Friday's Feast

Appetizer
What is your favorite carnival/amusement park ride?
I like the carousel. It just makes me feel like a kid again.

Soup
How do you react in uncomfortable social situations?

I start laughing at inappropriate times. Nice.

Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy discussing deep, philosophical topics?

5, it just depends on who I’m talking to. I like to do it but only to an extent. I’m not a person who beats a dead horse.

Main Course
Did you get a flu shot this year? If not, do you plan to?

No. I was too sick, they wouldn’t give it to me.

Dessert
Approximately how many hours per week do you spend watching television?

Too many. Being at home with a toddler, I see a lot of the Wonder Pets and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Baby it's cold outside!

Is it just me or does the temperature seem to have dropped like a million degrees overnight. I am just feeling so bitterly cold right now. You know that kind of cold that feels as though it is deep in your bones and you can't shake it? Yeah, it's a lot like that. The only thing that seems to quelm it is a hot shower. Ooooo...that sounds real nice. Being that it's almost 11 pm though, I think I will skip it. Maybe a hot cup of tea before bed, we'll see.

Today has been a long day. It started off with my mom calling me telling me that some tests she took came back A typical. My mom had bladder cancer two years ago and has been in remission since. She went back today to do more tests. It's a horrible thing to think about and we are just praying that something is amiss with the testing. She found out she has arthritis in her knees a few months back so she's been popping Ibprofen like it's going out of style. She's hoping that was the cause of the problems in the urine sample. I don't know if that's possible or not but it sure would be a comfort to me.

To top it off Michael has been having chest pains for the past couple of weeks. Being the man that he is, of course he has done nothing about it. So, tonight he finally went to the ER (where he is as I write) to get checked out. I'm waiting for him to come back and just tell me he has a strained muscle or something. Makes me nervous even typing this. We decided for him to go alone because the peanut just wouldn't do well at 10 pm in an Emergency Room. Also, the hospital is 5 minutes at most from here so that's a comfort.

There were good things in the day too. Michael and the peanut put up her new swingset together! How fun is that!! We got it last week for 1/2 price so we are excited. It's just one of the simple metal ones that will be good for her toddler years. It's got a 3 swings, a slide, a teeter tawter and something I don't know the name of on it. I really think she will enjoy it. It's too bad it's so cold out so it will be several months before she can really use it. We didn't want to leave it in the garage though as we do, someday, plan on getting that new car!!

So, no, I still haven't gotten another car. It stinks because it's really kind of crippling in the middle of nowhere. However, I have also seen the blessings God gives me through friends at this time. I've had several friends offer to come and get me just to go shopping or to the library and playdates. It's so nice because the peanut and I may have gone stir crazy without them!

I hope you all are well, I'm going to try and visit my blogging buds in the next couple of days. I've been really lacking on my visits. I need to have a fire lit under me! Oh, maybe that wouldn't be so bad at this point, I need the warmth!!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Gosh, where has the last week gone? It has flown by and I have basically been just far from blogland. I just feel like I've been super busy, which is a good thing. What does the bible say? Idle hands are like the devil's playground? OK, that's not word for word, but you get my idea. LOL

The last week has actually been a bit hard. We have been so blessed to drive two cars with no car payments for nearly 2 years now. How? Well, we drive old cars. It seems like everyone has nicer cars than us, but because we are living on one income, it is so hard, so we just are happy they've stayed with us for so long. Unfortunately, Michael's decided to depart from us on Friday. What was a 4 cylinder, is now a 2 1/2 cylinder. Yeah, not so good. So, it's sitting at Michael's parents waiting to be salvaged. Of course we weren't expecting that to happen so we've had to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to do. We definitely can't afford a new car payment. We went to the dealer to talk about leases and when they told us $400 was a normal car payment, our chins about hit the floor. First of all, we don't believe it, and secondly, that is just crazy!! Particularly for people with 2 or 3 car payments. Absolutely insane!!

So, we decided not to lease either. So we are left with the options of:

1. Only having one car. This would be really difficult since we live in the country and Michael works 45 minutes away. I would literally be stuck for 4 days a week...ugh! If we had to we would do this but it's not our preference.

2. Buying a used car. This is most likely what we will do. We've been looking around and we actually found a minivan we almost bought. Michael started talking to a guy at work though that owns a car lot and next time he goes to the auction he's going to look for something for us. I'm not a fan of the PT Cruiser as I just don't like the body style, but he thinks he can get one at a really good price and it would fit our needs for more room, so that may be the way we go. I'll let you know!

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was pretty nice. We started out the day looking at the ads for black Friday and ended it the same. In between, we decorated the tree that we had put up Wednesday night. And let me tell you how the peanut loved that! She was so cute coming down stairs and look at this...

I hope you all have fun celebrating the holidays too!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Flash Comments at WishAFriend.com">

Days gone by

I know I haven't been the best at posting lately, but it just seems like the days are getting a lot shorter and we've been busy. Not to mention, I just have not seemed to have the patience to sit down and type while my little toddler screams at me to pay her some attention. Yeah, it's been one of those weeks. In fact, it's going on right now...excuse me...

The weather here was warm at the beginning of the week so it was nice to get out and enjoy it a bit. The peanut has been knocked off her schedule a lot lately so she has been a grump. However, I did get a couple of good shots of her...







She also has started to eat a few more foods...

She actually really likes Kix cereal. Ask me why, I don't know. I'm personally not a fan, but put a little milk in their and she devours it. She's actually eating it all by herself now, the big girl.

The peanut has also started to say a couple of sentences. I eat was the first. I poopie was the second. Not too bad for a 21 month old!

I hope all of your weekends are great!

Two things...

Totally worth eating...

http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=29734

The recipe actually called for peanut butter chips, which I thought I had but it turned out I didn't. So, I decided to try with cherry chips instead, which I did have. Holy cow!! It is so good. It is getting ugly in here how much I am craving this cake. I had never made a homemade cake before, it's pretty darn easy and I'll surely do it again. Totally worth it as it is one of the yummiest and moist cakes I've ever eaten. Give it a try!

Totally worth reading...

http://www.theotherjournal.com/

Tag, You're It!

Sarah, over at http://sassyfrazz.blogspot.com, has tagged me for a meme I've not seen before. I think it's a funny one so I thought I'd play along.

Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It’s more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you’d also like to take.

1. I'm so there with Sarah on taking a class that teaches us how to love excercise as much as a bag of chips. Whew, if I could only patent that one I'd be a rich lady!

2. How to Blog while cleaning.

3. On that note, how to take a picture without thinking, "This one will be great in my blog".

4. 101 Ways to get your dog to clean up her own fur.

5. Introduction to getting the stank out of your diaper champ.

6. Advanced Football. Maybe this would help me to care a little more and my husband and I could banter about it on a level past..."Yeah, Peyton really did get picked 6 times this week." And for those that know what I'm talking about...Can you stinking believe that???

7. Advanced Development of Food that tastes good without butter. I don't know what this food is, but I sure would like to. Everything is better with butter...except maybe my hips!

8. Getting past your fears and getting on with your life. This is in reference to my ornothopobia. Fear of birds. I'm so not kidding!!

I tag anyone reading this...have fun!

Amy

Saturday Photo Hunt - Flexible

This was a hard one for me and took some time. The only thing I could come up with was a photo from last summer. My husband caught this poor catfish on the belly. Ouch! He lived though and all was right with the world. LOL

To participate or see more entries, go to http://tnchick.com.

Appetizer

Which snack do you like to get when you go to the movies?

Are you kidding me? The cheapest person on the planet. Seriously, I almost never buy food at the movie. Sometimes, however, shhhhhh...I sneak in some junior mints.

Soup

What year did you start using the internet?

Either 93 or 94. But not regularly at all. It was the start of college and I did not understand the internet at all. And I mean, at all. But, in my defense, it's nothing like it was then. Who couldn't use it now? Seriously. I mean, even my mom has used it. Woah!

Salad

What is your first name in Pig Latin?

myAay...um, it doesn't work so well with my name, huh? LOL

Main Course

Name something you are picky about.

Oh, you are about to hear something weird about me. I don't like things to be out of order. Case in point, yesterday, while at Old Time Pottery, there were these:adorable advent calendars. Clearly, I had to have one. Anyway, all the little drawers were mixed up in all the calendars. And they were switched around, like some would have multiple drawers of the same numbers. Now, I don't know if it was a Made in China kind of thing or if some little turkey came along and did it. Or, some combination of both. Anyway, this totally annoyed me and so I sat there for quite some time fixing several of them. Yeah, a little anal like that.

Dessert

Fill in the blanks: I ____ ____ yesterday and I ____ ____ today.

I went shopping yesterday and I will volunteer today.

(Our MOPS group is having a clothing drive so I'm heading over to the church today!)

A little link love

I was listening to NPR yesterday, which I must tell you I love, even though my political leanings are conservative, and NPR is ridiculously biased to the left, it is so educational. I hear so many stories from around the world and find out information that I would otherwise not know. I often shut off the radio if they are talking politics because I get annoyed quickly, but sometimes I listen to that as well just to know what's going on in the world. Information is a good thing.

Anyway, yesterday, while listening, they were telling about these bloggers who are 95 and 108 years old. Isn't that awesome? You have to go visit Olive, the 108 year old blogger at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/. Unfortunately the 95 year old blogger is in Spanish so I can't read anything but the basic part. If you can though I encourage you to go to her website at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/.

Pretty nifty!

Beeny Weeny

Saturday night my sister in law decided it was time to get all the special girls together from her life and have a girl’s night. She rented a limo to pick everyone up, had drinks and food and foot baths. She wanted it just to be a time for the girl’s to have a great time and just be girls. That was so very thoughtful of her.

You know, since I got married I never have time with just girls. I always have the peanut attached to my side and I just thought it would be so much fun. You know, kind of relive my youth days a bit. Looking back I remembered spending lots of nights going dancing with my friends and just laughing and talking and I missed it.

I had another friend that lives nearby tell me she was going to have a weinie roast the same night and invited our family to that. You know, just sitting around a campfire. Toasting hot dogs and munching on smores. Laughing and talking, sounds like fun! Of course I couldn’t do both and I had committed to my sister in law first so that’s the way I went.

Taking a ride in the limo was fun. I had a glass of wine, which I just never do. Please people, I am way too cheap to buy alcohol. Not to mention, I don’t really care for the way it makes me feel and I don’t really like it around the peanut. Anyway, as a result of not drinking since I got pregnant with the exception of a couple of sips since the end of breastfeeding, it didn’t take too long before I was feeling it. And I’m talking not in a good way.

To compound the issue, I was surrounded, with the exception of my sister, Erika, by a gaggle of girls who’s apparent only topic of conversation was drinking, sex and more drinking. Wow, the depth! Mind you, I’m completely incapable of small talk so this to me is like sticking needles in my eyes.

Let me just tell you how by 9pm I was calling my husband begging him to come and get me.

On Tuesday I talked to my weinie roast friend to ask her how things had gone. She relayed the story of how her daughter got sick at the gathering but she wished I would have been there to shoo everyone away. Apparently they stayed another two hours. Is it totally sad I wished I would have been there too?

Yeah, when it comes down to it, I think I’m just a weinie roast kind of girl.

Oh bother

The Office is my favorite show on television. Right now they are, along with the other Hollywood writers, on a strike and the set has closed down. OH NO!! Only two new episodes left. What will my Thursday nights be like?

My two new favorite things

I don't know why, I suppose it has something to do with the changing temperatures, but I've been all about food lately. I'm so not kidding. And last night I had a dream that I gained a lot of weight and my face was round. I kid you not that I woke up with a racing heart. It made me think about not eating the foods I'm about to tell you about...but, of course, it's me and that didn't last long!

First of all, I've had a bread machine for years and haven't used it. It's just sat there rather helpless for the longest wishing for something delicious smelling to bake. Well, a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it another whirl. Oh, did I forget to mention why it hadn't been used in forever? I'm trying to forget it...the weirdest looking bread you ever saw. Who knows what I did wrong, but it was definitely not edible.

So anyway, last week I tried once again to make just a regular old bread of white. Holy cow was that thing delicious. And we blew threw it in like a day and a half. So, naturally, I had to make another one. And another, and another, and another. Yep, it's been going on for 2 weeks now and I see no end in sight. As a matter of fact, my house will soon again be filled with the delicious smell of fresh baked bread in another hour now. YUMMO!!

The other thing I simply must tell you about, makes me look like this...

And what can it be?

Yes, pumpkin flavored ice cream. I have been looking for it for weeks and finally found it at my friendly neighborhood Marsh. I had been told Kroger had, but that was a lie from the pit. My mouth is watering thinking of it now. It's like pumpkin pie, ice cream...yes, creamy form!! Holy cow this stuff is good. The price tag is a lot more than I wanted to pay...I think like $6...but I will only buy it once and oh my gosh, am I happy that I did. Now my hips on the other hand, may feel a little different!

How Great is Our God

Do you ever just hear a song and it touches you? Yeah, me too. Last week at my parent's church these two high schoolers got up and sang this song with one struggling through on the guitar. It was beautiful.

Saturday Photo Hunt - Classic

After our wedding the car we rode off in was a real classic. My stepfather's 1965 Mercedes!

To see more photos go to http://tnchick.com