Life is like....

A box of chocolates....SWEEEET!
Life is what YOU make of it. Make it a good good life. Enjoy the little things. Love with ALL your being. Give lots & lots but also don't get taken advantage of. Turn the other cheek,,,,,SMILE & show those pearly whites. Talk with your eyes not just your mouth and words. Never say things unless you mean it will all your heart and soul. Know and be thankful. Count those blessings and give HOPE, FAITH, & concern to the world. Please always know that you are loved by at least one person let alone many! So love back. Stop in it's tracks bad attitudes. Really people just be considerate. Hugs to you! Love Sunshine Stephie....Hey lets start the day with a deep breath of air to cleans the body and refresh the soul! Wake up HAPPY that you even woke up and are able to have another day here. :D

Life on the line

Everyday men and women choose to serve their towns to make sure we are kept safe. It is a true heroism to put their life on the line for others. Please keep in your prayers the families of those who serve. RIP Jim Rice and Kudos to Peabody for being such a close knit support system for the firefighters.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year

Health and Happiness as well as love and friendship with SUNSHINE DAYS!

you are what you eat!

http://www.mcmanweb.com/what_you_eat.html

Eat well.....just as if you were to put crap gas in your cars engine putting crap processed food in your body has the same effect. You get half crap results..Why not want to make good choices to function to your best capacity and not be depressed, lethargic and blah! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1224516/How-junk-food-diet-depression.html
http://www.foodforthebrain.org/content.asp?id_Content=1635 so many links to show that eating well makes your being well....ALSO MOVE>>>>>MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT PEOPLE! exercise. Our bodies were NOT designed to sit on sofas and stare at a boob tube! move it! Like NIKE says JUST DO IT! Hey having sex is movement so JUST DO THAT TOO! {GASP} lol yup Sunshine Stephie said that!

GOD WINK!

Had this very old women, God Bless her soul today at the bear barn...we had some time together picking out a bear for her sick son. She was a dear women who told me all about what he is dealing with these days and hopes that the teddy from his dear old mother will make him smile. Well after I ring her up and she thanks me for all my help and being a "doll" she lifts up the box and makes the same giddy noise that Nana T does when she holds teddy bears....So my eyes well up and I smile huge but almost burst into a sob so I say good bye and walk away with "Miley" thinking I was laughing but I was about to loose it with a burst out full blown cry. SO I go to the back room and then laugh and think that was special....I proceed to go to "Miley" and tell her why my reaction was that! Thanks sweet old lady to make that memory come to the surface!

many questions ...are there answers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljI4nHcV7kA&feature=youtu.be

It makes me sad and sick to my stomach that this is happening to any kid let alone in our own back yard per say....I so don't understand with all the equality and education on bullying in the schools these days this happens. If you commit a crime you have to pay the consequent. To Molly for sharing what happen, kudos to you for being brave enough to put it out there....to the ones responsible:you deserve to be expelled from school. Not a one should be scared to go to school, anyplace let alone the umbrella "secure" type school this happen at. What ever happen to the pride of community, acceptance of all? We all wish for peace in our lives is that asking tooooo much!

I knew I always liked Kissing Balls for a reason!!!! : )

Origins of the Christmas Kissing Ball

Many Christmas traditions have been handed down to us from the Middle Ages, when the holiday of Christmas became more important than it had ever been. It was during the Middle Ages that St. Francis of Assisi came up with the idea of the Nativity scene, using animals and villagers to re-enact the story of Jesus' birth at Bethlehem, which were eventually replaced by the ceramic, plaster and plastic figures we know today. Many Christmas Carols - O Come All Ye Faithful, What Child Is This - originated int he Middle Ages, and although the words may have changed slightly, a time traveler speeding back to the 13th,14th, or 15th centuries would be able to join the sing-along at Christmas Mass.

The kissing ball comes to us from that time, too. During the Middle Ages, villagers would wind together twine and evergreen branches into a ramshackle ball shape. In the center of this conglomeration of evergreen boughs they would place a clay figure of an infant to represent the baby Jesus. These "holy boughs", as they were called, would be hung from the ceiling along passageways in castles and big houses to render blessings and good luck to all who passed under the bough and the holy infant.

During the 17th through early 19th centuries, such decorations were frowned up. The Puritans, the Reformation and all the new religious fervor sweeping England and Europe meant cleansing away all the decorations of Christmas. But people will be people, and people yearn for decorations and symbolism. By the time Queen Victoria ruled England, decorations were making a comeback.

Many of our Christmas traditions date back to Queen Victoria, such as the Christmas tree. Her husband Albert was from Germany, and the Germans had long kept the custom of evergreen trees decorated to symbolism eternal life and the return of the sun. During the Victorian era, the concept of the kissing ball or holy bough came back but in a different form. People would take a potato or apple and tie a pretty ribbon around it as a hanger. Then they would stick sprigs of evergreen, holly and sweet herbs into the potato or apple until it bristled with them. The resulting "sweet ball" not only looked beautiful, it smelled good too, which was a plus in the days before daily showers!

The herbs in the sweet ball took on the highly romanticized symbolism common to the Victorian area. Simon and Garfunkel weren't the only ones singing about "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme". Each of those herbs plus dozens and dozens more flowers, herbs and plants spoke a unique and private symbolic language to Victorians. The choice of herbs, flowers and boughs could state love, affection, charity, piety and more.

By the end of the 19th century, the kissing ball now symbolized romantic love. It wasn't uncommon to find ballrooms adorned with dozens of decorated kissing balls hanging from the ceiling. One custom had a kissing ball with a sprig of mistletoe hanging from it. This ball would be hung up in a special place at a party. Unmarried maidens would line up and stand underneath, and the unmarried men would line up to kiss the ladies!

As the 20th century unfurled, kissing balls fell out of favor. Only the mistletoe remained as a symbol of love and romance. But some traditionalists still love the lore, the mysterious and the romance of this very traditional Christmas decoration.

So here's to the kissing ball....SMOOCHES! xoxox

My love!

Waking up beside you everyday makes it a brighter day!
I am grateful and thankful for the life we have together and most of all to have a BEST FRIEND that gets me better than I get myself. I do believe in true love, happily ever after b/c you are my prince and I your princesses. So many memories and so much laughter with a little bit of OCD thrown in makes it all so very special. Love you my sweetest! xo Love your Jelly Bean

Student of the Month!

YAY RYAN YAY!
SO happy to receive the letter sent home with his nomination and acceptance of Student of the Month! That's our boy!

Date and Nut Bread!

http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/old-fashioned-date-nut-bread-689213/
Nana T used to make delish things and Date and Nut Bread being one of her A+ could win a Blue Ribbon items. I recall being at Mann Orchards and seeing a loaf holding it up to my nose and tears streamed down my face when Michael handed it to me b/c it WAS as if I were a child again holding that similar smell to my nose at the table in the kitchen of 90 Barnes Ave. He also LOVED her special cream cheese sweetened whipped spread. OH so yummy! I am making some of these loaves this year. I know I do not have her recipe but will try this one sent in an e-mail from the Disney site. We will see. I will post about them. Funny how I don't have any obligation to go to the Don Orione Home now that Nana T has passed. Before we would make sure to include a trip there at some point of the weekend or my Wed afternoon visit alone. So was saying this at breakfast Sunday to Ryan and Michael and before Michael could answer Ry says you can still go see her and I was like oh ok! shoulder shrugs! He said at the cemetery. I smiled at my kind hearted boy who said what his dad was going to say but it is so not the same. So in our travels yesterday Michael drove by the cemetery. I can honestly say I feel closer to her in the comfort of my own home looking at the ornaments she gave us way back in '92 and the most resent one I got and put a pic of her and I in. It is is favorite color powder blue. I feel most comforted looking at photos of her wrapped in the last afgan she made, once again a powder blue color. As I look back to the color selection we made in our first house in 91 we had powder blue I think everything in our dining and living room. Now that I think of it was that her influence indirectly? Just like you don't have to be in a 4 wall building called a church to feel close to God you don't have to be at the final resting place of your loved one to feel close to them.

NANA T & ME

It happened. I have been for a while now been wanted Nana to come to me in a dream. Last nights dream she was there. Just her and me in the old kitchen at 90 Barnes Ave. The oven all old like I remember it. I got to have a huge cry with her in her arms AND best of all she was the old Nana T with all her faculties about her. Sounded like her, felt like her and smelt like her from back in the day. I woke up way to soon from it but am still grateful I had the small amount of time that I did. I know all day I am going to keep thinking of it. Love you Nana T!

GROUPON!

I am allll for Groupons....for a year and a half now got many good deals....this morn there was half off at McDonalds...Are you kidding me people...b/c eating that cheep junk isn't enough now you can save half off of on it....get outta town with that deal!