Wow

My sweet Grandpa turns 93 in two days. Grandma will join him as a 93 year old on February 28th. Well, she may be 93. She was born late at night on a leap year so who knows, she could be 23 again. I love them more than words can ever express!

Happy Birthday Jessica!

Why are we scrunching our noses? We thought it was funny apparently. Love you!

Best Friends

There are times when I miss my best friends so much that it physically pains me. Sometimes it is because I need them because I am happy or sad but sometimes I just want to be with them. This is one of those times that is not a need but a honest want. Can't wait until March 6th!!! Girlfriends are so important to me and I'm lucky to have you. Not just the ones in the picture but friends who care enough about me to check this blog. I'm thankful for you.

Favorite Things As of Late

1. Bolthouse Farms Smoothies...specifically Amazing Mango. It was on sale at Publix this week and I love it!!!

2. Nars Multiple Stick in Orgasm- I use this every day and it gives good, light color. Ask Rachel about when she bought hers...

3. Big Love- Adam and I love this. We only have one DVD left and are totally bummed.


4. US Weekly...it's my weakness


5. My new library card...endless opportunites

Blockbuster AllAccess

Movies I have seen in this first month of Blockbuster subscription

Big Love Seasons 1 and 2
The Other Boleyn Girl
Baby Mama
Little Women
Made of Honor
Mamma Mia
The Nanny Diaries
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

I'm am really loving this. Adam and I are very sad to finish Big Love. Now we have to wait. Anyone have any must see series we should move on it?

Sugar Mountain

On the drive to the resort, I was skeptical. No snow covered mountains. Heck, no snow at all. How can a ski area exist here? Then, around the bend, an entirely man made snow area appears.
It's an entirely new skiing experience for me. I had never been skiing in the east and my how it is different. For starters, I skied on 120s. To get a visual, they were a little taller than my waist. Awesome. It was like skates. I thought maybe I just needed smaller skis here until I really thought about it. Then I realized they were probably out of the other sizes because it was late at night and fed me some line about different sizes. I bought it. Sad part is I could barely tell a difference. First of all it is really, really icy. Most of the skiers are beginners too. I could say they were totally out of control but I must confess I almost took a couple people out myself. There's no possible way you can ski controlled on the ice. At the bottom of one lift, the average fall rate of people trying to get off the chair was about 60%, and it held true in our group too. It was like an ice slide. Why wasn't someone putting snow on it? Adam's response is simply, "It's Sugar." Overall, the skiing was better than I had envisioned. Adam had talked it down so much I had very low expectations. It does hold true to the stereotypes- very crowded, icy, slow, unorganized, long lines, etc but totally worth a weekend trip.

We went for a birthday week for Adam's 25th. Cousins Liz and Steve and David came, Emily and Kevin, and Andrew. A good time was had by all. Our days were consumed with skiing, tubing, margaritas, Settlers, wii, and reading. I'm so glad we went. We're lucky to be blessed with family who are also friends. I'll post pictures later.

Inauguration

I was running on the treadmill at LA Fitness this afternoon with lots of people as I watched the inaugural coverage with tears welling up in my eyes. It really caught me off guard. I couldn't hear it, I was jamming to Taylor Swift, but I read the words and am so proud to have the Obamas in office. For some reason, I'm much more drawn to Michelle and get more emotional when I see her. I think it really shows behind every good man is a great woman. I'm so proud that our country was able to elect him. My very Republican Grandma Lundeen said it right, "I wanted to be a part of something big."

Grocery Savings

Ok I'm so excited. Adam and I just figured out all our couponing stuff and made our first trip to CVS and Publix. We used sales and coupons Here are our finishing totals...

CVS: Total out of pocket $22.oo and saved $23.78 and I forgot my CVS bucks of $6 at home
Publix: Total out of pocket $40.58 and saved $40.08
Total: Spent $62.58 and saved $63.86
My goal was to save more than I spent...SUCCESS!!!

I'm very pleased because Adam and I are going skiing with friends this weekend so I have stuff for 3 recipes that I didn't use sales for. All that to say, I got lots of stuff not on sale and can do better by having it on hand at sale prices. Here's a picture of my finds for your viewing pleasure. I didn't realize Publix doubles coupons $0.50 or less so that helped too. Half our receipt is coupon discounts so we saved so much! Thanks Laura Beth for all your tips!!!

Monday is my Saturday

I lead a much different life than most of you. For starters, today was my Saturday. When I work the weekend I get Monday and Tuesday off as my weekend. It really bothers me when people talk to me as if I don't work at all since I get 2 days off during the week. Well I don't see them working the weekends. It's a trade off. I do like working weekends and having week days off because, number one, we are slower on the weekends so I have some time to myself. Number two, I can run errands during the week. So lay off me.

My day started off fabulously today. I needed to return some movies I had rented but hadn't watched yet, so I woke up to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Good flick. Then, when the movie was over, my husband arrived with surprise Starbucks. Isn't he fabulous? It was wonderful. Then I did some shopping with friends this afternoon. Adam, Colby, and I just got home from a long walk to dinner in the oven. Ideal day. I wish it could be every day.

Good Times- Altered by a very funny Rachel

Cirque Du Soleil

Adam and I had a very fun date recently. We started off the night at the restaurant Strip then saw Kooza in Atlantic Station and highly recommend it to anyone. The food was awesome! It looks very trendy, so I think Adam was hesitant from the beginning. He's convinced trendy places never have good food and are too expensive. However, he was proven wrong. I got sushi and Adam got steak and we shared both. We sat in the cheap seats at Kooza and thought they were fabulous. I just love those shows. We were both so happy we went and had a great time together.

Redone Furniture

I'm not good at refinishing and don't at all claim to be. But, I am very proud of this. Lauren and Charlie found this nasty old thing by the dumpster and asked if we wanted it. I was hesitant thinking it would just sit in our basement, but Adam needed somewhere for all his clothes. It was a seventies piece with those old gold pulls with all those frilly things on them and a gross brown laminate. So, we cleaned it, painted it, and added different Anthropologie nobs. It used to have double pulls on it, so Adam filled in the old ones and drilled knew ones. I really wish I would have taken a before picture. It looks like a whole knew dresser. I think it's awesome and am very proud of us.

Pictures of our house

I decided our house will never be finished or clean enough so here are "as is" pictures.

Our living room


View of the living room as you walk in from the front door. I LOVE the wood burning fireplace. We have fires almost every night.


The guest room. This was supposed to be our queen bed with the headboard but the box spring wouldn't fit upstairs to the master bedroom. So, we sleep in a very small double bed.


This our 1 bathroom. It's small but serves it's purpose.


As you walk from the living room to into the kitchen


Another view of the kitchen

After coming up the stairs, our room is just one big room with Adam's closet on the left and our bed straight ahead.


Here's our bed. I love it albeit small.


Excuse the clean laundry please. This is the window seat in our bedroom and where Adam and I sat to discuss if this is the house we will start our marriage in. I love it.


The deck and backyard. Probably Adam's favorite part of the house. I do like the deck a lot too.


And that's it. We have a basement too but Adam can post about that if he ever wants to. That's totally his domain.

Chicken Pot Pies

Special alert. Over Christmas, my mom and I ate a couple of these in Vail. They are so bad for you but oh so good. There is a coupon in the Publix coupons when you go to the store for $5 off two boxes of 4. It's in the circular thing on a green printout with coupons. It comes to $6.98 for 8 Marie Callender's (? spelling) chicken or turkey pot pies. Good price for 8 quick meals with no time to cook!

Don't Comment on My Picture Please

I really hate it. My picture is posted above my window to the pharmacy. I don't want it there and would give anything to be able to take it down. It really is incredible what people say. I don't care what you think of my picture whether it is good or bad. Today a man, about 65, who had never been to the pharmacy just walked up to me and said, "You know, you look better with your hair in a pony tail than you do with it down in that picture." Seriously? It's very awkward and I would rather not talk about a picture of myself or have you critique it. Thanks.

The Breadman

Ok. Making bread is supposed to be easy in the Breadman. Well in my attempt to use my wedding gifts and not let them stack up in a closet, I decided to make bread. All you have to do is put the ingredients in the pan, liquid first, then make a crater for the yeast. Apparently, I'm not good at this. Mine looks like popcorn that is cooked together in the oven. Not so easy if you ask me. First time- no bread. I try again.

Snowshoes

I haven't talked about this activity in Vail yet and I really intended to. So, I had snowshoed by myself before because we only had 1 pair of snowshoes. Well, Rachel ordered 3 pairs for our trip in December. We had anticipated all participating one day together so we needed more. Trip plans changed and Adam and I were alone for a while so we adventured out on the golf course behind our house. Let me tell you folks, it was awesome. I may give up skiing entirely now. I LOVED it. I enjoy skiing, don't get me wrong, but it's kind of wearing on me. I have lately prefered one day of skiing and three days by the fire reading. But, I really enjoy snowshoeing. For one, you don't have to put on all those layers of close and lug your skis around. For two, you just walk out your back door. You still get the fabulous scenery and being outside but without the fuss of everything else. I may be a convert.

Am I really a Tri-Athlete?

This is the question. I think the answer is no. Rachel wants to train for one and for some dumb reason I told her I would too. Let me clarify. Not a long one, a "sprint" triathalon- 5k run, short swim, short bike. Clearly, I have no idea how long the swim or biking are. So, Adam and I set out to see what we could do today. We ran around the neighborhood this afternoon which is quite rough. I ran 5 miles at Christmas with my dad and apparently got a little cocky. I was hurting today. I bet we only did about 2 miles. Then we headed to Mercer to swim. I thought I was completely awful. Turns out, my endless summers of swimming lessons paid off! I was pretty good if I do say so myself. Adam swam every other lap with me. He was feeling like I did running. Anyway, looks like biking may be my downfall. Number one, I don't have a bike. We'll have to see if we really do this before we make that investment. Well, I'm not a natural athlete. At all. I do think if I train I could do this though. Pace is never my thing. I don't have a competitive bone in my body so really all I'm doing is trying to finish. The whole "you could be this person 100 yards in front of you if you push" never worked for me in high school cross country. No promises. It's an idea in infancy right now. I'll keep you updated.

Good Reads

I love Goodreads.com. It enables me to see what my friends are reading and to keep track of what I have read. I have read 14 books in the time since I have been married- 6 months. I feel quite proud but I think Adam would not agree. I get lost in books...totally lost. I have no idea what is going on around me when I really love the book. This is bad for Adam because I pay absolutely no attention to him at all. Oops. My favorite books right now are "period" books. I've been into the 18th century lately. I don't know why but I just love historical fiction. On goodreads I just got recommendations for several of my friends. My aunts Kristine and Katie are particularly active on the website and I read many books because they have given them good reviews. Anyway, check out the website. I think it's quite useful. Befriend me while your at it. I'd love to get your suggestions. Better yet, anyone read any good books you think I should read???

Our house

Here are my favorite things about our house. Well, not actually OUR house because we rent but none the less here they are:

1. The fireplace. I love it. Adam has had a fire going when I get home almost every night since October. It's fabulous. I love how it smells when I pull up the house and seeing in our living room.

2. Our back yard. First and foremost because it is soooo easy with Colby. All I have to do is open the door and he runs out and does his duties. Secondly because of our deck. We eat every meal out there when it is warm and some even when it's cold. We had a New Year's party and had a bonfire out there. Very cool.

3. It's a house. I was so dang sick of living in an apartment. Just bored with it. I had been in an apartment for 8 years. Wow, that's too long.

4. Space. So much more room for us to spread out. We have lots of storage too with a basement and an attic. Small closets but that's ok. Adam spends more time on the yard and the basement than in the house.

I have many more but that's all for now. I need to post some pictures. I'll take some and do it later.

New Year's Eve

That's what I get for marrying an inclusive and fun guy. Adam and I planned to have a small get together on New Year's Eve after I worked. I knew I would be tired and it is an awful day in the pharmacy world. I wanted to have a low key night. Well, we invited 7 people over for New Year's. After Adam sent the invitation text message (I know so not cool) and we thought we were finished. Well after a few hours went by Adam started getting numerous text messages about this party we were throwing and could they come. "Not a party folks" is what I wanted to scream. Just a get together. Well, we can't nor did we want to tell people they could not come to our house so instead we included everyone or asked. Twenty-one people later, we celebrated New Years.

I have to admit, I was totally dreading it. I'm not one for big groups. Adam and I are opposite. I like small groups and in depth conversation and Adam likes lots and lots of people and flitting about the room. Not my style. I do have to admit though, the party was really fun. We had a good group and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Lauren and Charlie spent the night in our guest room so we had a full out slumber party- dogs and all. On New Years Day, no lie, Adam, Charlie, and Lauren played a game that lasted 6 hours. Wow, so glad I didn't play. Then they played again. We are really big in the game Settlers of Catan and they got the new expansion/new game package for Christmas. Of course they had to try it out. It was a hit!

Happy 2009!