New Years Resolutions

1. Lose weight! I always say this but it's really hard! I'm an emotional eater. I eat when i'm stressed, happy, sad..whatever. I suck at life.

2. Spend more time with the kids! I know it's not possible because I work ALL the time but what I mean by this is to spend more "quality time" with them. I need to be more involved or whatever that means.

3. Be more productive! That would mean at home, at work, with friends. I've seemed to slack in a few of those categories and I need to be better.

4. Get out more. I'm a home body. I've been awful about it lately. I've pretty much shunned almost all of my friends to opt for reading at home in old pj's.

5. Use my gym membership. Do you know how many times I went to the gym last year? I pay over 60.00 a month in fees to 24 hr fitness and I went a whopping 4-5 times in the ENTIRE year! Another reason why I suck at life.

6. Read more.

7. Get my credit cards paid off. HA!!

8. Save money instead of spend money.

9. Cook 90% of my meals.

10. Bring my lunch to work.

11. Buy a bike and actually ride it.

12. Update my blog more often.

12. Go to more shows/concerts.

13. Get allergy shots.

There's a ton more but i'm kind of tired of this post already.

Poor Madd...

Poor Maddox. He has an ear infection. Poor little guy. He woke up screaming in pain this morning. He had snot everywhere and you could tell he was feeling like death. Orly took him to the Dr.'s office and sure enough he was in the beginning stages of an ear infection. Ear aches are the worst!!! I had so many when I was a kid I had to get tubes in my ears. They help. A lot.

Let's hope Maddox feels better before Christmas. I really want him to be able to rip open a present this year. He feel asleep during last years present unwrapping. Although, sleep sounds like a present in itself right now.

I can't remember the last time I was able to sleep in. :(

Christmas!

I haven't started shopping yet. Luckily, I was able to purchase Orly's online and pick it up in store but the kids' gifts aren't that easy. There's nothing worse than having to shop at Toys R Us. Trust me on that one. Parents aren't that friendly and neither are the staff. They hate all parents and they hate kids even more. Pretty ironic if you ask me. Not only that but there are never any "deals" when it comes to toys. Why?? They know the parents will buy them anyways regardless if it's on sale or not. Bastards.

Ryan wants wii / Nintendo DS / PS 2 games. Yeah, all 3. Because 2 at home game systems and one portable gaming system isn't enough. In addition to that, he wants star wars crap, Ben 10 crap, spider man & Iron man junk too. That's just want he WANTS. That's not including the stuff he says he wants when he sees something at the store or in the paper. Toys R Us also MAILS him stuff too. Isn't that thoughtful of them?! Jerks. Aren't they closing down stores? Maddox is too young to have a Santa list. I'm sure Maddox will enlist Ryan into writing down his Santa list next year.

I wonder... is it too young to announce that Santa isn't real??

More Trouble...

Wednesday night I go home after working all day long to start my Thanksgiving meal for the next day. I quickly changed into my pj's, went downstairs, turned on the TV...and then NOTHING. The TV didn't turn on.

As a cell phone person, I tried troubleshooting. I unplugged it, replugged it, gave the remote a reset, checked the wiring all to no avail. Gave Samsung a ring which they also gave a try and again the picture to the plasma was black. No sound, just a black screen. I was very upset for obvious reasons. I can't live without TV. Orly can, he just flips on the radio. I'm not a radio person (unless it's my Howard), I'm a TV person. I mean crap, I can't even play the Wii. WTF?!! So I baked and cooked in silence until I couldn't stand the silence any longer- Orly was out with Dawn and Matt and the kids were in bed- so I finally turned on the radio. I wasn't pleased.

I purchased some sort of "accident protection plan" so I may just have to accidentally drop it. I want a new one. Freaking plasma. We've only had it 2 yrs. Is this normal?!! My crappy TVs from walmart and garage sales are still alive and kicking yet our $1500 dollar plasma is dead. BTW- It gave us no indication that it was on it's way out. No lines through the screen, nothing of the sort.

Maybe it was best that way. I would have felt guilt had I ignored the signs of an ill TV.

Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving at our house is usually going over to someone else's house and eating their food and bringing their leftovers home. This year we nixed that idea and instead opted for a Thanksgiving at our house. Huge for me because I don't really cook all that much (IE: 2 -3 days a week. Blame my job). Luckily I can read and follow directions so as long as i follow a recipe my food comes out pretty darn good. There will be studying involved beforehand. Dana introduced me to a few of her favorite recipe blogs. I'm going to attempt a Pioneer Woman Thanksgiving. If you click on her link and look up "Thanksgiving" I'm pretty much going to attempt about 70% of whats on her Thanksgiving recipe list. Am I crazy? A tad. I hope it all doesn't go to hell in a hand basket. I'm not insane though. Even I know my weaknesses. I ordered the turkey from Rudy's BBQ. I don't want to poison anyone and I'm not that gal who can pull off a turkey on her first shot. I think turkey making has to be introduced to you when you're young. Unforch, that was never done and I'm certainly not going to attempt it at almost 30 years of age. Perhaps one day when I make my list of things I've never done, a turkey will be on that list. Until then, Rudy's here I come!

My attempts are:

pumpkin and apple pie (pie crust from scratch)

mashed potatoes (from SCRATCH!!)

sweet potatoes (I'm not a fan but she swears her recipe will change me...we'll see)

stuffing (again, from scratch!)

corn and wild rice

whiskey glazed carrots (yes, whiskey) :-)

"Spanish" green beans (wtf makes them Spanish? the cayenne?)

dinner rolls (you guessed it...from scratch!)

Hopefully I don't poison anyone and everything turns out delish. If it doesn't at least we'll have the smoked turkey.

I need more counter space, I think. :(

BRRRR!!!

It's 42 degrees and I love it! I love being able to turn on the heater and wear sweatpants. Maybe I just like sweatpants. I think I love the weather because it reminds me of the Holiday Season coming up. We've been in our house now for over 2 years and we've never used our fireplace. For shame. I shall put that on my "to do" list.

I went to Ikea on Veterans Day and got a kitchen table for 60 bucks! It was a special deal and only had a limited supply. I love deals! Our old one was, old. It's had it's time and now it's time to go to Goodwill. The kitchen table from Ikea is pretty basic but i'm not going to invest any real money into new furniture until Maddox gets older. I'd really love to get rid of my couches but there's no point really. So for now, my couches will remain a napkin for dirty hands.

Orly went out of town on Friday and will be coming back tomorrow afternoon. He ended up going down to the Valley while being sick. I'm pretty glad he's down there. The last thing I need is sickness in this house. I kind of miss him. Kind of. ;)

Pumpkin Carving!!

The first pumpkin is Ichabod done by me, the second one is a skull that was done by freehand by Mike and the last is a cat done by moi. We bought these really neat lights for the pumpkins which makes it safer than using real candles but the lights also give them a unique appearance and glow.

I'm apparently allergic to pumpkins (go figure) and i rubbed my eye. Big mistake because for 2 days it was swollen and red. It looked like i had pink eye. It was gross.

Halloweeeeeeeen!!

I adore Halloween. Let me repeat, ADORE! I found a few costumes online. Ryan's is already picked out, he's the Iron Man costume. Maddox's costume is still up for debate. I'm digging the monkey costume because he already looks like a brown monkey. He would totally pull it off. What do you think??