Weee!

Today is my mom's birthday! Hurray!

I love December because it is always a whirlwind of family events. First there is my mom's birthday. Then, just 2 short weeks later, it's Christmas. Then it's my dad's birthday/New Year's.

This year, the holidays are going to get a little tighter and a little more jam packed because somewhere in the midst of all of that? Our baby will be born! So that will make each year more fun and challenging (how the hell am I supposed to buy gifts for that many people??) I love the Christmas season and absolutely enjoy all the crazy get togethers and the insane amount of time and energy spent with relatives and on food and presents. It's great.

I have no idea what's the haps today, other than the fact that we are visiting them for a little birthday fun.

~*~

In other, wonderful news! I finished Brian's fugly lovely scarf! It took me nearly two months to complete, but it's done! Wooo!! He looks so handsome, doesn't he? Thrilled to be wearing it, right? See the pained look of "I'm doing this for you" in his eyes?

Yeah me too... but wouldn't you know it! Once he actually wore it outside and noticed how warm he was with it, suddenly it's the best scarf in the WORLD! (It is wool, for crying out loud!)


The only problem? His brother wants one too. Uhm. Wait, what? He wants a scarf. For Christmas. Which is in TWO WEEKS. I told him no. I'm not making him a scarf. No no no no no. No.

....In completely unrelated news, I am working on a new scarf. This time it's in his brother's favorite colors because I can't say no struck a compromise. No popcorn stitch, pattern of my choosing, as long as it has two colors, black and purple.

I chose a relatively simple pattern using double crochet and triple crochet, so it works up quickly. I started it last night (after I ran to the store at 4 am to get purple yarn!) and I am already a good 4 or 5 inches into it and have only been working on it an hour. This should totally be done by Christmas! Actually, I was given permission to take longer than Christmas as long as it was "still winter" when I gave it to him. It's Indiana so it will still be winter in June. :P

Seriously though, provided I don't have the baby uhm today, it should be done before Christmas.


Well I've wasted enough time blabbing about things that only I seem to think are amusing (isn't that always the case with my blog?) so I will finish getting ready to head to Meemaw's house for some fun and festivities weeee! (Meemaw is my mom's pet name for "grandma" because it sounds... cool, right? Right. Riiiiiight.)

Brian's Special Day

Today is Brian's birthday! Hurray! He's an "old" 26 now, or so he tells me, anyway! Today was a great day for birthday celebrations!

We started off by getting paid for a commission, then using that money to celebrate! We went to Game Stop and he bought Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for the Gamecube. Then we went to King Gyros downtown. I actually had a chicken gyro (minus the raw onion and tomato) we split an order of onion rings and a Dr Pepper. Brian had a 1/4 lb cheeseburger with grilled onion and pickles.

Then we came home and got ready to go to a reception. I put on that great dress I bought not too long ago. I did my nails in a funky manicure.  The tips were teal and the base was purple, to match the dress. Also went with teal/purple eyeshadow, fake lashes, and liquid mascara. Stick straight hair, which turned out to be really nice. Brian went in a red dress shirt and black pinstripe suit pants. He looked hot :)

 Our friend got married today and invited us out to the reception and he had commissioned Brian for a drawing, which we printed off and framed for them, He's going to pay us for it tomorrow, since we thought it would be tacky of him to open a wedding gift card and hand us cash out of it!

There was an open bar and a buffet! But, we stuck to chocolate milk (what? haha) and the buffet was amazing! They had lots of fruits and veggies, cheeses and crackers, shredded chicken and pork for BBQ sandwiches, roasted chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, BBQ baked beans. This reception hall was HUGE and fully staffed, and there were probably 150-200 people there, easily. And we only knew the groom!

I got crab macaroni salad, macaroni & cheese, two pieces of roasted chicken (so so good), a few slices of cheese and crackers, and some strawberries. I. was. STUFFED.

We came home and relaxed a little and now I want cake and am depressed that we did not get cake, either at the reception or for his birthday, so I sent him out to buy his own cake and ice cream. This may seem a little heartless, but Brian is the type who doesn't have favorite cake. Forcing him to pick his own means that he really has to think about what kind of cake he wants, and therefore he will choose a good one. The ice cream will probably be straight up vanilla. He loves vanilla. He said it's a very simple, classic, clean flavor. But he might also turn up with some rocky road. I was half right... He picked vanilla bean and chocolate.. like a Neapolitan but with out the strawberry. Also he got an Oreo cookies and creme cake...I gotta .... uh... go... I'll see you guys later.

Feeling So Much Better

Thank you sweet bloggy friends for all your sweet comments. I really don't like to complain too much on my blog any more because I feel like no one wants to read that, but it was so nice to let out all of my feelings, to describe how I was feeling, to show both myself and others that, yeah, it was a pregnancy-related hormone-induced bad day.

Today was a great day. I had little sleep, riddled with nightmares. I dreamed of things that I know I won't ever have to deal with again, and I tried to rationalize it in my sleep. I finally woke Brian up and told him all my nightmares, and they went away. My mom told me that trick, ages ago. She said that she always woke up my dad. But before Brian, I always told my stuffed Eeyore that I slept with. Inanimate objects worked well too.

Today had some slight running around. I picked up a package of odds and ends fabric to practice my stitching on. I do alright but whenever I cut the thread to release the fabric from the machine, reinsert it (to try a different stitch type) I always have to rethread the needle. I'm not sure if I am just not leaving a long enough tail for the thread or what.

I didn't bother looking it up, but felt like I had practiced enough today. The machine works. It even has a little light on it. I am getting more and more confident with it as I constantly re-thread this stupid needle. I need new shears though. Mine are so dull they barely cut through fabric.

Brian thinks I'll like sewing more than crocheting. He said it's easier to create something. Which I think is true. I'm rather impatient.

I'm having fun trying to figure all this stuff out on my own. I tried googling the brand name and getting the manual but had not been able to find one online... It seems standard enough though, so I'm sure I'll figure it out. It's a nice intellectual exercise.

Brian's birthday is next week and he wanted a fully functional phone (the one he got from my parents', the speaker was blown.) $45 on eBay and we redeemed our debit card reward points for $40 .... so $5 on his birthday! Score!! They said that it would be shipped to us by June 24th but we got it today! Hurray!!

I guess FedEx ran out of tracking numbers??? So they started re-using them... or something. It's weird. We tried to track the package and it said that it went from Boston, MA, to Minneapolis, MN and was delivered on April 1,2011... weird.

I've got a special announcement that I can't quite announce yet, but stay tuned as I think you will really like this!! I know I do! but you'll have to be patient!!

Eating for the Fun of it.

When does eating become so much more?

I love to eat. I don't get "less satisfied" with each serving I have. I read once somewhere that if you have a cheeseburger, each subsequent cheeseburger is less satisfying, and therefore not as good. But for me, each cheeseburger holds the same value.

Take Saturday, for instance. We had some friends coming over so I decided to make some dip and chips for them. I browned up 40 oz of ground turkey, mixed with onions, and then I added velvetta cheese to it and a large jar of hot salsa. Stirred in crock pot until creamy, kept it on warm.

Served with authentic Mexican tortilla chips! YUM!

I already planned on having 3 servings of the dip (which was only 4 pts a serving) and 2 servings of chips, but I ended up having about 75 chips instead of 25, and having 5 servings of dip.

It never got "old". It tasted so good. Even though I was stuffed beyond recognition. It was still delicious. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop.

Also it was very good dip. Friends raved about it, praised it. When I told them I had based it off of one of their dips, they were shocked that I took it and made it better (using less ingredients!) Brian only had one plate, which he was disappointed that he didnt get more. I said "don't worry baby, I ate your share for you!" hahahaha

But it was not an easy night of sleep. I was so bloated and uncomfortable. I thought for sure I was going to get sick. I woke up still feeling the same way. I just started my morning off with a lot of water to help flush it out and then I did 20 minutes on my stationary, Stella. 20 minutes isn't quite the challenge it used to be, even though I haven't biked in months. I think I may just have to up it a bit more. I don't know if I am ready to do 30 but I will try at least! In 20 minutes, I burn 300 calories. (not nearly enough to work off all that extra dip, but its a drop in the bucket)

Planned on doing another 20 last night before bed but it turns out that 4 hours of sleep + birthday party + chinese food + headache = tired, so I slept.

I think I am going to have to start doing morning workouts more, because I really enjoyed "getting it over with" in the morning and then feeling great about myself.

Chinese food was awesome. I thought we were going to a buffet, but it was a sit down restaurant, and I ordered Princess Chicken which is spicy! Brian got sweet and sour, and we traded some and it was really good. Also they served white rice, and egg drop soup (which was really good, and had carrots and mushrooms in it)

I want to make egg drop soup and have that spicy chicken at home, but I think I would grill the chicken and then make the sauce.

but now it is time for sleep (again!) I am incredibly tired, been on the go all weekend. Ready for a relaxing day.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to my father in law today. He's turning the big 6-0! I made him this card

Yay!

And we are going to a Chinese restaurant. Oh how I love Chinese food.

But its so bad for you. Probably why I love it.

Me + bad food = Gollum + Precious

The Precious! We savedes it!

so my game plan is this: Dinner is at 2. It's nearly noon. Going to do a quick 20 minute ride on the bike (also to help me get over the bloat of last night, wherein I had way too many chips and delicious dip) guzzle some water, and then take a shower and get ready.

The best part of short hair? Totally being able to blow dry it in 10 minutes instead of 70000 hours
Off to sweat it ooooouuut! Maybe it will help me feel energized because I was up until 6 am and slept poorly (the aforementioned bloat)

Puzzle Quest and Quilt Pics

First the quilt pictures! It was the most beautiful quilt EVER!! 

Ducks! Or more specifically, LOONS!

This patch was specifically pointed out to me.
Its of Family Circus and it was supposed to say "He's playing catch with God"
Little kids are funny :)

Second! I started doing a puzzle. As in, a jigsaw puzzle. Do you remember those? The one I picked was a 2000 piece (yes, two thousand pieces) of van Gogh's The Starry Night which is my absolute most favorite painting ever!

I also wanted to see how many hours it would take to finish the puzzle so I made a spreadsheet with things like date, time started, time stopped, total time spent in minutes, who was working on it, and when it was completed. I am also taking a pic when I start and when I finish that session, all the way until the completion of the puzzle. Then it's going to go into a time-lapse/slideshow video.

I spent a little over half an hour today looking for the border pieces and I only got about a third of the way through all of the pieces. It will be a challenge :) Brian wants to help too and I think there will be plenty to go around!

Of course, there will be blog updates about it.

Tomorrow is Brian's dad's birthday party and we are going to a Chinese buffet! I am going to have to seriously think about what I want to eat before I go and do my best to stick to WW.

I also still have to Zumba today. I haven't all week! :(