My Home Away From Home

I love my job!  I work for an absolutely amazing company, and they are truly my family.  I am in an office full of women.  We are a virtual receptionist company, and quite honestly the best out there.  This is an office full of women who, on a daily basis go above and beyond for every person they come into contact with.  Whether it's taking a message for a swamped attorney in Buffalo, or assisting an Entertainment firm booking gigs.  These women {myself included} make peoples lives easier, while putting smiles on their faces. 

Thursday the 25th was National Secretaries Day, we celebrated in full "Ruby Style"  and as usual, KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK!

We did a goodies bag buffet!  Each of our Fabulous receptionist got to come in and "shop" picking out their own thank you gifts.  Several of our amazing and supportive clients even shared their thanks for all we do by sending delish goodies.  One client even sent 10 $50 gift certificates for spa treatments, we raffled those off to some extra lucky ladies!  Once everyone got over the fabuliousness of the goodies bag buffet, they were treated to an amazing "pot-luck" style buffet in the kitchen.  As much as I love to throw a party, and I so grateful to be a part of the event planning committee for the office. 

Here is my take for the day!  I am amazingly lucky to have a job that I love, working with people that I adore.  It makes a world of difference for this busy mommy!  If I had to work in an office that I hated, I would come home from work angry, and irritated.  No kid wants a mom who is screaming all the time, no mom wants to take her anger out on her kids.  Luckily when my children get "the wrath" of Mommy, they genuinely deserve it. 

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More DIY Fimo on My Style

Home Sweet Home

Whew!  After months of repair I am finally happy with the new feel and address of "Pennies Thoughts".  I have redirected all my pins and everything that I can think of to get the word out that we have moved!  Because of the change, I am able to sign up for services not offered with my previous blog hosting site.  I am new to google+ also! 

Thanks to my friends and family who have helped me with this all along the way.   If you were a shoulder to me to cry on, or an ear for me to vent in, you are all amazing and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

Now it's time for the fun stuff!

Ladies Night!

Last Night I had an amazing night with my girlfriends.  We all work together, but because of out positions we do not get enough time to spend with each other.  However we are the committee that plans the events for our company, and we are planning our Super Summer Bash!  We did tour a prospective place, then and discussed it in true "Ruby Form" deciding for Martini's!  Normally I would just say "Sorry guys I've got to get home, next time for sure." but there never seems to be a next time.  This time I told Chris that I wanted to go out with the girls tonight after viewing the venue.  He has a gym class that night, so normally I have to get right home.  He was fully supportive, of course he would stay home with the kids that night.  I deserved to go out for some fun adult time without him.

Wow!  It was never that Chris makes me stay home, I honestly felt guilty.  True mom style, I know.  I feel like, I work outside of the house so I should want to spend all me free time with my family.  In reality, I enjoy being thought of as a woman and not having a discussion about my children.  Does that mean that I'm not an involved parent?  Does that somehow mean that I am going to miss something that was "the life moment" that they will remember forever?  Um, Probably not! 

After beating myself up for the afternoon, I went.  I had a great time!  It was so much fun to spend time without the kids and without Chris.  To be a woman, with other women.  I realized that this is a good thing!  Recently I have spent to much time enthralled in the well being of my children.  I am working on my control issues and I think this is an area that I needed to most help in.  I may still feel guilty walking in the door as they are ready to fall asleep, but they are in excellent hands, and probably like a night with just dad once in a while. 

Fashion Forward

I, like so many blogging mommies took the weekend off from blogging this weekend, so please excuse my delayed postings this week.

Fashion has always been kind-of-a-big-deal to me. I like my style, I like clothes, and I like to look like I’ve tried to put myself together. I will rock the Juicy sweat suit all day saturday or sunday around the house, don’t get me wrong. But when I go out, I don’t want to be “that mom”. This is my lookbook for the week, I set up Monday-Thursday {Fashion Friday at work leaves that TBA}.

I just bought myself a new pair of steve madden boots! I love these, so I was inspired to put this outfit together, I’m calling it “cowgirl chic”. The dress is vintage Calvin Klein, Sweater is from H&M, the belt is vintage, and the jewelry is all from Forever21.

I’ll admit it, I am a sucker for a comfy pair of Capri’s! I paired it was a tan kami from H&M, a oversised dress shirt from Mossimo, and moccasins’ by UGG. All accessories are vintage finds. This is my “safari mamma” ensemble.

Dresses are my weakness, I especially love a beautiful cotton dress on a spring day. I love this dress, I found it at a vintage shop, with no tag so I have no clue who made it. The cardigan is from gap, shoes from target, and accessories from forever21 and Target, “sexy school teacher”

I am a sucker for a great pair of rain boots, and these are everything and more! Chris bought these for me leopard print rain boots from Ralph Lauren for valentine’s day, and I adore them! I paired them with Nike athletic pants, and a mossimo feather top, paired with my vintage Aztec bag, and this is everything a “northwestern girl” needs!

Last week I started a new shift at work, I am coming at 6:30am! YOWSA! It is taking some getting use to, and to be honest my sleep is super important to me. That saying “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” has never once been appealing to me. So I started this! No, not laying out my clothes for the week {although I am doing that as well} I am creating my own lookbook! Who hasn’t pined outfits on pinterest, or browsed the latest online lookbook, and fashion blog. I am taking some of my favorites and inputting that into my digital lookbook on my laptop, to use when I am stumped. To be honest last week I was stumped a lot.

This is a project that I have wanted to start for some time, and never had a chance. I am glad that this early shift has inspired me to get this one rolled out! Anyone else have any fashion savvy tips?

How does your garden grow?

We have been “Portlanders” now for nearly a year, I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. I feel like I have found the place that I am meant to live, we have transplanted perfectly! You may remember, when celebrating Hanukkah we gave the traditional gifts. For the earth friendly gift I gave the kids “gift certificates” to grow a garden. The kids remembered, that for sure! As soon as I came home with everything the girls knew what it was for. Last year when we moved up here we did not have the chance to start a garden. We had so many other projects going on that a garden was not going to happen. I was not going to miss out again this year!



After chatting up my uber-green girlfriends I was told that now is the perfect time to start some of my seedlings so the root systems are set in place when it’s time to transplant them. One thing that was important for me was all organic materials. I buy organic when I am shopping, why would I not was to grow organic as well? The simple answer, it’s hard. You have to think about everything. I have to make sure the seeds are organic, the soil is organic and the chemicals {hopefully not necessary} are all natural organic materials. I always suggest the starter pellets and seedling start packages. They are so easy, and the plants have always transplanted well for me. Please don’t make my same mistake that I did with my first try. I forgot to label! This time the kit I bought came with a handy-dandy little sheet for me to log all my seedlings. Perfection I tell you!
I am so excited to see how our first Portland garden comes out! What are you planting this spring?