Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Here is a great little video to help you ‘round up your mates’ to join you for a pint or two of Guinness this St. Patty’s Day. I’m looking forward to celebrating with good friends with my favorite combo…a spin on the classic “Black & Tan” by having a few pints of “Black & Blue” (Guinness with Blue Moon). I assure you though, I will be happy and not blue while sipping it. Enjoy your this wonderful day with your friends, smile and cheers to a great year ahead. xoxo
Gorgeous hike in Berchtesgaden National Park, Bavaria Germany . I’m adding this my ever-growing bucket list. I’ll get there one day:)
The Königssee is a lake located in the extreme southeast of the German state of Bavaria, near the border with Austria. It’s all part of the Berchtesgaden National Park. Located at a Jurassic rift it was formed by glaciers during the last ice age. It stretches about 7.7 km. The lake similar to a fjord is surrounded by steeply rising flanks of mountains up to 2700 m. The lake is noted for its clear water and is advertised as the cleanest lake in Germany. For this reason, only electric driven passenger ships, rowing and pedal boats have been permitted on the lake since 1909. Due to its picturesque setting, the lake and surrounding parklands are very popular with tourists and hikers. In addition, the lake’s position surrounded by sheer rock walls creates an echo, which is known for its clarity. St. Bartholomä, a famous pilgrimage church with a small inn nearby, is located on a peninsula about halfway down the western lakeshore. St. Bartholomä and the southern edge can only be reached by boat or via hiking trails up the surrounding mountains.
A vertoramic view over the alpine mountains of the Konigssee in the county of Berchtesgaden - Germany. Photo taken from the Jenner mountain top at the height of 1,870 meters where the beauty of the Berchtesgaden valley and Königssee can be viewed. An overwhelming bird’s eye view for these hikers above green meadows, past cliffy rocks and lake Königssee with all of its magnificence. (by B℮n)
Us Against the World by Coldplay
I may not like every song on the new Coldplay album, but I love this one. Sometimes songs come into your life just when you need them. This is one of those songs. Just what i need to hear, when I need to hear it. Thank you, Coldplay. You’ve touched my soul again.
Here’s to a great 2012.
(Source: icanread)
Sweet by Dave Matthews (at Randall’s Island, NYC 2011)
I just realized that i haven’t posted anything from my one of my favorite artists. This is a newer song called “Sweet” that he wrote this year and I heard it at Randall’s Island (DMB Caravan). Simple, pretty and meaningful. Classic Dave Matthews. (This is the 1st song (that i know of) that he has done on the Ukulele). I really like it and can relate to it on my different levels. I’ll let the song (and Dave’s voice) speak for themselves. (BTW- The last 50 seconds of this song is one of the best parts.)
I’m sure this is not the only post that i’ll do of this band. It’s going to be hard not to, but i promise to keep it meaningful & at a minimum. There are not many artists out there these days that can play/write/sing like Dave Matthews can. For now, just sit back, relax and I hope you enjoy as much as I do. This is a video of from that night at Randall’s island. Such a great weekend of live music, good beer, and good friends. It was a fun 3 days.
An amazing setting for 3 days of live music.
Moira and I, listening to Dave & Tim play. My best friend and one of my favorite concert buddies.
xoxo…enjoy!
I love this dog & love this picture. Enjoy your friends in life and don’t forget your dog is always considered a friend and companion. I’m one lucky girl to have this dog in my life. I hope you all are just as lucky to have someone (a dog, pet or person) in your life that you love. I happen to be lucky and have a lot of people I love, my dog included:)
Appreciate your friends, your family, tell them you love them and never forget that this life is short and you should appreciate each day to the fullest with those you are lucky enough to meet in this world. You’ll miss them when they are gone and be sure to appreciate them while they are here. Enjoy each day. Don’t burn the day away.
Sometimes life takes over and you’re doing so much that you don’t have time to sit down and take it all in. That’s what’s been happening to me lately. I have SOOO much to blog about and I haven’t had the time or energy to for awhile now. That is going to change…I’m going to take some time and catch up on my blog and stop and smell the roses (or any flower for that matter). Life is too short not to.
More to come from me soon…
xoxo
When life rains on you, learn to dance in the puddles.
Something I need to post to remind myself that I need to stay positive and find the light in darkness when life doesn’t always work out the way you think it will or you’re just in a plain funk in your life. We all have our moments when life isn’t great, but I need to remember that I can change how I think/deal with the problem, and learn to find the fun, happy light that is hidden somewhere in the darkness. It’s always there, I just need to find it and dance in it. When these funks happen, if i open myself up to the universe to bring me something that will pull me out of this funk, the universe almost always answers. In the meantime, I can try to dance in the puddles.
I guess this quote is the equivalent of “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade”. But that quote is so overused and overplayed. Or I’ve even heard “when life hands you lemons, grab the tequila”, A nice spin on a old classic. But, I like the sound of the one I posted better.
Houdini By Foster the People
I couldn’t help it. I know my last post was about Foster The People, but I HAVE to post one more thing. I found this great acoustic version of the song Houdini by Foster the People that I posted yesterday. As a lot of my friends know, I’m a complete sucker for acoustic music. Especially when an artist takes their original song and plays it in an acoustic style. It gets me every time. Now, of course I have to like the song and artist, but if its a band I really like and I hear them turn a song into an acoustic version, I could not be happier. Something about the rawness of the voice and the sound of the guitar. Nothing can be hidden from the artist. You are either good or not good, no other sounds to hide behind. It’s for me, its a true testament of how good a band is for real. Can they play something acoustic and sound great? The 2nd way for me to tell is “do they sound good live” ? (even in non-acoustic format). If they don’t sound good live, they lose my interest instantly and I make a note to never see them in concert again.
Foster the People definitely can sing great live and do great acoustic verisons. This verison by far was my favorite. You can “You Tube” them and search for them and “acoustic” and a bunch of their other songs done acoustically too.
I couldn’t resist posting this….Its too good not to.
Enjoy this alternate version:) xoxo
My Latest obsession.The album Torches by Foster The People. My obsession 1st started when I heard their song “Pumped up Kicks” on the radio. Instantly loved it. Normally, I would jump on itunes and download that song and then listen to the rest of the album to see if I really just like that one song, or if the whole album is great. For some reason, yesterday, I finally looked them up on itunes and downloaded the entire album.
You know what’s pretty cool about them? Each song is just as completely different then the other songs. They have this cool style about them that you can still recognize its them, but make their songs so different. I love that. It’s so annoying when artists have 10 songs that sound the same on their albums. Foster the People are talented and got it right and I can’t stop listening to it. It’s an album that you have it give it a few listens, to really appreciate its greatness. I think that is a good test of a good band. I think (and i hope) they will be around for awhile and keep making this good music.
It’s very upbeat, interesting mix of sounds and beats and their lyrics are optimistic, mostly. In all honesty, it was hard to pick a song to post to represent them on this blog. I really like them all. At 1st i was going to choose “Pumped Up Kicks” but I figure you may have already heard it 1000 times on the radio. My 2nd almost choice was the song “Waste”. I really like it. There were others too, I was basically torn between the whole album. But I ultimately decided on the song “Houdini”. It’s an upbeat song but at the same time talks about how sometimes you just want to run and hide. Sometimes, I think we all feel like doing that and i could definitely relate to this song.
PS. All of these songs from this album are going on my running play list. Such great songs to run to and I’m looking forward to running while listening to them (Yeah, i just said I was actually looking forward to running:-)). Plus, I’m confident they will help me with my planned 6 mile run coming up:)
Enjoy the tunes! xoxo
Lake George, NY One of my top 5 all time favorite views of all time. I’m a lucky girl that this is the view from my parent’s lake house deck. Yeah, it’s amazing. And I swear, I don’t EVER take it for granted. Every time I walk through the door, this view still takes my breath away. Every.Single.Time. Instant serenity, calmness sweeps over and I completely (just for a little while) forget about any worries, troubles or stresses. Instant free stress relief and I’m forever grateful for it. Everyone needs to have a place they can go to that helps you recharge your batteries or just re-set yourself. This is one of my places. (I have a few happy places/things). This is right up there at the top of the list. It doesn’t have to be a “beautiful view” for everyone. We all have our things that help us do this….whether its a great song on your i-pod, having a great dinner with friends, sitting on a park bench, a yoga class, a run, a great concert, a long talk on the phone with your best friend. Figure out what it is and remember to go or do that place/thing that gives you that re-charge button. It’s always hard to leave this place, but i smile knowing that it’s still going to be there and i’ll be back soon. I always leave feeling re-charged, refreshed and extremely grateful to have had the chance to experience this view. I took the above picture from the deck…and i’ve spent many long hours sitting on this deck alone in quiet solitude or with friends and family. I could literally probably sit there forever, if i could. Great conversation, great food, lots of laughter and the fabulous view. A girl really couldn’t ask for more. I hope everyone has a happy place that they can go to, this life can be full of stresses and it’s always nice to have something that will bring that smile back on your face, even if its just for a short while. 
If you love life, then life will love you back.
This is something I believe in wholeheartedly. If your outlook on life is to have fun & love your experiences, then life will help provide to you fun and loving experiences. If you give love out to the world, the world will also give love back in more ways then one.
I’ve had a ridicously fun past couple of weeks of loving life and life loving me back. It reminded me of this quote.
I have a few new posts coming in the next few days to help share that love and fun I have been experiencing:-) Until then, I leave you with this quote.
You almost always feel better after a run than before it.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I decided we were going to hike one of the 46 “High Peaks” of the Adirondack Mountains. We decided to hike Porter Mt which is located near Keene Valley, NY (about 15 or so miles from Lake Placid, NY). After some less then par navigating on my part (losing cell service with my GPS going didn’t help) we finally found the trailhead and began our hike. The hike itself is 7.6 miles round trip (3.8 each way) with the summit at 4060 ft. The whole hike from start to finish took us a little under 6 hours total.
The trail starts out great and there is a flowing creek and bridge to walk over fairly early on in the hike….
….and then it gets steep…and stays steep. We are hiking a mountain so of course, this was expected. The hike itself really wasn’t that bad (considering). I guess I was in better shape then i thought. It was a steady climb up and had some nice breaks of flat or less steep inclines along the way.
In all honesty, the worst part was the unexpected amount of BUGS that were flying around our heads for the 2nd half of the hike. Seriously, there were A LOT. I’m a pretty patient person, and can handle the occasional bug or black fly swarming around my head…but this was testing my limits. They seemed to get worse the higher we got. I was trying to be optimistic in my head and thinking if we could just get to the summit, the bugs would be gone…. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true. I still made the most out of it and enjoyed the great view at the summit overlooking the other High Peaks around the Keene Valley/Lake Placid area. (We just didn’t stay at the top as long as we wanted.)
So now, I’m completely hooked and want hike ALL 46 high peaks. I really do enjoy hiking and its a fun goal to achieve at the same time. Add that to my bucket list!
Here are a few pictures from summit
And of course Bailey was there! Here’s a picture of her at the top!
I have to say, i started to realize that she is getting a little older. For the 1st time ever, she was slowing us down a little bit during the hike. Now, it was a hotter day out so maybe that was affecting her. She made the climb down with no problem, but on the way up she was pausing for a lot more grass breaks then usual. I think she was stalling:-) But she made it up and back down just fine. Let’s just say we both slept good that night…passed right out!
Overall it was a great day hike and with good company & conversation. It was nice to spend the day completely outside, get a great workout in and enjoy a great view at the top!
1 down….45 more to go:)
