Everybody Does It

Happy Monday! I am home sick today-which totally stinks because 1.) I'm bored 2.) I need to be at work...a lot to do and 3.) Of course the obvious-I feel like death. So to occupy my time, I thought I'd pop in and get one last post in for 2013.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. We have one more holiday and then it's all back to normal. Of course we have to get through January and all the resolutions, but that is to be expected. Everyone does the resolution thing, right? Even if you don't intend do, it is the perfect time for a fresh start on whatever your plans are.  I do have a few things I'd like to do:

Run a marathon
I actually had this goal at the end of 2012, but life happened, things came up, and I was unable to dedicate the time to training. No excuses this year.

Grow the blog
Thanks to a gift from the Hubby the blog will be seeing some changes this next month or so. Once they have been put together, I am hoping to get a few more readers.

Run (or exercise) for 30 days
February first is my big 3-0, and it is not something I'm looking forward to. Not because the number, but more because I'd always figured I'd be further than I am. I thought I'd have a career and instead I have a job-I guess I just want to feel more accomplished. But in good time I think I will, so with that said I plan on running (or exercising) everyday for the 30 days before my thirtieth birthday. Good times ahead.

Get in shape
I know everyone has the resolution to lose weight and whatnot, but this one goes hand-in-hand for the marathon goal. I won't be able to run 26.2 miles in the shape I'm in, so I better toughen up! But of course I could stand to lose a little weight too...if it was up to my doctor a lot of weight. But I've been the weight he wants me at and let's just say my mom thought I did not look good. She actually thought I was too skinny at my wedding, and I was 15 lbs over the doctor's goal. Everyone has their own ideal weight, and I'll know mine when I'm there. :)

That about wraps it up. I'm going to leave you with some random pictures from the last few days...

I wore one of my new shirts to work Christmas Eve...I rather like it

My Mom's dog decided to lay in the middle of all of us Christmas morning as we opened gifts, so she was covered with a little paper...

The Hubby got an electric blanket and two camping chairs that he was slightly excited about

And we finally went down to Oceanside and checked out a brewery the Hubby has been wanting to go to...

Besides their over-sized tables and the cool atmosphere, they didn't have too much going for them. We redeemed the trip with a visit to Mother Earth Brewing-much better beverages!

Hope everyone has a wonderful and SAFE New Year's. Good luck with those resolutions and I'll see you in 2014.

Questions...

1.) Do you have a New Year's resolution?

2.) Any party plans out there to ring in 2014?

Merry Christmas

Good morning all!

Just wanted to pop in real quick and wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas. I hope you have a wonderful day.

I am waiting for the rest of the house to wake up....which I hope will be soon. I love Christmas and watching my family open the gifts picked out just for them.

Wishing you and yours the very best-from me and mine. :)

That's Never Happened Before

I went to bed late last night, which normally happens when my Mom and Matilda come to town....added to the fact that the Hubby and Matilda stayed up late, drinking a few beers, smoking cigars, and watching Django. So when I finally woke up this morning, and rolled over to see what time it was, imagine my surprise when I saw 11:20. 11:20??!! How does that even happen!? I guess I really needed it, because I was solidly asleep until then.

But as much as it feels good, I feel like the day is wasted. Bummer...

So I know I missed Wednesday's workout recap, so here it is:

Thursday 12/12: Ran 2 miles

Saturday 12/14: Did some running intervals for thirty minutes

Sunday 12/15: Walking intervals for 45 minutes

Wednesday 12/18: Actually made it to the gym for some elliptical time

I don't know what I did for the intervals on Saturday, but on Sunday I picked one of Julie's walking intervals to follow. Boy was it challenging! I didn't workout as much as I should have, but it is a start.

I have also been trying to take more pictures of my meals, but I guess I am still learning that part of blogging because all that was on my camera was this pic

This was my lunch Monday-Wednesday and it was pretty good! I took two pieces of turkey lunch meat and cut them up, combined it with cottage cheese, tomatoes, and cucumbers and dug in! Nice, light, and refreshing.

Yesterday at work we celebrated my boss's birthday, which is actually the 24th but since he off next week we did it yesterday. Let's just say we had been looking forward to this day for months! Last year he told all of us not to do anything for his birthday, and then come January he told me and our department manager that he was kind of bummed we actually listened to him. So, we decided to go all out!

Needless-to-say, he was pleasantly surprised when he opened his door and we all shouted "SURPRISE!" at 6:30am yesterday. So fun!!

In other birthday news, my not-so-little brother turned 23 last Tuesday....Happy Birthday to him!! Love you Matilda! :)

Hope you guys are ready for Christmas-last weekend and all that jazz...let the last minute shopping begin....ahem, talking to you Hubsters.

Questions...

1. What is the craziest prank/celebration you have pulled off at work?

2. Who haven't you shopped for yet?

Back on the Band Wagon

Hello friends! Hope everyone is doing well and getting their last minute Christmas shopping taken care of. Two more weekends to tie up lose ends, then it is all fun from there.

In any case, after my eye troubles I am happy (and relieved) to report that my eye is 100% healed. I didn't wear my contacts for a few days, which felt like forever, but it was definitely for the best. I would be lying if I didn't say I was a tad (read: VERY) apprehensive to take my contacts out the first day I wore them again. I was paranoid I'd do it again or something, but everything is A-Okay!

With  all the four-eye loveliness I endured for four days, not much running took place. To make matters worse, I didn't register for the Renegade Santa race in Irvine I wanted to do today. Major bummer...but after beating myself up for a little, and having a pity party (sorry if you didn't get your invite...you know how the mail is around this time of year) I decided to get over myself. I mean, life happens, and often times so does something else...and usually they're one in the same...haha...moving on now. I can't even count how many times in the last year that I've been going strong with the running and then life just decided to pop in and say hello. You get sick, you get injured, family emergencies occur, but that is life. So, you just ask yourself, are you gonna stay down? And for me, that answer is no, no I am not.

Enough with my little preachy moment-thanks for letting me vent that out. (Not that you had a choice...heehee.) The past week I have shopped a lot, wrapped numerous presents, baked cupcakes, and enjoyed copious amounts of hot cocoa. YUM!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, walking into the house and seeing the Christmas tree all decorated and lit up, with all the fun presents around the tree. There is just something about it...

Thanks to all our home improvements this is the first year that we actually have a sofa in this room with the tree. In the past, it is usually our tree and a rug. So sad....it is very nice to see it all together this year. Especially since my Mom and Matilda will be joining us for the first time at our house for Christmas! So excited....oh and Mom-when will you be here???

Another thing I love about the holidays: Christmas lights! I remember when I was younger my sister and I would have a contest to see who saw the most lights on houses whenever we would go somewhere at night. She could only count the houses out her side of the window and I could only count the ones out mine. I told the Hubsters this and he laughed....I guess it was pretty silly, but my sister and I would have fun. Miss you Jay-jay!

One night last week we drove around our block and saw this house

Too much fun!! It is hard to tell in the picture, but there was sooo much going on. I love it!!

I just finished some interval running and am off to run some errands. The hubby is working at the brewery this weekend, so I am on my own. I am going to go stock up on some veggies and healthy ingredients for dinners this coming week. I'm definitely going to use a few ideas from my old boss's blog. The meat sauce looks incredible! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Questions...

1. Are you ready for Christmas?

2. Any good, healthy recipes you'd like to share?

Do You See What I See?

Hello and Happy Friday!

Wish I could say my Friday is going swimmingly, but I just can't. Last night I took out my contact lens from my left eye and it almost instantly started hurting. I flushed it out with some contact solution and still the throbbing and watering wouldn't stop. In fact, it kept me company ALL night long. Fun times....

It actually has caused me to call out of work today-not much I could do with one eye open. The Hubby drove me to the doctor and low and behold I have two corneal abrasions. Bummer....the doctor even took a picture for me:

No, I don't wear neon green eyeliner, that is the result of some numbing drops (which burned like crazy!) and some dye. Then the doc turned off the lights and used this handy little black light which revealed the wonderful two no-so-little scratches. Then he revealed some wonderful news; since they are so big, I have to use antibiotics because if it doesn't heal and gets infected it will cause problems with my vision. To make matters worse, he proceeded to patch my eye up. Sooooo attractive!

Sorry for the face sans makeup, but you try staying up all night with a burning, watering eye and see how well you want to get ready. :)

In any case, I won't be running today, and maybe even tomorrow. I am currently sitting on our wonderful new sofa and watching Burlesque with one eye, while wishing I had some more of those wonderful numbing eye drops...apparently I couldn't have more because they will stop the healing process. Not cool.

So my original Friday night plans of a girl night/birthday gathering (sorry Diane!) are canceled. Looks like I won't be putting up the tree tonight either....jeez!

To answer the question posed in today's blog title, no...no, I do not see what you see. Well, maybe about half of it. :)

Night all!

Catching Up

Is it just me or did November go by too fast? I swear it was just August!!

I've been playing catch up since Thanksgiving in all manners of things-exercise, eating right, cleaning, taking down and putting up decorations, blogging, and Christmas shopping. Phew! Even with everything that was going on in my life last year, I think I had more gifts at this time then, than I do now. Falling behind is not a good feeling for me.

So....I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and overate. I kept thinking I was going to eat a lot, but I didn't do too bad. Yay! We had quite the feast too:

Appetizers

 

Three kinds of turkey, gravy, and homemade cranberry sauce

Green bean casserole, stuffing, and candied yams (the marshmallows melted)

Brussel sprouts and Japanese snacks

Our holidays are never the same unless we throw in some Asian flare-which fortunately enough my uncle provided since he lives near the good Asian markets.

Sadly enough, the pies went undocumented. Sorry!! They were really good though! Everything was delicious and went perfectly, as long as I don't mention how mashed potatoes were forgotten...thanks to yours truly. :)

I didn't do the Black Friday thing-as I can't stand crowds-but I did go into work. It was only for a few hours, and then I got to come home to this:

Apparently, the Hubby was correct and we did have termites in our kitchen counters. The wood under the counter to be exact. I am happy to report they did not go into the cabinet that remains or the wall behind it. Although...since I am getting my granite now, maybe if they had I would be getting new cabinets too....just saying.

I know it is Workout Wednesdays, but I have only worked out twice this week: 1. Monday the Hubby and I went for our regular three mile run and 2. Since the Hubby was busy at the brewery tonight I paid some attention to Mr. Mill (my treadmill) and did three miles. We are doing the Renegade Santa run in Irvine on next Saturday and I am trying not to embarrass myself. I haven't decided if we should do a 5k or 10k, so more on that later.

I do know that I am fully prepared with my newest socks:

How sad is it that I was smiling when they arrived today? :)

And I will leave you with a picture from our Monday night run....so beautiful!

Questions...
1. Anyone racing before Christmas?

2. What is one Christmas tradition you always do?

And I Thought I Loved You Then.....

 

Happy 5th Anniversary! Love you!

Home Improvements

Do you guys remember that show? I think it was one of the few shows that my parents and my sister and I all agreed on watching. Of course my sister only watched it for Jonathan Taylor Thomas...any other JTT fans out there?

So, I have finally put together a few pictures of the stuff we've been doing around the house. A lot of the things (the most time consuming things) you can't really see in pictures-like the baseboards, repainting some walls, etc.-but just take my word for it, it looks a lot better.

Here is the before picture of our entry way:

Not too shabby, but it lacked some thing.....so here is the after:

We repainted the ledge on the half wall on the left, hung a mirror instead of the hooks, and then got a small cabinet to put there. I was really looking for a table, but a lot off them were either too small, or in one case on the one I really like, one little inch too big. (Jeeesh!) All in all, I am pretty please with this little area. I just don't know what I am going to put in those cabinets. Ideas?

This picture is the before of our first little room once you walk in the house. I think you could use it for either a formal dinning area or a living room. You can see we originally had it as a dinning area:

But we hardly ever ate there unless we had people over. Plus, it wasn't even our table, so....we changed it into a living room:

That chair is actually going back into the office, we thought we could incorporate it in this room but it didn't fit. Please notice the shelves on the wall behind the sofa-the ones my hubby made and I sanded, stained, sanded again, and then sealed. Phew! But really, with all that work, we saved over $100!! Plus, I also got the exact size shelves I was looking for.

As far as the family room, the couch, chair, and coffee table in the above picture was there since we moved in, but I had always wanted a sectional sofa. After four years, and many frustrations, I finally got my couch!

We're still looking for another small table for the right side of the sofa, or possibly a floor lamp with a little ledge, but the main stuff has been completed!

Oh, and one last thing I put together for the laundry room:

I really wanted hooks in the laundry room for hanging up things that are still wet and need to dry (like towels or sweaty gym clothes) so this works out well.

I can't wait for Thanksgiving and to see everyone's reactions to our home improvements. We are expecting about 14 people....a good amount, right? I am definitely looking forward to spending time with my mom and brother, since they will be out from Wednesday to Sunday....whoo hoo!!  :)

Until next time, have a great Sunday!

Questions...

1. What are your Thanksgiving plans?

2. What is your favorite thing about Thanksgiving?

Introducing: Workout Wednesdays!!

I know, I know.....I'm finally doing my new Wednesday posts!

I've decided that every Wednesday I will recap my workouts from the previous week. So for this week, here is what I did from 11/14/13 to 11/20/13:

Thursday: Incline walked on the treadmill for 3 miles

Friday: Nothing

Saturday: House work (that should count as a workout)

Sunday: More house work

Monday: Walk with the Hubby on the "hill of death" (what he has named it) for 3 miles

Tuesday: Walk in neighborhood for 2.5 miles

Wednesday: Run on treadmill for 3 miles

I know it isn't anything spectacular, but its my first week so give me a break, okay? I'm not going to include the times on my walks or runs because 1.) They are embarrassingly slow and 2.) I can't remember them.

I am happy to say that the house is really coming together. After four years, it is really starting to feel like a home. I will make sure to post the before and after pics for you soon!

This weekend something came over me, and not only did I make homemade butternut squash soup but I also made homemade breadsticks. They were delish! I calculated the calories for the soup and it came down to about 113 calories per serving. Not too shabby, especially considering they are decent size servings.

And on Monday night I made turkey tacos....

It sounds odd, but the salsa from Albertsons that they make and package themselves is so, so good! It made this dinner. Their guacamole is pretty tasty too!

I guess after all that cooking (haha!) I was needing a break because Tuesday I was really feeling like we needed to go out. So, to Yardhouse we went....

The Hubby and I shared chips and guacamole, Thai chicken pizza, boneless firecracker wings, and the chopped salad. It was pretty tasty! We did take most of the pizza home, and I ate most of the salad, but those wings are too good to eat one or two.....

Now tonight I am back to cooking...grilled chicken and spaghetti squash au gratin. Smells pretty good, so I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Questions...

1. What is your favorite restaurant?

2. What is your favorite meal at home?

Something Exciting and a Story...

Hi all! Sorry for such a HUGE gap in my posts. We've been extremely busy fixing up the house and trying to get ready for the holidays.

So, I was going to start something on Wednesdays-I know I keep promising this, and it WILL happen-but this week isn't a good week for it. In any case, I have some nerdy, blogger related news. If you know Julie over at PB Fingers then you may be excited too! I've read her blog, and a few others consistently (more than I post, that's for sure!) and Julie was saying how she's been looking for the super cute pullover she bought at Old Navy last year so she can buy another one this year. Well, my last trip to Old Navy I happen to wonder across it! You better believe I went back to work-after buying one-(yes, I go to the mall on my lunch, my to my husband's dismay) and commented on her blog. Imagine my surprise when she not only commented back but mentioned me in one of her posts! I was so excited I even took a picture of my name online...such a nerd! :)

Believe it or not, that wasn't the story! I'll start that now: Our couch finally arrived!!

The Hubby and I went to the furniture store at about 5pm last night to get it. I was really excited, plus it took two weeks longer than what I was quoted, so I was just relieved to have before Thanksgiving. In any case, since they're right around the corner from us we decided to get it ourselves rather than pay $50 for delivery. The two of us muscled two of the sections off the truck and into the house, and the Hubby was on his way back for the last piece when I started unwrapping it.

So, I'm unwrapping and once I finally catch the first glimpse of the fabric I thought, "Wow! This is light fabric!!" (My brain was already thinking, scotch guard, sheets, blankets, etc. to keep it clean.) Well, I finally pull out the pillows and realize this wasn't our couch! We brought someone else's couch home. Luckily the first piece was ours. So the hubby goes and picks up what we think are the last two smaller pieces. Wouldn't you know he gets home and as we're unloading it, one of those wasn't ours either!! At this point, it was pretty comical, especially looking back. Fortunately enough the furniture store sent their delivery guys to come pick up the two wrong pieces and deliver the last piece of ours. We were done at 8pm, that's right folks, three hours!!

I was pretty happy to have it all said and done,

and it looks good too! Now just a new accent table and we'll be all set...oh, and a rug, and..... :)

So glad we are done with that furniture store! It's really good stuff and the prices are reasonable, but man-o-man that customer service is crap-tastic.

Hope you guys are having a good week!

Questions...

1.) What is your worst customer service experience?

2.) If you work in retail or a service job (haven't we all) what's a horrible encounter you recall?
I remember when I had my first job working as the 1 Hour Photo girl inside Target-I was probably 16 or 17-and the machine that processes the film (gosh....that sounds so old!) broke and it ruined a lady's pictures. I had to explain to her what happened and she started crying....it was the last pictures she had of a family member that had just passed away. I felt so horrible!! I went home, told my mom, and cried.

Halloween and Home Improvements

Happy Belated Halloween! I hope everyone had a good and safe Halloween. We didn't do too much-dinner with the in-laws and passing out candy to the little (and not so little) trick-or-treaters.

We did have some contests at work for both costume and pumpkin. We were trying to convince my co-worker to do the Grumpy Cat pumpkin, but she is anti-cat and wouldn't hear of it. So instead we did Medusa-which I thought was pretty creative:

 

 

Apparently those who voted enjoyed Mickey Mouse a little more. Not sure how Mickey competes with Medusa, Miley Cyrus, Duck Dynasty, and even the crazy "Ain't nobody has time for that?" lady. Mickey was the only carved pumpkin (the rest were painted or dressed up) so maybe people are too traditional-or, maybe the department that did Mickey was the largest and the supervisor sent an email to everyone telling them to vote for it. Just saying.... 

 

In any case, I did my own pumpkin for our departmental entertainment...

 



Turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

The husband did dress up a little and tried to scare the little ones on Halloween. Unfortunately they didn't find Larry King in a sombrero all too frightening....

The weekend passed in a blur-a blur of paint, furniture set ups, and all that fun stuff. We finally got our table in and put it together-which took most of the day Saturday. (This includes going back to the furniture store since they forgot to give us a piece of the table.)

We were able to eat our first dinner on the table Saturday night-KFC....classy!

We're still waiting on the couch and ottoman. I'm also working on dinning room décor, so if you have any ideas, shoot them my way. Next weekend is the laundry room-can't wait to show you how it turns out!

Wednesday I will be starting my new weekly traditional blog post...stay tuned for the excitement. (Not really, but who knows....) Hint: it actually has to deal with fitness and not the randomness that is my life.

On one last note-did anyone happen to notice what is back?!

What does it say about America that this gives us warm fuzzies (unless that is just me) because it means Christmas is right around the corner. YAY!

Questions...

1. What were your Halloween festivities?

2. What makes you feel like the holidays are near?