Another gift my roommate and I received from Oprah's Favorite Things episode was a book by Mark Nepo called "The Book of Awakening". I gave mine away but I finally had some time recently to skim through Gina's copy. The book is a day by day guide to being present in the life you have. Each day has an insightful quote followed by a connecting story and then a few tips for the reader to achieve whatever message that day has.
When I glanced through the book, it was December 19th so I of course went straight straight to that date.
The quote was "As someone sitting beneath a tree can imagine the earth from above the trees, a heart encumbered by reality can know eternity."
The writer, Nepo goes on to explain that during rough seas, sailors go up to the deck of their ships in order to avoid getting sea sick. They stare out at the horizon and eventually feel better. Looking far ahead of them eases their stomachs and also their minds. Nepo continues to say that this way of thinking is so important in our daily lives. I couldn't agree more with this belief. However, it can be incredibly difficult to look beyond the initial pain or failure and see the light at the end of the very dark tunnel.
"Whether facing cancer or riding the insecurity of repeated rejection or trying to surmount the most profound moments of loneliness, my greatest pains and fears have been lessened when I've managed to keep the largest sense of life before me like a horizon." -Mark Nepo
After my parents died just over 3 years ago, I really didn't think too highly of my future. It was so difficult for me to look at the bigger picture and see beyond my immense sadness. I dreaded waking up each morning to find them still gone. I constantly wondered how I would ever be happy again. When on earth would I laugh and be 'ok' with this intense loss of my mom and dad? Somehow, little by little, day by day, month by month and year by year, I've started to look at my horizon a lot more. I'm a big planner and thus I have planned a lot of fun and exciting things in my life. Coming to the realization that I really have so much to look forward to in my life and wonderful people to do it all with has gotten me through many dark days.
Perhaps my horizon is a little cloudy some days but it still is definitely intact and will continue to grow brighter every day. I hope you look to your own horizon every day and let it guide you out of the bad moments in life.
So, if you haven't read on my blog yet, I had the honor of being in the audience at the second episode of Oprah's Favorite Things. It was amazing and I got a lot of incredible things. I got an awesome Coach purse, a pair of gorgeous diamond earrings and several other things.
My absolute favorite gift were two VERY LARGE gift cards to Nordstrom's Lingerie department! So guess what I had fun doing this afternoon?! I was free this afternoon and thought it would be better to venture to the mall on a weekday anyway. Yep, I was in the lingerie department at Nordstrom for about 3 hours buying bras or undies for some of my favorite ladies! Fun, huh? Don't worry, I did buy myself something fancy as well. : )
The best part was emailing all these woman asking them for their sizes! I can say that not one girl was hesitant to tell me her size! I love that I'm able to share this once in a lifetime experience with some of the wonderful ladies in my life. I hope that they like everything I picked out for them. I guess if they don't, then they can go exchange if for something else on their own.
I definitely couldn't help but feel like Santa Clause today and this is by far my favorite part about this time of year. Happy Holidays ladies! Now I have to figure out how I'm going to mail all these bras and undies to these girls... Hmmm.. Any ideas?
"The Sophia Satchel, so chic, so perfect... No wonder it was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show."
So, if you don't know already, I was lucky enough to be on the second part of Oprah's Favorite Things Episode last Monday. One of the big ticket items that we were each given was this fabulous Coach purse. I love it! I am giving away a lot of the things I got from the show but I am definitely keeping this purse and have already begun using it. 
Needless to say, I feel very fortunate to own this Coach purse. It kind of puts all my Target and TJ Maxx purses to shame! Now if only I could get the matching wallet to go with the purse! Haha!
I cannot believe what just happened to me a week ago. Let me begin by telling you how it all started.
About a month ago I nominated my roommate Gina's Pin-Up For Vets calendar project on the Oprah Winfrey website. There was a link on her website to nominate someone who inspires you and who is a hero in your community. I thought that this perfectly described Ms. Gina Elise so I went ahead and submitted her name. We didn't think too much about it and went on with our lives.
Then, two weeks ago, we got an email asking if we would like to be in the audience on the show! Crazy, right? We had no clue this was coming or that really bigger things lay in store for us. After much debate as to whether or not we should go ahead and buy those expensive plane tickets from LA to Chicago on such short notice, we finally caved and purchased them. When was this sort of opportunity ever going to happen again? Several of our friends told us that we would be stupid not to go. This is her final season after all. We didn't even know what the show was going to be about!! This led to some serious investigation....
Now if you've been following my blog for awhile, then you'll know that Gina and I travel quite a bit for her Pin-Ups For Vets project to hand-deliver calendars and other merchandise to VA Hospitals. So of course we thought that we should also go to a hospital while we were in Chicago. Let's kill two birds with one stone. We would attend the Oprah show in all its magicalness and also go cheer up some amazing VETS. Logical, eh? I had never been to the Windy City before so I was ecstatic about the trip. What was there not to be thrilled about: Being at the Oprah show, visiting a VA Hospital and venturing to a new fun city! Well, this trip turned out be the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me! 
Are you ready for it? The show that we went to happened to be OPRAH'S PART 2 of her FAVORITE THINGS EPISODE!!!!!! Can you believe that?! If you follow Oprah even a little bit, then you know what this episode is all about and how much it means to be in that illustrious audience on the taping of that particular episode! If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, all you need to know is that Oprah generously gives away to her audience members 10-15 of her all-time favorite things. That's right, this show is all about receiving gifts!!! It was insane! I don't really even know how to describe how incredible it was being in that audience and discovering that it was her Favorite Things episode. Let me just tell you that the audience absolutely freaked out!! Tears, hugs, giddy laughter, screams, uncontrollable shaking, outbursts of singing and that was just me! Hahaha! Ok, not really, we were all going crazy!!! I kept hugging and shaking Gina's hands and asking over and over, "Are we really here?! Is this really happening to us right now?!" I had to pinched throughout the show to see if I was awake! Fake snow was falling from the ceiling and the words "Oprah's Ultimate Favorite Things" kept bouncing on the screens everywhere. It was madness in that studio for awhile. Wonder how much of this commotion they got on camera?
Honestly, I still think I'm in shock that this all happened to me. Out of all the people in the world that tried getting on this show, Gina was chosen and she picked me to go with her. I mean, what are the chances of all this?! Mathematicians, help me out....
If you haven't watched this episode yet, then go check it out asap! It aired yesterday so perhaps you die-hard Oprah fans have it recorded or maybe you know of someone that recorded it. I'm in the reddish-peach dress in the second row-front center. I know-they were amazing seats!! I had an stellar view of the entire stage and of course of the lovely Oprah! Sadly, they didn't let us take our phones or cameras into the studio with us so there aren't any pictures from the inside. I was definitely taking mental pictures though the entire time! : )
This Thanksgiving, I am truly grateful for experiences like this!
Another gift my roommate and I received from Oprah's Favorite Things episode was a book by Mark Nepo called "The Book of Awakening". I gave mine away but I finally had some time recently to skim through Gina's copy. The book is a day by day guide to being present in the life you have. Each day has an insightful quote followed by a connecting story and then a few tips for the reader to achieve whatever message that day has.
