busy little secret santa - that's me

we have a secret santa each year. last year I swapped for my supervisor's name and made some trays

the person I swaped for the name said I could have it on the condition she got me this year:)

well are you ready for the reveal of the craft? yeah you know you are.

Thanksgiving

When I recollect the treasure of friendship that has been bestowed upon me, I withdraw all charges against life. If much has been denied me, much, very much has been given me. So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.
~~ Helen Keller~~


Happy thanksgiving
I am thankful for my husband
my children
my husbands children
my mother and father
my brothers
my auntie
my in-laws and outlaws and ex-laws?
a great job
sweet puppies and kitties
many more things that i can't even think of- my life is truely blessed.

Science standup funnys

Brian Malow - at science fest- funny in a nerdy way

come on get happy

I follow a bunch of blogers on my blog lines, and this one caught my eye today- Gretchen Rubin over at the happiness project suggests ways to get happier right now

I am recognized by my Peers today

Professional Resources. Quality Service. Educated Decisions.

That is our tag line at Benefits at the University of Colorado- payroll and benefit services



Today I was recognized by my Peers as a Person who delivers " Quality Service" - I came in second, but still got a 50$ gift card - woot !!! It is nice to know people think highly of me, and I do a job I really enjoy at a place I enjoy.



I follow a bunch of Happiness project people and work happy bloggers and today this Made my happy at work list for sure

Tournament Sparring with Black belt

Hh sparring with a black belt, she does score a point and does defend herself too.

Tournament was with SNK on 10/31/09

November Glory

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand , nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spirited inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Snow day - our way

The front bench with what may be about 20" on the seat it was pretty light and fluffy now.

Neighbor to the south had cool icicles

Snow angels in progress

more process on the angels. looks pretty fluffy

My guess is we won't be grilling today :) about 18 inches or so in the back yard maybe 20

Done with snow angels.

Neighbor tree

Me- glasses are photogray and change to a pretty dark shade in all this light

Yeah we shoveled.

Hh and I shoveled and draged a large fallen branch and trash cans, and made snow angels well she did - it was pretty chilly but still it was beautiful too.

More from Breckenridge Testing

More high kicking maddness, this was the fun stuff and at least they were moving.

Early on sunday morning this was the lovely view street side and just waking up with a light dusting of snow.

More pictures of the Many participants.

ski slope and mountain side - just waking on the Sunday morning. look at all that frosting !

breckenridge excellence - black belt testing

Lots of testers for this Prep Cycle

After getting the final belt with old ones on the floor

Kicking and endurance were part of the testing too

Tons of sitting and waiting and waiting some more focus and fidget less?? yuk that was the hardest part I am sure

All Those men are VIP's our G.M. Seo and his G.M. Kim are the middle and Hh on the right side with the other 19 testers in her group

High Brown Achieved !

A long weekend in Breckenridge with Seo's National Karate- HH has achieved the rank of High Brown belt the real first step to black belt excellence. The trip was pleasant and there was a ton of hurry up and wait all weekend long. This is a pretty typical scenario with GM Seo. I did tons of sitting so did Hh mostly on the hard carpeted floors. She says she even got a butt chap LOL :)

1st time black belt testing

Last of the Prep cycle classes :)

Waiting on instruction conditional black belts and the brown belts ( 1st time testers)

We are off for the hills tomorrow, the Black belt testing in Breckenridge- Hh going for her high brown belt. It will be grueling and she is ready but nervous I think. We will leave the pups at home and J says he will come up and feed them, and put them to bed. He will need to feed fish too! I am glad he is going to come up and help.

we are arming ourselves with books, books on tape and laptops- it will be a lot of sitting and waiting and stuff. we will take protien bars for Hh as she will most likely not get a full meal for two days.

I will take photos and possibly video - look for those post to come next week.

colorado fall foilage

neighbor to the east of our home ( backyard) has a really pretty tree- though you might like it too.

I am on my way to Colorado Springs and Planning for retirement presentations tomorrow at the University of Colorado - UCCS - should be good, hoping for a good turn out - but we did not mail advertise this year. only e-mail blasts and campus news items.

this is national retirement planning week and new limits for 401k and tax defered programs should be set soon for the upcoming calander year. Will update here in a few days.

School Confrences at M Middle

I went to the Middle school parent teacher conferences this evening , the only teacher I didn't get to meet with LOVES hh so I think that was o.k.

She is doing well and being heavily recruited to all the local area HS programs in IB ( international baccalaureate) . The rest of the teachers had also good things to say. Some had constructive comments to help her do even better. !! She is spending all her homework time doing Math - algebra- advanced for her age but she is doing well. So overall nothing bad to say.

The " prep cycle" for Karate has been grueling and we are coming to the home stretch there too. I am spending my time waiting for October to be done :) but we are going through it at a faster clip than I thought possible. Hh is looking pretty buff after 8 weeks, I am up to 50 crunches almost every night now and my what a good habit that is too. :)

We got some school photos and will be sending those out in a few days as I can, find a bit of time to make a few cards. Look for those in the snail mail to our PEEPs who read here regularly.

That's all for now folks.

one of the cutest things I have seen in a while

this u tube video is cute

Happy at work action day

Take action to be happier at work- from Karl of the same type of paost last monday.....

Many people have been letting me know that doing all four elements of the Happy at Work Action Day will feel forced. I suggest picking two and making that your mission today.

4 Rules to Happiness at Work Action Day

1. Celebrate! (i.e.Throw an office party.)
2. Reward a deserving co-worker or client.
3. Reward yourself for a recent accomplishment.
4. Take 5 minutes to reflect on the crazy beauty in your life.

Check out his blog for great suggestions- not just action today!

#4- The crazy beauty of my life right now is the amount of things that will need to be done in October. Work has been super busy- and will continue to be through the end of the month.
Hh is in the middle of prep-cycle that will be everyweekend this month, plus additional weekdays and extra stuff, her homework is loaded up as well, she is stressing out. I just want to veg. and not so a thing.... I will need to wait until november! - but then we will have a few days off right at the end of november- so I will set my sights there and try to live in the present and take care of the now, with a wish for a future little relief.

round and round it goes

Where it stops nobody knows !!

maybe after next week this week will seem like a nightmare and we will wake up an realize we are still in our own bed?

the madness at work continues, the phone the e-mail the letter! yikes - I took another 60+ calls today- we can't get any regular work done, we are all in hyper mode.

Hh has had a cold/cough /sore throat on and off for 2 weeks, we are all run down and on the edge. We need a break- I am actaully waiting for Nov.1 as I feel my october is so busy I don't even want to go through it.

Still no relief- what a shame

more calls, we stayed - in queue for about 3 hours today - we ended the day with more than 600 calls- yikes I hope that they will send out an e-mail blast to counter this amazing issue.

how to cause a riot?

Write a letter - send it to lots of people and ask them to fill in a survey. Don't proof the letter and let all the call center answer why ???

I don't want to say too much about this, lets just say today was a huge uproar to a communication that was not well thought out. from 1-5:00pm we received almost 300 calls- almost as many as a heavy day during open enrollment.

somedays you just have to laugh

Monday morning

Karl at work happy now - blog is blogging about what we CAN do- to help ourseves be happier at work.

I am going to take these to heart and start a new monday morning program....

If you go into work with a question such as, “how can I improve my happiness?” You are focusing your mind on finding a positive answer.

Here are some of the questions I ask myself every Monday…

1. What is one thing I can enjoy about each person that I come into contact with today?
2. What is the most important thing I need to do today?
3. Who can use a compliment today?
4. How can I make someone laugh?
5. Where can I optimize my strengths?
6. When my motivation dips, how can I stimulate myself to take action?
7. Who needs my help today?
8. What three people do I need to support to improve my work relationships?
9. Who can teach me a valuable skill to improve my job?
10. Am I being my true self at work?
11. What is one task or routine that I can eliminate?
12. What is the best part of my job?
13. Why am I good at my job?
14. What would be my ultimate job? And am I building towards it?
15. Who is my role model at work?
16. What can I do to become more engaged with my work?
17. What matters most to me at my job?
18. How can I lead the people around me to improve their happiness?
19. When I’m stressed out, how do I cope with these feelings?
20. Why do I assume I know what my coworkers are thinking?
21. How can I make my work more fulfilling?

Choped and kick through boards

HH- Karate Choped and kicked through 5 boards at the board breaking event this weekend!

the Chop is most impressive to me, she got it the 1st time around and everytime this event. = she just had to not overthink it and imagine following through

We are 1/2 way through what is called Prep-cycle for the high black belt testing and that is going well too. She is really focused on improving her overall game. She is working hard toward greater goals. I think the testing will be tough but fair.

back in business

the e-mail is up and working ! yeah- it took a little tweeking but S had the crandall dot org working now!

A road to the future

A good friend is a connection to life~~ a tie to the past, a road to the future.

The fritz-

S- has the computers on the fritz- email is not working going in or out at the moment from the crandalls dot org domain. So bear with us if you are used to making contact with me or Him by that method.

hopefully he will get it figured out soon.

We are having a very bleary day over the flatirons in Boulder Today- it looks like winter, it rained like crazy- this is the worst wetest weather I can remember in the " summertime" in a very long time. we have had more than our fair share of wet weather and rain and hail.

wishing for a bit of chilli - or soup for Dinner.

more senior portraits outtakes and proofs

It doesn't take long for SSD2 to be fed up with me trying to get him to " relax" and look at the camera, he was good after the first 5 shots and I took almost 90 total to find a few good ones!!

See those forhead wrinkles, we call that the begining of being very unhappy camper.

I just had to shoot through lots of eye and head movment hoping for a couple opf good shots - LOL

same photo- different backgrounds ~

More about the parade

This is the Grand Master of the school, master Seo

The Karate group - speacial weapons demo team in the black tops and regualr students in the red tops

This was the Arvada Harvest festival parade ( one of the longest in existance accross the state) - they do this every fall, Hh was required to participate as part of the Karate school and I will post some photos of their grouip here too. you can not see her as she was across the street and holding on to a huge American flag as part of thier display. They got the " largest float award" for the sheer size of the flag- it took about 70 people to carry it the parade route.

We love us a parade

This guy loves a parade - he especially loves it in person !

It's my High school ! all the way from Colorado Springs- Harrison high school marching band and flags

The begining of a long 100 + parade and bands, floats and stuff! - this was Saturday