This WONDERfilled Life...

The Devil is in the Details When we decided to host a full fledged movie screening event for Hocus Pocus 2 (out now on Disney+) the gears in my head started turning.  I had several ideas, including a Photo Booth, with the iconic hair and lip profiles from our favorite sisters, floating candles and a low mist floating throughout the back yard…but as the ideas took over and time started to fly by I changed course and adapted to a different idea.  If budget were not an issue there are so many things I could do, but I really like the challenge of a small budget.  I thrive on trying to repurpose items as much as possible and using what I have on hand…and if I don’t have it on hand I definitely never mind hitting up the dollar store.  It’s usually really great for smaller items that you can adapt fairly easily to whatever you need.  Case in point these super cute, reusable and extremely affordable ($1ea !!!) skeleton straw cups we got for our Coco party several years ago.  In fact Dollar Tr

It’s 9:40 am on a Monday morning and I am on my second cup of coffee after a very long, but exciting, week and weekend…This was the busiest I’ve had in years.   It started Monday with a great rehearsal for an upcoming recording project with my favorite brass ensemble, Millar Brass  (I will be sure to post the fruits of our labor as soon as it’s available!).  Tuesday evening found me at my alma mater, Northwestern University, watching the talented and impossibly funny while also being the nicest human being, Sarah Willis, hold a master class with the current NU Horn studio. I got some really great bits of info that I am very much looking forward to trying out this week in my personal practice.  And we all got to get in the picture at the end! HA!!  Photo Credit: Northwestern University Horn Studio   Wednesday I got to visit with one of my oldest friends, JoAnn! We went to BU together over 20 years ago and always try and see each other when we can.  I love that we can so easily pick up w

Super and I joked often pre-pandemic about how life is just various stages of turning pages.  Thanks to COVID this current page turn in our life has moved…e…v…e…r… so … s…l…o…w…l…y.  But it IS happening, like, it’s mostly turned…I think I can even almost read the title of the next chapter…Not completely but pretty darn close. I don’t know if it’s just finally having both kids in the same place (i.e. summer camp) for the first time ever or if it’s the whole “I spent two plus years always having everyone around and catering to all their various needs, thank you global pandemic”…either way…I’ve been soaking in the past three weeks and the few hours I’ve had daily to just breathe and catch up on everything.  Take today, for example, I had about 50 minutes at home kid free after I got home from Rally classes with Zo, and I knocked out a major to do list that involved several phone calls, scheduling many doctor appointments, follow up emails, paying bills and ordering things for the coming f

Hirsutism (HUR-soot-iz-um) is a condition in women that results in excessive growth of dark or coarse hair in a male-like pattern — face, chest and back. (Per the Mayo Clinic ). A few weeks ago, and I was so thankful you couldn’t see my beard in the morning sunlight. Something I’ve had to check my pictures for for years now. I struggled trying to decide whether I wanted to write this post.  On one hand…if you know me IRL (in real life) this description shouldn’t come as a surprise, y’all can see my face.  On the other hand, I’ve managed to sort of ignore the issue publicly and shining this direct light on the issue and therefore my face makes me uncomfortable as well, but I want my kids to know that people are all made differently and choose to deal with those differences differently and so here I am…telling my story in the hopes that in the coming year I have some AMAZING after photos! I’ve struggled to manage the hair on my face for over 10 years now.  It started innocently enough, p