Little drunk. Deal with it.

Just got back from dinner with my in-laws for my sister-in-law's 26th birthday. We went to a local Italian restaurant (amazing food)! I can't say enough about how much I love my in-laws. The wine is never ending and the humor is completely inappropriate...I'm right at home!

I'm so thankful that both sets of my parents get along so well, because let's face it, if Hubs and I ever get a divorce, his family is coming with me because they like me better...

Seriously though, I can't sy enough good things. I've been extremely lucky to get along so well with each member of the hub's family.  When we said "I do" this last September, I think that no one took lightly the fact that two families became one. I know that in my family, it didn't matter you're last name, you attended funerals because that was your family. I think this can be said for my in-laws.  My in-laws attended my family's Christmas morning celebration...something my father-in-law commented on tonight("that bacon and ham were amazing!"). I am so thankful that both sets of families are constantly asking about what days work best to get together for dinners.. I am truly blessed :)

Much love,
-B-

P.S. really excited to be a bridesmaid for my sister-in-law's wedding this summer..I LOVE weddings!!!!

This morning's sunrise. So happy that I was awake to capture this. :)

New Years Resolutions

I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions. I don't have the patience or memory to stick to them all year...so I decided that instead of doing things I know that I'll never stick to (i.e. working out, quit smoking - not that I smoke at all, just hypothetical here), I wanted to do a list that I know that I can actually achieve.

 

1. Read more! I'm hoping to do better at this in 2013 than I did this past year. Hopefully Book Pub helps!!
2. Take advantage of days off - something other than sit in front of the tv. Enjoy the day! I don't know how many days off I spent last year lounging in bed or on the couch watching television. The day is young, if it's nice out, I want to be IN IT, experiencing all my city has to offer..I need to get on this. This coming weekend is a perfect opportunity and I'm not planning on wasting it. On Saturday, some girl friends and I are going up to Seattle to participate in Snow Day, hosted by the Boys and Girls Club. Snowball fight in the afternoon and pub crawl in the evening. So much fun, can't wait!
3. Less debit and more cash use. I don't know how many times I just pull out my debit/credit card to buy something and don't think about the total of the transaction or the amount in my account. I haven't over drafted since college thanks to mobile apps where I've set alerts to go off when my balance gets under $50. That's helped a lot, but I still never think about the total. If I take out $80 for every two weeks as my "entertainment money", I'll have to decide if I really need that $40 makeup whatever from Sephora, or save it to do happy hour with friends.
4. Save all $5 bills. I read an article or something recently where this girl saved every $5 bill she came in possession with and after a year or two she had saved $1,400. Hubs and I are planning on quite a few vacations this coming year (New York City in the summer, South Carolina and Disney World in October, and maybe another mini-vacay...), so me thinking that would make some nice spending travel money! So far, I haven't gotten one single $5 bill yet though...All $1's. Boo.

We'll see how I do this year. I have this piece of paper in between the cover of my Kindle case, so hopefully I am reminded of my goals on a regular basis :)

I'm going to take the advice of Resolution #2 - and while my computer may not be a television, I'm going to lump it in the same category for this sake - and enjoy the rest of my day (all 3 hours and 30 minutes of my awake time left) and play with my doggies!!

Much love,
- b -

Holiday updates

I've just realized that I haven't updated this in awhile. Oops. Please forgive me.

our Christmas card this year.

My Christmas was very low key. Christmas Eve consisted of going to the in-laws' for their annual Christmas Eve party. Normally, there are close to 50 people there drinking way too much top shelf alcohol, eating way too much sandwich platters and eventually crowding around the piano for carols, or even worse, going door to door in the neighborhood. This year's was very tame, not too many people showed up and one couple had to head to the ER! The joke in the family is it's not a party until Don has a heart attack.  Horrible joke, but kind of true! Thankfully he'll be fine.

Christmas morning we drove to my parents house in Bremerton to open family gifts and then we were supposed to go to my cousin's house in Port Orchard for brunch...well, plans got changed at the last second because the whole family was plagued by the stomach flu! So, again, we had a quiet day at my parent's house and my aunts and uncles came over for our potluck brunch. Soo good! I need to have my uncle write down his recipe for ham. Ah-mazing! (the secret is apparently ginger ale..who woulda thunk it?!)

On New Year's Eve, I was very low key. Read a book and passed out by 10ish..Jan 1st consisted of Hubs and I driving down to Portland to do some tax-free shopping. We didn't pick up many great deals, but do you know what I got?! A cold!! Walked out of the mall on Tuesday night and thought, "woah, my throat hurts. Weird!" Woke up on Wednesday with no voice, but decided to go to work anyway. Worst idea ever. I was dying at my desk. Couldn't talk, chills, fever. You name it. I went home, got into jammies, took some NyQuil with Vitamin C (awesome stuff, lemme tell ya), and zonked out. Woke up on Thursday, sent a text to my boss saying I was staying home. Went back to sleep and didn't get up until 4:30pm. Felt good until about 10 then started with headaches, sneezing, coughing, chills. Took more meds and went to bed. Woke up Friday, still not good. My voice was going in and out. Hubs had the day off so he took care of me (very demanding murse!). Drank a lot of high vitamin C smoothie drinks this weekend. I'm feeling better - no more chills, headaches. Still coughing and running/stuffed up nose.. My voice is also still kind of hit or miss, but I definitely think I can manage work tomorrow. Thank goodness, I was starting to go stircrazy at home. I am not a good stay-cation person. I hate being at home with nothing to do. And no, I don't want to clean if I can help it.

It is almost time for kick off. I best be off. Goooo Seahawks!

Much love,
-b-

Crock-Pot Apricot Chicken

I have a love/hate relationship with my crock-pot. Whenever I try to cook something on the high setting, it burns. When I try low, it's not fully cooked. I think it just hates me. Yesterday after grocery shopping, I decided to give my slow cooker another change and tried Apricot Chicken from Six Sister's Stuff. I found the recipe on Pinterest. I made a couple substitutions, so I'm not sure if it would taste the same as the original recipe. First off, instead of a packet of dry onion soup mix, I used a can of Cream of Celery soup. I substituted this because I thought I had a packet of the soup mix left over from a previous recipe that I've tried, but alas, I did not and since I had just gotten back home from grocery shopping, I refused to leave again. My second substitution isn't really a substitution at all...instead of chicken breasts, I used chicken tenders because again, I didn't have chicken breasts, but I have a huge Costco-sized back of chicken tenderloins. My third and final substitution again really isn't a substitution. It called for apricot preserves..I used apricot and pineapple because, again, that is what I had in stock from another previous recipe I've tried.

Substitutions/alterations aside, it was good! Had barely enough left over for my lunch today. I didn't put enough chicken in the pot because while they were frozen, I put as much as my crock-pot could fit, but shrunk down when they thawed/cooked. So there was WAY more sauce than chicken, but that's alright, I made mashed potatoes too so I used it as a gravy. Pretty much licked my plate clean. Hubs didn't complain about it either, so I chalk that up for the win category!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend, I know I did. (Anyone see the 58-0 shut out of the Cardinals from Seattle?! Crazy!!)

Dec. 8, 2012

Work has been extremely hectic lately with training for a new position and prepping for our HR files to be audited next month. I haven't been very diligent with my 5k training..I might have to put that on the back burner until after the holidays, I'm not sure yet.

Yesterday I took a much needed day off from work. Thank the Lord for PTO! Friend Jamie and I drove down to Woodburn Company Stores outside of Portland to do some tax-free Christmas shopping. I scored as usual at the Gap Outlet for gifts for my second cousins and hubs' nephew. We high-tailed it outta there to get back home in time for my work Christmas party. We had fun, and I was starving so the turkey and ham with all the fixin's hit the spot!

Today has been a very lazy day. I did some cleaning, but not as much as I should have. Paid a few bills, balanced the checkbooks, took the dogs for a few walks..the usual. Tomorrow will consist of more cleaning, laundry folding, more dog walks, and maybe a little shopping if there's time. Who am I kidding? The shopping with most likely happen first. Sundays are my grocery shopping days.

Happy December!

I love this time of year. Christmas is my fave!! I love the sights, sounds, smells, you name it. Since it is officially December, my goal for this weekend is to holiday-ify our townhouse. Last week I hung the stockings above the fireplace. Hubs was none too thrilled [He's a total Scrooge]. He will be putting up the Christmas tree this week on his next day off though. He said he was waiting until December 1st and when I asked him to do it yesterday because it was his day off, he said no because it wasn't December yet. Hmmph I say!

I mailed out our Christmas cards today. Yay! Very excited to get them off our buffet, they've been sitting there for a few weeks now.

I love the festive Forever Stamps!

We also received our first Christmas card in the mail yesterday, Jason's friend, April, who is also a new partner at Jay's dad's CPA firm. So happy for her! I need to figure out how I want to display cards this year. I think I'm going to hang some ribbon on our kitchen cabinets and just paper clip them on...or something of that nature..I'm not sure yet. I may need to peruse Pinterest for ideas.