While I was supposed to be packing.

Shoebox 1 full of high school letters, 1998 concert ticket, shoebox full of cassette tapes, Jodeci (!!) and my beloved pager.

I got figuratively stuck in a shoebox full of letters from high school yesterday when I was supposed to be packing. It was like crack for my soul. I could not bring myself to finish packing up my closet, make dinner or even to get up to pee. I was stuck for well over 2 hours, yikes!

Sifting through this box full of letters, I realized: (1) I had a small group of really awesome friends, (2) we were so dramatic even though our biggest problems were that our parents wouldn't let us talk on the phone forever or we couldn't find a ride to the mall, and (3) breaking up with (certain) boys made us feel like death was less painful.

I made a promise to myself and even made my friend (who most of these letters were from anyways) swear with me that when our daughters are teenagers and they come to us crying their hearts out because a nerdy little boy broke their heart - we are not allowed to laugh at them. We are not allowed to get frustrated at their depression because we know, in the long run, that they maybe won't even remember what was so cool about said nerdy little boy. Reading those letters made me remember how real those feelings were and how insanely HUGE they felt at the time. Also, that nerdy little boy that broke up with them when they were 14 just might bring them pain and shape their future relationships for the rest of their lives! I made myself a promise to always remember that pain so I can try my hardest to make my little girl feel better with retail therapy, sappy movies and ice cream because, really... it's the only thing that helps.
...
I also found a Will I wrote out at the tender age of fifteen. I must've laughed for a solid five minutes at this, so I thought I'd share. Names have been blurred out for privacy, of course.

"Dear Whom It May Concern,

This is the last Will and Testament of Tabi Kohansby being of sound mind and body I do decree that when I die I should be buried in my black sundress with flowers, with a flower necklace and my funky black sandals. My hair should be done like I do it. It will be an open casket funeral & I want sunflowers & daisies. MM will invite all my friends. I want everyone to be sad & cry a lot. She can have all my clothes & she must wear the dresses a lot. SH can have my TV and whatever else she wants. TW can have all my CD's. MM can also have my CD player since she doesn't have one. TW can have my phone and my jewelry. 
Last but not least I want my parents & family to know I love them. Tiffany, Trisha, Crystal, TJ and Grandmom, too.

(Here comes the embarrassing part)
I want to declare here & now that the only 2 guys I ever loved were ---- & ----. But I love all my friends especially ....... And all other I may have forgot. Remember, I love you all.

LATER!

LOV,

Tabi K.

Aug. 22, 1995

p.s .... gets my turtles and my hermit crab. .... gets my Simba. MM can have my roller blades. And to ..... my funky hat collection! ... gets my pager. "

I mean it's so important to have this stuff in writing! I wouldn't want my loved ones fighting over my CD's and roller blades, you know.

<3, Tabi :D

Wish Bracelet.

Her bead that fell out... kept safe inside a ziplock. :)

You know those wish bracelets? Yea those. The ones made of hemp and seven tiny beads that you put on, make a wish and don't take off. When the bead(s) falls off, your wish is 'released'.

Well, Roxy got one for her birthday and I'm pretty sure that her and Riley believe it's magical. She made her wish, put it on and didn't dare tell a soul what her wish was for fear it wouldn't come true.

Fast forward to this afternoon when she came home from school with a bead that fell from her bracelet kept safely in a ziplock bag.

As soon as we walked in the door, Roxy ran to her room and busted in the bathroom (where I was peeing!) and pulled her wallet out. She dumped all the money in her wallet out onto the counter and started counting. She lost count at least 5 times before I stepped in to help her. We counted carefully all her dollars and quarters and dimes and pennies. $39.19 was the grand total.

She looked at me and said, "But did you count all the pennies?"

I did. Still, we had $39.19. I thought it was a great amount to have. $39.19 is big bucks for a seven year old, if you ask me!

A look of total disappointment came over her face. Her bottom lip pouted and she choked back the tears. She told me her wish was for $1000. She was going to use the $1000 to buy lots of stuff for our new house, some toys for her and Riley and give me some so I could save it for when we were running low on money.

This is the part where I started to choke back the tears.

I was so sad for her. I told her that just because the $1000 wasn't in her wallet, she probably had $1000 in other ways. She felt a little better and ran off to tuck her money away safely.

Ten minutes later she decided the wish bracelet didn't work properly because one day it fell off and we had to re-tie it back on. Obviously, that must have caused a break in the magical contract that you agree to when you take on a wish bracelet.

So we are going to try again.

*Wish us luck!*

<3, Tabi :D

Fighting off a bad case of the Gru

These grumpy little colorless rainbows literally made me cry.

In my house we are currently experiencing a bit of a weird phenomenon of the physical kind. I've noticed this same bug go through our house twice so far this year. Both times, it started with Roxy and spread. It's obviously very contagious.

Through my normal health research methods (WebMD and Wikipedia), I haven't found any other documented cases of this, hence I am classifying it myself.

 

This illness I hereby dub: the Gru

Gru ( \ˈgrü\ ), is an infectious and contagious illness that appears to have effects in humans of all ages. It's suspected to be started by a mild tiny yucky germ (aka 'virus'), but then exaggerated by the most dramatic person of the group thus giving the tiny yucky germ more strength and impact on the body and surrounding victims. The name was derived from a similar illness (the Flu) and Gru (from Despicable Me).

Gru usually appears suddenly and makes itself known in the form of a tantrum, an irrational heated conversation or just tears. Gru will generally go away on it's own, but can turn into a more common cold if left untreated.

Signs and Symptoms: The first sign of the Gru is a grumpy mood. As stated above, this symptom commonly leads right into a tantrum, an argument and/or crying. Sleepiness/laziness is the second sign that you have a case of the Gru. Headache, not wanting to go to school, a forced cough and a scratchy throat are other common symptoms. Gru is often accompanied by mild loss of appetite, unless the food in question is candy, cupcakes or any other sugary substance. This may or may not be related to the sleepiness symptom.

Common symptom of Gru: Sleepiness/laziness

In my observation, runny nose and fever were not implications of this illness.

Mechanism: This illness is very VERY contagious. Take caution. It's not known at this time if the tiny yucky germs are spread via airborne or contact, etc. I've seen gru spread in a matter of minutes, but sometimes it does take up to 24 hours for symptoms to appear.

Prevention: Unknown. Although following a strict bedtime routine does lower your chances of the gru by at least 70%.

Treatment: TLC, patience, rest, fluids and Tylenol/Advil as needed for headache pain. Ice cream doesn't hurt either.

Prognosis: You're gonna make it, I promise.

<3, Tabi :D

I'm Serious, you guys.

I've got an official little Portfolio on the web now!

Head on over to tabidee.jux.com and check it out! I'll be adding things from time to time too... as I create more awesome stuff, more awesome content will be added!

Soo... that's what my Friday night was all about. And it was goood.

<3, Tabi :D

Peace. Love. Happiness.

Peace.

Source: 4goodnessake.tumblr.com via Lavinia on Pinterest

Did you know that people sometimes aspire to actually promote peace in the world?  Shai over at Vagabond Studio is one of those people! She is truly an inspiring individual. <3
If you'd like to read about her latest endeavor in her peace studies and how you can help, click here!
Love.

I love you.
Happiness.

I love this sentiment. :)
Quote yoinked from the Happify Tumblr.
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, LOVES.

<3, Tabi :D

Inspiration + Goals

quote taken from: Roxy Spring Catalog.

I've noticed that I get inspiration from catalogs. The IKEA catalog, the Roxy catalog... I guess I'm a sucker. 

Call me what you want, but when I saw this, it was like they took my goals in life out of my head, put them to words and typeset them in pink italics atop vintage filtered clouds.

I love this and kudos to Roxy Marketing Team. I <3 you guys! 

<3, Tabi :D

A Valentine's Craft.

A quick little craft I wanted to share with you guys...

Roxy had a homework assignment to create a Valentine's mailbox for the big day on Thursday. So, being the crafty overachievers we are, we set out on making a Valentine's Mailbox/Backpack from a Cheerios box following this tutorial I saw on Pinterest.

That's right peeps, this amazingness all started with a Cheerios box.

I am smitten with how it came out and we had so much fun making it together!

Linking up to The Pinspiration Project through My three bittles. :)

LOVE,      

 Tabi :D

Happy Saturday, Chickens!

Thursday, we took the family to the Florida State Fair and I kind of was totally enamored with the chickens. There are so many kinds of chickens! Did you have any clue that chickens come in so many shapes and sizes and colors?

From Left to Right, Top to Bottom: we call this one the poodle chicken (totally fancy),  a speckled hen that laid herself an egg (Roxy really needed a picture of that egg), the prettiest patterned chicken I've ever seen, Riley and a chick, Roxy holding the same chick (the chick fell in love with Roxy and she named her Lizzy), the kids said this is the Daddy version of a chicken... since it's got a beard and all, we all laughed at this chicken's big ole' butt (oh, yea), another fluffy chicken I wouldn't have known was a chicken if I didn't read it's label, and the 'supermodel' chicken - so tall and slender (she posed, too!).

This concludes my post about chickens!

<3, Tabi :D

Perspective.

One of the things I think about often is the many different perspectives that can be had...

Yesterday, we had a cupcake picnic at Lilly's spot. It was her birthday.
(for anyone who may not know, Lilly was Roxy's BFF who was killed by a drunk driver July 2011)

My perspective on this: While I can't ever think about Lilly without feeling sadness that she was taken from this earth too soon, I am so happy to have known her. I am thankful that my children know her story. It was an angel's birthday and we had to celebrate it!

Even though Lilly was Roxy's friend, she has taught me so much about life and death, about relishing the time we have here, about spirituality, about grief and about friendship.

On earth, she was only 5 years old when she left us, and while she didn't get to celebrate turning 7 yesterday... we celebrated the birth of Lilly and everything she was (she really was a perfect little girl). We celebrated at her grave with pink cupcakes and balloons and sang Happy Birthday.

I also can't ever think about Lilly without my heart breaking for her Mom and Dad and the rest of her loving family...

Perspective #2
Our house is officially (I think?) foreclosed. We are awaiting our kick out date.

My perspective on this: We received that ginormous stack of foreclosure papers the week before my Zoie was born. There I was standing on the steps of my house about to give birth at any moment being served. My husband had earlier that year had a major cutback at his job. And I was about to stop working completely, once this baby of mine was born. I would be starting my new job as full time, stay at home Mom... and we all know that this is a MAJOR pay cut for anyone who worked for any money at all previously.

That, obviously was over 2 years ago... almost 2 and a half years ago. SO many things have changed since then.

I am grateful for the more than 2 years we've had in this house since that day. We, as a family, have grown so much since then. We are closer, we are more aware of the important things in life. We are more grateful, we are more sympathetic, we have more hope.

Moving, to me will signal a new chapter in our book and, while I am happy to have so many memories in this little house, the black mold creeping in my bathroom and the termites slowly eating away at the walls are blazingly bold symbols that it is due time to leave this house and escape the financial prison that was eating away at us and suffocating us from growing to our potential.

My family moved into this house as just Christopher and I (and part time Cam), naive and excited to begin growing our family. I was 6 months pregnant at the time with Roxy and needed a nest. Back then, half of me was screaming "I NEED A HOUSE FOR THIS BABY!" - this was the half of me that won. The other half of me was terrified of signing all those papers and committing to 30 years of paying the bank back an amount that was so large I couldn't even comprehend it. The loan officer and realtor assured us that, in 2 years we could refinance and our payments would be well within our means.

Well, that possibly was the worst advice we had ever received. We bought this house at the peak of the housing bubble. Since 2005, when it was purchased, our home value has dropped about $80,000. Which is a HUGE amount considering we paid a little over half that for the house.

Despite all that madness. I am thankful we did it. I am thankful for the lessons we learned, for the safety this house has provided us, for the memories.

We will leave this house a family of 5 + Cam, a lot wiser and ready to start the beginning of our new adventure.

<3, Tabi :D

Do these make me look...

 

... Sexy? Intelligent? Chic? But mostly... don't I look sexy?

I have really good eyesight. I don't need glasses. But, not so secretly, sometimes I wish I did - for the fashion!

Think: Lisa Loeb, Zooey Deschanel, Tina Fey
Totally hot chicks made even hotter by the glasses they wear. 

The other day, I realized that my husband, who does wear (eyeglasses) accidentally left his at home on the bathroom counter. I sent via text the above picture to him to let him know... his response?

... well, let's just say he found the image to be, erm, attractive. See? Point proven.

In this family, two of us actually have an eyeglasses prescription, that would be (1) my husband and (2) my stepson, Cameron.

Don't they look adorable in their glasses?

Yet, we all like to pose in Daddy's glasses. :)

And sometimes, glasses are the BEST props for funny/cute/awesome pictures.

( Okay, so maybe that was a gratuitous excuse to post cute pictures of us. )

So, to have some more spectacled fun, the other night I navigated my bored self over to GlassesUSA.com and virtually tried on some frames. These were my favorite.

This is what I think of GlassesUSA and their Virtual Mirror:

1.) It's kind of/a lot of fun.

2.) I totally look like Lisa Loeb in these frames.

3.) I don't really understand how they can sell such cheap glasses, but they do.

4.) I have something to look forward to when I grow old(er) and actually (maybe) need glasses.

You can virtually try on some glasses for fun, too!

<3, Tabi :D

p.s. BONUS SAVINGS ALERT! 

STOREWIDE OFFER - Take 15% off + get free shipping on your entire order
(orders over $50). Code: FS15

Take 10% off any order of prescription glasses. Code: Blog10