Dreaming: Grandma’s Gift

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Something was chasing me. It was fast, but not quite fast enough to catch me. It was probably some sort of zombie creature if I were to guess, because zombies are the things that make my blood run cold. The atmosphere was grey. What were once tall and majestic buildings were now piles of crumbling rubble. The gravel of the desolate city crunched beneath my boots.

I turned the corner and saw a lone structure still standing in the midst of the ruined city. It appeared to be a form of catacombs.

I ducked into the entrance to catch my breath. My heart was pounding. My pursuers were near.

Someone grabbed my arm.

I turned to scream, but it gurgled in my throat in recognition of the person who stood before me.

It was my grandmother, whom in life had passed away two years prior. I began to frantically ask her questions. “What was she doing here? Was she okay? What was I supposed to do?”

But she shook her head in response. She put her finger to her lips to summon me to be quiet.

Then she grabbed my elbow and began leading me further down into the catacombs. My head felt dizzy with exhilaration at seeing her again. The zombie creatures were almost forgotten.

We came to a dead end. A huge unyielding stone wall blocked our escape. I began to panic at the thought of being stuck down here trapped by the creatures who were surely on our trail. But again, my grandma shook her head. She inserted a key into a keyhole that I could not see into the wall. It twisted and turned and a small doorway opened. My grandmother gestured for me to go through the door.

I hurriedly did so. She followed me and locked the door behind us. The wall melted in upon itself and became whole once more. We were safe.

In fact, we were more than safe. We were in a new area. A new dream.

It was a dome-like structure covered in glass. It was bright and sunny although I could not see the sky nor anything outside of the dome. It raised above my head about thirty stories tall. There were no buildings inside of it. Just a giant tree that raised almost to the ceiling. I had a feeling that the dome grew tall as the tree did, so that the tree itself would never reach its top. I could hear birds chirping in its massive branches. The air was calm and cool.

I turned to my grandma.

She smiled at me. She led me to the edge of the grass and placed her hand at the small of my back. And then she pushed me gently.

I started to fall forward but instead of falling, I was caught in the air. Inside the dome I could fly. I wobbled at first, but soon I was taking experimental turns ten feet off of the ground. My grandmother’s face beamed up at me in delight. I soared higher, skimming the tree’s outstretched branches with my fingertips. The freedom and happiness bubbled up inside of me as I glided round and round inside of the dome.

The gift that she gave me in the dream was beautiful. The gift of the dream, itself, was even better.

Forever 21 Buy One Get One Sale

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Okay. I promised myself I would not do too many clothing posts. I wanted to commit to no more than two to three a week. I wanted to spend more time on funny stories, like the one shared today.. That is where my heart is. But darn these sales! They are messing up my rhythm! ; ). And, also, well, I love me some clothes. Especially clothes for a great price!

I got an email today about a sale Forever 21 is doing. Most of their sale clothes are buy one get one free, for a limited time. And guess what is still available, as of the time I posted this in every size (I bought a medium)?!

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My Forever 21 Utility Jacket that I love. It is currently on sale for $29.99. But if you buy something at a similar price, that would make both items $15! Man, that is a great price for this jacket!

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Sorry! I had to share! Be careful with sizing, because most of the items are nonreturnable!. To see more pictures of the jacket on this human, you can click here and here.

Tomorrow at 10:00 in the morning I will be posting about my Modcloth Stylish Surprises I received last week! : )

Have a great day!

Gnome Lover Turns 1 Giveaway! NOW CLOSED!

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This giveaway is now closed. Thank you for entering. Any entries received after the time of this writing (9:02 p.m. PST) will be deleted.

This little blog has turned one year old! I don’t even know that I changed one single diaper. In fact, I am not sure my husband did either. That is something to ponder and worry over at another date.

Gnome Lover is still just barely pulling itself up. In fact, I would say it might be in the crawling stage. It has a long way to go before it walks.

It has a lot to say. Most of it is gibberish. I am glad a few of you can understand it. Hopefully, it will become more coherent the older it gets.

I am so excited to watch it grow.

Diapers aside.

Today is a happy day! A goal accomplished! A birthday celebration!

Thank you to all of you readers who stop by everyday. Who encourage this little blog. Who take time to comment.

Thank you!

This blog would still be unable to lift its little head if it were not for you.

I am so excited about today’s giveaway!

I have been collecting stuff for this giveaway for months.

We’ll just call them birthday presents.

Are you ready to see what they are?

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I am giving away a group of items: one $25 e-gift card to Anthropologie, one West Elm Favorite Throw in grey stripes, one Clinique Chubby Stick in Richer Raisin, one Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara, one Anthropologie Heirloom necklace, one Anthropologie candle in Pumpkin Spice, and one copy of “The Magician’s Elephant.” All of these items will go to one lucky winner! These are all some of the items that I have shared on this blog over the last year. And I am so thrilled to be able to do such a big giveaway for my blog anniversary!

For such a big giveaway, you will get up to four chances to enter the drawing for the items.

First way to enter is to simply leave a comment stating your favorite birthday memory.* This is a birthday celebration, after all. If you do not celebrate birthdays, feel free to just leave a comment stating a fond childhood memory. My favorite birthday memory is when I turned eight and had my first slumber party. My dad was moving bees out of the state so my mother was all alone with about twelve of us girls in our house. And a mouse ran underneath our feet. And a rattlesnake had curled up in the dog food outside. I can still hear the screaming!…

Second way to enter is to be a follower of this blog. There are many ways to do so on the right hand side of the page. Just be sure to leave a second comment stating you are following on this post!

Third way to enter is to share this post via social media. This could be Facebook, Twitter, via your blog. Any old way will do. Just come back and leave an additional comment stating how you shared it.

Finally, you can pick any of my posts and Pin one to Pinterest. After you have pinned a post, just come back here to let me know which of my post’s you have pinned.

You can choose one of these methods or all of these methods. Just be sure to leave a comment here for each method. If you choose to do all four, then you should have four total comments here. Limit four entries per person. One entry per method per person.

Good luck!

I will be using random.org to pick one winner based on the comments posted here. This giveaway begins on March 10, 2014 at 12:00 a.m. PST and ends March 17, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. PST. I will contact the winner via email provided in the comments here on March 18, 2014. I will post the winner’s name on this blog on March 19, 2014.

Please enter this giveaway with a valid email address. I will attempt to contact the winner three times. If within fourteen days from the first time I have attempted contact, I still have not heard from the winner, the prize will be forfeit and a new winner will be drawn.

Thank you so much for all of your help raising this blog. I could not do it without you. You are the best. Just one more quick thing that has been bugging me since I started this post.

Um, have any of you been changing diapers? This one is gonna haunt me.

P.S. This giveaway is sponsored by me and is in no way affiliated with Anthropologie, West Elm, Benefit, Clinique or Candlewick Publishing.

* edited on March 10, 2014: if you forget to leave a birthday comment and just respond with a comment as your original entry, I am still counting it. As long as the comment left is nice. : )

The Lazy Mom’s Salad

Who knew? Who knew my kids would have a fondness for spinach? Certainly not me.

I did not try spinach until about five years ago. I was terrified of the stuff. Here is what I knew about spinach that prevented me from trying it:

When eaten your body would become grossly disfigured causing monstrous veiny muscles to spontaneously burst out upon your arms.

When cooked it would shrivel away into a slimy green paste that resembled nothing of its former self.

It is green.

So I stayed clear of spinach. No thank you. “Olive Oil go rescue yourself and stop being so annoying. And, no, I am not eating spinach. Especially to save you.” There I said it. Oh, you know you were thinking it.

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But I tried it as a salad. I loved it. It is so velvety and mild. I thought perhaps my children would love it, too.

And they did.

And they do.

More than me.

More than my husband.

More than Pop…

No, not more than him. Their bodies don’t combust for the stuff.

Thank God.

I won’t make a salad unless it is easy. Dinner is all ready so time consuming. Here is how I always make my salad, 3-4 times a week. We never get tired of it.

Ingredients:

5 – 6 oz. of prewashed baby spinach (best flavor I have found is Safeway or Vons O Organic) or prewashed romaine lettuce
1/3 cup Italian dressing (whichever is cheapest)
1/3 cup feta cheese

Optional for the less lazy:

Chopped red bell pepper
Chopped sun-dried tomatoes

Directions:

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Dump salad in a bowl. Sorry. Forgot to take a picture of it in the bowl. But here it is before that step. All innocent. It doesn’t even know what’s going to happen to it.

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Measure feta. Dump feta in the bowl.

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Measure Italian dressing. Dump the dressing in the bowl. Toss.

And try not use the word dump while you are cooking. Just a thought. A suggestion. Don’t take offense or poke my eye out! “A-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga!”

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That’s it. Three ingredients. If this salad could talk it would say, “I am what I am and that’s all that I am. Or all that’s in me.”

You could also dump (Sorry. Couldn’t resist) in the optional ingredients at this point. But be warned that most kids don’t like the extra ingredients.

Now go rescue Olive Oil take a nap. Cause that was exhausting.

“A-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga!”