A quick post....

I decided to join in this year with Ali Edwards in choosing a "word" for 2009. I've never done with before and I only follow Ali Edwards occasionally on her blog, but for some reason I've been compelled to really start to SIMPLIFY my/our lives. So in the words of Thoreau, my "word" for 2009 is SIMPLIFY.

: to make simple or simpler: as a: to reduce to basic essentials b: to diminish in scope or complexity : streamline c: to make more intelligible : clarify


My goal to simplify is -

*Buy less stuff, repurpose or reuse what we have

*Get rid of things we are no LONGER using either through Craigslist or Freecycle

*Simplify my job./career- implement better practices to make my job easier

*Don't sweat the small stuff - simplify my emotions

I'm also going to kick ass on my fitness goals. Unfortunately, I didn't get chosen for the Altoona Herald/Anytime Fitness Winter Challenge...the reason....I was in too GOOD of shape, the 4 challengers have serious health concerns that need to be addressed immediately. In fact Chris aka Satan told me of the 15 entrants, I was in the best shape. He was pulling for me, but the other Judges feel the others needed the help worse than me. The good news.....I'm starting back with Darcy the Devil three times a week at a ridiculously low price. Personally I think Chris felt sorry for me for not getting picked and is offering this as a consolation. My 2009 goal for my fitness is to be 40 pounds lighter by the end of 2009. That's approximately 3.5 pounds a month. THAT is doable.

Because of my back injury and the holidays, I've probably lost some ground that I was gaining. I haven't been able to work out since the 23rd and I've got to get in there and talk to them about starting back up without re-injuring my back. It's on my to-do list for today.

No New Years Eve plans......we are such loser homebodies that the thought of going anywhere to celebrate isn't even on our radar...LOL

So have you chosen a word for 2009 or any particular goals?

A Rambling of thoughts.....

Don't blame me for the rambling....I'm on drugs....LOL...these muscle relaxers do the job in helping with the back pain and you would think they would knock me out, but they don't.

So...on with my rambling....

If you missed this at your local Hy-Vee, too bad for you because this stuff is freaking fabulous. Makes your dish water smell sooo good, I don't even mind washing by hand. It's Method's Peppermint Vanilla. I bought 3 bottles of it.



I also been wanting to share with you some of the things that I made as Christmas gifts this year. First up....and I stole this idea from a booth at the Cozy Crop Wear crop I went to the first of November. I bought some larger lined post it notes at Walmart, I think they were 6 for $3.00 and I made chipboard covers for them.



I also got out the sewing machine and made fabric totes to give to the females in my life. I found the cutest fabrics and bought most of the material on sale. I ended up making 10 of them and once I got the hang of it, it didn't take very long. Everyone that received one, loved it!



Well, it's late and even though I don't have to go back to work until January 6th, I'm going to get off the computer and go back to reading "Cross Country" by James Patterson, a book that Connor got me for Christmas.

BTW - I've actually been doing some scrapbooking....will share later...

Happy Birthday to Our Boy!

We are now officially parents of a teenager. Where has the time gone? Connor is a great kid, fun to be around, a definite challenge with a loving heart.

He was born almost to the minute 13 years ago and it was/is the best thing I ever did in my life.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart! You'll always be my boy...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times!

The best first -

Christmas Eve with my brother AND sister TOGETHER, in the same house. (long story, those of you that really know me, know the story and how unlikely that scenario is). We had a good time, good food, everyone was gone by 9:30. Connor in bed, asleep by 10:30. Elves played until midnight...

Christmas Morning with the joys of my life. Connor woke up at 5:30AM, came into our bedroom wanting to go downstairs, we both groaned, said "NO", "You have to wait until at least 6:00AM". 6:00AM - coffee's on, kitties get their Christmas morning treat and we start on our stockings....

My boys treat me SO good....in my stocking was an iTunes card, lottery tickets (I won $3...Yoo Yoo..lol), a music DVD of my favorite band, Nickelback (it's them playing a concert in 2006 at Sturgis, SD....man, that would have been a party that was fun to go to), a pink heart candle tart holder for my scrapbook room and a couple of scrapbook mystery paperbacks by Laura Childs.

Connor gave me a beautiful Brighton necklace. This one is very different that what you would normally see, it has two small dogtags and a disc. The dog tags are engraved with "Create" and "Style" and the disc has an engraved design on it. I love it! He also bought me the new James Patterson's novel, "Cross Country".

Fred outdid himself, he gave me two new Jim Shore Heartwood Creek figurines, one is a reindeer to go with the sleigh Santa he bought me last year and the other one is from the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer collection, it's Santa and Rudolph by a Christmas tree. They look great in my collection.

He also bought me a Day-Timer organizer. It's the one area that I can't go electronic on, I like written lists and a written date book. I tried a Palm Pilot for a few years, but I found I never used it for appointments, to do lists, etc. only for addresses/phone numbers and a couple special applications I loaded on it.

Christmas dinner was with my sister and niece and nephew. They came over around noon and spend the day. We exchanged gifts and had a traditional Turkey dinner.

Now for the worst -

I have somehow really f*cked my back up and I'm bummed. I do not EVER have back problems, that's Fred's achilles heel, but somehow on Christmas Day, I either bent over wrong, turned wrong, squatted wrong, I don't know, but I can hardy move. No way can I go to the gym like this. Hell, I can't bend over to pick up anything. Connor, bless his heart, helped me get my pants and slippers on this morning and thank god, Fred has pharmicuticals.....I took a muscle relaxer this morning and fell asleep for a few hours, but even after my nap, it still hurts like hell. Thankfully, I don't go back to work until January 6th, so I have time to heal, but I do have plans over my time off and I'm hoping this doesn't interfere with those plans.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones!

Twas the Night before Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family who read my blog. I just got home from work (I worked from 7:00 to 12:00 today) and I'm waiting for my sister, my niece and nephew and my brother to come over later. We were very surprised to get out of work early today. There was only 9 of us there and NO ONE from management, thus no one to make a decision of whether to close or not, but around 10:30, the Judge called and she told us that she wasn't coming in and that we could all go home at noon...YIPPEE!

The menu for this evening goes as follows:

Homemade Vegetable Soup
(made by my brother)
Cold Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce
Hot Wings with Ranch Dressing
Hot Artichoke Dip
Baked Brie with Raspberry Jam

The only thing that I need to do later is get the brie ready to bake. The wings and artichoke dip are ready to be put in the oven.

We are also indulging in either Pomengranate Bellinis, Pomengranate Martinis or Pomengranate Champagne, made with Prosecco.

But before all the festivities start, I think it's time for a nap.....later...

Well, at least it isn't the Christmas Tree....

This is what the boy and I discovered last night.....Oreo was very happy in his perch and really didn't want to get down. We wanted to witness the journey back down as we were curious on how he got up there in the first place. With the Christmas decorations, there are lots of obstacles and I'm surprised we didn't find something broken.

Kreative Blogger Award and ICE!

Last month my friend Janet nominated me for the Kreative Blogger award.



Here are the rules of the Kreative Blogger award:

The winner may put the logo on their blog.
Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
Nominate 5 blogs.
Provide links to their blogs.
Leave a message for your nominees.

I nominate - Janalee, Rosalie, Gina ,Joellyn and .Judy

As I'm sitting here typing, I'm hearing the pitter patter of ice/sleet/crap/shit hitting the window. I actually don't mind winter, but I HATE ICE! Give me 10 feet of snow over 1 inch of ice any day. We are expecting really really foul weather over the next 12 hours and if it's as bad as they say it's going to be, Connor will probably not have school and both Fred and I will be working from home. I'm just NOT going to risk driving in this crap. If it's just snow, I'll do it, if necessary, but ice.....I don't like driving on it and I don't trust the idiot central Iowa drivers that are out in it.

I'm glad that I have the option of working from home in these situations. Other than printing a hard copy of something, there is nothing about my job that I can't do from my work laptop at home.

STILL have the rest of my gift wrapping to do...I've been procrastinating on that since Sunday. I don't know why I'm having such a tough time of getting the 6-7 gifts that are left to wrap done.....I think I need a swift kick in the rump!

Well, either tomorrow or Saturday is the BIG day when I find out if I'm one of the four challengers/contestants in the Winter Fitness Challenge! Wish me luck!

Our Christmas Cat...

Kirby will be forever known as our Christmas Tree cat......We don't know why he has decided to take an interest in the tree. It wasn't until his third Christmas with us that he discovered it was something he could climb or play hide and seek underneath. Fred and I had to take all of the gifts out from underneath it this weekend, pull the tree out and fix the branches that clearly looked like they've had a cat laying on them. Even while we were doing this chore, we had an interested guest....said guest also decided to eat some metallic twisty ribbon I used on some packages....must have been good...

Thought I would share some more photos from around our house...

I love decorating for the holidays and from the beginning of October until the middle of January, all of our "normal" home decor are in totes down in the basement. This year, I scaled back but I still love the way our home looks.


Notice the Jim Shore Heartwood Creek "Bumble" from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on the top shelf....I got him...bought him myself..{evil laugh}













Hope you are all enjoying the holiday season. This week has been pretty low key, we had our Courthouse Holiday Luncheon/Potluck on Wednesday. I made a very very easy Cherry Fluff salad, but I rocked the presentation. I bought a cheap plastic Christmas bucket with lid at Walmart for a couple of bucks, bought a 97 cent set of plastic utensils (for the large spoon), was able to thread the large spoon onto the handle of the bucket lid during transporation and I served my Cherry Fluff in the bucket. It looked so festive....dark pink Cherry Fluff in a cute red and white Christmas bucket with a large white serving spoon.....Martha...move over...LOL!

Wanted to also update you on my fitness progress.....I'm patiently waiting to see if I am one of the four participants in the Altoona Herald/AnyTime Fitness Winter Fitness Challenge. If chosen, I will be going on a 8-10 week (I think) training and nutrition plan competing against the three other participants. The winner will win a FREE lifetime membership to Anytime Fitness. I told the Chris aka Satan that if I get picked, I WILL WIN the challenge.....I'm that motivated..why?? because the fruits of my labor is really finally starting to show. I am definitely trimmer and toner, I've lost almost 15 pounds, but it feels like a lot more and my overall fitness level has improved 100%. I'm currently waiting for a lipid profile to come back from the federal health unit that I had done a month or so ago. I've never had a problem with my total cholestrol, but one of my numbers needed to be a tad higher...I can't remember which one you want higher and I'll bet with all the exercise I'm doing, it has to have improved.

I still have a ways to go, but I'm in no hurry....I'm not going anywhere...

Have a good weekend!

The start of our Holiday season!

Tonight we are going to Wells Fargo Arena to see theTrans Siberian Orchestra. We have talked about going for a couple of years but never did and this year I saw a presale online back in September and snagged three good seats and kept it a secret until Thanksgiving.

I broke the news last weekend, but Fred quessed right when I said to them both "Guess what we're going to do next Saturday night?" Fred said "Trans Siberian Orchestra" and I gave him a funny look and replied "Yea...." and he said "Really?, I guessed right?"....yep....stinker...

Today, I'm getting the boxes ready to send out Monday to Fred's mom and stepdad and my dad and stepmom. Once those are in the mail and gone, I'm looking pretty good regarding Christmas. Just a couple more things to run out and get and then I can concentrate on getting the rest of the gifts wrapped. Connor helped me wrap gifts the other night and that helped. The home decorating is done, we even were able to get some outdoor illumination...lol....installed before the snow came.

Caveat....DON'T buy the crystallized rope lights at Walmart. I've now gone through two boxes of them...a section of the rope light keeps going out and I keep returning them back to the store....I give up, so one of our porch columns that I wrapped in rope lights is missing a section and it too damn cold to redo it AGAIN.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Holidays!

In honor of all of it's 80's holiday goodness, I present this for you to remember...



I hope you enjoyed it!

Hmmmm....what do you think?

What WILL they think of next?

A Late Happy Thanksgiving!

It's taken me a few days to finally get online and update this blog. I sure hope that all of my friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving! For the second year in a row, I was sick. Last year, strep (for the first time in my life) and this year a sinus infection. I ended up at the doctor on Wednesday and she prescriped a Z-pac and rest. I don't get it. I wash my hands constantly, had my flu shot, take a multivitamin every day, eat right and regularly exercise and I still catch crap.

We didn't go out for that Thanksgiving buffet we planned on, Fred ended up fixing our meal here with some guidance from me. My sister and the kids came over and we really enjoyed the meal. Afterwards, we played UNO spin and yelled so loud we woke Fred up from his nap. We also enjoyed watching the holiday movie Fred Claus with Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti.

It was such a nice day on Friday and I needed some fresh air that we spent a bit of time in the yard during some winterizing and im hindsight I'm sure glad we did as the weather that came today would have definitely postposed that task.

Saturday was spent very low key, the boys were a big help with the Christmas decorations. They carried the stuff from the basement to the main floor and I took my time going through it and putting our favorites Christmas things out. I pared down this year and I have a big box of stuff to take to the Salvation Army this week. We also did our tree differently. After last year's shenanigans with Kirby and the tree, we are worried about putting up our most fragile meaningful ornaments for fear they will get broke, so I dug into another box and came up with decorations from a tree that we used to put up in the master bedroom. These ornaments really don't have any sentimental value so if Kirby is naughty and knocks the tree over, it won't really matter. We must say that this tree is absolutely beautiful and a nice change from the same tree we've had for almost 20 years.

I've been meaning to post some more of the pages that I've completed over the last month or so.....I did these at a couple of crops that I attended.























Have a great week!

99 things

I thought this would be fun to do. My friends Cheri and Janet both have this list on their blogs and I found it interesting to go through.

Highlight the things on the list that YOU have done.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Just got back from seeing Twilight with my sister and niece. It wasn't bad, but it started slow. I don't think I've EVER been to a movie with SO many teenage girls in the audience. I read 3 of the 4 books and I've been dragging my heels regarding "Breaking Dawn" because I wasn't that fond of book 2 and 3, but I suppose I should finish up the series. Maybe I'll start it over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Finally Sharing......

The month of October and November were productive for me, scrapbooking wise. I completed 13 pages in October and so far this month, I've done the same.

I'm taking a bit of a break from pages as I need to finish up the Christmas gifts I'm making and I'm also going to make some gift certificate cards and gift tags.















I'll share some more in a few days! I'm not sure I'm going to take my laptop with me to Omaha. I'm taking the supplies I need to work on the gift certificate cards and the gift tags and I'm afraid if my laptop is with me, I'll waste time on it rather than working on what I should, so I may be incognito until Wednesday night.

Have a good week and thanks for stopping by and taking a look!

The End of BootCamp!

Tonight marks the end of the bootcamp that I have been going to for 6 weeks (minus the week I was in Washington DC, but I walked so much that I made up for it).

Tonight I did 100 push-ups, 100 crunches, 100 TRX rows, 100 squats and 100 toe touches. The rest of the class had to do 200 but that's because they are ALL in their 20's...lol...after bootcamp, Satan took me in the office for my final weigh in and measurements. {{{{{Drum Roll}}}}...Since Oct 7th, I've lost 4 pounds, 1 inch across my shoulders, 1 inch in the chest, 1 and a half inch in my waist, 1 and a quarter inch in my hips, 1 inch in my thigh and 1 inch in my calf. I've lost 9.94 pounds of body fat and dropped my Body Fat Percentage another 2 percent.

I'm going to take a few days off before heading back to the gym. It's been intense and I need a bit of a break. I'm heading to Omaha with a co-worker Sunday for some Cold Fusion training at the Nebraska Clerk's office and I'll get back Wednesday night, so I'll head back to the gym next Thursday.

One cool thing that I'm doing while in Omaha. I'm finally meeting IRL a gal that I met on 2 Peas a few years ago. We've been saying for a while that we need to meet up. She has relatives in Des Moines and comes this way once in a while, but since I was going to be there next week, we've made plans to go out to dinner. I'm excited to finally "meet" her IRL.

I have a WHOLE BUNCH of pages to share, but after my bootcamp, I'm too damn pooped to upload them, so I'll try and get that done this weekend.

Side Note: I'm pretty sure I've finally convinced Fred that we NEED to go out for Thanksgiving dinner this year. He wants a traditional turkey dinner Christmas Day and I don't want to fix the whole damn thing twice, so right now our plans are to go to the Adventureland Inn for their Thanksgiving buffet. Hoo Hoo! no clean-up and I don't care about the leftovers. Worse case scenario (meaning if he bitches enough), I'll buy a small turkey breast to cook that weekend and make some stuffing.....sound good to me!

I've been on such an emotional high since Tuesday that I really don't have much to blog about.

I've been getting myself organized in regards to Thanksgiving and Christmas and today I made two more of the things I'm making for Christmas gifts....I'm almost ready to share...

One of the things I always do is start a small notebook for holiday planning. In it, I jot down gift ideas for giving and a wish list for me (so when the guys ask me what I want, I have something for them to go off of), I write down activities that I would like us to do and I also do all the menu planning in my notebook.

The notebook I use, has pockets and this is where I store coupons to use or recipe or home decor clippings from magazines that I want to try.

I'm an early shopper because I find I enjoy the holidays a WHOLE lot more when my gift shopping is 80% done by the 1st of December. I alway leave Fred and Connor for the end, but usually have a pretty good idea on what I'm getting them, so then it just a matter of going out and finding it or looking for it online.

It's a Beautiful Day!

President Elect Barack Obama. There. I said it and it felt freaking GREAT! I have a renewed hope for our country and a renewed sense of optimism that I haven't had for 8 LONG years.

My hat is tipped to everyone who helped make this historic moment happen!

Oh, and one other thing.......Alaska, you can have your governor back, we don't need her.

On the eve of an historic election....

Washington DC - Day Two and Three

I was too pooped last night to update my blog. Class was brutal and by the time we got out of class, I was fried! I ended up walked a couple of blocks to a Subway, bought myself a sandwich, went to the corner Walgreen's for a Diet Pepsi and came back to my room for the night.

Got a pretty darn good sleep last night and today class wasn't so brutal, so after class a group of us decided to venture to Georgetown for dinner and shopping. Boy, oh boy, could I do some damage with the credit card there...lol. Georgetown has all of my favorite shopping that Des Moines doesn't have....such as Anthropologie, Lush, Kiehl's, Dean and Deluca, a MAC store and that's just one street. I'm going back tomorrow after class to Wisconsin Avenue where the vendors sell fake purse...LOL!

We made it to the Paper Source. Cool store!...I bought a couple of sheets of some very cool paper and a couple of fun gift items. Anthropologie got the bulk of my money and I'm going back...I bought the yummiest Gardenia candle, a very cool "K" and a new coffee mug for the office.

We walked almost to Georgetown University because when we stopped in the Ugg store (I must own a pair of Ugg boots), the very cute saleman told us that the stairs from the movie "The Exorcist" was right down the street close to the university.

Here's a photo:



Here's a few more photos from the Georgetown area:

The home decor area of Anthropologie


Inside the Paper Source



Along Pennsylvania Avenue in Georgetown


A residential street in Georgetown


Well, I'm pooped and I gotta get some of my suitcase packed tonight if I'm going back out tomorrow night. I'm missing my boys!

Washington DC - Day Two

First day of training and I'm pooped. I spent too much of my brain cells today...LOL!

After the training, I walked down to the closest Radio Shack and bought another cell phone charger, then walked over to an Italian Restaurant close by to met up with some of my fellow classmates. Had some excellent Rigatoni Arrabiata and a Miller Light. I'm back in my room and I'm afraid it's going to be nighty-night soon.

Here's some more photos from my trip:



Washington Monument






Our nation's capital



A neighborhood in Georgetown




The National Portrait Gallery





The castle at the Smithsonian



The National Archives (where the Declaration of Independance, Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta is displayed)

More tomorrow....