An Artistic Streak

We are a very creative household!  We love to craft, paint, sing, dance, write, act, and create and we are very talented in our own ways.

Here, Billa is channeling her inner Picasso and painting a very lovely abstract piece that ended up being my mom's birthday present:

She loves to paint and gives all the colors equal love!

Billa got a little crazy with her markers the other day as you can see.  Fortunately, it wasn't anything a little soap couldn't handle!

Sugar Pop, this is why I love you!

Artfully yours,
Kelly

2011 100+ Reading Challenge

I love reading.  I am voracious about it.  There's a rule in our house that I'm not allowed to read fictional books until the weekend, because otherwise, I'll stay up all night to read them.  I read pretty fast, too.  I finished the last Harry Potter book in under 8 hours and 15 minutes (that's including potty and snack breaks).  So I am beyond stoked to participate in a reading challenge for this year!  Reading 100 books is going to be easy for me, so I've decided to step it up a notch by choosing to read books in other genres.  This ties in nicely with my resolution this year to really challenge myself as a writer.  I'm not sure yet how I'm going to list my books, but I'll start with a sidebar that lists the books I've read and then do a monthly post that includes a summary overview of everything I've read.  If you like to read, feel free to join too!

Hosted by Overstuffed Bookshelf

1. The goal is to read 100 or more books. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate. Posting on GoodReads or wherever you post your reviews is good enough.

2. Audio, Re-reads, eBooks, YA, Manga, Graphic Novels, Library books, Novellas, Young Reader, Nonfiction – as long as the book has an ISBN or equivalent or can be purchased as such, the book counts.  What doesn't count: Individual short stories or individual books in the Bible.

3. No need to list your books in advance. You may select books as you go. Even if you list them now, you can change the list if needed.

4. Crossovers from other reading challenges count.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2011. Books started before the 1st do not count. You can join at anytime.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky at the Overstuffed Bookshelf, put the direct link to your post where your books will be listed. Include the URL to this post so that other viewers can find this fun challenge. If you’d prefer to put your list in the sidebar of your blog, please leave your viewers the link to the sign up page. Again, so viewers can join the challenge too.

Happy reading!
Kelly

Goodbye 2010, Hellooooooo 2011!

I have to admit, I'm probably more excited about 2011 than most people.  Given how intense and um, challenging 2010 turned out, I'm hoping that this new year will be much more positive and relaxed.  I know it's a bit silly, because anyone can make a change at any given point, it doesn't just have to be January 1st.  But there is something about New Year's that makes me feel the start and end of something so strongly.  In our case, it is the end of Year of Perspective and Introspection.

Due to our separation this year, my husband and I have had done a lot of introspection.  We took time to look inward and really examine ourselves, our behaviors, our feelings and more.  We are fortunate that our actions led us to a new perspective.  What we learned is that nothing is more than our marriage and our family.  And it's not just the basic concepts either; we realized and understood that while two individuals make up a team, it's only when that team works together that they can win.  It isn't enough to feel those things are important, you have to work to make them important.  We had placed too much focus on our individual selves and goals instead of our joint ones. 

As difficult as 2010 was for me, I am incredibly grateful to the Big Man Upstairs for placing this obstacle in my path.  I was given a glimpse of a possible future in my life and I won't lie, I didn't like it, nor did I want it.  I know too many of my own loved ones who now have to blaze that trail, and my heart aches for them.  I am a stubborn and proud woman at times (ok, a lot of times), and I had to fall really hard to learn what was truly important to me.  I know how blessed I am to be given a second chance, and it's one I won't take lightly again. 

I look forward to the prospects and challenges that 2011 will provide for us; i hope that it too, is a challenging year, but in a different way.  We have yet to really sit down and think about our resolutions for the new year, but you can bet it is something that we will be doing together!

I hope that you all have a happy and blessed new year, and that everyone is safe tonight as they celebrate the passing of the old, and the birth of the new!

Happy New Year!
The Guerra Family 

Bento, Manga, and Japanese!

Amongst my close friends, it's no secret that I love the Japanese culture.  It came about as an accident really, when I was in college.  My best friend Kellie and I went everywhere together in those days, earning us the nickname of Kelly/ie Squared or K2 as some of our professors called us.  People began to wonder when only one of us showed up anywhere!  Part of our degree requirement was to have two semesters of a foreign language and we chose Spanish.  None of the classes worked out with our schedule, but Japanese did.  What the hell! we said, and we signed up.  The next two semesters were some of the most fun we had, as our sensei was quite the character.  She was new to America by only a couple of years and I daresay we taught her as much about American culture as she did Japanese culture with us.  Those two semesters sparked something within Kellie and I.

This is hiragana, just one of several forms of characters used in writing Japanese.  Hiragana is used to write out words that are native Japanese; katakana is used for foreign words that have been introduced to Japanese, and kanji is the complex language to spell actual words (as opposed to katakana and hiragana, which spell out syllables)

Kellie's daughter Madeleine is obsessed with anime, and in turn, Kellie and I got into it too.  One thing led to another and now we're obsessed with manga, anime, bento box lunches, Japanese cuisine, and relearning all of our college Japanese.  Kellie had told me about an anime called Fruits Basket on instant watch on Netflix which was a great show, but it ended on a weird note and I felt cheated.  It's a nice thing that my husband works for a bookstore, because I've been tearing through the 27 volumes of the manga that the anime was based on.  A side note: it's called Fruits Basket, because there is no 't' sound in Japanese.  Everything is spelled out with syllables, so the word 'fruit' in Japanese is actually 'furutsu', thereby translated in English to 'fruits'!  Pretty cool, huh?

 Some of the gang from Fruits Basket: Hatsuharu, Kyo (my favorite!), Tohru, Momiji, and Yuki.

With the new year rapidly approaching, I've been meaning to live a healthier lifestyle and one of my new resolutions this year is to start doing bento boxes for my lunches.  Bento is a way of packing your lunch in a little box that hits all of the food groups and keeps the portion sizes appropriate.  There are all sorts of fun gadgets and do-hickeys that help to make the bento look cuter and more appetizing.  It can get pretty serious, but I'm only concerned with trying to keep it healthy for now!  I think I will also plan on eating more meals with chopsticks since it forces me to really concentrate on my meal and how much I eat.

See how fun bento can be?  I'd love eating this for lunch every day!

I'm excited about relearning all of my Japanese and then some.  I'd love to go to Japan someday and tour the country, trying the food, meeting new people, and checking out the scenery and historical sites.  I'll be sure to share my adventures in bento box making as well as reviews on mangas I read or animes I watch.  This is going to be an exciting year!

Cheers,
Kelly

Christmas 2010 Wrap-up

What a lovely holiday season this was!  We had a wonderful time visiting with friends and family and we are looking forward to the myriad of others we still have yet to visit.

The Sunday before Christmas we drove to Victoria, TX for the annual Guerra family Christmas gathering which was lovely.  Michael's Aunt Cathy and Uncle Pat hosted a scrumptious Tex-Mex dinner and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with everyone, especially since we hadn't been able to see everyone at Thanksgiving.  We were so blessed to be surrounded by our family and to receive many wonderful gifts.  We completely forgot our camera, so I have no pictures sadly.  We did have a funny moment on the way home though: everyone had fallen asleep with the exception of myself and Caitlyn (who was driving).  Billa woke up, looked around, and then suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs, "Daddy, no go night night!"  It promptly woke him and everyone else up.  Cait and I were cracking up since we weren't rudely awoken.  Gotta love a kid with a mind of her own!

Christmas Eve was spent with my family.  My brothers and a couple of family friends joined us all for shrimp, ham, sweet potato casserole, green beans, and more for a delicious meal.  Afterwards, we opened presents and teased my brother Philip for his get up.  Billa ended up usurping the Play-Doh Philip gave everyone and had quite a good time carrying her "cake" everywhere.  My brothers left to go to mass with my brother David's girlfriend Lindsey and the rest of us stayed to watch Zombieland, which is a really fun zombie movie if you haven't seen it yet.  After that, it was close to midnight and we headed back home to prepare for Santa's arrival.  Billa, was of course, thoroughly passed out.

Billa begins to unwrap her gift from "Uncle Folf" (aka my brother Phil!)

Billa helps Uncle Folf unwrap his present

Philip hands out Play-Doh for all!

She was so passed out that the next morning, she didn't even notice the presence of presents under the tree!  We decided that we'd take advantage of that and take our time to open everything, which was nice.  Billa was over the moon with the teddy bear stickers, dinosaur coloring book, and Kumon books that "Santa" got her.  I was thrilled that she loved her puppy dolly that I've been working on for her. 

Present time!

Mommy has to lend a little assistance.  Check out Billa's awesome bedhead!

Billa's "dine-ror" coloring book with figures and stickers...she loves playing dine-rors with daddy!

The crown from Billa's Christmas crackers...she's not really sure what to think about it yet.

Later on, we headed to Michael's mom's house for Christmas breakfast.  Oh man, it's a good thing I only eat her boyfriend's Carl's french toast once a year...that stuff is an instant coronary!  He makes sausage and bacon and then fries up the french toast in the drippings which makes it super tasty, but also incredibly fattening.  We then opened presents and me and my sister in law Caitlyn promptly passed out on the couch while Gigi played with Billa and Carl and Michael watched car shows on TV. It was nice and lazy!

Caitlyn, Billa, and Michael at breakfast.  My fave Christmas pic from this year!

Billa unwraps her present from Gigi with a little help from Riley the beagle

Little People Noah's Ark!  Gigi got Billa ALL the animals that come with it.  Our only regret is that there is no Mrs. Noah with the set.  C'mon, Little People...don't be hatin!

Me and my new scarf...I can never have enough scarves!

Gigi takes a picture of Billa's new froggie blanket.  I can personally vouch for it's comfyness and coziness

We finished our day by stopping off at the Marino household to give them their presents and visit with them for a bit.  Anthony started up the fire pit in the backyard and it was so nice, given how chilly it was!

We had a wonderful Christmas and we hope that each and every one of you did too!

Happy Christmas,
The Guerra Family