She talks to angels

To my dear niece

Katherine Danielle

 on the first day of your (likely to be) 4th tempestuous year of life.

I have been your aunt for 4 years now.

Well, 4 years and about 8 1/2 hours.

And when I am old and gray, it shall be your childhood that I remember most.

 I was lucky enough to be there for most of it. 

I remember everything.

 From the day your mom hid you as a newborn on top of the armor so that you could sleep peacefully in a house full of wild little ones.

 All the way through today, when you wouldn't go to the park with me because you wanted to spend time with your "mum-ba".

And every adventurous day in between.

If Jack is the passion, James the humor, Elly the magic

 then you are the love, Katy.

You love your family so much.

 You remember everyone.

You take care of everyone. 

You are beautiful inside and out. 

You are the precious moments girl, the animal lover, the mama's little helper, and the beautiful blue eyed baby we never knew we needed so much.

You are our only Spring baby and while it may (ok, it definitely does) sound cheesy,

I've always felt that Spring was the perfect season for you to be born.

You are the bearer of warmth and sunshine in our family.

And yes, while we might fight about everything from Porto pots to cookie baking, there hasn't been a day that has gone by in the last 4 years and now almost 9 hours that I haven't thanked God for you.

For our Katherine Danielle Monroe. 

I love you so much and I look forward to another year of bubble baths, experimental baking, screaming for no apparent reason, secret club sleepovers, rapid outfit changing, silly dancing, and pure Katy craziness.

Love always.

Aunt Lori

No Comment

I haven't commented on any one's blog lately. 

I feel bad about that because there are a million things I usually want to say. 

But; fellow bloggers, know this..

I am obsessively reading your blog, even if I don't comment!

Tomorrow I am going to update you on my new BFF Jennie and how she is a bad influence on me. 

She convinced me to call out of work at midnight, forced me to let her dye my hair, painted my nails a shade she called "hooker red", made me listen to an entire Weezer album, and got me addicted to playing Rock Band.

She routinely criticizes both my baking and my Spanish accent. 

It's kind of a friendship made in heaven. 

Anyway,

I will leave you with; instead of your daily Sugar, a picture of Sugar's latest work.

.\ She was mad because I wouldn't give her any pizza. 

Lori Ann

Word Up

Ok, so..

I have come up with a plan to live in my car from August to December.

To both save a ton of  money and confront my fear of homelessness.

 (I am pushing all of my clients to confront their fears this week)

I think its a brilliant plan.

My mom keeps saying "No, absolutely not".

I think she is jealous that she didn't think of it first.

I am writing about weird stuff because I am so tired lately.

I think I have seasonal affective disorder.

I loathe summer and as it gets closer I feel more and more exhausted.

And then, on that first real day of fall, when the leaves are starting to fall and the wind is chilly, it's like I wake up and am SO happy and energized.

Anyway, if these are my only problems then I am a lucky girl indeed.

Word up.

Lori Ann

Your daily Sugar

Tick Tick Boom

Random Sunday Night Updates

 Look what I got done at Staples for only 9.99.

 It's one of my favorite pics of the kids.
 (it's just missing the Kat)

 I slept over my friend Jennie's house again last night.

 We made scones.

 They were strange.

Then we played rock band until 3 am.

We kept playing that song "word up" and now I can't get it out of my head. 

Sugar was lazy today and didn't clean the apartment.

 Maybe she'll get her act together and we can get it done in the morning. 

Word Up

Lori Ann

I'm only me when I'm with you

Dudes, what's up?

I have been going out a lot lately. Kind of leaving my hermit existence behind. In the process I've also been neglecting Sugar. Which makes her angry and leads to stuff like this. 

So, anyway, tonight I was hanging out with my friend Jennie, her boyfriend Jake and their friend Susan. All of them are extremely hilarious and after watching the new Footloose we were feeling super inspired. Which  led to us making duh..duh...duh...

Our OFFICIAL SPRING/SUMMER 2012 TO DO LIST!

1. Go to a evangelical church. (not in mockery, but for the experience)

2. Go LARPing. (Live Action Role Playing)

3. Susan has a personal goal to hook it up with her manager 

4. Dance all night 

5. Steal Mr. Squeakers (our friend Amanda's cat) back from her ex-boyfriend and his new weirdly older girlfriend.

6. Take artistic pictures. Like one of us posed as a tree, while someone else in the picture cries- you know, those pictures that everyone pretends that they get.

7. Go to Harry Potter World. Not sure if this is going to happen but super excited that Susan loves HP as much as me!

8. Jennie has a goal to read all the HP books. Or else our friendship is over!

9. ******************************** (cannot be listed- don't worry, it's not illegal. Just slightly immoral)

10. Karaoke

11. Help the Elderly

12. Resolve our childhood issues (Jennie, Susan, and I are all therapists and Jake's mom is a therapist)

13. Go to a concert (anyone but Santana)

So, yeah. It's going to be one crazy summer. I will keep you posted as we accomplish all of the above!!

Lori Ann

You were right for me

Most of my clients (like 99%) suffer from depression and anxiety.

 Sometimes it's their primary diagnosis, other times it's just part of a greater mental health issue.

A visual imagery technique I use to help cope with the depression/anxiety  is

 "Moments of perfect happiness".

Which is as simple as it sounds.

I ask them to describe one or two moments of their lives which were moments of perfect happiness.

This helps those who are unable to see the positive in their past or future. 

As I was doing this with several clients today I started thinking about what are the moments of perfect happiness in my life.

 Here's some that came to my mind.

1. Seeing my mom enter the front door of the mission home to pick me up from the mission.

 A minute later we were both laughing and it thrilled me to hear the elders say "Now we know where Hermana Hinsdale gets her laugh"

2. This one night when my sisters and I stayed overnight in a fancy hotel in Greensboro.

 We get to the GC ( Golden Corral) and Erin went up and got like 8 different desserts and kept saying

 "What's wrong? Haven't you seen fat people eat before?"

I couldn't stop laughing. 

3. I was sleeping in the living room at my sisters house, sometime around Thanksgiving.

 At 5 am I could hear someone get up. It was Elly (at age 5).

She was holding little Christmas ornaments in her hand and she kept mumbling to herself  "We've got to decorate, decorate".

 It was the first time I realized that she really was a little like me.

4. Every single time I step out of my parents house I feel like the sky looks stunningly beautiful.

 And it makes me Pennsylvania happy.

I have a few others.

But lists longer than 4 always lose my interest:) 

Lori Ann

My heart will go on and on

Some of you may not realize this, but we Hinsdale's aren't super rich upper class people. 

We just seem like it because we are super classy. That's right. 

Anyway, we do have one priceless heirloom to our family name. 

An original menu from the Titanic, listing what was served on the night the ship sank.

Yes, as you can see from the picture below, the menu's were electric blue and apparently "chicken, hamburgers, jello, and bread" was being served that fateful night. 

Now, here's where I reveal the truth. This isn't really a real menu. Gotcha.  It's one my mom made up for her "Titanic dinner", which she insisted we all attend. As "characters" from Titanic. (I kept reminding her that these were REAL people, but whatever)

Anyway, the dinner was delicious. Or at least that is what I heard. Apparently the Titanic didn't cater to vegetarians... strangely, just like my parents. 

My mom made Waldorf salad and we talked about how sad it must have been and theorized about what each of us would have done if we'd been on board. 

It was kinda fun and cool. Just like my mom.

The evening ended on a controversial note when my dad stopped my mom from reenacting the sinking of the ship's captain (who was played by Thomas the cat). She was either going to put him in the bathtub or spray him with a water bottle or something. 

Then THIS happened.

It was the best part of the night. 

I love my family.

Lori Ann

p.s.- I don't know if any of you are on Pottermore (the official Harry Potter website). I got on yesterday and they sorted me into GRYFFINDOR. I never ever would have put myself there. So yeah, I'm a gryffindor, people. (Now I've just got to work on that whole "bravery" thing)