Was I saying I had free time?

When I started this blog I felt like I had so much free time.  How quickly that has changed.  I am really busy at work and my personal life needs it's own 40-hour schedule these days too.

I am playing indoor soccer Monday nights.  It is a co-ed league with a couple of long time friends on the team and several new friends.  Our games are an hour-long and the sport, especially indoor is really good for staying in shape.  We've played three or four weeks already and each Monday night I come home and crash afterwards.

Tuesday night is soccer practice for the youth team I coach.  My high school friend, James and I have been coaching several seasons together.  We coached in high school and my niece Payton needed a coach a few seasons back so my sister Holly wrangled me in.  I called James out of the blue and he agreed to help coach too.  Neither of us have kids but both of us have played soccer for a long time and have enjoyed being a mentor to the little ones.  We played yesterday and won 6-1.  The kids were over the moon.  We snapped a photo yesterday at half-time. (James couldn't make it to the game)

My sister Jessica was home sick this week so I didn't play kickball with her Wednesday.  Thursday night I went to my Dad's to get go-karts set up for the weekend.  Luckily he does most of the work on the kart but he does need me to sit in the kart so he can make final adjustments.  It takes an hour or so and then we load everything up in the trailer so we can just pull right out on Saturday.

We had 8:30 games Saturday (my younger niece Logan plays too) and I had just enough time to come home, feed the dogs, change clothes and head to the track.  We ran at Volusia County Speedway which is about a 90-minute drive.  We both had good finishes and got back home at 11:00 last night.  

I woke up this morning, went back to my Dad's to clean-up from last night and finally got back home this afternoon.  Time to do some laundry, tidy up the house and get ready for another busy week.  

Lots going on at work next week, I have another model home to decorate, am being published in two local newspapers for some local home-building news and am headed to a friend's wedding for the weekend.  I bought my first new bathing suit for the season so I am hoping to find a few minutes over the next several weekends to lay by the pool and soak up some Florida sun.  It's been unusually cool so far this season so I am hoping with the new bathing-suit I can trick mother nature into giving us some tanning temperatures. :)     

Hello Book Worm

So I have been working on a side project in my spare time and have made enough progress to share with the world.  I am excited to show a peek.
My title is High Ambition in High Heels.  My target reader is the young professional female in her 20's to mid 30's.  It will be the first in a series of books filled with success tips based on the things I've learned along the way.  I am still working on edits for the front and back cover but this will show the overall look I decided on.

I used a company I found online, www.99designs.com.  I received more than 200 designs from artists all around the world and used a couple polls to get opinions from friends and family.  It was a fun process and I am pleased with how it came out. 

See ya at the bookstore! :)

  

Model home decorating: A little old, a little new

Working for a new home builder means building new model homes for visitors to tour.  We usually add a few new model homes each year and last month we finished the first new model home of 2013.
We owned some of the furniture and added some new pieces from Ashley Furniture.

The Adams Homes 2,430. 4 beds + 3 baths 

We owned everything in the guest bedrooms.  

The master bedroom is mostly new from Ashley Furniture.  

The formal living room is all new.  We opted for an upholstered bench instead of a traditional coffee table.  We owned the formal dining room set and added an accent wine rack to keep it modern.

Both seating areas ended up with new furniture and both got a neutral sofa with a mix of floral and striped pillows.  We chose an oatmeal colored sofa set but mixed and matched the end tables so it wasn't too matchy-matchy.  

We combined modern and traditional in the kitchen accessories to keep with the flow of the adjoining formal living room and family room.

I just ordered new furniture for a new model home in Sebastian and we'll be moving in the next couple of weeks.  I'll post some more pictures once we get it put together.

Dinner in a pinch: Grilled Cheese Slider

Have you ever met someone that can bake but not cook? Sad to say, I am one of those people.
My younger sisters seemed to have picked up cooking skills but somehow I missed out.  I started baking in my married life but have not yet found the confidence for a full on dinner.
My husband travels a good bit for work so I am often left to make my own dinner.  I am happy with a sandwich or a couple small side dishes and recently found a new spin on one of my favorites, the grilled cheese.
As it turns out I was out of sliced bread.  I recently started buying a package of slider rolls for dinner sandwiches so I decided to try them out for a grilled cheese.
Unlike some of my past experiments (attempting a grilled cheese with the toaster turned on it's side--total failure) this one worked.
I flipped the bread but other than that it was a grilled cheese as usual.

  

My favorite toppings with grilled cheese are ham or tomatoes.  The pictures shown above are with ham.

Bon Appetit!

A week of love, decorating and racing

I was happy to be home this week after being out of town the last few weekends.  The temps have really dropped the last few days so we are enjoying cooler weather like the rest of the country.
Simon was out of town for Valentine's Day so I had an unconventional celebration this year.  My youngest sister Jessica was really sweet and surprised me with some flowers, candy and a card and then I spent the evening with my sister Holly, my brother-in-law Kyle and my twin nieces Logan and Taylor.  They treated me to a delicious steak dinner and showered me with kisses.

  

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were really busy at work.  We just finished a new model home and have a grand opening in just a couple days.  With a condensed schedule it means we have to hustle to get everything done.  I had four different deliveries of furniture and accessories in three days and somehow got the nearly 2,500 square foot home looking good.  I have a little more work to do tomorrow before we are officially open to the public Tuesday.

Here are a few pics I snapped as we worked to get the rooms put together.  I'll post some of the finished look once we get the final touches in place.

After a busy work-week I was in bed early and up before the sun Saturday to head to the track.  My Dad and I ran at Dirt Devils Speedway in Land O' Lakes, Florida.  Its a couple hours from where we live so we were on the road at 5:00am.  After some track prep delays due to rain earlier in the week, races finally ended at 11:30 last night and I got home about 1:30 this morning.  20 hours straight.  

We both had pretty good finishes but I am tired, bruised and sore today.  I normally go wash my kart on Sunday but I was overdue for rest.  Simon was also able to spend the afternoon home so we decided to make it an order-out night for dinner and catch up from the week.

  

I have another busy week ahead of me.  We have some events planned at work for the new model home opening and I am headed to Daytona Beach Thursday to watch the NASCAR race.  As it turns out, Danica Patrick, the only female racing was the fastest today and made history as the first female to be in the starting position for the Daytona 500.  Go Danica Go!    

My first (Florida) Mardi Gas

It's a Mardi party!
I am back home from a whirlwind road trip.  The company I work for (Adams Homes) is headquartered in Gulf Breeze, Florida and there are several events each year that everyone gets together for.  One of my new favorites is the Pensacola Mardi Gras.
With Pensacola in driving distance from New Orleans, the city is definitely inspired by the fun of Fat Tuesday and has three parades in the city the weekend before.  One of my colleagues, Melissa and I drove up Friday and within a few hours of arriving got to see the first of the three parades scheduled.  We stayed with two of our friends (and co-workers) Matt and Annie and they live downtown.  It is perfectly located in walking distance to most of the weekend festivities.

  

We grabbed dinner at The Wine Bar and walked right outside the restaurant for the Friday night parade.
I scored several strands of beads, a t-shirt and my first King moon pies.

Saturday was the big event.  I got to ride on the company float and threw lots and lots of beads.  Tail-gating started at 10:00am and the parade was at 2:00pm.  They had lots of parade entries and thousands of Pensacola residents lined the streets for the floats.

I hope this was my first of many Mardi Gras parades.  Maybe one year I'll stay the extra time and catch the real deal in New Orleans. :)
  

Winter Vacation 2013...Back from Boone!

A fun tradition I have my my nieces and nephews is an annual trip to North Carolina snow tubing.
My in-laws live in NC and they are always gracious to offer us to stay and visit while we are in town.
Last year my three year old twin nieces made the trip but with the weather being unpredictable, we ended up in a blizzard and it was too much for the littlest ones.
This year Shane, Payton and I made the trip and we had a great time.  The kids were so excited.  We typically fly with Allegiant Airlines.  They fly into small airports like Greensboro which is just about 20 minutes away from where we stay.  They also happen to be very affordably priced so it lets us skip that looooong 10+ hour drive.

 We flew into Greensboro Thursday night and started off running on Friday morning.  One of the kids favorite spots is the Greensboro Children's Museum so we hit that in the morning.  We also managed to squeeze in ice-skating, lunch and a couple rounds of bowling before calling it a day.

Saturday was the big day.  Boone is about two-hours away and we went to Hawksnest Resort for some snow tubing and Sugar Mountain for some ice-skating.  Sugar also has tubing, skiing and snow boarding and with the kids getting a little older (8 & 12), they had more to do there.
They played and played until the sun went down.  In fact, they had so much fun it was decided they were moving to Boone, as soon as they were old enough.

By Sunday we felt like cold weather pros so we hit the ice rink one more time before heading back to Orlando.
I am finally done washing all the laundry from the weekend and tucked our "snow clothes" away again until next year.  A friend of mine is a pro at making collage-style photo books after her family vacations so I took a couple hours last night and did just that for the kids so they can enjoy the memories for years to come.
Can't wait for that orange box from Shutterfly to check out my creation.
If you have the chance to skip work and hang with the special people in your life for a couple days, I say do it. :)