Saying Goodbye to My Birthday Month

I try to make most of the year about everyone else. I really do. I'm more than happy to celebrate people's birthdays and accomplishments, to attend their events, to show my support. But I claim August for myself. I occasionally share, and I only make people celebrate for a week, even if I celebrate all month long, so I really think I am being more than reasonable. Just a little Tania-time can go a long way. You know what? Everyone cooperates. That is how awesome my family and friends are - they don't question my over-inflated birthday ego, they just roll with it. As much as I already love them, for that I love them even more.

Someone commented this year that I love the attention. I do, but not in the way you might think. What I love is being surrounded by love. For every birthday greeting I receive, every cake someone bakes me, every phone call, every email, every text message, and of course every gift, what I feel is an overwhelming sense that people, the people most dear to my heart, care. It's not something you necessarily get the rest of the year - we're all busy with our own lives and it's easy to overlook the people we love most. But on my birthday, when people take time out of their day to remember me for no other reason that that I exist, I can literally feel just how blessed I am to have them all in my lives.

This year Mom surprised me with a gift at the beginning of the month. I was so shocked that I'm not sure she got the reaction she was looking for, so I want it stated here for the record - Thank you, I'm really touched by your thoughtfulness, Mom.

On my actual birthday I walked into work to find... a cake on my desk! My friend and co-worker had it baked especially for me, so we had an inpromptu party in the afternoon. We had some very happy teams, that was a delicious cake. Another co-worker took me to lunch at Pesos, which I love. And now I have a shopping trip at BassPro awaiting me!

In the evening, after work and an airport run, Mom and Lisa had a party for me at their house. And Tabatha made me a cake!! Isn't it awesome?!

Although I'm still celebrating my base age of 25, they put some other kind of configuration of candles to represent what they call my "age of truth." Whatever. Age is just an equation. 25+14, wahoo!

There were gifts, too, which were super-awesome. Mom got me a chainsaw! OK, it's a portable chainsaw, but it is so cool!

And even a game of real scrabble, after months of Words With Friends.

I have no complaints, my peeps are the most awesome peeps in the world. Thanks for the fun birthday!

Stop. Getting. Injured!

Look, I know that getting injured comes naturally to our family. I am constantly hitting my toes on one thing or another anytime I forget to wear slippers for even 5 minutes. I get that it's hard to avoid. But the sheer volume of serious injuries in our family this year are starting to get me down. First Trinity broke her wrist, then Dad's knee, then Trevor with his burn scare, it's just been quite ridiculous, even for us. And now Nicole has her foot in a boot and Dad's knee had a flare up.

Nicole is on fire with her impromptu acrobatics lately. She is always doing handstands and cartwheels, and even has her youngest son joining the act. A recent failed attempt left her in even more pain that she apparantly has been in the month since originally (and secretly) injuring her foot. Enough pain that she finally admitted there was a problem and went to visit the doctor, where she told him not to give her any bad news. On the up side it isn't broken, but there was bad news to be had - she has a level 2 sprain. That means No Zumba. The amount of time is sketchy - the doctor told her what might have been 2 or 3 weeks, which she has interpreted as 2, and I personnaly think 5 is more appropriate.

My sister thinks I am being very unsympathetic to her plight, and that the boot is overkill. This is a girl that's been in pain for a month, didn't tell anyone about it, and continued doing 7 Zumba classes per week on a sprained ankle. Anything less than chains on her leg is too light a deterrant. I'm sure the doctor at least momentarily considered a full body cast. She didn't even give herself 24 hours to get used to wearing the boot before she was clamoring for its removal. Aye Carramba! This girl! I told her she needed to get used to it, and she responded that she didn't want to get used to sitting on her arse. (She wants me to tell you she used the word butt instead, but she didn't.) I told her: "If you didn't spend so much time on your head, you wouldn't have to get used to sitting on your arse." Someone tie the girl down!

Dad's knee swelled up earlier this week and that was quite a concern, but luckily he seems to be on the mend once again. He was impressively well-behaved as a patient during his stint in physical therapy earlier this year, but the bottom line is we never want to have to go through that again! I need my Dad well, and able to travel. We haven't been able to go anywhere together this year, which is not the norm.

I'll wrap up this post with layouts of each of them, during less injury-prone days:

Nicole has recently taken up archery, which opens a whole new line of superhero possibilities for her (or at least Olympic chances):

And here's Dad and I on our trip to Boston a few years ago:

That's it for today - happy scrapping!

When the Stars Align

Sometimes things just come together - running into your best friend at the store, finding out you have enough food to feed the extra person that shows up at your dinner table unannounced, picking up a new scrapbook kit that matches an old photo still waiting to be scrapped... It always feels so good to have things work out in a world where often you miss the boat by mere seconds.

I picked up these new templates from Katie the Scrapbook Lady, who is now selling amazing templates via her blog store. Then I remembered I had the perfect papers and embellishments hidden away on my external drive to match up with photos I'd taken at Universal Studios' Islands of Adventures on Spring Break. And wa-la, thank my lucky stars I have a layout I love - Sheer Seuss!:

Next I worked with Julie Mead's newest scrap kit A Linen Curiousity and a few pictures we took of our niece over the sumer. Ooh La La!

And finally, my last share for today is a layout I put together last week for Sus Designs' new 20/20 Vision kit, about my niece's goal to get herself into contacts, and soon:

Disclaimer: The kits from Julie Mead and Sus Designs can be found at E-Scape and Scrap, and were provided to me for free in exchange for layouts, as a part of my role on their Creative Team.

Life After 50 Hikes

Life After 50 Hikes is good! Selecting whichever trail I want from hundreds of possibilities, hitting the road and scouting out new locations, finding interesting places along the way... and apparantly forgetting everything I learned as a hiker during my first 50 hikes.

This past weekend Mom and Tabatha joined me for a Saturday hike. I chose Lake Louisa State Park, which I had seen on the way to another Clermont hike, Crooked River Preserve, last year with Lisa and Trevor. I figured we'd stop at Showcase of Citrus afterwards for ice cream, and I would be able to sneak in a visit to the Lakeridge Winery to satisfy my craving for pure Muscadine grape juice. I told them we'd be hiking in the open, no forest, so they could wear shorts.

Lake Louisa State Park is a beautiful place, boasting a variety of terrains criss-crossed with miles of both marked and unmarked trails. It also has plenty of forest.

We started our hike at 11 AM, parking near Dixie Lake and crossing the street to one of many trailheads we saw along the paved road. I left the bottled water in the cooler in the car. The temperature was already in the high-80's. We stepped into the cool forest, without bug spray. I had an air horn for the bears, but I didn't bring trekking poles to fend off the wild boars. I was wearing jeans, but everyone else was in shorts. I didn't turn on my GPS tracking, and proceeded to wind us in and out of trails with little care for a linear track. And the only snack in my bag was a single protein bar.

I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that 30 minutes later we were hot, thirsty, swatting away mosquitoes and standing 10 feet from a coiled snake that I had almost stepped on while paying more attention to the recent rooting of wild boars than the path my feet were walking along. What, that doesn't sound like fun to you? Honestly - that's what I love. Not the not being prepared part - I usually pride myself on being prepared (and I did have my first aid kit, multi-function tool and pen and paper in my pack). But I love the excitement of the unknown. I don't allow a whole lot of unknown in my day-to-day life, but I can't stop it out there in the wild. The whole wild is somehow out of my control, and in a complete reversal of my very nature, I love it. I love that around the next bend there could be a beautiful meadow or an interestingly shaped tree or a piece of history that has survived salt and sand and hurricane-force winds to greet me on this day or an alligator who may or may not be waiting to take a bite out of my leg. I don't particularly love the spiders, but I respect their right to spin their webs (out of my intended path, of course).

In all it was a particularly satisfying day. I survived the snake, we tracked wild boar, we did not run into any bear, we hiked 4 miles that was mostly in the shade, and nobody passed out. Admission to the park was only $5 and the bathrooms were clean with showers available because of the camping facilities offered. Picnic tables and grills, a canoe launch, and many more miles of trails that we didn't cover, all make this place ideal for a return visit. We looked at the rental cabins and contemplated a family vacation next summer.

After leaving the park we did drop by the winery for my grape juice, and by La Fiesta Mexicana for a nice lunch/dinner to fill our stomachs. We topped the day off with a stop at Webb's Candy Shop, where we bought some chocolate and I had the chance to taste some desert wines made in St. Pete. Yum!

I Made It to 50!

50 hikes, that is! This weekend, in the company of Mom, Trevor and Trinity, I finished the last of the 50 hikes outlined in Sandra Friend's Guidebook "50 Hikes in Central Florida." And while some of them were admittedly harder than others, and on some of them we got quite lost (including this last one) and didn't exactly follow the trail laid out in the book, I'm still very satisfied with this accomplishment. Over the last 20 months I have:

• visited 50 places that I had never been before,
• discovered the joys of hiking in Florida,
• realized there are hundreds of hikes available in our surrounding area that can be explored as day trips,
• exposed my family to a world of outdoor fun nearly in our own backyard,
• pushed myself to physical challenges greater than reaching for the remote control,
• learned more about Florida's environment, wildlife, and history,
• glimpsed that wildlife in the form of fox squirrels, alligator turtles, gopher tortoises, alligators, deer, and even a not quite sighted Florida Black Bear,
• and become a more experienced (and safer) hiker.

I really am over the moon that I made my goal - perhaps not quite on my original aggressive timeline, but in a reasonable amount of time. So many people supported me in this endeavor, by hiking with me or by listening to my encounters after the fact - especially Mom, Dad, John, Lisa, Trevor, Trinity, Nicole, Dana, Logan, Libby and Bianca. In fact, of that list, only Nicole didn't actually make it onto a hike (but I know she wanted to be there). And now, before we move on to Life After 50 Hikes (did I mention there are over 600 trails in the State of Florida just waiting for me to discover them?!), let's look at a few more layouts from the hikes we completed.

Hike #6 - Lake Kissimmee State Park (broken up into 2 day hikes) - clicking on an image will take you to one of my galleries where you can view it larger and see the credits.

Hike #7 - Tibet-Butler Nature Preserve

Hike #8 - Hillsborough River State Park

Hike #9 - Lettuce Lake Park

Catching Up!

I've fallen behind on my scrappy goals all year (30 layouts per month was my goal), but as July draws to a close I find myself catching up, finally! If I keep going at this rate, I'll only be 5 short by the end of July and I'll be able to get ahead of myself in August! Ah, but there I go, already pushing my luck.

Here are a few of the layouts I finished this week:

Our nephew on vacation down by my dad this summer using the kit  Who Who Summer by The Busy Elf Designs.

My sister almost never gets in a picture, so I'm taking full advantage of all the candid shots I took of her on Memorial Day. Here she is with our other sister's oldest son. This layout was created using the kit - Seaside by GreenEyedLady Designs. The journaling is my take on the "conversation" between the two of them.

Thanks for looking!

Hike #5 - Split Oak Forest WEA

I guess it's been a long time since I shared a Hiking layout. With only 1 hike left on the 50 hikes goal, after 18 months of hiking, it's about time I try catching up. I've scrapped more than half my hikes now. Here's hike #5, which we completed while Lisa had a migraine and I learned how not to tell her the true distance of a hike. This is also the hike where we ran into a nudist, trudged through deep sand, and found a Split Oak tree.