbors weren't too fond of us this weekend, but when you've got to have a smoothie, what can you do?  Don't worry, Danny and I raised our smoothie cups in an apology toast to these neighbors, so I think that made it ok. Danny, the smoothie machine...well actually the blender is the smoothie machine, but you know what I mean. This weekend we also met our newest baby nephew.  Yay, so many nephews!  We went to Mark and JanaRae's house and hung out with their family.  Little Ba...

Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday meaning it's a day to commemorate all those wacky rhymes and stories brought to us by the fabulous Dr. Seuss.  In remembrance of this day, I thought I would share this list of Dr. Seuss quotes that I found online.  He shared some great wisdom in his books.  I hope you have a chance to eat green eggs and ham today or at least read your favorite Dr. Seuss book.  My favorite book  is Oh, the Places You'll Go!   It's an inspiring one. What's your favorite?