5 things: Part 7

Today I am grateful for:

1. My hair is cut! No more split ends!

2. Yesterday someone gave Jake a Hickory Farms box. We ate half of it for dinner. Definitely not vegan, but it was delicious.

3. I have about 90% of my Christmas wrapping complete.

4. I almost purchased Christmas ornaments on anthropologie.com. All sale items were 25% off today! I'm grateful for my restraint and strong desire to save some money (to be spent while shopping in Texas).

5. Tomorrow is Friday. I thought Tuesday felt like Friday, but now I can't believe that we're almost to the end of the week.

5 things: Part 6

5 things I'm grateful for today:

1. The sun came out today! I can't remember the last sunny day we had. Unfortunately the 10 day forecast shows nothing but rain in the foreseeable future.

2. Hair cut day is finally here!

3. I had enough time this morning to go running, sweep the floors, take out the trash and clean out all of the old leftovers in the fridge. I also went grocery shopping during my lunch break and finished making more Christmas presents. I feel like I've accomplished a lot today.

4. My sister sent me a text saying that our mom bought us some salsa that contains ghost chilies! I'm so excited and nervous.

5. I had a $10 off coupon for Safeway that expires on Friday. I'm grateful for the coupon and the fact that I remembered to pull it out of my wallet before I paid.

5 things: Part 5

Yesterday was a rough day. I tried to think of 5 things, but just couldn't do it...

But, today I'm grateful for:

1. I finished making my mom's Christmas present! And she's going to LOVE it! She would love it if I drew stick people on a used napkin, but this is way better than that :)

2. 2 White Elephant parties down, 1 to go.

3. My heavily discounted hair straightener finally shipped today. It looks like it's going to take a while to get here, but at least I know it's coming ( I was beginning to think it really was a scam).

4. Hair appointment is tomorrow.

5. It's almost time to leave work!

The County Park

In addition to shooting pumpkins on Saturday, we also went to the county park. I took pictures of the lake and Jake played on the playground equipment. He's such a cute kid.

(just a little older than 12...at least I was there to supervise)

5 things: Part 4

Sorry I missed a day of 5 things :( Here are the 5 things I'm grateful for today:

1. Dexter is on tonight!

2. The most adorable cat in the world.

3. My mom has been texting me pictures of the family pets and today she sent some of the newest addition in his timeout spot. He's been climbing up the Christmas tree and removing the limbs!

4. We're having dinner with Jake's dad and step mom tonight.

5. Last night we had chips and guacamole for dinner. Today I had leftover chips and guacamole for lunch. I'm grateful that guacamole was invented.

Shooting Pumpkins

Our pumpkins have been sitting on our porch since Halloween. We never carved them so they weren't rotting or anything, but seeing as how Christmas is only 2 weeks away, we thought it was time to dispose of them. Jake came up with the brilliant idea to take them to his grandparent's house and shoot them. I reluctantly agreed. Guns scare me, but Jake was excited so off we went...



It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was only my 2nd time to shoot a gun. My first time was at the same place, but with a LOUD gun that resulted in a temporary loss of hearing. This gun was much more tame and I now feel prepared to defend myself against a home invasion. Burglars beware!

The Finished Product!

Not the best looking bow in the world, but it took me many, many tries to get it to this point:

Best Ornament on the Tree

And now it's time for 5 things I'm grateful for today:

1. Papa Charlie brought us some avocados last night. It was the most wonderful and thoughtful surprise.

2. Jake was nice enough to download the pictures of the tree and email them to me at work. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have posted these until Sunday and you didn't want to wait that long, right?

3. I found out that a book I'm reading, The Help, is being made into a movie and will be out next summer!

4. It's Friday.

5. I cleaned the bathroom this morning so it's one less thing to clean this weekend!

5 things: Part 2

Time for the second installment of 5 things I'm grateful for today:

1. I finally have a hair appt. scheduled for next week. I haven't had my hair cut since June! This is nothing new though. I typically only get my hair cut 2 or 3 times a year. I should be better about it though because my hair always looks awful after a couple of months. Maybe my new years resolution will be to get it cut more frequently! Seems easy enough...

2. Jake is such a hard worker and recently received some huge compliments from a project manager of a job that he did a few months ago. I'm extremely proud of him and grateful that he works so hard to provide for us.

3. Wasabi covered sunflower kernels and a mom that mails them to me.

4. 90210 reruns. I was too young to watch this show when it first started and by the time I was old enough to watch it I didn't have any interest in it. Now I'm in love with it, but a little sad that the WE network went from the first season to (what I believe) is the last season. I have no idea what has happened in between! Where did Brandon and Brenda go??

5. Dexter. I swear my life doesn't revolve around television. Okay, it kind of does, but this season of Dexter is AMAZING. Sunday is the season finale and I just can't wait. Probably the first time I've ever been excited for a Sunday night to roll around. I've been searching all over the internet for spoilers (shame, shame) but I can't find anything!

5 things

Today my mom sent me a link about surviving the holidays. I've noticed that as a "grown up" the holidays really aren't what they used to be. The article outlines it all really well and provides reassurance to those that don't absolutely love the holiday season. I'm not saying I hate the holidays, but they are stressful and after a few years of not spending them at home, I'm starting to like them less and less. Sorry to be all Scrooge like, but I'm just being honest. The last part of the article was dedicated to putting time aside each day during the holiday season to write 5 things you are grateful for. It's a simple exercise to shed some light on all the good things during this stressful season. They can repeat themselves and don't have to be anything major.

So I've decided to do this and I'm sure you all want to read about it, right? I doubt I'll make it every day, but I'll try my best.

Things I'm grateful for today:

1. My Christmas tree is complete (with a homemade, decent looking bow on top! Pictures to be posted soon).

2. Going HOME for Christmas this year! Only a couple more weeks!

3. We've been having trouble with the plumbing in our house and the lock on the front door. Both were fixed yesterday and life is just a little bit easier.

4. Jake brought me lunch today. It was yummy.

5. My hair straightener died on Thanksgiving and today I found one online for HALF the price of what you would pay at a store. Let's just hope it's a legit operation and I actually receive the straightener :)

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

Last week Jake and I were on a Monopoly kick. We played 4 games in the span of a couple days. I dominated the first two, but didn't have such great luck the last two tries. I was doing so well that I was pretty sure I was a real estate genius, but after losing two games, I've concluded that the game is based primarily on luck ;)

This was the board at the end of the second game. All of the hotels were MINE! I didn't bother to take a picture after the next couple of games when the board was in Jake's favor.

We're pretty much sick of the game now. We might play again in another year or so.

Christmas Tree 2010

Yesterday we went to a tree farm in Upper Lake and purchased a Christmas tree! It's a bit too big for out house, but it's a pretty nice looking tree. I'm sure it's going to dry out before Christmas though because Sydney keeps drinking all of the water. I'll post pictures of it in it's decorated state once we get some hooks for the remainder of the ornaments and I construct a big bow to go on the top. I found the cutest ribbon, but really have no clue how to make a big bow. We'll see if it turns out...

Upon My Sister's Request

I'm finally updating the blog! I don't have anything interesting to report. I've been under the weather the past week so life has been pretty uneventful.

So what to write about? How about my sister, since she requested the post and all....

My sister's name is Mallory. My parents were fans of Family Ties.

I don't remember the last time I called her Mallory.

I refer to her as Miltay, but it hasn't always been Miltay. It started with other names.

I can't recall exactly what it started with, or when it started, but the first one I remember is Samsonite. There were variations of that name and then it somehow changed to Milton, which evolved to Miltay.

When I talk to her on the phone I always greet her with an overly excited MiltAy (like PartAy). Sometimes I just call her Milt, Miltose, or Miltose Intollerant. My mom calls her Mips or Mipsey.

Miltay isn't the only one in the family with a silly name. We call my dad Tobey. His name is actually Cliff. Miltay and I were watching a tv show one day with a character named Tobey and we just thought it would be fun to call him that. So we do. Jake does too. At our wedding he invited "Tobey" to give a speech and I had to quickly explain to a bunch of people that I didn't know very well that his real name is Cliff. I'm sure everyone was confused.

My sister calls me Rosstopher, Toph for short. This came from an episode of Friends.

We don't have a ridiculous name for my mom. I'm not sure why a silly name never developed, but maybe it's just out of respect. I think she likes to be called mom. I'm sure my dad would like to be called dad, but we don't respect him that much :)

And then there's Jake. I've mentioned before that we call each other Man. It doesn't feel weird for me to refer to him as Jake when talking to other people about him, but it feels weird when I say his name to get his attention. Man seems so much more natural.

So basically this went from a post explaining my sister's name to a post that makes me sound super weird because I don't have the ability to call people by their actual names.

Don't judge.