One of my favorite things that happened this past year, was finding a nest of cardinal eggs! I got to watch them hatch, grow, and fly away. One day, I came home from work to find that they were all gone! I was so depressed! About an hour later, I was on a float in the pool, while my husband was in the yard working on something. We suddenly saw the dad cardinal flying low alongside a baby bird learning to fly! They few over Ken, and then we were all mortified when the baby cardinal crash landed face down in the pool! The dad bird was clearly upset but couldn’t do anything but look on so I jumped over to the baby and fished him out of the water. He was too wet to try to fly, and in my opinion didn’t have enough feathers yet in the first place to be able to fly well.
He sat on my finger as I was letting him dry off. I ended up putting him in a birdcage overnight since it got dark outside and he couldn’t fly. The next morning, I put him by the bird feeder. When his dad came back and saw him, he chirped with happiness that his son was ok! “Splash” as we called him…was able to fly higher into a tree behind his dad that next morning! They all still live in the treeline behind out house, still frequent the feeders and bird bathes… and I still whistle at them like a kooky old woman.
I am super proud of my years of work I have done for our tennis empire. If you knew me you’d know that I use the term empire for all of my side ventures. It’s hilarious. Anyway, years ago, I convinced my husband to start teaching tennis professionally and supported that vision with any marketing. web building, and planning that I could do. He had represented the country of Peru as a youth in tennis, and had always played since. He understood that if a child did not have parents who supported a child’s ambitions and dreams…they would lose hope and focus. Ken fell through the cracks as a youth so children are important to him because he sees himself in each child. The kids who have the parents who are present will do better and have more direction that those with embattled home lives. Even if a child does not want to compete, but prefers to play for fun…that still keeps them out of the front of a computer wasting time on video game addiction. He also has adult groups but children have a special place in his heart.
I love this photo because he stood still for 30 seconds to allow me to take a photo in the 2019 KS Tennis USA t-shirts!
When we moved in 3 years ago, I had noticed that our back yard had a bit too much concrete for my taste. I am always trying to think of ways to create a more lush, cabana style poolside presentation. I was determined to stick with cabana style stripes for the patio and absolutely love the way it turned out. I spend a lot of time outside and this is my special spot we created this past summer.
In Native American Culture, everything is connected. Everyone and everything is linked between each other. Thus, people are connected to animals, to the earth, and to the sky. I am connected to this animal to an unhealthy degree. If she were a person,she would be me. If I were a dog, I would be her. We are both dominant and controlling when needed but can be passive if it’s not important. She is measured in her decision making. No, seriously. She keeps herself from murdering mean little Bella almost daily. When she has a concern, she stares into my eyes searching for answers. In heaven, I will be the one with animals and birds all over. Dear God I truly hope they will all be able to speak so they know how much I love them! In the meantime, I have my earthy spirit animal.
We do not go out at night. We may go eat dinner, but we love being home. Lately, we decided to live our best life…so we go outside, turn on the lights, a fire, music and possibly sip champagne. While there is a hook up already for a flat screen…we really do not want one. The idea for us is to unplug, talk, and enjoy nature. There was a scary thing creeping along the fence the other night, but we just hoped the dogs didn’t see it so we could sit peacefully in the quiet!
I am tired of myself, so I recruited a friend to come over and show off her swim collection items from Johnny Was The Woodlands! Plus, if I was in a bikini, my company may call me and beg me not to publicly devalue their swim suits with my body! I hope to have more friends in my blog pages some time over this next year!
I love it when we get a cute shot that’s actually in focus and the clothing looks as nice as it does in person! I wear a lot of Johnny Was embroidered items and lately I just decided to keep being me. I look like exactly no other blogger. I would probably be more successful if I did. I just want to be me so I can be comfortable in my own skin. There isn’t a handbook for turning 50. There are articles on how you should present yourself. All of the ones I have read are pretty weak. Clearly you shouldn’t wear gold stilettos with denim mini skirts but pretty much nobody should. My feeling is that a bit more effort needs to be put in when you are older because whoever you are…you are not as beach wave-lip gloss-tank top cute at 50 as you were at 25. Prove me wrong.
I love this picture because it was from a nice summer day with good memories. It was 900 degrees but it’s Texas. I think it’s a fun challenge to take photos without my face in every picture so I love it when he takes a cute faceless one.
Wyoming was never on my bucket list. At the last minute, it became too much work and stress to plan a trip to Italy… so we changed our plans at the last minute! I must say…it was life changing. There was so much beautiful nature. Untouched. There is a reason people have bought up all the land and celebrities are keeping homes there. It felt like Old America. Clean and fresh. We drove through the entire state and there were hours of hours of free range. It was eye opening. It made me realized even more…that is the way we should be living – not crammed on top of each other in cities.
We ended up going to Yellowstone two days in a row. The park was basically closed the first day, and we probably shouldn’t have been there. It was quite the adventure because there was no cell reception, so the Map App wouldn’t work! We drove around basically lost and enjoyed our time together. We had to go back the next day because we had never found Old Faithful so we couldn’t live with ourselves going all that way yet not getting to experience that! The elevation was 9,000 feet and I got terribly ill and freakishly bloated! Other than that…I got to see amazing American country and wildlife and will never forget the beauty we experienced.
The holidays were easy this year. We didn’t see a lot of family or friends but instead focused on togetherness and not making things harder than they needed to be. In that respect, we agree that we had the best Holiday season in a long time!
I absolutely love packaging up my Bosscat lashes when I get to ship out orders of them to clients! I take tons of photos for the website or Instagram and end up throwing out most, but this one really shows the joy it brings when I get to work on my business! When people specify that they are for a direct mailed gift…I put even more effort into gift wrapping!
