2024 Recap...

You know - I'd really like to start one of these recap blogs saying what a great year it was.  Or what an uneventful year it was.  I remember I have had some of those years.  They do happen.  But wow, not lately I suppose.  2024 was another hella rough year.  As we all know - we're now going to be rolling into a very scary/questionable 4 years.  I don't know what to expect, but as positive as I try to be....let's be real....ooooof.

2024 was full of family drama, lots of health crap, a political nightmare, my now poor dog whose dealing with seizures and sadly just a general overwhelming sense of anxiety and depression that is being felt by everyone.  Like it's everywhere.  My heart goes out to everyone who is struggling right now.  My GAWD.  It's brutal out there.

My year started out with hope, and there was some highlights as you'll see below, but it's been a ride.  But as per usual - that's the bad - let's focus on the good shall we?

I attempted to do the sequel to the Artists Way which was called "Walking in this World".  I didn't get so much out of that one but if you wanted to check out that journey it's HERE.  I think starting 2025 I'll be re-reading my Artists Way Journey I completed in 2023.  I know I got a lot of out of that one and I need to focus on something positive.

In February some of the adventure group folks hit up Luna Luna.  That was friggin awesome!

In April we took a really lovely trip with The McDonald's and The Shouse's.  We'd had so many great trips with Pat's couple friends - I wanted to get mine on a trip and it was just lovely!  You can read about that HERE

In May - I started doing something on this blog I've never done before, and I don't know why because I love it and I'll continue to do it.  I started monthly Photo Dumps.  I'm always taking pictures and trying to captures moments and memories and I love that I do that.  So I started trying to capture that in monthly blogs.  I'm so happy I started doing that, so please go back and see all my photo dump blogs to really see what I've been up to!  I'll of course still be writing about different adventures and journeys, but these monthly "dumps" are such a great way to kind of capture everything in one spot.

In June, Pat and I took a trip to Paso Robles.  It's one of our favorite spots.  We took Poe and stayed in Templeton and it was just lovely!  You can read about that HERE

Another highlight this year is I started bowling again!  I re-joined the league I bowled with back in 2019.  I've missed Anna/Sergio and just doing something competitive.  I'm still not great, but I'm so enjoying it.  The cool thing is Libby and Tim are my teammates!  It's super fun to bowl with Tim, and Jenny is to join us for the next season.  The best part is I'm bowling with my best friend!  We bowled the Winter Season which is June-November.  Then Sweeps is always in Laughlin which you can read about HERE.  Looking forward to starting up our Jan-June season in 2025!

In August Pat & I took a little mini vacay to Ojai/Santa Paula.  My lovely friend from work offered up the amazing place she lives and we spent a beautiful weekend with wonderful people and a lovely area!

In September we had a full month of music, events and fun.  A couple of highlights was of course the The Taste of Europa which is one of my favorite events, and we took a little overnight in LAto see Trombone Shorty at the Hollywood bowl which was rad!

Trombone Shorty with the good wine!

The rest of the year was a bit rougher, holidays were kinda weird but did end up being really lovely despite that fact.  We didn't do nearly as much Halloween fun that I like to do which will need to change in 2025 for sure!  One highlight though was Pat and I are probably going to start a new tradition of heading out to the desert for Thanksgiving, so I really look forward to those new memories.  You can read about our little test run HERE.

New Years Eve was nice.  We headed over to Cori/Tom's again and they were sweet enough to let us bring Poe, although we owe them a new screen door, and had a lovely evening at their house and headed home around 10pm,

Pretty great group of people right here

So here we are - January 1st.  A new year.  Not sad to say goodbye to 2024 and somewhat wary going into 2025.  But I have some new practices and routines I'm planning to put into place and looking forward to see how those work out.  Definitely going into this new year preparing to self care and focus on the good.  

Wishing all of you a wonderful new year!

December and the Holidays...

December is of course the Holidays and the month is usually chaotic and filled with fun and time moving at light speed.  One highlight this month was Pat and I took a trip to Temecula.  You'll see that in the blog prior.  Rather than get Christmas presents for each other, we usually like to do something fun and I had always wanted to see Temecula at Christmas and it was just so cute!  Lots of pictures, so they got their own blog.  The start of the month was my mom coming over to decorate my house for me and it's so cute!  Then the month just whizzed on by. 

 

 

Happy Christmas from Poe

Happy Christmas from Luna

 

Started the month of with one of my favorite annual traditions.  Julie and I brunch monthly, but our Dec one always consists of breakfast followed by the Sawdust Winter Fantasy.  I look so forward to this every year!

Love this girl

Glass blower was awesome!

Guy selling mosaics!  Made me think of dad

Ran into Harriet!

Always love Chris's seasonal photo op

Had a lovely breakfast with Carol and David joined us!

Pretty tree at the Dana Point Famers Market

Saw this cool dude driving home

The December Food:

Peanut Thai Shrimp with Coleslaw

Our realtors left a fun lil surprise!

Tilapia with bacon/corn salad. So good!

 

Chicken with a Basil Corn Salad

Penne with Chicken, Shrimp and Prosciutto
A copycat from Macaroni Gill

One of my other favorite annual traditions is Knotts Merry Farm with my mom.  Had an absolute blast this year!

Stopped 1st at Kings Fish House for lunch!

Mom and her dudes

Santa-Gria

Only got to see Taylor for a min

The attempt at snow pics

Look at that smile!

Got myself a Christmas Pedi!

My therapist has suggested I entertain again.  I used to love throwing parties, but I've gotten away from it.  So I decided to throw a Holiday Open House.  It was such a great time I think I may do it again every year!  The only thing is we'll have it later in the day.  I did a 10-2 trying to respect Pat's Pool League, but next year we'll do a 12-4 or something of the like.  10 was just too early.  But it was a great turn out and everyone seemed to have a great time!  Some people stayed the whole time!

Some of the food

Attempted a Christmas Tree Fruit Platter

Hummus Wreath

Pat made 2 kinds of deviled eggs.  Then I made my PB Balls and Caprese Skewers

Mulled Wine in the crockpot with a selection of garnishes.  Then came up with a Gingerale/Cranberry Mocktail for the non drinkers

Cranberry meatballs and spinach/artichoke dip in the crocks

Poe and his festive bandana 

10 was too early....

So I had myself a mimosa while I waited

Julie, Deb, Heather and Terri

Noel found an uncanny resemblance with my Knotts Doll

Cynthia and Fatima joined

Erika made it!

Dad & I finishing off the meatballs

Poe loves Glen

The later crew

Cynthia crotched Luna a catnip filled mouse

Stopped by our work party then headed home to start the Official Christmas Break

Pat and I headed out to see Christmas Lights one night.  Hit up Pixley (the best!), Palmyra and Pine Street.

This guy was rad!

They did a Narnia theme - so cool!

Alien Christmas

Poe & Luna and the tree

Our annual Girls Brunch was short a few girls, but had a lovely time!

After Brunch cocktail at Finneys

We could not figure out the Photo Booth....LOL

On Christmas Eve Eve Pat & I got a little hike in and had breakfast.  Just a lovely time of no time agenda.  Even got a geocache in!  Haven't done that in a while!

Shrimp and Ricotta Frittata - not only fun to say but delicious!

Christmas time was pretty nice.  This year was a bit difficult.  Dealing with some family drama, that's worked itself out, but caused an odd rift.  The kid was also not around which is tough, especially during the holidays, but we ended up having a really nice time.  Pat & I hosted Christmas Eve.  He makes a killer Prime Rib (because of course he does) and we had Dad, Lori, Shane and Danelle over.  I didn't take any pictures except the one of my dad and Shane squeezing into our chair. 

Pat cooking dinner, me making cookies (Next year I'll re-think that. LOL)

I really tried to "Christmas up" the Christmas time this year.  I do love this time of year, and so enjoy all the holiday fun and magic that comes along with it.

Made & decorated some gingerbread cookies!

Spoiled boi

Just enjoying this time of year

I will never not love a Christmas Tree

Christmas Day was very nice.  Morning at moms - which she makes magical no matter what is going on.  Then headed over to Pat's moms later that afternoon.  Not many pictures this year, but nice and chill.

Poe already exhausted

This is being shared to remind me of one of the most hilarious games mom has ever put together.  Our family was trying to play these songs with little mini recorders and we may have had one successful go, but the laughter into tears is what I'll never forget

Poe loves Gramma

As do I

During the holiday break I actually tried to take time to relax and not pack my schedule.

 

Got some outside pretties in (Might frame these):

Libby's birthday falls at the end of December, so I took her out for a fancy brunch!  Then we headed over to the Circle for a bit.

Happy Birthday Lib!

I was so nervous to spill...

And I'll end this blog with a couple of glorious food pics:

Pat made a Lidia Bastianich recipe...Pork Milanese!  So good!

Happy Holidays Friends!