Family and a birthday party

Life has been sort of hectic the past couple weeks. I've managed to unpack most of my belongings, but it has been a constantly ongoing process for these past weeks. I am exhausted, my back aches and I am in desperate need of a massage. But all of this is besides the point... well besides that it has kept me from posting.

This weekend, however, took my mind off of things at home for a little bit. I drove up to Springfield to spend some time with family. My aunt was having her 70th birthday party. I had planned on attending since we talked back in July when I last visited her and my uncle. I found out my dad planned on attending as well and was also planning on surprising my aunt.

I left Saturday morning and arrived at their house that afternoon. The party was being held at the Country Club across the street from her house. I stayed at the house while the rest of the group went to set up. A short while later I was at the hall as well. It was set up beautifully. And there were cupcakes and sweet peach tea, plus a few other nibbles but I mean hello CUPCAKES!

My cousins and their families were in attendance. I got to meet my cousin M's kids for the first time, well one of them, one I had already met when she was a baby. Then we all got a surprise not just my aunt, who the surprise was actually for. My aunt from Texas showed up, no one knew she was coming. SURPRISE. Throughout the party I mingled with different family members and enjoyed my time with them.

After the party we went to dinner and enjoyed even more time together. My cousin M's daughter quickly became attached to my hip. I even got her younger brother to warm up to me after he wanted nothing to do with me at the party. Sunday morning we all got up and went to church. The kiddos and I got to spend even more time together! After a wonderful lunch at Bob Evans it was time for me to head back. I wish I would have gotten more time to spend with my family, but life back home was calling...

Family is very important to me. And I love mine very much. I do not know what I would do without them... all of them. I owe so much to them. I am glad I got to spend this time with them. I have a tattoo on my left wrist with this exact saying. I believe family does come first. There is nothing more important.

xo

*Shine like Glitter*
Family First.
Happy Birthday aunt M!
Now it's 11:40 pm and I am ready for bed.
Except I can't stop watching Revenge.
EEK.
Goodnight.

Vintage Ohio

I arrived at Theresa's Saturday afternoon.
We immediately caught up on life.
 Once we got ourselves ready, we headed out.
We had a long drive there. We started out with partly cloudy skies and ended up in gray skies. T and I both thought we were going to have rain.

We eventually parked and hiked to the site of the event, where we received our glasses and tasting cards.

There were 16 different wine proprietors. Each time you visited a proprietor they marked your card. You were able to go to each place up to 5 times.

If you planned on drinking 5 tastes at each place and brought along a DD, there were places for the DD to get free non-alcoholics drinks; very smart idea.  However, T and I did not plan on drinking that much wine. We had at least one drink from each place, there were a few places that we tried multiples.

We did not come prepared enough. The clouds in the sky started to dissipate and we were left we sun patches. The sun was hot. T and I were sweating like pigs. Did you know that pigs don't actually sweat?! I did not drink enough water. We when got there we saw wine glass holders for sale. They were these contraptions, that held your wine glass, at the end of a necklace. For next year these are on our list of things to either make or purchase for next year. 

The sun hats came out. Along with the dresses and skirts. I absolutely love a chance to wear a dress and this was the perfect excuse. 

Half way through tasting we stopped to get sustenance, which included a crab cake sandwich and my most recent wine sample. We each also got a bottle of water. It had two purposes 1. to drink and 2. to rinse out our cups after each sample.

We got back to trying wines. I tried a Watermelon Jalapeno wine, a Chocolate Strawberry wine, a lot of different peach wines, and Rieslings.

After we tried at least one wine from each place. We took a look around the many vendors set around the site; everything from dip samples to candles to jewelry. I saw a small booth with what looked like used clothing and I have thing for used clothing. What we found was a cool ass chick who not only made clothes but also did Henna. She had a book with different designs. T and I looked through the book and picked out the design we wanted. A tree of life for her and a crescent moon with a hibiscus for me.

Ohio Apple was the last wine we tried. It smelled just like a sour apple jolly rancher. It was too tart for me but it wasn't terrible. 

I didn't take many pictures because it all comes back to not being well prepared. My hands were always full and it was hard to take pictures. I promise next year will be better.

xo

*Shine like Glitter*

I enjoy days when I get to spend it wandering around with my best friend.

And throw in wine.

It just equals a wonderful day.

YP of the Week: Feet

This week I am doing a post on the importance of stretching your feet.

I am sure most of you, like me, are constantly on your feet at work. I am on my feet for about 30+ hours a week. At the end of the day my feet are aching. At the end of the week they need some desperate attention. Last week I worked on stretching my feet while doing a yoga routine to stretch my shoulders. This week I am going to share these things with you.

In yoga it is important to stay grounded, to have a stable base to perform your poses with. If you are balanced as a foundation your focus, discipline, and awareness will be in turn be stable. Stretching your feet will help improve your alignment and help prevent foot problems. And it will keep you grounded.

Also a rock climber (who happens to be taking an unfortunate break from climbing) it is important to stretch your feet, especially when they are confined in those tight climbing shoes for long periods of time over multiple days.

The video above is the routine that I was using last week. As I was doing this routine I was sitting on my knees with my feet tucked under, so I was sitting on my toes. I sit this way through a couple of poses, then tap out my toes and switch to cross legged.

Notice how my toes are tucked under

After this routine I do a couple of poses to stretch out my lower back and my hip flexors. Before doing these I start in down dog where I work on grounding my feet by stretching them out.

xo

*Shine like Glitter*
I took last week off because I was feeling a little down.
I took that time to watch movies in bed and practice a little bit of yoga.
Work has been a little stressful lately.
Some days I cry, most days I pray.
This shoulder and foot routine I have been doing has definitely been helping.
I'm praying this week goes better. It is the last week of the summer program. Next week school starts.
It'll be a fresh start.
I hope, if you chose, these stretches work for you.
Happy Sunday.
Namaste.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

I  love animals. And I have come to the conclusion I love animals more than I do people. I don't mean the people in my life, I love them dearly and I don't know what I would do without them. I mean people as a whole, as a society. On that note I went to the Cleveland Zoo to celebrate my best friend's birthday. After we had a great lunch at the Hofbrauhaus Cleveland. A place I will definitely have to revisit.

Now onto the Zoo and it's many animals...

This sloth was so creepy looking yet intriguing at the same time.

 
Baby ducks! Read it with the explanation point because that's how it was said out loud with people around.

Ant Eater! Say what?!

I had to take a picture of this... clown squeaker!

These Kolas were passed out and drunk from the night before. So sad because I really would have liked to see an awake Kola.

This Snow Panther happened to be whining as we were gazing at him. Not sure what was upsetting him but he did not seem very happy. It did happen to be hot that day, maybe that was it?

Rafiki 

Lemurs from Madagascar

Red Panda

The penguin exhibit, that there were so many sighs for, turned out to be pretty disappointing. I love penguins. They are my favorite and I was thoroughly disappointed. *Sigh* 

 After these bears we ran into a couple of seals. The littler one woke up the bigger one and he began to wail. We came to the conclusion that these seals were up all night partying with the Kolas.

Hibiscus are my favorite and this was the biggest hibiscus I have ever seen.

Chipmunk not a part of the zoo. I just thought he was cute.

At the end of our trip we stopped to see the flamingos, beautiful. And the lions who were also passed out. Those zoo animals had a crazy Friday night.

xo

*Shine like Glitter*
The Zoo was very fun!
This was the first birthday I was celebrating with my friend T.
We both love animals, so of course it was fun visiting the zoo with her.
We wanted to take a camel ride, but it had cost extra.
I was pretty excited to see two exhibits that day.
The sharks and the penguins.
We were unable to see the sharks because of some accident. (We still aren't sure what happened.)
The penguin exhibit was sort of a joke. It was a glass enclosure with about 7 penguins in a tiny room no bigger than a living room. The window also happened to be pretty foggy so it was hard to even see them. I did not capture one good picture.
Such a fun day with my friend.
This weekend we are attending Ohio Vintage.
I am very much so looking forward to this event.
Happy weekend.
Namaste.