A great great great Christmas

Christmas has passed and I cannot believe it is gone. To me this season did not feel like Christmas at all and I wish that it was still coming, but since I cannot stop time I can only remember the season and plan for the following. To me this sounds really odd because I am not a huge fan of Christmas. I love decorating, the real meaning of Christmas, and giving more than receiving but I just don't think of Christmas as one of my favorite holidays. It is by far one of my favorites in regards to tradition (blogged about this last year) This year I want to describe some of the gifts I received. I spend all year working on Christmas gifts or at least gathering ideas for family and friends and I try to put a lot of effort into what I make or what I come up with. My two young sisters mentioned some items through out the year so I jotted some notes down and got them some items that reminded them of either what they are currently involved in or their childhood. As for some of my friends and family I made them more personal items, but back to what I received. For the past two years I have asked Santa (yes I still "Believe" look for a future post regarding this) for a Crayola Magic Glow Dome, I am a kid at heart and some toys still make me excited. Well finally I actually received the Glow Dome instead of an IOU. I was so excited to get it and color on it. The second gift I received was from my mom, she made my brother and two sisters each a cookbook. She has been trying to come up with the concept for years and she was finally able to create one and I absolutely love it. I was so excited to get that I have already put a lot of recipes I have been hanging onto in the cookbook. Now all I need is my own kitchen to use it in. The last gift I want to talk about was also made by mom and it was definitely an emotional and sentimental gift. In early November, my grandfather (mom's dad) passed away. One thing that we always remember about him is what he wore, he always wore a flannel shirt. So my mom asked my grandmother for some of my grandfather's shirts and she made us each a pillow out of them. It is weird to think of my grandfather as gone but there are still times when all the sudden were caught up in the moment and the tears start to flow. It is definitely a gift that I will be keeping forever.

Guest Blogger of the week!!!

This week I was honored to be the guest blogger of the week for Flying Horse Farms. I know I have already blogged once on here regarding my experience there but here is the new one, enjoy :) Volunteering at camp: How to describe the indescribable When anyone asks me about Flying Horse Farms and the experience I had at camp, I can only say one thing: it’s indescribable. I knew I was going to have a great experience when I drove through the gates this summer for a hematology/oncology week. But I couldn’t have imagined everything I felt and still feel today about camp. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about camp and all the amazing people I met there: from the medical staff to the grounds crew, the Alcoa fellows, the volunteers, and definitely to the children. Beyond a doubt, I was changed forever. And one story in particular showed me why this place is so magical. For the first half of the week, one of the younger boy campers struggled with homesickness. Even though I was an activities counselor, not one of his cabin counselors, the cabin adopted me early on. So I spent a lot of time with them and noticed that whenever he was kept busy he was always having fun. So his counselors and I did our best to get his mind away from being at home and keep him occupied so he would have a great time. His homesickness started to fade around day three and he started having a noticeably better time. It was amazing to see his transformation from a camper struggling and wanting to leave to one who began volunteering for games and wanted to participate. At the last campfire of the week, we all wrote wishes on our wish sticks. I wished for more times like this (the ones that most definitely make us feel human). The formerly homesick boy sat next to me and scribbled on his stick. When he finished, he showed me what he’d written. It said: “for all the kids to get better.” While you’re at Flying Horse Farms you sometimes forget the challenges these campers face in their daily lives. After all, they look like any other child walking down the street. So when I read his wish stick it struck me: camp actually gave these kids a week of freedom. Freedom from the hospital, the doctors, the “how are you feeling” questions, things that I don’t always think about because I don’t experience them on a daily basis. Through Flying Horse Farms we let kids have fun, be creative, dream, imagine, and hope. But most important of all, we let them be kids. Guest Blogger Amanda Ghiloni is a program volunteer at Flying Horse Farms.

10 States in 2 Weeks

For a few weeks in November I was a travel monkey! I visited or traveled through ten different states. Why? Well the first trip was to Providence, RI for the AOTA Student Conclave and two other ladies and I drove. The second was to tailgate for the Michigan vs. Ohio State game (I am for Michigan). On our way to Rhode Island we traveled through 9 states: Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. Wondering why that is only 7 states and not nine, well on our way home we went through Massachusetts for like 10 minutes and then we decided to take a detour (mainly on accident) and ended up in Delaware. So there are nine states and the tenth was to Michigan 2 weeks later. Definitely had an amazing time in all of these states and traveling!

""Quads""

For the past 24 and a half years I have been very fortunate to say that I have both sets of grandparents and one great grandparent in my life. Yesterday though, I lost my first grandparent, my grandfather on my mom's side. I always felt bad when talking with friends about our families and seeing their faces when I told them that I had 5 grandparents still living. Many were "jealous" (not really jealous but always commented at how lucky I was). I know I was lucky, I was able to make some great memories with my grandparents and I would not change that for the world. It is very surreal to think that now I only have four but the past couple of days I have been hoping and praying that when I have children or my siblings have children they will be just as fortunate as I and my siblings and cousins are. My grandfather was a great man in his own way, he served in the Navy and worked for the local newspaper for years (probably the better half of my childhood). He also was a mechanic on the side and loved to help anyone and everyone with their car. I always remember going over to his house as a kid and he would be underneath the hood of someone's car tinkering away. He always played with us when we were over at his house and he always called me Mandy (which no one ever called me because according to my mom that was not my name). The past few years were rough with my grandfather, but we still spent a great amount of time with him and my grandmother cherishing every extra holiday we got with them. This coming Friday on 11/11/11, they would have been married 50 years. It is amazing to think about today's society and look back at my grandparents. Both sets have had their trials and tribulations, but they both have survived them (both sets of my grandparents saw 50 years of marriage to the same person). Who can say that now? I hope that when I find the one I marry, that I will be able to be married for 50 years and look at my kids and grand kids and say well done, just like I know my grandfather did to my grandmother. So in honor of my grandpa instead of saying "deuces," I say ""quads."" I love and will miss you!

Being Carried

I am extremely busy right now and have had to really structure my time to get everything done. My amateur photography business is going well and I am constantly either snapping photos or editing them. I also am in the middle of a quarter for my OTA program and it is absolutely crazy. I thought they were trying to kill us the first year and now I know that is so not what they are really preparing us for. On top of school and my business I am also considered a head teacher in my classroom at the daycare I teach at. I share the responsibilities with another teacher and I have been super busy preparing for our Halloween Party. My brother is also getting married this weekend and I am planning a trip to Rhode Island for the AOTA Student Conclave in November. So yeah, my life is BUSY!! However, this past Sunday while attending church I knew the sermon was going to be important because I actually fully listened to what the pastor was saying. Usually going to church I sit there and look through my planner or watch things around me (it's not that I don't like going to church, because I do but sometimes just being there makes me feel better). Anyways, I knew this week was going to be important because I read the verse (silently) along with the pastor and really payed attention to what he was saying. The title of the sermon was "God's Chisel" and the verse we read was Ephesians 2:1-10 "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Following the reading we watched a video that portrayed a man talking to God. God appears to him to explain the Ephesians bible verse. He does this by "chiseling" all the bad away from man to create his masterpiece. This movie really stuck to me because at the end the man says to God "I have let you down" and God replies "No you didn't, you never carried me. It is I who carried you." I have known this all my life, but I can't even count how many times I have felt like I have let God down myself, never once did it dawn on me that I never carried him but he carried me. I think about this all the time and it is definitely something to consider. If interested check out the video here: http://youtu.be/AhfUzodLRvk

Pinterest

I have found a new obsession and I cannot stop looking at this website. It is called Pinterest.com and it is a website that allows you to "pin" things that you like and save them to a board so you can keep them all in one place and won't forget when you saw it and what it was. The boards can be set up into categories like style, crafts, photography, and quotes. It is great and I have found so many great ideas on it. You do need to be invited to the website so interested comment me and I will send you an invite. Pinterest.com

It's Picnik not Picnic

First off I would like to say Happy October! I love October and I am so excited for it to be fall here in Ohio. Now back to the reason for the title and the new post, I do amateur photography on the side (in between school and work) and Picnik is my saving grace for photo editing! I love it and it is so easy to use. I don't need all the crazy programs on my computer, I simply log into the website, upload my photos, and edit how I wish. It is great and I have to brag about it. There is a free version and a subscribe version, only $25.00 a year for unlimited access to the website! If you have never tried Picnik go to www.picnik.com to try, it's definitely worth it.