Winter

Winter: the coldest season of the year..
the days are shortest and the nights are longest.

What a silly thought. Coldest season along with the shortest days.

It has been awhile since I wrote a blog post. Let's just say I have been in hibernation. 

Okay, not really because I would still be hibernating if that was really the case. 

In the winter "the Man" likes to do outdoor activities in the snow/cold.

I am not the same way. If I had my choice I really would go into hibernation for the winter months.

This year has been a really brutal winter. We have had really low temperatures, with an inversion that will NOT go away. For those of you that do not know what an inversion is don't worry. I had no clue what it was at first. I have created my own definition of it. 

Inversion: Living in a bubble of smog and freezing temps.

If you get claustrophobic, an inversion is not for you.

Forget about seeing the sun...it doesn't exist.  

If you have asthma, prepare to not be able to breathe.

If you don't have asthma, prepare to not be able to breathe.

If you use the mountains as a compass, forget it. YOU CAN'T SEE THEM!

Basically....Inversion sucks and avoid it at all costs.

Here is a slight example of inversion. Minus the poor breathing and freezing temps.

As you can see, the sky is a nasty gray color. The sky stays that way for days and days.

Yesterday, was crazy. 

We had almost clear skies. The sun came out so all the snow in our front yard melted. 

It didn't last for long. 

Today, we have a complete white out. 

4-5 inches of snow, and it is still falling.

Let's just say, I am excited for the summer. (Spring doesn't really exist here).

I know, here I am writing a whole blog post about the weather.

Maybe because I can't thing of anything else to write cause I feel like life has been kind of boring lately.

How about a quick update on us...

Christmas was good. New Years was good. My mom came into town recently and that was good. Some of my students had a show and that was good. "the Man" is sick right now and that is bad. Our dogs are happy and healthy and that is good. So, basically life is pretty good.

Until next time.. =)

Red M&M's...

I am going to tell you all a little funny fact about me. 

I don't eat RED m&m's

In fact I once did this with my M&M's

This may seem crazy and I should probably stop this odd quirk. I have actually tried to, and cannot.

You may be wondering "How did this all Start??" 

Don't worry... I am going to tell you.

When I was maybe 9-10 my friend was picking red m&m's out of her mixture.

I was confused and of course asked why she was doing this. 

Her response was "I don't eat red m&m's anymore". 

I was confused and let her explain. She told me that she had found out that the red dye in the m&m's was made from ladybug shells. Yes, that's right...Ladybug shells. I think she also said beetle shells but that's besides the point. At this point I knew she was just making it up but I wanted to be cool just like her. 

(You know we are all like this when we are 9-10 yrs old.)

When she first told me about it she had me try all the flavors. We discovered that the red ones tasted different. So, we began to pick out all our red m&m's. 

Years passed by and we were still picking out red m&m's. We would pick them out of large bags, we would throw the red ones away that were leftover in our bags, we would even pick them out of m&m cookies!!! There was no eating RED m&m's.

To this day...I do not remember the last time I ate a red m&m. 

It is not an easy task to always pick past the red ones, especially at Christmas. 

You have the mint m&ms that are amazing and the colors consist of Red, White, and Green. 

You have the wonderful and new peppermint ones that consist of Red and White. 

You have the plain, peanut, peanut butter, and pretzel holiday ones that all consist of Red, White, and Green.

That means Christmas time I lose 1/3 and even 1/2 of the m&m's. 

Luckily, my husband rolls his eyes and eats all of them for me. 

He gets tired of all the red m&m's though. 

This is a dilemma that I can't quite seem to get past.

I know the red ones aren't made from beetle or ladybug shells. 

I know the red ones don't taste funny.

For some reason though I cannot seem to muster up the "courage" to eat a Red m&m. 

Is this a bad thing?   

Should I go on having this weird quirk about me? 

Should I continue to let these red m&m's the outcasts? 

hmm...

It has always been an interesting conversation starter...

Maybe I'll eat one another day. 

Just probably not today.

:) 

My Christmas Breakdown

This year everything is a little bit different, and very new. 

This is our first Christmas married. 

We had gone to Kansas last Christmas to be with my family. 

This year though it is just The Man and Me. 

We aren't going anywhere, we don't have anyone coming into town, it really is just The Man and Me. 

Christmas has always been a very special time for me.

I have always been at home for Christmas. 

I am used to spending lots of time with my family, especially with my mom. 

My mom and I usually do a lot of the last minute Christmas shopping together. 

We make and put together lots of goodies for all of our closest friends. 

The goodies never really get to anyone because they all get eaten first. 

All of the family helps in putting up the Christmas decorations in the house, and so much more!

 Last year though, my mom and I found a very special place and created a wonderful memory. 

My mom wrote a blog post about it... 

That special place was under the Christmas tree.

We both laid under the tree and laughed for what seemed like hours. 

In the post my mom wrote she goes into lots more details as to why. 

You should check it out. :)

With all these wonderful traditions and memories I knew that this year would/will most likely be hard.

For the past few weeks I have been looking for things that I could decorate our house with to make it feel like Christmas was really here. 

Thinking of all the great decorations my family has had in the house since before I can remember, I felt discouraged because I couldn't figure out anything to have in my home. 

The Man and I went out on a little shopping trip to try and find somethings to help liven up our house. 

After going to numerous stores for many hours and having pretty much no luck, we both began to get cranky, hungry and tired. 

That is when I had my Christmas Breakdown.

I began to cry. I just cried, and cried. 

I felt like I had been defeated. I felt like I really wasn't going to be able to make our house beautiful and decorative. I had so many feelings that were extremely discouraging. All I wanted was to run to Kansas and steal all of the decorations from the house.

After eating some dinner (which always helps) and having a talk with the hubby (which also always helps) we began to reevaluate our previous shopping trip. We were looking in all the wrong places and we both had the wrong attitude about it all. I also realized I did not need all the things from Kansas because it is no longer my home. 

I realized that my real home is now here. 

It was time that My hubby and I began making our own traditions and memories. 

Traditions and memories that we will share for the rest of our lives. 

Traditions and memories that we can hold close and dear to our hearts. 

Traditions and memories that we can pass on to our future generations. 

So, we went to one last store that same night and filled our basket with all sorts of fun items. We had so much fun finding new things for our home. There was love, peace, and joy. 

There was the spirit of Christmas.

We got home and spent lots of time working on our home to make it look like Christmas. 

I have realized something really important though...

You do not have to have it look like Christmas. 

It just needs feel like Christmas, with or without the decorations.

And with that I have some pictures to share. :) 

Thanks for reading!

The Snowman Wreath we made for our front door!
This is one of my favorite things we have!

The mantle with garlands that have cute things in it. 

Can you tell I love snowmen yet??

Our amazing live (I grew up with fake, he didn't) Christmas tree
with the fabulous Top Hat Christmas tree topper!

Decorations The hubby grew up with. He thought he didn't have them anymore
What a surprise it was when he found it in the garage.
Let's just say it was an extremely happy moment!

Super easy to make and gorgeous to look at. Glitter light bulb center piece.

The annual Shop with a cop.
What a neat experience it is to participate in helping needy kids each year. :)

And Then...

 ...And then I got a nasty computer virus

Days ago I had thought I really needed to write a new blog post. 

The last post was more about my dogs than about the things going on in my life. 

I was going to write a post 

..And then I got extremely sick.

I was going to write a post

...And then I needed to grocery shop for Thanksgiving.

I was going to write a post

...and then I made sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and a Turkey for Thanksgiving at my sister-in laws.

I was going to write a post

...and then 

(starting to get the picture?)

we had some black friday shopping that we wanted to do.

I was going to write a post

...and then I had to get a bunch of groceries because I had family coming in town for my Grandpa G's 90th birthday.

I was going to write a post

...and then all the family came in town, and I had people staying here on and off.

I was going to write a post

...and I decided to do all my Thank You cards in one day. (not such a fabulous idea but...they got done!!!)

I was going to write a post

...and then we had a Christmas tree to go get, along with a bunch of other errands.

I was going to write a post

...and then that brings us to my first line of this post...

I got a nasty computer virus. 

That was when all my "going to write a post thoughts" came to an extreme STOP. 

A computer virus that was sent through my email, and was extremely legit. 

Only because I do a lot of online Christmas shopping. It truly is the best kind. 

The email was from "UPS" and had all the logo's and everything inside the email. I felt so stupid that I got the virus, but with such a nasty and clever way to send it (not to mention great timing) 

I was stuck and there seemed to be no way out. 

Luckily, my friendly geek squad at my nearest Best Buy were able to help me out. Come to find out, my computer was filled with around 95+ viruses. 

Go Figure.

My computer is now fixed.

I was going to write a post

...and then, I actually did!

Hope your holiday season is going well! 

P.S. There were many "and then's" that I didn't include. :) 

 

A Man's Best Friend...Or Worst Nightmare

Dogs...are they really man's best friend? or are they just their worst nightmare.

**Disclaimer: If you are sick of seeing pictures of our dogs on my facebook, or instagram this post is Not for you.

As you know, we have 2 dogs. No kids, just dogs. I post pictures all the time showing what the dogs are up to, and how cute they are. We love our dogs so much. They can be a pain in the butt though. Time for a picture dump of all the things these dogs do AKA destroy.

Gus stealing the mail. 

And the cereal. Luckily it was empty.

They love the plastic bottles. 

Don't worry we keep a good eye on them 

and if there are any small pieces we 

won't let them swallow anything.

Old Shoes. Destroyed.

The supposedly "indestructible" pig from Costco. 

This happened in under 10 minutes.

The little phone book that was left on our front porch.

One of my favorite pair of casual shoes. 

They were up on a chair and Cozy found a way to get it.

Gus found the toilet paper roll. 

.

The latest and worst of all...

The hubby's super expensive and really nice work boots. 

Cozy got a hold of them, and now we have to go buy him new boots. 

Gr.

I guess it is a good thing they are so cute. 

Otherwise...well, we won't even go there.

Alright, I think that the conclusion of my question is that dogs really are man's best friend, as well as their worst nightmare. Our dogs are the greatest and worst all at the same time. :-p if that's even possible. Have a fab day!

One. Packed. Weekend.

All the time people ask me what are you and "the man" always up to? Well, here is a very informational post on how we spent our weekend. :-)

"The Man" has a really interesting work schedule. It is always great when he has a weekend off. Whenever he does have a weekend off we try and plan something fun, or sometimes we let the weekend be a lazy one. Well, he had this weekend off and I was sure that I wanted to not have a lazy weekend and instead feel accomplished when it was over.

"The Man" and I did accomplish a lot this weekend. We worked really hard and got a ton done. Let me tell you a little bit about our weekend. :) I had made a list earlier in the week of some really key things that I wanted to do. This list really helped out.

Gus Playing in The Snow. 

On Friday we woke up to a little snow storm.
The console table I ordered a few days earlier had arrived. Thanks to left over wedding gift cards it was not much out of pocket for us. :) I put that together while the hubby was still sleeping. (He is on graves and stays up late even on his days off). When he woke up we went to go get some Ikea bookshelves to help with a project needing to get done. We put on the cover for the truck and headed up north to get the bookshelves. While we were at Ikea we also got some little decorations for other parts of the house including some for the front entry.
We also stopped by home depot for some paint on our way home.

The After picture

Now is when the fun begins. :) So we have two extra bedrooms in our house. One has been set up with an extra bed, and the other has been a junk room since we got married. While my husband put together the Ikea bookshelves I began to de-junk the room. It was a daunting task to say the least. I forgot to take a before picture. Just to give you an idea though - you couldn't see the floor.
We finished the room super late that night and moved all the books from that room to the bookshelves that are now located in the loft. We also cleaned out our linen closet.

On Saturday, I had some errands that I needed to run before we could get started.

The D.I. Pile

The hubby took the ginormous pile we had from the junk room to D.I.
Unfortunately, when we were loading up the car we forgot some things that needed to go, so we will be making another trip soon.
(Don't worry, the piano in the background was not taken to D.I.)

While he was gone I cleaned the entire upstairs. Dusting, Blinds, Baseboards, Vacuuming etc. I also vacuumed the entire downstairs.

The next project was about to start. We borrowed a huge ladder from our neighbors for this one. I began taping the front entry while the hubby worked on cleaning out the closest we have downstairs. I really wanted to paint the front entry to go with our wonderful board and batten that we put in a few weeks ago (I am still not ready to show the finished product but soon!) I talked the hubby into helping me with painting all the way up the awkward wall.. the one that is a vaulted ceiling. He is such a good man. We finished painting that and then we were headed to play with some friends and the hubby got a call out for his job. So, well he was gone I finished cleaning up the downstairs. I slept real well that night. ;-)

As you can see, it was a weekend full of hard work. It was so worth it though! All we need to do now is finish getting some extra junk out of the house and it will be even that much nicer. I gotta do a few more things to the front entry and then I will post the final picture. Everything looks great so far.
I love doing things with my husband. It is amazing how well we work together...especially when we are working on projects. We are really good at pushing through and getting things done fast. I sure do love my husband lots. :-)
And with that extremely long post, I am off! Have a fab day!

Giving Thanks...

Yay for November!

The month where people post what they are thankful for everyday leading up to Thanksgiving. The month where people are much more aware of being kind and giving thanks. The month where we step back and realize how blessed we really are. The month where I will HOPEFULLY get my wedding thank you cards out. :)

Yes, that is right, I have 4 boxes of blank, un-written, un-addressed, un-stamped thank you cards and envelopes.

See for yourself

They have been sitting there on the counter just staring at me waiting for me to get them done.

Have I not done them because I am not thankful? No, that is defiantly not a reason because I am so incredibly grateful for every gift and helping hand through the whole process of planning a wedding.

Have I not done them because I don't have time? No, cause I really do have time to do them. :-/

Have I not done them because I have bad handwriting and I am embarrassed of it? That is a slight reason. I have never really loved my handwriting...please don't judge. :) 

Have I not done them because I am completely OVERWHELMED by the sight and idea of writing over 200 thank you's to the most wonderful people out there? Why yes!!! That is the exact reason. Writing so many thanks is overwhelming to me. I never realized how many people cared, how many people loved, how many people supported. It is a VERY  overwhelming thing.

Nonetheless, they must get done. Since it is close to Thanksgiving and Christmas I find it perfectly fitting to finally get started on those cards and get them sent A.S.A.P.

For those of you that may think I am ungrateful, understand that I am not. In fact I am very much the opposite. I am super grateful, just slightly...no VERY overwhelmed with getting started.

Look forward to getting thanks in your mail boxes shortly. *Crosses Fingers* Hopefully!

With that, I remind you all to find ways to thank those around you, and to give when impressed to. Sometimes we may not realize it, but there are many that have lots less than what we may have.

And with that, I am going to be giving lots of thanks this month!

Love, ME!