It's one of those days when I feel like writing something but don't have any ideas flowing. I've even got a few drafts sitting in my pending section, but I just don't have the creative momentum to finish them today. So I flip through my camera roll and find the photo above. That's Sadie. She belongs to the family for which I nanny. Like myself, she's an independent spirit who loves food, and this is obviously why she's grown so attached to me in such a short amount of time. Yesterday, we whipped out a homemade remote-control race car and took it for a little spin. I assumed the role of an audience member and watched as the car zipped around the living room. Poor Sadie got so startled that she ran to my lap, pranced around on top of my thighs and nestled herself in a comfortable spot. Every time the car approached our front-row seat, her whole little body began to quiver in fear, which is ironic since she has a skull and cross bones on her doggie sweater.

So there's that.

Here's a list I got from Setarra, who got it from Tania, whose blog I also follow. I believe this is what they call the circle of blog life.


I'm sure everyone has that one friend for whom they'd do anything, within reasonincluding maybe breaking the law, and I've got about four of those. One of them celebrated a birthday yesterday, but we decided to live it up with a zip line thrill on Saturday morning.

My alarm went off at 6:30am, and by 6:50am I finally rolled out of bed to brush my teeth, wash my face throw on some clothes and drive around the corner to Meredith's house. She stays so close to me that I made it there by 7:05am, and then myself and three other lovely ladies rode out to Helen, Georgia for a little adrenaline rush.

The ride to the mountains was gorgeous, at least the part that I was awake for. We passed a couple wineries that had signs for offered tours and tastings, so I do indeed believe I will be back some time in the near future.


ZipNTime was offering a sweet deal on Living Social, which is how we heard about the place. They have the longest dual zip line in the state of Georgia, and by longest, I mean half a mile across the forest. Meredith and I were more than excited, but our other friends started getting a little nervous about how high we'd be flying from. Their minds started to ease when we walked in the shop and saw this.


Once upon a time in a New York City soundstage apartment, Carrie Bradshaw found an engagement ring in her boyfriend, Aiden's, duffle bag. Then she proceeded to vomit into her kitchen sink.
"The ring was not good. It was a pear-shaped diamond, with a gold band"
Aiden was my favorite male character in the history of the TV show. He helped Carrie stop smoking, he stripped her floors, he helped with her apartment-buying struggles and he was always upfront about his feelings. By every viewer's standards, he did everything right, except pick out an engagement ring.

Disclaimer: this is not a personal problem I'm having. But I recently got to talking about this subject and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to get inside a man's mind. You never know what you're gonna get digging around in there.


I asked an old friend where he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner, and he suggested Chipotle. As someone who has loved Chipotle since before people even knew how to pronounce it, I almost teared up with pride. Especially since I used to have to drag him to the spot, and he'd look at me like I was Animal from the muppets every time I suggested we eat there (which was pretty often). It always warms my heart when my friends enjoy my favorite eateries, and it was kinda nice that I didn't have to fork over a hefty chunk of change for a birthday dinner.

*Tip: the dressing they give you when you order a salad is also really good on top of a burrito bowl.

My schedule has gotten much busier since the new year hit. On the days I have to go in the office, I arrive super early (6:30am) and in the early afternoon, I jet off to the second job I've recently picked up, as a nanny. I'm still getting used to that title: Chantel, Nanny.

Also, I'll finally be starting Hot Yoga classes again this weekend! I haven't been in months, so poor joints are in for a rude awakening on Saturday morning. Can't wait.

Thank you, everyone who commented on my last post. Sometimes I see this blank white space and start writing as if nobody is reading, and then I get all this wonderful insight that reminds me how freakin' awesome it can be to get another perspective on certain situations. Especially when that perspective is coming from such beautiful minds such as yourselves. Let's see if I can step my iphonography game up in the near future.

Challenge accepted.


Last night, I went down a little rabbit hole on the blog segment of the internet. A photo on Pinterest led to a post on a blog which led to another blog and another, et cetera, et cetera. 



© the active spirit. +