"Halloween should be a day where we honor monsters and not be mad at each other."

Did you miss me? I have pretty much been MIA since our Portland adventure, besides that last pondering life/Debbie Downer blog post I snuck in. I guess you could say that we've had the post-vacation blues. You plan and look forward to something for months, then you come back to everyday life. After you've made sure your house hasn't been broken into (is that just us?), pet your beloved dog and watch all the TV shows you DVR'd, you begin to wonder what you have to look forward to. In our case, it's Halloween!

The costume debate of 2010 was a doozy! Since we said our "I do's," there have been several disputes about Halloween costumes including what we should be, whether it should be homemade or prefab, and whether or not we should dress up in the first place. We are both against prefab costumes and the arguing usually commences when I pressure Ben to come up with the perfect costume idea - after all, he's the witty, humorous one.

I spent hours researching the internet for ideas and spouting off ones I liked just to have a grunt here and there from Ben which translates into "no" in man language. In the end, we went with one of Ben's original ideas and we will definitely be in the running for the Most Original Costume award at the party. Tune in next week for pics!

Cali is going raw. Has anyone seen the documentary Raw for 30 Days? We watched it several months ago and really liked the concept. We had a fleeting pipe dream of trying to go raw ourselves, but then we went out for juicy hamburgers and forgot about it. We took the philosophy of all good parents and decided to do something good for our dog that we aren't willing to do for ourselves.

The past 6 months Cali has been suffering from severe allergies and last week we started her on a completely raw diet. It will take awhile to see if this will be the miracle cure, but she LOVES it! It is a little inconvenient having to de-salmonella her dish, the counter tops and our hands at every feeding, but if this works it will totally be worth it!

What do you do to jump start your zeal for life post-vacation? What original Halloween costume ideas have you come up with? Has anyone out there tried a raw diet for themselves or their pets? I leave you with a sneak peak of our family fall photo shoot done by one of our favorite Oklahoma photographers, Mandy Stansberry.

"Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." Thomas Edison

We are all waiting to be inspired. We were talking to our chiropractor yesterday and he was telling us about a wellness seminar similar to one we had been to previously. Ben jokingly told him that the last one we went to didn't make us change, so why would we go to another one.

I started thinking about how many things we've done and invested in lately to inspire us to change. It all started with one crazy book and an impromptu road trip to Taco Bueno. Ben bought me a nice camera, I trained as a home stager, we were trained in Japanese Reiki, I invested in marketing for my business, Ben is investing in office space to start a private practice, we have read countless books and watched countless movies about this subject, and finally we flew across the country to Portland to go to the Storyline Conference.

In a sense we've come full circle. It has been almost exactly a year since we started making investment after investment to be inspired. Are we living a better story? Are the characters in our story any different than they were a year ago? Have we created inciting incidents? 

If a good story must include conflict, then we are some of the greatest storytellers of all time! We decided not to be on a mission team to Ireland that we were committed to and had trained with for over a year, while on a walk Ben decided that if this was what marriage is then he didn't want it, Ben's truck died and we became a 1-car family, my grandpa passed away, I went from working 40 hrs/wk to 10 hrs/wk nearly cutting our income in half, Ben made a professional decision that would potentially keep us in Memphis for 3 more yrs. Some of these were choices and some of these were just life ...all of them have been incredibly difficult.

What have you invested in the last year to inspire you? If you were reading a book about your life, would your character be exciting? If there's anyone in our family that's living a great story, it's Cali:)

Portland: An Inciting Incident

We just returned from a 5-day trip to Portland, Oregon which is currently weighing heavy on our hearts. I feel like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire listening to Free Fallin' after having just been fired from his job, pondering the all important question we all ask ourselves at different intervals in our lives, "What now?"

Just as Tom Cruise created an Inciting Incident for himself, our trip to Portland was definitely an inciting incident that we will look back on as the launching point for some big life decisions.

Unfortunately, conflict tends to piggyback change and is ultimately how we grow. It seems much easier to just call it a day, not make any changes and watch more TV. Oh the comfortable lives we live, they are both a blessing and a curse!

I asked Ben today if he thinks he will have to tell our kids someday how their mom is crazy, to which he responded, "You really think I'll have to tell them?" I am usually the one who comes up with the crazy ideas and Ben is the realist who brings me back down to earth. Our goal now is to find a happy medium that we both want and can commit to.

Here's what all we squeezed into our trip in less than 100 words: Mark Spencer Hotel, Little Big Burger, Powell's Books, Kenny and Zuke's, Voodoo Doughnut, Saturday Market, Stumptown Coffee, Nike World Headquarters, Seaside Beach, Cannon Beach, Jake's Famous Crawfish, Eagle Creek Trail, Multnomah Falls, The Storyline Seminar held at the Gerding Theater at the Armory, Henry's Tavern, test screening of independent film Sironia at Living Room Theaters, Clyde Common, city view at Portland City Grill, Columbia Employee Outlet Store... WHEW!

We also met a wonderful couple named Matt and Laura Corbin who were nice enough to take us hiking, show us around Portland and have us over for an amazing dinner in their home.

One of my best friends from college and her husband (Christel and Sam) who live in Houston also joined us on the trip. It's probably a rare thing that you have the opportunity to share a hotel room and put your make-up on with your college roommate several years down the road and we loved sharing this experience with them!

The Great Northwest Awaits

We're headed up to Portland tomorrow for a little vacation in conjunction with Donald Miller's Living a Better Story Seminar.  His book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years was/is a life-changer for us.  We decided part of our story would include this trip to Portland as an investment in our lives.  Plus, it's Portland, hello!

I was joking with Monica the other day because after being inspired by Don's book, we had some real excitement about a new story; however, as the inspiration dwindled and time moved on, we started a new story called "How to Try Without Really Succeeding."  It's like we have these ideas and want to live better stories, but our efforts just lead to more of the same.  And yet, sometimes the conflict to overcome in a story is self-sabotage...

In fact, as the saying should go, the more things stay the same, the more they change [in order to stay the same]. 

It's amazing what we will do to survive, yet what we are willing to endure not to suceed.

Fallin' for Fall
Last weekend when I got my last pedicure of the season with my sis-in-law, I realized how excited I am about fall! This summer during the weeks of 100+ degree weather, I daydreamed about wearing cute scarves, brisk cool mornings and taking walks with Ben and Cali without almost passing out. Ben is excited about making crock pot stew and chili. Is there anywhere in the world that has fall-like weather year round? If so, sign me up!

Is Entrepreneurship a Trend?
I've noticed in a lot of movies lately the lead actor/actress owns their own business. In Love Happens, Burke is a motivational speaker and Eloise owns a flower shop. In The Back-up Plan, Stan takes over his parent's goat farm/cheese manufacturing company and Zoe owns a pet shop. The list goes on and on and in every case it seems simple enough to be a successful small business owner.

Hollywood has fooled us once again my friends because I am here to tell you that it is not so simple! There are days that I wonder if anyone in this world will ever actually pay me to do what I want to do. Yesterday was one of those days and Ben promptly took me to Memphis Pizza Cafe (while scoring some major husband points!). I know, I know, it's the journey not the destination blah, blah, blah. I'm just having a tough time seeing the big picture where all of this is going to work out and I can be a happy, carefree business owner like Eloise or Zoe.

What Inspires You?
Another way to phrase this is "What gives you energy?" For me personally, it can be as simple as doing a mini room makeover or adding a few splashes of fall decorations to our home. I love buying fresh flowers and planning our weekly menu around fresh veggies we pick up at the Farmer's Market.

I like to entertain and to set our table with fun centerpieces and napkins. Organization is my middle name and I can't be much happier after tackling a disorganized drawer or closet. Traveling, ahhh traveling - experiencing new things, smells, cultures. Sleeping in, cuddling with Ben while watching a movie, listening to the rain...

What are your favorite things about fall? Is being a small business owner only for fictional Hollywood characters? What everyday things give you inspiration?