30 Before 30 - CHARLESTON FRIENDS

30 Before 30  Charleston Friends

Ok, so one of my 30 Before 30 includes visiting friends in Charleston, but with the way things went for selling my house (which we AMAZINGLY have a contract for at the moment) and my birthday coming up this month, there is simply no time to really get away and go down to Charleston.  So I grew up in South Carolina and I was able to meeting wonderful friends that have last my lifetime, and my friend's moms have so to speak become my mom as well!  So this past weekend when I was in Richmond for a Reading Conference I was able to meet up with my friend, Nikki's mom and her husband Don, it was a magical time and I thought, since she always makes the think of home and my friends who are still down there.  I was so blessed that they came and picked me up from the hotel, WOW, Richmond is such a confusing place with all their one-way streets and places where they have terrible street signs that are no staggered and hard to see.  BLESSED is all I have to say on that matter!  We arrived at this awesome gem of a hotel, The Jefferson

When you arrive you are engrossed completely in the scenery, it absolutely breathtaking.  You are able to do a complete 360 while looking up and down and you will still be amazed at this hotel's beauty.  

So there is a nice restaurant inside the walls of The Jefferson Hotel and its name is Lemaire.  So I was definitely fine dinning, we had a two page menu with hot and cold small plates as well as the main dishes.  Mrs. Debi and I took some shots with each other during dinner to capture our fun times.  

Here is what the room looked like, however it was a lot more dark and we were sitting in the far corner!

For dessert Mrs. Debi and I split a Hot Chocolate Creme Brulee!  Ooh it was so tasty!  

After dinner we took another little stroll around the hotel stopping to do what we do best, take some pictures!  Look we even managed to match with our similar cut blue shirts!  

I had such an amazing evening spending time with my "extended" family.  I definitely need it after a long day at the conference.  

30 Before 30 - VOLUNTEER

So I had been close with the previous President of the Suffolk Reading Council, and we spoke about taking the council in new directions this coming year.  She was offered an amazing job close to where her husband had just accepted and an equally amazing opportunity up in Northern Virginia.  Although I was extremely happy for her I was sad because I didn't know where it left the council.  The council was almost completely dismissed by most.  However I went to my first Virginia Leadership Meeting in December of this past year.  WOW, what an amazing group of women, they certainly gave me some good advice and some really great starting points.  Within this organization there are some truly remarkable people who are wanting to make a difference in the literacy of tomorrow.

So, I am going to fast forward a bit and say at the beginning of it all there were a handful of members, yes I could count them all on one hand.  Now we are 33 strong and I would like to think that we are going to be growing with every event we hold.  We are going to grow to amazing heights!  Ok, COMPLETE optimist right here!  I am just so excited.

Ok, so this has been a year of me stepping outside of my shell.  I have been ready for a change but it has definitely come quietly to me.  I think I was ready to make a leap and my life at the moment is about me finding myself in the baby steps.  This may seem like all jibber jabber at the moment, but what I mean to say is that I wanted to just be able to step into the role of an "amazing leader".  However, that is just too big of a leap for me, since I am for the most part an introvert and a person who LOVES my personal time to sit and craft or read or listen to an audiobook just to have time to myself.  Now, I am loving the feeling of making an impact on a council I have been lucky to get involved with.  That being said I was put up for and volunteered to be the President-Elect for the Suffolk Reading Council and I couldn't be more excited.

Today I was able to be in a photo in our local newspaper for the work that our council did this past month with donating over 1,000 books so that kids in homeless shelters could have a book of their own as well as having lots of reading material for kids who may not have much to choose from.  I am very happy that our organization could donate to this cause!

Here is the photo for the paper.  If you click on it, it will link to the newspaper article.

Not the best picture, I will absolutely love the sun to come out and melt all this snow away and take away my pasty skin of winter!  But that's all for now!  Thanks for reading.

30 Before 30 - 30 Handwritten Letters

Ok - so one of my 30 before 30 was to send out 30 handwritten notes.  So after I got baptized I got to work and got 8 of these out right away!  YAHOO!  It was so easy to thank the people who were amazingly supportive of me and Mason.  So here are the first who I wrote to.
1.  Rev. Keith Emerson
2.  Natalie & Steve
3.  Kristen & Jeff
4.  Jill and her boys :)
5.  Connie
6.  Aunt Robin
7.  Mom and Al
8.  Dad and Carrilin

That same week I got a couple others in the mail.  I always miss my best friends. I haven't seen them in such a long time.  I sent them a little message and gift.  Hopefully it brightened their day.

9.  Nicole Larsen

10.  Catherine Yaw

So Suffolk Reading Council has been working on a book drive the first couple weeks in February.  There was a lady who did a wonderful job getting 300 books donated at her school so I decided to write her a note as well.

11.  Mrs. Harrell at Nansemond Parkway

My brother is across the sea, and even though we don't talk often I truly miss him just not being a phone call away.  I put together a little package for him for St. Patrick's Day, even though it doesn't seem like he will get it until after the fact, but I tried and I was able to write him a heartfelt note to let him know I care and that I am thinking of him.

12.  Sgt. William Hirsch

30 before 30 -Become Closer to GOD-

Ok - so one of my main goals was to become closer to God before my 30th Birthday!  I am so unsure of where to start with this post.  I will start with the fact that I have been going to St. Paul's on and off since meeting Bobby.  It is his childhood church home and where his mother still attended.  She sings in the church choir and loves everything that is about St. Pauls and the Episcopalian faith. 

I love the idea of family in the church and felt like I was completely excepted here and felt a sense of belonging.  What a relief since I did not feel like I was in the right place at any of the churches I had recently visited.  

So one afternoon after church I just felt it on my heart that I needed to know when I was baptized, so I texted my mother.  Come to find out I was not baptized, NEVER baptized.  I could not believe it!  I for sure thought this the end of the world, but quickly reassessed my situation.  The following week I spoke to the Priest at St. Paul's and talked to him of my concerns.  Before I got off of the phone with him we had a date set with him for the 15th of February.  Whew....I was relieved!  

On the day of Mason and I's baptism I was completely awestruck in the fact that I had so many of my friends there to share with me this time.  They filled up an entire pew, and I was completely grateful for their love and compassion that they showed us as we took this next step in our faith.  

Here are some of the pictures from that day!

Mr. Bedford (Mason's Sponsor) , Myself, Mason, Connie (mother in law and my Sponsor), and Rev. Keith Emerson

Us in front of the alter

One Happy Family!

So I am so glad to say I feel home with St. Paul's and feel content with my spiritual life.  Not that there isn't more work to be done and more learning to know, but I feel at peace that I am finally on the right path!  

.Grout Refresh. HOME PROJECT - Tile refinisher

Ok - so I have been desperately trying to sell my house for the past month!  YIKES, I am so ready to just have one house payment between my husband and I!  We have been doing some renovations to make it more "likable".  My body completely aches when I leave here and then I return to my own home and try to attempt the same thing at my own humble abode.  I will honestly say this doesn't always occur.  Renovations whip my tail especially since most of it has something to do with dust, dirt, or other things that likes to agitate my allergies.  YIKES!  So I am lucky I have my husband who is normally amazing when it comes to home repairs.  He however does not do so well going from a crouching or sitting stance to standing in succession. Hence my first project.  Dunndunnnannnnn.....GROUT REFRESH!  

This stuff is amazing for what it does on tile!  It was a little hard to enjoy this project since I did not have any hot water to rinse out my sponges with, but this is a great option if you don't want to completely re grout your tile or if it is starting to look a little dingy.  

I started this little journey by first watching this very same YouTube video.  

So here is my step by step pictures of this process.
Here is the before picture.  The grout for this tile was a little too dark for my taste and most of the taste of people coming in to look at the house.  So it has to go, see there are other projects going on as well with the caulk gun on the floor as well.

This is after I applied a bit of the tile refresh on a good sized section of tile in the front foyer.  It is kind of like just painting it onto the existing grout in your space.  I just didn't have a small paintbrush yours could look neater than this!

 The end product!  YAHOO!  There was a decent amount of bending over and then standing up to rinse out my sponge and dry cloth that I used.  I would recommend getting a sponge that has like a Brillo pad on one side and the spongy part on the other.  It made it easy to scrape off of the sides of the tile and then a dry or slightly damp cloth was useful to get get all the Refresh residue off of the tile.

 In all this was a relatively simple project that gave great results for very little money putting out.  I am glad I did this project.   In order to complete a 13 x 13 room it took me approximately 2 hours.  I did this technique in my front foyer, half bath, kitchen and formal dining room.  Hopefully this was helpful!  If you complete the project please leave feedback on things you might have done differently or pointers!

1st 30 before turning 30

Wow - only the first weekend in the new year and I have completed one off the list!

So number 30 can be crossed off the list!  Whew!  I was so blessed after receiving a text from my dear friend Natalie asking if Mr. Bedford and myself wanted to go up to Rosemont Winery for the day.  I of course jumped at the chance, and excited to be able to go with good friends.  

So Rosemont Winery is close to Lake Gaston, which our friends Jeff and Kristen go and visit often.  They are also part of the wine club down there, so they knew the ends and out and we carpooled with them. Here is an excerpt from their Website about the Winery.  

 The 450 acre Rosemont Estate has been in the Rose Family since 1858, with the home place actually dating back to the mid-1700’s. Over generations, our farming operations have included vegetable farming, a peach orchard, beef cattle, dairy farming and commodity crops such as hay, tobacco, corn and soybeans.

In 2003 we continued the journey as stewards of the land, planting over 32,000 grape vines across 22 acres. Construction of the Winery began in November of 2006, with a beautiful early American style building that houses a state of the art gravity-flow wine production facility underground and in 2007 we produced our first in-house vintage.

You’ll discover that we combine our knowledge of this land with modern winemaking techniques to produce premium handcrafted wines, all of which are 100% estate grown, produced and bottled on our estate. Being involved in every aspect of winemaking, from budbreak to harvest and bottling, allows us to produce wines of the greatest quality that showcase this great Virginia terroir. 

Some of our favorite wines here were...

So here is some of the fun we got into: 

Here are the couples! 

 

Meet Madison!  She loved to eat everything we were eating!!

 All of us in the barrel room!

Thanks for listening!  Hope I will have more to add sometime soon!!

My take on New Years Resolutions 2015 - 30 before 30

WOW- did 30 just sneak up on me or what?  I am going to turn 30 this year on APRIL 1st!  Oh my!  So instead of doing the whole resolution thing that I always NEVER stick to.  I decided to make my own list of things to accomplish before I turn 30.  So I've got 3 months to make this happen!

The 30 before 30 Challenge

In no particular order, here are the 30 things I would like to cross off my bucket list before I hit the big 3-0:

1. Read 3 books, 3 audio book and 3 ebooks.
2. Become closer to God.
3. Learn how to play the guitar, I bought one for Mason but there isn't any harm, right?
4. Visit friends in Charleston.
5. Write 30 handwritten notes.
6. Backpack somewhere… anywhere. Just backpack for at least 2 days/nights.
7. Participate in a 5K event.
8. Sew something for yourself!
9. Lose 10 lbs.
10. Complete 30 acts of random kindness.
11. Go to a restaurant alone. (I’ve been to the movies solo, however getting a full meal experience alone sounds daunting… but I’m up for the challenge!)
12. Write a will. (I know, I know… how morbid. But, you never know what can happen.)
13. Refinish a piece of furniture.
14. Establish a morning routine.
15. Complete 30 Pinterest projects (and review them for the blog, eh? Whether I’m a success or failure! ;]) 
16. Get a facial. 
17. Go on a girls only trip.  I'm going to need help with this one!
18. Write a children's book.
19. Make Creme Brulee from scratch - not the pre-made stuff.
20. Organize ALL my photos and crafting supplies!
21. Submit an article or essay into a magazine.
22. Volunteer
23. Take cooking classes.
24. Go on a random adventure.
25. Blog consistently (atleast one post per week :/ ).
26. Do a “cleanse” for one solid week. 
27. Become closer with one or more friends.
28. Have a real, fresh macaroon.
29. Print out and display more photos - really like to do a new gallery wall.
30. Go wine-tasting.

So that's my list - hopefully I'll be coming back soon to check some things off of the list!!  :)  If there is anything anybody would like to help me out with, that would be great as well!  The more the merrier.  Have a great 2015!