Another one for the "better late than never" file.

I think I am still suffering from a post-holiday hangover! The holidays were definitely hectic, to say the least.

We traveled to Ohio for the Christmas holiday. We drove up the evening of the 22nd. The drive just seems to get more and more brutal each time. Eight hours, at night, with three dogs? Bru-tal! And once you pass Cincinnati, there is pretty much nothing until you get to Toledo. So you're tired and cranky, and sick of everything that is on the radio already, and you still have 3 more hours to go. Arrgh!



Of course, somehow on the 23rd we managed to rally and head to IKEA!







Until we get one close to Nashville, it will never cease to be exciting to me! I don't even remember what all we bought. Not much. Some flowerpots, frames and little things like that. We were going to get new couch and ottoman covers, but we backed out at the last minute (Josh wanted red and I wanted grey). Good thing we chose not to purchase them (over a $300 purchase for the colors I wanted and we've had some car repairs to take care of since then).

Christmas was good. Went to Mom's church, which always has a great Christmas service, even though I am not particularly a church person.

My sister made these lovely cookies:



Pablo greatly enjoyed all the fat squirrels up north and tried to climb my mom's trees in hopes of getting them.



We drank a lot of Tim Horton's Iced Capps (and ate a lot of sandwiches, bagels and donut holes there, too):



Oh, how I wish we had a Tim's down here!

My Dad got a giant sock monkey:



It will look nice under his sock monkey tree:



I got a record player, which I am really excited about. It was fun to drag out my old records from the garage and give them a listen this past weekend. Josh got a kindle, which he really loves, and we also got a convection oven that he is really loving and using for everything - even toast! I haven't quite mastered it yet.



Once we came back to Nashville, we had two more Christmases. The first was with Josh's mom. She always buys us Christmas jammies and it's a lot of fun. See?







I love my sweet seester-in-law:



And my precious brother-in-law, too. Soglad they came in from Colorado!



The next day (or maybe 2 days after that, I can't remember), we hosted another Christmas at our little house, this time with his dad and siblings (I haven't uploaded the photos yet). I was really proud of myself because I actually DELEGATED for once in my life. Usually when I host something, I am all about making it as complicated as possible and doing it all myself. Not this time. I went with easy recipes (a cilantro-ranch-jalapeno dip, cream cheese chicken cili in the crockpot and hot chocolate also in the crockpot), and I asked Josh's dad to bring the rice to put the chili over and the garlic bread, and his siblings to bring wine. It all turned out great and was pretty low stress! I didn't even bust out the cloth napkins.

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and may you have a wonderful 2012!

Overwhelmed.

Christmas has overwhelmed me this year, I've never felt as woefully unprepared as I do this year. I do a lot of homemade goodies, and there just isn't enough time this year to do all I want. I luckily made just enough Limoncello to give to family - there is not even enough left over for us! But they sure do look cute, huh?



It was a jam-packed weekend. Made a HUUUUUUUGE dent in our Christmas shopping (and our checking account - eek). We're down to just two more things we need to buy.

I have two - count em, TWO- holiday decorations up (one that I got from our "Dirty Santa" exchange at work). I feel like a major failure. No lights, even though I really wanted outside lights this year. :( Sigh. The mailman, our favorite neighbors and friends will NOT be getting any cookies. Sorry. I've wrapped exactly ONE gift.

But here is the good stuff - I will get to see SO much family! Going up to Ohio to see all my peeps, then two Christmases with Josh's peeps when we get home (one that we are hosting). I'm so excited to see my brother-in-law and sister-in-law who are coming in from Colorado. And you know what? The only person who is going to know how unprepared I am is me. So I better just get over it!

In addition to my whirlwind shopping weekend, I got my "hairs did".



(my face looks so skinny here. I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it!)

My hairdresser really helped to thin it out with layers (my hair is ridiculously thick and there is a lot of it), but it is still plenty long. So long in fact, that I had to stand up when she trimmed the back of it. Josh absolutely loves it and had to snap this pic of me with a dog butt in my lap last night.



Also, I needed a new coat badly, so I was thrilled to find this one at TJ Maxx that makes me look and feel super skinny.... for 24 bucks. Small price to pay for such a big ego boost, haha!



Wishing everyone in blogland very happy holidays!!!

What's been going on...

In no particular order:

This guy had a birthday:


My dogs are still cute (our Christmas card this year is similar to this):


We had a Halloween party:




I attended a cookie exchange:


My neighbors got a puppy (they say it's a chihuahua/terrier mix - who wants to break it to them that that dog is a boxer?):


I co-hosted a baby shower:














As you can see, it was bee-themed, as we don't know what baby will "bee" yet (though most of us are betting it's a boy)! We'll find out on December 29th!

Josh is overwhelmed with school and finals for this semester (after Friday he has about 2-3 weeks off, Hallelujah).

I feel overwhelmed by life in general. I am slacking in every area (not just blogging), even the ones I enjoy most (cooking, reading). I'm 2-3 months behind in my magazines, even - and you don't even want to look at my DVR... there aren't enough hours to watch it all!

In somewhat-uplifting news (?) I have been having increasingly intolerable stomach issues since July, and I may have finally found the cause! After more Pepto-Bismol than I want to recall, countless doctor's appointments (and three doctors who all seemed to really love prodding my stomach with their jabby fingers and making it worse), and several tests of all sorts... it's been determined I have a hernia. I am on a few different medications now, and my problems are much less severe. I've only had really bad pain from it maybe two or three times since my diagnosis. I don't know if that means the meds are working or if it's the side effect of not being hungry (and therefore not eating much to aggravate it) that is doing the trick. In any case, I'll take it. Plus I've lost about 9 lbs and that is a nice bonus. I deserve it after all those co-pays! ;)

Hope everyone is well in blog-land. I'm hopelessly behind on Christmas and everything that goes with it, and in 9 days we'll be starting our celebrations, so maybe I need to get with the program??

Halloween... Part 1. (Better late than never?)

We had a party, and I will post about that later, but first here are some decor details.



When I was snapping photos of the outside of the house, I noticed one little guy fell from his perch. Oops.



He was originally on the door...















Halloween is probably my favorite holiday, and once again it didn't even come close to looking like I had envisioned (nor did I even get it all done), but like I tend to say.... "There's always next year!"

I'm terrible!

Obviously I am very bad at blogging these days.

Here we are 2/3 through October - my favorite month of the year, and I don't feel as though I've even had a chance to enjoy it! We have a Halloween party coming up, which I feel completely unprepared for. Our decorations aren't even completely up yet. I'm trying to just roll with it all.

Last weekend, we carved pumpkins at my mother-in-law's. Here are some pictures, it's all I have to offer right now. Haha.



My brother-in-law and sister-in-law moved to CO, so this is how we get a family picture these days. Thank you, Skype! Our connection wasn't that great, but it was fun anyway.



Here are our pumpkins:



I look like absolute death warmed over, felt like it, too. Still do. The show must go on!

Hope everyone is doing well, I have 2 weeks worth of blog posts to read. Oops!

4th of July weekend...

...It started with a bang and ended with a whimper!

Saturday morning we got up and headed to the gym to tackle back to back classes - Zumba and Total Body (weights). This was our second time doing these consecutively on a Saturday and I hope we continue to do it. I'm not a cardio person and I'm also not a coordinated person, so you may be asking why I do Zumba. The answer is because as awful as I am at it, I can always look around the room and see people doing worse than I. So it's comforting... plus, I need the cardio. ;) As for Total Body, I really enjoy it, even though the chest excercises kill me and I tend to lean to one side all the time. My right arm is just not as strong as my left, it appears.

I was also excited to burn all those calories so we could try out the new restaurant that opened at the end of our street.



It used to be called "Maisie's" and there are still remnants of it's "Maisie's" days around...



It had been empty for a couple of years now, and every time I drove by, I would sigh. I would love to run a little place like this. Maybe someday? Who knows.

We had to wait a while to order and eat, because when the owner came in that morning, nothing was working, and this was only their 3rd day of being open! So, things were backed up a little, but we got to meet and talk with a fellow neighbor, so that was nice. Plus, Josh was happy with his sweet tea that was served in a canning jar.



I meant to take more pictures, but I guess I forgot. I had biscuits with chocolate gravy and bacon. (See why we went to the gym first?) It was delicious.

I think the rest of our Saturday was pretty low-key.

Sunday, we were still lazy. My back (kidney area - hoping it's not stones) has been hurting me the last few days and I was just not feeling totally myself. In the afternoon we went to Tim and Meredith's for a cookout. Once again, I failed with the picture taking. This was the only one I took. I just thought it was cute to see the back of their house reflected in my sunglasses.



I put two cheesebugers and an ear of corn in my belly, and then left to go to an appointment I had with a... I don't know what the word is. Spiritual advisor? Counselor? I'm not sure what to call her, really. I've struggled with anxiety and insomnia for nearly 12 years and I'm getting pretty sick of it. I've tried throwing pills at it, and regular old therapy, but yoga has triggered something in me that made me feel like I should try a more spiritual route. That's kind of tricky, because I don't really pigeonhole myself into one category when it comes to religion. I'm open to everything, and I strongly believe in God. I just think there are a lot of paths to the Source, and I'm trying to find the best one for me.

So this was my first, and possibly only meeting with this person. Not that it wasn't helpful, because it was. She put a different frame on some situations for me, so I could look at them differently, and encouraged me to talk more with God and listen to Him more. It was very helpful and I think what I needed to guide me into whatever I do next. It's difficult because I feel like I know everything I need to know to "fix" it, but I am just unsure of how to go about implementing it. Next I may try a massage therapy session that is supposed to balance my chakras, and also accupuncture. As ridiculous as this may sound, I also bought some guided meditation apps for my phone, and that has been helping with my nighttime anxiety and sleeplessness.

Okay, so that was all a little too personal, but there it is.

Saturday evening I caught up on some reading and TV with my beloved beside me. Lounging in bed with books, tv and/or each other happens too rarely these days!

Yesterday, I woke up sick to my stomach and was sick all darn day. We cleaned the house and then I took a nap and managed to go to the store later in the day, but much of the day was spent in bed, watching a Twilight Zone marathon on the SyFy channel.



We were invited to a couple of 4th of July events, and I gave Josh my blessing to go ahead and go without me, but he opted to stay home, and I have to say I was secretly happy with that. He had a 3 day break from classes and homework and it was nice to feel "normal" and go to bed at the same time and watch some junk tv together.

I'm not feeling 100% yet, and my back is still bothering me, but here I am. Grateful for the short work week and counting down until my next nap!

Pilates tonight!

Long weekend in pictures and words... (yes, I pigged out a little)

Hot bar at Whole Foods for lunch on Friday...

(mine)




(Josh's)



Followed by some yummy goodness at Sweet CeCe's (I can't wait to go back there!!):


...and a little trip to Anthropologie...





where I found these great labels to use for my canning! (side note: also found a recipe for a Honey Fig jam that I can't wait to try!):



The rest of the weekend consisted of lots of time with these guys!













(P.S. Pablo killed 3 birds in 3 days. He just jumps straight in the air and plucks them out of the sky. He is a killing machine. Birds are bad enough, I will be pretty distraught when he finally bags a squirrel. He has gotten very close!)







Enjoying the backyard...



Putting on a cute dress to combat the 95 degree temps:


A last minute dinner/cookout with friends. I got to use my summer plates!



Complete with "stolen" hydrangeas from Tim and Meredith (they have the most enviable Hydrangeas in the neighborhood. She told me I was welcome to them but it still felt like stealing since they were out of town!):



Even a couple for the bathroom!:



And of course, a LOT more of this guy (who the day after surgery and 3 pulled teeth was acting like nothing ever happened):







Not pictured: reading, shopping, running (!!!!), gardening (added more peppers, a tomato plant and strawberries to the garden and a fig tree to the yard), and NAPPING!