Foto Friday

Today was a fun shirt day. When I get to order a good shirt from shirt.woot.com, I get so excited. I love when I find one that I think is hysterical, and I get to buy it cheaply, and enjoy it. I ordered a shirt a while ago, and last Saturday, it finally came, I was so happy. I wore it today, and it make me smile all day. I meant to have Chelle take a pic of me wearing it, but I totally spaced, so you’ll just get to see it how it is this way:

I just think it’s so funny. Plus I love cake, so that was a bonus.

Today, my friends, is November the 30th. The last day of November. The final day of blog every month. Blogging every day has been a challenge, I won’t lie. But we soldiered through. Thanks for sticking with me every day. I hope I made you laugh, made you smile, and made you think. (Not really, this blog isn’t deep) But thanks, guys, and I may try to write every day in December as well!

Today, I am thankful for all of my loved ones. Friends, family, I love you all, you’re all so great, and I appreciate your examples to me.

I Could Be an Engineer!

Last night, at Scouts, we finished working on the Engineer badge for the boys. The good thing about scouts is that whatever the boys do, usually I end up doing. So last night, they had to draw a floor plan of their house, draw three types of bridges, and then build a model of a bridge. I happily did all three, even though I can’t draw to save my life. We started with the floor plans:

Faaaancy. And then, we moved onto the drawings of the bridges, after we researched different types of bridges online.

Those are freaking awful, I’ve got to admit. But I gave it my best, so no one should find fault with them. And lastly, we finished up with a  little bridge-making. I had no idea what I was doing, mostly, and didn’t really as I was going, but when I finished, I thought, I could drive across a bridge like this.

Haha, see? And it was one of the sturdier bridges we had, because I reinforced it as much as I could. I enjoyed drawing and building these things, it serves as a gentle reminder that I was not built to be an engineer.

Today, I am thankful for my healthy body. It may have it’s aches and pains, but it leaves me able to run, and walk, and do a whole heck of a lot.

Decoration!

Christmastime is here everyone! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, with the weather going cold, and the stores stocked with holiday goodies, and Christmas music piping in from everywhere. Yesterday, I decided, today was the day I’ll get the decorations up. Mostly because we leave this Saturday for a faraway land, so if we didn’t do it last night, it wouldn’t get done. We had a real tree last year, but that was A LOT of work, so this year, we went the fake tree route. The work was part of the reason (for me) but the other part is, we’ll be gone for a week, so if we have a real tree, with no one here to water it for that long, we’ll likely come back to a dead tree, and sad Christmas hopes. So we went to the local Hobby Lobby, because I heard the trees were half off. They were! But still a little pricey, so we went to WalMart to see if they had any for cheapers. They did! So we bought a nice one, went home, and started working. Husband started setting the tree up, and I was putting up the decorations all over the house. I got the mantle stuff up

and felt good about it. Then I did some random stuff that I put around on the tables, and the walls, and random doorknobs, and then I did the garland on the bannister. I got done with my stuff quickly (because I am a champ) and Husband was still putting up the tree. I sat and watched for a minute

and then thought “maybe I should be helping instead of just sitting here”, so I started to help. We got the tree up shortly thereafter, and I vacuumed up all the stray fake pine needles while Husband put the lights on it. And now, we have a naked lit tree:

When I got home from work today, I immediately set about putting the ornaments up. It took me a while to pick the colors out of my varied colors, but finally, I did. And here, my friends, is the final product:

And now, my house is ready (minus a few more things to be put up, but they’ll come in time) and I am ready. Now, I just need to start my Christmas shopping.

 

Today I am thankful that my tree and decorations are put up, so I don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Brownies

When I saw this recipe on Pinterest, I was super psyched. The recipe looked awesome, the picture looked delicious, and I love both pumpkin and brownies, so I was psyched. I made the recipe, and it didn't quite look like I thought it would. I wasn't concerned, though, because pumpkin stuff always looks suspicious when you're making it, and looks great when you're done. I pulled it out of the oven, and they still looked not like the pic on Pinterest. I tried one, and while they're good, I feel like they're missing something. I don't know what though. Maybe more pumpkin needs to be added? Maybe more chocolate? I'm not sure. They are good, I just think that if I make them in the future, I can make them better. The recipe, in case you're interested:

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1 whole egg
2 egg whites
1 tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350˚F.  Line an 11″- x 7″-inch pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine pumpkin puree, eggs and oil until smooth.  Set aside.In a separate medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, spices, salt and brown sugar.  Add to the wet ingredients and mix until thoroughly incorporated.  Stir in the chocolate chips.Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly.  Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until passes toothpick test.  Cool completely before cutting.
And here's what mine looked like:



See. weird. But try them for yourself! They do taste good, there's no denying that.


Today, I am thankful for heat/heaters. How cold would the world be without it?

Miscellaneous Monday

This morning, as I was driving to work, I saw a little kid walking to school wearing a pair of shorts. Shorts, kid? It’s the end of November! It’s freezing outside! And when I saw him, I wondered, where the heck is his mom? Shouldn’t she be giving him the once-over before he leaves the house, making sure he’s adequately dressed for the weather, and making sure they wear a coat before they leave? Maybe he shrugs her off, and tells him he’s fine and it’s not cold, but still. Why is that kid wearing shorts in November? Today is the start of the holiday season. I know this because I changed my phone back cover. I thought of it this morning, as I was getting ready and watching yet another Hallmark movie. I grabbed some paper, and made it. I was afraid that the paper I chose was too thick, and might not work, but it seems to be sticking so far, and I really like it. Here’s what the paper looks like:

 
Cute, eh? And now, the season can get started, because my phone and I are ready. Last night, Husband and I made some dinner, some easy chicken and mashed potatoes, and a couple of biscuits. It was pretty good. Because of my mouth being dumb right now, I eat slowly. It’s hard to eat fast when you don’t have any teeth and you still have stitches in your mouth. After we’d been eating for maybe 5, 10 minutes, I look over, and Husband is nearly done, and I still have all of my food. I took a picture, because I couldn’t believe how much faster than me he is.

I did finally finish my food, but it wasn’t warm anymore. Right now, by the time I finish eating, my food is pretty cold. I can’t wait for the days of eating my food fast enough for it to be warmish still.

Today, I am thankful for 2-day shipping, as I got my Black Friday package today. :)

First World Problems

I don't know how many of you know the phrase "First World Problems" but they always make me laugh. To explain, a first world problem is a problem that to you, is a legit problem, and you are bugged by it, but then you take a step back and realize that in another country, this is not a problem, it's a privilege. My problem, this morning: I have one of those automatic soap dispensers in my bathroom, one for each sink. Here's what it looks like:

Its nice, I like it. I got them in a deal, for the two of them, so its been nice, when I need to wash my hands, I just have to wave my hand underneath, and it gives me soap. Recently, one of them broke, so I had to get a plain ol' soap for that sink, just the kind where you push down and it gives you the soap. This morning, as I was washing my hands, I was at the sink without the automatic one, and I complained about it, to myself, and then I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of my situation. Really, Vieve? I have the luxury of having soap, of having running water (warm, even!) in my house, and I'm bemoaning the fact that my soap doesn't fall onto my hands? Shame on me! There is a meme on the internet, the "First World Problems" meme, and they all make me laugh, because I think I've complained about most of all of them at one point in my life or another. I'll leave you with a few of these today, in hopes it makes you laugh:

Today, I am thankful that I have soap to wash my hands with. :)

A Different Kind of Shopping

This year, I did Black Friday shopping a little different. I didn't like how everyone was opening on Thanksgiving this year. In my opinion, that day is reserved for spending time with your family, eating, laughing, playing games and whatnot. I don't think you should shop, so I didn't do it. But I did do some online Black Friday shopping, which I thought was fun (because I got to do it all in my pajamas). I shopped at Amazon.com, and got some great deals. I visited gap.com and got jeans at great prices. Then finally today, I was like, oh might as well check things out, see if I can find any deals, and sadly, there were no deals left for me. Which I'm sad about, but at the same time, I waited about 2 days to get going on it, no wonder nothing was left. I did take advantage of one deal - I got my hairspray (Big Sexy Hair) on sale for half off, so that was pretty awesome. And then I got a good deal on a DVD player - a BluRay one. I wasn't even thinking about getting one, but then we saw it on sale while looking through things, and thought that we might as well get one when it's so cheap.
...and that's it. On one hand, it's weird to me that I didn't really buy all that much, but on the other hand, it's nice to have spent a lot of money on things, and that's really important during the holidays, when I'm trying to spend money on others. And I don't know if it's true, but I hear Monday, called Cyber Monday, has great deals too, so maybe I'll check those out. Who knows, maybe my new Black Friday shopping will all be done online from now on!

Today I am thankful for good deals. :)

Foto Friday

This Foto Friday is going to be a little weird, and for that, I'm sorry. Mostly, I'm sorry to any and all male readers I have, because this topic might make you uncomfortable. Recently, I was doing loads and loads of laundry, and I decided to wash all of my bras. After I had washed and dried them, I then had the awesome duty of putting them back into an order. I like my bras colors to not be by each other. I like to spread them out, so that I don't wear 2 black bras in a row. I don't know why, because I'm the only one who sees it, but still, I like my order. It took me about 15 minutes to get all the colors figured out, and fixed, and after I did them, I thought, I should take a picture, so that in the future, I don't have to sit here and think it out, I just have to glance at the picture, and I'll know how they go, and it saves me time!
After I took the pic, I thought, this is a perfectly weirdly random blog entry that I could, so now, for your enjoyment, my bras:

I really hope this wasn't too weird, because it just made me laugh. :)

Today, I am thankful for washing machines.

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying the holiday. So far, I haven’t done much, but it’s been fun. I ran the Turkey Trot yet again, and I did a lot better than I thought I would, a week after surgery. I even finished faster than I had thought, since I assumed I’d be crawling to the end. Since I don’t have a lot of things to say today, since I want everyone to just enjoy this holiday, I’ll leave you with this video clip of a thanksgiving song.

That makes me laugh so hard, its one of my favorite thanksgiving scenes in a movie. I hope you enjoyed.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, I am thankful for my dad slaving over a hot stove all day to make delicious food.

Say goodbye to pain!

I've been in a little bit of pain every day for a week now. The pain level varies every day, but for the most part, it's always there. I've been prescribed a regular drug, Hydrocodone (street name, Loratab) and have also used this every day for a week now. That may make me sound like a druggie, but don't worry friends, I'm not. It's only since my surgery. And sometimes, I try hard not to take the pill, because I don't want to become dependent on it, but then Chelle told me something interesting the other day: Your body doesn't heal as quickly or well when it's in pain. So I'm trying to stay on top of it.
Being on hydrocodone makes me feel loopy, like it does everyone. Not a lot, but I can tell it makes my brain just move a little slower. I do my best to not let it, but it's just nice to have the pain go away completely. This morning, I couldn't figure out how it works. How any pain reliever works is out of my head, but in this case, this drug seems to take everything away, and it blows my mind. So naturally, I Googled it, and I found something interesting. It acts as an opiate which interferes with the pain receptors in the brain and spinal cord. Weird, right? But it makes sense, and now I know!
Don't worry friends, I'm not becoming addicted (I hope!) and I definitely use it only when the pain is awful. Hopefully, the pain will be gone soon for good, and I'll no longer have to go about, being slower than normal!

Today, I am thankful for the invention of and/or finding of strong pain relievers, so that surgeries and the like aren't too painful.

A Place for Ribbons!

I gave myself a pretty good to-do list when I got home from work today, because I wanted to be productive. Cut to it being about an hour after I get home from work, and I’ve actually finished it all, with the exception of one thing, which’ll be pretty easy to work on. So I feel productive!
The other day, I got a tweet from a friend, showing me a ribbon holder that was cheap on a website that day. I went and looked at it, and I won’t lie, it seemed pretty good. It was cheap, so I ended up buying two. It came much quicker than I thought, and it showed up yesterday. Yay! So it was on my list to put my ribbons in it. You all remember the time I bought too much ribbon, so I needed a place for it. Here’s what they looked like when they arrived.

Snazzy, eh? I really like it.So I opened them up, put ribbons in them, threaded them through, and it didn’t actually take me as long as I thought, so when I finished, I was glad. Here’s my ribbons:

I know what you’re thinking, I have more ribbons than shown, and you’re right. But these were the open ones, and I didn’t want to open other ones, just to have them in my holder. So those are underneath, ready for me to get ready to use them, and I can’t wait. Once I use those, I get to use my second ribbon holder, and that’s fun for me!

Today, I am thankful for cheap deals on the internet.

Brown Sugar Cookies

Of course, treat making day! I wanted to choose a treat that wouldn’t require a lot of chewing/eating, and on Pinterest these cookies were “melt-in-your-mouth” good. I decided to put this to the test. It was a relatively easy enough recipe, and I’ll give that to you, naturally.

Cookies
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 Eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream

Frosting
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoon milk
(Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat until it turns golden. Watch carefully as this will happen quickly. Remove from heat, stir in powdered sugar and enough milk to make a spreading consistency)

Blend together butter and brown sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, blend well. Add vanilla, beat until light. In a separate bowl,stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with sour cream; mix well. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto non-stick sheet or lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Remove to a wire rack; cool. Frost with browned butter frosting.

Now, when I made the frosting, it smelled weird because it’s just butter and powdered sugar, so I added some vanilla, and a little bit more powdered sugar to make it better, and I think it worked, I think it tastes pretty good. I waited until they were cooled, frosted, and ta-daaa!

Delicious! I recommend this, it’s actually a very simple recipe. And the recipe said it would make 2 dozen, but I got 3 dozen out of it, but I ran out of frosting, so just FYI, in case you make it, add more ingredients for frosting. A few of my cookies were oddly burned though, I think it’s my pan to blame, though, so I ended up with just enough of everything.

Today, I am thankful for my mama, who has a birthday today. Happy Birthday, mama!

Crafty Day

This weekend has been a weekend full of craftiness. Starting last Friday, after the surgery, I have just been working on crafts. There’s one big thing that I was working on all weekend that I actually finally finished today (I can’t say what it is, though, it’s a gift for someone!), and then I did a few other things. I’ve had them in the woodworks for a while, but finally I got them done today! They’re just more boxes is all, so lets not all of us get excited, but I like the way they turned out. The first one is a box to hold all of my gift tags that I got at card club last week. If you want to see them all, I direct you to this entry of Chelle’s blog, she did a lovely entry on them. I had some extra snowflake paper left over, so I chose that for my cover:

I like the little circles, telling you what they are. I made it pretty plain, but I like it. And then for my second one, I wanted a box for my church stuff. I seem to have a lot of stuff left over from my primary age, and teen years, but finally, I wanted it all in one location in case I needed to reference anything quickly. I made it pretty simple as well.

I don’t know if you can read it, but it has the YW values on the sheet of paper. It’s not all stuff from just YW, but I like the paper, and found it appropriate.

And for now, my crafting is complete, at least, until my next craft order comes in…which I hope is soon!

Today, I am thankful for being introduced to crafts and scrapbookings and cards. Things would have been pretty dull for me these past few days if I didn’t have these to take my mind off of things.

Super Saturday Shopping

Tonight, I was near the WinCo and I thought, we should go in there. I wanted to go in to see if they had this bread I really like (A Dunford brand, wheat, super delicious) because I had heard before that it was there. I swear, this bread is never findable. I can only find it at Walmart, but I’d like to be able to get it anywhere. WinCo didn’t have it, in case you wondered. Anyway, as we were walking in, we decided to head over to the bulk candy, since you never know what you’ll find. I spent some time wandering through that part, through bulk candy…bulk baking supplies…bulk cereal, and I saw that they had bulk frosted flakes. It’s been a long time since I’ve had frosted flakes, so I decided to get a little. I filled up some of a bag, and onward we went.
I circled around to the refrigerated section, looking for more goods, and stumbled upon pre-made cookie dough. “Well”, I thought to myself “I should buy some cookie dough, in case I want to have pizzookies one night”, so I picked that up too. After a while longer, and general wandering through the store, I decided that it was probably time to get going, I wasted enough time in there. On my way up to the cash register, I passed by chocolate oranges. WHAT?! I love those! Of course I had to pick one of those up right then. So I made my purchase, got home, took them out of the bag and realized what a weird night of purchases I had made.

A few delicious purchases, I know but still, when you look at them, you think, “Really?” and I answer back, a resounding “yes!” So I encourage everyone to go to the store with no list in mind. Don’t go thinking of what you need, go with the idea that maybe, you’ll pick up a yum treat, and you’ll leave happy!

Today, I am thankful for grocery stores. I know that I take for granted that you can get so many different things in one place, and tonight, I appreciate it and am thankful.

Foto Friday

At work, every Wednesday is Waffle Wednesday. I'm not entirely sure what brought this to pass. Wait, yes I do, I think Chelle one day just up and said we should have waffles the next day. As we were eating them, we realized it was a Wednesday, and thought we should keep the tradition alive. We've been doing it for a while now, and I love it, there's nothing that cheers up the middle of the week than having a delicious waffle. This past Wednesday, we mixed it up. This recipe was found on Pinterest, so we thought we'd give it a try. What you do is, you take some cinnamon rolls (the kind that come out of the package that pop open and scare you) and put two of them into the waffle maker, wait a few minutes, and pull it out. Then, of course, you need some syrup. The syrup we used was made from taking the frosting that comes with the cinnamon rolls, mixing that with about a tablespoon of water, and a tablespoon of Karo syrup. And boy howdy, was it delicious.

Does that not look awesome? At first, I was scared that it may be burnt, because of the darker spots, but we figured out it's because of the cinnamon. It was one of the best waffles I've ever eaten.

Today, I am thankful for sweatshirts and socks, keeping me warm when my heater is turned off during the day.

Open Wide

Today I had yet another mouth surgery. Today’s was 2 implants, and 2 healing caps on the previous implants. Even after googling it, I’m not entirely sure what a healing cap is, so I’ll just leave it at that. I got the doctor, was immediately brought back for all the hook ups. The heart monitor, pulse monitor, blood pressure machine, oxygen mask, an IV that was first antibiotics and secondly the sleeping stuff, and then I was good to go.
I feel asleep shortly after putting the stuff in, and mostly slept through it. I woke up at the end, and I was so angry about it. I’m sure they wanted me to wake up then, but to me, I feel like I shouldn’t have to wake up until everything is done, they’re out of my mouth, but oh well. After they gave me my “black box” (a small black plastic box that contains gauze, the prescriptions they want me to fill, and some papers of general questions I could have) they sent me on my way. The doctor did tell me that they implants are put in pretty close to my nerve, so I may have some numbness a little longer than usual, but if it lasts until tomorrow night, I should give them a call. He was not kidding – I’ve been out of surgery for about 6 hours now, and I still have numbness and tingling. The plus side is, I’m not actually in that much pain, probably because it’s numb. I’ve only taken 1 Loratab, and that was like, 5 hours ago.
I came home, and I thought I was pretty awake enough to watch TV. So, I’ve watched about half of a few shows, but I feel like I caught enough of them that I don’t want to rewatch them. I slept a lot more than I thought I would. Mostly, I’m trying to get a little caught up on my DVR. I am weeks behind on it, I’d like to not be, but that’s a struggle as old as the DVR itself. I’m hoping the numbness in my face goes away by tomorrow, I’d really not like for this to end up being a problem. I have my fingers crossed here. I just have to still rest for the rest of tonight and tomorrow, and of course, this time will be spent doing crafts!

Today, I am thankful for modern medicine, that makes it possible for my teeth to be fixed.

Waste Not

I’m not one of those people that someone would consider “green”. I don’t recycle everything in the world, I don’t care much about my carbon footprint, because in my brain, I don’t do much to leave one. I just have my tiny existence in this vast world, and while I do recycle things, I’m not a super hippie about it, if that makes sense. But one time, we had a discussion here at work, about not being wasteful. I, of course, took it to the extreme, and decided that my scrap of paper would be used up completely before I threw it away. Is this necessary? No, but I did it anyway. Here’s a glance at both sides of my paper:

 

I think I used it up pretty well. And I don't know if you can see it, but in the corner, I have marked the beginning date when I started using this paper, 1/16/12. It lasted for a really long time, and served me quite well. I'll always have the memories.

RIP Scrappy 1/16/12 - 11/13/12

Today, I am thankful that more than one boy showed up to scouts. 

              And as an addendum, I am thankful to Chelle for noticing that this blog didn't work, so I had the opportunity to fix it.

Gobble Gobble Gobble

We had craft club again last night, and we’ve almost out-done ourselves. Everything we do is cute, but there are just some crafts that when you get done, you think “this is awesome” and last night was one of them. We all convened at Mama G’s house, and got to business. After only 2 ½ hours (that might sound like a long time, but in this situation, it really isn’t) we were finished. The only thing I couldn’t get to work right was my turkey’s eyes. To me, they made him seem like a slow, dumb guy, or someone that was drunk all the time. I named him George, and even had a voice going for him. (For those that know my dog, Sarge, it’s also the voice that accompanies when I talk for Sarge.) Here’s George up close:

See? But its ok, no one will be really close enough to see his eyes. When I got home, I set up everything for a final pic, and I think it looks awesome.

And no craft would be complete until I get it up on the ledge. Poor George lost an eye in the process, but I still have it, I just need to remodgepodge that back on. After I put everything up, I realized I had done it with socks on, which didn’t seem very smart, being on such a high place wearing socks, so that my feet had a higher chance of slipping off. Especially being home alone, if I fell doing this, I wouldn’t be found for a long time, probably. But I lived to tell the tale, and to snap a final pic:

And now, it officially feels like November, which is good, because holy smokes, Thanksgiving is next week! And in my head, every time I walk near George, I can hear him say “Happy Thanksgiving” in his dumb voice.

Today, I am thankful for the laughs provided by everyone during the awesome craft club time, and for Mama G providing the awesome letters we all used.

Miscellaneous Monday

I realized yesterday that I’m not very good at doing my nails. I always paint my fingernails a clear color, just because I’ve always felt like they were a little weak after I had fake nails for so long. So that always goes well, but last night, I painted my toenails a nice fall-y brown color. I tried to do a cute dot design (Since I can’t seem to draw or do flowers or anything on myself) and it just didn’t turn out. I can never get my toenails to match each other.

It’s not that it looks bad, necessarily; I’m just disappointed that they aren’t the same.
I went to see the new James Bond movie this weekend. (AMAZING, BTW, everyone should see this.) A group of 3 boys sat down right before the trailers started. One of them had his cell phone out, texting. Usually, I’ll let it slide for the trailers. Technically the movie hasn’t started, so I’ll not get mad at it. The movie started, and he kept texting. He pulled his phone out to text 3 times before the opening credits, and by the third time, I’d had enough. I’m sorry, but if you want to text someone during a movie, leave. It’s not cool of you to have your phone out, with the tiny glowing screen, ruining the movie that I had to pay good money for. So by the third time, I leaned forward, and told him to put his phone away, and not be that guy. The look of surprise on his face was weird to me, was he surprised that it was annoying? Surprised I said something? Did he miss the 45 commercials before the movie that told him to put his phone away? In any case, he did put the phone away, and didn’t pull it out for the rest of the movie. I’m a hero.
I am home alone again, as Husband is gone once again. I made myself a pretty good sized to-do list, and I accomplished everything on it! I was so proud. I finished by like, 7, and I was psyched. I spent the rest of my evening doing things that I had sort of wanted to do, but I didn’t add them to the list, lest I not have time for them, and then I’d be sad because I didn’t finish. I watched a movie, I read a book, and it was nice. Of course, this morning, I thought of like, 4 other things I want to do. I have plenty of time to do my stuff; I just wish I had thought of them yesterday, when I could have done them then. I’ll be doing them all tomorrow, naturally, and I’ll think of more things by then, I’m betting.

Today, I am thankful that with it being winter and me now wearing shoes, no one has to see my unmatched toes.

Cleans Anything!

It's amazing the power that hair holds. I don't know if its the same for you, but for me, the way my hair is behaving is sure to leave a mark on my day. If it takes me too long to do, and makes me late, I'm mad at it. If it's not cooperating, and I end up with awful hair, I'm grump about it. There are times when I love it, when it does exactly what I want, and times it takes about 3 minutes to do, and I'm happy. But lately, my hair has been so dumb. I don't know what's wrong with it, but the second I step out of the shower having washed it, it immediately feels greasy. It feels like I haven't washed it at all. And then I dry it, hoping that maybe it's just because it's wet that its being weird, and when it's dry, it's worse. It feels gross and it looks gross. I was lamenting my hair troubles to Chelle recently, and she gave me a bit of advice of what to wash it with. Ready for the secret?

Baking soda! Put some baking soda in with your shampoo, then wash out and use conditioner like normal. I vowed to do this the next time I washed my hair. (I wash about every 3 days, its healthy for the hair I hear) Today was the day. I grabbed the baking soda before I went into the shower, and after putting the shampoo in my hand, I added a liberal bit of baking soda. I rubbed it together and put it in my hair. It washed like normal, and conditioned, of course. After I dried it a bit, it felt better but I was holding out judgement until I had dried it completely. I blew-dry the hair, and it felt AMAZING! It feels soft and silky and smooth and it feels clean and looks shiny (in a good way). All day I keep running my fingers through it and it still feels awesome. If anyone is having any hair issues, I recommend this.

Today, I am thankful for the advice of a friend to lead me back to clean hair times.

A Blizzard!

Well, its finally happened. Snow has fallen upon us. It happened yesterday, but I waited until today to report on it. (Nature of blogging and all) I had heard tale of a storm for a few days now, but I didn't think it would be this big. I think the reason is because last year, there was no snow. We had maybe a few days of snow, but not in a row, and it didn't dump this much. In my head, its like the heavens opened up yesterday and just dumped a billion pounds of snow on us. 

We have a window in our new office digs (well, temporary new office digs) and we just watched the snow fall, and I just marveled at it all day. Chelle and I got lunch, and were improperly dressed to go outside in this blizzard. I, in flip flops, had super cold feet, and my light jacket wasn't really helping me much. Chelle, in her capris and summery shoes was wet and cold as well. When we left for the day, we had to scrap the snow off of our cars, which I think was piled a foot high. It seemed. Of course, when I got in my car, my gas light came on. I hated getting out in the cold to get gas.

Snow was everywhere. When I went out this morning, I was turning into a parking lot, and my car got stuck. On the road, out of the left turn lane, I got stuck, so I had to quickly reverse, and try to get going again, and I got out of it. So now, here we are. It's winter. And it's more winter than last year was. It's cold...I'm finally wearing shoes and not flip flops...and I'm wearing coats. Happy winter everyone!

Today I am thankful that my car got unstuck by itself, and I didn't have to enlist the help of anyone else.

Foto Friday

Last night was an RSL playoff game, and sadly, we lost. Against Seattle. Seattle scored in the last 20 minutes, and even though we had a hundred billion (it seemed) chances, we just couldn't finish. The beginning of the game held so much promise, though. After the first whistle blew, people all over the stadium released streamers, so it was an awesome colorful sky for a few minutes.

 The season is over. The reason I'm glad for this is that when the weather is too cold, the games aren't as fun, and now, the games are cold. Lets hope the team has a good off-season, and we come back stronger than ever.

Today, I'm thankful for socks. Plain ol' socks, that can get your feet warm.

Thoughtful Thursday

There’s an RSL game tonight. They’re in the first round of the playoffs.  Home game, against Seattle tonight, and I hope it won’t be freezing. The first time we played them, last Friday, ended in a 0-0 tie. That’s ok with me. Goals are counted in an aggregate system, so basically we still have tonight’s game as the winner. I really hope we win. Obviously, but Seattle is one of our “rivals” so I just want to kick the crap out of them. They have a team full of jerks, one of whom is a (possibly convicted, but definitely accused) rapist, so every time I see him (on TV or in real life at games) I just have to remind him he’s a rapist. Because that’s gross. If we win, we’ll advance. But if we lose…we’re out. I hope we stay in. I’d like for RSL to win another cup. 

I don’t know if you caught it, but recently, there was an election in this great country of ours. I like elections as much as the next person, but I’m not someone that’s obsessed with them. I don’t follow polls, or really even watch the news, but boy howdy am I sick of this. It’s been nothing but this election for months now. And now it’s over, and people are STILL talking about it! It’s all over my Twitter feed, it’s in my Facebook feed, and I just can’t get away from it. I get that it’s an important part of our country; I’d just like to be done talking about it.   

There’s a storm a-brewing. That’s what I hear, anyway. I hear it’s supposed to just dump snow on us this weekend. This is both pretty cool and really awful. We didn’t have much snow last year, so I actually would like to have some this season. I’d like Christmas to feel like Christmas. But I don’t want to drive in it, or walk in it, or have it be that freezing cold. It’s a double edged sword, really. 

 

I was thinking today, if I’m ever in the woods and need to kill animals to eat, I’m not sure that I could do it. I have no problem eating meat, I love meat. But I don’t know if I would be able to kill my animal while looking at its face, and then have to skin it and eat it. I’m sure after long enough of being in the wilderness I’d be able to, but I think it would take a long time.

 

I put in a new pair of contacts today. Even though it’s probably bad, I like to make my contacts last as long as possible. So even though they are only supposed to last for 2 weeks, I make them last for at least a month. The pair that I threw out last night I had been using for probably 6-7 weeks. I never notice how bad they get. Last night, I was like, man am I having a hard time seeing out of these, so I tossed them in the garbage. Putting on my new ones this morning was like I had been given new eyes. Everything is so CLEAR and I can see EVERYTHING! It’s amazing. Its times like these that make me want to change them more often, but contacts are so expensive. I like to stretch my money out. 

I would like to take a polygraph someday. I have no reason to, but I’d still like to. Especially because I’d like to see if I could beat it. Wouldn’t that be a great skill, beating a polygraph? I’d be like a spy or a secret agent! 

Today, I am thankful for books. So amazing to jump into a novel and lose yourself in adventures.

Christmas Tags

For our card club that's happening this month (in just a few days, in fact!) we had to make both a card (which I talked about before) and 2 Christmas tags. I've never made a Christmas tag, so had to use my wits (read: the internet) to get some ideas, as I was about to sit down and do them. Finally, I thought of these designs and hoped they were fine. They don't seem awful, but maybe I didn't understand fully how to do them. In any case, I like them, so I feel confident in giving them out. And so you can see:

Ta-daaa! I know the bottom one is very much like my card that I made, but that's ok, I still like it. And now, I am set for the meeting this weekend, with days to spare.

Today I am thankful for the warm weather we are experiencing!

Stamp & Chat & Treats

Tonight was Stamp & Chat, moved to a different night. Being the hostess, I was in charge of the treats for the evening. I racked my brain and racked my brain, and couldn't figure out what to make. I thought all day, and finally at the end of the day, I chose to do one of the recipes I had on Pinterest. I went to the store, got the ingredients, and dove in.

I'm not going to lie, this recipe didn't work at all. The instructions were vague about some parts of it, at best, and I gave it a try, but it didn't work. I made about 9 cookies, then added some water to the dough, and tried them as cupcakes, but that didn't make things better. Here's what the cookies looked like:

To me, they just look like little...turds. So I opted against those, and just went to Sweet Tooth Fairy and got some delicious sugar cookies there. (No pic, sorry, friends.) Stamp & Chat was fun and awesome as usual, and the cards were freaking adorable. Behold!

Cute, eh?

I had some troubles with the card furthermost on the right, for some reason, I had a hard time on the wheat stalks. But finally it just worked out, and that was that. I don't know for sure what to do with the cookies I've already made. I'm thinking I'll probably just bring it to work, and see how others feel about them. It's not that they're gross, they just look bad. Ugh. This is one of the times I think Pinterest isn't my friend.

Today I'm thankful for a country that allows me to make my voice heard.

A Day Like the Amish

Today, I knew what it meant to be without the modern technologies we all love. Ok, that might be a bit of an overstatement. But I felt sort of like it. Let me explain.

This past Saturday, my MIL came over, to give me a present, she said. She came over and presented me with the funds/opportunity to get myself an iPhone 5. She knew I wanted one, and hadn’t given me a birthday present, so this was a joint birthday/Christmas present. I got online, and ordered one, and after a few trials, I had one delivered to the Apple Store in Murray, able to be picked up today. Pops and I hopped in his tiny SmartCar and drove up there. We got the phone, and as the guy was checking us out, he mentioned my phone would be deactivated. I assumed he meant that it would be when I plugged the new phone into my iTunes, but no, he meant right then. Since I wasn’t going home just yet (this was about noon, after all, I was only taking my lunch break) I wasn’t going to plug in my phone. Which meant that my old phone was obsolete, and my new phone wasn’t working. So really, I was cut off, communication-wise.

After the day of not having the phone (and going through some withdrawals, I’ll admit it) I made it home. I plugged in the phone and after a good long while of updating my phone, adding the stuff, etc, it was complete. …Except that my apps didn’t show up, the phone apparently needed another update. So I did that, and huzzah, my apps arrived! …Sadly, none of my music or movies made the switch over. So pretty much, I was short of some things. I spent some of the evening adding movies/TV shows, and some of the evening adding music. Of course, its not like I want all of my music on here, only some, so I just went through my library and had to hand pick the music I wanted. It took a good long while, and finally, I just gave up, because I had other things to do.

So far, I’m enjoying this phone. I’m really loving Siri, I’ve told her who’s who in my phone, and I’ve asked her to call me Team Vieve, which she does. I don’t know why, but that tickled me quite plainly. I’ve asked her questions, had her send texts, and told her she did a great job, and the fact that she answers me like she’s a human makes me laugh a little harder than I probably should. I sadly don’t have a case yet (that will arrive on Wednesday) so I feel like I need to handle it with kid gloves and be so careful. But I am psyched for my new phone, and glad that everything is finally on here.

Today, I am thankful for a dad who up and drove to Murray with me – even though he probably didn’t want to.

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

I'm only 4 days into the month, and I'm already a little dry on the topics. In my defense, it is Sunday, and Sunday is a do-nothing day. But I did make a new recipe for dinner, and decided to share that. It should be no guess to figure out where I got the recipe, so lets just bypass that. I made Stuffed Peppers Casserole, and it was really easy. Here's the recipe:

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

1 lb lean ground beef

2 small green peppers, coarsely chopped

1 tsp onion powder

salt to taste, optional

3 garlic cloves

2 C brown rice, cooked

1 24-oz jar of spaghetti sauce. If you are using a plain spaghetti sauce, you'll want to add in 1/4 tsp Italian seasoning, 2 tsp season salt, 2 tsp onion powder, and 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder to give it more flavor

1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Cook meat in frying pan until almost completely browned. Drain and rinse. Place beef back in pan and add peppers, onion powder, salt, and garlic cloves. Cook over medium heat until beef is completely cooked and peppers begin to turn tender.

In a casserole dish, stir together the rice, spaghetti sauce, and 3/4 cup cheese. Add in the beef mixture and stir until combined. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake for 25 minutes, or until heated through and cheese begins to brown. Let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Now, that's the recipe, let me tell you what I did differently. I was eating by myself, so I just cut the recipe right in half, and it made enough to fill an 8x8 dish. I thought I had an entire green pepper, but it turns out I didn't, so I used a half of a green pepper, instead of a whole. It worked, but I would have liked more pepper. I used onion salt instead of onion powder, and I only used like, 2 cloves of garlic instead of 3, because I think garlic is an over-powering flavor. I used white rice instead of brown, because I think white is more delicious. And I didn't measure my cheese, really. I used less than a cup to measure in, so I sort of measured that, but then on the top, I just threw cheese on there until I felt like it looked good. I cooked for 20 minutes, let sit, and enjoyed. It is freaking delicious.

Ta-daaaa! I recommend this to you all - it was awesome.

Today I am thankful for daylight savings time, and the extra time I had to get to church on time. :)

Adventures in Running

A pre-warning: this post might not be for the faint of heart. Consider yourself warned,
This morning, I had a hard time getting up and going. For some reason, some Saturdays are like that. I wake up and I just don’t want to get out of bed. So I lazed about, I ate some breakfast, and lazed about some more. Then my phone died, so I decided it was a good a time as any to get going. So I started my run at about 11:45 this morning. I think that might be one of the latest times I have ever started running. I chose to go up Provo Canyon, and off I went.
I was about 20 minutes into my run when I did the not-at-all-classy snot rocket. I don’t know if you’ve heard the phrase, but its simple to explain. I’m really sorry for the grossness that I’m about to bring here. A snot rocket is when you have to blow your nose while running, and instead of having a tissue to take care of it, you just press on one side of your nose while you blow really hard through the other nostril, aiming towards the ground and/or just away from others. So, I did this while running, on both nostrils. And I felt a little wetness on one side after I’d finished, so I just used my long sleeve to wipe it off. (THIS IS THE GROSSEST STORY I’VE EVER TOLD HERE AND I AM SORRY) After I did this, I took a look at my sleeve and noticed the blood. Yeesh! So then, after I saw that, the blood started POURING out of my nose. I stopped running and just stood there, by the side of the trail, my nose like a faucet. After a few minutes of me trying to stop it, it wasn’t really doing anything, but my hands were covered in blood, and it was running down my arms. Normally, I might have used my shirt to try and stop the bleeding, but of course today I’m wearing my really expensive WHITE Under Armour shirt, and I didn’t want to ruin it, even though it had blood on it already.
So after a little longer, I remembered a drinking fountain I had seen about 5 minutes back. So I turn around, and make my way to the fountain, still bleeding, and then, finally, a small group of people walk past. They don’t say anything, until they’re pretty far from me, and then they turn around and yelled to ask if I was ok. Since I had one bloody hand on my face, trying to stop the blood, I just gave them a bloody thumbs up with the other. Then I looked down, and I notice one of my legs has blood on it too, from splatter, and it’s on my shorts and sleeves. I felt like I had either been attacked, or that I was a serial killer that wasn’t very good at my job. I finally get to the drinking fountain, where a fellow runner was hanging out. She took a look at me, said “That sucks, I’ve been there man” and then I used the FREEZING cold water to wash the blood off my hands, legs, and face. I was really cold when I was done, but better than looking crazy. At first, I had a thought to try and hold off washing them, so I could take a pic to show, but then I didn’t want to travel all the way back with creepy bloody hands and face.
After I cleaned up, my nose had stopped bleeding, so I thought. After I’d run for about 3 minutes, I had a quick spurt of blood come out for about 30 seconds, then I was done completely. I finished my run, and came home to clean up completely. Luckily, all the blood came out of my shirt and shorts when I washed them. There’s still some on my shoes, but its just a small amount, so hopefully it’ll come off should I ever run in the rain. And there it is. My adventure of today, trying to keep my blood in my body, which was a hard thing to do today. I don’t know how I’d avoid this sort of thing in the future, but I’m going to at least try.

Today, I am thankful that the Provo canyon has a drinking fountain there, in case you have emergencies.

Foto Friday

I searched high and low for a photo for today's Foto Friday. Usually, I have a million photos just hanging in my phone, waiting to be shared, but for some reason, I've got nothing today. Nothing on Pinterest is hitting my funny bone all the much, until I came across this. I don't think I've ever blogged about this, and if I have, I'm sorry for the recap. There's this runner, whose name no one knows. (That's a lie, I think people know it). He was running a run this past year, when someone snapped a pic, as is known to happen in races. He is RIDICULOUSLY good looking, especially for being in the middle of running a race. In fact, if you want to google him, you have to google "Photogenic Runner" because that's what he's known as. And because of him, a whole bunch of running meme's popped up because of him. Here's my fav:

Isn't he just nice to look at? Bless his heart for being so good looking while he runs, no one looks that good.

The blog will get better. I promise.

Today, I am thankful that we are experiencing nice weather, and aren't freezing our buns off just yet.

Happy Halloween-Ween

Happy Halloween everyone! As we all know, Halloween was last night, bringing with it all the merriment of the holiday. Ok, there’s not that much merriment, nor do I really always think it’s a holiday, because we still have to work on the day. I don’t even like Halloween all that much to be honest. But oh well, we still all celebrate it. This year, I dressed up as a cowboy. (I know it should be cowgirl, but in my brain, a cowboy is slightly tougher, so I did that. I’m not really a feminist, I guess you could say.) The hat was slightly too big, but that’s ok. I wished I had boots or a gun belt or any of that, but boots are pricey, and there were no gun belts to be found. But I did have a sheriff’s badge, because I was the law of these here parts. I took a pic with Chelle at work that day – she was dressed as a hobo and did a fabulous job of doing so:

I got home, and learned that Husband had finally bought himself a costume. I took a pic of him of course:

And basically, we spent the evening handing out candy to little kids. Husband decided to wear the mask to the door every time to scare kids, which worked so effectively that a couple of kids saw the mask and just turned around and left, I felt so bad. I did get scared by the husband of my co-Webelos leader, and didn't want to give candy to their child in retribution, but then I folded and did. Between the children showing up (because there weren't many, and there were big pauses) we brought my laptop into the living room, and watched some TV on Hulu while we waited, that was a good time, too. We packed everything up, turned off all the lights at like, 9:20 and called it a night.

Today is November 1st, as everyone in the world will know. With November now underway, so starts National Blog Posting Month, which means, like in years past, I will be blogging every day. Like every year, it may start out interesting, but it’ll most likely end up having some really boring days. I apologize for those in advance, and also thank you in advance for sticking with the blog during this month. Blogging every day…join me, won’t you?

Also, I've accepted a challenge to write something I'm thankful for every day in my blog. Today's is that I'm thankful for friends who make a 14-hour workday bearable.