Back from Miami & already missing it!

Good Afternoon Everyone! Happy Friday!!!!
I know it has been almost an entire month since I have posted...sorry about that. I did have intentions of blogging while on vacation in Miami Beach....but it just didn't happen. The warm weather was incredible! I could spend the rest of my life there but my husband says no! He is not up for moving there, lol. Well, ok uprooting my family across the country because I enjoyed two weeks in an area, yeah not happening. Something to do with the mixture of warmth & humidity together helped me a lot with my pain. I went to Miami with my great friend Carol, and I met her family who we stayed with while I was there. Her mom Bernice who just celebrated her 94th birthday, her brother Michael, and her grandchildren; Xavier, Tiffany, & Noah. I was also introduced to some incredible cultural norms there that I happened to love! Cuban coffee (coloda) and Cuban food are a wonderful staple that everyone should experience regularly....the pastries are out of this world! Fruit is so ripe and wonderful there and is much cheaper to buy than here. It is easy to eat healthier where produce is always in season. 

While visiting the southern part of the east coast, we spent a day at the Everglades on an airboat tour and checking out the alligators, that was pretty cool! We had a really fun tour bus driver, Harry, and he helped make the tour a lot of fun! We spent a day at the beach laying in the sun, enjoying the warm ocean water and watching the beautiful clear blue waves crashing one on top of another. Tiffany & i both had the opportunity to experience the sting of a jellyfish, even though we would have preferred to opt out we weren't given the option with enough notice, ouch!Then we took a tour bus again this time headed for Key West. It was a long day and I was in so much pain riding back on the tour bus when the day was done but a day well spent. We did lots of shopping I brought back all sorts of little goodies for my hubby and family. The rest of the trip was pretty go with the flow. Carol and I spent so much time together that our relationship has bloomed to create an amazing friendship between us. I  have grown to love her family so much and miss them all greatly already. Her Mother is just this adorable little southern belle and has been having some health problems as of recent, she could use some prayers if any of you have the time to add Bernice to your prayers, it would be greatly appreciated. I didn't realize how much I would miss Carol after leaving there when we spend the majority of the year living right next door to each other....

Oh I also got a tattoo while I was down there...I got a beautiful peacock on my left thigh. The colors are magnificent and the shop I went to was South Side Tattoos and Matthew the artist that worked on me was great. The prices are reasonable and he did really good with letting me take breaks and keeping me as comfortable as possible for a 6 hour sitting as he could. I have attached a few pics so that y'all could share in my fun a little bit too! I did use my crutches when walking down there and I didn't have any of the daily stressors as I do at home because I was on vacation, but Carol and the kids helped me out a lot with things and I still had two falls during the two weeks that I was there along with a fall at the airport leaving Miami. So even though I share the photos that show us having a great time I also had a lot of down time as well.

 I love you all and thank you much for the support. Thank you for following along with me and my journey through life as Elle knows it. Life is a journey and you get to choose the path you go down and how you see things along the way. Look at everything through smiling eyes and life will seem so much happier! Until next time, have a great weekend!
~Elle~

It's Been A Few Too Many Days

Pictures of the cards I completed with my friends Courtney and Nona. We had so much fun going through our order when the UPS man dropped it off to making great cards with all our new goodies! As always, thank you for visiting my blog and supporting my passions! Love y'aLL from my family to yours,
Elle

It's been a few too many days

Sorry it has been a couple weeks since I've blogged for y'all. It has been some pretty busy times in our lives. Things are going pretty good! I'm working hard on making healthy choices in my diet and my actions which is quite challenging at times. I've been shrinking in size but have not lost any weight hmmm, I hope that means I'm turning fat into muscle but over all my body is still weak. I've been juicing for my family quite a bit and we all love it but during these cold wet months in Oregon produce does not come very cheap...

I've been making lots of fun cards with my friends +Courtney Daniels and Nona. Courtney is a #Stampin Up Demonstrator and we have so much fun making things, waiting very excitedly to get our goodies we order and the excitement of receiving our Paper Pumkin each month. It is so much fun! I will share some pictures of cards we've been working on in the last week. I've also had the opportunity to spend some time with a couple of my besties in the past couple weeks, Jonna Niles & Toni Damewood plus her family. It was great to spend time with y'all over my birthday!  I was also blessed to be with my family and have some incredible strawberry cheesecake hmmm it was delish!!! (And it flies well too) sorry just an added laugh for my family when they read this* wink,wink*

Ok so I have to share some of these cards we've been working on!! Its interesting that we can all be working on the same thing and end up with completely different outcomes. It was so awesome to get my recent order from Stampin Up because I got to order more for my birthday...I received the new envelope punch folder yay!!!! My favorite new stamp sets from Sale-a-bration "Perfect Pennants" "Petal Parade" "Hardwood" "See Ya Later" "Banner Blast" "You're Lovely" & Banner Punch. I also finally ordered a Stampin Up stamp cleaner and now I wonder why I didn't order it years ago!!!! I also ordered my favorite color ink Caypso Coral!

As always from my family to yours, with all my love. Thanks for your support and following me in my passions! Love always,
Elle~

Love & Inspiration

Happy Friday-Hope you are all safe from this weather! I find myself thinking a lot this week about love, mostly because we are a week from Valentine's day and I have no idea what to do for my husband. I do however have a surprise for some random family and friends on my list I have made some Valentine's Day cards, about a dozen of them. I will send them out to the first dozen of you to send me a private message with your mailing address in it to melliecreates@gmail.com I look forward to finding out who the first one's are to read my blog this week.

+Kelly Rowe shared this inspirational message with us this morning on Google+ and I wanted to share it with y'all because it has so much truth to it.  "Girls compete with each other; Women empower one another" Author unknown

 

My friend has two darling daughters 9 & 15 years old. I watch them for her occasionally because she is a traveling RN in the Air Force. Her job has made it so they have moved around and done some home schooling. Her teenage daughter has been in our local high school for this entire year and I have been helping them out so they can stay at the same school. She is finding it hard to make friends here in school because she is very quiet and shy and the girls are very competitive. I have been talking with her and trying to be supportive and go to her school events, inspire her by saying once school gets out the world is a different place. She will still deal with competitiveness and lots of drama if she plans to go off to college because these young ladies are still trying to find themselves as well; but once you make it through all that women are very different. We make friends because we have similar interests, because you ask your neighbor for help in an emergency to pick up your daughters from school one day and stay great friends from there on out; because you share a coupon with someone in line at the grocery store.... Trying to tell a girl who is extremely unhappy at school and having difficulties coping with it; that it does get better is pretty cliché. Do any of you have any tips of how I can help her to feel more confident about herself and help her to "fit in" or make friends? I try to talk to her and support her, listen to what her concerns are, I'm trying to find her strong points so that I can bring some confidence out and show her how to use it but she is so quiet and self kept that it makes it difficult.

 

I have always been out spoken, opened my mouth before my brain processes it, and out going enough that I make friends everyday. I'm not afraid to say I don't know how to do this can you help me? I'm constantly on other peoples blogs and profiles watching videos and reading on how to DIY or how to fix the things I already buggered up. I'm new at all this and I'm trying to make sure to give credit where credit is due. Thanks for joining me again today. Don't forget to send me a message with your address in it! I'm not telling who the first 12 are, you will just have to share with us on my blog if you receive a lovely card from me for Valentine's Day. Until next time....God Bless

 

~Elle~

Hello y'all best I get started....

Well for those that know me, know me by my name Sharmel or Shar...so I've decided to dance to the beat of my own drum and go by Elle. My life needs a revamp anyways, so why not start out fresh! Most of you that have known me for years have known me as this motivated, driven, nothing can stop me now successful woman, mother, wife and almost ready to walk into a court room with my law degree! For those of you who have met me the last couple years have met a disabled, broken down, broken hearted woman who is lucky to have such a wonderful husband. Ok maybe not that bad but its been a rough couple years. I've had so much happen with my health this past couple years thats left me with battle scars of 9 back surgeries, multiple organs removed, in a wheel chair much of the time and still seeking to find the cause of all of this. 

Between my husband, Chris, and I we have 4 boys from sophmore at OSU in the marching band down to our 4th grader. We have raised wonderful, well manored sons of course they are still boys and have heard their fair share of raised voices in my house but they have turned out to be pretty nice,young men. Alex is at OSU, my two sons, Cayden & Corbyn are with us part time and their dad part time and Isaac lives with Chris and I full time. With all the boys activities and my doctors appointments somedays it seems like we live out of the car. 

Outside of our crazy life as we know it, my husband is an Engineering Supervisor and I'm disabled and stay at home. Some days you would think my life is easy because the boys are in school all day and my husband is at work so it appears that I'm just plain lazy, but of course thats not the case (most days anyways). There are days I can't get out of bed due to pain and sickness but there are all the other days that I am looking forward to crafting, couponing, finding great deals, budgeting, scheduling, organizing, and cleaning! Of course I don't get through any one of those tasks during one full day because my body and mind do not allow for such chaos, so instead I will help y'all come up with ways to help you budget and save, make things at home, cut costs, have a cleaner more organized home and have time left to craft somewhere in between!  I look forward to blogging and getting to know some of you out there. I'm new to blogging so I could use as much support as I can get out here! 

Thank y'all for stopping by, God Bless!

~Elle~