Where does your passion lie?
Anyone that knows me knows that I want to visit Italy. I took Italian courses in college and fell in love with the language, the culture, the geography – everything. Unfortunately, I have yet to make the voyage and even more unfortunate is that my Italian is extremely rusty since I don’t practice. Perhaps I should try Rosetta Stone before my trip. Anyway, I ran across an article on Italian budget cuts that discusses a director of an art museum going to extreme lengths to save art and its future in Italian culture. Click here to check it out.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel terrible about those art pieces that are becoming ash piles. If I were the artist of one of those pieces, I’d be down right fuming. Just like this art museum director. But after the initial shock of reading about a somewhat ancient practice happening today, I must admit that I am impressed with this guy. He has passion. Enough passion to make waves. But here is the kicker…do you have passion that counts? Do you have passion that means something and will make a difference? Passion for something meaningless is, well, meaningless.
So where does your passion lie?
Texas Roadhouse vs. Velvet Ice Cream
Last year I wrote an article about Business and Birthdays and how birthdays are an opportunity to really “hook” customers. Most business miss that opportunity, hence my writing today. This year for my birthday, I had another experience that I thought I’d share in the off chance that someone will read it and change their ways…particularly Texas Roadhouse.
My husband took me to Texas Roadhouse for my birthday dinner. He told the waiter that it was my birthday and his response was simply, “ok”. A few minutes later we heard the “yeehaw” birthday song, or whatever it is, being sung (yelled really) to a gentleman a few tables down. My husband and I laughed and he asked if I was nervous. Nah. Well, dinner was served, the check was served…and the “yeehaw” birthday song never came. The waiter didn’t even ask if I wanted to purchase dessert! I was a little disappointed, not because I had my heart set on a bunch of strangers acknowledging my special day, but because I was left out. What made that other guy more special that he got the birthday treatment and I didn’t?
We left, without dessert, and went to the Velvet Ice Cream shop down the road. As I decided on getting the very delicious one scoop of Buckeye Delight, Matthew chatted with the server about how silly our experience was, jokingly saying, “I’ll just have you wish her a happy birthday instead.” He hands me my ice cream cone and says, “Happy Birthday!” As my husband hands him his bank card to pay for my cone, the server repeats, “No. Happy Birthday.”
How nice was that?!?
And that is why I will be going back to Velvet Ice Cream and telling others to the same.
Clever Ideas
I’m posting the link below to share with you because it is pretty much awesome. Enjoy!
25 Clever Ideas to Make Life Easier
Homemade Cards – Valentine’s Day and more!
My parents (who are extremely awesome and generous) gave me a cricut for Christmas. A cricut is a machine that uses cartridges to cut out designs and patterns from paper, vinyl, card stock, etc. For a wanna-be avid scrapbooker, I’m super excited to add this to my crafty-tool collection! I’ve wanted one for at least 3 or 4 years and am really excited to expand my creative possibilities. To get started, I made Valentine’s day cards for my family and a birthday card for my father-in-law. I think they turned out pretty great for my first time on the cricut…
My heart be still – Ghirardelli Chocolate Shop!
Ghirardelli’s ice cream and chocolate shop in the gaslamp district of San Diego is the BEST way to end a long day at work. Chocolate Covered Blueberries, Pick-N-Choose Ghirardelli squares (including dark chocolate with sea salt and caramel filling) and the best brownie to have ever left an oven (or maybe it never made it in the oven….soooo good) all left the store in a branded bag on my arm. Not only am I one happy girl, I’m one girl that can’t go to bed because of all of the sugar I ingested. Totally worth it. And it turns out that the original one is in San Fransisco and I just happen to be going there later in the month. Guess where I’ll be going?
Easy Baby Shower Craft
This is a booklet that I made for a friend’s baby shower. You hand each attendee a card and have them write a note to the soon-to-be born baby – prayers, welcomes, advice to watch out for his or her old siblings. When everyone has written their note, you simply attach them together with some yarn and woolah! A cute little booklet for the mom to keep and share with the child later on. I’ve also made these booklets for wedding showers. Just have the the attendees write marriage advice and well wishes to the bride-to-be.
How to make the shower booklet:
- Choose your paper (I suggest heavy card stock for durability.)
- Choose the size of your booklet and cut the paper to size.
- Add your flair to each page…just remember to leave room for the messages! I usually put a small design in the lower left-hand corner or each page.
- Make a cute cover.
- Use a hole punch to put a hole in the upper left-hand corner of each page, including the cover.
- Cut a piece of yarn or ribbon to tie the pages together, leaving enough length to tie a pretty bow.
- Gather up all of the pages after everyone writes their notes. Put any extras at the end so that people who couldn’t attend the shower can write a note later.
- Tie them all together with your yarn.
- That’s it! Super easy and super cute!
I LOVE crafty things. It started when I was in junior high and would cross-stitch with my friend, Cara. (Yes, it was old-lady of us… but it was fun!) That slowly morphed into painting little ceramic houses and Christmas ornaments for my parents. Then came scrap-booking and sewing. There is just something about creating things that provide a tangible product at the end. And (most of the time) it is beautiful and creative. The kind of thing that you are proud to show family and friends.
Today, I am more strapped for time than I was back in junior high. One of my New Years resolutions is to do more things that I like to do. That means more scrap-booking, card making, sewing, baking, and painting. I’m really excited to see what I can create this year! And to help me with that is pinterest, my new potential time-sucker. It is basically a social network that allows you to “pin” funky, cool, interesting things to your board (think online bulletin board). I’ve already found so many cute DIY projects and creative ideas to try in 2012. I love it!
Follow me on pinterest here.
And for you social media junkies out there, if you are interested in building your online brand and social media presence, check out this article from Mashable.com on how to best use pinterest.
Anniversary Destination: Columbus, Ohio
My husband and I just celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary by spending 2 nights in downtown Columbus, Ohio. We live about 10-15 minutes from downtown, so it was an easy mini-vacation. I thought I’d share the highlights and some reviews:
Renaissance Hotel - I had 2 free nights that I had to use by the end of the year (Thanks, Marriott!), so we chose this hotel for our stay. We were able to walk to all of our destinations and the room had a great view (see picture below). It also just happened to be a block away from where we got married. 
Elevator Brewery and Draught Haus – By far our new favorite restaurant! Excellent service and excellent food all within a saloon from the 1800s…yes, please! It can be a little pricey based on what you order, but it is well worth it. The picture below is of my husband’s meal. The stone the steak is sitting on is 400 degrees and you cook it yourself. Pretty cool (and smoky).
Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails – Pot roast with cheese on a pretzel bun and an Italian beef sandwhich were enjoyed for lunch during our visit. They were both recommended as the local favorites and we are glad we gave them a try! This restaurant is also located in a really old, cool building. We loved the copper plated ceiling! If you are going to visit, please don’t be put off by the lack of windows and “blacked-out” look. No, this is not an adults-only store…it just a hole in the wall place that didn’t bother to make the outside look friendly.
Element Pizza – Strike #1 – no Hawaiian pizza. Strike #2 – Pepperoni pizza was just that. All pepperonis and hardly any cheese or sauce. We won’t be going back. They do get some kudos, however. They delivered our pizza in 20 minutes on New Year’s Eve.
First Night Columbus – Luckily I got a groupon to this New Year’s Eve event instead of paying full price. If you don’t have kids, don’t go to this event. They claim to have over 100 entertainers, but they must have counted everyone from the “college hunks” moving company mascot to the ticket counter volunteers. We did get to go to COSI and see a really bad magician… If you have kids, this event could be fun.
Fireworks at midnight- This is technically a First Night Columbus event, but obviously you can see fireworks from anywhere in the city. We watched from Scioto Mile Park, which gave us a beautiful view of the fireworks across the river. I was really impressed by the fireworks display. They lasted almost 10 minutes and were not the crappy fireworks that your uncle might set off in his backyard. They were great. After the fireworks stopped, you could hear the church bells ringing, people honking their horns and yelling Happy New Year. It was a really fun experience!
My goals for 2012.
2011 was a crazy, busy year and I’m confident that 2012 will be the same. That means that I need to have some goals in place so that the year doesn’t sneak by without some fun and progress.
And this year’s goals are…(drum roll, please)
1. Complete 3 items on my 40×40 list.
2. Have consistent daily quiet time and worship time with God.
3. Read 5 books for pleasure.
4. Spend more time for the things that I love to do.
5. Put more thought and love into the things I do for and give to others.
These aren’t necessarily the easiest “check mark” type of goals…but they are truly what I want to do. Wish me luck!
