expectations

You are a dream catcher

It’s GNO night tonight and as I’ve been reflecting on this past year in preparation for the night, I remembered our Design Your Life GNO the first week of January last year. It was a vision boarding workshop focused on casting a vision for the person you wanted to be in 2018. It seems impossible that was an entire year ago! Entirely impossible, but it’s true.

Now here we are, heading into our Dream Catchers GNO tonight with a similar, but different, agenda.

Instead of vision boards, we’re making a fun modern version of dream catchers to be a visual symbol throughout this year that we are in control of what we allow to filter down into our lives. The legend of the dreamcatcher hung over your bed, is that a spider weaves its web inside the hoop leaving a specific opening in the center. It catches all the bad dreams in the …

Thursday night was a bit of a riot. I don’t know if it was a sugar rush from the cookies and icing or what, but I literally had to steal a whistle (that resembled a tiny red recorder) from Ginger in order to rally the troops. Laughter filled the air at GNO from every corner of the room.

But this table was one of my favorites.

They win the prize for being the rowdiest table of the bunch. They were laughing loud and enacting all sorts of shenanigans. But that’s not why they were one of my favorites. It because only two of these ladies knew each other before they walked in and that’s typically not the case. Most women who attend our girls nights come with at least one friend.

It takes guts to walk into that room full of laughing women all by yourself.

But these ladies did it. Some were …

by Crystal Gornto Girl's Night Out Inspirational Women Love In Action Love in Friendship The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

Back in 2004 when Scott and I were still newlyweds, we decided we needed a puppy. There were no disagreements on what kind of puppy we’d get. We wanted a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, because they are obviously the cutest puppies on the planet. 😉 Despite their shedding, history of heart disease and shortened lifespan as a result, we set out to find the perfect cavalier pup. It wasn’t long before our hearts were set on this adorable tri-color pup.

We set a meeting place and drove about 45 minutes at night to meet.

We realized things might be a little shady when our meeting place was a closed down gas station. But no matter, we pulled in with our headlights on and hopped out to meet our pup. But to our surprise, the breeders pulled out two puppies. They had a tiny little blenheim colored (white with chestnut markings) puppy AND …

by Crystal Gornto Love In Action Loving Others Loving Yourself The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

In Texas when the weather gets below freezing, it makes the news. No, let’s be clear, it headlines the news. Add to that, any slight chance of precipitation, and the kids are dressed in snow gear 24/7, waiting by the window with sleds in hand. We’re immediately on alert for school closings due to “slick spots” on the roads and we’re posting everything that resembles the fluffy white magic on our social media feeds. So naturally, when I woke this morning to news alerts of “lingering flurries”, I was expecting to peek out the window to encounter a winter wonderland like the scene above.

My view of our cold, dry street and brown grass was a bit of a let-down.

Obviously that’s a stretch, but it’s not too far off in our world so driven by breaking news and social media. If it’s not the urgent, right now news, it’s perfectly filtered …

by Crystal Gornto Inspirational Words Love In Action Roadblocks in Life The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

I took A LOT of ridiculous pictures on New Year’s Eve. It started because I’m still trying to learn to create Instagram stories (can someone help me please?!) and somehow it ended with me using Facebook’s new filters on everyone at the party. Until someone stole my phone and used them on me.

#OhTheFunOf40Somethings!

It’s entirely fitting that earlier in the day, I was catching up on Jen Hatmaker’s For The Love podcast, listening in on her chat with Chrissy Kelly. They closed their time together talking about comparison. They talked about how easy it is to see other people’s success in life, especially their perfectly filtered social media feeds, and compare our current step #2 to their step #10. We think everyone else is more joyful, more peaceful or even just having more fun.

Newsflash: I don’t really have a knit beard.

See, I got you. Seriously though. All the stories we’re “seeing” …

by Crystal Gornto Girl's Night Out Inspiration Love In Action Loving Yourself The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

We missed all the big snow in Texas last week, but our new neighborhood has been planning something called “Blizzard Bash” for quite some time, so we weren’t too sad. The promise was that the weather called for snow, no matter the temperature outside. They were bringing in 10,000 pounds of snow along with hot cocoa, cider, music, and Santa. So we invited all our friends to join us for a snowball fight!

We’ve been looking forward to it for weeks.

Amid our seriously delayed Christmas decorating, card stuffing and tree buying Saturday, we stopped everything at 3pm to pull all the winter coats, boots, hats, gloves, sleds and snowball makers down from the attic. Along with loads of anticipation, we piled it all in the car and headed over to “Blizzard Bash”. It should be said here, that I’m probably a lot responsible for setting the expectations a little high. I’m …

by Crystal Gornto Inspiration Roadblocks in Life The Journey Through Life Leave a comment chat

You are a dream catcher

A surprising gift

Lingering flurries

Expect the unexpected