It's Beginning to Smell A Lot Like Christmas

I am in shock that it has been over two months since I last posted.  Apparently our Anniversary celebration was too much for me and I fell off the blogging face of the earth.  So much has been going on that I can't begin to fill you in on everything, but here are a few highlights of the past two months:

Late October, my girlfriend and I spent a "girls weekend away" in Berlin, Ohio where we shopped until we dropped, ate delicious "home cooked" meals and stayed in a beautiful inn in a remote Amish community, enjoying the escape from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

The Serene Ohio Countryside

I found some really cute country things for our house, including a wooden bookcase for the living room and some neat lamps.

I was home for a few weeks before Hubby and I took off to NC to meet up with my sister and her family to cruise The Bahamas and Key West, FL for 6 days aboard the Carnival Fantasy.  The weather was perfect and we had a TON of fun together, exploring Freeport and Nassau, Bahamas, and old Key West, FL.  In Freeport we lazed on a beautiful sandy beach...

Enjoying the beautiful sands of Freeport, The Bahamas

In Key West, we took a "hop-on, hop-off" tour that allowed us to find our way to a beach where we could do this...

Floating over the open waters of Key West

After we got off the parasailing boat, we continued our tour of Key West where we found ourselves at the most southern tip of the continental U.S:

As low as we could go in the U.S.

The next day we cruised into Nassau and docked not far from the view of the majestic Atlantis resort but we didn't head that way.  Instead, we grabbed a local bus (which felt rather scary at times when we ventured out into the boonies of Nassau) and went to the other side of downtown Nassau to a place called Cable Beach where we found a remote beach along Goodman's Bay.  We were the only tourists on the beach but found some locals renting out jet skis so we made a deal with them - $40/30 mins and Hubby and I hopped aboard and tooted all over the Bay... running out of gas waaaay out, and were rescued by the local who we later found out was trying to rip us off by wanting to call us in after 20 minutes.  Unfortunately for him, this savvy tourist looked at her watch before getting aboard the jet ski and we he no choice (much to his boss' chagrin) but to give us another vehicle and let us ride out the remainder of our time.  Despite all that, it was a BLAST!  We had arrived at the beach in a light rain shower, but while out in the middle of the bay, saw a faint, but still beautiful, rainbow.

Can you see the rainbow... ever so faint above our heads?

We had one more day at sea before heading back to Charleston, SC where we had embarked the Fantasy 6 days before.  My Sister and her family head straight back to NC that morning, but Hubby and I stayed in the city and toured around.  We took a carriage ride tour around Historic Charleston on the Friday we got off the ship, and the next morning we toured the Boone Hall Plantation, which was wrought full of slave history (and movie trivia... as part of The Notebook was filmed here).  It was fascinating to learn about the Gullah culture as shown by a very interesting presentation given outside of one of the former brick slave homes.  Two weddings were being held at the plantation later that day, but as we wandered down to the dock along the river, we witnessed them setting up the reception in the boathouse for one of the bride and groom's festivities.  

After the plantation, Hubby and I head to North Myrtle Beach, where we took some quiet time for a few days before heading back to Raleigh for our very first American Thanksgiving at my sister and brother-in-law's place.  Full from our Thanksgiving feast, we divided and conquered as my sister and I, Hubby and my BIL plotted our paths and implemented them starting at midnight when Black Friday shopping commenced.  Having never done it before (and only seeing the crazy stories of Black Friday on t.v.) I was a little frightened but once out there, I LOVED it, even though I wasn't really in search of anything particular.  My sis and I started at Kohl's at midnight, then to Macy's and Walmart.  We were going to go to Bath & Body Works but we were done in Macy's at 2:40am and Belks and B&BW weren't opening until 3am.  Didn't want to waste precious energy waiting around so we left that mall and head to another section of Raleigh to check out the deals in Target and JC Penny.  Not finding what she was looking for at that Pennys... my sister and I head to another one, on the other side of town.  By the time we were heading home, the giddyness was setting in... and the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon when we turned down my sister's street.  Were we ready to stop though?  No way!  We still had Michaels (they were opening at 5:30) and the Lifeway Christian bookstore (they were opening at 7am) to conquer.  Grabbing Hubby (who had been home for a short while and trying to take a quick nap) we were off again to Michaels.  It was in Lifeway... shortly after 8am that both my sister and I hit a wall.  We were DONE!  We got back to my sister's place by 9am and slept for about 3 hours, grabbed a bite to eat, and then were back at the mall mid-afternoon where I found some great deals at Bath & Body Works and Hallmark.  Phew!  The only drawback of that Black Friday craziness was that Hubby and I had a 14 hour drive home the next day to get through.  With God's protection, and little cat-naps in the car (when we weren't behind the wheel of course), we made it home from our 18 days away and brought home some great treasures along with our treasured memories of a time well-spent with family!

I just made it home in time to wrap up the semester of Abide at our Christmas Brunch on Dec 1 and I busily prepared my house for Christmas and Hubby's Mom's surprise 80th party Dec 3.  Amazingly, I was able to get everything from the trip put away, all the decorations out and placed in their rightful spots, the boxes of everything I replaced with "Christmas" put back in storage, and goodies made for the big party... and all without being unbearably stressed.  I totally give God the credit for all of that!

Mom's party was a HUGE success and since then I've slowly been putting the finishing touches on Christmas preparation.  We're hosting Hubby's family this year so I'm trying to get my brain together for Christmas Eve, Christmas dinner and making sure I have everything I need for entertaining and gift giving.

The past two days I've been baking up a storm.  The smell of Christmas baking always puts me in the Christmas spirit.  This year I've scaled back on my baking, only baking 3 of my favorite cookies and 1 new "experiment" cookie.  It's an "Italian Sugar Cookie" and it's... okay.  I don't think I'll ever do them again.  They taste okay but the texture wasn't what I'd hoped it would be.  Hubby likes them so that's good.  Hopefully those who receive them as gifts enjoy them too!

So... that's the update.  I'll try & do better at keeping my blog up to date ... (just for you Tania & Tammy! hee hee)

Honey, Hold On to Your Wallet!

Yesterday in my Simple Woman's Daybook post I mentioned about my fancy new iTouch application to track water intake.  Well, can I just say... Pffffft on that!  (That was a raspberry sound if you hadn't got that).

So, last night, in order to get 100% on my daily water intake I downed 2 large glasses of water shortly before I head off to bed for the night.  Hmm.  Not a good idea I found out.  Around 3am I awoke with a terrible pain in my lower back and a bloated type feeling in my abdomen.  After my second trip to the bathroom, and squirming around in pain, Hubby woke up and asked me what was wrong.  I explained that I think I had drank too much so after telling him to watch his eyes, I grabbed my iTouch and at 4:00am googled "drinking too much water" to find that I most likely did and now my kidney's were telling me to SLOW DOWN!  (I may add that I haven't had any water today for fear of water-logging my poor kidneys more ~ probably not good either but once bitten, twice shy they say).

I finally got back to sleep around 5ish and slept until after 9:30am, having a very slow morning of watering my garden and wandering around my house.  The pain in my kidneys has subsided some but I can still feel it when I take a deep breath which is better than at 3am when I couldn't take a deep breath at all.  If it doesn't clear up in a day or two I'll go to the doctor.  It was scary to read this morning though that some people have died from drinking too much water.  Yikes!

This afternoon, I decided that I needed to get out of the house.  I was still on a mission to find inspiration for my "graduation muffins" I'll be making at the end of the month and also hunting down a mirror for the front hall.  I'm thrilled to report I have accomplished both missions today!

First off I found this AMAZING store about 20 minutes north of my house.  It's called Golda's Kitchen and it has every imaginable cool baking gadget available to woman and tons of cool cake decorating and cupcake accessories (although of course none for graduation cupcakes specifically.)  I must have wandered around the place for over an hour just looking at the baking section.  One of my dreams (although I doubt it will ever really happen because of my Type B personality... but a girl can still dream, can't she?) is to have a small cupcake business.  As I gain experience with my "What's New Cupcake" book creations (like my flowers) I'm hoping to build myself a little portfolio and offer my "services" to friends, family and friends of friends for their special occasions cupcake needs.  Who knows, I may even work on cakes too.  I really need to take a cake decorating course first and lots of practice before I'll be ready to actually sell my goods.  My Mom was an amazing cake decorator.  She made all us girls' wedding cakes (mine was the only real cake though).  Once again, another thing I didn't pay enough attention to when she was here.

Anyhoo... I digress.  So in Golda's, I spoke with a woman who works there.  Although she hasn't worked there long, I told her my ideas for my graduation cupcakes and together we decided that the "hot pink" white chocolate fondant would be best for what I am planning.  She assured me that this fondant is delicious and pretty easy to work with, although she did recommend that I practice for a few weeks before I make the actual cupcakes.  It took every ounce of self-control I had today to only pick up the fondant and a small cake decorating book.  Hubby should be glad I didn't let my heart's content go wild because we would need to move, or kick the nephew out of his bedroom in order to contain all the cool baking things I saw and wanted today, not to mention remortgage the house to afford it all!

After leaving Golda's with just the essentials, I was off in search of a picture frame and hallway mirror.  I am re-doing a tri-picture frame I had in the hallway of both our parents at their wedding's with our wedding picture in the middle.  I want to make a "rogues' gallergy" up our staircase, but I'll tell you more about all that later.  I found the frame I wanted for these wedding pics at Wal-mart for a good price. 

I also stopped in to Bulk Barn to get some shoestring black licorice for the cupcakes and then I was off to Rona (a Canadian Home Depot type store) where I found exactly what I was looking for in a front-hall mirror.  I'll show you that later too, once Hubby puts it up tonight.

It was a great afternoon, totally distracting me from my water-logged kidneys, but my poor Honey... he's not going to let me out shopping anymore.  I'll for sure need to tell him the next time I head to Golda's so he can hold on to his wallet!

Friday Fill Ins and Other Fluff

I have to tell you... my heart about stopped this morning when I opened the newspaper and saw this week's flyers.  Not only was there a Maytag bottom freezer fridge on sale ($30 cheaper than the one we just bought ~ different model though), there was also Maytag washer/dryer pair on sale at the Maytag store (boasting $100 less than the price we paid last night).  The fridge I didn't care so much about, considering the picture had the one with the swinging freezer door and not the pull out drawer like the one we picked up.  The washer/dryer though, that was another thing.

The Maytag flyer not only boasted the cheaper price, but also the GST (5%) sales tax was not being charged.  Had I made a horrific mistake, I wondered?  Okay... "horrific" might be a little too dramatic... we are talking about a washer/dryer and $100+ bucks.   Talking to my sister on the phone, she told me "Go and check it out... get the place you bought yours from to match the price".   So off I drove to the Maytag store first to check out this deal.

Glad I stopped there first because while indeed a "steam" washer/dryer was on sale, the ad was a little misleading.  This was the 3000 series of washer/dryer where only the dryer is steam.  What we purchased was the 5000 series where both washer and dryer are steam.  The Maytag store price for what we bought last night was still $300+ more.  Phew!  No need to change anything!  Deliveries all still planned the same.

With that "drama" out of the way, before I get back to cleaning bathrooms... here is this week's Friday Fill-ins.  I haven't done this in quite some time, but no time like the present to get back to regular blogging.  (Now if only I can get back to regular blog-hopping!):

And...here we go!

1. I'd like to have a maid... I dislike cleaning bathrooms!
2. One of my most favorite romantic memories is a few weeks ago, out of the blue, Hubby came home with a GORGEOUS bouquet of mixed flowers...just as a "thank you" for being a supportive wife.
3. Last night, I had Manwich for dinner.  Exciting... I know!
4. Sorry for the somewhat boring post.
5. Can we go shopping now?  Anything to avoid cleaning the bathrooms!
6. One of my worst temptations is junk food; chocolate, chips, cookies... they are all so hard to resist!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to spending time with Hubby, preparing for a marriage seminar we're helping out with at church, tomorrow my plans include the seminar and maybe a movie with some girlfriends and Sunday, I want to go to church and then relax!

Now it's your turn.  Follow the link above if you want to get in on this week's Friday Fill-ins!

Went Shopping for One Thing... Came Home with Something Completely Different!

This weekend was a blur!  Hubby and I ventured out Saturday morning in search of comfortable seating for our basement Family Room.  We searched the most popular furniture stores in our area, driving miles and miles.  Along the way we got sidetracked by a steal of a deal on a French-Door refrigerator that we almost picked up on the spot, but thought we'd better check the size in the kitchen at home first.  Good thing we did... it wouldn't have fit!javascript:void(0)

After our full day of searching we came home and after trick or treaters and our surprise guests left, I set out to make a little graph-paper model of our family room to see if the 3 piece sectional we found would fit.  We measured, I cut and paste, and we came to the conclusion that it could fit, but we'd have to totally rearrange the room and it would overpower the space.  Needless to say though, we were still interested.

Sunday afternoon, hubby & I head back to Sears to look at the sectional again.  Oooh how I love this sectional.  It is EXACTLY what I want but as we continued to measure and contemplate it's size, we sadly realized that it will not fit down the staircase and around the "S" shaped hallway - darn stupid house!  Meanwhile, in earlier wanderings inside the Sears showroom, we came upon a buffet and hutch that was marked down 50%.  Sweet!  We thought about it, measured and decided to have the saleswoman put it on hold for us until we could go home, measure and change vehicles.  (We had driven to Sears in the Honda).

Back at home we measured again the stairwell and had to put the dreams of the sectional to rest once and for all but now we had great hopes in this buffet for the dining room.  Let me tell you... we have been married 15 years and the entire time, my good china has been in the William Ashley boxes it arrived in and the crystal was all boxed and stored in the blanket box we've used as a coffee table.  The thought of a buffet and hutch more than delighted me... and half price to boot!

Satisfied that the buffet and hutch would fit in the dining room, we ventured back to Sears, this time in the Santa Fe.  Hubby helped the stockroom guy put the buffet in the back and we head for home.  I left hubby there and went back to the store (about a 5 minute drive) and picked up the hutch.  I was like a pig in poop last night organzing and filling my new dining room piece.  Wanna see?  This first picture was taken last night...

With the great price came a little downside... one of the bottom cupboards was missing a knob... so... today I went to Home Depot and found some new knobs to fix the problem... as well as to spruce it up.  Here's what it looks like today with the new knobs:

I found little wrought iron button knobs to tie in the new piece with the existing chandelier and wall sconces.  Yay!

Also, while I was out today, I stopped and picked up the coffee table hubby & I had been eyeing on Saturday at the very start of our journey.  It was a floor model and I was thrilled to find it still there when I arrived this morning.  The man at the store put it in my vehicle and then I courageously lugged it into the house myself.  I love pine!  So light and easy to manage on my own!

Here is the living room with the new table in place:

So, long story short... we went shopping for one thing and came home with something completely different... yet things that we needed probably more than the original item! Guess God knew what we truly "needed" more than what we simply wanted at this point.  The downstairs furniture is still on the list, but it feels great to finally have a home for my good china and crystal!