Back to school

I can remember as a child getting so excited the night before the "first day of school." I put out my new outfit and shoes that I got for this special day every year. When I became a mom I tried to make this a special day for both of my daughters. Now one is a graduate of college and beginning to make her way into the "world" as an adult and my little one still there and still gets excited the first day of each year.

Is it a special year for your child? First pre-school? Kindergarten? Senior? Are you a teacher? Know a teacher? This special ornament is a wonderful gift for any of the above!

Happy School Year!

It’s about that time of year

It’s hard to believe that my daughter is just weeks away from graduating college! Last weekend we went down south to the University of Alabama for our last parent’s weekend with the sisters of Alpha Delta Pi and of course our daughter.

So what did we do, we walked and walked and walked and I took 4 years of photo’s since I never seemed to get photo’s of the “school” itself during our visits. We hit all of her “stomping” grounds, her school; the College of Journalism-future sports journalist here, her “foodie” hangouts, obviously her sorority where she has lived for the past 3 years a short stop by her first dorm, and yes, her local favorite bar Gallettes where “everyone knows her name.”

Ahh, college life; now the hard transition to the “real world.” For her is the next step and the next chapter in her life for all of us. As always we wish her well and are very proud of the woman she has become!

And can we get a “Roll Tide” one last time…

*I'd love to make an untraditional topiary for your college graduate or for your high school graduate! great way to show school spirit!

It’s time to Spring-forward!

I have been super busy with “life” if you didn’t see this a while back I have begun a journey of a “Wellness Makeover” which I have been doing on ABC weekly with a nutritionist and a trainer, and I have been busy working with all of the DC Ladies so my new topiary business hit the back burner for a bit but I’m back and in full force.



In honor of Easter I made this little ornament but it can be made into an untraditional topiary tree too!

The “Untratitional Topiary” is a chic alterative to flowers and can be used in so many different venues. If you are a bride or in the wedding industry in the Washington, D.C. area, I’d love to meet you!

I am really trying to break into the wedding/party planning business and would welcome any advice. What worked for you when you started out?

Put on your Party Pants and Let's do the "Kitchen Dance!"

photo credit: gymkhana

In the last weeks I have had a few new things enter my life and a few things come back into my life, exercise being in the later of the two. By now you know I have a “love hate” relationship with exercise, I hate going but I love the feeling I get when I’m done. I don’t know if it’s that “ahhhh” I did it feeling, or those little endorphins we hear about and I just have a much better outlook for the day…

In any event last week I had a little “revelation” when I took off my armband to sync it up and check out my “calories burned” for the day. I noticed a few things:

1. When I’m sitting and typing as I am now I might as well be sleeping or not breathing because I would burn the same amount of calories… um that means flat line… none… nil… I was shocked! Now I understand just how easy it was for me to gain weight. Again, I knew if I sat around all day and did nothing other than work it really isn’t good for me but to actually see it with a graph… Wow! I’m a visual person so it really opened my eyes! So, I know I need to get up and move around every hour or so if it’s going to be a long day on the computer. Bring in the bosu ball (yes, I broke down and actually paid money and bought one of these torture apparatus’s for home.) and do some balance exercises every so often, move your blood around. I know you’re thinking well, what do I do if I’m at an office? I can’t very well say “ok bosu time!” Well then get up and take a little walk around your office, if it’s nice outside at lunch break up the day and go for a quick walk…

2. I was also surprised, actually, almost devastated lol to see that when I was weight training with Ryan my calories expended weren’t “huge.” As much as I huff and puff like an old woman I thought for sure I’d be burning huge amounts of calories. I asked Ryan about this and he told me that we are actually working on getting my muscles in “shape” and then he went on to explain how after we build up the muscle mass in my body that will work to my advantage to burn more fat and calories. So in the long run I guess that makes sense…

3. My little trusty arm band also told me an interesting fact. On Friday, we had a little girls’ “kitchen dance party” where we hit the CD player with Season 2 of Glee and we chopped and danced and danced and danced… Something that you can usually see if you look in my window around dinner time. lol I’m thinking of doing a video post on this in the future to scare all of America! Anyhow, when I synched my armband up a day or two later, I forgot about our little “dance party” and I saw my calories burned and was like…. “What was I doing Friday afternoon? My cardio numbers were huge!” Hmmm, o yes, it was my “kitchen dance party!” You can be sure we have implemented this little shinding into our dinner prep a few days a week… So come on…

I invite you to join in the “kitchen” dance party! Send us over your favorite tunes to jump and jiggle to! I promise no judging here! And for your “dancing pleasure” our choice song of the day was Jennifer Paige’s “Crush” Enjoy!

I'm getting a "Wellness Makeover" on ABC with Rebecca Scritchfield!

I’m so excited! For once in my life I’m going to be putting “myself” first. Well at least for “healthy living.” For the next month I will be working with Rebecca Scritchfield, MA, RD, ACSM Health Fitness Specialist to learn all the "dos and don’ts" of proper nutrition. I know you are all probably shaking your head thinking; “Proper nutrition, what’s so hard about that?” Well I know you shouldn’t sit down and eat a tub of ice cream or a bag of chips at one sitting, everyone knows that. We will be spending time going over; preparing for change and setting realistic goals, pantry makeover, healthy grocery shopping, healthy eating out and on the go, overcoming roadblocks and barriers and healthy exercise and stress management.

Being the fact that I love to cook, I am so excited about this whole program! Of course this means getting me back to the gym which in itself is a good thing. This month being Heart Healthy Month I am constantly thinking about my blood pressure which has never been “normal” since I had pre-eclampsia/toxemia (twice) with my pregnancies to the point where I was hospitalized and gave birth to two preemies.

I hope you will follow me here weekly and tune into ABC’s “Let’s Talk Live” to watch Rebecca and I embark on my journey. Please please feel free to leave comments here or join my “Shelley’s Wellness Makeover” fan page” on facebook, where you can also leave comments or questions for Rebecca. I know it’s not a sprint rather a marathon and I’m just excited about starting!

Wish me luck!
Shelley

The Party/Event Planner "Insider"

Since I am new to the “biz” of party and event planning I thought it would be a great way to meet people and get to know them by interviewing them for the untraditional topiaries blog. That way they can learn a bit about me and I can learn a lot about them and their businesses, and hopefully some of my readers can pick up a few new tips here and there.

My first interview was with Lisa of Favorite Things. She is a wonderful lady, entrepreneur and mom and has a great smile.



“The Party/Event Planner Insider”

1. How did you get in the biz?
I started my career as event planner right out of college. When I started I did business events - conferences and meetings. That was where I learned the importance of attention to detail. When I had children, I worked part-time selling promotional products and I naturally gravitated to clients in the special events industry. I moved from corporate clients to social clients when friends started asking me to create favors and finishing touches for their events - Weddings and Mitzvahs. I had so much fun working with "social" clients that I decided to start my own business, PARTY FAVORITES, which creates custom favors and finishing touches for social events.

2. How would you define event planning?
There are so many elements involved in an event. Planning a fabulous event is so much more than just hiring vendors. To me the success of an event depends on the thoughtfulness of the details and event planning encompasses all of those details.

3. What is your favorite part of an event?
My favorite part of a Wedding? Mitzvah? Corporate event? Such a hard question because every event is (or should be unique). I don't know if a have a favorite thing about each type of event but I do know that my favorite events are ones which truly reflect the guest or guests of honor.

4.How many hours go into planning a wedding? Bar/Bat Mitzvah? Corporate event?
People don't realize how many hours go into planning an event until they are in the midst of planning. It can turn into a full-time job even for the most low-key events. A good event planner can save a bride or a mitzvah mom a lot of time when it comes to researching vendors, executing ideas and running event related errands.

5. What is something most folks wouldn't know about planning a wedding? Bar/Bat mitzvah? Corporate event?
I am a big believer in "branding" and event. In most cases this means creating a great event logo (which reflects the guest or guests of honor even if it is a simple monogram) and using it to "tie the details" of the event together. It is really inexpensive to create the logo (a specialty of PARTY FAVORITES) and once it is created it can be used for not just favors but escort cards, GOBO, decor, cocktail napkins, video screens...the list goes on and on. People do not realize the impact of an amazing logo but once all of the logoed details are woven together the impact is huge.

6. Where is your favorite coffee spot?
Starbucks

7. What is your favorite color?
PINK

8. What is your favorite flavor?
Chocolate.

9. What is your favorite type of cake?
I love simple vanilla cake with chocolate icing.

10. What do you think about movies that are about "wedding planners?" do you think they portray the industry correctly?
I don't know how "correctly" they portray wedding planners because every planner is so different but I love comedies about wedding planners because the best wedding planners don't take themselves too seriously and can diffuse a bad wedding situation with quick thinking and a sense of humor.

For more on Lisa you can check out her blog or you can follow her post on events for the DC Ladies every other Wednesday.

Give thanks by helping a sick child!

the untraditional topiaries "thanks for giving" ornament

Each year as I look at my two beautiful daughters grow and watch them blossom into fine young ladies, I reflect about just how lucky we are to have both of them happy and healthy.

My girls were both born prematurely at 34 weeks due to pre-eclampia/toxemia which I somehow managed to get twice.

Many of you know Sarah is now a senior in college and ready to graduate and jump into the world. My other daughter Hadley was not as fortunate; when she was six days old she suffered a bilateral grade 2 intracranial hemorrhage which left her with a seizure disorder and cerebral palsy. Her life is much different than Rebeka's however; we have learned and grown through understanding Hadley’s disability. I thank god everyday for Hadley and all that we have learned from her. I suppose around the holidays we tend to get a bit sentimental and think about all of our blessings and try and help those less fortunate then ourselves.

It is because of this that we have chosen to step up to the plate so to speak and help St Jude Children’s Hospital. I know many of you have heard of St Jude’s but this is a short paragraph or two from the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital about their background…


photo credit: St. Jude's thanks and giving website

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas, is one of the world's premier centers for the research and treatment of pediatric cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases. Children from all 50 states and around the world have come through the doors of St. Jude for treatment, and thousands more have benefited from the research conducted at St. Jude—research that is shared freely with the global medical community.

Working together, St. Jude physicians and scientists have pioneered treatments that have helped push the overall survival rates for childhood cancers from less than 20 percent in 1962 to 80 percent today. The survival rate for the most common form of childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, has risen from just 4 percent in 1962to 94 percent today.

That was the vision of Danny Thomas when he founded St. Jude, thanks to an answered prayer to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. "Show me my way in life," Danny prayed as he sought direction in his life, "and I will build you a shrine."

Danny's prayer was answered, and he soon became one of America's most beloved entertainers. Even after he achieved fame and fortune, Danny always remembered his pledge to St. Jude.

Today, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital stands as the embodiment of that pledge and has served as a symbol of hope for children stricken with catastrophic diseases since opening in 1962.”

Here are a few quick facts:

* It is amazing that all patients accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay. This is what is so critical about this hospital; it services so many children from all across the country whose families cannot pay, or they do not have health insurance for one reason or another.

* St. Jude covers the cost of everything—food, travel and lodging for patients and a family member.

* In 2009, Parents magazine named St. Jude the No. 1 pediatric cancer care hospital in the country, based on the magazine's survey of more than 75 children's hospitals nationwide.

I am asking you to look at your own healthy children and give thanks that they are healthy by helping those who aren’t. Please take a moment to our team page and give $5.00 today instead of your daily latte, it will not only good for the hospital but it will be good for your heart!