IT SNOWED IN AUSTIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just like that, after a shitty week of our nation's Capitol getting stormed the beautiful snow unexpectedly arrived in Austin, Texas and was a magical surprise that was SO needed. I was watching my Sunday morning church service on Facebook in the living room and there was an excitement in the air with hopes of the snow happening. I opened all the shades to the windows and watched like a little kid waiting and watching for Santa on Christmas Eve. As the rain turned to sleet, it eventually turned into the big, fat snow flakes and decorated Austin with a bright, white new coat of fresh snow. EVERYONE was so excited. We maybe get snow here every 8 years. In my 25 years in Austin though, this was by far the most snow that I've ever seen. I went for a woodsy walk with my neighbor Marion and then sledding with my friend Stacy!!!! I did a few back flips at the end of the hill. Thank you God for snow! :)

#snow #snowday #laugh #bff #sledding #fiftyandfabulous #livelifeincolor

Merry Belated Christmas from me & my Boy!

As I'm working on gathering information for my "Ultimate 5-Day Big Bend Itinerary" blog post, I scrolled through all my Christmas & New Year photos and decided I should do a post from that to document how the holidays were for us during our first ever pandemic. My family chose to stay seperated from each other and stay at our respective homes. With my mom being in her late 70's and my step dad turning 80 in 2020, we wanted to keep our distance from them. :( For the past 5 years though, it's only been Sloan (my son) and I for Christmas morning so that wasn't any different than usual. We usually then go over to my sister's house in the late afternoon and do Christmas dinner and gifts over there and make a party of it. Sloanie and I slept in until 9amish and did our gifts and big breakfast. He started getting into rockclimbing last year and it's been so good for him mentally and physically. Needless to say, he's a stylish rockclimber. He always does the research and finds the most unique and best quality items when he gets into something and rockclimbing is no different. His big item he requested was this Cotapaxi backpack to organize and carry all his gear. I LOVE this thing! I want one for myself but will have to save up for one. Until then, I'll continue to use my red Gap backpack from 1995...yeah, you heard that right. I think I could do a commercial for Gap and this OOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD backpack that I'm still using!

He got these awesome hot pink clips, too!

I can't wait to test out my new Macie Bean boots dancing! And, I love supporting my fellow Etsy artists and these cool earrings are from Boo + Boo Factory!

His cousins in Cali surprised him with these awesome rockclimbing shoes and he was completely SHOCKED! These cousins also got him the hot pink hair dye, too! LOL!

We ended up doing some serious electrician work when we decided to conquer putting up my light fixture in the kitchen. That turned into a WAY bigger project than we expected and were saved once again by my "gaybors" Paul & Ryan!!!

Aaaaaand, after we completed that project we had a leisurely afternoon relaxing, catching up with friends on the phone, watching some Hallmark Christmas movies and finally doing a Zoom call with our family. It's been a struggle but we have been teaching our mom all about her ipad and now she's learned Zoom! I'm so proud of her! Plus, we had to do our traditional crackers!

While it wasn't like our usual Christmas celebrations, we made the most out of our situation. I'm thankful for technology and that we were able to see each others faces, share some stories, show our gifts to each other, open our crackers together and have some laughs! Goodbye 2020.

Photo Lesson of the Day | What is Knolling?

I found this article to be very interesting. I didn't know this flat lay photography style had a name or history. Who doesn't love a good visual? Click here to learn about knolling.