Life Well Lived - Vol 4

It's that time again! If this is your first time seeing a Life Well Lived post, click here to see where it all started.


I met a local celebrity - at my Bachelorette party!
This may not seem like a very big deal to most, but it was a huge deal to me. This is Brendan Higgins. He was one of the morning anchors for the local NBC morning news for several years, and I watched him every morning. And I kind of adored him. He was hilariously witty and never took himself to seriously - a rarity in news. When my group of girl friends and I went out for my Bachelorette party, we walked into this particular bar and I saw him almost immediately...and I'm fairly certain I started freaking out. He was SO nice. My friend went over and asked if he could spare a moment to meet a fan, at her Bachelorette party. He seemed just as excited to meet me! I told him I watched him every morning while getting ready for work, and he must have thanked me 10 times. Then he endured some pictures, and even bought me a drink! Sadly, he left the show shortly after and my mornings just aren't the same.


I have had a recipe published on a food website/blog.
This is a personal biggie. It is a dream of mine to be a writer - in any sense - and blogging sort of feeds that. When I was asked if I would be interested in putting some of my recipes on the food blog Taco Sense, I was so flattered, and jumped at the chance. I only hope that I have more opportunities, with Taco Sense, and others in the future.


I have adopted rescue animals.

I grew up in a house full of animals. At one point, our house was lovingly donned "Anne's Arc". (My Mom is Anne.) We had just about every pet you can think of. We started with hamsters and fish, then bunnies, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, rats, a snake and lizards. Most of our pets were rescue animals. We even fostered bunnies and guinea pigs for many years, so at any given time we might have had 15+ critters under our roof. As a kid, I LOVED being the house with all the animals. But the best part, to me, was the pride I felt when I would talk about how we "rescued" them. With the exception of the fish, a couple of hamsters, the snake and the lizards, all of our pets were rescue animals. That desire to rescue didn't fade as I entered adulthood. When Ryan and I moved into a new apartment in 2008, we adopted Chloe (though we always joke she actually adopted US) and then we adopted Cooper early last year. The hard part for me was always choosing just ONE. When I go to an animal shelter, I usually leave in tears. I'm a bleeding heart, and I really turn to mush around animals. I have to really fight myself to not bring them all home! Adopting and rescuing my precious furbabies has made my life very well lived.